Debunking the Old Testament is not Debunking Jesus as Messiah

I had trouble following your line of argument but think I have maybe caught on towards the end. If I understand it correctly, Jesus could not be debunked if the Old Testament were nullified because he was a debunker himself and found all sorts of flaws and blemishes himself. I will proceed with this understanding of your argument as I cannot see it any other way. I would agree with your statement that someone else challenging the Old Testament would be similar to Jesus, but I do not find it possible to say that they would be exactly the same; besides, even if they were, this could be easily understood as someone reading the New Testament and regurgitating what Jesus is quoted as saying. To be sure, the entire Bible is composed of manmade manipulations, the well-intended aspect of your comment is up for debate, but surely these ideas were used to enslave humanity. As for your last sentence in the opening paragraph, I find it hard to believe that Jesus found the Old Testament to be "archaic, outdated and not always useful when it came to the relationship between God and the modern, intellectual man." There is no evidence that humanity was any more intellectual in the time of Jesus than when the Old Testament was composed; most people could not read or write the same as in the time of Moses and Abraham. Moreover, and most importantly, Jesus was born to a Jewish mother, in Galilee, a Jewish part of the world, preaching from Jewish scripture; thus, by all accounts, Jesus was Jewish. The next section, where you quote passages from the book of Mark, both seem to be cherry picked. If you look at the very next sentence after "Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not your disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?" the author of the book of Mark asserts as follows: "He said to them, "Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines" (Mark 7:6-7). As you can see then, Jesus condemns the Pharisees for their installment of purely human traditions in these practices but does not condemn or even address the Old Testament here, only the Pharisees. I think it is worth noting that it seems to me that you have ascribed the Pharisees the mouthpiece for Old Testament scripture, when in fact they were but one of about ten other Jewish sects at the time, all of which claiming they were the rightful interpreters and people of God. As for the next two sections, where you quote passages from Leviticus and Matthew, I will address these in together. Surely the two passages from Leviticus are part of the Torah, but I would submit that the most important of these laws in the Old Testament were the Ten Commandments given in the book of Exodus. As for these laws, Jesus not only ascribes to them but pushes the envelope further according to the book of Matthew and Jesus's Sermon on the Mount found in 5:20-48. By all accounts, Jesus was portrayed in the Gospels as the fulfillment of Old Testament scriptures and prophecies. As for your conclusion, I see no reason to think Jesus was a debunker of Old Testament scripture, rather he was simply reinterpreting the passages; something that is in no way unique to him. The only way that Jesus could be the Messiah is if he is fulfilling Old Testament prophecies, this is true by definition. As for being the Son of God and his ultimate authority, in that case, seems to be irrelevant for this debate. In sum, if the Old Testament were proven to be completely false, Jesus as the Messiah would also be disposed of in the same manner; unless of course you are willing to grant that he was a false prophet, in either case however, he would have to be regarded in the same manner.