Jesus is not the Messiah

I wish to debate him in future as he truly is a worthy opponent. It must be noted that my opponent failed to address my former arguments from round 3 and thus I can safely conclude that he concedes them. Messiah is God My opponent only addresses one of the verses that prove the Deity of messiah. As a result I have concluded that he concedes these points. With that being said, I'll address the one argument that he put forward concerning this argument. My opponent says : ". .. Unfortunately for my partner, the verse he brought up is mistranslated. " Let us examine this issue more critically to see whether this accusation is true or not : The passage in question (Isaiah 9:6) indicates that Messiah, called the stem of Jesse, and Branch, will have YHWH's spirit of council. Therefore, he will be called a 'Wonderful Counsellor'. The subject of Isaiah 9:6 is also called "the Mighty God", although my opponent says this is a mistranslation. It is NOT a mistranslation but is in fact, a correct rendering of the Hebrew phrase "El gibbor". This is a title that is reserved exclusively for God and God alone. This title is used in one other place, in Isaiah 10:20-21 : ". .. The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the Mighty God (El gibbor). " In actual fact, in the entire Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), only the LORD (YHWH) is called "El gibbor". This illustration clearly establishes the Deity of the child to be born. He would be the Almighty God Himself! This is the same child prophesied in Isaiah 7:14 when Isaiah referred to the child as Immanuel, meaning "God with us". The child would be God with us, He is the Mighty God, the Messiah! This confirms the Deity of Messiah, who is the promised saviour of Israel, and is in strong concordance Isaiah 43:11 where God says : "I, even, I am the LORD, and apart from me there is no saviour. " Messiah is the saviour of Israel, yet apart from God there is not saviour. .. You do the maths. My opponent proceeds to say : "When we critically examine the verse under study, Isaiah is formulating a prophetic name for King Hezekiah. The words of this name express God's greatness, which becomes manifest in benefits bestowed upon the future king in his lifetime. Hezekiah is called 'a wonderful counsellor' because it is a sign which for tells God's design for him. " This whole argument is completely false. In no logical way could this passage possibly be referring to King Hezekiah. During the reign of Hezekiah, the Assyrians came to destroy the cities of Judah and capture Jerusalem. It was an extremely bleak time because Assyria was a world empire. Because of the events in the Bible, it is possible to determine Hezekiah's age when this attack occurred. According to 2 Kings 18:1-2, Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he began to reign. The Bible establishes that Sannacherib's army (the Assyrians) attacked the cities of Judah during the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's reign (2 Kings 18:13). Hezekiah thus, was 39 years old (25+14) at the time the attack took place. Now taking into account the fact that Isaiah wrote this prophecy during Hezekiah's reign and since King Hezekiah was already 39 years old during the Assyrian invasion, there could be no possible way that the phrase "for to us a child is born" could apply to a 39 year old man who had already been King of Judah for 14years! Bare in mind the child in the prophecy was still yet to be born, but King hezekiah, at this point in time, was already 39 years old! It is absolutely insulting to attempt to apply the verse to a 39 year old King. The age factor alone eliminates Hezekiah as the subject of Isaiah 9:6-7. . http://www.kingmessiahproject.com... In fact the scholars of the oldest extant Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, had this to say concerning Isaiah 9:6 : "Isaiah 9:6 is applied to Messiah in Targum" - Deburim R1(ed. Wash p4) " 'The government shall be on his shoulders', is attentested by Rabbinical authorities as messainic. Whose shoulders shall the governments be on? The child in v6, the 'almighty God'. " (Edernheim's list and at Qumran) For more info : . http://www.doxa.ws... # JEWISH AUTHORITIES ATTEST TO THE DEITY OF MESSIAH Rinto Santala states that even Rashi, one of the greatest rabbis of Judaism, saw the passage as speaking of Messiah's deity : "Rashi refers to psalm 72 in his exposition of Micah chapter 5 verse 2, which says o f the Ruler of Israel who will be born in Bethlehem that his 'origins are from old, from ancient times'. According to Rashi he is, 'the messiah, the Son of David'. As psalm 118 says, he is the 'stone which the builders rejected' and his origins are from ancient times, from 'before the sun was', his name was Yinnon. " Rashi, as well as the other rabbis believed that the Messiah of Israel existed before creation. They based it on Micah 5:2 and other texts. The thing is, there was nothing before the creation except God. David Kimchi, another rabbi revered in judaism, also known as Radak, realised this too, and specifically spike of Messiah's deity from the passage in Micah. The rabbis praised Radak's understanding of spiritual matters and said that without his insight into scripture, "there is no correct biblical exegesis. " Radak said of Micah 5:2 : "It will be said in the messianic age that his 'origins are from old, from ancient times. .. from Bethlehem' means that he will be of the house of David, because there is a long period of time between David and the Messiah King; and he is El (God), which is how he is 'from old, fromancient times. ' " For more on this : . http://www.seedofabraham.net... Messiah will be born of a virgin My opponent states that the verse I provided is a 'gross mistranslation'. Scores of Jews will argue to the death that this verse does not teach a virgin birth. They will argue that the Hebrew word 'Almah' has been incorrectly translated by christians as 'virgin' instead of 'young women'. However my opponent is once again incorrect despite his noticed attempts to provide the hebrew and explain how translation works. This is why he is incorrect : The argument over the word "almah" goes back at least to Justin Matyr (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, chapter 43, written soon after 135AD). Jerome also debated the matter with a rabbi, who said that if Isaiah had meant 'virgin' he would have said "Bethulah", to which Jerome correctly replied that if Isaiah had meant 'young women', he would have said "Naarah". Now "Bethulah" is the word that the Hebrew Bible uses when it wants to make virginity explicit e. g. Deuteronomy 22. It is from a root meaning "to separate". "Naarah" is the female equivalent to "naar", meaning a youth, a young man, a lad. "Ishah" is the female equivalent of "Ish" meaning a man. "Almah", the word Isiah uses is from a root meaning "hidden or veiled" and occurs just seven times in the hebrew scriptures. It can be translated as either virgin, maiden or young women but the context and sentence construction is key in determining which is appropriate. We now are left with the text in Isaiah. About 175years before the birth of Christ, Jewish scholars translated the hebrew scriptures into Greek (The septuagint or LXX) and used the word "Parthenos" (virgin in english) in translating "almah" in Isaiah 7:14. It should be noted that the jewish scholars in Alexandria in 175BC are better equipped to tell what Isaiah meant by "almah" in 700BC than anyone living today, simply by being closer to the hebrew usage of Isaiah's day. This is one of the most important factors in textual criticism. This point proves quite detrimental to my opponent's case as the Jewish scholars of the day translated the word "almah" as 'virgin' or in greek, "parthenos", rather than 'young women'. This proves the translation I provided is correct as the scribes of the Septuagint, a translation done by Jews for Jews and affirmed by the High Priest in Jerusalem in 2nd century BC, translated the passage as "behold, a virgin (parhtenos) shall conceive. .. ". For more in depth information on the "almah" issue : . http://www.jewishroots.net... Concerning Zechariah 11:13 My opponent states : "I fail to see how this is a messianic prophecy! This isn't even a prophecy. .. " The prophecy fortells the messiah's betrayal for 30 silver pieces. This is exactly what happened to Jesus when he was sold for 30 sliver pieces. Judas later went back to the temple and threw the pieces into the potter to fulfill what was written : "And the LORD said to me, "Throw it to the potter" - the handsome price which they priced me! .. " (Zechariah 11:13) secondly my opponent states that Matthew references Jeremiah, not Zechariah. This is false. Matthew does not provide any reference at all, even if he did reference Jeremiah, it would still prove my case that the prophecy was foretold and fulfilled in Jesus through judas betraying him. Important messianic prophecies that Jesus fulfilled #Born in Bethlehem Micah 5:2 is concede by my opponent. I will still explain the importance of this prophecy. The Jews of Jesus' time knew this to be a requirement of the messiah as seen in John 7:42 when they question Jesus' messiaship by saying : "Does not the scripture say that the Messiah will come from David's family andfrom Bethlehem, the town where David lived? " Despite the Jew's ignorance of the fact that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the passage still reflects that it was a requirement for the Messiah to come from Bethlehem. # Concerning Zechariah 12:10-12 "Did the Jews mourn for Jesus? According to the new Testament no! " Actually the NT tells of those Jews who followed Jesus mourned for him at his crucifixion . The disciples hid away and mourned for 3days until they heard of the resurrection of Jesus. A simple reading of the gospels can tell you this. Not all jews mourned, but many did as Jesus did have a following, # The other prophecies mentioned My opponent prided no evidence for the numerous accusations that he points against me (mistranslations and circular reasoning). He merely makes claims and moves on to the next issue. As a result I will not address his last paragraph as it is just a host of baseless claims. Consequently I still confidently hold the position that Jesus was messiah as he met the messianic requirements and is the most likely candidate to be messiah. Jesus stands unopposed in his claim to be messiah and scripture firmly supports his claims. As a result it can be safely concluded that Jesus was the messiah. References [1] . http://www.seedofabraham.net... [2] . http://www.messiahrevealed.org... [3] . http://www.bibliahebraica.com...