Jesus is the Jewish Messiah

Pro writes that Septuagint "is centuries earlier than the Masoretic text which removes messianic references to Jesus. "I beg to differ:Let's start from the beginning. According to the bible, God dictated the Torah to Moses in 'Hebrew' and he wrote it down in 'Hebrew'. Copies were made & It was given to the people of Israel who were commanded to study it and keep it's laws etc. Naturally over time more and more scrolls were written and inevitably, some had minor mistakes here and there. The logical solution to resolve these minor differences would be to compare it with other scrolls, go by the majority, and fix the errors. Naturally, scrolls in smaller &/ more isolated communities would be more likely to contain errors (due to inability to compare with large/other samples) these errors could perpetuate themselves in that local, until they were hopefully caught and fixed by comparing them to other scrolls in other locals, etc.. The product of this tedious process of copying and comparing from one generation to the next is what we have today - the Masoretic text. There is no evidence that this text has been tampered with, or that supposed "messianic references to Jesus" were removed, etc. If there are other texts that differ, it is more likely that the text came from an error that wasn't caught. This is particularly likely in the case of a translated text such as the Septuagint, for a number of reasons:1) "omnis traductor traditor" every translator is a traitor which means that every translation is a corruption of the original; the reader should take heed of unavoidable imperfections.In the preface to the Greek translation of his grandfather’s book, Jeshua ben Sira "apologizes for any defects in his work, on the ground that ‘what was originally expressed in Hebrew does not have exactly the same sense when translated into another language. Not only this work, but even the law itself, the prophecies, and the rest of the books differ not a little as originally expressed.”(1) "The Cannon of Scripture", F.F. Bruce, P. 45-46 2) When it comes to translating, the translation is dependent on how the translator understands the verse, which might be a wrong, in which case the translated text will be wrong. That doesn't happen when you copy the text as is, even if the transcriber misunderstands the text, the text will remain the same.3) It wasn't the original words of God exactly as he said them, thus there was less of an urgency to keep and copy everything exactly the same.4) Different people would understand a verse in a different ways, and translate them accordingly. Thus you get numerous different translations of the text. Which can't be solved by simply checking other copies (since it's not based on other translated texts but rather on the translators (mis)understanding of the original text.) Thus you end up with many different versions which makes it even harder to keep things the same.5) Presumably, one of the major opportunities for catching errors was during the public Torah readings which occur in synagogues every Mon., Thurs., and Sat., as well as Festivals and fast days. Only Authentic Hebrew Torah scrolls are used for that purpose, not translations.6) Presumably the majority of mistakes were caught by scholars who were very familiar with the texts. Scholars would generally use the original Hebrew texts while most of those using a translation were primarily laymen.Today, there is pretty much only one universally agreed upon "Masoretic text", while there are many versions of the Septuagint. though scholars are trying to put the pieces together, we don't have the originals, and we don't know what they origionally said.In Chapter Three of "The Canon of Scripture", F.F. Bruce writes: "With few and fragmentary exceptions, the Septuagint manuscripts now in existence were produced by Christians". (2)"In the 3rd century ad Origen attempted to clear up copyists’ errors that had crept into the text of the Septuagint, which by then varied widely from copy to copy." (3)In "Chronology of the Old Testament: A Return to the Basics" Dr. Floyd Nolen Jones, Th.D., Ph.D. writes:"A significant number of chronologists have fallen into error by using for their foundation the material contained in the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew Masoretic Text. This mistake is calamitous...that person who simply puts his/her faith in God's promise to preserve His Word (Jer.1:12; Psa.12:6-7; Isa.40:8; Mk.13:31) concludes that God has done so and that it is to be found where He originally deposited it, namely, in the Hebrew Masoretic Text...The history of the origin of the Septuagint is embellished with many diverse fables, hence its actual derivation is still being debated. As to hard provable facts, little is known." (4)In "The Septuagint: A critical Analysis" he writes:"The Book of Isaiah shows "obvious signs of incompetence". As a translation, it is not only bad; it is the most inferior book within the LXX. H.B. Swete concludes that the Psalms are but little better. Esther, Job, and Proverbs are not faithful translations but merely free paraphrases. The original LXX version of Job was much shorter than the Hebrew; it was subsequently filled in with interpretations from Theodotion..." (5)On pages 11-15, he discusses the incongruities between the Hebrew and Septuagint with regard Ages of the patriarchs and lengths of kings reigns shows that in both cases that the Hebrew version must be the correct one.He concludes:"Even a cursory comparison between the Septuagint and the Hebrew Masoretic text (as translated in the King James Bible) clearly reveals that the Septuagint as it is today is highly inaccurate and deficient as a translation. To attempt to reconstruct the Hebrew Text (as many connected with the modern versions are trying to do) from such a loose, deficient and unacceptable translation would be analogous to trying to reconstruct the Greek New Testament Text from The Living Bible..." (Ad loc.)"Our first messianic passage will be in Gen. 3:11..."I see no mention, indication, or even hint of Jesus in the verse nor in the accompanying Targum. As far as I can tell, it has no relevance to the debate. "The Messiah would be born of Bethlehem..." 1) I fail to see the relevance of this point either. Even if it was prophesied that the Messiah will come from Bethlehem, and even if Jesus was indeed born from Bethlehem, it does not follow from those two premises that Jesus is/was the Messiah. Consider the following: P1) All men are mortal P2) Socrates is mortal C1) Therefore Socrates is a man (from P1 and P2). This can be clearly shown to be invalid by replacing the word man with woman, the premises will be true, but the conclusion false. Another way of putting this is by pointing out that the prophecy (even if taken literally) says that the Messiah will do "x", not that he who does "x" is the Messiah.(If it was an unlikely event, it would be more significant, but many people were born in Bethlehem (and Ephrath) they weren't Messiahs) 2) Sans Christian literature, there is no evidence that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. "The Messiah would be born of a virgin..." This argument suffers from the same two as the previous one. However, this argument has additional problems. 1) Virgin is a mistranslation, the Hebrew word used means young girl. Pro may argue that the Septuagint says virgin, and therefore the Jews must have changed it. However, this backfires somewhat since the dead sea scrolls (written before Christianity started) confirm that the Masoretic text is correct.(6)2) "Shall concive" is a mistranslation הָרָה֙ is always present tense. Even if "shall concieve" is correct, based on the context of the verse it would have to be something will happen in the near future, not centuries latter.3) Jesus was not called Immanuel.4) Long story short - The quote from Rashi was completely fabricated, and the source for this misquote admitted it. (see (7) for links and details) "The Messiah would be the son of David..." This argument suffers from the same 2 that the first argument did. Mat. 1, seems to contradict the idea of a virgin birth, as well as the 3rd Chapter of Luke. "The Messiah would triumphantly enter Jerusalem riding on a donkey to redeem the world..." This too suffers the same two problems as well as an additional two. John 12:14-15 which pro quotes says that Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it. However, Luke 19:35 & Mark 11 say that Jesus sent two of his disciples into the village to find a colt. While Matthew 21:5-7 says that Jesus sent his disciples to the village to get a donkey and a colt. "The Messiah would suffer for his people..."Really long story short - The supposed quote from R' Vidas does not exist. (See (8) for links and details) "The Messiah would be crucified...." Pro quotes Psalm 22:16 "Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men have encircled me; they have pierced my hands and feet." and claims that "Rabbi Nehemiah has affirmed this to be a messianic psalm" based on the following quote: "..Kaari my hands and feet'- Rabbi Nehemiah says, 'They have PIERCED my hands and feet in the presence of Ahasuerus...'" I fail to see how this shows that "Rabbi Nehemiah has affirmed this to be a messianic psalm", he said nothing of the sort, (according to what pro wrote) all he did was repeat the verse and add the words "in the presence of Ahasuerus" (explaining/expounding on the verse), how does this show that "Rabbi Nehemiah has affirmed this to be a messianic psalm". On the contrary, R' Nachman's explanation of the verse precludes the possibility of it referring to Jesus, since the era of Ahasuerus was many centuries before Jesus was born. "This was fulfilled in John 19:23-24"Those 2 verses say nothing about pierced hands &/ feet.Footnotes in comments section.