If it is argued that this passage does not refer to Satan but to snakes in general, it becomes hopelessly without meaning. Is God really telling the snake that all humans will hate all snakes, and more meaninglessly, will utterly break the heads of all snakes? Not even in the day of Moses leading Israel in the wilderness was this true. There has never been a snake extermination program, nor is there ever likely to be one. Moses must have meant something when he wrote this. It is far more consistent within the overall meaning and context of the story that this is a reference to the fight of humanity against evil rather than a comment about mankind fighting against snakes (see Genesis 3:22).

In all of the Hebrew Scriptures not one single male can be identified of whom it could be said that he mortally crushed Satan. That prophecy went unfulfilled when the Hebrew canon closed in 400 B.C.

Though this may be among the least persuasive of the prophetic evidences, it is interesting how early in the Hebrew Bible such "Messianic prophecies" begin.

Not all prophecies have only a single fulfillment. Many have one near-future fulfillment followed by a distant-future fulfillment. How does someone know if a future-distant fulfillment still remains? Common sense indicates that if the near-distant fulfillment did not accomplish all the predictions in the entire prophecy then something remains yet to be fulfilled in the distant future.

The book of Isaiah is not actually a contiguous story with a unified plot. It is a compilation of all of Isaiah's messages and stories from the start of his ministry until his execution. Below is his account of his encounter with Judah's King Ahaz.

Note: it helps to know that in Jewish history the newly founded nation of Israel was soon divided against itself into two nations. The rebels went north, turned from Judaism to idolatry, and called their kingdom, Israel. In the south the tribe of Judah ruled from Jerusalem and mostly remained loyal to Judaism. The kingdom in the south called itself Judah for obvious reasons. The two kingdoms, north and south, were constantly in conflict. Ahaz was a Judahan king in the south.

Since the literal virgin birth and the male infant named Immanuel did not happen during Isaiah's lifetime, it is proper to say that the prophecy was left in a partially unfulfilled state. When Jesus was born to a literal virgin, and since His name, Jesus (the Lord saves), was functionally similar to Immanuel (the Lord is with us), that event mostly fulfills the prophecy. Also, as both Lord and a human, Jesus physically lived among His people, the Jews. This would make Him the "Immanuel," since the Lord lived with them.

This may still only represent a partial fulfillment of the prophecy, however. Why only "partially" fulfilled? Jesus died and left His people behind, and so is no longer "among us" or "with us." When Jesus returns the next time, He will live among his people forever, with a throne located on Mount Zion (the Temple Mount in Jerusalem). In that sense He will always be Immanuel.

Throughout Isaiah are numerous prophecies about many things. Some are about the far future end-of-time events, some are about the then-future return of Israel from exile in Babylon, and some are about a coming Immanuel-servant. All of Chapter 49 is about the coming servant.

Chapter 49 begins by Isaiah saying, "The LORD called Me from the womb; from the body of My mother He named Me" (Isaiah 49:1). Yet, Isaiah could not be talking of himself alone because as the chapter continues the Lord calls him "Israel" (a name not used for any individual person except Jacob and Jesus) and informs him that he will take salvation to the ends of the earth. Isaiah's name was never "Israel" and he did not take salvation to the ends of the earth, so he had to be talking about someone else who would do such things in the future.

It is easy to write off Isaiah's comments in 1-13 as self descriptive, self promotional, and self aggrandizing. However, Isaiah was not a fool, as he gave up his life to preach repentance in the midst of international warfare. Isaiah knew no kings and princes were going to bow to him, but only to God, because as Isaiah also wrote, "Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other...to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance" (Isaiah 45:22-23a). Either these verses in 1-13 were true future-telling prophecies about the coming servant-Messiah (in other words, truthful statements about God Himself) or they were false and contradictory future-telling prophecies about Isaiah that never came true.

Whatever else one my say about verses 14-26 being non-specific and useless as "evidence" for supernatural prophecy, it must be remembered that it would have been inconceivable to any Jew in Isaiah's day that Jerusalem would be devastated, destroyed, and abandoned. It eventually was by Babylon. Then it was rebuilt and repopulated, as Isaiah predicted. However, it was never the paradise that Isaiah predicted where even the dead babies were restored. After 70 A.D. Jerusalem was again destroyed and abandoned, and stayed that way for 1900 years. It has again been rebuilt by the Jews, as predicted in John's Revelation, but it has yet to become a paradise where even the dead are raised to life. That too is still future.

One of the more interesting specific prophecies given in the Old Testament by any patriarch was given by the grandson of Abraham, Jacob (his name was also known as Israel and it was that name for whom the nation was later named). He called together all his twelve sons to bless them and to prophesy over them. When he got to son Judah he said,

The scepter is, of course, the ruler's scepter, the symbol of a king's reign. Jacob predicted that of his twelve sons Judah's family would rule over the others "until Shiloh comes," after which Judah would cease ruling and Shiloh would be given the people's obedience as king instead.

As we know from history, the tribe of Judah, the ultimate bloodline of King David, dominated in southern Palestine/Canaan, where Jerusalem stood on Mount Zion as capital of Judah. The Jews that rebelled went to the north and called themselves Israel. After the multiple invasions and exiles the once-divided nation reunited and eventually reestablished the capital of Jerusalem in Judah and the reunified nation called itself Israel once more, until the nation was destroyed in 70 A.D.

This "Shiloh" that was to come in the future, and who was to secure from Judah the obedience of the people, was described by Jacob as a male, "He ties his foal to the vine." Shiloh is clearly personified. The word Shiloh means both "tranquility" and "which belongs to him." So Judah would hold the scepter of ruling power only until Shiloh takes back the ruling authority "which belongs to Him." The scepter of authority came from YHWH, so only YHWH can take it back.

When Jesus (the God-among-us, the Prince of Peace, the son of David) came to Jerusalem the ruling scepter did indeed leave Judah, and the nation of Israel came to a 1900 year end. While Israel is today a modern nation, it is no longer a kingdom under Judah's rule. Moreover, Christianity has grown into a global religion which "gives its obedience" to Christ, the Shiloh, the one to which obedience always belonged. Also, just as Jesus' garments were drenched red in His own blood, Jacob said that Shiloh's robes would be drenched in the "blood of grapes," that is, drenched blood red.

Jacob had been renamed "Israel" by his God, YHWH. The unified nation was later called Israel in honor of Jacob, and is now named Israel again. Israel was known as the vine and the vineyard of the Lord (Isaiah 5:7, Jeremiah 6:9, Hosea 10:1). Jesus assumed for Himself the title "the true vine" by which He was calling Himself the true Israel (John 15:1). Paul repeats this truth in Ephesians 2:12 by stating that the Gentiles had been excluded from citizenship in Israel and its promises, which by definition meant they had been excluded from Christ, the true Israel (note: they were excluded until Jesus sent the apostles into all the world to proclaim the gospel).

How is this "evidence" that prophecies are supernatural? Jacob predicted that Judah would establish a kingdom; the prophecy having been made by Jacob long before that kingdom ever existed. Ironically, the kingdom he predicted would come would be named after him, Israel. Then Jacob predicted that God would come and transfer the people's obedience away from the kings of Judah back to Himself as the Shiloh. This very thing happened in real history when Jerusalem was destroyed (70 A.D.) and the majority of the world became obedient to Jesus under the mantle of Christianity.

No other prophet delivered more precise and testable prophecies than did Daniel. He named names and specified dates. Daniel predicted the coming of a Messiah and the actual year of the Messiah's death.

Qumran scholar and Hebrew professor Geza Vermes noted that the Qumran community preachers wrote commentaries on the Hebrew prophets between 200 B.C. and 100 B.C. They recorded their own interpretations of Daniel's still-future Messianic calculations, correctly noting that the world should expect about 483 years to pass between the Babylonian exile and the revelation of the future Messiah (page 71, Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls In Enlgish). The Qumran preachers used Daniel's prophecies to accurately predict that the Messiah would arrive in another 100 to 200 years in their own future.

There is nothing magic or tricky about seeing the phrase "seven weeks" (which is the more literal Hebrew rendering: "seven times seven") as meaning 49 years. Obviously 62 times 7 is 434 years, as even the Qumran preachers were able to recognize. Added together (because the text says "and") they amount to 483 years. So, 483 years were to pass from the decree of Artexerxes in 444 B.C. until the Messiah would die, about 33 A.D. Those 483 years are measured by the idealized ancient Hebrew calendar containing 360 days; this is the equivalent of 476 years in the Gregorian Calendar which contains 365 days in a year (see Walvoord, Every Prophecy of the Bible, page 254).

Only one historical figure was simultaneously called a Jewish Messiah and also died in 33 A.D. Obviously Daniel was not speaking about an event current to himself, but about an event almost five centuries in his future.

Some atheists misread and misquote the passage, whether intentionally so, or not, is unknown. They improperly identify the edict of Cyrus, which authorized the rebuilding of the temple in 538 B.C., as the starting date for Daniel's timing. They then improperly conclude that Daniel's timing is false, for it would not coincide with the death of Jesus. Of course, the biblical text actually says the starting date is the decree to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, not the temple. Only the decree of Artexerxes in 444 B.C. authorizing the rebuilding of the city and its perimeter defenses meets the requirements of the passage. So the correct starting point for Daniel's 483 years is 444 B.C. resulting in a 33 A.D. termination date.

Daniel never lived in Israel. He lived his entire life in Babylon as a Jewish exile. He became a government servant to the pagan king and wielded significant influence. There is no doubt that when he penned his prophetic book his fellow Babylonian magi (wise men) would have been very familiar with it. Being men of study (if not men of science in some sense) they would have easily been able to make the calculations themselves once Artexerxes gave the rebuild decree after Babylon was overthrown. It is likely the Babylonian magi knew this Jewish Messiah (king) would die 483 years later, and so knew he would be born in about 400 years (more or less) into their future. That they were on watch for a sign of Jesus' birth 450 years later is no surprise at all.

The problem for atheists and skeptics is how to explain away the rather straightforward prediction by Daniel that a Messiah would be born and die 483 years in the future. Late dating the book of Daniel from 530 B.C. to 200 B.C. (as most skeptics are desirous to do) helps not at all. Here is why. Pretend that Daniel did not actually write the book almost 100 years before Artexerxes issued the edict to rebuild Jerusalem (444 B.C.E.). Pretend that a fake-Daniel wrote the same book at 200 B.C.E., about 200 years after Artexerxes issued the rebuild edict. Even so, the fake Daniel still correctly predicted that 483 years would pass from Artexerxes (444 B.C.E.) until the Messiah would die in 33 A.D. That future death date, according to fake Daniel, was still 240 years in fake-Daniel's future. The key is that the prophecy's 483 year clock begins when Artexerxes issued the rebuild edict and has nothing to do with when Daniel was written.

Further it must be remembered that Daniel was one of those books preserved at Qumran and hidden in the ground sometime between 200 B.C.E and 50 B.C.E. This 483 year prophecy was also included in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible developed by Jewish scholars, which was originally put together between 285 B.C.E. and 50 B.C.E. In other words, Daniel could not have been written after Jesus was born, which means that the prophecy was genuinely made centuries before Jesus died. Does it really matter if the prophecy was made 500 years before Jesus died or only 200 years in advance, so long as the prophecy accurately predicted 33 A.D.? This student of the Bible thinks not.

A final often overlooked issue is the startling prediction by Daniel that the Messiah would be a mortal that could and would die, and whose death would be followed by the utter destruction of the temple and of the entire loss of the city of Jerusalem. How could a mere man like Daniel, or "fake Daniel," know that the Messiah was really coming, would be mortal, and would not be a conquering political hero? Truly this is supernatural foreknowledge and not something the church made up.

By now the pattern is clear, the Hebrew Bible contained multiple Messianic prophecies. All of them were written before 100 B.C. and so were not the products of church zealots. Each prophecy, even at the time they were written, was intended to be understood by the speaker/writer as a future-telling prediction which could not be fulfilled by persons or events during the prophet's lifetime.

Some prophecies predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, some its reconstruction. Some predicted the loss of a human king in Israel in favor of God's new kingdom. Isaiah predicted that every knee would bow to this Servant of God. One prophet even predicted the actual date of the death of the Messiah as being 33 A.D.

This pattern of future-telling prophecies regarding a coming Messiah / Christ / Anointed Servant carries across many Hebrew biblical texts. Rather than analyze each one in depth as above, a consolidated and abbreviated list is provided below.

A person can quite literally ignore all this evidence. For example, it is common to hear atheist scholars deny that historical figures such as King David ever existed at all. To do this they ignore evidence such as numerous Israeli religious artifacts, the testimony of the Hebrew Bible, and even secular artifacts like the 9^th Century B.C. Jordanian Mesha Stele through which Moab's King Mesha boasted of having gained military victory over Israel's King "Omri," "the House of David," and "YHWH," the God of Israel (all of which are mentioned by name in the stele).

In addition to ignoring evidence someone can simply give it a cursory review and dismiss it as not compelling. But can a person seriously look at the above evidence in whole, as an entire body of work, and not realize that the Hebrew Bible predicted thousands to hundreds of years in advance that the Son of God, YHWH Himself, would come as a man to die as the substitute for human sin? And who but Jesus ever matched the specifics of those combined prophecies?

In 70 A.D. the city of Jerusalem was sacked by the Romans, and the temple was destroyed. Along with the temple all the genealogical records of Israel were also destroyed. It is no longer possible for any Jew to know or to prove which of the twelve tribes (if any) they are descended from. Since several of the Hebrew Bible prophecies state that the expected Messiah had to be from the bloodline of Judah and David, no person can ever be born now or in the future who can match those prophecies. There can be no Davidic Messiah expected to come any longer. Either Jesus was the Messiah or there never will be one.

When Israel was devastated in the 1^st Century it ceased to be a nation. It lost its theocratic government and ultimately the control of the land fell to foreigners for 1900 years. This was seen by Bible skeptics as proof that all the prophecies in the Judeo-Christian Bible were false, since many of the passages claimed that the great end-of-time events were to happen in Israel and to the Jews as a nation. Of course, the nation of Israel was restored to Jewish leadership in 1948, following the global Holocaust which almost exterminated Abraham's race from the planet. Though for 1900 years it appeared as though the explicit prophecies of the Bible would be thwarted by historical events, it now appears that historical reality validates the supernatural origin of the prophecies.

Knowledge is good. What one does with knowledge is more important. Evidence is good, but it is not proof. What will you, the reader, do with the accrued evidences above? Will you trust Christ as the Messiah, calling on Him to take away your sin? What will you do with your knowledge?

Embedded below is your own personal response log. Use this to record your personal reactions, observations, or objections to each of the above Messianic passages. Afterwards, consider summing up your capstone conclusions, particularly with regard to whether you feel the amalgamated prophecies are persuasive of the proposition that the Bible is of supernatural origin. If you would like to engage in some discussion about this subject, consider emailing your responses to me at the address posted on the "Contact Us" page.