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“Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he explained to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”
Jesus said the Scriptures were about him, and the apostles preached him from the Old Testament before a word of the New was written. This is the reference list: what was foretold, where, and where the New Testament records it fulfilled — with the hard questions answered, not hidden.
Bible & Faith FoundationsThe passage looks ahead to a coming figure or event, and reads that way in its own setting. Many were read as messianic by Jews before Jesus was born.
The passage describes something in its own day — Israel, David, the Passover lamb — and the New Testament sees it repeated and completed in Jesus. A real fulfilment, but not a forecast. Do not present it to a sceptic as one.
Every Old Testament passage here was written centuries before Jesus — the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Greek Septuagint put that beyond dispute. Prophecy alone does not prove the faith; Jesus could have arranged a few of these, and the gospel writers report the rest. Its force is cumulative, and it rests finally on the one no one could stage: the resurrection. For how to read the Old Testament this way without forcing it, see How the Old Testament points to Jesus.
Prophet, priest and king; a son of David who is also called God. The titles that tell you what kind of Messiah to look for.
The line he would come from, the town he would be born in, and what surrounded his birth.
Where he would work, what he would do, how he would be received — and the king riding a donkey into Jerusalem.
A friend’s betrayal, a price in silver, scattered followers and a silent prisoner.
The manner of his death, the words spoken around the cross, and what the death achieved.
A rich man’s tomb, a body that would not decay, the ascension, the Spirit poured out and a kingdom given.
The New Testament does not claim every messianic promise is complete. These it places at his return — and the ones already fulfilled are the reason to expect them.
You will hear these in sermons and read them online. Each overstates the case, and a sceptic who catches one will stop listening to the rest.
Lists of 300 or more (Edersheim counted 456 passages applied to the Messiah in Jewish writings) count every allusion, echo and repeated theme. The distinct, identifiable prophecies number closer to the list above. Quote the strong ones well rather than a large number loosely.
This comes from Peter Stoner’s Science Speaks. The numbers are guesses, the events are not independent of one another (being from Judah and being from David’s line are not separate odds), and some fulfilments were within a person’s power to arrange. A sceptic who knows probability will take it apart. The argument is cumulative and historical, not statistical.
Sir Robert Anderson’s calculation in The Coming Prince depends on a particular starting decree, a 360-day "prophetic year" and a disputed date for the crucifixion. Change any one and the day moves. The broad point of Daniel 9 stands; the exact-day claim does not.
Jesus said the Scriptures bear witness to him (John 5:39), not that every verse is a code. Reading him into every tent peg discredits the real connections. See the article on how the Old Testament points to Jesus.
Isaiah 53 is skipped in the cycle of synagogue prophetic readings, and some ancient Jewish sources do read it messianically. But there is no evidence of a ban for that reason, and it is not true that Jewish scholars as a rule concede the point. Present the evidence accurately and let it speak.