We can only find room for a few citations and illustrations in proof
of this statement. Many texts have been hunted out and marked in the
Christian bible, by interested priests, as prophetic of the coming and
mission of Christ. But a thorough, candid, and impartial investigation
will convince any reader that _none of these texts_ have the remotest
allusion to Christ, nor were they intended to have. On the contrary,
most of them refer to events already past. The others are the
mere ebullitions of pent-up feelings hopefully prayerful in their
anticipation of better times, but very indefinite as to the period and
the agencies or means in which, or by which, the desired reformation was
to be brought about. A divine man was prayed for and hopefully expected.
But no such being as Jesus Christ is anticipated, or alluded to, or
dreamed of, by the prophecies. And it requires the most unwarrantable
distortion to make one text refer to him.
But this perversion has been wrought on many texts. We will cite one
case in proof. In Isaiah's "famous prophecy" so-called, the phrase "Unto
us a child is born" (Isa. ix. 6), the context clearly shows, refers to
the prophet's own child, and the past tense, "is born," is an evidence
the child was then born. And the title "Mighty God," found in the text,
Dr. Beard shows should have been translated "the Mighty Hero," thus
proving it has no reference to a God. And "the Everlasting Father"
should have been rendered, according to this Christian writer, "the
Father of the Everlasting Age." And other texts often quoted as
prophecies by biased Christian writers, the doctor proves, are
erroneously translated, and have no more reference to Christ than to
Mahomet.
It is true the Jews, in common with other nations, cherished strong
anticipations of the arrival of a Mighty Deliverer amongst them; and
this august personage some of them supposed would be a God, or a God-man
(a demi-God). Hence, such prophetic utterances as "Behold, a king shall
reign in righteousness" (Isa. xxxii. i), "And all nations shall flow
unto Zion" (Isa. ii. 2).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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