Today, we’re going to look at the following common statement: “The Bible was written to look like Jesus fulfilled prophecy.” This statement is fairly straight forward. It suggests that either the Old Testament or the New Testament were written falsely. This might seem to make sense, after all, how could Jesus have possibly fulfilled all of the prophecies of the old testament? Some of these prophesies include: Being born in Bethlehem, being a descendant of Abraham, being a decendent of David, being born to a virgin, being called out of Egypt, coming back after death, being called a Nazarene, as well as many, many more. In fact, there are over forty different prophecies that Jesus fulfilled from throughout the Old testament.
So perhaps the Old Testament prophecies were written after Jesus’ life in order to add validity to his life? This is simply impossible for numerous. We have copies of the Bible, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls. These scrolls contains large amounts of every book in the Old Testament excluding Esther. These texts were proven to predate Jesus's lifetime and match today's Old Testament. We also have outside, non-Christian sources such as Josephus, who was a scholar at the time of Jesus's life, that stated that Jesus was believed to be “The Christ” from the old testament. This shows that some idea of a Christ already existed. Josephus was a Roman historian, and the Romans wanted to crush the movement of Jesus as it was disrupting their power and religious beliefs.
Then maybe the New Testament was written to look like Jesus fulfilled prophecies he didn’t ever fulfill? Well, one major reason we know this is not true, is because the Jews, who were very much against Christianity, would have recorded such hypocrisy. The jewish community was very much against Jesus. They did not believe that Jesus was the promised messiah (this is, of course, excluding the Jews who became followers of Jesus, however such people were no longer respected or accepted by the Jewish community). The Jews would have called out the early Christians who were putting together a false New Testament.
We also know that the New Testament couldn not have been written falsely, because it was not just a book that one person wrote. The New Testament is a collection of letters, texts, and accounts by different people. They were collected and tested with Cannon, and eventually combined into what we call the New Testament today. As John Dickson states on ABC Australia's Religion and Ethics article on “The irreligious assault on the historicity of Jesus” “[The New testament books]... were mostly written independently of each other, even if they were later collated in the New Testament. Paul, for example, wrote in the AD 50s and did not know the Gospel of Mark. Mark wrote a decade later and certainly did not possess the letters of Paul.” so how could Paul and Mark have had the same recollection of events, if they did not happen? Of course they did happen, and their writings agree because they both experienced what they are writing about.
Now, there is another major reason that shows that the idea of falsifying any part of the Bible simply does not make sense. What did anyone have to gain? Most every one of the Apostles, who were the primary authors of the New Testament, were exiled and killed for their beliefes and proclaimations. It brought them no fame, no fortune, why die for a lie? Nobody had anything to gain from Christianity if it was false, but they had eternal life if it was true, as do we today.
If that is not enough to convince you, think about it this way: Why would anyone change anything in the Bible? What would the writers of the New Testament have to gain for writing false text? The gospel brought them no fame, no fortune, it sent them into exile and got them murdered! If they lied about what happened, then they would die for nothing! Why change the New or Old Testament, when it would mean that the faith they based their lives on was fake? It simply does not add up.
So In review, it is fairly undeniable that Jesus fulfilled these prophecies of the Old Testament. Now I encourage you to trust the God who fulfilled so many Promises. I encourage you to fulfill another: The promise that if you only trust in Christ Jesus, you will be granted eternal life.