Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 49

John 10:16, "And other sheep I [Jesus] have, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd."

The truth which is contained in this passage has no reference to himself, for the union of faith was not accomplished by him, and will only take place at a future period, when the proper time shall arrive. This is testified by the following passages of Scripture. Isaiah, in chapter 45:23, says, "Thus I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return. For unto me every knee, shall bow, and every tongue shall swear." Zephaniah 3:9, "For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent." The predominance of Judaism over all the religions of the Gentiles is dwelt on in the following extracts from the prophets: Isaiah 52:1, "Awake, awake, put on thy strength, Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the Holy City; for henceforth there shall no more come unto thee, the uncircumcised and the unclean." Ibid. chapter 66:23, "And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord." Zechariah 14:16, "And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles." As to the attribution of the sovereignty of empires to the future King Messiah, we find in Daniel 2:44, "And in the days of these kings shall the God of Heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all those kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever."

Ibid. 7:27, "And the kingdom and the dominion, and the greatness of dominion under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions shall serve and obey Him." Numbers 24:17, "I see it [it will not happen] now, I behold it, but not nigh; there shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Judah, and he shall smite the corners of Moab, and overthrow the children of Sheth." 

 Again, it's hard to pick out an actual argument in this chapter. If Troki is arguing that we are still waiting for the prophecies at the end of the world to be fulfilled, I would agree with him that this is the case. Israel is not yet in a position of dominance. One has to twist and even waterboard the Scriptures to support the desperate position that these prophecies have already been fulfilled.

What follows from this? That Jesus is not Messiah? Troki's argument seems to go like the following:

1. If Jesus did not fulfill the Messianic prophecies, then he is not Messiah
2. Jesus did not fulfill the prophecies
3. Therefore, Jesus is not Messiah

What support is there for premise 1? In order to keep the argument from appearing ad hoc, one would need to generalize the premise into:

1'. For any person x, if x did not fulfill the Messianic prophecies, then x is not Messiah

(1') has immediately obvious difficulties. Since the Messianic prophecies are not fulfilled (1') would disqualify everyone alive today from being Messiah. In fact, it would mean that no one could be Messiah until after the prophecies are fulfilled. But that's certainly wrong. Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai said "If you are holding a sapling in your hand and someone tells you, ‘Come quickly, the messiah is here!’, first finish planting the tree and then go to greet the Messiah.’" This implies that Messiah will be here before the prophecies are finished. Otherwise, there wouldn't be the surprise.

So we will need to change the premise to:
1''. For any person x, if x died before the Messianic prophecies were fulfilled, then x is not Messiah

The problem is that rabbinic tradition does not agree with this, either. The rabbis of the Talmud discuss the two different pictures of Messiah as presented in the Bible. One picture features a triumphant leader, while the other presents a suffering servant who will die for the sake of Israel. The Talmud claims that this is because there are two different people called Messiah, and at least one of them will die.

So we then need to change the premise to:

1'''. For any person x, if x died before the Messianic prophecies were fulfilled, then x is not Messiah son of David

This is more defensible, yet Maimonedes believed that Isaiah 53 referred to Messiah son of David, which includes the passage "he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. And they made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death."

So rabbinic tradition itself does not substantiate any of these claims. We have no reason to accept (1), and plenty of good reasons to reject it.