Raised in a traditional Jewish family, international television host Jonathan Bernis was taught from a young age that "Jews don't--and can't!--believe in Jesus." Yet in his study of the Bible, including the Torah, he found overwhelming evidence that Jesus of Nazareth really was the Jewish Messiah. With warmth and transparency, Bernis talks about discovering Jesus in history, too, and how it was that the Jewish Yeshua became the Gentile Jesus. By presenting historic evidence that Jesus is Messiah and refuting common Jewish objections, Bernis gives Christians the knowledge and tools they need to share their Lord with their Jewish friends in a loving, effective way.

Christians in general—and preachers of prophecy in particular—attribute the fulfillment of hundreds of Old Testament messianic prophecies to Jesus of Nazareth. Often these claims arise in the uncritical environment of Christian churches or popular literature that is treating messianic prophecy. People with critical thinking abilities, and those endowed with a skeptical nature, often have key questions that remain unaddressed in such environments. These thinkers and skeptics are the people that will be most interested in this work. The primary question addressed is this: “Do critically acceptable historical-evidential reasons exist for believing that Jesus Christ is the direct fulfillment of some specific Old Testament messianic texts?” Approaching this question within a framework that eliminates any possibility of staged prophetic fulfillment, and those that may occur by mere chance or collusion, produces results that must be taken seriously. Even with these strict criteria, Jesus emerges as the only viable candidate to fulfill some of the prophecies included in this study. For other prophetic texts, the evidence is not as abundant or convincing. However, even these texts yield several minimal facts that directly impinge on New Testament claims about Jesus.

Christians in general--and preachers of prophecy in particular--attribute the fulfillment of hundreds of Old Testament messianic prophecies to Jesus of Nazareth. Often these claims arise in the uncritical environment of Christian churches or popular literature that is treating messianic prophecy. People with critical thinking abilities, and those endowed with a skeptical nature, often have key questions that remain unaddressed in such environments. These thinkers and skeptics are the people that will be most interested in this work. The primary question addressed is this: "Do critically acceptable historical-evidential reasons exist for believing that Jesus Christ is the direct fulfillment of some specific Old Testament messianic texts?" Approaching this question within a framework that eliminates any possibility of staged prophetic fulfillment, and those that may occur by mere chance or collusion, produces results that must be taken seriously. Even with these strict criteria, Jesus emerges as the only viable candidate to fulfill some of the prophecies included in this study. For other prophetic texts, the evidence is not as abundant or convincing. However, even these texts yield several minimal facts that directly impinge on New Testament claims about Jesus.

Nothing is more important than what a person believes about Jesus Christ. To understand Christ correctly is to understand the very heart of God, Scripture, and the gospel. To get to the core of this belief, this latest volume in the Foundations of Evangelical Theology series lays out a systematic summary of Christology from philosophical, biblical, and historical perspectives—concluding that Jesus Christ is God the Son incarnate, both fully divine and fully human. Readers will learn to better know, love, trust, and obey Christ—unashamed to proclaim him as the only Lord and Savior. Part of the Foundations of Evangelical Theology series.

The primary purpose of this dissertation is to establish if critically acceptable historical-evidential reasons exist for believing that Jesus Christ is the direct fulfillment of the specific OT messianic texts included in the study. The study presupposes many of the conclusions of historical-critical scholarship and employs historical-evidential criteria to evaluate the evidence and attempt to establish the historical warrant for affirming such belief. Secondarily, this study seeks to find minimal facts related to these specific OT prophetic texts. To qualify as a minimal fact, two conditions must be met: (1) there must be more than adequate scholarly evidences usually consisting of several critically ascertained lines of argumentation; and (2) there must be agreement among the majority of contemporary scholars about the historicity of the event or the specific claim the minimal fact affirms. This investigation envisions the existence of three possible outcomes for each prophecy examined: (1) Jesus directly fulfilled the prophecy and sufficient historical evidence establishes the claim as probable, (2) Jesus directly fulfilled the prophecy, but the available historical evidence is insufficient to establish the claim as probable, and (3) sufficient historical evidence exists to refute the claim that Jesus directly fulfilled the prophecy. The historical-evidential approach employed by this study yields the probability of two direct fulfillments and the emergence of fifteen minimal facts. The author thus concludes that the historical evidence supports the probability that the two specific OT passages affirmed in this study, (2 Samuel 7:13, 16; Micah 5:2), directly prophesy regarding some aspect of Jesus’ life and ministry. On three other occasions (Psalm 2:7; Psalm 16:10; Malachi 3:1), a distinct possibility exists that these texts directly prophesy regarding some aspect of Jesus’ life and ministry.

The publication of the King James version of the Bible, translated between 1603 and 1611, coincided with an extraordinary flowering of English literature and is universally acknowledged as the greatest influence on English-language literature in history. Now, world-class literary writers introduce the book of the King James Bible in a series of beautifully designed, small-format volumes. The introducers' passionate, provocative, and personal engagements with the spirituality and the language of the text make the Bible come alive as a stunning work of literature and remind us of its overwhelming contemporary relevance.