The Old Testament Isaiah Does Not Prophesy the Jesus Death

As new scholars pour over the Bible and study more carefully the ancient writing that was copied, and probably edited, over time they come up with conclusions quite different than those used to hammer from pulpits. I remember hearing as a college student the Jesus story should be considered factual because it was prophesied. Scholar Bart Ehrman, reading the same material as apologists, comes away with the opposite view. The death and resurrection of a messiah was not in the Old Testament book of Isaiah 53.

Isaiah 53 is the book Ehrman says is most often used by Christians to claim OT writers prophesied something that later took place. The passage is filled with suffering and humiliation.

While Christians have long said the book was all about the suffering of a future messiah. Ehrman says Jews never saw it about a future messiah or even a person. It was about the present unfortunate circumstances Jews were in at the time and about their past.

The writing was done about 6th century BCE when the Jews had been forced into exile in Babylon. Suffering was discussed but it was not suffering by one person. It was suffering of the people of Israel. The writing used past, not future, tense.

So who is right, Christian apologists who claim the writing was about a future Jesus or scholars who say it was the past and circumstances that existed when the writer lived (and future scribes who might have edited the original writing)? Since I do not believe any of the ancient writers could predict the future I assume the material was written for a specific audience of that time to deliver some ideological message from the writer.

To believe there were "prophets" in the Old Testament is to believe in fairy tales and hokum.