Prophecy of Messiah: Isaiah 7

Does it occur to any of the believers here that there's something kind of off-kilter about threads such as this one?What I mean is, if everything in the bible were as obvious and clear as many of you say it is, then this discussion wouldn't even be possible. We would all be funamentalist christians because the prophecies would be just so obviously true.I still think that what IS obvious is that the believers are not basing their belief on the veracity of the prophecies, but instead believe certain things BEFORE they investigate any prophecy, and then twist and turn and interpret heavily in order to force the Bible to confirm what they already believe.

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Tweaking the life and death of Jesus is easier said than done. The original would be tweakers were the Jewish religious leaders and others who tried to cover up the resurrection. The would be tweakers have failed all the way from then til now.

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Actually, the original tweakers are the writers of the gospels themselves.That's why John is so radically different from the other three gosples, for example.Also, translators have tweaked all kinds of things over time.There is no original text of the Bible.

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All the gospels have a different slant on the message for the purpose/role each was to play in the finished cannon, but pretty much consistently without any contradiction.

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I would contend that the reasons the Gospels changed were mostly sociopolitical.In addition, John paints Christ as a much more symbolic "sacrificial lamb" who's sacrifice had to do with an eternal, spiritual salvation.That's why the timing of the crucifiction is changed in John.The other three gospels are talking about Jesus coming back very soon as a military leader to conquer all of Israel's enemies, but by the time John was written, it was pretty clear that this was not going to happen. That's the reframing, or tweaking of making Jesus' sacrifice a symbolic one for all of the future.