A little bit of prophecy is found on Geitner Simmons blog. He cites a review of Norman Podhoretz's new book, "The Prophets: Who They Were, What They Are."

According to the review, Podhoretz says in his book that the Hebrew and Jewish prophets have been misread, lo, these many centuries:

They [the Hebrew prophets] were, he concludes, not chiefly interested in predicting Christianity, or in propagandizing for secular social justice; they were, rather, engaged in a very this-worldly struggle against the particular challenges of idolatry in their own time and place.

I agree with his point, but I disagree that this is news. In my seminary and personal studies I never heard or concluded that the prophets of the Jewish scriptures were predicting Christianity or the Church. There were substantial prophecies of a Messiah, but Christians and Jews have not agreed on what or who exactly was being prophesied, and neither have modern scholars.

The review also cites Podhoretz's examination of the test in Isaiah that presumedly prophecies birth of the Messiah to a virgin (quoted in the Gospel of Matthew), and concludes that Isaiah was not actually referring to a virgin, but a young woman. Now, this is not news - see my own posting on the virgin birth. But Geitnmer says that a Christian friend of his emailed him that Jesus did claim another Isaiah prophecy as referring to him specifically. Luke 4 records that Jesus read a passage from Isaiah 61 that everyone in Jesus days understood to be a messianic prophecy. Jesus told the people that the prophecy was now fulfilled in their hearing. Says Geitner's correspondent, erroneously:

As further proof that Jesus knew the implication of what he was saying, the people in the synagogue became very angry and drove him out of town and up to a cliff where they planned to throw him down.

But that is the kind of textual misreading of the sort that Podhoretz seems to be writing against. In fact, Jesus' hearers were not the slightest bit upset that Jesus claimed messianic identity, as Luke makes clear:

All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked.

As I explained in a sermon about this passage:

At first, his hearers are not angry like they are at the end. "Wow!" they say. "This is Joseph's son! Who'd-uh thunk it?" Then they wait for Jesus to perform the same sort of miracles in Nazareth he had performed in Capernaum. That was the custom back then--when the local boy made good, he always went home and shared his good fortune and accomplishments with his hometown people. The clan, you see, was everything. The notion of leaving home, making one's fame or fortune and then staying away just wasn't part of the picture. So Jesus' hometown friends and family were waiting for Jesus to get to wonder working so they could vicariously share his fame. They had something of a religious inferiority complex anyway, since according to the gospel of John everyone knew that no prophet had ever come from Galilee.

In short, the townspeople heard Jesus' declaration as his promise of special favor to them. Jesus didn't go for it, though. He quoted more scripture to turn the tables on them. He points out that Elijah went to a Gentile widow during a great drought where he received aid and support, despite the fact that there were ample numbers of Jewish widows available, if widows were what was needed. Also, during Elisha's time, none of the Jewish lepers got healed, only the Gentile Syrian, Namaan.

What infuriated Jesus' hometown people was not that he apparently was claiming to be the Messiah or at least a messianic figure. They had seen that before. None of the other messianic pretenders had succeeded in doing what the Messiah was supposed to do, but they had all been good, devout Jewish men with the proper patriotic, Jews-first attitude. So if Jesus wanted to go along that route, that was okay. Maybe he would succeed, maybe he wouldn't.

What made them madder than fire was Jesus' insistence that he wasn't going to be the Messiah just for the Jews. Clearly, Jesus indicated that his saving works were going to be for Jews and Gentiles. He would accept Gentile hospitality and minister to the Gentiles. It suddenly became clear that the year of the Lord's favor was not going to be exclusively for the Jews. And that put Jesus' listeners over the top.

So this crowd of worshipers was suddenly transformed from a congregation into a mob. They ran Jesus right out of town and chased him up a hill, then grabbed him to pitch him off a cliff. But Jesus got away and left town.