Interesting. Which JEWISH reader of the Hebrew Scriptures also sees the OBVIOUS interpretations that Christians see into them? The only reason why Christians read the Scriptures the way we do regarding the OT is that we base them on the paradigm that they are speaking of Christ. But reading the Scriptures without this notion do NOT make the Scriptures "obviously" pointing to Christ.
Thus, a Jew can ask YOU the same question regarding your "decoder ring". NO original reader of the Hebrew Scriptures read that the Messiah would be born of a virgin woman, for example...
We read the Scriptures based on the teachings given to us from the Apostles, not by reading them outside of the Church's passed down teachings. This becomes clear when you read the very first orthodox Christians in their battle against the Gnostics.
Regards
That's an interesting point. But remember that not all Christians see Christ in all the OT prophecies. Some of them still still animal sacrifices, a Levitical priesthood, and a physical national of Israel in His place.
One could easily come away with a literalist interpretation of Ezekiel 40-48 if you ignore Christ and the rest of the NT. (Not to mention the fact that you have to read into the passage contingencies such that the animal sacrifices are merely "memorials" even though it doe snot say that in the text.)
In fact, this is precisely what the apostate Jews of Jesus day did. They would not believe He was the Messiah of Israel because they were looking for a physical kingdom based on a "literal" reading of the OT. They had a faulty interpretive grid though which they were filtering their information. Jesus would have nothing to do with their resulting faulty expectations.
Dispensationalism has a similar faulty interpretive grid, and thus it is just Jewish fables writ large.
There is no analogy, as your very example indicates. Isaiah 7:14 indicates a miraculous virgin birth, and that is exactly what happened. Their King did come mounted on a donkey, He was bruised for their transgressions, He was of the house of David, He was born in Bethlehem, He did bodily die, He was bodily resurrected... and on and on and on. Precisely as predicted.
Before I was a Christian, I used a decoder ring. It was taking the ring off that was instrumental in my conversion. The difference between topcat's approach to the prophecies he doesn't like, and that of New Agers to Scriptures they don't like, is only one of detail.
If I were forced to conclude that topcat's way of mishandling Scripture were THE Christian way, then I can't see concluding other than that words are meaningless, and Christianity is a hoax.
I'd love a Jew to ask me about my decoder ring. I'd show him I have none, unless my actually believing the truth of his own Scriptures -- which no Jew I've talked to actually does -- is a decoder ring.
For further help, check out The Science of Bible Reading.
Dan