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
Oops, sorry, pinged the wrong topcat to the previous post.
Actually, it's not immediately clear from Isaiah 7:14 that a virgin birth is predicted. The Hebrew is almah, which refers to a young woman without regard to her sexual experience. It can refer to young, unmarried virgins, but it does not have to.
Now, the LXX rendering of Isaiah 7:14 and the quotation thereof found in Matthew use the Greek word parfenoV (parthenos), which can only mean a virgin. But it is not immediately clear from the Hebrew text that that is the meaning of Isaiah 7:14. Indeed, the conception of Maher-shalal-hash-baz (which was the first fulfillment of the prophecy) was completed in the very ordinary fashion.
Once again, this is another matter where Christian interpretation of the Old Testament is shown to be dependant upon the New Testament's guidence.
You are presuming that all of those "prophecies" refer to the same individual. It is clear that the initial readers of Isaiah and so forth did NOT see the suffering servant as refering to the kingly Messiah that was to come, much less that He was/would be GOD.
WE all look at Scriptures through our own paradigms and sets of beliefs. This is clear by the very fact that we have differences of opinion regarding so many sections of Scripture. If Scripture was so clear, why the disparity in opinions?
It is clear from reading the very first Christians writings, such as Ignatius, Clement, Justin, and Irenaeus, that they read into the Old Testament that the Christ had risen and was predicted from the very beginning of salvation history. Even the Gospel writers write this way. Of course, I agree with that - we base our beliefs on the historical facts of Jesus' resurrection from the dead. We understand that, as a result, everything in the OT pointed to Him, at least metaphorically, if not literally. We only do this because of our own beliefs, not because it is crystal clear from the Scriptures ALONE.
Regards