How is it YOU cannot understand? There was no New Testament in the days of Christ. That's right.
Don’t you think the Jews of Christ’s day were at least just as smart and inquisitive as you concerning such a monumental decision about a person many of them had only heard about?
Yes, I do. That's why Jesus was not accepted by most Jews.
Don’t you think they were wondering about the character and nature of THEIR messiah just a “little” more than YOU (unless you were/are a Jew) when it came to deciding about the veracity of Christ’s messiah-ship knowing that accepting Him as such would mean sure persecution and ostracism from friend and foe alike?
Stop there. Think a minute. If he were really the Messiah, persecution and ostracism wouldn't be the reaction. A man who unites the Jews and drives out foreign power will be a hero. And remember, THAT is the Messiah they were looking for.
Every one of the disciples, and then every one of those JEWS who were converted during the early days of the church had ONLY the OT scriptures to assess Christ’s merits. Coupled with Christ’s own life and testimony, these scriptures persuaded them that He was, in fact, their messiah.
Yes! A rather small handful of the population, but nevertheless, he did have followers. And he had them convinced that he was born in Bethlehem (although he was from Nazareth), that his mother was descended from David (which she probably was), and that his father's descent from Solomon didn't really count because that was not his real father.
He did manage to convince a number of people. He gathered together a cabinet of 12 and made his entrance into Jerusalem in a carefully orchestrated parade intended to fulfill yet one more piece of OT prophecy.
However, as I've pointed out, politics is a nasty business... studying the affairs the Tudors and the Medicis ought to be lesson enough.
But somehow a_perfect_lady has got it in her head that she has a sounder grasp on the OT than these of the early church. You know what that sounds like, don’t you.
No I don't. I think they had a very sound grasp and they knew exactly what Jesus was there to do. It's you who thinks you have a sounder grasp on Jesus than the people who actually lived and traveled with him for years.
Peter responds to those who would question how it is he and the early disciples came to the realization of who Christ was/is...
The book of Peter says that Peter said this. This means that whoever wrote the book of Peter wants you to believe that Peter said this. And you do.
But you'd do better to read the NT with an eye toward discovering what the authors felt was important. One of the things they felt was very, very important was that Jesus was born in Bethlehem (in the strangest "census" ever conducted.) Another was that his father was NOT Joseph. Another was that his mother was descended from King David.
Christ’s believers don’t follow some “parallel” version of the OT, but rather its fulfillment.
Christ's modern day believers pick through the OT and look for verses for which they can find a parallel in the NT.
The OT isn’t negated by the NT, it looks forward to it.
It's neither. The NT was written with an eye toward utilizing the OT to make a compelling case, and the two have been groomed constantly since to try and bring them more into alignment by people who were not there and have an agenda utterly different from the original Jesus and his cabinet.
Now, you really must stop with your argument that all decisions for Christ are born through some negation of the OT.
I don't have to stop anything. Not on your word, anyway. If you keep asking questions, I'll keep answering. If you don't like it, stop asking. Having said that, I'm not negating the OT at all. I'm saying that you are interpreting it through the lens of the NT and that renders you unable to see Jesus as his disciples did.
They (the OT scriptures) are the very proof-texts that provide the final support for all discerning believers’ decisions for Christ.
They are proof that people will interpret things to support what they already believe even when they have nothing to do with it. You read the OT like a global warming activist reads carefully chosen data. Look at Isaiah 53:2: 2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
Either Jesus was ugly, or Isaiah is about Israel, just like it says it is. But Christians routinely claim that the verse before it and the one after it is about Jesus. They never say anything about this one. It doesn't fit their purposes.