God and His Prophets: A verse-by-verse study through the Bible’s major and minor prophets

The Christmas Prophecy that Isn’t in the Bible (Weird Stuff in the Bible)

God and His Prophets: A verse-by-verse study through the Bible’s major and minor prophets

Show Notes

This is an episode of the Weird Stuff in the Bible podcast, which I'm also sharing here on God and His Prophets as a follow-up to Monday's episode.

What I like about Matthew’s Gospel is that he connects the Old Testament to the New. He’ll include a verse from the Old Testament and say something like, “As the prophet Jeremiah said…” or “As the prophet Isaiah said…” I appreciate that he cites his sources. Except for that time that, well, he didn’t. And we have no idea where it came from. It’s in the Christmas story, Matthew chapter 2, where it says in Verse 23

And he [Jesus] went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.

That all sounds fine, except: which prophet said that the Messiah would be called a Nazarene? And it wasn’t just one; Matthew said it was “spoken by the prophets” which means more than one. And yet you can scour your Old Testament and you will never find a single verse that the Christ would be called a Nazarene. In fact, you won’t find a single mention of Nazareth at all. So what prophecy is Matthew talking about? I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s NOT in the Bible. Turn to Matthew 2, and let’s get weird.

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0:00 - Introduction 2:00 - The Context 5:10 - The Nazareth Prophecy 13:50 - Mailbag 18:00 - Next Time

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