Is the story of Christianity in the Old Testament?

Answer 1

The Old Testament was written before the advent of Christianity and thus there is no mention of Christianity in it, nor even any prefigurement of Christianity or the life of Jesus.

However, Burton L Mack (Who Wrote the New Testament) describes a trick wherein one can ask any question of the Bible and get some kind of answer, then if the first answer does not appear to be helpful, one looks for another answer to the same question, until the right answer appears. With a little ingenuity, one can set up the comparison again with other emphases and make the answer come out right. In this way, it really is possible to point to hundreds of references to the story of Christianity in the Old Testament.

Even the place of Jesus' birth, identified in Matthew and Luke as Bethlehem, and his descent from King David can be said to be a fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies. However, the authors of Matthew and Luke knew of these expectations, and the author of John's Gospel suggests that he does not really believe that Jesus was either born in Bethlehem or descended from David ((7:41-42): "Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was?" Moreover, the genealogies that Matthew and Luke provide as evidence of the royal descent are entirely different and contradictory. There is little doubt that in these cases, the New Testament authors wrote their accounts in terms that would appear to come from the Old Testament.