Who prophesied Jesus' death first?

Answer 1

None.

The Pharisees were religious Jews. In Judaism, no man can die for the sins of others; the Torah (holy Jewish text) specifically forbids this and makes it clear that the Jewish G-d rejects the mere notion of this.

Jesus plays no role in Judaism. He is not and never was mentioned anywhere in the Jewish religion. The Pharisees had nothing to do with what happened to Jesus and there is no reason why they would have been saying anything about it - Jesus was one of thousands of Jews crucified by the Romans for no reason.

Christian Answer

That is not true from the christian point of view.

The pharisees got the emporer to crucify Christ because they did not like what he taught. If the pharisees were religious Jews then the reason that they crucified him was because they didn't want to lose their believers or followers. He may not be mentioned in the Jewish religion but the christian religion is revolved around him. Jesus did not do anything wrong and the emporer knew it but he wanted to keep the pharisees happy. So he crucified Jesus but put His blood on the pharisees hands.

Answer 2

One can ask any question of The Bible and get some kind of answer, but this may not seem to support the answer one hopes to find. There is a trick that Burton L. Mack (Who Wrote the New Testament) sees happen all the time in the classrooms of the School of Theology at Claremont, so that one can look for another answer to the same question, until the right answer appears. This requires a little ingenuity, setting up the comparison again with other emphases until the answer comes out right. Using these simple rules, people are able to find all kinds of prophecies in the Old Testament. It is instructive to look at the Old Testament 'prophecies' that some say they have found by the prophets Zechariah and Isaiah.

Zechariah

Many say that Zechariah prophesied the death of Jesus, at verse 12:10, "And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn," or at verse 13:7, "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones." Note that neither verse mentions Jesus by name, nor identifies him as an actual person.

12:10. The entire context of chapter 12 refers to how God supports the city of Jerusalem as it faces its challenges. At the beginning of verse 10 Zecharaiah intimates that, though the Jews were then miserable and would be so in future, God would be merciful to them. He exhorts them to patience, that they might not faint through a long-continued weariness.

Using the rules described by Mack, one can take the words "they have pierced" from 12:10 and make it refer to the Roman soldier in John's Gospel. One can take the metaphor of the Jews mourning as if for their "only son" to refer to God's only son, and therefore Jesus. Suddenly, we have a prophecy of the death of Jesus, even if Zechariah himself would have been surprised.

13:7. The most that can be said here is that verse 7 speaks of a shepherd, a commonly used image in Judah. Some even see the scattered sheep as the twelve disciples!

Isaiah

Isaiah chapter 53 is one of several Servant Songs in the Book of Isaiah and here refers to the nation of Judah, yet many Christians believe it refers to the rejection of Jesus and a prophecy of his death - in spite of verse 10, which would then have to be a prediction of his children. If we accept that Jesus had no biological children of his own, then Isaiah 53 must return to its original function, as a reference to the Jewish nation, and not as a prophecy of Jesus.

Answer 3

No Old Testament book literally refers to Jesus, and there is no actual prophecy of him. But Burton L. Mack describes a trick that can be used to make any Old Testament book say what you want it to say. By this means, books such as Genesis and Isaiah have been made to prophesy Jesus. Mack says in Who Wrote the New Testamentthat at first the study of a text may not seem to support a traditional Christian conviction, or the answer one hopes to find in the Bible. But with a little ingenuity, one can set up the comparison again with other emphases and make the answer come out right. This trick seems to come naturally when studying the Bible, and Mack sees it happen all the time in the classrooms of the School of Theology at Claremont.

The most common assumption is probably that Isaiah prophesied Jesus more than others, but by following some simple rules you can have others prophesy Jesus as many times as you wish.

Answer 4

The first prophecy of Jesus death was made by Moses in Deuteronomy 21:22-23.