The Resurrection of Messiah Yeshua Prophesied in the Hebrew Scriptures

In recent years, as many Christians have been rediscovering the Hebrew roots of their faith, some Bible teachers are casting a shadow of doubt and skepticism on some of the most fundamental aspects of the Christian faith. 

Such cornerstone Christian doctrines as the deity of Yeshua, his incarnation, his virgin birth, his blood atonement and his bodily resurrection are now being called into question by some skeptics. They claim that these concepts were not components of the original apostolic faith, but were added later, and that the Apostolic Scriptures were redacted by the early church fathers to reflect a diluted Hebraic-based faith melded with some popular pagan concepts of the day.

Indeed, a cursory study of the writings of the Anti-nicene church fathers reveals that there occurred much syncretizing between Christianity and Greek or Hellenistic (pagan) thought and a rejection of much of what was considered to be Jewish, such as the Torah (law of Moses). But what aspects of the apostolic faith did they indeed keep without replacing it with a paganized counterfeit? What aspects of Christian orthodoxy are original to the apostles? How can we know whether what we have learned in the Christian church is the truth or not? These are serious questions that need answers. If one comes to the wrong conclusion on these issues, the eternal consequences could be devastating!

Sadly, some Believers have bought into the line of reasoning without studying the issues carefully that the deity of Yeshua, his virgin birth and incarnation, the blood atonement and his bodily resurrection are pagan concepts. Some make these bold assertions based on the belief that these concepts are foreign to the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). Is this true? This author has proven in other works posted on our ministry web site (www.hoshanarabbah.org) that the deity and incarnation of Yeshua, the virgin birth, and the blood atonement are Hebrew, not pagan concepts, and are rooted firmly in and prophesied about in the Hebrew Scriptures. 

In this teaching article, we will discuss the issue of the bodily resurrection of Yeshua. It must be acknowledged that if Yeshua did not resurrect from the grave after his crucifixion then he failed to defeat sin, death and the grave, and it therefore follows that he is not the Savior and Redeemer of man, man has no hope of a bodily resurrection or afterlife himself, and as Paul said, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die (1 Cor. 15:32).

There were those who questioned the fundamentals of the faith in Paul’s day, for he spoke of those who had left the faith and had become spiritually shipwrecked (1 Tim. 1:19). Furthermore, he was not so self-assured to think that even he could defect from the very faith he preached and become himself a spiritual castaway or reprobate (1 Cor. 9:27). This should be a word of warning to us all to diligently search out the Scriptures, and to prove whether what we have been taught to believe squares with the Hebrew Scriptures or not. That is the basis for determining the truth of what is written in the Apostolic Scriptures—nothing more and nothing less.

Scriptures and Analysis

In this brief study, we will present to you a series of texts from the Hebrew Scriptures (or Old Testament) with commentary that foretell of a Messianic Redeemer dying and then bodily resurrecting.

Psalms 16:10, For thou wilt not leave my soul [nephesh] in hell [sheol]; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy [chaseed or faithful, kind, pious, devout, saint, godly] One to see ­corruption [shakhath or decay of the grave, according to The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament].

COMMENT: To whom is this verse referring? Who is YHVH’s Holy One? This is obviously not a reference normal humans whose bodies and souls go into the grave at the time of death (so says this verse) to await the resurrection, and where they decay into dust. Who in Scripture, but Messiah Yeshua resurrected after three days before his body could corrupt (start to decay)? According to Jewish thought, bodily decay starts after three days.

Psalms 49:15, But Elohim will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me. Selah. 

COMMENT: This is a generic reference to the resurrection of the righteous. Using a kal v’khomer or light and heavy (a fortiori) rule of logic (or Rabbi Hillel’s first law of Biblical hermeneutics/interpretation) we can reason that if the righteous dead are resurrected how much more so YHVH’s righteous Messiah?

Psalms 22:26, The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise YHVH that seek him: your heart shall live for ever.

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New Video: Three Days & Three Nights Explained Hebraically

When Yeshua declared that he’d be in the tomb for three days and three nights, did he mean what he said, or did he mean parts of three days and nights as most believe? When you connect the burial and resurrection of Yeshua to its Hebraic understanding, suddenly everything falls into place and the Scriptures make perfect sense as this video shows in graphic detail.