Part 2
The Prophecies concerning Messiah
There are many prophecies concerning the Messiah to be found in the Hebrew Scriptures. The majority of them are the glorious kingly and priestly prophecies that Yeshua did not fulfill when he was on earth some two thousand years ago. Jews point to this fact as proof that Yeshua is not the Messiah. Those of us who believe Yeshua is alive and returning, believe that he will fulfill all of these glorious prophecies when he returns. But there are a few Messianic prophecies that are not glorious and indicate that the Messiah would suffer. Isaiah 53 is probably the most notable of them. Here are a few excerpts.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and YHWH has laid on him the iniquity of us all. … He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of My people he was stricken, and they made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich at his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Isaiah 53:5-6,8-9 NKJV
This chapter from Isaiah concerning the suffering servant is best read in its entirety. When Jewish anti-missionaries try to address this prophecy we are told that the suffering servant is Israel as a nation and that it’s not prophetic of Yeshua. We are told that Israel is suffering for its own sins in this passage. But there are several things wrong with this picture. The first is Isaiah’s use of the term “cut off” which literally means killed or executed. This fact is evident in that it says the one who was cut off, was cut off “from the land of the living“. Israel as a nation of people has never ceased to exist and continues to live to this day. Secondly is the idea that Israel is suffering for its own sins when this prophecy clearly indicates that someone other than “My people” (Israel) is suffering on Israel’s behalf. And thirdly, is the picture in the prophecy that this suffering person had done nothing wrong and was guiltless. How could this possibly be speaking of Israel as a nation? Are we really to believe that Israel is his own guiltless sufferer who is suffering for his own sins? The picture is oxymoronic and caves in on itself. The interpretation simply doesn’t fit the passage. It should be apparent that Jewish anti-missionaries are desperately trying to find some interpretation other than the obvious.
Another prophecy concerning Messiah’s suffering comes from the book of Daniel. The angel Gabriel appeared to Daniel and gave him a prophecy concerning when the Messiah would come and what would happen to him.
“Seventy weeks (70×7=490 years) are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks (69 weeks total: 49 years, then 434 years for a total of 483 years) The street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times. And after the sixty-two weeks (which is the end of the same 483 years) Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be as with a flood, and till the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm a covenant with the many for one week (7 years); But in the middle of the week he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, Even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate.”
Daniel 9:24-27 NKJV
Here again, it is prophesied that the Messiah would be executed, and again, that not for himself! This prophecy is impossible to avoid. I have yet to hear an argument as to how this could be in reference to anyone or anything other than Yeshua. A number of Jews have become Messianic believers in Yeshua on the basis of this prophecy alone. But not only does this prophecy predict the execution of the Messiah, it predicts when he would come.
The term “week” in this prophecy is generally accepted to be a period of 7 years. One of the most important keys to unlocking its interpretation is to remember that this prophecy focuses on the city of Jerusalem. Nearly all expositors seem to lose track of this fact before reaching the end of the prophecy. Gabriel said that at the end of the 490-year period would come the end of Jerusalem’s troubles. Everlasting righteousness would come, and the Most Holy Place in the temple would once again be anointed with the presence of God. This is the very thing Daniel was praying for! The picture Gabriel paints of the time immediately following the fulfillment of the 70 weeks is a description of the Messianic age. The full timeframe of 490 years is divided into three parts. They are 49 years, then 434 years, and then 7 years. The first two parts are evidently consecutive, and together they add up to 483 years. Then there is a gap or span of time between the end of the 483 years and the last 7 years. But it is clear in the prophecy that the first 483 years of this prophecy is the total amount of time that would elapse between two specific events. The beginning is, “…the going forth of the decree to restore and build Jerusalem”, and the consummation of it was to be the appearing of “Messiah the Prince” in Jerusalem.
There have been a number of theories advanced by Christian scholars as to what events in history fulfilled these prophecies and how the time span between them adds up to 483 years. I have researched several of the more respected theories and noticed that each of them has excellent arguments that prove the other theories must be in error! Consequently, none of them work!
Instead of trying to make historical events fit the 483-year time frame, I approach it from a different angle and start by looking at the prophecy to establish which events best fit the description of the prophecy. The first event is the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem. There were two decrees issued 13 years apart by the king of Persia. Many believe the first decree as recorded in Ezra 7 is the fulfillment of the first part of this prophecy. Here, Ezra gives a year and month in which Artaxerxes, king of Persia, issued a decree to go and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. It was in the fifth month of the seventh year of the king. The problem with this decree is that it concerns rebuilding the temple, and has nothing to do with the city of Jerusalem. The prophecy concerns the city of Jerusalem. It is the second decree of Artaxerxes that came 13 years later that specifically concerns the city. This decree is recorded in Nehemiah 2 where it says the decree went out in the Hebrew month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes. This date on our calendar would have been anywhere from mid-March to late April in the year 446 B.C. Most Christian scholars reject this date as the kick-off date because 483 years later takes us to 38 A.D. This is at least 6 years too late to reconcile with any event during Yeshua’s time. But for now, let’s accept this date because the ordering of Jerusalem to be rebuilt best fits the prophecy. Now let us turn our attention to finding the event that best fulfills this prophecy and the ending of this time period.
Here, there are several schools of thought again. And again, the differences are largely due to the difficulty in making the 483-year prophecy fit the time frame. Because some scholars use earlier dates for the kick-off of the 483-year period, they subsequently must use earlier dates in Yeshua’s life for the prophecy’s fulfillment. Some work with his birth date and still others use his baptism as the point of fulfillment. There are several problems with each of these theories. But for the sake of time let’s look at the main focal points of the prophecy.
“…from the going forth of the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince…”
“…until Messiah the Prince…” does what? The answer is; when Messiah the Prince comes into Jerusalem as the Messiah. The central figure in this entire prophecy is Jerusalem. This is where many scholars miss it. This prophecy concerns the Messiah and Jerusalem together. There is only one event in the life of Yeshua that can fit this prophecy. Interestingly enough, this event has a parallel, more detailed prophecy in Zechariah.
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Zechariah 9:9 NKJV
This is a prophecy concerning Yeshua’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In the record of this event found in Luke 19:28-44, Yeshua also said something interesting as he was riding the colt toward the city.
Then, as he was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying; “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees called to him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” But he answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.” Now as he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace…”
Luke 19:37-42a NKJV
This day was no ordinary day. It was apparently so special, had not the disciples praised Yeshua as the Messiah, the stones would have done the job for them. And Yeshua said to Jerusalem, “this is your day“! Question: What day? Answer; The very day the prophecies from Daniel and Zechariah were fulfilled!
Based on cross-referencing historical data with information found in the gospels, we have great confidence of when this day was. On our calendar, it would have fallen on April 20th in the year 31 A.D. …five days before the Passover on April 25th when Yeshua was crucified. (See chart) This fits perfectly with the picture given in Daniel’s prophecy. Gabriel said that after the 69 weeks when the Messiah entered Jerusalem “Messiah shall be cut off“. Again, this is a well-understood Hebrew phrase meaning “executed”. Five days later is, for all practical purposes, immediately after!
But now the problem is the math doesn’t work out. From 446 B.C. to 31 A.D. is only 476 years. (Note: There is no “0” year.) The total of 476 years is 7 years short of 483!
The key to solving this problem can be found in Revelation chapter 12. In verse 6, there is mention of a time period of 1,260 days. Later, in verse 14, this same period of time is referred to as 3.5 years in the encrypted phrase, “a time, and times, and half a time”. If we divide 1,260 by 3.5 we get 360-day years! This is the key. God does not see a year as 365.25 days as we do. He counts 360 days as a year. I believe that before the flood, our clock (both solar and lunar) was in perfect sync with God’s clock in heaven. But due to events that were responsible for the physics of the flood, our earth was slowed in its track around the sun so that it now takes an extra 5.25 days for it to complete its cycle. Whether my theory is the case or not, it’s apparent from the book of Revelation that God sees a year as 360 days.
One also has to ask why a circle was divided into 360 degrees when it could have been divided into any number of segments. Wouldn’t 100 or 1,000 segments make more sense? Why the oddball number of 360? The answer is obvious. There are several ancient calendars from times not long after the flood that have exactly 360-day years! Apparently, Noah’s descendants continued doing what they had done before the flood.
So let’s take the dates I have given for the beginning and end of the prophecy and rework them with a 360 day year. We only have a specific month to work with for the beginning of the 483-year prophecy (Nisan), but we have an exact date for the fulfillment of Yeshua’s triumphal entry… April 20th 31A.D. Working with whole years from this point back to April 20th 446 B.C. we can multiply 476 years by 365.25 days to find out how many days had elapsed during that period. We come up with 173,859 days. If we now divide that time period by 360, guess what we come up with? We get 482.9416 years! We are short only 21 days of a perfect 483 years. Since we were working with whole years, all we have to do is back up 21 days from April 20th and come to March 31 of the year 446 B.C. when the decree went out. This is 8-9 days after the vernal equinox of that year and in the Hebrew month Nisan …the very month that Nehemiah said Artaxerxes made the decree!
When Yeshua made his triumphal entry is when the Messiah arrived in Jerusalem… right on schedule. Immediately after, he was “cut off” and executed as the prophecy foretold!
Fulfilled Prophecies that Yeshua made
Yeshua also made a number of prophecies concerning future events. If they came to pass, or even begin to come to pass, what would that say about him? He foretold the destruction of the temple in Matthew 24:1,2 and Luke 21:5,6 and it came to pass in 70 A.D. Along with the destruction of the temple, Yeshua prophesied concerning the city of Jerusalem itself.
Now as he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even you , especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
Luke 19:41-44 NKJV
This prophecy came to pass in the 40th year after Yeshua spoke it.
Prophecies that weren’t possible in Yeshua’s time
Yeshua also spoke a couple of prophecies that weren’t physically possible at that time, but they are today! He said that if God didn’t shorten the days before his return, man would annihilate all life on earth.
“For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved, but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened. ”
Matthew 24:21,22 NKJV
Man has never had the capacity to accomplish such a feat until recently. We know that today, man is very capable of annihilating all life on the planet with nuclear weapons. Until recently, no one seriously thought Yeshua’s prophecy was possible.
Yeshua also said another thing would happen at his return that wasn’t possible until very recently. He said every eye would see him at his return. John makes this statement in Revelation.
“Behold, he is coming with clouds, and every eye will see him, and they also who pierced him. And all the nations of the earth will mourn because of him!”
Revelation 1:7
John was referring to something Yeshua had said years before in the following passage:
“Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There! do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. Therefore if they say to you ‘Look, he is in the desert!’ do not go out; or ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms!’ don not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be (seen). For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together.”
Matthew 24:23-28 NKJV
This passage is wrapped around the subject matter of seeing Yeshua return as evidenced in the use of the word “Look“. He uses this word three times to further establish that seeing him is the issue. So it should be understood that when he says: “So shall the coming of the son of man be…”, he means seen …which I interjected in parenthesis. Yeshua was telling his disciples that when he returns, there won’t be any question about it because it will be obvious to the eyes of the whole world. John, the author of Revelation, was there that day and heard Yeshua speak these words. He is the one who later testified in Revelation that “every eye will see him.” Yeshua said his return would be seen by everyone at the speed which lightning striking in the east is instantly seen reflected in the west. That’s a description of the speed of light! Have you ever wondered how something like this might happen? Yeshua explains how in the very next sentence. He starts it with the word “For” which means “because”. Then he says “wherever the carcass is, there the vultures will be gathered together.” So how do vultures gathering around carcasses make it possible for his return to be seen by every eye at the speed of light? In speaking of opportunistic scavengers like vultures, Yeshua could not have chosen a more fitting metaphor to describe today’s news media! There was no way he could have explained the concept of television and news media to his disciples. He had to use an illustrating metaphor. When the sign of Yeshua’s return appears in the heavens, every news agency on earth will be in Jerusalem with their high-definition cameras trained on the sky. For “every eye” on earth to see Yeshua at his return is possible today! Nobody could have imagined it when he said it. Could it be that our incredible video telecommunications have been brought into existence is for the very purpose of fulfilling this prophecy? With all the high-definition live streaming news available on T.V.s, computers, and cell phones today, you can be sure that every eye will be seeing him …in real-time.
The photograph in the shroud
While in consideration of Yeshua’s Messiahship, there is another artifact of history that is worth mentioning at this point. I believe there is a purpose for this artifact’s existence.
As much as I am opposed to the practice of worshiping supposed relics from the time of Yeshua, there is one artifact that I am absolutely convinced is genuine. It’s the shroud of Turin. It is believed by many to be the actual burial cloth of Yeshua, upon which is scorched a negative photo of him. Below is an enhanced photograph of the shroud.
It is believed by many, including myself, that when the power of YHWH came upon Yeshua to raise him from the dead, the energy radiated in a polarized vertical direction both above and below Yeshua’s body causing his image to be scorched as a photo negative on the cloth. Nearly everyone has heard of the shroud and seen pictures of it in print and documentaries, and most have come to their own conclusions as to its authenticity. One more recent “discovery” that is popular among those who do not believe Yeshua was raised from the dead is that Leonardo DaVinci not only painted it but the face in the shroud is a self-portrait of DaVinci! From a personal point of view, nothing would change in what I believe about Yeshua if the shroud were to turn out to be a forgery. My belief in Yeshua has absolutely nothing to do with the authenticity of the shroud. On the other hand, those who don’t want to believe Yeshua was raised from the dead can’t afford for the shroud to be authentic for obvious reasons. I was a believer in Yeshua’s resurrection long before I heard of the shroud. When I first heard of it, I brushed it off as a forgery because of my aversion to the practice of relic worship. But since then, I have listened to the arguments and have spent many hours studying photographs of the shroud and have subsequently become firmly convinced it is genuine.
Because those of us who already believe in Yeshua’s resurrection are not threatened by the prospect of the shroud turning out to be a forgery, we are in a far better position to be objective in our analysis of it. Those who have read everything in my book up to this point know that I believe the institutions of Christianity are themselves a form of forgery. I do not believe God officially recognizes a single religious institution. They are all the forging of mere men. But I believe the Shroud of Turin is genuine and not a forgery. Alternately, those who refuse to consider the possibility of Yeshua’s resurrection must find a way to discredit the Shroud.
Carbon 14 dating of the shroud
The one bit of scientific evidence that appears to prove the shroud is a forgery is carbon 14 dating. C14 indicates the shroud was made sometime around the 14th century. This one bit of evidence is the end of the argument and trump card for the nonbeliever. This, in spite of the fact that there are indisputable historical references made of the shroud from long before the earliest C14 dates. But without this dating evidence, the skeptics have no other solid evidence or logic to support their skepticism. C14 has proven to have more than its fair share of reliability problems in determining the age of certain artifacts. This would be especially true of an artifact like the shroud because it has been subjected to date skewing elements like carbon-based soot and smoke from fires as well as biological elements that are now known to have grown on the fibers of the cloth.
There is also one other date-skewing possibility that must be considered. If one is going to be perfectly objective in their scientific analysis of the shroud, one cannot start with any presuppositions concerning its authenticity. A true scientist will be able to fully consider the possibility that the shroud is a forgery, and with that, they must also fully consider the possibility that the shroud is genuine. And with the consideration that the shroud could be the genuine burial cloth of Yeshua, it must also be considered that the energy that caused his image to be seared on the cloth, in all probability subjected it to forces that science does not yet understand. After all, it’s not every day that someone comes back to life after being dead for three days! We know from Scripture that all death and decay are detestable to God and there is none of it in His presence. We also know that when His power comes in contact with anything, death and decay cease. One possibility that must be considered is that it may have taken hundreds of years for any residual death and decay arresting energy remaining on the cloth to completely fade away before natural decay like C14 could resume. The bottom line is that C14 is not a reliable indicator… especially in the case of the shroud. It is foolish for an objective person to rest the entire case of the shroud on this one bit of unreliable evidence.
The shroud could not be the work of a forger
One fact that needs to be considered in this is that there is no possible way a medieval forger could have known his work would eventually be put to the scientific scrutiny that the shroud is being subjected to today. Yet the shroud continues to confound researchers as it yields authenticating information that has been indecipherable before. A forger would have had to go to unimaginable lengths to incorporate this information into the shroud for no good reason whatsoever. For one thing, people of medieval times were generally illiterate and very gullible followers of the church and easily fooled into believing most anything the church told them to believe. A forger wouldn’t have needed to incorporate even a fraction of the authenticating information found in the shroud to successfully dupe the masses for many hundreds of years. Of the hidden facts that no one could have known until the recent advent of high-tech forensic analysis are these.
1. The blood was placed on the cloth first before the image was burned on it because the image of the man was burned on top of the blood! How difficult would that have been to accomplish and get the blood in exactly the right places, and more importantly, how could a forger have known anyone would ever be able to tell the difference? Wouldn’t it have been much easier to make the image first, and then strategically place blood in exactly the right spots?
2. The blood on the cloth was saturated with excessive amounts of bilirubin. How could a forger know that the brutal scourging Yeshua endured from the Roman flagrum causes what medical science today calls erythrocyte hemolysis, let alone know that someone in the future might possess the technology to be able to tell the difference?
3. Dirt from the feet of the man in the shroud is consistent with that of the calcium carbonate soil of the Jerusalem area. How could a forger know there was a difference and that someone in the future would be able to discern the difference?
4. Many pollen grains embedded in the shroud fibers are from plants that are indigenous exclusively to Israel. A forger in Europe would have had to obtain the pollen and intentionally salt the fabric with it. How could a forger have known the difference himself and that many hundreds of years later the pollen grains would still be there and someone would be able to identify them?
Then there are the more obvious facts concerning the man in the shroud that defy conventional medieval pictures of the crucifixion. The question is, why would a forger produce a picture that the masses would instantly be inclined to reject? Among these bold-face clashes with the conventional thinking of medieval times are these.
1. The nails that held the man in the shroud to the cross went through his wrists. In medieval times, every painting of the crucifixion portrayed the nails going squarely through Yeshua’s palms. We now know that the Romans nailed their victims through the wrists.
2. The man in the shroud is naked. This would have shocked and repulsed medieval Christians.
3. The head of the man in the shroud is situated too low on the body to look natural. How could an incredibly talented forger make such a simple and obvious mistake? The low appearing head is due to the fact that rigor mortise had set in and Yeshua’s head was stuck in a slight hanging down position, and he wasn’t lying flat when he was placed in the shroud. Therefore, the distance between his chin and chest was much shorter for the shroud to span so that when the shroud is laid flat, it looks like his head is too low on his body.
4. The face of the man in the shroud is so unnatural looking with his long nose and large eye sockets that no one would naturally want to believe their Lord looked like an alien from mars! Why would a forger do something like this? Even today, people can’t believe Yeshua actually looked the way he appears on the shroud. Those who publish pictures of his face regularly tweak the aspect ratio of the pictures in an attempt to make him look a little more human. Below is an un-tweaked picture of the face in the shroud.
If this is actually how Yeshua looked, Judas wouldn’t have had to identify him with a kiss. He could have just told the authorities, “Yeshua is the one with the unbelievably long face and nose… and he has huge eyes! There’s no one else like him… you can’t miss him!” But Judas had to betray him with a kiss. Apparently, Yeshua didn’t appear very different from other Jewish men his age. And to reiterate the main point, why would a forger who wanted his hoax to be believed, go and produce something so unbelievable?
Many who have come to who love Yeshua are disappointed at what they see in this picture. We don’t really want it to be a true representation of him. He doesn’t look at all normal. After studying this picture for a long time I made a startling discovery. It was only after a television documentary made the observation that the man in the shroud appeared to have a broken nose that I made the discovery. It does indeed appear that Yeshua’s nose is broken. But if one looks closely at the point of the supposed break in his nose, it will be noticed that there are two dark shadows angling slightly downward across his cheeks on both sides of his face. And on the left side of the picture, if one follows the shadow to the area of his hair, there appears to be what looks like a white string with two breaks in it. Notice that these breaks are in perfect alignment with the shadow and apparent break in Yeshua’s nose. For the first time, I realized that these anomalies in the picture are probably due to the very natural way a cloth might warp and wrinkle as it is draped across a person’s face! And where the wrinkle crossed the nose, the image of the nose would be slightly offset giving the appearance of a broken nose! Also, if one looks closely at the bridge of Yeshua’s nose just below his brow, two more faint dark lines are observable. The lower one lines up perfectly with the white line through the eye on the right. This is another small wrinkle that was in the cloth at the time Yeshua’s image was scorched onto it. When Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus placed Yeshua’s body in the cloth, they had no idea that his resurrection might photocopy an image of Yeshua on the cloth… so they wouldn’t have known that they should have pulled every wrinkle out of it! Below is an example of how the cloth might have draped across Yeshua’s face.
Consequently, when the shroud is laid flat and the wrinkles pulled out of it, the image of Yeshua’s face becomes elongated and distorted. Wrinkles and creases in the shroud at the time of Yeshua’s resurrection are responsible for a number of problems researchers have come across. One problem is that Yeshua’s dorsal image is longer than the front view. This obviously means there were more wrinkles in the cloth under Yeshua’s back. This too is strong evidence that the shroud is not the work of a forger. What forger who might possess the unbelievable talent to accomplish such a forgery would make the simple mistake of portraying the back image longer than the front? We must also ask the question, why would a forger bother with going to the extraordinary length of producing a back view at all? A front view by itself would have been more than sufficient to accomplish a hoax.
Below are two pictures for comparison. The top picture is the unaltered version of Yeshua’s face as it appears on the shroud. The picture below it is an adjusted picture with the wrinkle effect in the cloth removed. When compared side by side, the distortion from the wrinkle effect in the original becomes obvious.
This must be much closer to how Yeshua actually appeared to those who knew him. Future work on the shroud will no doubt remove more distortions and give us an even more accurate picture of him.
A reason for the shroud’s existence
I believe God has intentionally given mankind a photograph of Yeshua for a purpose. I have previously argued that the Messiah must be required to provide a genealogical record of his ancestry to David through his fathers, and Levi through his mother, and I have shown that Yeshua is the only one who is capable of providing both of these. In the absence of these, a false Messiah could deceive many. But then the problem arises, what if a false Messiah claims to be Yeshua? How will we know he’s not Yeshua? Here is where God’s provision in giving us a photograph will set the record straight. Thanks to the help of modern technology which gives us the ability to refine and enhance the image on the shroud, we now have a pretty good idea of how Yeshua appears. Anyone who claims to be Yeshua and cannot be recognized as the same person whose face is in the shroud should be considered a fraud. Conversely, when Yeshua does appear, we will know without a doubt that it is him. He will certainly appear in much better physical condition as well as appear with great glory. His eyes may appear as a flame of fire, and his hair as white as wool (Revelation 1:12-15), but like John, we will see his face and recognize him as the person whose face is seen in the shroud.
Conclusion
Having made the case for Yeshua’s Messiahship, I still maintain that it is not absolutely necessary at this point in time for the Jewish person to believe that Yeshua is the Messiah. But the time is soon coming when it will become obvious to the world that Yeshua is alive and returning. When the sign of his coming appears, the nations of the world will get together to decide what to do about it. When it becomes understood that Yeshua is not in a good mood or coming in peace but plans on a violent overthrow of all world governments, after which a dictatorial monarchy will be established where he rules the whole world from Jerusalem, these world leaders led by the Devil himself will portray Yeshua as a co-evolved alien from space that must be defeated. It will literally be the war of the worlds. We are already, constantly, being subliminally programmed to think about this possibility in the books and movies that have been produced. When it happens, the governing powers of the world will demand that every person state their loyalties. At that time it will be absolutely necessary for all who hope to be around for the glorious Messianic age of true peace on earth, to align themselves with Yeshua.
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