Jesus’ Failed Prophecy About His Return

[unfogged]

one of the things that trips me up the most is that Jesus did fulfill a lot of old testament Prophecies. other than that, I wouldn't have as much of a hard time leaving my beliefs completely behind

When the later stories were written by people who knew the earlier stories and had a vested interest in making their position sound good it isn't surprising that they used elements of the existing beliefs to support their new claims. The worst part is that they did not always get it right. The "prophecy" that a virgin would give birth is based on a mistranslation. The "prophecy" that he would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey uses a common Hebrew style of repetition leading Matthew to have the disciples steal two donkeys and say "And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon" (chapter 21) so that Jesus could ride into Jerusalem on two animals at the same time.

There are always apologetic excuses for why the text doesn't mean what it says but in the end it makes far more sense that the authors embellished their stories with things from earlier stories that people believed than that somebody knew the future. It also makes more sense that some things may just be coincidence; if I say that in 200 years somebody in New York will have lunch it isn't really very impressive. Unless the text is very specific and not about an event that others could re-enact deliberately it doesn't mean much.

There's very little evidence that Jesus even existed, let alone that he did anything described in the bible, and none that he actually fulfilled prophecy.