Michael Brown has managed to put together another "must-read" for those interested in Jewish Christian apologetics. In this 3rd volume, Brown examines exclusively Jewish objections to Messianic prophecy. Brown fell behind schedule as he originally planned to release this volume earlier than 2003, and intended in this 3rd volume to also examine objections to the New Testament and objections arising from Jewish tradition. These latter sets of objections Brown has decided to publish in a future 4th volume while focusing on Messianic prophecy in volume 3. Nevertheless, this book was well worth the wait as Brown's knowledge and scholarship on these issues proved to be very meritorious.

Brown, who had converted to Christianity in 1971, took it upon himself to thoroughly study the issues after being challenged by Jewish authorities. For some time now, Brown has actively engaged in debates with prominent rabbis and anti-missionaries and is familiar with common Jewish objections to Jesus Christ, including objections to Messianic prophecy. In this volume, Brown establishes the Messianic nature of various Old Testament shadows, types, and prophecies both from the proper reading of the Hebrew and in many cases provides the reader with traditional Jewish sources that corroborate the Christian understanding of the Messianic prophecies. Meanwhile, Brown systematically dismantles prominent objections to the Messianic prophecies.

Brown starts off with an examination of various concepts and passages in the Torah(first 5 books of the OT) that point to Jesus Christ including discussions of Abraham's near sacrifice of his son Isaac in Genesis 22, the life of the patriarch Joseph, Yom Kippur, Deuteronomy 18:9-22, and Genesis 49:10. Next, an interesting objection is answered that claims that it is unnecessary, according to the OT, to "believe in the Messiah." A section on Isaiah 7:14 and then one on Isaiah 9:6 then precede a baker's dozen of answers to common objections to the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. Brown then contributes 3 sections to Daniel 9:24-27. One aspect of Brown's treatment of these verses that I particularly enjoyed and appreciated is that he does not get too dogmatic as to the actual divisions of the 70 weeks, with the exception that the futurist position seems to be rejected. Since there exists a variety of interpretations for how the weeks should be divided, this seems to be a good move on Brown's part. The key point that Brown makes is that the timetable for when the Messiah would arrive is clearly foretold in the prophecy and that it must have occurred before the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. Brown then contributes one section in answering objections to Psalm 2:12, then a section on Psalm 16, and then a couple of sections on Psalm 22. Next, there is a section answering the question as to how Christian authors could apply certain psalms to the life of Christ when the subject of those psalms in some cases is attributed with sin and imperfection. Next, a section on Psalm 40 is discussed followed by a section on Psalm 45:6-7. A section on Psalm 110 comes next followed by a section on Haggai 2 and the significance of the fact that the prophet records that the 2nd temple(the one in which Jesus entered) would be more glorious than the 1st. A section on Zechariah 12:10 then concludes Brown's treatment of various Old Testament Messianic passages. However, Brown continues with sections that answer general Jewish allegations that Jesus did not fulfill any Messianic prophecies, or at least none of the "provable" Messianic prophecies, that modern Christian scholars reject Messianic prophecy, that the Messiah was to be a reigning king instead of a despised, rejected, and crucified figure, that the Messiah had to rebuild the Temple, and an interesting passage on false prophets in Zechariah 13:1-6 that some Jews apparently claim foretells of Jesus in a dubious way. It turns out that this latter point is based on a faulty translation found in the KJV. Brown then discusses the objection that nowhere, despite the words of Paul, does the OT predict that the Messiah would be resurrected on the 3rd day. Finally, one last objection is dealt with that Mohammad is just as easy to find in the OT since the Christian "prooftexts" are as badly ripped out of context as those put forward by Muslim apologists