This book was written by Edward Hartley Dewart, D.D., in 1891, and now is a public domain manuscript. In Dewart's own words in his subtitle, the book was "a review and refutation of the negative theory of messianic prophecy."
The controversy that precipitated Dr. Dewart's book involved Professor Workman who alleged that the Old Testament messianic prophecies were not really prophecies in the sense of predictions. In addition, Dr. Workman alleged that Jesus did not literally fulfill any of these so-called prophecies except in an ethical sense.
Dr. Dewart responded by defending both the elements of actual PREDICTION in the Old Testament messianic prophecies, as well as the actual FULFILMENTS of these messianic prophecies in and by Jesus Christ. Nearly half of the book is taken up by Dr. Dewart's detailed analysis of 13 messianic prophecies which were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. These 13 prophecies have been counted as messianic prophecies throughout Christendom for nearly 2 millennia.
This book is important for us today because we still have these same two diametrically opposed views concerning messianic prophecies. Essentially all of the liberal, critical scholars have taken the stance that Jesus did not fulfill any messianic prophecies, even if this view is contrary to the witnesses of Christ and the New Testament writers. Now even some of the evangelical scholars are taking this same stance. Thus, it is important for Bible-believing Christians to understand these issues and learn how to defend the New Testament doctrine that Christ fulfilled Old Testament messianic prophecies.
This e-book is "annotated," and I, Victor Vadney, am the annotator. You will find my annotations in certain footnotes, in the Annotated Bibliography, in the brief biographies of Drs. Dewart and Workman, and in a very short chapter entitled "Annotator." I have not tampered or changed any of the arguments Dr. Dewart articulated. However, there are some errors in the original, especially having to do with the references in the footnotes. In these footnotes I propose the corrections.
