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I hold the same view, Galen, but probably not for the same reason you do. The Old Testament was written for the specific benefit of ONE, and ONLY ONE human being. There was ONE, and ONLY ONE human being who NEEDED to fully understand the Old Testament, and that ONE person was young Jesus of Nazareth! Jesus of Nazareth had to learn just like every other human being, but He couldn't afford to learn by trial and error. The Old Testament describes what being drunk and engaging in prostitution and adultery are like so that Jesus wouldn't have to learn those things the hard way. Every book of the Old Testament teaches something about the Messiah, because that was the only way Jesus could learn those things before He received the Holy Spirit at His baptism. Even so, I don't think the information began to come together for young Jesus until after He was led of the Spirit into the wilderness. And the Old Testament is NOT a happy book with a happy ending. It is a book about a God who makes all kinds of promises to the nation of Israel, and those promises fail to come to pass. This view of the OT is known to current scholarship as the Doomed History of the Deuteronomist. It is the story of a DOOMED humanity, and a DOOMED nation, and up until the Sunday morning when they found the empty tomb, a DOOMED Messiah! And apart from the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we all still face DOOM with all our senses. It wasn't until after Peter recognized Jesus as the Messiah that Jesus began teaching about His own personal doom, and I don't think He fully came to grips with the truth that God the Father wanted Him to die until Jesus was praying in the garden of Gethsemene. I think the book of Job was very much on Jesus mind in that garden. This is the point I think Jesus learned about the Messiah from the book of Job: despite all the theologizing claptrap about God and suffering, the fear of the Lord comes down to this, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him..." (Job 13:15). Jesus trusted that God would raise Him from the dead, and that resurrection would be instrumental in God's fulfillment of all the other promises. So far, the only promises we've seen come to pass are the giving of the New Testament promised in Jeremiah 31, and the outpouring of Spirit promised in Joel 2:28-32. But Paul had this to say: "8 We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; "9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; "10 Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. "For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. "So then death worketh in us, but life in you. "13 We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak; "14 Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. "15 For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God." (II Corinthians 4:8-15) We are STILL doomed in every respect, apart from our trust in the resurrection of the man Christ Jesus! Love, Steve