Old Testament Prophecy Regarding Jesus

I was watching a debate between Christopher Hitchens and Frank Turek on whether the atheist or theistic point of view was a better description of the universe.  Frank Turek supported the Christian point of view.  At one point in the debate a member of the audience brought up the question of Old Testament prophecy regarding Jesus.  She was interested in knowing how Christopher Hitchens could explain how a writer could have predicted so many details about Jesus' life.

Christopher Hitchens responded that the supposed prophesies were not quite as clear as the Christians claimed and in any case New Testament authors had the Old Testament to draw on as a source.  At four minutes and thirty-nine seconds(4:39) into the tenth clip, Frank Turek refers the audience to Isaiah 53.  He also mentions a book by Dr. Michael Brown.  I suspect that he is referring to Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus by Dr. Michail L. Brown.

I think that whenever someone claims to make a prediction, this should be treated with skepticism.  The most straightforward interpretation of this chapter is that it refers to events that took place before its writing.  See verse 5:"He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;"(NIV).  Someone reading that today could easily come to the conclusion that this was predicting something that would occur in Jesus' life.  However, note the use of the past tense.  It could much more easily be interpreted as referring to someone who had been stabbed and run over by a chariot.

In short, I remain skeptical, but I'll look into it.