Steven Avery

:rolling:

:wave:

Amaleq13

I agree that your false assertion about proving Michael's reference incorrect is amusing but not to that extent.

Five authors making a reference to the chapter is really not much at all from the entire NT and you've offered nothing but claims of "allusions" to suggest otherwise. You generally do a better job than this supporting your assertions.

Steven Avery

Your most important error, placing Messiah as the subject of the Targum, Notsri took the extra effort to walk you through in detail. Thanks.

Possibly the best review is by William Most, although he mentions scholars different than the ones we discussed earlier, other than Levey http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/...fm?worknum=145
The Date of Targums
As a result, we need to consider the question of the date of composition of the targums, especially Targum Jonathan. There is much diversity of opinion among scholars. For example, Samson Levey wrote that the official targums (which include those of Onkelos and Jonathan) are likely to come from the second century B.C., since they are cautious about using the full title "King Messiah" -- they omit the word King -- because in Maccabean times, hope for restoring the Davidic kingship might sound like treason to the Hasmoneans. But two pages later, Levey says the older view that the latest possible date, the terminus ad quem, of Targum Jonathan was earlier than the Arab conquest of Babylon in the 7th century A.D., which is wrong. It should be placed after that.

Rabbi Menahem Kasher, in his large 25 volume work, Torah Shelemah (=complete Torah) traces Onkelos, Pseudo-Jonathan, and even Neofiti to the time of Ezra, that is, the fifth century B.C. He notes that the scribe Ezra, according to Nehemiah 8:7-8, read the law, while Levites, "gave the sense, so that the people understood what was read."2 Jacob Neusner, perhaps the greatest of modern Jewish scholars, thinks that "the targums contain ideas from a time prior to their own closure and redaction."3 Similarly Bruce Chilton, in the notes to his translation of the Isaiah Targum4 comments on 25:2 which says that the gentiles will never build a temple in Jerusalem: "Such a vigorous assurance has a rather clear terminus ad quem, since in 136 ... The Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was dedicated there." So that statement must have been made before 136 A.D. Chilton also, in great detail, in his A Galilean Rabbi and His Bible, argues that much of the matter of the targums was already in use in oral form in the time of Jesus, and finds echoes of it in the teachings of Jesus.5 The debate still goes on today over the dates of the targums. However, one thing is certain: They do reflect ancient Jewish understanding of the messianic prophecies, made without what some have called "hindsight," i.e., without help by seeing them fulfilled in Christ. If any parts are more ancient than the final form, it will be the prophecies, as we gather from the remarks by Neusner, Chilton, and Levey just cited. However, as Neusner, Levey and Schoeps, whom we shall presently cite on the point, admit, there was deliberate distortion introduced into some targums on prophecies to counter Christian use of them. (continues)

A bit more from William Most on this at
http://www.ewtn.com/library/SCRIPTUR/LG603.TXT

http://catholicculture.org/docs/most...216&ChapNum=26
The dates of the Targums are disputed. A respectable scholarly opinion is that of Samson Levey: "The official Targumim are quite circumspect about adducing Messianic interpretations from the Hebrew text.... We may conjecture that the reason might be that the official Targumim stem from Maccabean times [second century B.C.], when hope for a restoration of the Davidic kingship could constitute treason to the Hasmomean dynasty" (The Messiah: An Aramaic Interpretation, Hebrew Union College, 1974, p. 142). Levey gives us all the Old Testament texts that the Targums see as Messianic. No matter what the date, the Targums do this without the use of hindsight from fulfillment in Christ. The writers, of course, rejected Christ. R. Brown, as we saw in chapter 20, thinks the Old Testament prophecies would be good only with hindsight.
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MY COMMENTS

Kasher's view is also in line with a Talmud discussion.

Personally, I am slow to accept any accusations of distortion in the Targum, even in the Messianic passages, without compelling evidence, and afaik there is no hard evidence. However, I would agree that the Targum we have now is the mininum Messianic application, there could conceivably have been additional redactions out, I simply do not have the basis to make the claim, even if it is 'generally accepted scholarship' and would favor the NT position.

Actually, I find such scholarship conjecturing often done on a very weak base, retrofitting the glasses of today on an earlier time.

==================================================
You may have confused Pseudo-Jonathon, a Penteteuch Targum, with TJ. Your statement here is simply wrong.

And as I have pointed out numerous times, It would make little or no sense for the Jews to deliberately write and spread a Targum of that nature, declaring Messiah as the subject of Isaiah 53, at the time when Christianity was spreading, when it would contradict any rabbinical attempt to claim Israel as the subject. At most they would change the emphasis away from the suffering aspect, but personally I see no evidence of any such redaction.

Discussed in detail by Notsri. Todah rabah.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Queens, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Steven Avery

Listen very carefully

... Psalm 110 and Isaiah 53 have far MORE material than any other sections of the Tanach in the NT.

Please stop beating an ultra-dead horse.
Even for a moderator on a home-court forum, it gets embarrassing.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Queens, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

Let's quantify measurements.
And see why Amaleq feigns so much "surprise" :boohoo:
When the oft-quoted Isaiah 53 isn't even more oft-quoted.

Using the Amaleq and/or Collins criteria --

What other Tanach sections have "surprisingly little"
Messianic application in the NT.

And what sections have "surprisingly extra" Messianic application ?

If the section with perhaps the greatest Messianic application (including a section where the Messianic application is discussed directly while reading the text !!!!! ) is the most "little" then I would like to see how this measurement technique plays out.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Queens, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic[/QUOTE]

PS.
Now I remember why I dropped this forum for a few months :-)
It took about three days to remember.

Notsri

Praxeus, I do want to comment more fully on your post, though I have to run out for a bit. I'll be sure to get back to you a little later with more, though. For now, I'd quickly say this: your excerpt from the Midrash has been abridged, which is why the the application of 52:13 to Israel seems inapparent.

This is what the full text has to say (with the materials absent from your text in bold type): "'I will declare of the decree of the Lord. He said unto me: "You are My son"' (Pss. 2:7). The children of Israel are declared to be sons in the decree of the Law, in the decree of the Prophets, and in the decree of the Writings. In the decree of the Law it is written, 'Thus says the Lord: Israel is My son, My firstborn' (Ex. 4:22). In the decree of the Prophets it is written, 'Behold My servant shall prosper, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high' (Isa. 52:13), and it is also written, 'Behold My servant, whom I uphold, Mine elect, in whom My soul delighteh' (Isa. 42:1). In the decree of the Writings it is written, 'The Lord said unto my lord: "Sit at My right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool"' (Ps. 110:1), and it is also written, 'I saw in the night visions, and, behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto a son of man, and he came even to the Ancient of days, and he was brought near before Him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him' (Dan. 7:13, 14)."

Regards,
Notsri

Steven Carr

And it is clear in passage after passage that such stories are ridiculous.

These disciples were given the secret of the Kingdom of God in Mark 4, and were sent out to preach and teach.

Disciples with no faith, preachers with no understanding, people who spent 3 years with the greatest teacher who ever lived, and they could not understand the simplest things. 'From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.'

'He must be killed' is pretty easy to understand. Why did the closest hand-picked followers of Jesus, people who had left everything to devote themselves to his teachings, how could such people have been left in the dark by somebody supposedly entrusting God's message of salvation to them?

Matthew 16 13When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"

14They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

Strange that some Jews thought John the Baptist, a preacher unjustly killed, could be the Son of Man , when apparently even the closest followers of Jesus found such a concept of an unjustly killed preacher being the Son of Man utterly bewildering.


These are just fairy-stories. No sensible person can believe them.

Meanwhile, in John 4, a Samaritan women gets straight away that Jesus was the Messiah, and many people believe because of her testimony......

Steven Avery

Thanks. Before we discuss the section more, I would hope that you could include all the text down to Messiah-king. Let's be fully unabridged

Steven Avery

Hi Steven, you are using a modern version corruption of the question, which in the Bible is - "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?" (KJB), which matches the parallel accounts as well.

I only mention this because your little study seems to be based on responding in a way that would match the incorrect version of the question.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Queens, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

pharoah

I'm no scholar, but I'll agree with you that this does seem to be a Messianic prophecy. For me the real question is, did Jesus fulfill the role of Messiah? I think that the evidence overwhelmingly says no.

It's doubtful as to whether 53:1 is really a prophecy at all. Isaiah could very well have been referring to himself. Even if one takes it as a prophecy it's so vague that any number of events could be said to be a fulfillment.

Here the gospels contradict themselves. Some say that Jesus said nothing at his trial, the others have him waxing eloquent. The fact that the accounts don't agree is a strike against Christianity.

52:15 is a difficult passage. I think that Paul took a few liberties with the text (changing "that which had not been told them" to "To whom he was not spoken of"), but I can be convinced otherwise.

This is an example of Matthew playing fast and loose with the text. 53:4 said "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows". Somehow Matthew transformed this into a prophecy of a healing ministry. This is simply not justified by any natural reading of 53.

This may be the only meaningful NT reference from 53. It's not trite and there's no distortion of the text.