sschlichter

Behold, My Servant the Messiah shall prosper.
-- Targum Jonathan to Isaiah 52:13

Johnny Skeptic

Yes you do because I gave it to you.

It is best to discuss what ancient Jews believed with living Jews. The home page of the website that I mentioned is at http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/. If you go there, and click on "home," one option is "Request a Speaker." I request that you request that one of the website's representatives participate in this thread regarding Isaiah 53. The website have a detailed article on Isaiah 53 at http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/librar.../313-isaiah-53. The article is two pages long, so if you read it, please click on "next" at the bottom of the first page.

I assume that the Jews at that website will easily be able to adequately deal with any of your arguments, not to mention hundreds of Jewish scholars around the world.

If Micah had been more clear about the life of a coming messiah, it is reasonable to assume that more Jews would have accepted Jesus.

aa5874

Based on the writings of Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius and the advent of the Messiah called Simon Bar Cocheba, it is almost certain that the Jews expected a Messiah to be a ruler.

There is no historical source external of the NT that can show Jesus of Nazareth qualified to be called a Jewish Messiah.

Not even if we include the incredible events of walking on water, transfiguring, resurrection and ascension to heaven would have qualified Jesus to be a Jewish Messiah during the 1st century before the Fall of the Temple.

sschlichter

I may remark, then, that our Rabbis with one voice accept and affirm the opinion that the prophet is speaking of the King Messiah.

-- Rabbi Moshe Alsheikh, Rabbi of Safed, late 16th century

According to the opinion of Rashi and Ibn Ezra, it relates to Israel at the end of their captivity. But if so, what can be the meaning of the passage, "He was wounded for our transgressions"? Who was wounded? Who are the transgressors? Who carried out the sickness and bare the pain? The fact is that it refers to the King Messiah.

--Herz Homberg (1749-1841)

rob117

Targum Jonathan post-dates Jesus by over a century. There are unmistakable references in it to the Bar Kokhba Revolt, for example:

http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.albany...us/1517283.pdf

Additionally, applying the interpretation of the "suffering servant" to the entire song betrays an ignorance of Jewish Targumic practices. The Targums are paraphrases, not literal translations, and often draw on mystical interpretations, applying these interpretations verse by verse, without regard to plain meaning of the text as a whole.

The following is a Jewish anti-missionary site and thus obviously has its own biases, but it explains adequately the practices of the Targumic translators, and reveals that while this particular line (and some lines a few verses later) was applied to the messiah, the one who suffers in the text is Israel, and that is how it's plain meaning was understood. The messianic interpretation was secondary, and in addition to the plain interpretation as referring to the suffering of the "Righteous of Israel"-- that is, according to Jewish interpretation practices, the text has a "plain meaning" and a "hidden meaning," and the latter is often applied to individual verses without regard to context. The "hidden meaning" as interpreted by the Targum draws the picture of the traditional warrior messiah who will come and redeem Israel from its suffering:

http://www.messiahtruth.com/targum.html

And of course, the way Aramaic-speaking Jews of the Roman period reinterpreted the passage has absolutely no bearing on how the passage was originally meant to be interpreted in the 6th century BC. For this we must look to the context of Deutero-Isaiah as a whole, and the entire focus of Isaiah 40-55 is the impending end of the Babylonian exile.

sschlichter

Jonathan ben Uzziel was a pupil of Hillel ~100-10BC.

rob117

Jonathan ben Uzziel is the traditional author/translator/interpreter of Targum Jonathan. This does not mean he was the actual author/translator/interpreter. In the first centuries BC and AD, the "targums" were oral paraphrases of particular passages read in the synagogues; the pan-biblical written forms come later and result from an extensive editorial process.

show_no_mercy

It should also be noted that many passages in the Talmud are basically Jews throwing out ideas. Much like brainstorming. This is one of the complaints that Karaite Jews have about Rabbinic Jews: the Talmud in a lot of places never gives a definitive answer on things. Basically, Talmudic writings are Jews waxing philosophical on a variety of concepts and is not "holy scripture" meant to give hard and fast answers to questions. In this way it's a lot like Platonic dialogs where he presents multiple characters just to give different points of views (until he eventually gives his/Socrates' view). So citing the Talmud as though "Jews" though such-and-such about the messiah isn't really answering much.

sschlichter

ok, it appears we have stumbled onto a different topic. I would assert that there is evidence that Isaiah 53 is talking about a person and that it was not unlikely that some Jews in Jesus time interpretted it as such. Internal textual evidence, evidence from other OT passages, and external evidence from other sources. We could start a new thread if you like.

~steve

sschlichter

yes, it is. it is answering the question about what ideas Jews had. if they had the idea of a leprous messiah, then where did they get those ideas. it is saying plenty.