Jack the Bodiless

Why might they have tried to do "tons" with Isaiah 7 and 9 and 53? They were Jews, yes? So there's no reason to assume they might have tweaked those verses in favor of Christianity.

So there are only two possibilities:

1. The verses were edited to make them LESS "Christian", and the DSS would therefore reveal that the originals were MORE compatible with Christianity.

2. The verses were NOT edited.

As it turned out, the second possiblity was what actually happened. The DSS failed to provide any new support for the Christian cause, the problems with Isaiah (from the Christian perspective) remain.

Steven Avery

Isaiah in the Hebrew/Aramaic Tanach, as is, is very fine "for the Christian cause" (ironically the Greek OT in Isaiah 53 messes up the atonement).

However, not having faithful copiers of the Tanach (including the Masoretes) would be very bad for both Christian and Jewish understanding. The DSS shows that the copyists were faithful precisely because there was no tampering, such as trying to water down Messiah in Isaiah 53 (changing singulars to plural, taking out the death, etc.). This goes along with the words of Jesus that the scripture would not be broken, the significance of every jot and tittle.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Jack the Bodiless

No, it isn't. Isaiah 7:14 is a prophecy for King Ahaz regarding a child to be born in HIS time, and the "Suffering Servant" is identified as "Israel" and cannot be Jesus (because he's diseased, because he's being punished for spurning God, because he's supposed to have kids etc).
Nope, you've missed my point entirely. You seem to be discussing a parallel Universe in which these changes WERE made to the MT, and then WERE included in the KJV, but THEN the discovery of the DSS reveals the tampering.

I'm discussing THIS Universe up to the translation of the DSS. In THIS Universe, that tampering did NOT occur, and we ALREADY KNOW (from the MT and KJV) that it did not occur. The DSS merely reveals that OTHER tampering didn't occur either: that, for instance, the Suffering Servant's spurning of God wasn't inserted by the Masoretes to corrupt a text that formerly unequivocally referred to Jesus.

And, of course, Jesus was wrong about that anyhow. Just not in THIS instance.

Steven Avery

Sure, if you pile on a lot of post-Jesus rabbinical interpretive glasses. You perhaps are well aware of the various earlier Jewish exegesis that applied Isaiah 53 to Messiah, starting with Targum Yonathan, and the resistances to the changeover exegesis which was a major effort of various middle age rabbinical espositers.

The Masoretes, however, were 100% faithful in keeping the text accurate, notwithstanding the apologetic awkwardnesses. A testimony to the high regard they had for the scripture text, the integrity of the scribes, and the preservation of the dvar Elohim.

Not at all my POV. You simply don't understand what I am sharing. Perhaps you should reread, taking off glasses.

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

Chris Weimer

There's no evidence for the Targum predating Christianity - plus, it's similarities in language with the NT leads one to logically conclude that it's partially dependent on post-Christian thought.

This is false. 100% is far an exaggeration. Moreover, this doesn't even begin to cover how corrup the MT before the Masoretes.

Steven Avery

We may have discussed this before.

Anyway, you may not agree with the evidences, but it is a commonly held viewpoint when looking at them. Start with Samson Levey "The Messianic Exegesis of the Targum".

There are common sense objections as well, as to why a Jewish commentary translation post-Jesus would say "behold, my servant Messiah will suffer", or the simple fact that the first two centuries would be an awkward time to compose a brand-new commentary (which Jewish commentary says is ancient). Without any mention of authorship vis a vis Akiba et al.

Of course a lot depends on your POV, and I was expressing mine.

However for the Great Isaiah Scroll we have evidence that on the book that would be most subject to tampering there were fully faithful, and the minor differences appear to be often little problems on the DSS scribal side.

However, with the Great Isaiah Scroll we are in fact going back 1000 years before the Masoretes with an amazing fealty of text. Of course in other threads Api has struggled to try to claim about three corruptions in the Masoretic Text, from earlier times, while hand-waving about hundreds. In fact, he balked at claiming even a single individual word-drop other than the weak 1 Samuel 13 claim.

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

Jack the Bodiless

praxeus:
I am not a Jew. I'm just a regular guy who has no difficulty reading the word "Israel" that's right there in black and white. And the other non-Jesus-compatible aspects are equally clear.
...WHAT "apologetic awkwardnesses" (for the Jewish position)?
There certainly seems to be a communications breakdown of some sort here. For instance, why did you type the following:
Now, unless you know something about the Hebrew of the MT that I don't, it certainly seems to me that the Servant in the MT/KJV is SINGULAR. So why are you claiming that we need the Dead Sea Scrolls to show us this, when it's been this way in the MT all along?

If it had been made PLURAL by Masoretic tamperers, we'd now be in a parallel Universe in which it's PLURAL in the KJV too. But we are not in such a Universe.

On this issue, the only possible tampering that the DSS might have revealed would be a change from PLURAL in the original, to SINGULAR in the MT. Christians might make such an alteration, but why would Jews do so?

Steven Avery

Agreed

Jack the Bodiless

So, you agree that the DSS merely shows that the MT hasn't been tampered with (by Jews) to make it LESS compatible with Christianity than it already was?

In other words: that the original text was never originally MORE compatible with Christianity than the MT is now?

And, hence, the DSS does NOT add any actual support to the Christian position?

Steven Avery

I was agreeing that there is a communication breakdown.

As to the MT, I clearly agree that it has not been tampered with, and offerred the Great Isaiah Scroll as extremely strong evidence. And I believe the MT would match the originals, if the originals would be available (putting aside dialect/language issues).

And I was not discussing theoretical relative "support for the Christian position" if they had been tampered. That's irrelevant, I don't believe they have been.

Where we disagree is my assertion that there would have been plenty of simpatico with tampering, from a doctrinal/apologetic/rabbinical perspective, if they had any simpatico for tampering at all. They didn't, the text was too vital and sacrosanct for them, and they would not tamper with it for ideological mileage (Romans 3:2).

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