Diogenes the Cynic

The Targum Jonathan is post-Christian and does not address a "suffering" servant anyway. Here's what Donal Juel has to say about it.
The Targum does not speak of a dying and resurrected saviour figure and it's not even clear whether the author was speaking of a Messianic king (a David figure, or possibly David himself) or whether he as using an extended metaphor for Israel. If the former is the case, the this Targum would be out of step with all prevous (and especially pre-Christian) Jewish commentaries on Isaiah 52, 53 which clearly read it as a personification of Israel.

It also needs to be pointed out that 2nd century Jewish commentary on the text does not affect or change the original intent of the author of that text. It doesn't matter what you think the Targum says. The author of the Suffering Servant passages was talking about Israel and it was never read any other way before the Christian era.

I don't know why you keep try to cite the NT as some kind of proof about Jewish interpretations of Isaiah, by the way. The NT was written mostly by Gentiles (and Paul was "Jewish" by ethnicity only. His willful distortions of Jewish scripture are testament to that). Why do you think a gentile Christian body of literature proves anything about pre-Christian Judaism?

Steven Avery

Samson Levey, Jostein Adna and Otto Betz and others have written on this question. The simple irony is that there is not a scintilla of evidence that this is a late redaction, there are no historic anomalies, there are no scraps of an earlier writing, the existing exegesis is clear and simple and harmonious, and it is very difficult to explain why the Jews would redact the Targum to Messiah instead of Israel, if they wanted to redact, a view for which there is simply no evidence.

Overall, there is simply no reason to not simply accept the Jewish understanding that this is an early Targum, unless you are a liberal scholar upset that the servant is Messiah. Even Samson Levey, adverse to the Messianic interpretation, dated this as likely Maccabean times.

Exactamente ! The Targum gives the same view of Messiah as the apostles in the New Testament, who strongly resisted the indications from Jesus of his fate. Amen. The disciples looked for the glorious aspects of Messiah, and were reluctant to accept the understanding of His atoning sacrifice. This is clear in pasage after passage.

Now, lets not divert from the principle question, whether the Targum shows the understanding of the Messiah as the subject of Isaiah 53, and the answer to that is a complete and unequivocal YES, that was the primary ancient Jewish exegeis, and the primary exegesis when Jesus walked Galilee.

This is complete nonsense. The Targum is 100% consistent throughout with the singulars and plurals, with the singulars being Messiah, and the plurals being at times Israel, and at times the Kings of the nations, with no difficulty discerning which is which.

Did you even READ the Targum, Diogenes ?

This is typical stuff, like we just had with the Collins quote. Find a scholar who says something appealling and ignore the fact that the scholar is simply dead wrong.

Sad to see the lack of critical thinking here. And a good example of why the skeptics are almost impossible to dialog with. They don't really care what the documents say, they just want to find an appealling "scholar" to quote.

Then name these "pre-Christian commentaries". In fact, name ANY such commentary before Rashi in 1000 AD, quite a bit post-Christian, and fully involved in the responsa movement. If you can't, cause they don't exist, then Juel is either completely incompetent in the field he is writing about or he is a deliberate deceiver.

btw, on the other side you have at the least the NT and the Midrash on Psalms and some and the Targum, (and the statements of rabbinics acknowledging the earlier view), all in synch.

The rest of the stuff is too circular to the max, to bother with. And when your factual information is so errant, it is wrong to continue with your theoretical conclusions.

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

Amaleq13

You did not establish this "fact" to be ignored. You asserted that six examples of NT reference to Isaiah 53 could not be characterized as "suprisingly little" use of the passage.

I think that is a surprisingly small number of references even before Vorkosigan's paring down of them.

Notsri

Praxeus, from what I understand, the Targum to Isaiah bears at least some evidence of a rather long-term development, with materials possibly dating from the 1st c. CE but stretching into at least the 4th c. as well (e.g. 28:1 seems to allude to a time when the Temple was still standing, while 21:9 likely reflects a Babylonian milieu, probably from ca. the 4th c., when the Jews of Babylonia were under Sassanid rule).

I realize that some scholars still debate the possibility of a pre-Christian, messianic interpretation of Isaiah 53, but the Targum has little bearing on the question. Indeed, to suggest that the Targum Jonathan to Isaiah 53 itself dates to the Second Temple period is surely untenable, for 53:5 (in the Targum) assures the reader that the Messiah "will build the sanctuary which was profaned for our sins, handed over for our iniquities"—a reference unquestionably deriving from a time after 70 CE and the destruction of the Temple, needless to say.


You had also mentioned the Midrash Psalms' application of ch. 53 to the Messiah—did you perhaps have another source in mind? Midrash Psalms (2.9) quotes only the opening lines from 52:13 once, applying it not to the Messiah but to Israel; and the remaining verses from ch. 53 are never adduced in any of the Midrash's discourses. -?-

Regards,
Notsri

Steven Avery

Well, lets cover the last two paragraphs anyway. I started to think about the irony of Diogenes position about the "intent".

There is a huge irony of a cynic who has no respect that the Tanach was itself not a pagan mish-a-mash sharing authoritatively to those who accept the Tanach as true his claims about what is the "intent" of Isaiah

"Ditch historic Jewish exegesis, ditch the Christian exegesis, I don't believe or care diddles about the book, but I will tell you the real 'intent' "

And of course any pshat reading of Isaiah 53 placing the subject as Israel and not Messiah runs into quite substantive difficulties, again I simply suggest
a) take off glasses
b) read the text

And again, honest historians, like David Flusser, would strongly disagree. You can of course hold this position, but outside getting agreement from your clique of mythicist/cynic types, there really is no evidence whatsoever for your assertions above.

Steven Avery

Six quotes directly from the verses, (one a direct discussion of reading the verses and noting their Messianic application !) and more allusions, more than any other section in the Tanach (with the close competion of Psalm 110), clearly made the case that Isaiah 53 had very substantive NT reference to Messiah, not "surprisingly little".

Unless your expectations have been deliberately skewered for political reasons, in which case the term "surprisingly little" is the problem. Compared to what ?

Of course on some issues the skeptic loves to keep beating the dead horse, because they heard it from one of their fav scholars, so they resort to the ultra-parsing technique to wearying the readers. We have seen that before, and will likely see it again.

Let the horse have a nice burial, please, stop beating him.

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

Diogenes the Cynic

There are a lot of words in this paragraph but not really an argument as to why the Targum should be dated before the 1st century. What do you mean by "earlier dating?" Earlier than what? Everything I've seen on it tends to date it anywhere from the 2nd to the 4th or even 5th century CE. What date are you claiming and what is your evidence?
I don't know that there actually is a "Jewish understanding" that Targum Jonathan is "early," but I do know that scholarly consensus puts it well into the Christian era. Jewish (or Christian) "understandings" don't really count for much when it comes to dating literature. There is a "Jewish understanding" that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. So what?
The apostles in the Gospels are simply instruments of the authors. They are literary characters who are used by the authors to promote the authors' anti-Jewish view of the Messiah.
Um...no...not so much. Isaiah 53 is not even a prophecy, much less a Messianic prophecy. It speaks of past events, not future ones. It is not a prediction of a Messianic to come even in the TJ. It is, at most, an interpretive meditation on David.
The Targum is not talking about the future but about the past.
Yep.
You have not shown that my quoted scholar was wrong. All I've seen is a bunch of hand waving and links to Christian websites.
With my "pre-Christian" comment, I was referring to Isaiah itself which repeatedly identifies the suffering servant as Israel.
None of that is pre-Christian. Sorry.

Notsri

Diogenes, Isa 53 is unquestionably a prediction of the Messiah to come in the Targum.

52:13 explictily identifies the "servant" as "the Messiah." Nowhere in the text is any reference made to David, and "Messiah" is definitely not a metaphor for Israel (a possibility you'd suggested earlier in the thread; v. 14 says: "Just as the House of Israel hoped for him"—with "him" [and thus v. 13's "the Messiah"] obviously not referring to Israel).

The Targum's Messiah is here viewed as prospering when he comes, being exalted, increasing and being strong (52:13). Israel has been longing for him many days (52:14). When he arrives, people will be scattered, and kings will be silent because of him (52:15). The righteous will be exalted before him (53:2). He will have a brilliant and fearful appearance (53:2). He will ask God for the forgiveness of Israel's sins (53:4). He will rebuild the Temple (53:5). He will gather the exiles (53:8). He will remove the gentile rule from the Land of Israel (53:8). He will send the wicked to their punishment in Gehenna (53:9); and so on.

Regards,
Notsri

Amaleq13

No, we have "5 citations of 4 passages" and, yes, that is "surprisingly little" direct reference to this passage given the alleged messianic nature of it.

Whether your unidentified "allusions" should also be counted depends on the references. That you are not willing to count them as direct suggests we should be cautious in relying on your interpretation as a qualification for them.

Steven Avery

Hi Notsri, I'm going to continue the conversation with you, since you appear to be more familiar with the material and hopefully we can take an 'iron sharpeneth iron' approach.

The following is from the Risto Santala discussion. In fact it gives the whole section is a beautiful support for early Messianic NT exegesis, and even includes two other Isaiah verses in along with Psalm 2, Psalm 110 and Daniel 7, as the linked application to Messiah.

Would that the Christians would write so beautifully :-)
(Well, some do, like David Baron).

p.118
http://www.kolumbus.fi/hjussila/rsla/OT/index.html
PSALM 2 AND PSALM 110
The Messianic tone of the second psalm
=========================================
When we read the Midrash's exposition of the Psalms we cannot but be amazed at the sheer volume of explanation which the ancient scholars draw out of them. Nevertheless, the same verses which are quoted in this context are generally accepted as Messianic references. The Midrash speaks firstly of the "one who is to come", the "Messiah-King", before whom all will bow down, as it is said in
Isaiah 49:23 "They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground".
There are many OT passages associated with the phrase "I will proclaim the decree of the LORD" which, particularly for Christians, have a special message. The Midrash sets them out as following:

"The decree is that of the prophets, because
Is. 52:13 says 'My servant will prosper' and
Is. 42:1 adds 'Here is my servant whom I uphold'; It is the decree of the Psalms, as
Ps. 110:1 says 'The LORD said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand', and
Ps.2:7 says 'He said to me; You are my son'; and also elsewhere it is written
Dan.7:13, 'In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man,
coming with the clouds'.
The LORD said 'You are my son'.
The decrees are those of the king, the king of kings, that this would be done to the Messiah-King... "

And here is the straight-line William Braude translation, however Sam should go down to the last lines above.

http://www.infolink-islam.de/Main/Sh...evolution1.htm
Is there an Evolution in NT Christology? by Sam Shamoun

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, 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).
(The Midrash on Psalms, William G. Braude, Translator)

Where you see this as an application to Israel and not Messiah
.. you will have to splain.
======================

And as you are probably aware, there are other Hebraic writings from the same period, also applying Isaiah 53 to Messiah (I know of none that apply it to Israel) such as ..

http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ422.HTM
Old Testament and Jewish Conceptions of the Messiah
Pesikta...
"When God created the world, He stretched out His hand under the throne of His glory, and brought forth the soul of the Messiah. He said to him: 'Will you heal and redeem My sons after 6000 years?' He answered him, 'I will.' Then God said to him: 'Will you then also bear the punishment in order to blot out their sins, as it is written, "But he bore our diseases" ' (53:4). And he answered Him; 'I will joyfully bear them.' " (cf. Zohar, 2:212a)

Also in
http://www.sa-hebroots.com/messiah.htm
What the Sages of Israel knew about the Messiah
http://www.sa-hebroots.com/moshiach.pdf

In both of which more can be found.

Well I do like your sharing on the Targumim. At least you are honing in on real issues and dialog :-) It might take me a bit to do a response on a high level, since the scholarship tends to be a bit diffuse and arcane, and a lot of it is unsubstantive. Also I have some other projects, these two or three threads became rather intensive.

Thanks for the feedback, and let's keep in going, I hope you don't mind too much if I bypass the other discussions, too many posters with too little familiarity with the material and too many of their skeptic axes and ultra-parsing debating techniques to grind and chop away, I think we basically finished the basics anyway ... and give what remaining energy I have for this thread to your previous post and response to this.

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