format_quote Originally Posted by
Cherub786
You are starting from chapter 52 or 53. The problem is in order to identify the “suffering servant” you have to be acquainted with the book of Isaiah from chapter 1. These texts have a theme which begin from the very beginning. Quoting a passage from a book without understanding the underline theme or style of a book just doesn’t work.
You claim that the passage is referring to a single individual and cannot refer to the plurality of Israel. But this is wrong:
Isaiah 41:8-9 “But you, O Israel, My servant, Jacob, you whom I have chosen, offspring of Abraham who loved Me…and to whom I shall say: ‘You are my servant’ – I have chosen you and not rejected you.”1
Isaiah 44:1 “But hear now Jacob, My servant, and Israel whom I have chosen!”2
Isaiah 44: 21 “Remember these things, Jacob and Israel, for you are My servant: I fashioned you to be My servant: Israel do not forget Me!”
Isaiah 45:4 “..for the sake of My servant Jacob and Israel, My chosen one: I have proclaimed you by name…”
Isaiah 48:20 “…say, ‘Hashem (God) has redeemed His servant Jacob.”
Isaiah 49:3 “…You are my servant, Israel, in whom I take glory.”
For a Christian who reads the Bible I’m surprised you are not aware of how it refers to the entire nation of Israel repeatedly as a single person, or with singular pronouns. But now that we have established from the Book of Isaiah that “servant” in the singular is a reference to Israel, as it is from Isaiah 52:13.
Furthermore, if we were to assume for the sake of argument that Isaiah 52-53 is speaking of a single individual who is to come, it still does not prove Jesus. You can try to “plug” in Jesus into Isaiah 52-53, but you cannot derive him from it. Consider the following:
Isaiah 52:15 says the kings will shut their mouths at him
When did this ever happen in the case of Jesus? The Jewish Study Bible says: “the servant is probably the nation Israel, and the nations are stunned that such an insignificant and lowly group turns out to have been so important to the divine plan.” (p. 891)
Isaiah 53:2 says he is unattractive. Was Jesus known for being physically unattractive? On the contrary, he is universally depicted as being good looking by Christians themselves.
Isaiah 53:3 says he is despised and rejected by men and a man of sorrows.
Jesus was not known as being a man of sorrows. If you say he suffered on the cross, then this is not something unique to Jesus, practically everyone suffers sometime in their life. But this verse is describing someone who will be known for suffering and be despised.
Isaiah 53:7 is interesting, because some Gospel accounts say Jesus was silent at his trial, but others mention an entire dialogue between him and those who put him on trial, including his trial before Pilate.
Isaiah 53:10 is your biggest problem. You claim that the seed that is mentioned is not literal, and you quoted Galatians which is circular reasoning. Why should the Jews believe seed is not literal just because Galatians says it?
The fact of the matter is that you are don’t know Hebrew and this is the biggest problem with Christians. They don’t understand that the word Zera can never be used for children in a figurative sense.
If it is so easy to make up convenient interpretations and manipulate the text to make it mean what you want it to mean, then practically anyone can claim that he is the “suffering servant”. Even I can claim I am the suffering servant of Isaiah if it is that easy to play around with the words and the context.
As for your claim that Targum identified the servant with the Messiah, here’s what the Jewish Study Bible has to say: “Targum and various midrashim identify the servant as the Messiah, but this suggestion is unlikely, since nowhere else does Deutero-Isaiah refer to the Messiah” (p. 891).
Finally, please pardon me for my mistake of saying Herod ordered the census. What I meant is that the New Testament claims the census took place during the reign of King Herod (which is factually incorrect).
However my point is that the secular scholars do not consider the nativity story as historically accurate, specifically about the census ordering people to return to their ancestral villages. That is simply implausible: “Sanders considers Luke's census, for which everyone returned to their ancestral home, not historically credible, as this was contrary to Roman practice; they would not have uprooted everyone from their homes and farms in the Empire by forcing them to return to their ancestral cities. Moreover, people were not able to trace their own lineages back 42 generations.” (Sanders, E. P. The historical figure of Jesus. Penguin, 1993. Sanders discusses both birth narratives in detail, contrasts them, and judges them not historical on pp. 85–88)
One sees a recurring theme of the Gospel writers making up legendary accounts which are historically inaccurate and implausible in order to convince the reader that Jesus fulfilled various Messianic prophecies. This is definitely the conclusion of secular scholars, I’ve yet to see Christians give a compelling reply to it.
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