Loading...I’ve been writing up a storm on my Bible Introduction. It’s a god awful amount of work, but I’m making really good (OK, disgustingly good) progress. Here’s a chunk I wrote up today, when dealing with the post-exilic prophets. It’s obviously (maybe too obviously for you!) just a rough draft.
Brief context: at this point I am discussing Second Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55), almost universally thought by scholars to be written by a different author from chapters 1-39 (themselves written by Isaiah of Jerusalem in the 8th c. BCE). Second Isaiah was writing after the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem (including the temple) in 586 BCE, while the leaders of the people and many of the elite had been taken into exile in Babylon, in what is known as the Babylonian Captivity.
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No passage of Second Isaiah has intrigued readers and interpreters – especially among Christians – more than the four passages that are dedicated to describing a figure known as the “Suffering Servant.” Some scholars have called these passages “songs,” or “songs of the suffering servant.” The passages are Isa. 42:1-4; 49:1-6; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12. It is not known whether the author of 2 Isaiah has inherited these passages from an earlier tradition that he has incorporated into his book or if they are his own creation.
In these passages, the Servant of Yahweh is said to have suffered horribly for the sake of others; but God will vindicate him. He, in fact, is the delight of Yahweh and will be used by him to accomplish his will on earth: “I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations … He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth (42:1, 6).
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I am enjoying watching the authoring process.
Bart, can you provide citations of journal articles and scholarly books that evaluate the arguments from different sides? The interpretation of Isaiah 53 has been fiercely debated between Jews and Christians for centuries, and is a common argument Christian apologists (e.g. “Jews for Jesus”) – past and present – use in proselytizing Jews. I think some details in the passage don’t fit Jesus’ life and death (e.g. 53:10 mentions “his offspring” and “shall prolong his days”); other details do seem to match the New Testament portrayal of Jesus’ life or NT beliefs about reason for his death (e.g. 53:12).
How might the passage have shaped the gospel authors’ accounts of the life of Jesus (i.e. they historicised the prophecy) e.g. “They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich” led the gospel writers or early Christian tradition to invent the figure of the presumably well-off Joseph of Arimathea?
Do you think Jesus might have read Isaiah 53 thinking it was about him, so he led his life accordingly and was willing to die for Israel? Hence the early Christian tradition of reading Isaiah might have originated from Jesus himself?
I take the point about the past tense. However, I have heard evangelical apologists who explain it (away) in terms of the so-called “prophetic past”: the seer projects himself into the distant future and is able to see the past relative to this time point (but in the future relative to the prophet’s own time). This is no longer a historical or textual argument, but a theological one. How would you respond as an exegete?
If you seriously want to look into the matter, the best thing to do is to check out serious biblical commentaries, by critical scholars, both on Isaiah and on the Gospels. (For the latter, don’t overlook Raymond Brown’s The Death of the Messiah). It is generally conceded (outside of very conservative evangelical circles) that the *reason* Isa. 53 (and Ps. 22, etc.) sound so much to us like Jesus crucifixion, is because the Christians who told stories of Jesus’ death, and the Christians who wrote about it, were deeply informed by these passages of Scripture. They knew them, inside out, and when they told their stories about Jesus, they told them in such a way as to show that Jesus “fulfilled” these prophecies.
Thanks. Just a quick question – do you think the early Christian tradition of reading Isaiah as about Jesus originated from the post-Easter church or from Jesus himself?
Definitely not Jesus!
“It is to be remembered that the prophets of the Hebrew Bible are not predicting things that are to happen hundreds of years in advance; they are speaking to their own contexts and delivering a message for their own people to hear, about their own immediate futures”
How do OT scholars figure out that the Hebrew prophets were speaking solely about their contemporaries’ immediate futures, instead of a combination of the near future and distant future?
“In fact, it is not about the messiah at all. This is a point frequently overlooked in discussions of the passage. If you will look, you will notice that the term messiah never occurs in the passage. This is not predicting what the messiah will be.”
I agree there is no textual evidence the Isaiah had in mind the messiah. However, I am not persuaded this point is all that important in Jewish-Christian dialogue. Consider the cosmic judge, the Son of Man in Daniel 7: there is no evidence the author had in mind the messiah. Yet Christians from the earliest times through the centuries have identified the figure with Jesus, not on the ground that the passage is referring to the messiah therefore it is referring to Jesus, but instead on the ground that – in view of the early Christians – Jesus fits the description in Daniel 7 therefore the passage is about Jesus. Similarly, could one argue that even though Isaiah 7 is not about the messiah, Jesus fits the description of the suffering servant fairly well, so it is about Jesus?
In “Jesus and Victory of God” NT Wright argues that Jesus saw himself as True Israel, and could have identified himself with the Suffering Servant. What’s your take on his thesis?
I’m not sure how Jesus fits the description of the Son of Man, since he hasn’t come on the clouds to have dominion over the kingdoms on earth!
But yes, Christians said that he was the Son of Man. And the Suffering Servant. And they told their stories about him in light of those beliefs.
I think Tom Wright is letting his theology influence his history. I think there’s virtually no way Jesus thought of himself as a suffering servant. His goal was certainly not to suffer, let alone to suffer for the sake of others. That theology was put on his lips only after he had been crucified by followres who wanted to make sense of it.
To me at least, that view makes the most sense. The messianic interpretation of Isaiah 53 reminds me of how Christians today tend to interpret the book of Revelation as being fulfilled through the lens of *current* events. Probably not a coincidence.
That makes sense. Once again.
Although … I’ve used your argument on a debate board and I got this as a response. How would you answer those objections? Here’s the link: http://community.beliefnet.com/go/thread/view/43851/29228451/The_Suffering_Servant_cant_be_Jesus._And_vice_versa.&post_num=21#521765095
I’m afraid to reply adequately would take a 40 page article — or maybe a book!
Hello Bart,
I became a member because you started blogging about your Bible Introduction and I’m very glad I did. You are the only author I really like on the Bible.
Spiritually I am interested in the Buddha and Hindu Saints.
What brings me to the Bible after being raised liberal Protestant is the Bible’s place in Western Civiliaztion.
I have 2 questions.
1. Will your Bible Introduction include Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books?
2. What’s your opinion of the HarperCollins Study Bible?
1. Yup!
2. I think it’s the best thing going.
Just last week James White and Michael Brown on a radio show did an in-depth discussion on this and came to very different conclusions
Now that’s the shock of the century!! 🙂
Thanks, Bart, for the insights. I teach a Bible as Literature course on the college level and I have difficulty having some students accept this kind of rational, critical approach, particularly those who have been taught to see these kinds of passages as prophecies of Jesus. I was wondering, though, if you don’t mind responding, how were you “taught” to interpret these kinds of “prophecies” at Wheaton College and The Moody Bible Institute? What would they have said to such a critical approach?
Keep up the great work!–your blog is a wonderful resource.
We were taught that liberals like me had no clue how to read the Bible because we were not inspired by the Holy Spirit, and were headed straight to hell!
Are those evangelicals at Wheaton and Moody claiming they are inspired by the Holy Spirit? Wouldn’t this make their biblical interpretations inerrant, because the Holy Spirit cannot lie? That’s a new take on the doctrine of biblical inerrancy!
No, they wouldn’t go that far. But many of them would say that you cannot understand the Word without the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Whether that leads them into theological hot water is another question.
This chapter was the one my mother strongly suggested I read before every communion service in order to prepare my mind for the upcoming, ahem, sacrifice of God. Yup, talk about reeking havoc on my teenage mind. Anyway, I heard a discussion on a Christian radio station not too long ago (I tune in occasionally to check on them) that stated flat out that there is in existence an “almost” word for word manuscript dating from the 5the century that proves there was only one Isaiah and that we could therefore trust that all manuscripts (including your field of expertise) could be relied upon whether they were original (none existing) or merely second or third generation copies. Is this true (the so-called almost exact copy)? And if it is true at what point could a possible collation have occurred?
Nope, it’s not true. Either you misheard them, or they don’t konw what they’re talking about. In any event, even if there *were* a fifth century (I assume they mean BCE) copy of the entirety of Isaiah (which there decidedly is not!) it would not prove that all parts were written by the same author in the 8th c. BCE. Even scholars who hold to 1, 2, and 3 Isaiah (which, by the way, is just about every scholar except those who have religious reasons to want to think otherwise) maintain that 3rd Isaiah is probably 5th century. So by the time this copy was made (and it wasn’t made, since it doesn’t exist) all three already would have done their writing.
Thanks Bart. I always think there is something fishy when the trumpets blare and the drums roll about the “almost word for word” manuscript that somebody found somewhere that proves the entire Bible to be true. I suppose even Christians have their agenda, even if it does involve skullduggery. Thanks again for your integrity and humor.
The interesting question is not whether the Book of Isaiah comes from multiple sources but why these different authors were associated with each other in the first place. I assume there must be theological reasons for an editor or editors to collect them but are there textual reasons as well? Did anyone in antiquity note the difference in writing styles or was that a modern insight?
My view is that there are *lots* of interesting questions, not just one!
The usual hunch is that the later prophets saw themselves as standing in the intellectual/prophetic line of Isaiah and so it made sense to put all of them on the same scroll. There certainly are similarities. No, no one saw them as different, to my knowledge, until the German scholar Bernhard Duhm in 1892.
(Found when I was researching Isaiah 53) Ibn Ezra in the XII century appears to question whether there was more than one Isaiah. Commenting on chapter 40, he writes that it seems to be like the book of Samuel, which was continued after Samuel’s death.
1. “… , the Servant of Yahweh is … the delight of Yahweh ….”.
…..
“… the Servant of the Lord …. is Israel, God’s people.”
Agreed, but weren’t the people of Israel looking for, in the time of Second Isaiah, the promised coming a king-like Messiah who was to be sent by YaHVeH-Jehovah to rule Israel as a temporal-spiritual leader and conquer its enemies? Historically, isn’t it this hoped-for “king-like messiah” who became dogmatized by (if I may borrow your term) proto-orthodox Christians in some 30 OT prophecies and, later, by orthodox Christians in their hymns and formal prayers in terms like “Christ the King”?
2. “I think there’s virtually no way Jesus thought of himself as a suffering servant.”
OK, I can agree with this statement too. But, there are another twenty or so OT prophecies which point toward a Suffering Messiah who would lead the Israelites away from the “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” thinking and behavior taught to them in Moses’ Law (Exo. 21:24, et. al). Isn’t it possible, then, that Jesus—despite his best efforts to teach the people in his time and place to “love one another” (John 13:34, et. al); to be tolerant and forgiving, and who withdrew from public after realizing the people “would come and take him by force, to make him a king” (John 6:15)—became this type of “suffering servant” by circumstance, rather than by personal choice or divine/public decree?
Looks like you and I need to agree to disagree on whether there was any notion of a suffering messiah in Judaism before Christianity came along. I don’t know of a single instance!
So agreed 🙂
Also, as best I can tell, you’re correct: “there was [not] any notion of a suffering messiah in Judaism before Christianity came along.” The various OT prophecies of Isaiah and others which I’ve researched point toward a promised and long sought “king-like messiah, ” not a “suffering servant”. That latter title is an apparently erroneous epithet applied to Jesus of Nazareth, but, whether it was applied by proto-orthodox or orthodox Christians, I’m unable to say conclusively.
Regards . . . . .
Bart,
Micah 5:1 says “They will strike Israel’s ruler on the cheek with a rod.” Is this ruler the messiah?
This never happened to Jesus but if it did, the following verses go into how “HE” will liberate the Jewish people from the Assyrians; which Jesus never did and couldn’t have since the Assyrians were long gone after Jesus showed up.
It’s a metaphorical statement that the foreign adversary (in this case teh Assyrian monarch Sennacherib?) would humiliate the king of Juda (Hezekiah?)
https://www.oneforisrael.org/bible-based-teaching-from-israel/inescapable-truth-isaiah-53/
Hello Bart, iam a new member on your blog. I love your debates and i have watched them all. I don’t know if you react to older blogs.
Isn’t it true that jewish tradition considired Isaiah 53 as an messiah prophesy? And that the jewish changed this few after Jesus his death? In the death see scrolls it was seen as in important messiah prophesy? Is this correct?
No, I’m afraid it’s just hte opposite of the truth. The Dead Sea Scrolls decidedly do not read it messianically. Neither did any Jew, prior to Christianity. If anyone tells you they did, ask for the ancient proof. It ain’t there.
Thank you for reponding Bart, iam a big fan of your blogs and debates.
Is it true that in the talmud there are many reference about the messiah being the suffering servant? And if that’s true doesn’t that mean that many jews thought that it was about the messiah? i know that the references are not prior to Jesus. Still it puzzles me dat Jews would see Isaiah 53 as being about the messiah, is it true and if it is, why is that?
Some examples.
2. The Babylonian Talmud states:
The Rabanan say that Messiah’s name is The Suffering Scholar of Rabbi’s House (or The Leper Scholar) for it is written, “Surely He hath born our grief and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.”[3]
Here, the Babylonian Talmud applies Isaiah 53:4 to the Messiah.
3. The Babylonian Talmud also states:
The Messiah—what is his name?…The Rabbis say, The leprous one; those of the house of Rabbi [4] say, The sick one, as it is said, “Surely he hath borne our sicknesses.”[5]
I can’t speak to the Babylonian Talmud, except to say that it was produced some 500 years or more after the Dead Sea Scrolls. I certainly wouldn’t use a writing produced by an American Christian in 2015 to explain a text written by a German Christian in 1500.
Here’s something you may find interesting.
“His grave is with the wicked, and his deaths are with the rich.” (53:9)
The servant of God is buried with the wicked, but the Christian scriptures tell us that Jesus was buried with the rich and not with the wicked. God’s servant is to die with the rich, yet the Christian scriptures tell us that Jesus did not die with the rich, but with the wicked. It is obvious that Isaiah did not have Jesus in mind when he uttered these words.
Dr. Ehrman,
If you are agnostic to God, what do you think of Satan? I am drawn like a magnet to Isaiah 45 and wonder if the good/evil, God/Satan is a false dualism. Do you have an opinion? Is this addressed in any of your books?
I don’t believe there are any supernatural, personal beings, good or evil.
Hello Bart,
You’ve said in your lectures and also here, that there are no Jewish sources before Christians existed that interpret Isaiah 53 as referring to the “messiah” but instead to Israel. This is a very interesting factoid, however, one individual brought to my attention the 11Q13 pesher as well as the Jonathan ben Uzziel Targum as being pre Christian sources. This is way out of my line of expertise, what is your response to both of those sources as being pre Christian sources identifying Isaiah 53 as messianic?
I’m afraid I’m on the road and hundreds of miles from my books, so I can’t say anything definitive. But 11Q13 is the Melchizedek scroll; it does not contain a clear statement about a suffering messiah. (In Isaiah 53 itself, the suffering servant is almost certainly Israel. THe problem is that that one is not called the messiah)
It is important to note that the Zoroastrianism of Cyrus the Great and his vision of his Empire finds it’s way into Judaism and Christianity. Ahura Mazda/Angra Mainyu… like a formula where we plug other names into the blank slots.
I’m out on my limb again with this but here goes-
“HE” is Israel but, specifically, those who had experienced exile in Babylon. No problem. What is looming ahead is the collision between the returning elite (the majority of their number staying on in the newly transformed Persian Babylon) and the vast majority of lower class Judahites who remained in Judah after 588BCE. The returnees wanted to return to their former dominance but the stay-behinds couldn’t see why that should be a given. The ‘suffering servant’ is the language of the returnees declaring just why they should, Isaiah3 (53:12) “I will give him [the returnees] the many as his portion, he shall receive the multitude as his spoil”. In other words, we bore it for all of us and our just reward is the power and reward over every one else. Isaiah.3 (53:3) He [the Returnees] was despised, shunned by men [in captivity]. A man [the returnees] of suffering, familiar with dis-ease [in captivity] as one who hid his face from us [in captivity]. He [the returnees] was despised, we [the stay-behinds] held him of no account. Yet it was our [the stay-behinds] sickness that he [the returnees] was bearing, our [the stay-behinds] suffering that he [the returnees] endured. This, along with other language addressing this crisis, is the Levitic propaganda for dominance after a surprising turn of fate with Cyrus the Great defeating Belshazzar and his Father in 540BCE. Am I just way off here?
I hold to a similar view.
The process is rather threefold. ‘people of the land’ are both the ‘stay-behinds’ and the ‘mutts’. They don’t have the ‘Law’ as it hasn’t been written. The waves of returnees from 520-458BCE also are w/o the ‘Law’ and they assimilate accordingly. Ezra speaks of the guilt and sin of the former exiles having married ‘foreign’ women. These aren’t the CHOSEN chosen. The waves with and after 458 are the special bunch as they have the word. I;m preparing all of this for a new OT course I’m preparing. Truly fascinating history under the stories.
Curious if you feel that THEOCRACY can be assigned to a population of 1500? Seems more like a cult assignation than a full on theocracy. I’m thinking of late-6th to late-5thC BCE Jerusalem. Archaeologically the footprint doesn’t hold much more than that with NO evidence of an inward migration from ANYWHERE. Thoughts?
I suppose it depends on what you mean by theocracy.
1. A form of government in which God or a deity is recognized as the supreme civil ruler, the God’s or deity’s laws being interpreted and enforced by the ecclesiastical authorities.
2. A system of government by priests claiming a divine commission.
3. A commonwealth or state under such a form or system of government.
Contemporary Examples: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Vatican
I think the first Christians were inventing the details of the crucifixion story by rewriting Psalm 22 an Isaiah 53. Regarding Isaiah 53, we read:
The conversion of Ethiopian Queen Candace’s eunuch is yet another Acts parody of a
story prized by the resistance. The eunuch “who had charge of all her treasury” was on the
road to Jerusalem and was reading the “suffering servant” passage from Isaiah (53:7–8),
when Philip approaches him saying “Do you understand what you are reading?”. (Acts
8:30). After interpreting the text, Philip convinces the eunuch to declare “I believe that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God” and immediately baptize himself.
Hi Bart, you wrote in your post, ” It may be that the author is thinking that the portion of the people taken into exile have suffered for the sins of those in the land – some of them suffering for the sins of all. Those who have been taken into captivity have suffered displacement, loss, and exile for the sake of everyone else. But now the servant – Israel – will be exalted and restored to a close relationship with God – and be used by him to bring about justice throughout the earth.”
I don’t understand the purpose of why those in exile had to suffer for those living in Israel. In other words how would the suffering of a person benefit another? Is it through the lessons learned through that suffering that the person then help and teach others? Is there a concept in Judaism that would explain this?
– Zak
Yes, it’s that age-old idea that one can suffer in the place of another. It’s like one person paying someone else’s fine. Or in antiquity, like an animal substituting for a human in being killed as a sacrifice.
Hi Bart what’s your opinion on the Messiah Ben Joseph tradition in Judaism, do you think this is a post jesus development?
Yup.
Thanks Bart, final question on this topic is what is your opinion on Targum Jonathan Ben Uzziel? Richard carrier says this relates Isaiah 53 to the messiah but I am aware he is quite tendentious so I was wondering what the mainstream opinion is?
Ask him when the Targum dates from.
This is what he says in his book “the early-first-century Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel on Isaiah 53 (a kind of paraphrastic commentary in Aramaic; Jonathan ben Uzziel was traditionally a student of Hillel, who died c. 10 ce , and a contemporary of Shammai , who died c. 30 ce ), which explicitly identifies the suffering servant there as the Christ“
I don’t know how accurate this is though.
Just for the record I don’t subscribe to the mythicise view and just read the book out of interest!
Yes, you’ll notice that he doesn’t talk about the date of the Targum *itself* (when it was written). Maybe he doesn’t know.
Ah I see!
What is the date of the Targum?
Ah, just look it up. Even Wikipedia will do! (No where near to any time prior to the NT!)
Jogon, according to methodological principles of dating the Targums, Pseudo-Jonathan could not have been composed earlier than the middle of the fourth century CE. What is the oldest manuscript of the Targum, I can’t recall, but these documents has undergone some editorial revision in 7th century because of an obvious allusion to the wifes of Prophet Muhammad and probably to himself also. Remember, that by the term Messiah Jews have in mind a powerful warrior, who represents at the same time a chosen savior-prophet of Israel. Isaiah 53 is not about Israel neither about Jesus.
Bart,
I’ve heard several Jewish scholars and rabbis say that “they were wounded FROM our transgressions or because of our transgressions and by his wounds (Israel) we are healed. They make the point that the gentile nations are speaking in this verse. What is your take on this interpretation? And is the wording FROM instead of FOR a Christian alteration of the text or has it always been FOR our transgressions. It seems like a train wreck though to say it’s Jesus. He will see the light? I thought Jesus was the light. Much thanks!
I”m afraid I’m out of town and away from my books — so I can’t say. Don’t actually remember the Hebrew. Maybe someone else on the blog can tell us?
http://whatjewsbelieve.org/prooftext10is53.html
Bart,
In this article by a Rabbi, he lays out the following:
In verse 5, the text is translated as ‘But he was wounded FOR our transgressions, he was bruised FOR our iniquities.’ The mistake is that the prefix to the words meaning ‘our transgressions’ and ‘our iniquities’ is the Hebrew letter mem. This is a prepositional prefix meaning ‘from’ and not ‘for.’ A more accurate translation would be, ‘But he was wounded FROM our transgressions, he was bruised FROM our iniquities.’ This means that Isaiah 53 is not talking about a man who died ‘for our sins,’ but rather it is about a man who died ‘BECAUSE of our sins,’ or ‘AS A RESULT of our sins.’ In other words, they died because we sinned against them by murdering them. This, indeed, is the Jewish understanding of Isaiah 53: the nations of the earth will finally understand that the Jews have been right all along, and the sins committed against the Jews by the nations of the earth resulted in the death of countless innocent Jews.
It seems here the verses are the gentile nations speaking. For our transgressions is a mistranslation according to the Rabbi but from your interpretation it’s the Jewish people speaking that they were wounded for their own transgressions. Whose speaking? The gentile nations or the Jewish people? Is it FROM or FOR? I know this is getting into the weeds but a simple word change can have a dramatic effect on something so powerful as Isaiah 53 and it just be nice to know if the Hebrew actually means FROM.
Once again, thank you for this great website and tool.
I think “because of our sins” is how it is often taken — because of the sins of others, the servant died. But I don’t know of any passage in the prophets where it is gentiles being represented as speaking. In any event, the identity of the servant is clear. Isa 49:3 tells us that it is Israel. Or part of Israel. Given everything else in Isa 40-55, it appears to be that part of Israel taken into captivity.
It makes sense that it’s the Jewish people talking in those 3 verses. They finish by saying, “by his wounds (Israel) we are healed or we were healed. Do you know of the exact Hebrew for the word healed and what exactly is meant by that word? Are the Jews now mentally healed? They understand now because of their sins Israel will now prosper? Is there any good book that you or someone else has written that explains how the Christians manipulated certain Hebrew texts to prove the messiah or take stories like Isiah 7:14 completely out of context to try and show Jesus was the messiah like Mathew did. I’m finding that a simple word change like in Zechariah 12 about who was pierced can really alter ones understanding. That would be a great read. Thank you as always Bart. What a resource this amazing website is. What I would have given to know what I know now when I was being raised a fundamenlist.
Bart,
Who is speaking in Isiah 53:1?
Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
This is the NT version. In the Jewish Tanakh it’s quoted as:
Who would have believed our report? And to whom hath the arm of the LORD been revealed?
Notice the change in text? It seems that the Tanakh implies whoever is speaking is more surprised or confused and the NT version not as much.
Have you heard/read of Gerald Sigal “who is the suffering servant of Isiah 53”
He makes the point the gentile nations are speaking from 53:1-8 but you (I believe) are saying the Jews are speaking in these passages.
And in 53:2- it says “he grew up before him” who is he and who is him. If he
Is Jesus than who can him be?
Is there a non-biased book out there from any scholar who can’t just clearly state what’s going on and not try to push a theological agenda.
Much thanks!
The speaker is the narrator of the text; the person referred to is the Servant of the Lord; and the Servant of the Lord, according to Isaiah 49:3 (just three chapters earlier) is explicitly said to be Israel. For good commentary, an excellent place to start is the HarperCollins Study Bible
Bart,
The Harper Collins study bible says Isaiah 53: verses 1-6, it is the Gentiles being represented as speaking, how they wounded the servant from their sins or because of their transgressions and because of that they are now healed or made aware that Israel suffered unjustly due to them and they now recognize their error. I know I’ve been getting into the weeds on this with you but it’s for peace of mind good sir. Your thoughts on their interpretation?
Thank you
You must have a different edition of the HarperCollins Study Bible from mine. Mine doesn’t say that at all. It simply indicates that the “servant appears to have been exiled Israel” The interpretation of the passage in the notes is pretty much just mine as well.
Appreciate the quick response as always. In regards to psalms 22-16. Like lions my hands and my feet. You think king David was worried that his enemies were coming to chop of his hands and feet because he ordered his men to do so and hang their bodies in 2nd Samuel. The Assyrians also cut off the toes and thumbs of their enemies. Was this a common threat that Jewish Kings were worried about? Also in 1 judges it refers to this type of barbaric behavior. The historical context behind this would be great to know because as you know, this is considered by Christians to be foreshadowing Jesus.
I think it’s probably metaphorical, in part because I don’t think David himself actually wrote the Psalm. The attributions to him are from much later, and in a number of instances they cannot be right (think Psalm 23, which speaks about spending one’s life in the Temple. Wasn’t built yet!)
I’m terms of metaphors, what would “marks on their foreheads” mean? I’ve seen this in the Old Testament and famously in revelation with 666 mark of the beast. Is it implying a belief in ones mind? I’ve always wondered if the author of revelation was just copying people from the Old Testament and he himself never understood the meaning? Ezekiel 9:4 it talks about going into Jerusalem and putting a mark on ones forehead and also in Exodus and Deuteronomy it refers to marks on hands and for heads as well. What Is your interpretation of the mark on the forehead as found in Revelation? I’ve heard some people say the Roman money changers wore marks on their foreheads so people from outside the city knew where to exchange money. Also loved your debate with Mike Licona. Keep up the great work Bart!
I think it’s like the “seal” given believers: a physical marking showing to whom they belong, like a tattoo or a brand.
Is there any historical evidence at all that the Jewish people were crucified before Jesus? Did the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians and so on crucify Jewish people like the Romans? Trying to find this information seems to be harder than one would expect. My evangelical friend claims no Jewish person was crucified until after Jesus.
Yes indeed. Even Jewish leaders crucified other Jews.
Wow! So in regards to psalm 22:16, one could easily make the argument that whoever wrote, like lions my hands and my feet (whatever the correct verb is?), was referring to the crucifixions of Jews well BEFORE the time of Jesus. My evangelical friend also thinks that the Romans invented crucifixions. Ignorance is an understatement
I’m not sure it refers to crucifixion necesarily; but in any event it is veryhard to date most individual psalms. Most were almost certainly written long before the Roman period.
The HarperCollins Study Bible—Student Edition By Harold W. Attridge, Ph.D. is the one I’m reading from.
Maybe I’m confusing the situation here (sorry if I am) but it says in Isaiah 53:1-6, it’s the gentile nations speaking or being represented, and they now are shocked and amazed that Israel is now flourishing or will flourish and they (the nations that persecuted the Jews) now see because of their (gentile nations) sins, they made Israel suffer and they are now healed because of this experience and see the wrong of their ways, is what’s being communicated in these 6 verses according to my book.
What edition do you have? Sounds like everyone can be at odds on this but I’d really love your take on these 6 verses and what exactly is being communicated in your book since that’s the interpretation you agree with.
I promise you I’m almost done bothering you Bart ????
Ah. I think I’m using the earlier edition. It’s an interesting interpretation. I’ve always thought that the speaker was some kind of generic Israelite marveling at what had happened.
Bart,
Do you think this is a contradiction in itself. In one verse the servant is esteemed and the other he’s not. Isaiah 53: 3-4.
He was despised, and forsaken of men, A man of pains, and acquainted with disease, And as one from whom men hide their face: He was despised, and we ESTEEMED him not.
Surely our diseases he did bear, and our pains he carried; Whereas we did ESTEEM him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.
In one verse they don’t respect the servant and the next verse they respect his suffering? Very odd and confusing.
I guess “esteeming him” is different from “recognizing that he was stricken”
Marveling at the fact they (the Jewish people) are now free to return to Israel and god has rewarded them after their suffering and they will go Israel to build it up; sing o barren woman! Who would have believed our report?
I also think it could be both. The Israelites and both the gentile nations are marveling at the coming messianic age or the fact Israel is flourshing back to their homeland?
Bart,
A lot of scholars have different interpretations of the word “For” or “FROM” or “ Because” from Isaiah 53:5 when it talks about being wounded for/from/because our transgressions.
The septugiant has it translated to “Because” as well, which is way before Jesus.
Can the Hebrew here be translated into these 3 words from the original word in the text through different translations or is it strictly one word? The Jewish Bible has it “because” as well.
I’m afraid I’m on the road, away from my books just now. Maybe someone else on the blog who knows Hebrew can answer?
No problem. Answer when you can. Safe travels Bart.
According to a Christian scholar from an Ivy League school, the Hebrew preposition found in Isaiah 53:5 is “mn” and can have numberous translations into English.
Hence why most Jewish translations have “from” or “because” implying the gentile nations inflicting pain on the servant (Israel). This interpretation (according to my research) is of most if not all Rabbis. It’s even the interpretation in one of the editions of the Harper Collins study Bible.
Most Christian translations give the word “for” to show the servant (Jesus) died for the sins of the world. The only question is now, what was the original Hebrew word found in Isaiah 53? For? From? Because?
Know you’re on the road Bart but this question would be great to have answered.
The Hebrew word, of course, was not “for” “from” or Because” — it was “min.” And it could mean a wide range of things, depending on context. Interpreters would have to engage in a detailed exegesis in order ot justify one translation or the other, including the way “min” — a very, very common word — gets used regularly in this part of Isaiah and throughout the Hebrew Bible generally. I have to admit, I’ve never done so myself, but if I were intent on arguing for one translation or the other, I would have to do so. But I will say that the Greek version (so-called Septuagint) — which is the version virtually all ealry Christians read — uses the Greek preposition DIA with the accusative, which means “‘because of’ or ‘on account of’ our transgressions.”
Ah very good! It made sense to me the Jewish translation (“because of”) seemed to be the most accurate, or consistent throughout history until after the life of Jesus. Nearly every Christian Bible has “for”, which is not the historically accurate translation, given the evidence of the Greek Septuagint translation “because of” which most early Christians read.
Paul never even cites this verse Isaiah 53:5 in his writings either, which is a pretty good indicator as well at the time nobody construeded “min” to mean “for”.
One has to ask why Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ rendered “he was wounded FOR our transgressions” so vividly at the beginning of that movie? Wouldn’t he want to show the historically correct translation??
You Bart are a scholar and a gentlemen! Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful response as always. It’s amazing how one word can change the meaning of such a important chapter like Isaiah 53. Safe travels home.
Gentleman and a Scholar ????
My question is based off of what ancient Judaism thought of the messiah. From what I have read there was a general belief that the messiah would come deliver Israel as a warrior and defeat the Romans. I know some scholars have a diverse view of what it means for the Messiah to deliver israel. But generally it seems that the Messiah is supposed to be a king that wins. Also that Isaiah 53 “the suffering messiah” was always interpreted as israel not the messiahs. The messiah was not suppose to be killed at all. Another thing from what I read ancient Judaism except the sadducces believe in the end there will be a general bodily resurrection of all that has died in the past. If this is true of what the ancient Jewish people thought what was going to happen. Why did everything go off the rails with Jesus ? We have a so called messiah that is crucified and that resurrects from the dead 3 days later. He was nonviolent then also the main thing israel was never delivered from Rome? I know this a long winded question but I was just curious what your quick thoughts ?
I’d say it’s the key question. It requires a long answer, but the short one is that the disciples of Jesus did have that kind of expectation about him while he was alive, that he might be teh one to deliver Israel and set up God’s kingdom (probably with supernatural help from the cosmic judge of the earth soon to come). It didn’t happen. Instead he was brutally tortured to death. That shattered hteir hopes. But soon after, some of them said they saw him alive again. That made them think that God MUST have chosen him to be his special one after all. He really IS the messiah. But they necessarily had, then, to rethink what it meant for God to send the messiah. They came to think that Jesus was the one who *would* rule the world, but God’s plan was bigger than all that. Since he had allowed, or even made, his chosen one die: there must have been a reason. Immediatly, I should think, they came to believe that the death of Jesus was all part of God’s plan, that he had to die, obviously not for his own sins, since he was the Chosen one and was not a sinful person, and therefore for hte sins of others as a sacrificial substitute. So soon after Jesus’ death they came to believe in the idea of a suffering messiah. And that’s how Christianity began.
Thank you so much for your response. In one of your blogs you write But why would that be a problem? On the contrary, the messiah was not supposed to be killed at all. It is at this point that we need to consider what ancient Jews, including the pre-Christian Paul, thought about the messiah.
I am a little confused because thru my research I see scholars argue that there were messiahs who was expected to be murdered or suffering here is a list of the sources that I have read on the issue. 1. midrashim, in which a Messiah named Ephraim appears of whom God demands that he take upon himself the sins of the people of Israel; Hence, it is ultimately the Messiah’s expiatory suffering that guarantees creation and redemption. 2. Self-Glorification Hymn (4Q471b, 4Q491c) 3. texts like 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra are said to exhibit a suffering messiah,4. The Gabriel messiah stone 5. Essenes write about a figure called the “Teacher of Righteousness” who suffered 6. Aramaic text 4Q541 7. Similtudes of Enoch
1. The surviving Midrashim appear after Christianity started; 2. The 4Q fragments and the Babriel Stone are filled with lacunae and cannot be reliably reconstureded. 3. No, there is no suffering messian in 2 Baruch or 4 #zra 5. Teacher of Righteousness is not describved as a messiah. 7. There is no suffering messiah in the Similitudes.
The thing to do is to look up all the references carefully, and the discussions of them by scholars. If you want a top-class discussoin by one of the top scholars of Hebrew Bible/Early Judaism in the world, see John Collins book The Scepter and the Star.
Thank you for that resource. I am curious though about the John the Baptist situation. It seems Herod and others believed that John the Baptist was raised from the dead and he was the messiah. Wouldn’t that be suggesting that there was some belief that there was an isolated resurrection before the general one also the messiah was beheaded.
If they really thought that, yes it probably would. But the only reason for saying they did was because that’s what is reported in Christian Gospels written decades later in other lands and in a different language. The Christians claimed that Herod believed Jesus might be the resurrected John, but I don’t think he really did. Nothing in the other records about him give any hint of this.