Is Jesus the Messiah?

[pilgrim]

We’re all reduced to processing tons of thousand’s of year old texts in unfamiliar languages to gauge whether this is how most Jews then interpreted the O.T. emphasis on a returning “Anointed One.” And we all seem reduced to looking to scholars devoted to that era and deciding who we find most trustworthy and convincing about first century Jewish interpretations and expectations.

If there are tons of ancient commentary s on Isa 53 then please provide one decent translation because I don’t quite see how the following helps:

I admit the most influential figure for me here in making sense of the Biblical text is N.T. Wright. If you want detail on why I assume this as the dominant Jewish outlook, his most accessible cases for this reading are found in “The Challenge of Jesus,” and “Simply Jesus.” He reviews a host of O.T. texts about which he finds evidence that Jews especially regarded as messianic texts, as well as shows how the N.T. record confirms this as what its era’s Jews expected, and thus widely found Jesus’ and apostolic claims of a peaceful suffering messiah (in the mold of Isaiah 53) to be sheer foolishness.

I assume that N.T. Wright (as opposed to Tom Wright) MUST have referenced source material for Jewish commentary on Isa 53. Could you please provide these references?

" and thus widely found Jesus’ and apostolic claims of a peaceful suffering messiah (in the mold of Isaiah 53) to be sheer foolishness."
the word " foolishness" surely demands strong evidence or does N.T. Wright make a habit of calling those with a differing opinion “fools”? Perhaps you could cite where N.T. Wright uses “foolishness” against those who differ.

I have given some medieval Jewish sources for their belief that Isa 53 refers to their Messiah.
I am still waiting for ANY ancient evidence to support the contrary.
Did N.T. Wright provide any?

[Bob_Wilson]

We’re all processing tons of texts in to gauge how most Jews interpreted the O.T. emphasis on a returning “Anointed One.”

If there are tons of ancient commentarys on Isa 53…

Wright reviews a host of O.T. texts Jews especially regarded as messianic, as well as shows how the N.T. record confirms Jews found Jesus’ and apostolic claims of a peaceful suffering messiah (in the mold of Isaiah 53) to be sheer foolishness.

Does Wright make a habit of calling those with a differing opinion “fools”?

You’ve turned upside down what I and Tom Wright argue about most 1st century Jews’ views.

While he cites evidence that they often saw Isaiah 53 referring to Israel and not as about David’s coming son, my references to “tons of texts on a returning anointed one” does not even refer to commentaries on Isaiah 53, but to the many texts seen as a divine Davidic King’s triumph over their enemies. Again, Jews’ usual definition of ‘Messiah’ did not rest on Isaiah 53, but the many texts Tom details (and often cited in the NT).

Similarly, his reference to seeing claims about Jesus as “foolishness” is not Wright’s view of those who differ with him, but his sense of the N.T. characterization of how most Jews reacted to the Christian belief that Jesus is their Messiah.

[pilgrim]

Thank you for your clarification.
I’m not sure why evidence of OTHER texts referring to the Messiah tells us (OR N.T.) anything about Isa 53.
I conclude that N.T. does not reference ancient commentaries on Isa 53.
If I am wrong, please correct me but please supply this ‘evidence that they often saw Isa 53 referring to Israel’ and can I infer by the word ‘often’ that they ‘often’ didn’t?

What do you make of Jews in 12th C? believing that Isa 53 was referring to the Messiah and why would they ‘transition’ to this belief whilst having to endure untold atrocities in Christendom? Surely the obvious implication is that this belief pre-existed.

[mik]

@pilgrim Just calm down a bit there. Deut 13 wasn’t towards your comment.

The beautiful thing about Isaiah 53 is that there are 52 chapters coming before it and 13 chapters coming after it. If you are going to ignore all of the other chapters and their contexts to say that Jesus is the Messiah based off of Isaiah 53, you need to read the whole book.

I’ve been watching Rabbi Singer on youtube - if you watch a couple of his videos, you will see a point made.

@qaz All Im saying there is that the basis for choosing the Messiah should not be based on miracles/signs performed, but rather what I have stated in my first post. Many false prophets were performing miracles to get people to follow them - but that doesn’t make them the Messiah. If they were faced with a god that was not present there at Mt. Sinai, who took them out of the land of Egypt, then it could not be the true God.

Also I think its quite understandable that the Jews would kill Jesus because they seem to follow these verses. All of the apostles and followers were not very educated at the time (acts 4:13) except for a select few. It would have been much more impressive if Jesus could have the Rabbi’s, high priests, sadducees, and pharisees change their views and accept Jesus. Yet they used scripture as their primary reasoning for rejecting Jesus.

[pilgrim]

Just calm down a bit there. Deut 13 wasn’t towards your comment.

The beautiful thing about Isaiah 53 is that there are 52 chapters coming before it and 13 chapters coming after it. If you are going to ignore all of the other chapters and their contexts to say that Jesus is the Messiah based off of Isaiah 53, you need to read the whole book.

I’ve been watching Rabbi Singer on youtube - if you watch a couple of his videos, you will see a point made.

I’m perfectly calm thank you but I can understand the resort to ad-hominem.
If Deut 13 wasn’t in answer to my question then why don’t you answer my valid question:
you said:
“Once a person dies however, they can no longer be considered as a Messiah. I think this has to do with reigning on earth for the millennia.”
this was YOUR reference to Isa 53 ie in defence of the position that Jesus could not be the one envisaged in Isa 53.
I repeat:
“I don’t get this logic, considering the verses we are referring to I’m probably being thick but could you expound that for me?”

As for Rabbi Singer, I listened carefully to his debate with the Christian minister and was sensible enough to research some of his claims. If you had done the same, you would be embarrassed to use him a second time. Do you really think HE is calm and reasonable? Just research what he said about Psalm 2 and his dishonesty will be quickly apparent.
On the other hand, if you are looking for confirmation bias and not interested in the truth, go for it and God bless you.

[Bob_Wilson]

I’m not sure why evidence of OTHER texts referring to the Messiah tells us anything about Isa 53.

What do you make of Jews in 12th C? believing that Isa 53 was referring to the Messiah? Surely the obvious implication is that this belief pre-existed.

Wright does not think materials on texts in that era about how Jews defined “Messiah” tell us anything about Isaiah 53. Rather he sees the absence of reference to Isaiah 53 in their extensive discussions of this coming figure as suggesting that they explicitly relied on texts implying his coming power to triumphantly kill his enemies as David did and then rule, which thus explains why they did not appeal to an Isaiah text about a figure who gets snuffed, and thus widely called the Christian interpretation of Messiah “foolishness.”

I’ve already suggested that a Jew’s 12th century view is far removed from the era we are evaluating, and could then even be influenced by one Jews sympathy that the long-standing Christian argument that Isaiah’s portrait fits Jesus’ suffering in an uncanny way. But having Jewish relatives, my main response is their cliché, that you can find some Jews who take every possible interpretation. So finding a 12th century Jew who agrees with you is not even evidence that such more modern Jews mostly see Messiah as someone they will crucify, much less that first century Jews had the expectation of killing their Messiah.

[steve7150]

Specifically, the New Testament claims that Jesus did not have a physical father. The Jewish Scriptures, however, clearly states that a person’s genealogy and tribal membership is transmitted exclusively through one’s physical father ( Numbers 1:18, Jeremiah 33:17 ). Therefore, Jesus cannot possibly be a descendant of the tribe of Judah nor of King David and King Solomon.

No the fact is a legal father is recognized also as Joseph was plus the Jews recognized genealogy through the mother as they do to this day. So both lines are given in the NT , mother and father.

[steve7150]

The beautiful thing about Isaiah 53 is that there are 52 chapters coming before it and 13 chapters coming after it. If you are going to ignore all of the other chapters and their contexts to say that Jesus is the Messiah based off of Isaiah 53, you need to read the whole book.

I realize that mostly prior to Isa 53 , it was all about Israel and the change was subtle , but there was a change but you have to be willing to receive it.

[steve7150]

There are differing views on this but I think they expected the Messiah to fulfil 6 different things.

1. He must be Jewish. ( Deuteronomy. 17:15, Numbers 24:17 )
2. He must be a member of the tribe of Judah ( Genesis 49:10 ) and a direct male descendant of King David ( I Chronicles 17:11, Psalms 89:29-38, Jeremiah 33:17, II Samuel 7:12-16 ) and King Solomon.

( I Chronicles 22:10, II Chronicles 7:18 )

3. He must gather the Jewish people from exile and return them to Israel. ( Isaiah 27:12-13, Isaiah 11:12 )
4. He must rebuild the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. ( Micah 4:1 )
5. He must bring world peace. ( Isaiah 2:4, Isaiah 11:6, Micah 4:3 )
6. He must influence the entire world to acknowledge and serve one G-d. ( Isaiah 11:9, Isaiah 40:5, Zephaniah 3:9 )

Some of these things will happen in the milleneum although Preterists have a different explanation. As I said before I take world peace as “peace with God” & the ancestry can be through the legal father in Judaism who is Joseph.

[mik]

@pilgrim I honestly just forgot about it… nothing more. Once there are a lot of responses my mind is going in many directions.

“Once a person dies however, they can no longer be considered as a Messiah. I think this has to do with reigning on earth for the millennia.”

What I said was not versed with Isa 53, or so I remember. That is the accumulation of my knowledge in articles and videos in regards to what the Jews were expecting in the Messiah. Watch the video, I think its pretty thought out IMO. I am not claiming Rabbi Singer to be God in his perfection, yet he does actually test the NT against the OT which makes perfect sense to me. And man oh man am I embarrassed to watch some more of his videos - I should just stop studying the bible now.

On the other hand, if you are looking for confirmation bias and not interested in the truth, go for it and God bless you.

I grew up in a Catholic background for 18 years, general Christian for 1 year, Evangelical for 1 year, Messianic Christian for 1 year, now looking into Judaism/Noahidism. Confirmation bias has been far from my mind for roughly 4 years now. It has taken me a long time to remove my bias and look for Truth. This has gone from actually testing subjects like hell, the trinity, and Jesus as the Messiah. Maybe you don’t realise that I am the one searching these things and testing scripture. A vast majority of Christians do not do so and stick to ignorance, so sorry if I am ruffling your feathers.

[mik]

No the fact is a legal father is recognized also as Joseph was plus the Jews recognized genealogy through the mother as they do to this day. So both lines are given in the NT , mother and father.

Could you give me some verses somewhere or a video that says this? As far as I’ve looked, it still remains that it just goes through the father.

[mik]

@qaz If you actually watched a fair few of his videos, you would come to a different conclusion. He states that Scripture (the Tanak) is the only document that is truly inspired by God. He doesn’t care what people think of him, but states that people should be using scripture as their core belief about God. Also, he does not believe in eternal torment.

[mik]

Can you please give me a video or something stating this?

[mik]

Okay did you just watch the first one minute of the video? I watched the whole thing before and he said that if you do not abide by what God wants of you, you do not have a portion in the world to come (forgot where this verse is but Im sure you can find it). In other videos he completely disagrees with the notion of sending someone to eternal torment through ideas such as predestination. Also I’ve done my research with OT views of hell, and I would be confident in saying that physical everlasting torture is not scriptural. Also, how in the world is he being acrimonious - to me he seems passionate and calm.

[pilgrim]

Wright does not think materials on texts in that era about how Jews defined “Messiah” tell us anything about Isaiah 53. Rather he sees the absence of reference to Isaiah 53 in their extensive discussions of this coming figure as suggesting that they explicitly relied on texts implying his coming power to triumphantly kill his enemies as David did and then rule, which thus explains why they did not appeal to an Isaiah text about a figure who gets snuffed, and thus widely called the Christian interpretation of Messiah “foolishness.”

I’ve already suggested that a Jew’s 12th century view is far removed from the era we are evaluating, and could then even be influenced by one Jews sympathy that the long-standing Christian argument that Isaiah’s portrait fits Jesus’ suffering in an uncanny way. But having Jewish relatives, my main response is their cliché, that you can find some Jews who take every possible interpretation. So finding a 12th century Jew who agrees with you is not even evidence that such more modern Jews mostly see Messiah as someone they will crucify, much less that first century Jews had the expectation of killing their Messiah.

Hi Bob
Rather than me engaging with some of your thoughts above, which may not be of value to either of us, perhaps it would benefit if you could tell me your own opinion of Isaiah 53:
Do you personally believe that Isaiah 53 was/is a predictive prophecy referring to Jesus or not?

[mik]

@qaz Can you please give me a quote or video of him saying that he believes in eternal torment? If you are so against people who believe in the idea of eternal torment, why don’t you spend your time educating the MANY Christians who actually believe in this view.

Also, as far as I’ve seen with the Talmud - it teaches a maximal period of 12 months (for a reason I do not know) for corrective punishment of the spirit. If the absolute worst people that have ever lived still are not changed, then they are annihilated. This I think is a much better view than what typical Christians have. But don’t get me wrong, I would like Universalism to be true.

[Holy-Fool-P-Zombie]

Right, but Orthodox Jews like Singer also believe in the Talmud, which teaches ET for some and annihilation for others.

Question: Why do some get ET and others annihilation?

[Bob_Wilson]

Perhaps it would benefit if you could tell me your own opinion of Isaiah 53: Do you personally believe that Isaiah 53 was/is a predictive prophecy referring to Jesus or not?

Certainly I do (I was only disputing interpretations about how most Jews reacted to this claim). Jesus and the apostles are cited as both pointing to Isaiah 53, and Christians clearly recognize Jesus as the central fulfillment of Isaiah 53.

Indeed, we and I personally even recognize that it epitomized the central nature of Messiah’s true vocation. What I’ve outlined in several papers about Jesus on this site is that I follow Wright in seeing Jesus bring a reinterpretation of how Jews read their Scriptures and this especially applies to his claims about Messiahship.

[steve7150]

Could you give me some verses somewhere or a video that says this? As far as I’ve looked, it still remains that it just goes through the father.

Matthew 1 gives the lineage through Joseph and 1.16 specifically names Joseph yet does not use the word “begot” for the one and only time because Joseph adopted Jesus. Luke gives the lineage through Mary.

[steve7150]

The beautiful thing about Isaiah 53 is that there are 52 chapters coming before it and 13 chapters coming after it. If you are going to ignore all of the other chapters and their contexts to say that Jesus is the Messiah based off of Isaiah 53, you need to read the whole book.

I don’t think it’s 52 chapters , maybe 47 or so but that is not really the point. The point is whether 53 itself refers to Messiah or not, even if almost all the prior chapters refer to Israel. Let’s remember God divorced Israel, God commissioned Israel to bring the light of God to the world and they stumbled. Israel messed up and maybe that is why the "Son of Man: came to make things right.