Date: Friday, 18 December 1992 08:08:19 MST
X-Mailer: TMail version 1.15R
From: "D. C. Sessions" <dcs@witsend.tnet.com>
Organization: Nobody but me -- really
Subject: Re: Isaiah does not prophesy Christ
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Distribution: world

In <78497@hydra.gatech.EDU>, rpitts@emperor.gatech.edu (Richard Pitts)  wrote:
# 
# In article <fWFaqVV@quack.sac.ca.us> pharvey@quack.sac.ca.us (Paul Harvey) writes:
# >Only when poorly translated does Isaiah prophesy Christ.
# 
# Are you referring to all of Isaiah?
# 
# Or do you mean the verse that says something to the effect of "for unto
# you a child is born and the government shall be upon his shoulders
# and he shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting
# Father, Prince of Peace and his kingdom will see no end" - is this
# the verse you are referring to?

  Dear me.  Please check with your local Xtian scholar; last I heard
  even they admitted that this one was CONTEMPORARY.  Isiah was
  referring to a child even then in utero.  Present tense, folks.

# Oh, It seems that I keep missing your (PH's) explanation.  Why is it 
# that this JPS translation is superior to say the NASB or NIV or even
# the KJV?  
#
# It seems that you believe/know that these translators of the JPS
# have mastered both Hebrew and English, but yet no one else seems
# to be able to do that.  

  Well, the first is certainly true.  Chances are that they read it
  in the original before they ever saw a translation.  BTW, the
  version I use is the Soncino Press edition; it's handy to have
  the Hebrew on facing pages.

  The Xian versions are derived from a long history of translation
  going beck to the Septuagint.  Unfortunately, several gross
  misquotes made it into the Xian scriptures and ever since Xian
  translators have had to doctor their work to make everything fit.
  The best-known example immediately precedes the verse you cite,
  where Xian translators squirm around the fact that Isaiah does
  NOT say "virgin" despite Xian doctrine.  Oops.
 
# Also, you seem to be able to pick out a few key words within Isaiah 53
# and so explain away the whole passage - do you really think the
# rest of it has nothing to do with Jesus, who is Christ the Lord.

  You really want to get into this?  I thought we hashed it out
  in e-mail.Oh, very well.  But let's put things in context with
  a few words from Isaiah 52 [bracketed comments mine -- dcs]:

  {8} Hark, your watchmen! they lift up the voice, together do they
  sing; for they shall see, eye to eye, THE LORD returning to Zion.
  {9} Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem;
  For THE LORD has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem.
  {10} THE LORD has made bare His holy arm [NB, dcs] in the eyes of all
  the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation
  of our God.  [now a call to the exiles] {11} Depart, depart, go out
  from there, touch no unclean thing [since the Holy One is leading
  them and they should be pure in the Presence], Go out of the midst
  of her [Babylon], be clean, you that bear the vessels of THE LORD
  [Temple vessels returning from captivity, carried by the Levites,
  the Temple SERVANTS].  {12} For you shall not go out in haste,
  neither shall you go by flight, for THE LORD will go before you,
  and the God of Israel will be your rearward [thus the call for
  ritual purity].  {13} Behold, My servant shall prosper [who's
  this servant suddenly?  Golly, is this a major break or could this
  actually refer to the same people in the previous five?  Wow!]
  He shall be exhalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.
  {14} According as many were appalled at you [the degradation of
  the conquest and captivity], so marred was his visage unlike that
  of a man, and his form unlike that of the sons of men, {14} So
  shall he startle many nations, Kings shall shut their mouths
  because of him; For that which had not been told them they shall
  see, and that which they had not heard they shall perceive.

Of course, we COULD assume that Isaiah has no continuity; that there
is a complete break between verses 52:12 and 52:13.  Or that the
servant of 52:13 is not the servant of 53.  Or some such.  If you
start from the assumption that this MUST be crowbarred to fit your
own theory you can hack it up any one of a dozen ways.  You could,
for instance, introduce a chapter break right here.  For those who
haven't heard, the chapter/verse numbering doesn't exist in the
Hebrew but was added in Xian versions.

Rashi and Ibn Ezra, on the other hand, teach that 53:1 follows
directly from 52:15.  The kings (above) then say, wondering:


#     Isaiah 53 (NIV)   Who has believed our message and to whom has 
#     the arm of the LORD been revealed? {2} He grew up before him 
#     like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.

  This is an odd translation.  I have "For he shot up right forth as
  a sapling, and as a root out of dry ground."  The "before him"
  fersher ain't in the Hebrew.

#                                                              He had 
#     no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his 
#     appearance that we should desire him.

  According to your interpretation, who's this "we"?  You'll note
  that reading in the context of 52:15 leaves no such difficulty.

#                                           {3} He was despised and 
#     rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. 
#     Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we 
#     esteemed him not. {4} Surely he took up our infirmities and 
#     carried our sorrows,

  Really reaching here.  "Took up" is NOT the same as "bore", in
  English or in Hebrew, so why did your translators change the
  plain meaning of the text?  ("Surely our diseases he did bear,
  and our pains he carried")

#                          yet we considered him stricken by God, 
#     smitten by him, and afflicted.

  Here, the kings are recalling how they had ascribed Israel's
  troubles to Divine affliction.  Now they realize that instead,
  it was the oppression of men:

#                                    {5} But he was pierced for our
#     transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the 
#     punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds 
#     we are healed.

  Whew!  Try "He was WOUNDED because of our transgressions, he was
  crushed because of our iniquities,"; there is a difference between
  causality and exchange.

#                    {6} We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of 
#     us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the 
#     iniquity of us all. {7} He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he 
#     did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, 
#     and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open 
#     his mouth. {8} By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

  Remember Babylon?

#                                                                  And 
#     who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the 
#     land of the living;

  Babylonian captivity.  Land.  Get it?

#                         for the transgression of my people he was 
#     stricken.

  The kings, folks.  Lamenting.

#               {9} He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with 
#     the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was 
#     any deceit in his mouth. {10} Yet it was the Lord's will to 
#     crush him and cause him to suffer,

  Now I wonder why your translation doesn't say "to crush him by
  disease"?  Inconvenient?

#                                        and though the LORD makes his 
#     life a guilt offering,

  Whew! really a reach here.  Try "to see if his soul would offer
  itself in restitution".  Of course, that doesn't fit, does it?

#                            he will see his offspring and prolong his 
#     days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

  If it's a king speaking here there's no problem, but otherwise
  you have to reconcile the "my people" in 53:8 with the third-
  person divinity here.  By the way, how do YOU deal with the
  "that he may see his offspring, prolong his days" bit, if this
  means someone who died young and childless?  Oh, I'll bet it's
  intended FIGURATIVELY!

#     {11} After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of 
#     life and be satisfied ; by his knowledge my righteous servant 
#     will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. 

  Careful with the tenses! "... My servant, who by his knowledge did
  justify the Righteous One to the many, and their iniquities he did
  bear."  Quite a bit different, no?  Hebrew poetry relies more on
  the meanings of words than on their sounds, so it's important to
  "JUSTify" (Yatzdek) the "JUST" (Tzadek) to the many unJUST.

#     {12} Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he 
#     will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out 
#     his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. 
#     For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the 
#     transgressors. 

  Sure sounds like the joyous return to Jerusalem, with posessions
  restored.  Fits in nicely with 54, too:

  {1} Sing, oh barren, you that did not bear, break forth into singing
  and cry aloud, you who did not travail; for more are the children of
  the desolate than the children of the married wife, says THE LORD.

  .... and continuing with the verses of consolation, telling of the
  return of the exiles.  Seamless.  A single thematic whole, and some
  of the most beautiful poetry ever.  Why hack it up to twist a verse
  here and there out of context into another meaning altogether?

--- D. C. Sessions                            Speaking for myself ---
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