rblack@shemtaia.weeg.uiowa.edu (Roger Black) (12/19/90)
In article <Dec.6.03.38.42.1990.23495@athos.rutgers.edu>, YZKCU@cunyvm.bitnet (Yaakov Kayman) writes: > With all due respect to your right as members of a faith completely dif- > ferent and separate from my own to believe otherwise, the 53rd chapter of > Isaiah refers not to any individual, but rather to my people, the Jews, > who have been villified (and still are? no?) by the Nations of the World. > There is nothing in what Christians call the "O.T." (a term somewhat > offensive to Jews) to suggest that Messiah will be "wounded, spit upon, > and rejected by men" as my people, the Jews, certainly have been by other > nations. And again: > As I have said above, Isaiah 53 does not refer to Messiah ... > > It's not that we Jews have "ignored" this "prophecy." We have denied it, > and continue to deny it. I don't think the issue is nearly as well settled as this. The correct interpretation of Isaiah 53 has been argued back and forth among Jews for at least the last 1900 years, and there are still some who consider it an open question. The Babylonian Talmud, which was written down in the 6th century A.D. but preserves much older traditions, says at Sanhedrin 98b: Rab said: The world was created only on David's account. Samuel said: On Moses' account; R. Johanan said: For the sake of the Messiah. What is his name? The School of R. Shila said: His name is Shiloh, for it is written, "until Shiloh come." ... The Rabbis said: His name is 'the leper scholar,' as it is written, "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him a leper, smitten of God, and afflicted" (Isaiah 53:4). Similarly the Midrash Konen (Bet haMidrash 2:29-30) in the 11th century : The fifth house [of Paradise] is built of onyx and jasper stones, and inlaid stones, and silver and gold ... And in it is Messiah ben David who loves Jerusalem. Elijah of blessed memory takes hold of his head, places it in his lap and holds it, and says to him: "Endure the sufferings and the sentence of your Master who makes you suffer because of the sin of Israel." And thus it is written: "He was wounded because of our transgressions, he was crushed because of our iniquities" (Isaiah 53:5)-- until the time when the end comes. And the Zohar (2:212a) in the 13th century: In the hour in which they tell the Messiah about the sufferings of Israel in exile, and the sinful among them who seek not the knowledge of their master, the Messiah lifts up his voice and weeps over those sinful among them. This is what is written: "He was wounded because of our transgressions, he was crushed because of our iniquities." Somebody else in this news group has already mentioned that Maimonides and the Targum Jonathan also apply Isaiah 53 to the Messiah. The discussion among Jews on this point continues even to the present day. Aharon Agus, in "The Binding of Isaac and Messiah (SUNY Press, 1988), quotes Isaiah 53 and then says: In endless exegesis, the identification of the suffering servant has varied from the People of Israel through the righteous to the messiah. R. Joshua ben Levi [Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98a] not only identifies the messiah as the sufferer, his vision adds a depth of meaning that throws open the nature of the messianic mission ... > There never has been a contention from within the ranks of practicing > Jews that there would ever be a messiah from the tribe of Levi. This is perhaps correct with respect to post-Yavneh Rabbinic Judaism, but it is certainly not true of other Jewish traditions, notably the Essenes. [At Qumran] a doctrine of two Messiahs, a lay and a priestly Messiah, was evolved. ... the Testaments [of the Twelve Patriarchs, ca. 200 B.C.] suggest a high-priestly Messiah of the tribe of Levi beside a king (or royal and lay Messiah) from Judah. [G.R. Driver, the Judaean Scrolls, Schocken Books, New York, 1965, pp. 464-465] Similarly, Shemaryahu Talmon, writing in "Judaisms and their Messiahs" (Cambridge University, 1987) refers to "the Qumranians' fervently expected rise of 'Two Anointed,' one descended from the 'House of David' and one from the 'House of Aaron'." (p. 115) and "the duality of a Davidic lay masiah [sic] and an Aaronide priestly Anointed" (p. 123). Historically speaking, one cannot make unqualified declarations about "Judaism" in the singular, as if there is only one form of Judaism that exists, or that has ever existed. There have been (and still are) many "Judaisms", some of which stand in radical disagreement with one another even over fundamental beliefs--including those relating to the Messiah. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Roger Black rblack@shemtaia.weeg.uiowa.edu Disclaimer: My employer doesn't even know I have any opinions. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------