Along the Way…

Archive for the ‘Religion’ Category

A good friend of mine was reading Isaiah 53, and wanted my take on this passage, particularly concerning the answer to this question. All my Hebrew reference books are packed away, who knows where, as we are in the middle of our months-long move from Ohio to Florida, so I did the following little review of this passage, just from the American Standard Version translation to English.

This particular chapter actually starts in the middle of a prophecy, so I’ve moved back to Isaiah 52, to begin my analysis.

Isaiah 52 begins with:

1 Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.

Pasted from <http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=8;&search=Isaiah 52:1;>

This clearly indicates that this passage is being addressed to Zion or Jerusalem. A few verses away, we see that YHVH is the one doing to speaking, and that when he speaks to Zion, he’s referring to them as “My people.”

4 For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, My people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there: and the Assyrian hath oppressed them without cause.

5 Now therefore, what do I here, saith Jehovah, seeing that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them do howl, saith Jehovah, and my name continually all the day is blasphemed.

6 Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak; behold, it is I.

Pasted from <http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=8;&search=Isaiah%2052:4-6;>

Looking at verses 11 to 15, we can see that YHVH is giving instructions to his people. The grammar appears to indicate that he is speaking to individuals, but it’s possible he’s addressing his people as a community.

11 Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; cleanse yourselves, ye that bear the vessels of Jehovah.

12 For ye shall not go out in haste, neither shall ye go by flight: for Jehovah will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rearward.

13 Behold, my servant shall deal wisely, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.

14 Like as many were astonished at thee (his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men),

15 so shall he sprinkle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they understand.

Pasted from <http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?version=8;&search=Isaiah%2052:11-15;>

After speaking to his people, he begins to describe “my servant.” I think it’s pretty clear, this defines a shift from speaking to his people in general, to speaking about a specific person or persons. While the English translation does, in fact, use the singular, the context would allow an interpretation that he is describing a composite character (or, a role) named “servant” rather than just a specific individual person. On the other hand, it could also be referring to a specific person that just doesn’t have a name specified.

All of this leads up to the chapter in question, Isaiah 53, where this “servant” is described with an enumeration of various traits and experiences. It is true that this list is very similar to the Christian description of their “messiah,” Jesus of Nazareth. However, the fact that the story of Jesus was written long after this prophecy was recorded leaves me a little suspicious. It is always easy, after the fact, to find similarities between prophecies and historical events. In fact, the recorded history of Jesus could very well have been composed specifically with this prophecy in mind, to emphasize the similarities.

This phenomenon is the same as used to “prove” that Nostradamus’ prophecies are accurate. In hindsight, we can easily find ways to interpret prophetic texts as describing just about any event… especially when we declare the prophecy to be poetic rather than strictly narrative. Poetry grants a huge license to be vaguely correct.

On the other hand, if you read this passage in light of the traditional Jewish concept of “messiah,” as I’ve quoted for you below (from the Zionism and Israel Information Center), I believe you’ll see this prophecy fits very nicely into that understanding, as well.

Messiah (Hebrew – "Annointed One") –

1.  In Jewish tradition, a person of the line of King David (a "ben yishai" – son of Jesse, father of David) who will return the Jews from exile, rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem and initiate a period of prosperity and peace. In that sense, belief in Messiah was simply belief in restoration of Israel and an end to present troubles. The Messianic idea became prevalent and gained adherents in times of extreme desperation, such as the conquest of Judea by the Babylonians, the Roman conquest, the rule of Hadrian and various periods in the Middle Ages. Additional beliefs associate the messiah with the resurrection of the dead, supposed to occur at the end of days, and with supremacy of Judaism. 

Pasted from <http://www.zionism-israel.com/dic/Messiah.htm>

A little further down the page, they also quote from one of the most famous of all Jewish sages…

One concept of the Messiah is given by Maimonides  (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon), in his commentary on tractate Sanhedrin, of the Babylonian Talmud:

"The Messianic age is when the Jews will regain their independence and all return to the land of Israel. The Messiah will be a very great king, he will achieve great fame, and his reputation among the gentile nations will be even greater than that of King Solomon. His great righteousness and the wonders that he will bring about will cause all peoples to make peace with him and all lands to serve him…. Nothing will change in the Messianic age, however, except that Jews will regain their independence. Rich and poor, strong and weak, will still exist. However it will be very easy for people to make a living, and with very little effort they will be able to accomplish very much…. it will be a time when the number of wise men will increase…war shall not exist, and nation shall no longer lift up sword against nation…. The Messianic age will be highlighted by a community of the righteous and dominated by goodness and wisdom. It will be ruled by the Messiah, a righteous and honest king, outstanding in wisdom, and close to God. Do not think that the ways of the world or the laws of nature will change, this is not true. The world will continue as it is. The prophet Isaiah predicted "The wolf shall live with the sheep, the leopard shall lie down with the kid." This, however, is merely allegory, meaning that the Jews will live safely, even with the formerly wicked nations. All nations will return to the true religion [monotheism, although not necessarily Judaism] and will no longer steal or oppress. Note that all prophecies regarding the Messiah are allegorical – Only in the Messianic age will we know the meaning of each allegory and what it comes to teach us. Our sages and prophets did not long for the Messianic age in order that they might rule the world and dominate the gentiles….the only thing they wanted was to be free for Jews to involve themselves with the Torah and its wisdom."

Pasted from <http://www.zionism-israel.com/dic/Messiah.htm>

My conclusion is that this passage can definitely be used by Christians as “evidence” that Jesus was prophesied to be a messiah (although, this particular passage makes their concurrent claim of divinity for this messiah quite problematic, as it’s a bit schizophrenic for God to be a servant to God). However, because it can just as easily be used to describe the traditional Jewish idea of “messiah,” I have to embrace that interpretation because it is a more organic corollary to the Torah, against which I believe all claims to authority must be judged.

It is a common Rabbinic claim that the Torah is but a skeleton—the framework of the Jewish faith. Being a skeleton, they further claim, it needs blood and flesh to make it vibrant and living. The Rabbis have found this vibrancy in the form of their “Oral Law.” A careful investigation, however, demonstrates that the Rabbinic Oral Law is not the blood and flesh that the Torah is missing, but rather the by-product of a failure to search the Scriptures for their true meaning. In absence of such a search, the Oral Law often comes to erroneous conclusions about the Biblical text. It is a great tragedy most Jews are told that the Torah is an incomplete document and must be supplemented with this Oral accompaniment. This is contrary to the clear teaching in the Tanakh itself that “The Torah of YHWH is perfect” (Psalms 19:8[7]).[1] As a result, those students who are genuinely interested in reaching the true meaning of a passage become psychologically dependent on an “Oral Law.” They feel the answers are not contained within the Tanakh itself and therefore do not undertake the necessary steps to find them within the Tanakh. The need for an Oral Law to interpret the commandments thus becomes self-reinforcing, never allowing one to search the Bible itself for the answers. Be assured, however, that most of the meaning of the commandments and principles can be determined from an honest and thorough investigation of the text. That which cannot be determined is the result of our inability to recover the plain meaning of the text, which would have been available to the average Israelite receiving the Torah.[2]

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[1] The word translated as “perfect” also has the meaning of “complete.”

[2] The loss of Biblical Hebrew is a contributing factor to this phenomenon. Oftentimes, one needs to reconstruct the meaning of a passage by looking at similar phrases throughout the rest of the Tanakh.

Karaism has been around since God gave His laws to the Jewish people. At first those who followed God’s laws were merely called “Righteous” and it was only in the 9th century CE that they came to be called Karaites. The question of why God’s followers are today called Karaites is really a question of the origin of other streams of Judaism. Initially, there was no reason to label the “Righteous” as a separate group because there was only the one form of Judaism, which consisted of the whole Nation of Israel. Throughout history, the “Righteous” took on such names as Sadducees, Boethusians, Ananites, and Karaites, so as to distinguish themselves from a variety of other non-biblical streams that appeared.

Biblical Period—The Righteous

In the Biblical Period people are described as falling into two categories: the sinners and the righteous. Very often false prophets who claimed to be relaying the message of God led the people into sin. In some periods the majority of Israel followed these false prophets and those who remained loyal to the Creator were but a small few (e.g., Elijah, see 1 Kings 19:10). God sent his prophets “from morning until evening” calling on the people to repent but all too often it was only by punishing the nation with a great calamity that God could get them to listen. Much of Biblical history is a repetition of the familiar cycle of sin, punishment, repentance and salvation.

Second Template Period—Sadducees and Boethusians

The first reference in the history of Israel to more than one stream within Judaism takes place about 200 years after the close of the Biblical period, in the first century BCE. Various sources tell us of two opposing movements, the Sadducees (Zadokites) and the Pharisees. The Sadducees followed the Torah as it was written while the Pharisees believed in a second “Oral” Torah, which they added to the written one. The Second Temple period saw the rise of several more streams, among them another movement which only followed the written Torah called the Boethusians and a movement that added several books to the Bible called the Essenes (usually identifies as the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls).

Like the Karaites who were to follow them, the Sadducees and the Boethusians continued the tradition originated by Moses of keeping the Torah’s commandments with no addition (Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32). We often hear in ancient literature that the Sadducees denied the doctrines of the resurrection of the dead and reward and punishment in the hereafter. Whether this is accurate or not is of little consequence since they arrived at these beliefs based on an honest interpretation of the Bible (even if most Karaites today disagree with them on these issues).[1] The Pharisees on the other hand believed that the interpretation of a particular teacher was divine and elevated these teachings to the level of the Torah itself. In time this doctrine got carried away and the Rabbis eventually claimed these teachings originated from God Himself in the form of a second, “Oral” Torah.[2] They even went so far as to claim that when two teachers taught diametrically opposite interpretations of the Bible that both interpretations were from God.[3] The third major movement, the Essenes, had a Bible that consisted of more than our 24 Books and as a result had practices, such as adherence to a solar calendar, that do not originate in our Bible.

How long these three streams continued to co-exist is unknown. It is often thought that the Essenes and Sadducees ceased to exist with the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. However this seems unlikely as writings of the Essenes appear as late as the 10th century, which seems to indicate that they survived well after the destruction of the Temple. References to the Sadducees and the Boethusians continue to appear in post-70 CE literature and they also seemed to have survived for some time.

Middle Ages—Ananites and Karaites

In the early middle-ages the Pharisees continued to thrive. They began to call themselves Rabbanites (i.e., adherents of the Rabbis) and only used the name Pharisees when remembering historical events from the Second Temple period. In the 7th century, the Islamic Empire swept the Middle East. The Muslims had no interest in imposing Islamic religious practice on the Jews and gave them a degree of autonomy under a system known as the Exilarchate. The Exilarchate had been founded hundreds of years earlier under Sassanian rule but until now only had influence in Babylonia and Persia. Backed by the Muslims, overnight the Rabbanites turned from a localized Babylonian phenomenon into a political power that stretched throughout much of the Middle East. The Babylonian Rabbanites now imposed upon every Jew in the Empire the Babylonian Talmud, a body of law that they had developed between the 3rd and the 5th centuries.

Resistance to the Rabbanites was fierce, especially in the Empire’s eastern provinces, where the local Jews had never heard of the Talmud or the Oral Law. The historians tell us of Jewish leaders whose resistance against the Talmud put them in direct conflict with the Islamic government, which had empowered the Rabbis by giving them authority over other Jews. One resistance leader who refused to accept the Talmud was named Abu Isa al-Isphahani and it is said that he led an army of Jews against the Muslim government. Other attempts to cast off the Talmud were also undertaken but all failed and the Rabbanites and their Talmud seemed unstoppable.

Then in the 8th century a last glimmer of hope appeared in the form of an astute leader named Anan ben David. Anan organized various pro-Tanakh elements and lobbied the Muslim Caliphate to establish a second Exilarchate for those Jews who rejected the Talmud. The Muslims granted Anan and his followers the religious freedom to practice Judaism in their own way. Anan gathered a large following around him and his followers became known as the Ananites. Other Tanakh-only groups united under the name “Followers of the Bible” or in Hebrew “Bnei Mikra” which was abbreviated into “Karaim” or in English “Karaites”.

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[1] The doctrines of resurrection of the dead and reward and punishment in the hereafter are included in the “Ten Principles of Faith” professed by most Karaites today.

[2] Babylonian Talmud, Chagiga 3b; Jerusalem Talmud, Pe’ah 2:6 17a.

[3] “Rabbi Aba said in the name of Samuel: Three years were the House of Shammai and the House of Hillel divided. These said the law is according to us and those said the law is according to us. An angelic voice went out and said ‘Both these and those are the words of the living God.’” (Babylonian Talmud, Erubin 13b).

Karaism is the original form of Judaism commanded by God to the Jewish people in the Torah. Karaites accept the Tanakh (Jewish Bible) as the word of God and as the sole religious authority. At the same time, Karaites deny human additions to the Torah such as the Rabbinic Oral Law because Deuteronomy 4:2 states, “You shall not add to the word which I have commanded you, neither shall you diminish from it…” Karaite Judaism also rejects the Rabbinical principle that the Rabbis are the sole authorities for interpreting the Bible. Karaites believe that every Jew has the obligation to study the Torah and decide for him/herself the correct interpretation of God’s commandments, since in the end it is the individual, not the central authority, who is responsible for his own actions. This principle was expressed best in the Karaite Motto: “Search in the Scriptures well and do not rely on anyone’s opinion.”[1] Karaites do not reject all interpretation and do not take the Bible literally, since everything requires interpretation. Instead, Karaites hold every interpretation up to the same object scrutiny regardless of its source.

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[1] The Karaite Motto does not say to reject the opinion of the learned. It simply warns against relying solely on an opinion without verifying its merits in light of the Tanakh.