General Discussion The Messiah and Isaiah 53

[Jason]

I've written up two different discussions that you might find interesting. One is a discussion of chapters 52-54 of Isaiah with an eye to the Hebrew and how it cannot and does not support the claim that Jesus was the Messiah. The second is a general short treatment of why Jews reject the idea that Jesus was the Messiah. Here are the two articles:

http://www.thehebrewcafe.com/articles/isaiah_52-54.pdf
http://www.thehebrewcafe.com/articles/whynot.pdf

I think it's a HUGE and UNPARDONABLE mistake to read Isaiah 53 and claim that it's about Jesus while just ignoring the whole of the chapter that comes before and the one that comes after. In fact, the whole of the book comes to bear on this chapter. If you read Isaiah 53 within the context of Isaiah, you will not understand it to refer to Jesus.