Who buried with whom? Isaiah 53:9

[rosends]

I note that you are trying to prove meaning in Isaiah by citing texts from the gospels which have no validity in Judaism. If someone tries to prove meaning in the gospels by citing Harry Potter, I hope you give it as much credence.

[ThomasDGW]

I note that you are trying to prove meaning in Isaiah by citing texts from the gospels which have no validity in Judaism. If someone tries to prove meaning in the gospels by citing Harry Potter, I hope you give it as much credence.

I think most people understand that the meaning in Isaiah has only a certain possible range, going from natural and explicit to strained. I think most people understand that if a second text claims to describe the same event as the first, the second text cannot show or alter the meaning of the first text, so the idea of a second text "trying to prove" the meaning of the first text is out of the question. The only question is: Does the description of the event given in the second text fit into the range of possible meanings of the first text?

What I demonstrated is that the description in the second text lands right on top of the natural and explicit meaning of the first text in a most coincidental way, countering the counter-missionary claim that the second text cannot be describing the same thing as the first text. I thus proved the accuracy and validity of the second text based on the accepted accuracy and validity of the first text.

If you don't agree and want to counter my claim, your task is to show that this is not true.

[rosends]

I note that you are trying to prove meaning in Isaiah by citing texts from the gospels which have no validity in Judaism. If someone tries to prove meaning in the gospels by citing Harry Potter, I hope you give it as much credence.

I think most people understand that the meaning in Isaiah has only a certain possible range, going from natural and explicit to strained. I think most people understand that if a second text claims to describe the same event as the first, the second text cannot show or alter the meaning of the first text, so the idea of a second text "trying to prove" the meaning of the first text is out of the question. The only question is: Does the description of the event given in the second text fit into the range of possible meanings of the first text?

What I demonstrated is that the description in the second text lands right on top of the natural and explicit meaning of the first text in a most coincidental way, countering the counter-missionary claim that the second text cannot be describing the same thing as the first text. I thus proved the accuracy and validity of the second text based on the accepted accuracy and validity of the first text.

If you don't agree and want to counter my claim, your task is to show that this is not true.

If the second text is engineered to provide events that can be shoehorned into the earlier text, then the use of it is invalid. You are using events that are not necessarily historical or authentic. If they are written specifically to create that "coincidence" then they are suspect. You think that the gospels are, in some way, valid and authentic accounts of independent history. I don't so your entire method of proving anything is tainted and unsubstantial.

[ThomasDGW]

I note that you are trying to prove meaning in Isaiah by citing texts from the gospels which have no validity in Judaism. If someone tries to prove meaning in the gospels by citing Harry Potter, I hope you give it as much credence.

I think most people understand that the meaning in Isaiah has only a certain possible range, going from natural and explicit to strained. I think most people understand that if a second text claims to describe the same event as the first, the second text cannot show or alter the meaning of the first text, so the idea of a second text "trying to prove" the meaning of the first text is out of the question. The only question is: Does the description of the event given in the second text fit into the range of possible meanings of the first text?

What I demonstrated is that the description in the second text lands right on top of the natural and explicit meaning of the first text in a most coincidental way, countering the counter-missionary claim that the second text cannot be describing the same thing as the first text. I thus proved the accuracy and validity of the second text based on the accepted accuracy and validity of the first text.

If you don't agree and want to counter my claim, your task is to show that this is not true.

If the second text is engineered to provide events that can be shoehorned into the earlier text, then the use of it is invalid. You are using events that are not necessarily historical or authentic. If they are written specifically to create that "coincidence" then they are suspect. You think that the gospels are, in some way, valid and authentic accounts of independent history. I don't so your entire method of proving anything is tainted and unsubstantial.

I agree that a person might make up a text telling a story to fit something like Isaiah 53. But, for centuries, the text was not considered to say what I have shown that it does say. It wasn't engineered. It was produced as a composite of 4 records of eyewitness accounts, then preserved by the Christian religion for centuries, without them understanding what it said. In other words, if this account had been engineered to show that a certain Jesus of Nazareth was buried both with wicked men, then with the rich, (in order to match with Isaiah 53:9) why in the world didn't one of the 4 writers say that explicitly, so the followers of Jesus wouldn't miss it for almost 2000 years?  That is strong evidence that it was simply a historical record, not invented.

And it is not shoehorned. It simply fits.  The Christian tradition tried to shoehorn their incorrect explanation into Isaiah 53, and the counter-missionaries correctly called them out for it (without divulging that the rabbinical explanation is a bigger shoehorn job).

I guess I said it wrong. It is not just that the second text matches the event in the first text. It is that the second text is a corroborated historical record of an event that happened about 2000 years ago that matches (in two unusual details) a prophetic description of an event that was written about 2700 years ago. This is evidence, like one witness at a trial. that the event described in the second text is the same as the one described in the prophecy of Isaiah.

[rosends]

I note that you are trying to prove meaning in Isaiah by citing texts from the gospels which have no validity in Judaism. If someone tries to prove meaning in the gospels by citing Harry Potter, I hope you give it as much credence.

I think most people understand that the meaning in Isaiah has only a certain possible range, going from natural and explicit to strained. I think most people understand that if a second text claims to describe the same event as the first, the second text cannot show or alter the meaning of the first text, so the idea of a second text "trying to prove" the meaning of the first text is out of the question. The only question is: Does the description of the event given in the second text fit into the range of possible meanings of the first text?

What I demonstrated is that the description in the second text lands right on top of the natural and explicit meaning of the first text in a most coincidental way, countering the counter-missionary claim that the second text cannot be describing the same thing as the first text. I thus proved the accuracy and validity of the second text based on the accepted accuracy and validity of the first text.

If you don't agree and want to counter my claim, your task is to show that this is not true.

If the second text is engineered to provide events that can be shoehorned into the earlier text, then the use of it is invalid. You are using events that are not necessarily historical or authentic. If they are written specifically to create that "coincidence" then they are suspect. You think that the gospels are, in some way, valid and authentic accounts of independent history. I don't so your entire method of proving anything is tainted and unsubstantial.

I agree that a person might make up a text telling a story to fit something like Isaiah 53. But, for centuries, the text was not considered to say what I have shown that it does say. It wasn't engineered. It was produced as a composite of 4 records of eyewitness accounts, then preserved by the Christian religion for centuries, without them understanding what it said. In other words, if this account had been engineered to show that a certain Jesus of Nazareth was buried both with wicked men, then with the rich, (in order to match with Isaiah 53:9) why in the world didn't one of the 4 writers say that explicitly, so the followers of Jesus wouldn't miss it for almost 2000 years?  That is strong evidence that it was simply a historical record, not invented.

And it is not shoehorned. It simply fits.  The Christian tradition tried to shoehorn their incorrect explanation into Isaiah 53, and the counter-missionaries correctly called them out for it (without divulging that the rabbinical explanation is a bigger shoehorn job).

I guess I said it wrong. It is not just that the second text matches the event in the first text. It is that the second text is a corroborated historical record of an event that happened about 2000 years ago that matches (in two unusual details) a prophetic description of an event that was written about 2700 years ago. This is evidence, like one witness at a trial. that the event described in the second text is the same as the one described in the prophecy of Isaiah.

so for 2000 years, people who were actually looking for the text to say something didn't come up with what you came up with so they are all wrong and you are somehow completely right. I'll take a hard pass on this, then.

[ThomasDGW]

"so for 2000 years, people who were actually looking for the text to say something didn't come up with what you came up with so they are all wrong and you are somehow completely right. I'll take a hard pass on this, then."

You can't believe your own eyes, if it isn't what you would expect. I might have similar misgivings, except I solved a problem this way that wouldn't work in life until I dropped the common interpretation, and pretended I was like a little child, and took a fresh look at it. Now, it works. This is how science and technology advanced. It didn't advance as long as people said, "The experts can't be wrong." When they started saying, "We have to test everything," then about 2000 years of stagnation came to an end, around 1600.

There is no question what the text says, but for 2000 years the interpreters added one phrase in their reading of it: "from the cross" and that eliminated the possibility of Jesus being buried before. I have read the NT my whole life, since 4 years old, and I thought it said, "down from the cross" and added that subconsciously, in my mind. Finally the counter-missionaries pushed me to wrestle with it and it finally broke through: "It isn't there!" Now I can see that it isn't there, and I can't unsee it. You can see that it isn't there. But because, I, a nobody, 2000 years too late, finally am pointing it out, then "that can't be, it must be implied somehow, because 2000 years of scholarship cannot be all wrong!"

Two things might help. One is that 2000 years is a series of about 70 generations of people, each having, say 70 years of life, say, 50-60 years of study. If each person starts by learning what other people taught, and is trained to revere his scholarly predecessors, there is little chance of any individual correcting an error. The error just has to survive 50-60 years at a time. The third generation is told: "Impudent imbecile, your teachers have studied for 100 years and you think you can correct them with your little brain." Later it becomes: "Impudent imbecile, your teachers have studied for 500 years and you think you can correct them with your little brain." And it took me about 60 years to finally correct my misreading, And now it is: "Impudent imbecile, your teachers have studied for 2000 years and you think you can correct them with your little brain." No, they studied for 60 years, like I did, but, either didn't notice it, like I almost didn't, or were too proud to admit they were wrong, as I have done.

The other is that there is a textual reason for possibly why scholars made their error. When the Jewish leaders came to insist that the bodies must be "taken down" before the Sabbath, they meant from the cross. A scholar who is trained to use grammatical evidence to infer meaning could be guided into thinking that the implied prepositional phrase from the first should be applied to the second, when Joseph "took it down", instead of just reading what it says.

[ThomasDGW]

There are a lot of details in this thread, so I would like to try a little summary of what I think is my most important point.

Counter-missionaries claim that one of many reasons why Jesus cannot be the servant of Isaiah 52-53 is that Jesus was not buried with the wicked as Isaiah 53:9 describes. In the details, their objection has been that he did not share a grave with the wicked, but was allegedly buried nearby in a rich man's tomb.

Well, the nation Israel was not buried with the wicked, either, except perhaps a few individuals. So, for Judaism to claim that the nation Israel is the servant, they must interpret Isaiah 53:9 as not describing or requiring that the servant was literally in the same grave as the wicked, but rather that their death was associated with the wicked in another way.

So, if that counter-missionary claim is applied to the nation Israel, that cannot be the servant, either. So, the counter-missionaries had better either withdraw their objection to the traditional Christian Jesus to be able to accept the nation Israel as the servant, or maintain their objection and reject both.

I accept the counter-missionaries' challenge and accept the NT account as implying that Jesus must have been buried with the wicked, perhaps with the bodies touching, and therefore Isaiah 53:9 is not at all a reason to disqualify the real Jesus of Nazareth. I advise the counter-missionaries to get their house in order, because their current position is untenable.

[searchinmyroots]

To me, it doesn’t make sense to focus on one or two verses, we have to look at the whole picture.

We know that most of Isaiah is written in poetic Hebrew, so not all of it will be that easy to understand.

But we can see other references throughout the Hebrew bible that might relate and remember, there are no chapter breaks.

Here are a few for instance –
Isaiah 49 speaks of Israel as “him” who is despised of men, abhorred of nations, one who is afflicted/poor and oppressed.
Isaiah 52 says they were oppressed, 54 says afflicted and oppressed, 56 speaks of Israel as “him”, 60 says afflicted and despised, forsaken and hated.
Jeremiah 11 talks of being a docile lamb that is led to the slaughter, 30 of being hurt and wounded, 50 of Israel as “him” and “his” and being oppressed.
Nehemiah 3 talks about Israel being oppressed.
Psalm 25 talks of Israel as “his”, 44 like a sheep to be eaten, sheep for the slaughter.
Hosea speaks of Israel as “him”
Zephaniah 3 about the remnant of Israel that shall do no iniquity nor speak lies or deceit.

The servant was wounded from the transgressions of others, not died for.
The servant will justify others with knowledge, just as it is mentioned many times throughout the Hebrew bible.
The servant will acknowledge his guilt.
The servant is referred to in the plural.

Isaiah 53 does not mention any spilling or need of blood, a need to believe in a messiah, that the servant is G-d or the son of G-d, or a second coming.

So who does this poetic servant seem to be pointing to?

[ThomasDGW]

To me, it doesn’t make sense to focus on one or two verses, we have to look at the whole picture.

We know that most of Isaiah is written in poetic Hebrew, so not all of it will be that easy to understand.

But we can see other references throughout the Hebrew bible that might relate and remember, there are no chapter breaks.

Here are a few for instance –
Isaiah 49 speaks of Israel as “him” who is despised of men, abhorred of nations, one who is afflicted/poor and oppressed.
Isaiah 52 says they were oppressed, 54 says afflicted and oppressed, 56 speaks of Israel as “him”, 60 says afflicted and despised, forsaken and hated.
Jeremiah 11 talks of being a docile lamb that is led to the slaughter, 30 of being hurt and wounded, 50 of Israel as “him” and “his” and being oppressed.
Nehemiah 3 talks about Israel being oppressed.
Psalm 25 talks of Israel as “his”, 44 like a sheep to be eaten, sheep for the slaughter.
Hosea speaks of Israel as “him”
Zephaniah 3 about the remnant of Israel that shall do no iniquity nor speak lies or deceit.

The servant was wounded from the transgressions of others, not died for.
The servant will justify others with knowledge, just as it is mentioned many times throughout the Hebrew bible.
The servant will acknowledge his guilt.
The servant is referred to in the plural.

Isaiah 53 does not mention any spilling or need of blood, a need to believe in a messiah, that the servant is G-d or the son of G-d, or a second coming.

So who does this poetic servant seem to be pointing to?

Of course, we have to look at the whole picture, but when we are discussing the whole picture, we have to discuss one aspect at a time. The objections given by counter-missionaries are given one at a time in their writings or videos, and any coherent response also has to be one at a time.

This thread has been a response to one of those objections. It is not an appropriate defense to what I said to reply that this is just one of the issues, then draw attention to 11 other objections.  Answer this one first. Then I will be happy to move on to one of the others. In such a procedure, we will find out which, if any, objections have a solid base.

Imagine you are accused of theft, and the prosecution brings in 20 witnesses that supposedly can prove that you are guilty. They give their testimony in rapid succession, with no chance for you to cross examine them. Then you do a lot of study and learn that one of the supposed witnesses was in France when the theft you are accused of occurred in Atlanta. You present this information to the judge, and he dismisses you with, "Well, what does that matter? There are 19 other witnesses."

That is what you are doing to me.

[searchinmyroots]

Sorry, I don't think that is a good analogy Thomas.

It's more like reading a book (which it is).

You don't define the message of a whole book by one sentence, that's very dangerous.