Elia
Well-known member
The original text is not divided along "chapter and verse" constraints. Perhaps you should start at the BEGINNING of Isaiah's prophecy concerning messiah:
Bs"d
Perhaps you start with realizing that it is not a prophecy concerning the messiah.
According to Christianity, the whole chapter of Isaiah 53 and the last verses of chapter 52, from verse 13, are talking about Jesus. Why do they think so? Because the NT says so, and because it fits so nicely with the Christian story about a suffering messiah. And what proof do the Christians have that the subject in Isaiah 53, the suffering servant, is the messiah?
Nothing.
There is not the slightest indication, let alone a proof, that the servant of God, mentioned in Isaiah 53, is the messiah. In the authentic messianic prophecies there is always a sign that it talks about the messiah, the anointed king. ("messiah" means "anointed one") In the real messianic prophecies it speaks about a king, or about a ruler, or about a descendend of David, or about a descendend of Isai, the father of David. But here in Isaiah 53 is nothing like that. Also the word "messiah" is not used in Isaiah 53. There is not the slightest hint toward a messiah. It just speaks about the servant of God. And NOWHERE in Isaiah, NOWHERE in the whole Hebrew Bible, is the messiah ever referred to as "the servant of God". So Christianity is making up fairy tales here.
Besides this, saying Isaiah 53 speaks about the messiah runs into several problems. The prophet Isaiah is talking in the present/past tense; verse 3 and 4: “He is despised and rejected of men” “We hid as it were our faces from him, he was despised, and we esteemed him not” It goes on like this in the past tense up to verse ten. This is not the way the prophets announce future events, by saying that they already happened. The King James Version says in verse 2: "For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant." Future tense. However; this is wrong. Here is absolutely positively spoken in the past tense. Compare the Revised Standard Version, it gives this verse correctly in the past tense. A quick course in exegesis for confused Christians: When a prophet speaks in the past tense, then he speaks about events that happened already. This is commonly called 'History'. Prophecy is about things that are going to happen in the future. History is the opposite of prophecy. Therefore, when a prophet speaks in the past tense, he is not prophesying. These elementary facts were well known to the people whom translated the KJV, therefore they corrupted the translation and changed past tense to future tense, so that they could squeeze in Jesus.
When the prophet Isaiah switches to the future tense, he describes events that are not applicable to Jesus; verse 10: “When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days,” He was not married, how is he going to see his seed?
Verse 12: “Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong” This essential part he did not fulfill. Only the simple part he did, as usually; being sick, suffering, dying; the part that can apply to millions of people, and the key part is going to happen in some unknown future.
For the whole story about Isaiah 53 look here: http://Isaiah53.notlong.com