Isaiah 53 speaks about ISRAEL, and not about the messiah.

I think that you are absolutely right. That text is about the people Israel. However, as a Christian, I understand that Jesus was the perfect Jew and became the sacrificial Lamb or scapegoat and stood in for all of IsraelIn the Jewish Scriptures there was to be a messiah or anointed one that would come and lead the people against their enemies. There was also a thread of the idea that in some way Yahweh would return to His people and be their King. There is the Exodus theme which involved the suffering of the people but that they would ultimately come out the other side into the land of milk and honey. I believe that Jesus combined all of these themes and in some way understood Yahweh as fulfilling these themes through Him, and of course as a Christian I believe that God confirmed that message with the resurrection.

It depends on how it is understood. It is my belief that what was written about Israel was fulfilled, not in the way that was expected, but the one perfect Jew which was Jesus.I know we aren't going to agree, but I just wanted to give you my Christian perspective. I agree. It is not a messianic prophesy and that it is about the people Israel.

Good question but we can ask the same sort of question about the NT as well. How does Jesus pray to Himself? Jesus even says that the Father is greater than He. If we look at Jesus as being the incarnate Word of God that has existed eternally then it comes together as Jesus being wholly God and wholly man in a Trinitarian sense.I also think that it is a mistake for Christians to look for messianic proof texts in the OT. You are right that the writers of the OT probably didn’t look at it that way and that Israel was to be the servant of God.The thing though is if we go back to the original Abrahamic promise it was to be for the nations and not just for Israel. As we can see in the Scriptures that wasn’t happening. It became all about Israel and not about the world.The OT is a narrative that appears to be going somewhere and pointing to something. It is my belief that the narrative that runs throughout the Hebrew Scriptures in total pointed to Jesus. It is the story of God reaching out and touching the hearts and minds of His people. The laws become a fore shadowing or sign post of God’s perfect law of love which is to be written on our hearts. The Temple was a foreshadowing of the idea that our hearts were to become the Temple of God. The psalms tell of the pain and the suffering and about God returning to Zion. The prophets with all of their humanness, sometimes getting it right and sometimes wrong, encapsulate all of that.The question then becomes about where is the narrative leading. From a Jewish perspective I suppose that it is still a case of waiting for the messiah and that it just hasn’t happened yet. I would point out that the last of the Jewish Scriptures ended about 2000 years ago. I suppose that you could say that present day Israel is a fulfillment of the prophesies, but frankly it doesn’t look like that to me. Israel exists by a political decision made by gentile nations. Israel is a very secular state.However, keeping the original Abrahamic promise that it was to be for all nations, let us look at the idea of Jesus being the climax of that part of the narrative. Just about everything that Jesus as a devout Jew taught referred back to the Hebrew Scriptures. I think that Jesus tied together the idea of the coming messiah together with the theme that Yahweh would return to Zion. As messiah He led His people against the enemy, except that the enemy wasn’t just Rome but the evil the stood behind Rome. The enemy was fought with love and not with swords. He embodied Yhaweh’s return by being something of a counter Temple movement in that He could forgive sin and that He desired mercy, not sacrifice.Jesus’ message is a Kingdom message. His Kingdom was to for the world but not of the world. We can see that the Christian church, with all of its human failings has spread to all nations as per the Abrahamic promise. Even with all of the evil done in the name of the church there has also been countless sacrificial acts of mercy and love done in the name of the church. Jesus taught that the laws were actually pointing to a simpler but more profound law in that it is all about love, and that it is all about that law being of the heart so that it becomes our natural habit.I don’t believe however that Jesus ever envisioned that He was establishing a movement or church that would no longer be considered Jewish. I think that Christians should realize the Jewishness of our faith and the ties that bind us. Jesus was a devout Jew. I also think that we should truly pay attention to His message that in the end we are called to be one nation bound together by our care for one another.So my point is that the Hebrew Scriptures in total were pointing to a conclusion and that Jesus was the fulfillment of that narrative. However, all of this hangs on the question of whether or not the resurrection is an actual historical event. If Jesus was not resurrected then Christianity is just an empty shell.

Not at all. If you read what I read earlier in the thread it is about taking the whole narrative and putting Jesus in the context of that narrative as opposed to picking out specific verses on their own.The Jews at the time were primarily looking for the messiah to be a warrior king leading them against their enemies and certainly a case can be made for such a messiah in the OT. However, at the same time there is the message of a servant king that can be found there as well.We can read the "Sermon on the Mount" and see where Jesus continuously refers back to the Hebrew Scriptures and expands on them, clarifies and even corrects them. I suppose I've read all of it and right now I'm going through a series that covers the whole thing. (I'm up to Job.)In the end it all boils down to the whether or not the bodily resurrection of Jesus is historically correct. If not then all that you say is true. If however it is true, as I believe, then we have to consider it differently.I God resurrected Jesus then that is a vindication of Jesus' message and messianic claims. If however Jesus was not resurrected then He becomes another Gandhi except one with a messianic complex.

I understand what you're saying but, (you might be surprised ) I disagree. Certainly the ancient Jews had a very different idea of what a messiah would be like than what Jesus brought to them. However, with the benefit of hind sight, which is how Peter, Paul etc worked out their theology, there is a fairly clear picture of of a messianic Jesus as understand by the early Christians even before they were actually called Christians, drawn from the Hebrew Scriptures.It does of course require that the Scriptures be understood as having been God reaching out to us through the imperfect hearts, minds and imaginations of the authors, that had all of their individual and cultural influences at play in what they wrote.If we get a good reference Bible it is clear that most of what we have recorded of the teachings of Jesus involves a reference to their scriptures. Even to the guys on the road to Emmaus he explained how what He was and had been doing was a fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures.The Jews expected that a messiah would lead them in battle, and give them victory over their enemies. Jesus said yes but it doesn't look like what you think. He essentially said the the enemy isn't the Romans, but evil itself, and the way to defeat evil as personified by the Romans is by loving the enemy, turning the other cheek and going the extra mile.The Jews expected the messiah to rebuild the Temple and Jesus said yes but again it isn't like what you expect. Jesus told them that He would be rebuild the Temple in the hearts of those that followed Him. I think I read it with the idea that I am open to forming new preconceptions. (Does that work for you if you agree to disregard the temporal ambiguity? )I am actually using a series of books called the The Old Testament for Everyone by John Goldingay. It is his own translation and follows on a series done by NT Wright called The New Testament for Everyone. Here is a link to the study of Job where I am now. Job for Everyone Much of the series is still to be published. Not really. I'd say more misunderstood than wrong. Certainly Jesus understood that everything He was doing was being done in the context of the Jewish Scriptures. Jesus was very much a Jew and very much immersed in the Jewish culture. Essentially Christianity is a Jewish sect. That is closer to what the ancient Jews expected but quite different from the way that Jesus saw Himself fulfilling the Scriptures. On top of that of course Gandhi didn't return in a resurrected body.Edited by GDR, : typo

The reason is this. Unless Jesus was resurrected and is alive and well then it doesn't matter what the OT says about a coming messiah. If Jesus was resurrected then we don't need further proof. But what we do need from the OT is a careful reading of the Gospels so that we can not just understand the social message, but also so that we can make sense of the narrative of what God has done, is doing and in vague terms will do.The real reason that many like to use quotes from the OT as messianic proof texts is more about justifying belief in an inerrant Bible than it is about understanding Jesus.

When you read through the Gospels it is readily apparent that the disciples did not have the understanding of Jesus' messianic mission that they did after the resurrection. In general the prophesies were about Israel itself, and where they were about a specific messiah it was believed that the messiah would lead them in defeating their enemies and rebuilding a physical temple.It is only after the resurrection that they went back and reinterpreted the scriptures to fit with the situation. I suggest to you that that is what we should be doing. We have to start with the resurrection itself. If the resurrection is not historical then the whole thing is a waste of time and as Paul says we are to be pitied.However, if we accept by belief, as I have, that the resurrection is an historical event then we can go back to the scriptures and learn about what God is doing with what He has created.An inerrant Bible is contradicted by scripture itself as I have pointed out in numerous threads. So you are saying that the resurrection of Jesus can't stand on it's own and that it needs prophesy to validate it. This is the problem with inerrancy. You replace Jesus with the Bible.Furthermore a messiah was never understood to be anything more than a human leader anointed by God, until again, after the resurrection. There was always the hope that Yahweh would return to His people but that was separate from the hoped for messiah. Even the term Son of God was a messianic term and it was the early Christians that applied a different understanding of that term, essentially saying that Jesus was King and Caesar wasn't. Jesus illuminated the scriptures by showing how they applied to him. However as evidenced by the fact that the Jews and even the disciples had a very different understanding of what was being prophesied makes it clear that the scriptures weren't inerrant and that it took Jesus to correct and clarify them. I understand how your logic works. You start with an inerrant Bible making that the focus of your worship. As a Christian I start with Jesus as the embodied Word of God and understand the Bible in light of that.Your idea which you deem logical requires you to believe in a God who will advocate that his followers engage in genocide and public stonings for misdemeanors such as picking up firewood on the sabbath and then somehow square that with Jesus saying that we are to love our enemies and forgive them. Some logic. I'm simply saying that to understand the entirety of Scripture you have to start with the resurrected Jesus of the Gospels and not the other way around, as did Paul and the rest of the early Christians.

There are contradictions throughout the scriptures including inconsequential ones such as the genealogys of Jesus or the times and locations of events after the resurrection.The major problem though is that your understanding of the Bible leads to belief in a god who is inconsistent in that he is sometimes cruel and vengeful and sometimes loving and forgiving. If you want to worship a god like that then you are obviously free to do that. I worship the God whose Word is incarnate in Jesus Christ and is always loving, merciful, and just.There isn't any point in arguing about historical data in the OT as in my view that isn't what is important. What is important is the question of whether it was really Yahweh who wanted the people whom He called to bring His love to the world to commit genocide and public stonings, or did that come from the dark side of man who wanted to justify their evil by attributing it to Yahweh. It seems that you go with the former and I go with the latter. I don't need an inerrant scripture to learn about Jesus. Firstly there can be errors with the fundamental aspects remaining true and secondly you seem to deny any possibility of God's Spirit informing us of His truth. My conclusions are based on the teachings of Jesus as told by His followers. They may not have everything word for word as Jesus taught but the message isn't all that complicated in most cases, although we have to be careful not to simply read with a 21st century western mindset something intended for a 1st century Jewish audience.IMHO you are actually guilty of idol worship. The Bible isn't part of the Trinity. The faith is CHRISTianity. Christians worship God incarnate in Jesus, not the Bible. Firstly it is faith. I choose to believe and I choose to make Jesus the centre of my world view.However having said that I have read a considerable amount on the argument pro and con the resurrection and I find the argument on the pro side far more compelling than the argument against.Here for example are some books I have read.
A Debate between N T Wright and Marcus BorgA debate between N T Wright and Dom CrossanThe resurrection of the Son of God ny N T WrightThe latter is well over 700 pages dedicated to the study of the resurrection from a Biblical and historical standpoint.I have also read several other books on the same subject and have spent a number of years studying the Bible since accepting the Christian faith in my thirties.I realize that someone who doesn't agree with you can't be following simple logic or sound reasoning, but I'm doing the best I can.

I'd suggest that largely the questions raised were as a result of it being a resurrection in new bodily form as distinct from a resuscitation of the body as was the case with Lazarus. The resurrected Jesus was the new Adam for the renewal or resurrection of all creation.The doubts didn't last long however as His followers at the risk of, and in many cases with the loss of their lives went out and loudly proclaimed Jesus as the messiah, even going beyond that is saying that Jesus embodied Yahweh's return to His people, and for the world.

Well they did predict but in the ambiguous manner that results as a result of God working through humans with all of our biases, misconceptions, cultural and personal conditioning etc. But that is exactly what He did. He pointed out that you don't solve real word issues by the sword. He said that if you really want to change the world you do it by loving your enemies, caring for the poor, loving your neighbour etc.. In the resurrection God shows us that death - the greatest power that evil has over us - does not have the final word. I'd say that he fulfilled and shed light on the Torah in a way that nobody else had. No, as the Temple had been largely rebuilt by the Herodians who were simply puppets of the Romans and was not functioning in the manner that observant Jews felt it should. The original prophesies were written prior to the Herodian reconstruction. I don't know if they anticipated any additional rebuilding of the Temple but they would certainly like to have seen it removed from Herodian control and would have expected a messiah to accomplish that task. That was a political statement that was consistent with His message of "those who live by the sword will die by the sword". He was saying that by continuing on with their revolutionary ways the Romans would do what they always did and that the Temple would be destroyed; as it was in 70AD. I think John does the best job of it in Chap 1 where he talks about Jesus being the embodiment of the "Word", (wisdom) of God. The Jews had an expectation that Yahweh would return to them, so that idea that Yahweh returned to them in the manner that John describes is consistent with Jewish understanding that there is but one God. I agree. In effect Jesus tied together two prophesies or expectations of the Jews. The first was for the messiah and the second was for the return of Yahweh.

Well, just because they claim to speak for Yahweh does not mean they got it right. I still don't understand how some Christians can believe that Yahweh would tell his followers to commit genocide and stone people to death for any offence, let alone minor ones, and then through Jesus tell us that we are to forgive and love our enemies.The whole thing hangs on whether or not Jesus was resurrected. I think that it is a very weak argument to suggest that the writers of the NT made the whole thing up. It is clear that they believed it happened. It wasn't what they had expected and it is written in such a way as to say that - I know it sounds odd but here is what happened.The only question in my mind is whether or not they were right or wrong.
I am strongly convinced, as were the NT writers, that Jesus was resurrected by God. If God resurrected Jesus then we can go back and look at the prophesies in that light, not in an attempt to validate the resurrection but to validate the prophesies in order to understand what God wants us to take from the OT.If God resurrected Jesus then what difference does it make if there were any prophesies or not, except to gain understanding of what God is doing in the world? The connection to the prophets connects Jesus to the Israeli narrative in order to better understand what Jesus was about and what He wanted to get across to us. He was simply pointing out that His message was extremely controversial and would cause huge divisions even within families. It's there but nobody seems to have understood it in the way that Jesus did. This includes His followers who only began to understand it after the resurrection. ...as long as they toed the party line. Jesus understood that He was replacing the Temple as evidenced His going around forgiving sins and saying that He desired mercy not sacrifice. Sure He was critical of the Pharisees but that is another issue. There was obviously strong support for the revolutionary movement in the country as evidence but what happened less than 40 years later. Well, it wasn't anticipated to happen in the manner that it did. However once again it all hangs on the resurrection. Jesus life and ministry was lived out in an entirely Jewish context and if God resurrected Jesus, thus validating His life and ministry, then it is very Jewish. Not really. The golden calf was inanimate and wasn't going around telling them that they should love their neighbour. However, same thing again. It all boils down to whether or not the writers of the NT were right or wrong about the resurrection.