Posted on 05/06/2018 1:50:30 AM PDT by Read Write Repeat
Rabbi Tovia Singer is challenged by a Christian regarding Isaiah 53.
It was the false restorations that I was going after: the ones that claim the Christian church doesn’t really understand the teachings of Jesus and, in fact, never did. I am a former Protestant, now Orthodox, and I have a huge respect for the variety of expressions of Christianity, but I have no respect for novel doctrines that claim, essentially, that Christianity was flawed and false from the very beginning.
This rabbi within the first two minutes denies 1) the book of Isaiah is inspired writing, and 2) that Isaiah even wrote the book. He asked the question does anyone know what is in Isaiah 52 or 58 without looking? I suspect the average Jew doesn’t know either (and most likely a good number of rabbi). He made the claim that the kings of the nations wrote the books yet Isaiah spends many chapters talking about the destruction of these nations. Hardly the things the kings would write. I didn’t need to watch further as it is a waste of time.
When the Ethopian asked Philip to explain to him the suffering servant, Philip had no problem in explaining Isaiah 53 to him and how Christ was the suffering servant. It was through Isaiah and specifically this section the Ethopian came to an understanding of the truth. BTW-attention rabbi-it should be noted that Philip was a Jew. It should also be noted that at least 12 different major sections of Isaiah is quoted in the New Testament and in many cases they attribute these quotes to Isaiah-not some kings. Sadly, the Jews have never been able to understand the “suffering servant” aspects of Isaiah.
I did not read the “attacks” but he is simply wrong to the truth. If one cannot 1) believe the scriptures to be the infallible word of God, and 2) that Isaiah wrote the book, I’m not sure there is much point in any discussion with the rabbi. His mind is darkened. He can’t even accept his own Old Testament as coming from God.
Which is absurd. The atonement and scapegoat corresponds to Lev. 16, and Israel does not make itself an atonement for the wicked Gentiles, with the Lord laying the sin of others on Israel, but the suffering servant does so for "my people," Israel.
That was a very kind note! I spent a year in Israel in my youth, careful not to offend, yet try to explain to people how God loved them and was calling them back to the land. I would avoid being direct about the Messiah. I then spent time in the Soviet Union trying to be of help to the Jewish community in Moscow. Again I would avoid any direct evangelism, yet try to express God’s love and calling for them to return.
Now I’m old, and I wonder why I was so afraid to be direct and confrontational. Like that rabbi, they are tough and can handle it. And I don’t want to die having avoided so many opportunities out of some sense of political correctness... They are on fire, and I have the rope, and shouldn’t be intimidated into not throwing it to them+!
Imagine that rabbi having the scales fall from his eyes! He’d be another Paul!
The great tribute to the faith of those who came before Christ is spoken of in the New Testament book of Hebrews chapter 11. No doubt Isaiah was included here:
Good grief, sir. Enough of Jewish scales on the eyes. How about Christian potatoes in the ears.... listen to the rabbi. Study scripture in Hebrew. Embrace the Noahide laws (including G-d’s unity) and have an outstanding day.
Leviticus 16 is completely non-sequitur.
God does also refer to the nations (non-Jews) as “My people” as referenced by Isaiah himself in Chapter 19:24-25.
“In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land: Whom the Lord of Hosts shall bless, saying, ‘Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance.’”
Choose life. Etz Chaim. Save one life, and you save the entire world. When you drive on a toll road, do you pick the human at the toll booth or the electronic scanner?
Your answer: I don't know & don't want to know. Kevod ha'briyot.
My teaching of the definition of tzaddiket is probably different than yours because what I was taught had nothing to do with perfection and everything to do with bandages.
Daniel 1212: Love fiji apples
Which is also absurd, for what Is. 53 describes is what Lv. 16 requires, and if Israel is to be the atonement then it must fulfill what Lv. 16 describes, and under which rubric other provisions for atonement are made.
God does also refer to the nations (non-Jews) as “My people” as referenced by Isaiah himself in Chapter 19:24-25.
What is in the prophetic sense, and requires the unblemished atonement of Lv. 16, which Israel certainly was not, nor does Israel overall correspond to the descriptions of the suffering servant in Is. 53, despite the stretching of imaginations. Thus rather than Is. 53 making Israel the atonement he is in need of the atonement Lv. 16 requires.
Thus you have ancient rabbis who saw Is. 53 as referring to the Messiah.
Hebrew or English, its the interpretive traditions in terms of understanding context that are in question. The Rabbi argues from the traditions of Priestly Aaron and of the Talmud...the apostle Paul argues the same scriptures(in Hebrew,Greek, 1611 English translations or otherwise) from a interpretive tradition derived from priestly Melchizedek of which he describes as Christ as being the “chief priest” there-of!
Study of Hebrew helps but it doesn’t solve the issues of interpretive bias! Paul argues the scriptures all point to Christ and yes it was his admitted bias.
The Bible describes a “wooing of the Holy spirit” that brings a person to Christ but he or she still needs to accept Christ as savior. When one does, biases change and scripture once understood from a different context now is better understood from a Christ focused context. A knowledge of Hebrew helps but we are still stuck with a knowledge of Hebrew as understood from a 21st century context and not in the contexts that Moses would have understood it or from a later Talmudic tradition context. We must all learn to understand our own internal biases and be honest about them when we speak of “understanding Hebrew or Greek” when trying to point out the weaknesses of each other’s arguments.
Finally we must all pray and look forward to the day that God will reconcile all arguments and get all of us on the same page...I speak of Jeremiah 19: 33-34......”33”But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34”They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
Now who is the House of Israel? Anyone into which God has written his law onto their heart so that the knowledge of God and his great salvation is standardized and no one need “teach” the other(or “Know the Lord”)!!!! God’s Holy Spirit is not chopped liver...he can bridge the gaps in our knowledge of interpretive contexts and the scripture!
The gate names are Memorials...any of God’s people will go though any gate. Don’t forget that that the walls ALSO bear the names of the 12 apostles(Revelation 21), three apostles to each wall and three gates on each side. That symbolizes both the harmonization of the old and new covenants under Jesus Christ and of his church built on the foundations of both the Prophets ANNNNND the Apostles!
See also Jeremiah 19:33-34:”But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34”They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
Actually, it’s literal mistranslation that you can demonstrate for yourself on Biblehub or similar sights.
Any offering made for sin needed not wait for the appointed “yearly” day as multiple stories from the OT attest; nevertheless Caiphas that year was said in the new Testament to have prophesied that “one man was to die for the sins of the people!”
Christ was to die for the sins of the people as per the prophecy as related from the New Testament. So he was both sin and paschal offering. The spilling of his blood not only provided protection from everlasting death(reference the death Angel over Egypt) but also as he was sinless, and without blemish, he was the final sin sacrifice whose shed bloodt not only covered our sins to make us acceptable before God, but wiped them out completely, sending them into “the depths of the sea” Micah 7:19
Sounds like a mistranslation, linguistic interpretation (and far-east and pagan adaptation) all rolled into one. Sorry.
Wikipedia has a fairly decent article on what the “real estate” of Israel was and is to be as promised to Abraham by God and to Isaac and finally to Jacob(whom God surnamed as ISRAEL).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promised_Land
Since you are schooled into a certain tradition of 21st century understanding of what you think the Hebrew OUGHT to have said some 2700 years ago as bounded by Talmudic tradition....what are you exactly apologizing for?
The Holy Spirit is not chopped liver...he will give understanding!
By the way the children did not fully take the land designated and designed for them. They got sidetracked into a civil war and divided into two Houses... House of Judah (2 tribes) and House of Israel (10 tribes). The 10 tribes were the first sent into captivity to the Assyrian king and dispersed over the Caucus mountains... The House of Judah, (Benjamin of which the apostle Paul was from were 200 some years later sent to Babylon... Jeremiah tells their tale.
Ezekiel 16 King James Version (KJV)
16 Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite.
4 And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all.
5 None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the lothing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born.
6 And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live.
7 I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare.
8 Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine.
9 Then washed I thee with water; yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil.
10 I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers’ skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk.
11 I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck.
12 And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head.
13 Thus wast thou decked with gold and silver; and thy raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work; thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil: and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom.
14 And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God.
15 But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.
16 And of thy garments thou didst take, and deckedst thy high places with divers colours, and playedst the harlot thereupon: the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so.
17 Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them,
18 And tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them.
19 My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour: and thus it was, saith the Lord God.
20 Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter,
21 That thou hast slain my children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them?
22 And in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood.
23 And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, (woe, woe unto thee! saith the Lord God;)
24 That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee an high place in every street.
25 Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms.
26 Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh; and hast increased thy whoredoms, to provoke me to anger.
27 Behold, therefore I have stretched out my hand over thee, and have diminished thine ordinary food, and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, which are ashamed of thy lewd way.
28 Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians, because thou wast unsatiable; yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied.
29 Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan unto Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied therewith.
30 How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord God, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman;
31 In that thou buildest thine eminent place in the head of every way, and makest thine high place in every street; and hast not been as an harlot, in that thou scornest hire;
32 But as a wife that committeth adultery, which taketh strangers instead of her husband!
33 They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom.
34 And the contrary is in thee from other women in thy whoredoms, whereas none followeth thee to commit whoredoms: and in that thou givest a reward, and no reward is given unto thee, therefore thou art contrary.
35 Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord:
36 Thus saith the Lord God; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them;
37 Behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness.
38 And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy.
39 And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare.
40 They shall also bring up a company against thee, and they shall stone thee with stones, and thrust thee through with their swords.
41 And they shall burn thine houses with fire, and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women: and I will cause thee to cease from playing the harlot, and thou also shalt give no hire any more.
42 So will I make my fury toward thee to rest, and my jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will be quiet, and will be no more angry.
43 Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, but hast fretted me in all these things; behold, therefore I also will recompense thy way upon thine head, saith the Lord God: and thou shalt not commit this lewdness above all thine abominations.
44 Behold, every one that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against thee, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter.
45 Thou art thy mother's daughter, that lotheth her husband and her children; and thou art the sister of thy sisters, which lothed their husbands and their children: your mother was an Hittite, and your father an Amorite.
46 And thine elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand: and thy younger sister, that dwelleth at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.
47 Yet hast thou not walked after their ways, nor done after their abominations: but, as if that were a very little thing, thou wast corrupted more than they in all thy ways.
48 As I live, saith the Lord God, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters.
49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
50 And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.
51 Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they, and hast justified thy sisters in all thine abominations which thou hast done.
52 Thou also, which hast judged thy sisters, bear thine own shame for thy sins that thou hast committed more abominable than they: they are more righteous than thou: yea, be thou confounded also, and bear thy shame, in that thou hast justified thy sisters.
53 When I shall bring again their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, then will I bring again the captivity of thy captives in the midst of them:
54 That thou mayest bear thine own shame, and mayest be confounded in all that thou hast done, in that thou art a comfort unto them.
55 When thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate.
56 For thy sister Sodom was not mentioned by thy mouth in the day of thy pride,
57 Before thy wickedness was discovered, as at the time of thy reproach of the daughters of Syria, and all that are round about her, the daughters of the Philistines, which despise thee round about.
58 Thou hast borne thy lewdness and thine abominations, saith the Lord.
59 For thus saith the Lord God; I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which hast despised the oath in breaking the covenant.
60 Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant.
61 Then thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thine elder and thy younger: and I will give them unto thee for daughters, but not by thy covenant.
62 And I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord:
63 That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God.
If you try to understand His plain Hebrew words you’ll be on your way ;)
Yirmeyah 31:33-34 Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB)
33 (32) But this shall be the Brit that I will cut with Bais Yisroel [T.N. OJBC is Jewish]; After those days, saith Hashem, I will set My Torah in them inwardly, and I will write ketuvim on their hearts; and I will be their Elohim, and they shall be My People.
34 (33) And they shall teach no more every ish his re’a (neighbor), and every ish his brother, saying, Know Hashem; for they shall all have da’as of Me, from the katon of them unto the gadol of them, saith Hashem; for I will forgive their avon, and I will remember their chattat no more.”
Hashem has to give understanding through his Spirit and his Spirit bridges all languages. Your God is too small!
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