I don’t see how the prophecies can be twisted into God being the Messiah. I am fine with figurative language, but the Messiah is clearly described as a human who rules on the Earth and does very specific things. Nowhere do I find that the Messiah is God himself that rules in a spiritual sense. It even talks about the Messiah being born here on Earth from a specific lineage.
Those are very specific things the Messiah is supposed to do. Was Judah saved during Jesus’ time? Did Jesus help Jerusalem dwell safely? In fact, things went south. 40 years after Jesus’ death the Second Temple was destroyed, Jerusalem itself was destroyed by the Romans, and the Jews were forced into exile. That sounds like the opposite of what was supposed to happen in the Messianic prophecies.
One of the descriptions of the Messiah is Isaiah 52 12 to 53. The issue was not winning battles the issue was the Israelites separation from God through sin. In the case of King Hezekiah he was able to win a battle without fighting because of his faith. Jesus mission was to restore faith and spread it to the whole world.
Isaiah 49.6,7
he says:
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, > that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
7 This is what the Lord says—
the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel—
to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation,
to the servant of rulers:
“Kings will see you and stand up,
princes will see and bow down,
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”
@T_aquaticus, we are en media res. Jesus came once to die, and he will come again to rule. The prophecies include this tension so starkly that some Jewish scholars thought there would be two Messiahs, one to suffer and one to rule.
Maybe from a human perspective but from Gods perspective his “servant” had started in motion the conversion around the globe to the God of Abraham and his son the Messiah.
You can’t ‘twist’ metaphors into being literal. And some prophesies have dual fulfillments. (E.g., there are more than one ‘Day[s] of the Lord’ in scripture.)
Are there also Jewish scholars who thought there would be one Messiah?
Yes. There is little evidence that Isaiah is talking about the Messiah. In all other references to the Messiah he is described as a king, ruler, anointed one, or son of David. There is none of this in Isaiah 52-53. Nowhere else in the Bible is the Messiah referred to as the Servant. There is also Isaiah 42
Was Jesus blind and deaf? Many scholars think the Servant is Israel itself.
You are right in certain passages it is but not in 53.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
By his wounds we (Israel) are heeled. We all, (Israel) have gone astray.
This was a Messianic prophecy in Jewish tradition of the first 1000 years after Christ. Who else in human history other than Jesus fits this description?
