Isaiah's Servant in original context

[neilgodfrey]

Does anyone here know where I can locate studies that argue what/who might have been the contemporary reference for Isaiah's Servant as an individual? Most discussions I can find acknowledge the Servant is alternately depicted as a collective (Israel) and as an individual person. What I would like to understand is who was in the author's mind if indeed he did sometimes speak of a single person as the Servant.

[TedM]

I don't know. I noticed something a few years back that may be of no significance, but thought I'd mention it. The tenses used for past-present seem to vary in this passage as if some of it had occurred already and some of it was to occur in the future. Is that a function of the editors/translators or is there reason to believe the tenses have been retained over time?

[neilgodfrey]

I think if the author was imagining a future individual to come then we have a bigger problem or at least another one in its place. Why would he do this? Where did such a notion come from? What were the background influences? It would be quite something if out of the blue we get this prophecy of a future being who will suffer, die for sins and in so doing save his people and the gentiles. Maybe that's what the author meant but I'm hoping to find a less speculative explanation if possible.

I am currently reading Jarvis Williams' "Maccabean Martyr Traditions in Paul's Theology of Atonement" and on page 76 there is a teasing footnote pointing to:

Brevard Childs, Isaiah, 2001 -- p. 422 -- who is said to refuse to separate the Servant of Isaiah 53 from Israel's historical situation (that might mean Childs considers the figure a personification rather than an individual but I am not 100% sure)

R. N. Whybray, Thanksgiving for a Liberated Prophet: an Interpretation of Isaiah 53, Journal for the Study of Old Testament Theology 4, 1978 -- who suggests the Servant is Second Isaiah himself (and denies the Servant actually died).

And Williams is not directly addressing Isaiah itself so he says no more on that question. And I have access to neither, anyway. Williams did make a passing reference somewhere earlier to the view that some scholars viewed some of the Suffering Servant passages as referring to an individual. But no details.

[Stephan Huller]

I think the prevalence of the Christian exegesis snuffed out much meaningful discussion in Jewish sources

[TedM]

are the dead sea scroll findings helpful for knowing what pre-dated Christianity? I read they dated Isaiah 53 to something like 100 BC

[Blood]

are the dead sea scroll findings helpful for knowing what pre-dated Christianity? I read they dated Isaiah 53 to something like 100 BC

The radiocarbon date of 1QIsa is 355 BCE-122 BCE (1995 tests).

The earlier radiocarbon date was 199-120 BCE (1991 tests).

Frank Moore Cross dated 1QIsa to 150-125 BCE based on paleographical analysis.

[Blood]

Does anyone here know where I can locate studies that argue what/who might have been the contemporary reference for Isaiah's Servant as an individual? Most discussions I can find acknowledge the Servant is alternately depicted as a collective (Israel) and as an individual person. What I would like to understand is who was in the author's mind if indeed he did sometimes speak of a single person as the Servant.

The Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah : an Historical and Critical Study by C. R. North (1948) might be worth checking out.

[neilgodfrey]

The Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah : an Historical and Critical Study by C. R. North (1948) might be worth checking out.

Thanks. A review of this book by Howard Bream (1949) says:

North's own opinion is that Deutero-Isaiah
wrote the Servant songs at different times and
with a developing movement of thought, which
found its culmination in the last of the group of
four. There the Servant is a historical individual
whom the prophets really expected to come at
some future time. However, no one in the prophet's
historical experience supplied the model.
Only in Jesus do "Original and Fulfilment join
hands across the centuries."

So Ted is not alone in his suggestion. Bream does continue, however, apparently suggesting that North is too superficially "saving orthodoxy" with his commentary.

[neilgodfrey]

I think the prevalence of the Christian exegesis snuffed out much meaningful discussion in Jewish sources

There is an abundance of meaningful scholarship -- in both "Jewish" and "Christian" studies -- on the Servant Songs.

[Stephan Huller]

I am saying that from what I can remember there isn't much in the way of Jewish commentary (meaning in the rabbinic writings not scholars who happen to be 'Jewish').