Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Ben C. Smith wrote:This collective interpretation of the Servant who will "justify many" continued.

I want to clarify my words here so as to avoid misunderstanding. I am not necessarily of the opinion that interpreting Isaiah's Suffering Servant messianically is an illegitimate move. If the faithful few can suffer redemptively for the rest of Israel, why not a faithful one? My point is that there is this deep interplay between singular figures (the servant, the branch, and so on) and either the collective whole of Israel or the collective group thought of as the "remnant". The few take on the burdens of the many, suffer for the many, and cling to wisdom/insight for the many. In some of the texts it is genuinely hard to tell who is who because the singulars and plurals fly by so quickly. But the point is that there is a fluid identity of sorts between the Messiah, the "remnant", and Israel as a whole.

to Ben,

I would say that the "we" is more a "faithful remnant" of Israel than just "Israel", plain and simple, but the same idea applies.

Yes, the remnants of Ephraim & Judah (Israel), but not Israel itself. Just like Canadians are not Canada, neither Canada is Canadians.

Christians said he was the Messiah. Isaiah seemed to say that he was the faithful remnant of Israel whose suffering would redeem the whole of the nation. Isaiah 48.20; 49.3:

What Christians? Maybe you are referring to '1 Clement'. But that epistle was written well after Paul's letters.

Isaiah seemed to say that he was the faithful remnant of Israel whose suffering would redeem the whole of the nation. Isaiah 48.20; 49.3:

Did it occur to you the servants in Isaiah 48 & 49 may not be the same as the one in Isaiah 53? God could have several servants.
Certainly the description of the two servants do not match. As example, for the first one, it's about redemption of Israel. But the second one dies. So according to you, the author would want Israel to die.
And I am not sure the servant in 49:3 is Israel. Actually, according to the following verses, that servant is (allegedly) Isaiah, the receiver of revelations from God. And Isaiah is "to restore the preserved of Israel" and made to be the savior of Israel, to the point of being considered Israel in 49:3.
So in Isaiah 53, the suffering servant is either a different one as in 49, or is meant to be Isaiah. But certainly not Israel itself.
(I always thought the second half of 'Isaiah' was not written by Isaiah, but well after his time, during the beginning of the Persian rule, by different author(s) who added "updates" at the end then of the existing text)

I think also bringing 'Daniel' and Origen in the picture is rather far-fetched.

And you ignore Marcion as a reference. Highly debatable.

gMarcion is not a reference on early (1st century) Christianity. GMarcion was written after gLuke:
http://historical-jesus.info/53.html
http://historical-jesus.info/62.html

I want to clarify my words here so as to avoid misunderstanding. I am not necessarily of the opinion that interpreting Isaiah's Suffering Servant messianically is an illegitimate move. If the faithful few can suffer redemptively for the rest of Israel, why not a faithful one? My point is that there is this deep interplay between singular figures (the servant, the branch, and so on) and either the collective whole of Israel or the collective group thought of as the "remnant". The few take on the burdens of the many, suffer for the many, and cling to wisdom/insight for the many. In some of the texts it is genuinely hard to tell who is who because the singulars and plurals fly by so quickly. But the point is that there is a fluid identity of sorts between the Messiah, the "remnant", and Israel as a whole.

It looks you put yourself in a fine mess by holding on Hosea 6:2.

Cordially, Bernard

Bernard Muller wrote:It looks you put yourself in a fine mess by holding on Hosea 6:2.

That would be nuance.

I disagreed with pretty much everything you wrote in that post. But those are probably topics for another time. Much of my view of how Christians read the scriptures comes from years of very particular arguments (that I find persuasive) argued closely by various scholars. (Nothing I wrote about this topic was of my own creation; it all comes from reading and sifting out the parts I like from those I do not. I did not invent the Jewish communal reading of the Suffering Servant or the Jewish/Christian messianic reading, nor the connection between Hosea 6.2 and 1 Corinthians 15.4, nor the connection of Daniel 11-12 with Isaiah 53. And I apparently agree with the scholars who have written on those topics more than I agree with you.)

gMarcion is not a reference on early (1st century) Christianity. GMarcion was written after gLuke:
http://historical-jesus.info/53.html
http://historical-jesus.info/62.html

The gospel of Marcion has nothing to do with this. I was talking about the epistles. And yes, I think that the Marcionite version of the Pauline epistles sometimes preserves some early readings that other lines of transmission have obscured.

Ben.

My apology to Outhouse for misattributing the reference to there being no third day reference in the OT (to which I responded with Hos. 6:2, and which generated more discussion than I anticipated while I was offline).

As I caught up on the thread I saw that Bernard (I hope) wrote:

"In Hos 6:2, the ones to be raised are the people of Ephraim, but not from the dead, rather from their distress after the devastation of their land by the Assyrians. I should have specified:
Nowhere in the pre-Pauline scriptures there is anything about someone rising from the dead on the third day."

I think Ben has adequately addressed this issue as well as others that have come up pertaining to the relevance of Hos. 6:2 to 1 Cor. 15:3. I (and I think Ben also) wouldn't call it cut and dried but it works better for me than the other options.

to Ben,

I disagreed with pretty much everything you wrote in that post.

Easy to say, but no explanations from your side.

Much of my view of how Christians read the scriptures comes from years of very particular arguments (that I find persuasive) argued closely by various scholars. (Nothing I wrote about this topic was of my own creation; it all comes from reading and sifting out the parts I like from those I do not. I did not invent the Jewish communal reading of the Suffering Servant or the Jewish/Christian messianic reading, nor the connection between Hosea 6.2 and 1 Corinthians 15.4, nor the connection of Daniel 11-12 with Isaiah 53. And I apparently agree with the scholars who have written on those topics more than I agree with you.)

I think you are taking cover behind some anonymous various scholars, which I think might be Christians and therefore taking an apologist stand for 1 Corinthians 15:4.
Jewish communal reading or Jewish/Christian messianic reading? that seems very speculative. And I hate when the word "reading" is used when the word "interpretation" should be. It makes you think, if you cannot read it, you must be illiterate.

An example of apologist "reading" on 1 Corinthians 15:4:

According to the scriptures.—The reiteration with each statement that it was “according to the scriptures,” i.e., according to the Old Testament scriptures, the Gospel narratives not yet being in existence—shows how strongly the Apostle dwelt on the unity of the facts of Christ’s life and the predictive utterances of the prophets. The death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord were all parts of that providential plan which the deep spiritual insight of God’s servants of old illumined by the Holy Spirit had enabled them to foresee. The resurrection was no subsequent invention to try and explain away or mitigate the terrible shock which Christ’s death had given to his followers. (See Psalm 2:7; Psalm 16:10; Isaiah 53:9-10; Isaiah 55:3; Hosea 6:2.)

according to Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers http://biblehub.com/commentaries/1_corinthians/15-4.htm

From the same webpage:

Pulpit Commentary
Verse 4. - And that he rose; rather, that he had been raised. The burial was a single act; the Resurrection is permanent and eternal in its issues. According to the Scriptures (Psalm 16:10; Isaiah 53:10; Hosea 6:2; Jonah 2:10; comp. Matthew 12:40; Matthew 16:4; Acts 2:31; Acts 13:34).

That's a lot of crap.

Cordially, Bernard

Bernard Muller wrote:to Ben,

I disagreed with pretty much everything you wrote in that post.

Easy to say, but no explanations from your side.

That is right. I do not want to get into the rest of that right now. Laying down the background would take too long, at least for me and possibly also for you.

I think you are taking cover behind some anonymous various scholars, which I think might be Christians and therefore taking an apologist stand for 1 Corinthians 15:4.

Taking cover? Hardly. But I am certainly not claiming any original argumentation. I read scholars' arguments on the matter and found myself persuaded.

As for the backgrounds of the various scholars I have read on this particular matter, I know for a fact that at least one is Christian and that at least one other is atheist. I am not sure about the rest.

Jewish communal reading or Jewish/Christian messianic reading? that seems very speculative. And I hate when the word "reading" is used when the word "interpretation" should be. It makes you think, if you cannot read it, you must be illiterate.

The secondary definition of "reading" is just something you will have to get used to, then. Sorry:


English is my native tongue, and I try to use it with great care and precision. Where I fail to do so, I try to make the necessary correction(s). But I am correct on this one, and I will continue to use the term "reading" in the perfectly legitimate (and easily understood) manner in which I have used it here.

An example of apologist "reading" on 1 Corinthians 15:4:

According to the scriptures.—The reiteration with each statement that it was “according to the scriptures,” i.e., according to the Old Testament scriptures, the Gospel narratives not yet being in existence—shows how strongly the Apostle dwelt on the unity of the facts of Christ’s life and the predictive utterances of the prophets. The death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord were all parts of that providential plan which the deep spiritual insight of God’s servants of old illumined by the Holy Spirit had enabled them to foresee. The resurrection was no subsequent invention to try and explain away or mitigate the terrible shock which Christ’s death had given to his followers. (See Psalm 2:7; Psalm 16:10; Isaiah 53:9-10; Isaiah 55:3; Hosea 6:2.)

according to Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers http://biblehub.com/commentaries/1_corinthians/15-4.htm

Sure. And there are plenty more where that came from. I agree with some of what is written above. I agree with apologists sometimes. You do too. Everybody does.

Ben.

I gave Hosea 13.14 as an example of Paul twisting scripture for his own purposes, in this case taking a summons to death against the rebellious and unwise and turning it into a taunt against death in 1 Corinthians 15.55. I want to nuance that statement a bit; somebody did that, I believe, but it may or may not have been Paul.

In context, especially with that line at the end of the verse ("compassion will be hidden from my sight"), it seems clear to me that the original text was a summons to death. But the Septuagint has some interesting readings for Hosea 13.13-14 LXX (Swete):


The text that Swete prints has οὗτος ὁ υἱός σου ὁ φρόνιμος ("this is your wise son), but he notes a variant that runs οὗτος ὁ υἱός σου οὐ φρόνιμος ("this is not your wise son"). Big difference. I think I detect Christian editing here. Some scribe who knew that the taunt against death was "supposed" to be about the resurrection of which Christ is the firstfruits decided to make the son in this verse Jesus, too, but Jesus could not be unwise; the deletion of one letter did the deed. Now, this scribe could well have thought this about Hosea 13.14 precisely because of Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15.55. Or perhaps this change had already been made and Paul himself used it. At any rate, I wanted to bring that information to the table.