Isaiah 53: A Summary of Christian Deception

Now that you’ve seen the analysis and breakdown of what Isaiah 53 was truly about, let's see how Christians respond to this. Not all Christians will tell these tall tales, and I think I need to make that disclaimer from the beginning. However, the evangelical community still clings to this portion of scripture for dear life and is willing to tell some rather offensive lies to protect it.

This is a rather well-worn argument is that the Jewish view of Isaiah 53 had always been about the Messiah in particular, but Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzchak, the greatest Medieval Torah and Talmud commentator), who was completely opposed to Christian interpretations of the Bible, created a new interpretation of Isaiah 53. This is believed to have been fabricated by an apologist of the nineteenth century. Jews had never interpreted Isaiah 53 as being about a suffering Messiah. If it was, then Christians must think Peter was a foolish fellow, since he obviously must have not been learned the Tanach when he displayed astonishment after Jesus foretold that he would die.

Who tells this lie? Evangelical Christians tell this lie. Jews for Jesus tells this lie. The Chosen People Ministries tells this lie. All it takes is one lie of this nature for you to be proven untrustworthy. They tell these lies in spades. Numerous tall tales of this sort are told, trying to create the picture that Jesus was in the beliefs of the rabbis, and then a large quantity of quotes, sometimes taken out of context, other times fabricated, are presented, and the evangelist will say, "Don’t you see? The rabbis were saying this all along!" These are the same evangelicals who will also denounce the views of the rabbis when they prove an inconvenience. There wasn’t exactly a huge movement among Jews to jump into baptism pools in the first millenium of the Common Era. One would think that if it was made up by Rashi, then this would not have been the case. Instead, any examination of a history text will show that Christians persecuted Jews during the first thousand years of Christianity (and afterward!), and that the Jews resisted Christianity, even at the expense of their lives.

The fact of the matter is that this lie can be proven such by relying on Christian texts. In the third century, the early church father Origen wrote a volume entitled Contra Celsum, a criticism of a pagan scholar who spoke against Christianity. Origen told of a time when he had approached a group of Jews, and tried using Isaiah 53 as a tool aimed at evengelizing them. "Those whom the Jews regarded as learned" explained to Origen the Jewish interpretation of the fourth Servant Song, and it took place nearly a thousand years before Rashi lived. For proof, see this Catholic website, with Contra Celsum translated online, chapters 54 and 55.

There are also other references, such as the Talmud, which explain the Jewish interpretation of Isaiah 53, which date back long before Rashi as well, but you need only present one proof in this case to prove that Christian missionaries lie about this, and the irrational lengths to which they will go to defend their untenable views.

Acts 13:15 And after the reading of the law and the prophets the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, [Ye] men [and] brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on. (KJV)

After reading "the law and the prophets." The law is the Torah, and the prophets make up the Haftarah. What is the claim made by evangelicals that the Jews are hiding something in excluding Isaiah 53 from the Haftarah? It’s a lie.