THE BOOK
LATER INTERPRETATIONS OF ISAIAH’S MESSAGE.
‘Ironically, perhaps, the Book of Isaiah is most widely known and loved just for [these] comforting words – ‘something like “a mere fragment will survive,” but possibly it has a hopeful ring; no total disaster, some shall survive -- which may not be his. A passage in the Babylonian Talmud (one of two Talmud compilations, the other being Palestinian) can say that from beginning to end the book is consolation. The presence of Isaiah scrolls in the archives of the Qumran (Dead Sea) community is not surprising. By that time (c.1st century BC) it had become the fashion to assume the prophets spoke not to their times only but of things to come, and in times of stress men studied prophetic texts intent on learning when redemption was to come.
The Greek translation of Isaiah by Jewish scholars (the Septuagint), accomplished before the Christian Era, reflects developing tradition of interpretation, it renders the Hebrew ‘alma’ (“young woman”) as parthenos (”Virgin”) in the sense about Immanuel, thus drawing Isaiah further into the messianic ring. Now it is a virgin who “shall conceive and bear a son”. (**) The promise of a more than ordinary king, a “messiah’ was enticing. According to the New Testament accounts, when Jesus entered a Synagogue in Nazareth and got up to read they handed him a scroll of Isaiah. He read the beginning of chapter 61: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me ...” and he said: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled.” (Britannica.)
(**) Here again we have the Christian religious doctrine of ‘Immanuel being Jesus’ pushed to the fore. In addition, “young woman” becomes “Virgin”, and thus the probable beginnings of the notion of parthenogenesis to describe the birth of Jesus because, ostensibly, “God can do anything, because he is God”. Let’s clarify it again: Despite the fact that Perfect Laws from a PERFECT GOD must inevitably mean that there simply cannot be any deviation whatsoever from Natural Law in its Perfection, such simple yet powerful logic merely goes over the heads of ‘Bible scholars’. We forever wonder why?
This aspect of Christian theology and sacrosanct “dogma” feeds into Islam’s implacable opposition to every part of every Scripture pertaining to Jesus and His birth, life and Mission. For the moment we will let this be as it is, but, reader, you will have the opportunity to pit your brand of logic, or logical thinking, against the ‘dogma’ of official Christian theology and all their Ph.D.’s when you read the later Discourse on Jesus; in which the essence of the Torah according to Jewish “thinkers” will offer its case, and where the Koran will be well represented to present Islam’s side. In the meantime, Blank continues his very learned dissertation:
‘The Gospels lean more heavily on the Book of Isaiah than on any other prophetic text. Beyond any denominational differences is the utopian dream, the “swords into ploughshares” passage in Isaiah 2.
[(My inclusion.) “And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Isaiah 2:4, KJV.)
Here we have a prophecy that registers the aftermath of the destruction of present-day global societies riven with attitudes that oppose The Divine Laws of Creation.]
These and many gleaming words from the expanded Book of Isaiah live on in the present day and today’s culture. The word “prophetic” has now become a value term, closely associated with the primacy of the moral demand and the bearing of justice on the stability of nations, quite in accord with the emphasis of the early Isaiah.’