How did Isaiah 52:13 predict that the Messiah Jesus would be crucified "lifted up"?

[John D. Brey]

Nope. Not buying that. The texts are what they are: products of human beings, written within linear time. What you’re saying is not in the realm of empirical evidence. I believe what you’re saying may be true — that God, Who is existence beyond our reckoning of time, allowed this foreshadowing to be known to the authors of Isaiah, but belief = bias, and bias does not make for good exegesis. We can only read out of the texts what is there, and what we believe about them makes it all too easy for us to read into them what is not there. We begin by being clear about what the texts are and what they say. Then we move to faith claims about them based on a viable exegesis of them.

What you’re saying may be true, but there is 0 evidence to support that claim. It’s a faith statement, not exegetical proof. Although that claim is intriguing.

. . . Though you've stated your opinion clearly and lucidly, nevertheless it's wrong; patently so, and clearly so, since the Pentateuch was given as a cipher. It was impossible to read it without being given the key to where a word, or a sentence, began and ended.

In the essay, Masoretic Malfeasance, I put it this way:

The "sacred" text that made possible all the various translations and interpretations of Torah passages, say for instance Genesis chapter 4, was delivered to Moses on Sinai without the punctuation which was added to the text much later. ---- With no "accents" (ta'amin), which represent something like our English punctuation, the signature text of Genesis 4:1 would have looked like this (in Hebrew letters):

themanknewevehiswifeandsheconceivedandbearcain

. . . But the signature text was even more undefined than this. In the line above, the vowels still exist whereas the signature Hebrew text had only consonants, no vowels. ---- It would have actually looked more like this:

thmnknwvhswfndshcncvdndbrcn

A string of pure consonants like this represent a "cipher-text." ---- A "cipher-text" forms a message indecipherable to anyone but a person possessing the "key" necessary to unlock the meaning hidden in the un-deciphered text. The text delivered to Moses was not designed to be read by just anyone. It could only be read by someone possessing the "key" necessary to unlock the text. (The "key" would be knowledge of how the text should be read.)​

God commanded that no "key" ever be placed directly on the cipher-text [a command the Masoretes broke when they laced the text with their preferred punctuation] in such a way as to suggest that it was the "only" or even the "primary" key to unlocking the meaning of the text. It was strictly forbidden to add anything to the pure string of Hebrew consonants which made up the sacred text of the Torah.​

Since this statement is correct, therefore eisegesis preseeds [sic] exegesis. You have to know what the text is saying, or at least how it's saying it, before you can say what it's saying.

Israel was given a song, Deuteronomy 32-33, and the cantillation of that song was used to determine the punctuation of the Pentateuchal cipher. But that song was only one way to decipher the cipher. It was a funeral dirge speaking of a harsh, death dealing god, who would punish every disobedience with suffering and death.

The Gospels are a new hymn, a new, joyous, way to decipher the Pentateuchal cipher. Jesus constantly said, You're familiar with the first way the Pentateuch has been deciphered, but I tell you there's a new way.

This new way is retroactive, but so was the old way. The written cipher was given before the Song of Moses was used to decipher the cipher. In both cases the key to deciphering the cipher came after the cipher and was used as a key to unlock a particular meaning from the consonant text.



John

 

[sojourner]

It was impossible to read it without being given the key to where a word, or a sentence, began and ended

I disagree. I’m quite familiar with ciphers. The Hebrew texts’ key is the spoken word. These texts all arose out of oral transmission. One had to hear the text before being able to read it. (Most people were illiterate at any rate. The texts weren’t written until long after they had been told orally.)

Your hypothesis falls flat where the gospels are concerned, because the gospels, also, are a cipher, being written in Greek letters, all caps, with no spaces between words, and no punctuation or paragraphs. They, too, were transmitted orally before being written down.

We are at a disadvantage having not heard the texts.

For your hypothesis to hold up, there would also have to be a key to the gospels so that select readers could understand. (However, the gospels were clearly for everyone, because a “gospel” is a public message). There exists no such textual key; the key, again, is in the hearing.

The gospelers may have composed their narratives to jibe with earlier texts, but the earlier writers cannot be shown to “preshadow” the gospels in any empirical way.

 

[John D. Brey]

I disagree. I’m quite familiar with ciphers. The Hebrew texts’ key is the spoken word. These texts all arose out of oral transmission. One had to hear the text before being able to read it. (Most people were illiterate at any rate. The texts weren’t written until long after they had been told orally.)

Your hypothesis falls flat where the gospels are concerned, because the gospels, also, are a cipher, being written in Greek letters, all caps, with no spaces between words, and no punctuation or paragraphs. They, too, were transmitted orally before being written down.

We are at a disadvantage having not heard the texts.

For your hypothesis to hold up, there would also have to be a key to the gospels so that select readers could understand. (However, the gospels were clearly for everyone, because a “gospel” is a public message). There exists no such textual key; the key, again, is in the hearing.

The gospelers may have composed their narratives to jibe with earlier texts, but the earlier writers cannot be shown to “preshadow” the gospels in any empirical way.

. . . Properly understood, the Pentateuch is the foundation for all scripture, Jewish and Christian. The Gospels, which are an oral tradition, as you say, are commentary on the Pentateuch. The Gospels are not a free-standing revelation. They're false unless they're merely a new understanding/revelation, of what is already in the Pentateuch. Everything God has revealed is hidden in the Pentateuch.

The Pentateuch was not first oral and then put down in writing, like the Gospels. The Pentateuch was first written. And in a particular and important way: hieroglyphically.

Hieroglyphs are glyphs, symbols, created in earth, clay, or stone, not by depositing something through the tool, or organ, of the writer, as with what the pen-is in demotic writing, a mixing of writer and written. Producing a Duke's mixture, requiring us to raise Cain, after the birth of what's produced in that manner.

On the contrary, a heiro-glyph, is the removing of the veil of earth hiding what was there all along, merely hidden, by the veil of the earth. The tool used to make a sacred-glyph doesn't deposit the semen, or semantic ideas, of the writer, onto parchment or paper, birthing a Duke's mixture of writer and written. ------On the contrary, the tool used to make a sacred-glyph is called an izmel, and the writer a mohel. What's revealed was already there. The mohel's job is merely to removed the veil hiding what was there all along.

The Pentateuch is written by a divine mohel with his supernatural izmel. He doesn't write new thoughts onto the stone. He merely uses his tool, the izmel, to show that what he writes was placed, hidden, beneath, all along, merely waiting to be revealed. The writer of the Pentateuch, is not an author, but merely an amanuensis. He didn't create the revelation in the Pentateuch. He merely reveals it by removing the veil. More than that, the writer, revealer, of the Pentateuch, doesn't know how to read it. He is merely the amanunsis and guardian of the revelation. His job was merely to uncover, brit milah, and then guard, Israel, the revelation until its author arrived.

Of course history reveals that something went haywire when the amanuneses came to believe they were more than writers and guardians of the revelation; that they were authors and offspring of the revelation. . . That's what happen when you use what the pen-is in writing and grow to like what you produce so much that you put down the izmel and start writing yourself into the picture. Which cuts perhaps too deep into the painful history of the Talmud and the Gospels than is fitting here and now.

The first hieroglyph the amanuensis wrote reveals it all. It's the sacred-glyph come down to us as Beresh-t. Can you decipher the hieroglyphic intent of the most important word ever written? Can any of the original amanunses prove it's their writing by telling us what it means in its sacred sense? Shaul, perhaps, Tumah, maybe?



John

 

[sojourner]

The Gospels, which are an oral tradition, as you say, are commentary on the Pentateuch. The Gospels are not a free-standing revelation. They're false unless they're merely a new understanding/revelation, of what is already in the Pentateuch

I disagree.

The Pentateuch was not first oral and then put down in writing, like the Gospels. The Pentateuch was first written

The best scholarship disagrees with you.

 

[John D. Brey]

The best scholarship disagrees with you.

. . . Do you define the best scholarship as those who agree with you? Or do you agree with the best scholarship? If the latter, who do you agree gets to determine the best scholarship? And what if you disagree with them?

Would you agree that scholars who know how many angels can dance on the head of a pin are the best scholars?

. . . Which is all a long-winded way of saying appeals to authority are fine so long as you share the opinion of the authority and then share what you share with him with all of us. Otherwise you're bowing out but spitting in my direction on the way out. Which isn't a powerful argument except in some parts of Tennessee or Kentucky where many fellas are the best scholars on whether or not their sister is a good kisser.



John

 

[sojourner]

. . . Do you define the best scholarship as those who agree with you? Or do you agree with the best scholarship? If the latter, who do you agree gets to determine the best scholarship? And what if you disagree with them?

Would you agree that scholars who know how many angels can dance on the head of a pin are the best scholars?

. . . Which is all a long-winded way of saying appeals to authority are fine so long as you share the opinion of the authority and then share what you share with him with all of us. Otherwise you're bowing out but spitting in my direction on the way out. Which isn't a powerful argument except in some parts of Tennessee or Kentucky where many fellas are the best scholars on whether or not their sister is a good kisser.



John

1) I agree with scholars who are recognized, published, and peer-reviewed, as well as who hold professorships and fellowships — you know, the things that normally define a scholar as an authority.
2) I have a graduate degree. I don’t require an explanation from you on the finer points of argument.
3) I come from Kentucky.
4) You can take the shoe store out of your mouth now.
5) I understand from several of the “fellers” here that your sister is an experienced kisser.

 

[John D. Brey]

1) I agree with scholars who are recognized, published, and peer-reviewed, as well as who hold professorships and fellowships — you know, the things that normally define a scholar as an authority.

. . . If your second point is true, then you know that the people in your first bullet point would often rather take a bullet before having to agree with one another.

So which of the scholars, meeting your criteria, do you agree with? And why? Since other scholars meeting your criteria disagree with them and you?

Do you see why I said its better to quote your scholar, say why you agree with him, and then let me quote my scholar, and say why I agree with him, rather than implying that you're the only one who refers to scholars as you collect your marbles, or rocks, and make a beeline to the door?

Would you like me to quote some of the best scholars alive explaining that the Pentateuch was seminally a written revelation? Would you like me to quote the greatest Jewish sages who ever lived saying the Pentatuech was originally, fundamentally, a written revelation?



John

 

[sojourner]

. . . If your second point is true, then you know that the people in your first bullet point would often rather take a bullet before having to agree with one another.

So which of the scholars, meeting your criteria, do you agree with? And why? Since other scholars meeting your criteria disagree with them and you?

Do you see why I said its better to quote your scholar, say why you agree with him, and then let me quote my scholar, and say why I agree with him, rather than implying that you're the only one who refers to scholars as you collect your marbles, or rocks, and make a beeline to the door?

Would you like me to quote some of the best scholars alive explaining that the Pentateuch was seminally a written revelation? Would you like me to quote the greatest Jewish sages who ever lived saying the Pentatuech was originally, fundamentally, a written revelation?



John

Ok. So we disagree. Since it’s true that there are different camps with regard to scholarship, why does it surprise you so much that we disagree? Defensive much? Go ahead. Bring your evidence of how ancient documents that tell stories from other, earlier cultures, and that are extant in other literaure, coming from cultures that were overwhelmingly oral cultures, were “written revelations.”

Oh, and whatever you do, don’t bother to apologize for your cheap, discriminatory statement about where I live and the people I love. It would be so beneath you to admit that you might have committed a social fax pas.

 

[74x12]

The Messiah was lifted up! Just as the blood on passover was put on the wooden doorposts so the blood of the Lamb was on the wooden beams of the cross. Each one marked a new doorway for the children of Israel to go through. From Egypt first and then from the Egypt of the human mind next. The Messiah came to save us from the Egypt that is in all of our hearts.

Jesus fulfilled impossible prophecies like Isaiah 45:22. All scholarship and diplomas will fail us if we do not believe that Jesus is "I AM HE".

Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:22)
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. (John 12:32)
... for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. (John 8:24)

No one can explain how it all fits together so perfectly on a spiritual level. Things that weren't even supposed to be similitudes are similitudes because they predicted Jesus perfectly. Like the bronze serpent "Nehushtan" that Moses had made in the wilderness.

When they looked on the serpent they were healed from the venom of the serpents biting them.
serpents = sin
When we see Jesus on the cross(and we believe) then we admit our sins are what put Him there. We in effect see our own sins upon the cross because without sin; Jesus would not need to die. So we're just like the children of Israel looking on the bronze serpent. Believing in Jesus on the cross is essential part of repentance.

No wonder Isaiah 53 portrays a MAN who is literally spoken of as the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of people of Israel. Even Isaiah is included because he witnesses of himself that this man bears his own sins also.

"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."

There is no way this can be about the "elect of Israel" when it is the elect of Israel who testify "He was wounded for our transgressions" and "he was bruised for our iniquities".

 

[sojourner]

The Messiah was lifted up! Just as the blood on passover was put on the wooden doorposts so the blood of the Lamb was on the wooden beams of the cross. Each one marked a new doorway for the children of Israel to go through. From Egypt first and then from the Egypt of the human mind next. The Messiah came to save us from the Egypt that is in all of our hearts.

Jesus fulfilled impossible prophecies like Isaiah 45:22. All scholarship and diplomas will fail us if we do not believe that Jesus is "I AM HE".

Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:22)
And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. (John 12:32)
... for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. (John 8:24)

No one can explain how it all fits together so perfectly on a spiritual level. Things that weren't even supposed to be similitudes are similitudes because they predicted Jesus perfectly. Like the bronze serpent "Nehushtan" that Moses had made in the wilderness.

When they looked on the serpent they were healed from the venom of the serpents biting them.
serpents = sin
When we see Jesus on the cross(and we believe) then we admit our sins are what put Him there. We in effect see our own sins upon the cross because without sin; Jesus would not need to die. So we're just like the children of Israel looking on the bronze serpent. Believing in Jesus on the cross is essential part of repentance.

No wonder Isaiah 53 portrays a MAN who is literally spoken of as the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of people of Israel. Even Isaiah is included because he witnesses of himself that this man bears his own sins also.

"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."

There is no way this can be about the "elect of Israel" when it is the elect of Israel who testify "He was wounded for our transgressions" and "he was bruised for our iniquities".

In that culture, serpent = “wisdom.” How do you interpret that?

 

[John D. Brey]

Oh, and whatever you do, don’t bother to apologize for your cheap, discriminatory statement about where I live and the people I love. It would be so beneath you to admit that you might have committed a social fax pas.

. . . There's that thin skin again. <s> My mom is from Owensboro Kentucky. Family on her side live there. Many good friends from Tennessee. Just toying with stereotypes like you stereotype scholars as only defending the real truth.



John

 

[sojourner]

. . . There's that thin skin again. <s> My mom is from Owensboro Kentucky. Family on her side live there. Many good friends from Tennessee. Just toying with stereotypes like you stereotype scholars as only defending the real truth.



John

I knew you wouldn’t do the bigger thing.

BTW, still waiting for you to actually defend your assertion that the Pentateuch wasn’t originally oral in nature, when the preponderance of the evidence points to oral origin.

But perhaps you’d rather deflect that little detail by continuing to accuse me of kissing my sister...

 

[74x12]

In that culture, serpent = “wisdom.” How do you interpret that?

Good point. There is more than one meaning of a serpent. In the ancient middle east it was also a symbol of immortality because it shed it's old skin revealing new skin. Interestingly, the serpent in Eden promises Eve that they will not surely die.

It was forbidden wisdom that brought sin. The serpent described as being more subtle than any beast of the field tempted Adam and Eve with the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. So the serpent in Genesis is cursed above all beasts because he is so subtle(in an evil way). Although I'm not arguing that snakes are never used as good symbols. For example Moses/Aaron's staff becoming a serpent.

We find that some sins are likened to the venom of serpents.
Psalm 58:3-4 Lies are compared to the venom of serpents and in Psalm 140 again. Psalm 140 says the liars have sharpened their tongue like a serpent. So this is kind of obvious but the serpents forked tongue has long been the symbol of a liar because a liar is "double tongued". In Isaiah 59:5 we find that sinners have "hatched cockatrice eggs".

Further symbols of a serpent that make them a good candidate for sin are the fact that they are "crooked" or described in ancient literature as "twisting" "coiled" etc. This is juxtaposed to what is straight and considered therefore to be just, fair. (Isaiah 42:16)

crooked paths:
Proverbs 2:15
Isaiah 59:8

Job 26:13 speaks of the constellation of the fleeing serpent that is pierced by Yah.
Further symbolism in the scriptures compare the tongue of the red sea to Leviathan or Rahab the "serpent" who is broken in pieces by Yah. That is it shows God's power over the sea. God cut the sea in two with dry land. So it was really showing God's power over "Yam" considered a god by the Canaanites and Leviathan the 7 headed serpent in the sea. Yam himself is serpent like. Coiled around the earth which is portrayed as being circular surrounded by the river of Oceanus.

The "Red" Sea a.k.a. Rahab or Leviathan is also symbolic of sin. Red is the color of sin. (Isaiah 1:18) And when the children of Israel crossed the red sea they were said to be baptized to Moses. (1 Corinthians 10:2) The symbol of the chariots and Pharaoh being drowned in the sea is the simile of sins being cleansed through baptism. Our "sins" (Pharaoh and his chariots) are chasing us down to destroy us, but we can be saved in baptism when our sins are washed away. (Acts 2:38) So we are rid of the pollution of "Egypt" and the consequences which are rapidly chasing after us which is death. (Romans 6:23)

 

[OtherSheep]

and I, if I may be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself.' (John 12:32)

"Lifted up" in John 12 doesn't mean crucified, it means resurrected.

John 6:44 "No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto Me."

John 11:25 "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: 26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest thou this?"

Drawn to the Son by the Law of the Father; drawn by the resurrection of the Son, to the Eternal Life of the Word of the Father. Full circle.

 

[74x12]

"Lifted up" in John 12 doesn't mean crucified, it means resurrected.

John 6:44 "No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto Me."

John 11:25 "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: 26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest thou this?"

Drawn to the Son by the Law of the Father; drawn by the resurrection of the Son, to the Eternal Life of the Word of the Father. Full circle.

I believe it could be both the cross being lifted up and the resurrection.

Jesus said:

John 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:

The serpent was lifted up on a wooden pole like the cross that Jesus was lifted up on.

 

[OtherSheep]

I believe it could be both the cross being lifted up and the resurrection.

Jesus said:

John 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:

The serpent was lifted up on a wooden pole like the cross that Jesus was lifted up on.

Frankly, I don't know what to make of the serpent as something to be exalted. It seems to me that God sent the serpents to bite the people who loathed manna. And then tested them with the snake-kebab... which test they failed, since they made it into an idol. Looking to God in the first place, rather than loathing the manna from heaven, would have meant that they didn't need to be tested. Clearly, God wanted them to know His nature, but instead they made an idol out of a snake. Jesus is making the same test today.

 

[74x12]

Frankly, I don't know what to make of the serpent as something to be exalted. It seems to me that God sent the serpents to bite the people who loathed manna. And then tested them with the snake-kebab... which test they failed, since they made it into an idol. Looking to God in the first place, rather than loathing the manna from heaven, would have meant that they didn't need to be tested. Clearly, God wanted them to know His nature, but instead they made an idol out of a snake. Jesus is making the same test today.

When they looked on the serpent they were healed from the venom of the serpents biting them.
serpents = sin
When we see Jesus on the cross(and we believe) then we admit our sins are what put Him there. We in effect see our own sins upon the cross because without sin; Jesus would not need to die. So we're just like the children of Israel looking on the bronze serpent. Believing in Jesus on the cross is essential part of repentance.

 

[sojourner]

Frankly, I don't know what to make of the serpent as something to be exalted. It seems to me that God sent the serpents to bite the people who loathed manna. And then tested them with the snake-kebab... which test they failed, since they made it into an idol. Looking to God in the first place, rather than loathing the manna from heaven, would have meant that they didn't need to be tested. Clearly, God wanted them to know His nature, but instead they made an idol out of a snake. Jesus is making the same test today.

Try the serpent as a metaphor for wisdom.

 

[OtherSheep]

When they looked on the serpent they were healed from the venom of the serpents biting them.
serpents = sin
When we see Jesus on the cross(and we believe) then we admit our sins are what put Him there. We in effect see our own sins upon the cross because without sin; Jesus would not need to die. So we're just like the children of Israel looking on the bronze serpent. Believing in Jesus on the cross is essential part of repentance.

That's the without-law gospel. I agree that the snake represents sin.

But the inherent meanings of what Jesus taught have to be found in the Gospel of the Kingdom that Jesus taught. He will raise up on the last day, those of us who are steadily believing what He says and doing what He tells us to do.

 

[OtherSheep]

Try the serpent as a metaphor for wisdom.

And I agree with that representation, as well. But it's the very same wisdom that ended the Garden of Eden.

If we look at the biting serpent as the object that has been used to turn us away from sin... we will see Jesus as the teacher of Kingdom Law. When when we recognize that Jesus is all about the Law, we know the ground upon which the lesson is always being taught. Personnally, I prefer not being bitten.