Christians enjoy Christmas time – they sing carols, they bake cookies, they enjoy Christmas pageants, and they celebrate the advent of Jesus by reading Old Testament prophecies of the coming Messiah. But we need to ask if Christians are pulling these verses out of context and twisting their meaning to fit their concept of Jesus as the Messiah. So I’d like to look at a few verses to see what the Jews themselves used to think about them and how they see them today.

Let’s start with Isaiah 53. According to rabbinical comments, Jews in ancient times saw Isaiah 53 as profiling an individual – the Messiah. In the Middle Ages some Jews were uncomfortable with this view because it look like Jesus fit the profile too closely, so they said this chapter referred to the nation of Israel rather than the Messiah. That seems like an odd reading because the chapter says others are healed as a result of the individual’s suffering. How would that apply to Israel as a nation? In modern times some Jewish scholars have said this chapter refers to other unnamed individuals, perhaps a king or Isaiah or even Moses. But again it seems odd because of the salvation that comes to others due to the individual’s suffering. The chapter also says that the individual profile does not sin, which eliminates human individuals. From what I was able to understand, this chapter is not in Jewish liturgical readings, although chapters 51, 52, 54, and 55 are. Seems like some Jews are very uncomfortable with the profile given in this chapter.

Then there is Psalm 22. When Jesus was on the cross, he quoted its opening lines: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The rest of the Psalm looks like a terrible description of crucifixion although it was written around 1000 BC, long before the Romans and crucifixion. One verse says, “They have pierced my hands and my feet.” Today’s Jewish translators substitute that for a different reading, saying that “pierced” is very close to a completely different word. Apparently, that is true, but the word “pierced” was in the Septuagint, written long before the time of Jesus by Jewish scholars. Since those scholars looked at the original Hebrew is a translated their Scriptures into Greek, I tend to trust their interpretation.

There are a few more verses I like to look at but that should be enough for now.