Bernis was shocked to learn Isaiah 53 was always viewed as messianic until a thousand years after Christ. The 2nd century Rabbi Jonathan ben Uzziel viewed Isaiah’s prophecy as messianic. So too did The Babylonian Talmud, The Midrash Ruth Rabbah, the Zohar, and even the great Rabbi Maimonides, who wrote, “I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah; and, though he tarry, I will wait daily for his coming.”29
That view was prevalent among Jewish sages until the 11th century when Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaqi (known by the acronym Rashi) began teaching that the suffering servant was the nation of Israel, not the Messiah.30
However, a careful reading of Isaiah 53 reveals that the prophecy of the suffering servant is speaking of a person, not the nation of Israel itself.
Since the oldest copies of Isaiah were from the Masoretic Text, dated around AD 1000, skeptics suggested the prophecies might have been changed later by Christians to make it appear Jesus had fulfilled them.
However, in 1947, ancient Hebrew scrolls carbon dated around 200 years before Christ were discovered near the Dead Sea. Hidden for 1,900 years was a copy of Isaiah, virtually identical to the Book of Isaiah in our Bibles today. It’s clear that Jesus’ fulfillment of Isaiah’s 53rd chapter occurred hundreds of years after the prophecy was written and couldn’t have been contrived.31
Isaiah clearly reveals the Messiah would give his life for our sins. And, when John the Baptist first saw Jesus, he prophetically said of him, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”32
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