Jesus and the Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins

Abstract

and the Suffering Servant: and Christian Origins, ed. William H. Bellinger, Jr., and William R. Farmer. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International,1998. Pp. ix + 325. $25 (paper). This collection of sixteen essays is the outcome of the colloquy held at Baylor University in February 1996, which dealt with Isaiah and Christian Origins. consortium of scholars presents its interpretations of the critical issues involved in the historical, intertextual, and theological relationships between the servant of and in the NT. editors succinctly pose the focal question in the introduction (p. 1): Did the influence of 52:13-53:12 upon Christian faith begin with Jesus? In response, some answer yes and others no, while others conclude with modified answers or offer alternative approaches to this subject. Altogether, these essays provide insightful interpretations of the relationship between the meaning of vicarious suffering and their implications for Jesus, a significant topic for the study of the relationship between the two testaments. first four essays are contributions of Hebrew Bible scholars. Paul D. Hanson, in The World of the Servant of the Lord in (pp. 9-22), utilizes a historical-- critical study for the setting of 40-55, where the returning exiles were inspired to envision a new era with a new covenant and community, which would no longer be governed by human kingship but by God's reign with justice and righteousness. In Basic Issues in the Interpretation of 53 (pp. 23-38), Henning Graf Reventlow presents a valuable review of the redactional processes of the Servant Songs, in which he highlights both the compositional coherence and poetic uncertainties of the Songs. With this awareness, Reventlow examines the background implications of the unheard-of motif of vicarious suffering, which he finds indirectly in psalmic and other parallel traditions where a king or prophet assumes an intercessory and representative role. R. E. Clements, Isaiah and the Restoration of Israel (pp. 39-54), essentially correlates the Servant Songs to the rest of 40-55 and underscores the fluctuation between the individual and collective aspects of the Servant. This fluctuation implies both the embodiment of the king, prophet, and Moses as intercessor and victim in the individual Servant and, more vividly, the concept of the collective Servant-Israel's suffering as the sin-offering. In On Reading as Christian Scripture, Roy F. Melugin (pp. 55-69) calls for a new hermeneutical focus that moves beyond the limitations of historical reconstructions and that rather appreciates manifold implications of the Servant, including that of vicarious suffering, in dialogue with the symbolic world of the reader. It is with the performative purposes of imaginative biblical interpretation, Melugin argues, that intertestamental dialogue provide enriching readings and scholarship for modern readers and believers. next two articles set the poles, if not foundations, of two contending interpretive positions. In and 53 (pp. 70-87), Otto Betz engages in a constructive approach to prove that the notion of Jesus' vicarious suffering displays pre-Pauline characteristics, with its origin traced back to 53. Betz argues that just as the Targumist reinterpreted the text of 53, so Paul constructed his understanding of Christ based on 53. Likewise, textual evidence from Mark 10:38, 45; 14:22-24 and other Synoptic passages indicates that conscientiously took over the role of the sacrificial Servant. Morna D. Hooker's article asks the question, Did the Use of to Interpret His Mission Begin with Jesus (pp. 88-103), and concludes that, from the striking lack of Jewish interpretations of this chapter in the intertestamental period, she can find no convincing evidence to suggest that played any significant role in Jesus' own understanding of his ministry (p. …