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Course 6 · Lesson 7.3

How Jews and Christians read the messianic texts

12 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 6 outline

Module 1: Israel in the Ancient Near East

  1. Egypt, Mesopotamia and Canaan: the world of the Old Testament
  2. What archaeology and ancient texts can and cannot show
  3. Genesis 1 to 3 beside other ancient creation accounts
  4. Ancient cosmology and how Christians and Jews read Genesis

Module 2: Covenant: Abraham and Moses

  1. What a covenant is, and covenant forms in the ancient world
  2. The covenants with Noah and Abraham
  3. The exodus and the covenant at Sinai
  4. The Torah: law, worship and the tabernacle
  5. Covenant in Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox and Reformed thought

Module 3: Kingship in Israel

  1. From the judges to the first kings
  2. David, Jerusalem and the promise of a lasting house
  3. Solomon, the temple and the divided kingdom
  4. How Samuel and Kings tell the story: sources and purpose

Module 4: The Prophets, Exile and Restoration

  1. What a prophet was in Israel and in the ancient world
  2. Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Micah: justice, loyalty and judgment
  3. Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the fall of Jerusalem
  4. The return, Ezra, Nehemiah and the rebuilt temple
  5. How the prophetic books were formed: the debate over Isaiah and others

Module 5: Wisdom and Apocalyptic Writing

  1. Proverbs and the way of the wise
  2. Job and Ecclesiastes: wisdom that questions
  3. What apocalyptic writing is: Daniel and its setting
  4. Reading apocalyptic images responsibly

Module 6: Second Temple Judaism and the Development of Jewish Thought

  1. Persian, Greek and Maccabean periods
  2. Temple, synagogue and the main groups in Jewish life
  3. Development in Jewish thought: angels, resurrection, wisdom and law
  4. Sources: the Dead Sea Scrolls, the deuterocanonical books and Josephus

Module 7: Messianic Expectation and the Shape of the Covenants

  1. Anointed ones in the Old Testament: king, priest, prophet
  2. Messianic texts in the prophets and psalms
  3. How Jews and Christians read the messianic texts
  4. The promise of a new covenant
  5. Mapping the development of covenant across the Old Testament

All courses

Program / Course 6: Old Testament Theology and History / Lesson 7.3

What you will learn

  • State the Christian reading of key messianic texts as Christians themselves present it.
  • State the main Jewish readings of the same texts as Jewish interpreters present them.
  • Use Isaiah 53 as a case study in how readings differ and why.
  • Describe what each tradition regards as the strongest objection to the other, without caricature.

The big idea

Jews and Christians read many of the same Old Testament texts and reach different conclusions. Christians hold that the promises of a king, a servant and a renewed covenant are fulfilled in Jesus, who is understood to be the Messiah, crucified and raised. Jewish tradition holds that the messiah has not yet come, and that the world remains unredeemed. The disagreement is real and long-standing, and a fair account states each position as its own adherents would.

Key terms

Fulfillment
In Christian use, the coming to pass of an Old Testament promise or pattern in Christ. Jewish tradition uses the term for events in the prophets’ own time and for the future age.
Suffering servant
The figure in Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12 who suffers for others. Who he is has been disputed for centuries.
Peshat
In Jewish interpretation, the plain or contextual sense of a text.
Midrash
Jewish interpretation that explores the text for further meanings, often through stories and links to other verses.
Typology
A reading in which a person or event in the Old Testament is seen as a pattern or type of something later.
Targum
An Aramaic translation and paraphrase of the Hebrew Bible, used in the synagogue.
Second coming
The Christian belief that Christ will return in glory to complete what he began.

Background

From the start, the church claimed that Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures. The New Testament cites the Old Testament constantly, and the earliest Christian preaching argues from the prophets and psalms (Luke 24:27 and 44, Acts 2 and 8). Christians were Jews who believed Jesus was the Messiah. Over time the church became mostly Gentile, and the debate between Christians and Jews became a debate between two religions.

Jewish readers have answered that the texts do not say what Christians claim, and that the world does not look like the age the prophets described. This lesson gives both sides, avoiding the polemic and sometimes the persecution that marred the history of the debate. In that history Christian teaching has been used to justify violence against Jews, a fact that the major churches now acknowledge and repudiate.

A student should aim at accuracy. That includes noting that not every Christian reading is as the New Testament authors intended, and that Jewish readings are varied and cannot be reduced to a single response.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The Christian approach

Christians read the Old Testament in the light of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection. They hold that the texts have a first meaning in their setting and a fuller meaning that appears in Christ. The New Testament authors use several methods: direct citation of promises, typology (Adam, Moses, David and the temple as types of Christ) and the reading of psalms as spoken by or about him. Luke 24 portrays the risen Jesus explaining to his followers what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

On this view, texts such as Isaiah 7:14, 9:6, 53, Micah 5:2, Psalm 22 and Daniel 7:13 point to Christ. Christians distinguish those that name a coming king from those that are patterns, and Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions all hold that Christ is the key to reading the whole Old Testament. They differ in how widely they apply typology and how much weight they give to the first meaning.

Step 2: The Jewish approach

Jewish interpreters usually begin with the plain sense in context, together with the larger tradition of midrash. They note that many of the texts Christians cite refer in their context to kings of the prophet’s day or to the people of Israel. Hosea 11:1, I called my son out of Egypt, refers in Hosea to Israel, though Matthew 2 applies it to Jesus. Isaiah 7:14 speaks of a young woman in Ahaz’s time.

On the broader question, Jewish tradition holds that the messiah, a human descendant of David, is to bring about a time of peace, justice and knowledge of God, the return of Jews to the land, and the rebuilding of the temple. Since these have not happened, the messiah has not come. Jewish thinkers also deny that the messiah is divine. They point out that nothing in the Torah obliges Jews to accept a new covenant that sets aside the one at Sinai.

Step 3: Case study, Isaiah 53

Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12 describes a servant who is despised, bears our griefs, is wounded for transgressions, is led like a lamb to slaughter, makes his soul an offering for sin, and is later exalted. Christians from the New Testament onward have read it as speaking of Christ (Acts 8:32 to 35, 1 Peter 2:22 to 25). Jewish interpreters from at least the Middle Ages have argued that the servant is Israel, as the earlier chapters say: Thou art my servant, O Israel (Isaiah 49:3). Rashi, in the eleventh century, took this view, as did many after him.

Some ancient Jewish sources apply parts of the passage to the messiah. The Aramaic Targum of Isaiah calls the servant my servant the messiah, though it applies the suffering to the nations or the people. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 98b) links Isaiah 53:4 to the messiah. Some later Jewish writers also read the servant as the messiah. Modern critical scholars propose that the servant is Israel, a prophet, the prophet’s circle, or an exile, and no consensus exists. The passage remains a place where traditions meet and part.

Step 4: What each tradition regards as the key question

For Christians, the key question is whether the pattern of promise and fulfillment in Scripture centers on Jesus, and whether his resurrection, which the New Testament reports, shows him to be God’s anointed. For Jews, the key question is whether the world has been redeemed, whether the Torah remains the covenant way, and whether a messiah would die and be raised before accomplishing the age of peace.

Christians answer that the kingdom has begun and awaits completion at Christ’s return. Jews answer that this makes the claim impossible to test. Each side has serious arguments, and thoughtful people on each side acknowledge that the other has been misrepresented in the past. Many contemporary Jewish and Christian scholars study these texts together and stress that the disagreement is not a failure of intelligence or sincerity.

  1. What methods do the New Testament writers use when they cite the Old Testament?
  2. Why do Jewish interpreters often stress the plain sense of a prophecy in its own time?
  3. What are the main Jewish and Christian readings of Isaiah 53?
  4. Why does the world’s condition matter to the Jewish objection?
  5. How do Christians answer the objection that the messiah’s work is incomplete?
  6. How can each side describe the other’s view without caricature?

Examples

Hosea 11:1

Hosea says that God loved Israel as a child and called his son out of Egypt. Matthew 2:15 applies the words to the return of Jesus from Egypt. Jewish readers say the context is the exodus. Christian readers say Matthew sees Jesus as the true Israel, the son who relives and completes Israel’s story.

Isaiah 7:14

The Hebrew word almah means a young woman. The Greek Septuagint translates it parthenos, which means virgin, and Matthew 1:23 follows the Greek. Jewish readers note the Hebrew and the context in Ahaz’s time. Christians appeal to the Greek and to the deeper sense Matthew sees. The exchange is an old one.

Rashi on the servant

In his commentary on Isaiah 53, Rashi explains that the servant is Israel, and that the nations will one day recognize that Israel suffered for their sins as well as its own. This reading is held by many Jewish commentators and gives meaning to Jewish suffering.

Different perspectives

Jewish

The messiah is a future human king who will bring peace and knowledge of God to the world. Jesus did not fulfill these tasks. The Hebrew Scriptures are the covenant document of the Jewish people, and Christian readings are not binding on Jews. Many Jewish thinkers add that Christianity has had a positive role among the nations.

Catholic

The Church teaches that Jesus is the Messiah and that the Old Testament finds its fulfillment in him. Since Vatican II, it also teaches that the Jewish covenant has not been revoked, that Jews should not be presented as rejected by God and that dialogue should rest on mutual respect.

Orthodox

The Orthodox church reads the prophets as speaking of Christ and sings them at the feasts. Orthodox writers also emphasize the continuity between Israel and the church and the importance of avoiding contempt for Jews.

Protestant

Protestants broadly hold that Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises. Reformed writers stress continuity of the covenant of grace, dispensational writers a special future for Israel, and many contemporary Protestants support interfaith dialogue and have repudiated older anti-Jewish teaching.

Secular scholarship

Scholars treat both approaches as historical readings. They study the first meaning of the texts and trace how each community developed its reading, without deciding between them.

Why it matters

The way Jews and Christians read the Old Testament has shaped their history together, sometimes tragically. Knowing both positions in their own words protects against false claims, supports respectful discussion and helps students read the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament with understanding. It also shows why Old Testament study matters for both faiths.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Jews have never read Isaiah 53 as referring to the messiah.

Correction: Some ancient and medieval Jewish sources do. The dominant Jewish reading is that the servant is Israel, and the question has been discussed within Judaism.

Misunderstanding: Christians invented the messianic interpretation of these texts.

Correction: Hope for a messiah son of David existed in Judaism before Christianity. Christians claim that Jesus is that messiah.

Misunderstanding: The Jewish and Christian readings differ only because of ignorance or bad faith.

Correction: They differ because of different starting points, including the weight of the resurrection and the state of the world. People in both traditions argue in good faith.

Misunderstanding: Christian teaching has always been respectful of Jews.

Correction: Anti-Jewish teaching and violence have a long history among Christians. Churches now repudiate it, and students should know this history.

Knowledge check

How do Christians read the Old Testament in relation to Jesus?

They hold that the Old Testament has its own meaning in its setting and that Jesus fulfills its promises, patterns and hopes. The New Testament uses direct citation, typology and the reading of psalms as spoken of him. Luke 24 describes the risen Jesus explaining what the Scriptures said about him. Traditions differ on how widely to apply typology.

What is the main Jewish objection to the claim that Jesus is the messiah?

The central objection is that the prophets describe an age of peace, justice and universal knowledge of God, along with the return of Jews to the land, and the world has not yet seen this. Jewish tradition also denies that the messiah is divine. It holds that the Torah remains the covenant way, so no new covenant replaces it.

What are the main readings of the servant in Isaiah 53?

Christians read the servant as Christ, who suffered for others and was raised. Many Jewish interpreters, from Rashi onward, read him as Israel, whom Isaiah calls my servant in earlier chapters. Some ancient and later Jewish sources read him as the messiah. Critical scholars propose a prophet, a group, or Israel. The passage remains disputed.

How does the Catholic Church speak today about the Jewish covenant?

Since the Second Vatican Council, the Church teaches that the Old Covenant has not been revoked, that Jews remain beloved for the sake of their ancestors, and that the death of Jesus cannot be blamed on all Jews of his time or on Jews today. It also continues to teach that Christ is the savior of all.

Think it through

  1. Why is it difficult for either side to prove the case to the other?
  2. What does it mean to hold a conviction and also understand an opposing view fairly?
  3. How might the history of Christian anti-Jewish teaching affect the way these texts should be discussed?
  4. What would you ask a thoughtful Jewish or Christian friend about Isaiah 53?

Independent assignment

Two summaries of Isaiah 53

In your own notebook, read Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12 slowly. Write 200 words as a Christian interpreter would explain the passage, and 200 words as a Jewish interpreter would, each with the strongest reasons from the text. Add 100 words naming one point where both agree on the meaning of the words. Do not argue for either side. Keep it for yourself.

Further study