ISAIAH 53 – PLAGIARISM,
NOT PROPHECY
Moshe Ben-Chaim
Christianity’s
famous argument is that Isaiah 53 predicts Jesus. This chapter describes an
afflicted “man” who carried the sins of others. They wish to suggest it refers
to Jesus. However, one man does not get justly punished for another man’s sins,
and nations are not punished for the sins of other nations (Radak, Isaiah,
53:4) as Jeremiah 31:29 says, “…every man will die for his own sin”. How
then do we understand Isaiah 53? Let us review the chapter:
Isaiah
53
The Nations’
words:
“1.
Who would believe what we had heard? For whom has the arm of G-d been revealed?
2. Formerly he grew like a sapling or like a root from arid ground; he had
neither form nor grandeur; we saw him but without such visage that we could
desire him. 3. He was despised and isolated from men, a man of pains and
accustomed to illness. As one from whom we would hide our faces; he was
despised and we had no regard for him. 4. But in truth it was our ills that he
bore, and our pains that he carried – but we had regarded him diseased,
stricken by G-d, and afflicted. 5. He was pained because of our rebellious sins
and oppressed through our iniquities, the chastisement upon him was for our
benefit, and through his wounds we were healed. 6. We have all strayed like
sheep, each of us turning his own way, and G-d inflicted upon him, the iniquity
of us all.7. He was persecuted and
afflicted, but he did not open his mouth; like a sheep being led to the
slaughter or an ewe that is silent before her shearers, he did not open his
mouth. 8. Now that he has been released from captivity and judgment, who could
have imagined such a generation? For he had been removed from the land of the
living, an affliction upon them that was my people’s sin. 9. He submitted
himself to his grave like wicked men; and the wealthy submitted to his
executions, for committing no crime, and with no deceit in his mouth. 10. God
desired to oppress him and He afflicted him; if his soul would acknowledge
guilt, he would see offspring and live long days and the desire of G-d would
succeed in his hand.
G-d’s
Words:
11.
He would see the purpose and be satisfied with his soul’s distress, with his
knowledge My servant will vindicate the Righteous One to the multitudes, and
their sins does he shoulder. 12. Therefore I will assign him a portion from the
multitudes and he will divide the mighty as spoils, in return for having poured
out his soul for death and being counted among the wicked, and he carried the
sins of the many, and prayed for the sinners.”
Christianity
divisively rewrote history. Jesus did not fulfill Isaiah 53’s prophecy, it’s
just the opposite: Christianity fabricated the Jesus story, exactly in line
with Isaiah 53! What Christianity presents as Jesus fulfilling Isaiah’s words
is really the opposite – they plagiarized Isaiah. Christianity found a perfect
story in the Torah, Isaiah 53. Here, The description is so pitiful, and evokes
such sympathy; Christianity copied it and molded it into their fabrication of
Jesus. Christianity, as you will read later in this article, capitalizes on the
emotions of pity and suffering to attract adherents, making other transparent
plagiarisms.
A
simple reading makes it clear that Isaiah 53 is describing the ‘past’ state of
the downtrodden Jews, not forecasting a future messiah. Furthermore, Isaiah
says further (59:21):
“And as for Me, this is My covenant with them,
said G-d, My spirit which is upon you and My words that I have placed in
your mouth will not be withdrawn from your mouth, nor from the mouth of
your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring’s offspring, said G-d,
from this moment and forever.”
Note
the words, “placed in your mouth”. Christianity suggests Isaiah
prophesied for the “future” about Jesus. However, Isaiah is referring to the
past. G-d clearly refers to the “word” that will never be lost forever, as that
which is already “placed in your mouth”, past tense. This is the
covenant G-d makes. It concerns the ancient Torah, already in the Jews’ mouths
– not the future. Christianity didn’t read the verses.
Isaiah
describes the Jews as “one man”. “Man” here is not referring to an individual,
but to the collective whole of
I fail
to understand how Christianity can use these very verses to make the claim that
one who is innocent can shoulder the burden of others. The verse openly says
the opposite, “if his soul would acknowledge guilt, he would see offspring
and live long days”. The suffering party possesses his own sin!
“Acknowledging guilt” means they sinned. Christianity simply favors one set of
facts, and ignores the others - an overt blunder. But to be fair, we must also
explain the words “He was pained because of our rebellious sins and
oppressed through our iniquities, the chastisement upon him was for our
benefit, and through his wounds we were healed.” How can we understand the
statement on its own?
Isaiah
53 Explained
Radak
explains this entire chapter except the final two verses – as the words of the
other nations. These words are not Isaiah’s words. Radak says the view that the
depicted “man” (the Jewish nation in reality) suffers for the sins of others,
is in fact a wrong idea, and is a verbalization of the other nations. The
nations sought to seek some justice for the innocent Jews suffering in exile.
They saw that the Jews suffered, “for committing no crime, and with no
deceit in his mouth”. The Gentile nations vindicated the Jews. But they
also could not tolerate having no explanation for the Jews’ suffering, while
possessing no sin. These nations therefore verbalized their incorrect philosophy,
“He was pained because of our rebellious sins and oppressed through our
iniquities, the chastisement upon him was for our benefit, and through his
wounds we were healed.” Evidently,
this is recorded in our Torah, as Isaiah felt it essential that we understand
the view of the Gentile nations at that time. The question is, what is so
important about our understanding of the corrupted view these Gentiles held?
Why must we know that the Gentile nations viewed our exile as a punishment for
THEIR sins? If this view is wrong, and it is, why take up space in the book if
Isaiah? Aren’t there more important ideas to cover, than the false notion that
the innocent bear the burden of the sinners?
We are
forced to conclude that G-d desires the Jews to understand this attitude of the
nations. G-d desires we know that the nations do in fact seek to “understand”.
This is why they concocted such an explanation, that we were exiled for their
sins. Although such a notion is false, what we derive from hearing their position
is that the Gentile nations seek “understanding”. This I feel is the lesson.
Now,
since they seek understanding, they stand as a concern before G-d, and He
desires that they – just like the Jews – obtain true knowledge. G-d therefore
says in the final two verses, 11) “with his knowledge My servant will
vindicate the Righteous One to the multitudes and also, 12) “and prayed
for the sinners”. G-d desires that the Jews 11) benefit the other nations
by teaching them, and 12) pray for them.
But if
these last two verses are G-d’s words, why do we find G-d echoing the false
sentiment of the nations?
11.
He would see the purpose and be satisfied with his soul’s distress, with his
knowledge My servant will vindicate the Righteous One to the multitudes, and
their sins does he shoulder. 12. Therefore I will assign him a portion from
the multitudes and he will divide the mighty as spoils, in return for having
poured out his soul for death and being counted among the wicked, and he
carried the sins of the many, and prayed for the sinners.”
The
answer I believe, G-d does this is so as to “indicate” why He desires the Jews
to teach and pray for the world’s people: since the nations seek to explain,
and find reasonable justice for the innocent Jews’ persecution, they thereby
display their level as nations ready to hear reason. Now, since they are open
to reason, G-d desires that the Jews teach them, and pray for them. So when G-d
echoes their false views, it is to teach that such a false view is verbalized,
only because those verbalizing it, seeking knowledge. A desire to explain means
they are using their minds. G-d therefore desires the Jews to teach them. “My
servant will vindicate the Righteous One to the multitudes, and their sins does
he shoulder” may be read as follows: “My servant (the Jews) will teach
about the Righteous One (G-d) to the multitudes, because they (the Gentiles)
seek knowledge, as displayed in their view “ and their sins does he shoulder.”
We have
successful shown that “man” does not mean a single person. We have proved that
Isaiah 53 discusses the past, and cannot refer to the future - it does not
predict Jesus. Also,
We
learn that Isaiah 53 is primarily the verbalized, false notions of the Gentile
nations. But such a notion stems only from those who still retain some desire
to understand. G-d, therefore, desires the Jews teach and pray for the Gentile
nations.
Additional
Plagiarisms of Torah
Isaiah
53 is not the only plagiarism of Torah. Compare to the Torah's words to
Christianity's plagiarism:
The
Torah says in Exodus, 4:19: "G-d said to Moses in Midyan, go,
return to
The
New Testament says in Matthew 2:20: "Rise, take the child and his
mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are
dead."
_________________________
The
Torah says in Exodus 1:16: "And (the king of
The
New Testament says in Matthew 2:16: “Then Herod, when he saw that he had
been tricked by the wise men, was in a furious rage, and he sent and killed all
the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or
under...”
In both
statements above Christianity attempts to equate Jesus to Moses by distorting
the truth and provoking the emotion of pity. Christianity continuously portrays
Jesus as the victim to foster identification and more adherents. Just as
Pharaoh threatened Moses, the story constructed in the New Testament makes
Jesus the victim of King Herod. Coincidentally, the events at the time of
Jesus' birth were conveniently fabricated to mimic a similar threat, which had
taken place during the time of Moses' birth. The reader of the New Testament
feels pity and compassion for Jesus in the name of plagiarism. The goal of the
New Testament is to equate the statures of Jesus and Moses, which is absolutely
impossible. In so many statements contained the New Testament, if read
carefully, one will find authentic Torah accounts plagiarized with slight
changes, replacing true Torah personalities with Jesus.
Plagiarism
is also seen clearly in the first quote; just as Moses was threatened and then
afterwards informed to return as all those seeking his life are dead, the New
Testament again attempts to plagiarize a known story of Moses and transpose it
onto Jesus. For the very goal of engendering pity as a tool for identification
with Jesus, Christianity adopted the symbol of the Cross. The Cross' unanimous
acceptance as a central icon of their religion displays how correct the developers
of Christianity were that pity is a sure-fire lure to attract adherents.
A most
obvious plagiarism describes the sale of Jesus by one of the 12 disciples for
30 pieces of silver. It is almost identical to the sale of Joseph by one of his
12 brothers for 20 pieces of silver in the Torah. Compare:
Genesis
37:25: "And there passed by Midianite men, traders, and they drew him
and lifted him (Joseph) out of the pit and they sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites
for 20 pieces of silver and they brought Joseph to
Matthew
26:14-15: "14. Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot,
went to the chief priests 15. and said, ‘What will you give me if I deliver him
to you? And they paid him thirty pieces of silver.”
Christianity
uses another statement from the Torah, distorts it, and fabricates it in order
to evoke empathy and identification with Jesus who is again being portrayed as
the “victim.” Yet, the goal of Christianity is to raise Jesus to a leadership
role. The downtrodden Jesus, just as Joseph whom his brothers sold, would
eventually become a great leader. Christianity found many ways to distort the
Divine Word of G-d in order to gain mass acceptance.
We
conclude with the realization that Christianity severely distorts the Torah to
satisfy their corrupt agenda. It is clear that if one does not twist or deny
the texts, he will recognize that G-d will never replace Judaism, He does not
favor Jesus, and Christianity is a series of lies. Christianity misleads its
people, and forces the “blind faith” ethic onto them, as they realize rationale
punches holes in their religion. Faith is their only recourse, when reason
exposes their falsehoods.
We also
learn that to understand the deep words of the Prophet Isaiah, as well as the
rest of the Torah, one cannot do any justice to these Divine texts with a
cursory read. Much time, effort and tutelage under Rabbis is required to master
the Talmudic and Biblical methodologies, so as to uncover the cryptic messages
enclosed in the Torah. G-d’s words are to be studied carefully, not read like a
history book. And indispensable to understanding the Torah, are the words of
the great commentaries. The Written Torah is only half of what Moses received
at Sinai – he also received the Oral Law. Without the ideas of the latter,
one’s Torah knowledge is severely crippled, and mostly false.
To
learn G-d’s word, honesty and the Torah methodology is required. Christianity
lacks both of these.
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