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hpj0828
Member
| Joined: | Sun Apr 1st, 2007 |
| Location: | USA |
| Posts: | 136 |
| First Name: | Henry | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Messianic Jewish believer |
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Posted: Tue Aug 14th, 2007 11:09 am |
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As a newbie, I don't know if Messianic discussions in the Talmud have
been posted recently, but I thought I'd share this one, since it
moved me very deeply to consider the Messiah as a leper!
When I was a student at Princeton University in the '80s, my Jewish
roommate, who was not a believer in Yeshua at the time, told me that
we Jews had never viewed Isaiah 53 as a messianic prophecy. His
rabbi had assured him of this fact. I didn't know the Talmud at the
time, or I would have said, "Your rabbi had better read the Talmud!"
Talmud Tractate Sanhedrin 98b (Soncino translation) records this
resolution by the rabbis who compiled the Talmud as to what the
Messiah's name will be:
"The Rabbis said: His name is 'the leper scholar,' as it is written,
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did
esteem him A LEPER, smitten of God, and afflicted."
Compare: "Surely our diseases he did bear, and our pains he carried;
whereas we did esteem him STRICKEN, smitten of God, and afflicted."
Is. 53:4 Jewish Publication Society translation of 1917.
The phrase "The Rabbis said" means that this passage constitutes an
official position. It indicates that the Talmudic rabbis applied Is
53:4 as a Messianic prophecy and expected the Messiah to be a person
who would suffer on our behalf.
This identification of the Messiah as a leper is based upon a gezerah
shevah, a verbal analogy, one of the 7 middot or interpretative
principles attributed to Rabbi Hillel. Since the same Hebrew word
nagua translated "stricken" by JPS in Is. 53:4 is also used to
describe a leprous spot in Lev. 13, the attribute of leprosy is
applied by gezerah shevah, verbal analogy, to the Messiah!
I find this concept fascinating, since I normally think of Yeshua as
the "spotless" lamb. Yet the Messiah here is viewed as "spotted"
with leprosy...
A leper was feared, shunned, despised and separated apart even from
the members of his own family.
Who but a leper could touch and heal another leper?
How awful must have been the shame and abandonment of Messiah from
his own people on the cross?
What does it mean that our people have shunned Yeshua like a leper
for 2000 years? Isn't this proof that Yeshua was the Messiah?
Have you ever felt like a leper at some deep time in your life?
Maybe shunned by your own family for following Yeshua?
Only another leper can heal you at such a time as that...
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HPJ
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Annie
Member
| Joined: | Wed Feb 14th, 2007 |
| Location: | Columbus, Ohio USA |
| Posts: | 718 |
| First Name: | Annie | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | nothing, Quaker, Mennonite, Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican, Catholic |
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Posted: Tue Aug 14th, 2007 12:25 pm |
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Thank you for this thought-provoking post. I often feel like a leper and then I remember how Jesus treated them and I feel better.
When people shun me at church at look at my arms and say, "oh, darn, my leprosy is back." That usually gets people thinking about their behavior.
____________________
Annie
Ora et labora
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CajunRick
Network Helper
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
| Posts: | 4981 |
| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
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Posted: Tue Aug 14th, 2007 01:52 pm |
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hpj0828 wrote: I find this concept fascinating, since I normally think of Yeshua as
the "spotless" lamb. Yet the Messiah here is viewed as "spotted"
with leprosy...
But everything about Jesus is a marvelous contradiction. He is the immortal God born of a virgin who died on a cross and rose from a tomb, the sinless lamb who died for the sins of many, etc. The image of a "spotless lamb with leprosy" is yet another contradiction.
If you want another image of contradictions, thing of God Almighty getting his diaper changed! To me, meditating on the utter humanity of Jesus just makes his sacrifice for us more marvelous to contemplate. "The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone."
"O happy fault! O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!"
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Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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