Examples of Reinterpretations: Professor Gershom Scholem; Professor Emeritus of Jewish Mysticism at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem:
the ‘suffering servant’ passages had occasionally been interpreted as referring to the messiah, but later Haggadists as well as the as well as the medieval commentators preferred different interpretations. In order to undermine Christian exegesis, which identified the suffering servant with Christ, he was interpreted as a figure of Moses, or of Israel, or of the pious in general.
In Jewish-Christian disputations the Jewish spokesman always denied that the passages referred to the messiah. In contrast to this exegetical policy, some late midrashim, particularly the impressive eschatological sections in the Pesiqta Rabbathi, maintained the Tannaitic tradition of a messianic understanding of the servant chapters.1 [emphasis added]
Professor Scholem making reference to Portuguese marrano Solomon Molkho’s
homily ‘On the Messiah and Job,’ Isaiah 53 is unreservedly made to refer to the messiah, albeit with a pointedly anti-Christian polemical turn_Moses Alsheikh, one of [Hayyim] Vital’s teachers, popularized the messianic interpretation of the chapter by his widely read commentary on the Prophets, Mar’Oth ha-Sobe’oth (The Looking Glass).2 [emphasis added]
Professor Scholem:
distortion of intellectual history is quite understandable in terms of the anti-Jewish interests of Christian scholars as well as the anti-Christian interests of Jewish ones_the great Jewish scholars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who to a great extent determined the popular image of Judaism.
In view of their concept of a purified and rational Judaism, they could only applaud the attempt to eliminate or liquidate apocalypticism from the realm of Judaism. Without regrets, they left the claim of apocalyptic continuity to a Christianity which, to their minds, gained nothing on that account. Historical truth was the price paid for the prejudices of both camps. Attempts to eliminate apocalypticism completely from the realm of rabbinic Judaism have not been lacking since the Middle Ages.3 [emphasis added]
Professor Scholem, discussing various Jewish messianic positions and their motivations,
The more biblical exegesis could reduce the purely Messianic element, the better it was for the defenses of the Jewish position. But the [Jewish] apocalyptists were not in the least interested in apologetics_they are not concerned with fortifying the frontiers. This is no doubt why the statements of the apocalyptists often appear freer and more genuine than those of their opponents who often enough must take into account the diplomatic necessities of anti-christian polemics. In rare individuals the two tendencies come together. [emphasis added]
Gentile scholar Risto Santala explains,
that whole 53rd chapter [of Isaiah] in our Bible is conspicuous by its absence from the Synagogue’s yearly haphtarr&#b4;t prophetic chapter and all the mediaeval commentaries. In its place there is a statement in brackets to the effect that ‘Some things are missing from here’!4 [emphasis added]
The interesting thing is that even Jewish scholars find the omission of Isaiah 53 odd.Jewish Scholars Claude Joseph Goldsmith Montefiore and Herbert Martin James Loewe,
Because of the christological interpretation given to the chapter [Isaiah 53] by Christians it is omitted from the series of prophetical lessons for the Deuteronomy Sabbaths_the omission is deliberate and striking_.
We know that the daily recitation of the Decalogue was abrogated in the Synagogues (but not in the Temple) because of the ‘cavilling’ of the Minim, here probably Judaeo-Christians (Ber. 12a), who maintained Decalogue, alone of the Mosaic Laws, was still valid.5 [emphasis added]
Rabbi Isaac Abrabanel (1437-1508) on Isaiah 53,
The first question is to ascertain to whom this prophecy refers, for the learned among the Nazarenes expound it of the man who was crucified in Jerusalem at the end of the Second Temple, and, who according to them, was the Son of God and took flesh in the virgin’s womb, as it is stated in their writings. Jonathan ben Uzziel interprets it in the Targum of the future Messiah; and this is also the opinion of our learned men in the majority of their Midrashim. [emphasis added]
Rabbi Abraham Farrissol (1451-1526) on Isaiah 53,
In as much as in this Parashah [section of scripture] there seems to be considerable resemblances and allusions to the work of the Christian Messiah, and the events which as asserted to have to have happened to him-How, e.g., He came and bare the iniquity of the Church-so that no other prophecy is to be found, the gist and subject of which can be so immediately applied to him, it is essential that we should discuss and explain it with care_ [emphasis added]
Midrash Pesikta Rabbati (Soncino Press edition, 1968) introduction to Piska 34,
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy king cometh unto thee, he is submissive, and yet he promises salvation, afflicted, and he is riding upon an ass,(1) even upon a colt of the foal of an ass (Zech. 9:9).(2)6
Footnotes: (1) JV. He is triumphant and victorious, lowly and riding upon an ass
(2) At one time, according to Friedmann, Zech. 9 was read as the haftarah on the fifth of the seven Sabbaths of Consolation, specifically on the Sabbath Ki tese (Deut. 21:10-25:19). He suggests further that the reading of this haftarah was omitted because of the possibility of Christian umbrage. [emphasis added]