Jesus quoting Isaiah

[Wertbag]

I heard an interesting point raised by a Rabbi, who said there is clear changes to the OT text in the gospels, which shows the pushing of ideological change.

The example he gave was Jesus returning to Nazareth in Luke 4:16-30:

"16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

20 And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ... <said some things the Jews didn't like>

28 When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. 29 And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. 30 But passing through their midst, he went away.

 

Now the reading from a scroll of Isaiah is a normal Jewish practice, so it is perfectly normal up to that point.  Of course, what is read out would be the original, unchanged text...  yet if we look at the original in the OT, Isaiah 61 reads:

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
    he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor"

 

The translation of "liberty" vs "freeing the bound" is close enough to be at least of the same meaning, however the line "and recovering sight to the blind" does not appear in the OT.  The Jewish Messiah was never thought of as a healer and a restorer of sight, but that line has been added because it was a famous miracle claimed for Jesus and they wanted to add in that the miracles claimed of him were actually prophecy.  Most people would never read the two passages side by side, so the addition is missed by most.  The excuse given by apologists who have noted this discrepancy is usually that our OT copies must be wrong, so claim it wasn't an addition but a removal.  That held until the dead sea scrolls were found and the oldest manuscript of Isaiah was found, still missing that line.  Every single ancient OT manuscript we have misses that line, and only the newest gospel adds it in.

 

The second part of this story that baffles is the whole part about Jesus committing some kind of blasphemy and having an entire church full of angry followers want to throw him off a cliff.  This tense moment of life-or-death drama is hand waved away with "But passing through their midst, he went away".  What?  They were so angry they were willing to kill him, and he just left?  It is like the author got his message across that Jesus was a rebel and pushing against the authorities, and having made that point just cuts the story.

We see the exact same thing with the famous "I Am" line in John, where at the end of his blasphemy in John 8:59 it says "So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple."  How do you hide yourself when you are facing an angry crowd?  How do you just walk away from a stoning?  The story just again hand waves away the whole danger that it built up.  This kind of unexplained ending makes some scholars believe that these passages are pushing a narrative and not true stories.  

[mwc]

     The problem is that you're looking at Masoratic text.  A quick search for a Septuagint version has:

 

1 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me;

he has sent me to preach glad tidings to the poor,

to heal the broken in heart, to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and recovery of sight to the blind;

2 to declare the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of recompence; to comfort all that mourn;

 

     As you can see, as with nearly all things xian, they used the Greek OT.

 

     What this should mean is that xians today should use the LXX too but they do not.  This is especially problematic since their very own god essentially "blesses" it as the correct version to use.

 

          mwc

 

[walterpthefirst]

Scripture4all.org provides interlined Hebrew for the OT and interlined Greek (Koine) for the NT.

 

And sure enough, they disagree.

 

 

isa61.pdf (scripture4all.org)

 

 

ruch spirit-of       אֲדֹ נָי adni my-Lord       יְ הוִ ה ieue Yahweh       עָ לָ י ol·i on·me       יַעַ ן ion because       מָ שַׁ ח mshch he-anoints       יְ הוָה ieue Yahweh       

 

אֹ תִ י ath·i »·me            לְ בַ שֵּׂ ר l·bshr to·(to-bear)-tidings-of . 

 

 עֲנָוִ ים onuim humble-ones       שְׁ לָ חַ נִ י shlch·ni he-sends·me        לַ חֲ בֹ שׁ l·chbsh to·(to-bind-up)-of        לְ נִ שְׁ בְּ רֵ י l·nshbri to·ones-being-broken-of   

 

 ־ - לֵ ב lb heart       לִ קְ ר ֹא l·qra to·(to-herald)-of       לִ שְׁ בוּיִ ם l·shbuim to·ones-being-taken-captive       דְּ רר drur liberty   

 

 וְ לַ אֲסוּרִ ים u·l·asurim and·to·ones-being-bound       פְּ קַ ח־קחַ phqch-quch emancipation : :

 

 

The Spirit of the Lord GOD [is] upon me;

because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek;

he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and the opening of the prison to [them that are] bound

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Scripture4All Interlinear: Luke 4

 

This is the addition.

 

kai G2532 AND       tuphlois G5185 to-BLIND-ones      anablepsin G309 UP-looking (receiving-of-sight)

 

The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon me,

because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor;

he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted,

to preach deliverance to the captives,

and recovering of sight to the blind,

to set at liberty them that are bruised,

 

 

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.