Since September, I have been leading my small group in a study of 2 Isaiah. It's also referred to as Deutero-Isaiah, the second section of Isaiah, or more specifically the 40th - 55th chapters of Isaiah. Anyway, we were discussing chapter 42 and the interpretation of the Lord's servant as put forward in the strongly evangelical NIV series commentary authored by John Oswalt. Oswalt interprets the Lord's servant as being Jesus Christ. For us, this just didn't hold up. We concluded that the Lord's servant is, or rather, was Israel during the time of the exile in Babylon. I thought, "Maybe, I should try another commentary." I went to Claus Westermann, (not personally, but to his commentary) who agreed with us. The commentary in my NRSV study Bible also agreed with us.
In the context of the time in which Isaiah 42 was written, how can one interpret the servant as being Jesus? Rather than inspiring hope for imminent salvation, the Israelites in exile would probably have given a response along the lines of "WTF!" Certainly not, "Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the earth!" How could they have possibly related to Jesus?! Even if they understood that the servant was a saviour who would come to them sometime within the millenium, what hope would that give them that would cause them to break out into such a psalm of praise? Only drug induced, if you ask me.
My frustration here is that more and more, I don't feel that I can trust evangelical interpretations. This is problematic in that I am an evangelical. Scripture, and its importance to the life of the church and individuals, is a huge part of what evangelicalism is all about. It seems that some writers are pushing a particular agenda that offers a heart felt, yet half-baked scholarship that leads the herd down the wrong path. Nevertheless, I will continue to read Oswalt and offer his interpretations to my group. Of course, his commentary isn't completely off base, but I will use it as a tool to challenge my group to think and make proper sense of scripture.
Manfred Brauch just published a book entitled, Abusing Scripture: The Consequences of Misreading the Bible. I bought it, now I just have to read it.
I think we also agreed that the first part of the chapter describes what the "prototype" of a servant would look like, as it describes what Israel is to be.
ReplyDeleteWhat is valid, then, is to use the prototype for comparison with Jesus to confirm and amplify the true servanthood of Christ!
The fact that Israel was to be a light to the Gentiles is another ongoing debate for the group... to what end? Ironic, I think - that Israel's servanthood was to be ultimately fulfilled through Jesus for the salvation of the Gentiles - and then they missed the point.