tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3613525030683671127.post7129375073362211528..comments2023-10-12T14:09:33.965-07:00Comments on The Biblia Hebraica Blog: What is Kaiser trying to say?Douglas Mangumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15267532075493569019noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3613525030683671127.post-80403328811417150652008-08-20T14:53:00.000-07:002008-08-20T14:53:00.000-07:00This is a sensitive topic, and I don't want to mak...This is a sensitive topic, and I don't want to make inflammatory comments about it. Forgive me if I do. This issue is a major one. <BR/><BR/>I think that Kaiser is assuming a Protestant canon and then using it in place of TNK (Hebrew Bible). For those committed to a Protestant canon, the argument goes something like this: If you read the BIBLE, then the Servant songs in Isaiah obviously refer to Jesus.<BR/><BR/>However, I agree with you that such a connection is only obvious in the hindsight of the New Testament. Two quirks facilitate this reduction of tradition. First is the implicit denial of any sort of development of tradition (i.e. the books of the Protestant Bible agree in all of their perspectives, regardless of time of origin). The second is an inability to recognize the difficulty of reducing the Servant songs of Isaiah to a single referent within the context of Isaiah (sometimes Cyrus, sometimes Israel, sometimes the voice of the Prophet, and perhaps sometimes another referent). <BR/><BR/>The Hebrew Bible has been used as a component of several different streams of tradition. The New Testament reading of the TNK is a possible reading, but the lines that the NT provides to connect the dots in the TNK are not necessary connections, but merely possible ones.<BR/><BR/>I suppose that's why faith plays such a premium in the epistles. Even the tradition is read through the eyes of faith. A distinction between possible readings and necessary conclusions might have kept a lot of people from getting killed over the centuries.Tod Twisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00737906014887678197noreply@blogger.com