Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Liz:

Where do you get this kvatsch that  
Isaiah 53 was during the Persian period? 
The Persian period didn’t begin until 
well after a century later!

Before you flame, I deliberately 
overstated the above to make a point.      
:-)

Yours is a theological position (some 
call it a philosophical belief) that not 
all on this mailing list subscribe to. 
Therefore, I find your confident 
assertions to be a little out of place.

Yes, we all understand this passage 
according to our preconceptions. But here 
our preconceptions are driving how we see 
even Biblical Hebrew grammar and lexemes. 
I see a place for your claims if you were 
to show directly how it affects your 
understanding of Biblical Hebrew, but are 
you doing that?

I suspect that you would agree with Peter 
Kirk that ‘the present is the key to the 
past’, i.e. that present processes are 
the same as have happened in _all_ of the 
past. Therefore, because telling the 
future is something that is not happening 
today, past records purporting to be 
telling the future had to have been 
written after the “fulfillment”. Those 
who don’t agree with your theology find 
your posts a bit tiring at best, absurd 
at worst. Except where they directly 
affect understanding Biblical Hebrew 
language, should they be on this list at 
all?

On another issue, I wouldn’t put too much 
stock in the term “messiah”. King Saul 
was one, so was David. There wasn’t much 
of an issue made of it, but Solomon was 
one too. Therefore in Isaiah 45 where 
Isaiah writes that God anointed Cyrus, 
that should not be that much of an issue.

As for the judges, I suspect you are 
reading more into their identities than 
can be historically verified. Those who 
would be appointed were most likely upper 
level judges, not one for every little 
township. As long as a people did not 
rise up in rebellion against Persian rule 
(there is no record that I know of that 
Judea did so) there would be no reason 
for Persian judges appointed to that land 
or people. The evidence I see is that 
Judea continued to be ruled by Jewish 
law, the same for Jews living in the 
Diaspora in Jewish enclaves, until the 
Roman period.

Yours, Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>

> 
>… I'm talking about the
> Persian period, which is the period of Isaiah 53. During the
> Persian period there were royal judges in Egypt which were
> appointed by the Persian king (or his agent) in Susa.
…
> … I only stick in my article on Cyrus the Messiah.
> I think it is worthwhile to remember tho that it is Cyrus who is
> the Messiah in the book of Isaiah, not the servant.
> Everyone conveniently forgets that in their effor to see Jesus
> as the servant. That is what happens when passages are read
> out of the context of the entire book. The key to the book is to
> remember that Cyrus is the Messiah, no one else is called that
> in the entire book. Cyrus is the Messiah because he fulfills the
> Messianic role : he rebulds the temple and returns the Jews to
> their land.
> Best,
> Liz 
> 
> Lisbeth S. Fried, Ph. D.
> Visiting Scholar
-- 
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