Religious questions about Jesus, Christianity, Scriptures

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According to Jewish tradition, Isaiah was writing about the People of Israel personified as The Suffering Servant of the Lord. There are no less than 8 quotations that show this to be the case. Please note that in the following four quotations, all from the Book of Isaiah, it is the People of Israel who are called the Servant of Gd:

But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend. [Isaiah 41:8]

Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you, you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me. [Isaiah 44:21]

For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I surname you, though you do not know me. [Isaiah 45:4]

And He said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’ [Isaiah 49:3]

And see also Isaiah 43:10; 44:1; 48:20, 49:7

Isaiah 43:10 is a very interesting verse.

Ye are my witnesses, saith the Etrnl, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no Gd formed, neither shall there be after me. [Isaiah 43:10]

The above verse tells us that the Jewish People are plural when Gd uses the term ‘witnesses,’ but the People of Israel are also referred to in this same verse in the singular in the word, ‘servant,’ the very same word that we find in Isaiah 53.
Furthermore, Isaiah 43:10 states that there will be ‘no Gd formed,’ which means that Jesus, who was formed in Mary’s womb well after Gd spoke these words in Isaiah 43:10, cannot be Gd.

From the many above quotations we can see that Isaiah 53 was referring to the People of Israel as a Suffering Servant of the Etrnl, just as in all of the quotations which came before Isaiah 53.

First of all, it should not surprise you that the life and death of Jesus seems to be reflected within the verses of Isaiah 53. This is no coincidence. Remember that the Hebrew Scriptures came before Jesus. The authors of the Christians’ New Testament could use images they found in the Hebrew Scriptures and create stories about Jesus to fit those images.

The Hebrew Scriptures served as blueprints do to an architect. But instead of constructing a building, the authors of the New Testament constructed stories about Jesus. This is not only true for Isaiah 53, but is also true for many of the other biblical texts that stories of Jesus seem to fulfill. Whenever a story seems to fit biblical prophecy, the story of Jesus was probably accommodated to the images found in the Hebrew Scriptures. By comparing different renditions of the same story in two different Gospels, one can easily see that stories were written about Jesus to make it appear that Jesus fulfilled prophecy.