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I& #39;ve been thinking about this for a while, and I think the answer I have is the idea that religion/theology/relationship-with-God is primarily about individual salvation and reward after death. https://twitter.com/calieber/status/1255300997620080647">https://twitter.com/calieber/...
The core beliefs of Christianity - that Jesus died for your sins, that salvation comes through accepting Jesus as a personal savior, that those who do so go to heaven and those who don& #39;t go to hell - all emphasize individualism.
It& #39;s about what individuals do in pursuit of their own spiritual safety and reward.
Judaism is primarily about the community, not the individual. The core belief is that if the *community*, as a whole, follows God& #39;s laws then the *community*, as a whole, will benefit.
Judaism is primarily about the community, not the individual. The core belief is that if the *community*, as a whole, follows God& #39;s laws then the *community*, as a whole, will benefit.
So you end up with very different understandings of things like Isaiah 53:5. Christians really want this to be about predicting Jesus, and a lot of that is because of the first line. Christians read it as "He was wounded FOR our sins." But the Hebrew is FROM or BY our trespasses.
I have a whole other thing about the various ways the KJV translation of this verse sucks, but that& #39;s not what I want to focus on here. https://twitter.com/JustSayXtian/status/1254414522510569479">https://twitter.com/JustSayXt...
What I want to focus on here is the way in which Christians read this as a message of individual salvation through a savior-Messiah, and Jews read it as a consequence of communal failure to adhere to the ethical and spirtual system of Judaism.
If Jesus suffers FOR your sins then it& #39;s about God doing something for you, personally. You, personally, are saved from personal suffering. It& #39;s about what you get from God.
If the servant - maybe a messiah, as in an anointed king or priest, maybe a metaphor for Am Yisrael - suffers FROM our trespasses then it& #39;s about us, collectively, failing to do something for God. Even if some individuals are doing right, we, as a whole, aren& #39;t holding up our end
So then the last line of the verse changes - in the Christian interpretation "we are healed" means we each, individually, have an opportunity for salvation. In the Jewish interpretation it means we are healed as a community, we return to a state of wholeness and societal function
And that& #39;s what the whole thing is about, really. Judaism isn& #39;t about personal salvation, it& #39;s about upholding our end of the covenant in order to build a just and ethical *community* here on Earth. And that different focus leads to a very different theology.