Description: These articles from a 1996 symposium on "Isaiah 53 and Christian Origins" zero in on the relation of Jesus to the images of the "Suffering Servant" introduced in Isaiah, asking whether Jesus consciously identified with that ancient image.
Brief description: William H. Bellinger, Jr. is Director of Graduate and Professor of Old Testament, Department of Religion, at Baylor University. William R. Farmer is Emeritus Professor of New Testament, Perkins School of Theology, and Editor of the International Catholic Bible Commentary.
Review Quotes: ""A gripping current sweep of one of the most axial fault lines in Christianity's geologic base! This scholarly symposium zeroes in, with no holds barred, on the critical and hermeneutic availability of Isaiah's 'suffering servant' (hence of the Hebrew Bible) for grasping Jesus today. Vastly crucial for the raging debates about atonement, canon, and the core of faith."" -- Durwood Foster, Pacific School of Religion ""Did Jesus think of his own death as atoning? Because the figure of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah offers a model of atoning death, scholars have asked themselves whether Jesus ever referred to this text. Some have insisted that we have to say no in the absence of a precise citation; others have claimed that we have the right to say yes on the grounds of Christian belief. Both those extremes are represented here, as is the more productive approach of considering just how people in antiquity read this vitally important text."" -- Bruce Chilton, Bard College