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Page 83
# For a more correct enumeration of the thirteen cabalistic rules of
exposition, the English reader is referred to vol. 1, page 209, of the
�Conciliator� of B. Menasseh ben Israel, translated by E, H. Lindo,
Esqr.--D.
# Mr. E. was, doubtless, aware that this is an exposition given by
Jewish Commentators.--D.
# There exists an English translation of this work by Abraham de Sola.
--D.
* The person here spoken of by Isaiah is said to make his grave with the
wicked, and be with the rich in his death. Whereas Jesus did exactly the
contrary. He was with the wicked (i. e., the two thieves) in his death,
and with the rich (i.e., Joseph of Arimathea) in his grave, or tomb. In
the original, the words may be translated that �he shall avenge, or
recompence upon the wicked his grave, and his death upon the rich.� Thus
does the Targum and the Arabic version interpret the place, and Ezekiel
ix. 10, uses the verb in the verse in Isaiah under consideration
translated (in The English version)--�He made,� &c--in the same sense,
given to this place in Isaiah, by the Targum, and the Arabic, as said
above. See the place in Ezekiel, where it is translated--�I will
recompence their way upon their head.� See also Deut. xxi. 8, in the
original. The Syriac has it--�The wicked contributed to his burial, and
the rich to his death.� The Arabic--�I will punish the wicked for his
burial, and the rich for his death.� The Targum--�He shall send the
wicked into hell, and the rich who put him to a cruel death.�--E.
# Or, shall destroy.--D.
* The remainder of this chapter is taken from Levi and Wagenseil.--E.
* The reader is requested to consider the reasoning in the last
paragraph. The prophecy in the second chapter of Daniel, is commonly
supposed to relate to the four Great Empires, the Babylonian, Persian,
Grecian and Roman. This last, it is (according to this interpretation,)
foretold, should be divided into many kingdoms, and that �in the latter
days of these kingdoms,� (which are now subsisting) God would set up a
kingdom which would never be destroyed,--that of the Messiah. Of course,
according to this interpretation, the kingdom of the Messiah was not to
be not only sustain after the destruction of the Roman Empire, but not
till the latter days of the kingdoms which grew up out of its ruins;
whereas, Jesus was born in the time of Augustus, i. e., precisely when
the Roman Empire itself was in the highest of its splendour and vigour.
This is a remarkable, and very striking, repugnance, to the claims of
the New Testament, and, if substantiated, must overset them entirely.--E.
* The sum of our argument may be expressed thus. God is represented in
the prophecies of the Old Testament as designing to send into the world
an eminent deliverer, descended from David, the peace and prosperity of
whose reign should far exceed all that went before him, in whom all the
glorious things foretold by the prophets should receive their entire
completion; and who should be distinguished by the character of the
Messiah or Christ. This is an article of faith common to Christians and
Jews. But that Jesus of Nazareth should be esteemed this Messiah, and
that Christians can support that opinion, by alledging the prophecies of
the Hebrew scriptures as belonging to, and fulfilled in, him, is what we
can by no means allow, and that especially on account of these
inconsistencies.
1. Because, these prophecies, acknowledged on both sides to point out
the Messiah, could not otherwise answer the end of inspiring them than
by an accomplishment so plain and sensible as might sufficiently
distinguish the person meant by them to be that Messiah. But no such
accomplishment, we contend, can possibly be discerned in Jesus, and,
consequently, he cannot be the person meant by them.
2. Because, several predictions which Christians apply to Jesus, are
wrested to a meaning which quite destroys the historical sense of
scripture, and breaks the connexion of the passages from whence they are
taken. Thus many shreds and loose sentences are culled out for this
purpose, which do not appear to have any relation to Jesus, or to the
Messiah either; but to have received their proper and intended
completion in some other person, whom the prophet, as is manifest, had
then only in view.
3. Because, in their forced applications of the prophecies, Christians,
finding themselves hard pressed by the simple and natural construction,
forsake the literal, and take shelter in spiritual and mystical senses;
fly to hyperboles and strained metaphors, and thus expound the true
meaning and importance of the prophecies quite away; the intent whereof
being to instruct men in so necessary a point of faith as that relating
to the Messiah, it is reasonable to think they would be delivered in the
most perspicuous and intelligible terms. Since ambiguous expressions
(capable of such strange meanings as they pretend,) would be too
slippery a foundation to build such a point of faith upon; would be of
no use, or worse than none; would be unable to teach the clear truth,
and apt to ensnare men into dangerous errors, by leaving too great a
latitude for fanciful interpretations, and introducing darkness and
confusion, and contradiction inexplicable.
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