1. Jennifer M. Dines, The Septuagint (New York: T&T Clark, 2004) 22.
The so-called ‘Servant Songs’, which Christian writers apply to Christ, are given a collective sense in the LXX.
The Servant Songs of Second Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55) present a servant who suffers and dies for the sins of others. Christians have applied them to Christ, whereas a Jewish interpretation is that the Suffering Servant is collective, namely, the nation of Israel.
I just read Benton’s English translation of Isaiah 53 and looked at the Greek as well, and the Servant appeared to be an individual to me. The pronouns were masculine singular. So maybe Dines is talking about other Servant Songs, which I’m too tired to look at right now.
One more thing: Several years ago, I read an article that said the LXX portrays the Suffering Servant as having a near-death experience, not as actually dying. The parts of Isaiah 53 about him being led to death as a lamb to the slaughter could be near-death, for he could be led to the slaughter only for God to deliver him at the last minute, right when he was about to be killed. But what’s v 8 mean when it says his life is taken from the earth? Doesn’t that imply death?
2. Michael B. Trapp, “Philosophical Sermons: The ‘Dialexeis of Maximus of Tyre,” ANRW II.34.3, p. 1948.
Maximus of Tyre was a Greek philosopher of the second century C.E. Trapp says that his Dialexeis makes no attempt to “distinguish the transcendent God from his Logos or the World Soul”, as most Platonists do. Yet, he does take a Middle Platonist stance on “polarizing issues” of his day, such as divine transcendence, so he’s still considered a Middle Platonist.
The whole issue of divine transcendence reminds me of an article that Polycarp linked to today. See A Look at Christianity, Through a Buddhist Lens.
It’s about a Christian who draws from Buddhism, but he’s unsure whether he’s a Christian Buddhist or a Buddhist Christian. The article defines some of his struggles as follows:
However much he tried, Mr. Knitter found that certain longstanding Christian formulations of faith “just didn’t make sense”: God as a person separate from creation and intervening in it as an external agent; individualized life after death for all and eternal punishment for some; Jesus as God’s “only Son” and the only savior of humankind; prayers that ask God to favor some people over others.
I can understand the struggle with Christian exclusivism and prayer, but I don’t have a problem with God being separate from creation and intervening in it as an external agent. The Middle Platonists probably didn’t define the issue that way, since they believed there was a transcendent God who kept himself aloof, while the Logos or the World Soul were involved in creation (or something like that—I may not be defining their views with total accuracy, though I know they believed in an aloof and transcendent God). I don’t understand why some deem pantheism (God is the universe) as necessary, while others see a need to define God as utterly aloof from the cosmos.