1. I’m in the chapter on the Suffering Servant in my reading of Randall Heskett’s Messianism Within the Scriptural Scrolls of Isaiah. I’ll probably be there for some time. I read on pages 145-146 that Sigmund Mowinkel believed that the Suffering Servant was Second Isaiah himself, and that the songs were composed as funeral dirges by the “Third Isaiah circle, [who] later inserted them into Second Isaiah.”
What does Mowinkel do with the part of Isaiah 53 that says the Servant will be exalted and will see offspring, as his days are prolonged? Did the Third Isaiah circle expect for the prophet who wrote Second Isaiah to rise from the dead?
2. In my reading today of Judaism: The Evidence of the Mishnah, Jacob Neusner says (on page 194) that Tractate Yebamot of the Mishnah has a theme of “establishing the marital bond through supernatural action”. Is this just a matter of following rabbinic rules to ensure that God sanctions a marriage? Or is it something more?
3. In my reading today of A Linguistic Study of the Relationship Between the Priestly Source and the Book of Ezekiel, Avi Hurvitz discusses (on page 100) the Hebrew word ledorotheykhem (“to your generations”). It appears only in P. So can we date it within a chronology of biblical Hebrew, since it’s only used in one biblical Hebrew source, and we can’t see if it’s used in earlier or later biblical writings? The word is plural and has pronomial suffixes, and we don’t see non-priestly biblical sources using the plural and pronomial suffixes in that manner (or something like that—Hurvitz just says that these peculiarities have “no counterparts in the non-Priestly biblical sources”). But Hurvitz notes a Babylonian parallel for the use of the plural in such a word—ana dariatim. For the pronomial suffix part, he dismisses a suggested Akkadian parallel, and says that ledorotheykhem “should be considered a peculiarly Israelite innovation.” He sees the expression as post-Canaanite, but not as post-exilic. He says that the word does not appear in the “late biblical corpus” and so it must have fallen “into disuse in post-classical times.” Hurvitz appears to be maintaining that P is pre-exilic.
4. In my reading today of Jean-Louis Ska’s Introduction to Reading the Pentateuch, I didn’t really find anything that interested me. He’s just discussing the discrepancies and redundancies in the Pentateuchal narrative that lead scholars to conclude that there are multiple sources in the Pentateuch. I can read this in any intro to biblical criticism. What I want to get into is the alternatives to the Documentary Hypothesis, which Ska discusses later.
5. At Latin mass this morning, we had bald Tom Bosley priest. He asked us how often we ask for our will to be done, rather than God’s will. But God’s will is going to be done anyway. Why should I ask God to do anything if he’s going to do what he wants, regardless of what I ask? Also, is everything that happens God’s will? How about earthquakes? Or hurricanes? Actually, Douglas Wilson maintains that God is responsible for those, for Amos 3:6 asks, “Shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?” God causes people to suffer? That is a scary thought. Why should I worship such a God?
As far as “Thy will be done” in the Lord’s prayer is concerned, that’s linked with the “Thy kingdom come” part. God’s will is already done in heaven, a place of peace, harmony, and life. But strife, disharmony, and death occur on earth. “Thy will be done”, in my opinion, is asking that earth might become like heaven.