Friday, July 01, 2016

Isaiah 9:6 (Otto Kaiser's OTL Commentary)

(1) Otto Kaiser (OTL) professes that the King (or Messiah) mentioned in Isa. 9:6 is EL GIBBOHR insofar as he is "the representative and viceregent of God on earth, who, as the one endowed with this spirit (cf. 11:1), shares in his nature and his will" (Isaiah 1-12, Page 213).

When Kaiser claims that the Messiah-King shares in "the nature" and "will" of God, his statement should not be construed to mean that he believes the King shares the essence of God (i.e., the divine attributes). To the contrary, the King that Kaiser provides commentary about is fully human. This point is clearly brought out when Kaiser explains that the words "Wonderful Counselor" characterize: "the ruler as a man who, like God, can make extraordinary resolves and then carry them out. Illuminated by Yahweh himself, he needs no counsel from others . . . The second name [Mighty God] stresses his abundance of power, calling men to their God" (213).

Kaiser also contends that Isa. 9:6 possibly shows hints of Egyptian influence on the royal ritual of Israel (a point some have insisted applies to Ps. 45 and Heb. 1). For an interesting discussion of this matter vis-a'-vis Revelation 5:1ff and the coronation of the Lamb, see David Aune's thorough notes in his Word commentary (Revelation 1-5). But whether Isa. 9:6 shows Egyptian influence or not, Kaiser demonstrates by means of parallels why Isa. 9:6 is not necessarily proof for the Deity of Jesus (even though it is clearly Messianic). Please see the Catholic NAB and its handling of this OT passage since the NABRE appears to have changed the footnote found in the older NAB.

(2) Isa. 9:7 indicates that the Messiah would rule by the power of YHWH. A similar point is made at Mic. 5:4, where the Messiah is said to rule in the strength of YHWH. There is abundant proof that Mic. 5:1-4 is what we would today call--a subordinationist delineation of the Messiah.

For Kaiser's commentary, see https://books.google.com/books?id=15a7BwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=isaiah+1-12+kaiser&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjf6669vsvNAhUF5iYKHSkLD1MQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=isaiah%201-12%20kaiser&f=false

27 comments:

Philip Fletcher said...

Good info will have to look at what Aune says as well. Still I wonder if they, the Jews considered this a second God as they use the phrase Mighty God for the Messiah.

Edgar Foster said...

Philip, to my knowledge, most Jews would not have thought Isa. 9:6 sets forth a second god. As a matter of fact, a common Jewish understanding of 9:6 is that the verse applies to Almighty God and not to someone else. Or others think the passage applies to a human king, as Kaiser argues, but not to another deity.

Philip Fletcher said...

Ok the Jew were really understanding the words in Psalms were he says "you are gods" So anyone can be consider a god. I will accept the Idea of Almighty God. i believe they missed it though. I wonder what Jews, modern that is the past century, or after the 1st century or those who lived at the time of Isaiah's writings. If for instance after the 1st century, they probably wouldn't be right anyway, they were wrong by Jesus time anyway. My thoughts

Edgar Foster said...

Philip, there is plenty of material on the subject, but here's something from John Goldingay for now. All of the foregoing material is taken from his commentary.

From the New International Biblical Commentary on Isaiah by John Goldingay:

9:6 / It is usually assumed that the name in v. 6b comprises a
series of asyndetic phrases (so NIV) and describes the person named.
The son then is the Wonderful Counselor. Christian claims that Jesus
fulfills the vision of v. 6b can do justice to the designation
Mighty God, but the difficulty comes with Everlasting Father' which
hardly applies to Jesus. Conversely, a reading in the light of
eighth-century B.C. Middle Eastern thinking can perhaps do justice
to Everlasting Father as an extravagant OT description of a king's
relationship with his people, but Mighty God is unparalleled in the
OT in such designations. Wildberger (Isaiah 1-12, p. 405) suggests
it is based on Egyptian ways of speaking of the king, but even these
hardly parallel such an extravagant description. It is difficult to
know what the original hearers would have made of the words if this
is how Isaiah meant them. it is significant that the Jewish
exegetical tradition assumed that at least the first three phrases
referred to God, though it took them as describing God as namer
rather than as part of the name.

The Hb. of the first two phrases reads literally "Wonder planner,
God warrior." NIV "wonderful counselor" apparently takes the first
phrase to mean "wonder of a planner." If that is a natural rendering
of the first phrase, the natural way for the prophet to expect
people to understand the second [maybe] is to take it to suggest "God of a
warrior," "God-like warrior" (rather than "warrior-like God,"
presupposed by NIV). The plural of the phrase rendered Mighty God
indeed appears in Ezek. 32:21 to mean "mighty leaders." In
isolation, the four terms would then be quite intelligible as
descriptions of a hoped-for king.

But the recurrence of the phrase rendered "Mighty God" el gibbor in
10:21 with definite reference to Yahweh make it harder to accept
that here the phrase means "God-like warrior" or that it refers to
the promised king. Indeed, to say that someone is a "wonder of a
planner" is to call him God-like (see on 5:8-24), and Wildberger (Isaiah 1-12,
p. 403) argues strongly that the phrase must mean "Wonder-planner." The basis
for translating the second phrase "God-like warrior" then disappears. Even Father, let alone Everlasting Father, is not otherwise instanced as a title for a king.

There is a further point. Other names such as Isaiah, Shear-jashub,
and Immanuel comprise statements rather than merely strings of
epithets. They mean "Yahweh [is] salvation," 'A remnant will
return," "God [is] with us." It is natural also to assume that the
designation of Yahweh in v. 6b is one or two statements. How to
construe the statements is then open to discussion, as is the case
with Maher-shalal-hash-baz (see Additional Note on 8:1). As the
middle two phrases are the ones that apply most distinctively to
God, we might take the four as a characteristic prophetic chiasm: 'A
Wonderful Counselor is the Mighty God; the Everlasting Father is a
Prince of Peace."

Edgar Foster said...

Philip, see http://thejewishhome.org/counter/Isa9_56.pdf

It's an exegetical discussion of Isa. 9:6.

Philip Fletcher said...

Yeah this is good information. When I get time will look into it more fully. I think some of the experts miss it on Eternal Father. If Adam had not sin he would always be our father eternally, since Jesus became the last Adam as Paul stated in 1 Cor. 15, than he is our Eternal Father in that way. Always. As the last Adam.

Duncan said...

http://www.angelfire.com/space/thegospeltruth/trinity/verses/Is9_6EL.html

Of particular note is the translation of EL GIBBOR.

The NEB does give an interesting alternative translation to AVI AD.

Edgar Foster said...

Philip: As with all links I provide, I by no means endorse everything the writer says. However, I found some of the comments to be helpful for understanding how some Jews have understood Isa. 9:6.

Edgar Foster said...

Dunca: The understanding given at "Trinity Delusion" seems to be similar/the same as the exegesis provided by Goldingay, in line with the traditional Jewish exegetical tradition. I'll also check out NEB. Thanks, Edgar

Duncan said...

Edgar,

I note that Deus is used in the Vulgate. But what is the diachronic understanding of its usages in the second and third centuries?

It is speculated that dies (day) comes from the same root (PIE) referring to a shinning one (sun).

Duncan said...

From NET footnote for AVI AD:-

According to Egyptian propaganda, the Hittites described Rameses II as follows: “No man is he who is among us, It is Seth great-of-strength, Baal in person; Not deeds of man are these his doings, They are of one who is unique” (See Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 2:67).

But unfortunately this assumes still that EL = GOD and that BAAL = EL.

Duncan said...

http://www.bible-researcher.com/neb.html

Note that the alternative rendering is in keeping as a contrast with chapter 9 verses 1 & 2.

Edgar Foster said...

Duncan,

Deus was a common word used by the Romans even prior to Christianity's inception. You likely remember the Vedic deity Dyaus-pitar, which can mean "Shining Father," and is cognate with Zeus and Jupiter (Greek and Roman names for the same deity).

Michael Molloy, and many other sources bring out the connection. But one good online source for Latin etymology and lexical matters is Lewis and Short. See http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Ddeus

Edgar Foster said...

The major work for consulting Latin words is OLD (Oxford Latin Dictionary). But it's a very expensive work, so I'm glad we have one in our university library.

On the subject of Baal and El, I believe this work needs to be read: https://books.google.com/books?id=ns4UAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA32&dq=el+and+ugarit&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjD35SH7_HNAhWGQCYKHdY4D_cQ6AEIJTAB#v=snippet&q=baal&f=false

Duncan said...

The "El in the Ugaritic texts" looks very interesting. It does indicate that Baal and El could be two distinct families on pg 48.

http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/#

This could just be different roles like Enki (land) & Enlil (wind).

I do not know if urgatic carries the same poetic structure as Hebrew but I suppose it could be talking about just one group but functionally in the period there seems to be a significant difference in roles between a baal (land & agriculture) & an El (civis).

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ns4UAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA32&dq=el+and+ugarit&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=with%20horns&f=false

http://www.historyinsidepictures.com/siteimages/G45.jpg

Note the Egyptian style throne.

I can see parallels here in relation to Moses having horns as an El (leader of people).

Duncan said...

द्यौष्पितृ / Dyauṣpitṛ

Possibly related to

http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/an/

As far as Deus being common in usage. I agree, but there was a definite shift in understanding of what apotheosis meant in Rome over time. Shifting from the political to the religious, from the living to the deceased. This is why I wonder about how Deus was used at the point of inception of the vulgate?

Edgar Foster said...

Duncan, the Deus question is a complex one to me since context is always important for determining the meaning of a word. But I think Lewis-Short is a good resource for studying such Latin words. Please see the link above. And if you can get hold of an OLD, that would be helpful too. There's also a substantial difference between classical and ecclesiastical Latin, and the latter morphs in the Middle Ages. I'm almost certain that Jerome (translator of the Vulgate) understood Deus to mean "God/god" or he thought it referred to the Supremem Being in a number of contexts. Lastly, I've had some exposure to Deus in Lactantius, who lived during the 4th century. Of course, the Vulgate was published ca. 405 CE, but I don't see much of a difference in understading the meaning of Deus when one compares Lactantius with a figure like Jerome. Again, we're talking about mchurch Latin at this point and not classical Latin.

Duncan said...

Edgar, the cheapest I can find an OLD is a used one @ £160, so will have to weigh up my need for it. It will probably have to stay on my wish list for the moment.

http://www.vetuslatina.org/

Esaias 7:14 – 10:19. Roger Gryson. 1989

Is there anywhere on line that has this to view?

Edgar Foster said...

Someone else might be aware of an online source for Gryson. I tried to find online access to the work, but could not.

Duncan said...

Just came across:-

http://www.vetus-latina.de/edition_vetus_latina/vetus_latina_band.html?band=121

Probably still out of my reach.

Edgar Foster said...

Some of these works are prohibitively expensive for me too. Another option is to use a university library, the British Library or use interlibrary loan. Even then, some works are still out of reach.

Philip Fletcher said...

Edgar;
I appreciate what you say about the link, still they are decent info on what is out there. Keep it coming and I will keep learning.
Thanks
YB
Philip

Duncan said...

http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=oxfaleph010235738&indx=1&recIds=oxfaleph010235738&recIdxs=0&elementId=0&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&dscnt=0&scp.scps=scope%3A%28OX%29&frbg=&tab=local&dstmp=1468621349205&srt=rank&mode=Basic&&dum=true&vl(490959669UI1)=all_items&vl(254947567UI0)=any&tb=t&vl(1UIStartWith0)=contains&vl(freeText0)=Roger%20gryson%20Esaias&vid=OXVU1

I may be able to get access here but it does state that notes are in French. I am only at high school level French but it may not pose a problem.

I will contact them next week. Easier for me than the British library. Getting into central London on time for an appointment is extremely problematic unless I go for the whole day.

Duncan said...

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Zeus&allowed_in_frame=0

Duncan said...

Came across this:-

http://www.jstor.org/stable/270330?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Is this what you mean about early & Christian Latin?

Edgar Foster said...

Duncan,

I made a distinction between classical and ecclesiastical Latin. So yes, way before Christianity used Latin or translated the Vetus Latina or Vulgate, classical Latin existed. We see its manifestation in Virgil, Cicero, and Quintilian (inter alii).

Edgar Foster said...

Glad the info is helpful, Philip. I'll pass along more as I acquire it, brother.