The Suffering Servant between the Testaments

• Published in: New Testament studies 1985-01, Vol.31 (4), p.481-497
• Main Author: Page, Sydney H. T.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0028-6885; 1469-8145
• DOI: 10.1017/S0028688500012042

Traditionally Christians have interpreted Isaiah 52. 13–53. 12 as a prophecy of the passion of Christ,1 but modern biblical scholars have disagreed about how this identification of the suffering servant with Jesus arose. In particular, those who have investigated the question of whether Jesus saw himself as occupying the role of the servant have reached conflicting conclusions.2 In the background of this discussion is another contentious issue, namely, whether a messianic interpretation of the suffering servant had already been adopted in pre-Christian Judaism. Representative of a negative response to this question is H. H. Rowley, who writes: ‘There is no serious evidence … of the bringing together of the concepts of the suffering servant and the Davidic Messiah before the Christian era.’3 A much more positive assessment is given by Jeremias, who has championed the view that the first and fourth servant songs were consistently interpreted messianically in Palestinian Judaism, and that it is highly probable that a messianic interpretation of the sufferings of the servant was associated with this.4