Tuesday, April 18, 2000 3:29 PM

From: mark matejka

greetings!

first of all - great website. what a fantastic effort. i appreciate your straight-forward approach in your method. personally, it is also reaffirming to see other people of like mind. i am not a christian or religious, although i once was. in the back of my mind, i always new there was something wrong, but it has taken all of the last 10 years or so to deal with all of the cognitive dissonance i lived with as a christian. it involved fairly methodical study of what was in the bible, making myself aware of all the trends of thought on every side be it of historical reconstructive, archaeological, or philosophical in nature. now i am at a position where, after reading the material in your site, i feel i have very similar "beliefs" to yours.

anyway, this sounds more like a testimony. the main reason i write now is to ask if you could bust a prophecy and post it on your site. i have come across many prophecies myself, and they are generally easy to deal with. but there is one about which i would be interested in hearing what you have to say.

the "suffering servant" of isaiah 52:13 - 53:12 which is purported to supply information on the suffering of the messiah for his people is the issue. as you probably know, there are several "prophecies" within this passage that at first glance seem very specific:

for example, the disfigurement of 52:14, his people rejecting him in 53:3, his nonretaliation in 53:7, as well as others. it has been said my many christians that this is a mirror image of the passion narrative. also, since there was no leader or servant or king of the jews that was treated in this manner, it must point to jesus.

myself, i am of the mind that this mythical narrative was at the forefront of the minds of the gospel writers when they formed their stories. And, i am aware that the context of this passage is one in which isaiah is attempting to comfort jerusalem. this might have nothing to do with it at all, but i am also aware of the hypothesis that the first 40 chapters of isaiah were probably written by the prophet, but the rest (from which this passage comes) was written by 1, possibly 2, other people.

could you elaborate on this "suffering servant?"

thanks. mark