As many of you may know, there are five fragments of an ancient Nazarene commentary which survive only in Latin as quoted by the fourth Century Latin “Church Father” Jerome, in his own Commentary on Isaiah. Jerome was also famously the translator of the Latin Vulgate, the standardized Latin version of the Bible.
The commentary itself takes the form of a combination of a Targum and a Qumran-style Pesherim Commentary.
The Targums were Aramaic paraphrases of the books of the Tanak, often so paraphrased as to contain interpretations that would rise to the level of commentary.
The Qumran style “Pesherim Commentaries“. There are well described in The Dead Sea Scrolls, a New Translation by Wise, Abegg and Cook:
Very characteristic of the Dead Sea sect was the view that the Bible was a puzzle to be solved or an enigma to be unraveled. Its characteristic word for the activity of interpretation was pesher, which as a rule refers to the interpretation of dreams. The biblical Daniel serves as the ideal interpreter of this type: he interprets dreams (Dan. 2,4) and visions (the “handwriting on the wall,” Dan. 5) not through native ability, but because God has revealed the secrets to him. The Qumran scribes understood their task in the same way: to penetrate the secrets of Scripture not through reflection on the text itself, but through openness to the revelation of God.
(The Dead Sea Scrolls; A New Translation; Wise, Abegg and Cook, First Edition, 1996, p. 114)
Since the Isaiah Commentary only exists as excerpts quoted in Jerome’s Commentary on Isaiah, it is impossible to know whether its original form was a flowing text parallel to that of Isaiah (like the format of a Targum), or like that of the “Continuous Pesherim“, in which a book of Scripture is interrupted at intervals with a phrase like “The Pesher (interpretation) is:”
English versions of the fragments of the Nazarene Commentary on Isaiah have circulated for years, even decades. However these translations are fraught with error and inaccuracies. The modern restoration of Nazarene Judaism requires a restoration of this ancient Nazarene Commentary, into its original Hebrew or Aramaic. Hebrew was more likely if it was a Pesher Commentary and Aramaic was the likely language of it was a Targum. All things being considered, I believe the Commentary is best preserved as a Continuous Pesher Commentary in Hebrew with an English translation. However restoring the original Hebrew cannot adequately be done from an English translation of a Jerome’s Latin translation of whatever source Jerome had. Fortunately I have obtained Jerome’s Latin for each of these five fragments, and have reconstructed the underlying Hebrew behind the Latin. There are several surprises that this process has uncovered. Suffice it to say, that the English translations of the Latin we have been using, are woefully inadequate.
Not only do I feel this reconstruction is a necessarily part of the restoration of Nazarene Judaism, but I also wanted to have this restored material available for use in my own online commentary on Isaiah which I will be filling in here a little and there a little in my own online commentary on the Scriptures.
The restored commentary also allows us insight into portions of Isaiah not directly covered in what remains of the commentary. The commentary often defines, within the scope of its pesher interpretation, key terms that appear throughout Isaiah, such as “the terrible one” and “the Assyrian”, which may shed light on other passages as well, and I will be incorporating these insights into my own commentary as well (for example in my recent added comments to Isaiah 52:1-6 which references “the Assyrian.”)
I will be creating a permanent page for them in the future, but in the meantime they are here:
And you can view my own online Scripture Commentaries by clicking here. (I recently completed extensive commentary to Isaiah 52 and 53.
Now that the Ancient Nazarene Commentary on Isaiah has been restored, I can return to the work of restoring the Four Gospels and the all important Fifth Gospel which is “According to the Hebrews” (more on that soon)
The rent just barely cleared our account lst night, leaving us with just over $10! More bills will be hitting our account in coming days (even tomorrow) and we are virtually broke, so please donate if you can!
I want to thank all of you supporting this work. I literally could not do it without you!
This work takes hours of my time. As many of you know, my wife is very ill, and I spend most of my time at home as her caretaker. I work at a desk less than six feet from her bed. So I am in a position to dedicate many hours to this important work that I have been directed to do.
But I also realize that it is not the activity of James Trimm alone who is responsible to do this work, it is all of us together who are charged with the responsibility of accomplishing this work. I very much look on the efforts of this restoration work as a cooperative one with each one of you. We are all joint heirs with Messiah and should always be about our Father’s business. I am honored to be able to be partnered with truth seekers as this restoration of Scripture moves forward in fulfillment of prophecy.
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