Shalom Chaverim,
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 textitself, 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:”
The Messianic Karaites will certainly find opportunity to misunderstand and misapply the Nazarene Commentary on Isaiah. However there was no such thing as Karaite Judaism in the first century, nor at the time the commentary was written. The Nazarene Commentary taken as a whole, and in context of Second Temple Era Judaism, reveals not that the Nazarenes rejected tradition of the concept of Halacha. Instead, the Commentary reveals that the Nazarenes, like the Essenes as Qumran, rejected Rabbinic traditions and halacha, in favor of their own traditions and halacha.
English versions of the fragments of the Nazarene Commentary on Isaiah have circulated for years, even decades. However these translations are fraught with error an 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 am now restoring the original Hebrew behind the Latin. There are several surprises that this process has uncovered, and I will be revealing these in this series. 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 that I will be filling in here a little and there a little in my own online commentary on the Scriptures.
I will be sharing the restored text of The Naazarene Isaiah Persher to Isaiah 8:14 soon, with the other four fragments following that. These are the days of restoration!
These are the days of Elijah
Declaring the word of the Lord:
And these are the days of Your servant Moses
Righteousness being restored.
And though these are days of great trial
Of famine and darkness and sword
Still, we are the voice in the desert crying
‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord!’
Behold He comes riding on the clouds
Shining like the sun at the trumpet call
Lift your voice, it’s the year of jubilee
And out of Zion’s hill salvation comes.
These are the days of Ezekiel
The dry bones becoming as flesh
And these are the days of Your servant David
Rebuilding a temple of praise.
These are the days of the harvest
The fields are as white in Your world
And we are the labourers in Your vineyard
Declaring the word of the Lord!
Donations in April were very, very low. This is common each year with tax time taking a bite out of people’s pocket books. Unfortunately, our expenses have not decreased during the tax season.
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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