ABSTRACT
The Christian dogmatist who is usually wont to refer contemptuously to the “Judaic narrowness” of the Jewish interpretation of Scripture, maintains that the precise meaning of the utterances of Isaiah, conveying the notion of a vicarious atonement, cannot be properly applied to the people of Israel. The rationalist interpretation of the text of Holy Writ, commenced by the medieval Jewish exegetists and brought to a high state of scientific development by modern Protestant theologians, could have found no place in the process which formed Christianity out of the Bible. The appearance of the Anointed is to usher in a new era of universal peace and happiness, the Messianic times—that aeon of human felicity so fondly described by the Jewish prophets. Jewish commentators naturally suggested events and objects short of evangelical as the fulfilment of the prophetical announcements, and, when it was possible, an ethical sense instead of a prophetical.
