DID JESUS HAVE LEPROSY

DID JESUS HAVE LEPROSY?

Hugh Fogelman

Christians have a “Jesus-intoxicated mentality” planted in their head by years of religious brain-washing. This has produced a strange preconceived notion that Jesus is mentioned in the Hebrew bible. Christians already know the events in the life of their Jesus, and will read anything, even the novel Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and with those preconceived notions will say; “lookie right here, it tells of Jesus.”

Accordingly, Christians use some isolated sentences found in Isaiah 53 as their so-called proof text that these are prophecies of Jesus’ death. Unfortunately, Christians read the Hebrew bible (they called it the Old Testament) from the outside in, instead of correctly reading it from the inside out. Why? Because their “Jesus-intoxicated mentality” tells them their man-god Jesus is found in there.

In fact, the Hebrew bible does not contain a single reference to Jesus!

With this in mind, let us examine just one verse in Isaiah’s Chapter 53 to see if it applies to Jesus. Verse 4, in the King James Version of the Christian Bible says:

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.”

Smitten? What exactly does this mean? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “smitten” as the past participle of smite; which means to inflict a heavy blow on, with or as if with the hand, a tool, or a weapon. In other words, to bring great harm or suffering – to torture, afflict, blight, curse, excruciate, plague, rack, scourge, smite, strike and torment. Christians say, reading all this in English, this is what happened to their Jesus. But does smitten/smite mean the same in Hebrew?

Jews have always known that Isaiah 53 referred to the Israelites as a whole, in the singular sense ― the Jewish nation as a singular word. Isaiah chapters 1 through 52 tells of all the troubles of Israel ― not one Israeli, but the whole nation ― its people. Isaiah chapter 54 through 66 also is about Israel as a whole. If you accept the Christian notion that Isaiah 53 is about Jesus, you must answer for yourself; why all of a sudden, out of the blue, would Isaiah offer a prediction about a fictitious character, Jesus, 800 years in the future? Why, If any prediction were to have been made, would have Isaiah not prophesied about the Jewish people in the future?

However, if you still do not see the illogical Christian mindset let us then take a different “spin” on just one verse ― verse 4. You know what “smitten” means in English and Christians reading the King James Version in English understand Webster’s meaning of the word, but what does it mean in the original Hebrew and how is it used?

In verse 4, the Hebrew word “nagua” does indeed mean, “stricken.” However, where the word nagua is used in the Hebrew Bible it always refers to one who is stricken with disease, like in leprosy as in 2 Kings 15:5.

“And the LORD smote the king, so that he was a leper unto the day of his death, and dwelt in a several house. And Jotham the king's son was over the house, judging the people of the land.” (2 Kings 15:5)

It is clear; the Hebrew in this verse refers to being smitten with leprosy. Scholars of Hebrew note that “stricken” is the appropriate word for continuing the leprosy metaphor found in this chapter.

A man with this disease, a leper, suffers in pain and feels humiliation by sickness, hiding his face from people and feels despised and rejected. Go back to verse 3 and see it explained in detail ― this man stricken with leprosy: “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and we hid our faces from him; he was despised and we esteemed him not.” There is no more appropriate language to describe such a disease.

The “Jesus-intoxicated mentality” prevents Christians from thinking clearly; therefore they can never conclude that Isaiah was talking about a disease. Isaiah was written in Hebrew not English! So now, Mr. or Ms Christian, do you think Jesus had leprosy? The Christian knee-jerk answer is “of course not!” IF, as you maintain, Isaiah was writing about Jesus, then exactly who had this awful disease, if not Jesus? The truth is Isaiah is not about the man-god Jesus.

Remember, Isaiah starts out in chapter 1:1 “in the days of Uzziah.” Isaiah was a contemporary with King Uzziah and lived through the time of the king's death. Isaiah was well acquainted with Uzziah's experience and health problems (6:1). Reading all of Isaiah writings, you will find that King Uzziah had leprosy.

King Uzziah was a good king to his people, but he allowed the practice of worshipping strange gods within the land. Not only that, he took it upon himself to enter the temple and assuming the priestly office of burning the sacred incense in the Temple. For all this, allowing his people to worship idols and the brazen intrusion into holy orders of the Temple, allegedly the Hebree god smote him with the dreaded disease of leprosy. King Uzziah remained a leper, isolated from his people unto the day of his death, as told in 2 Kings 15:5. Upon reading this chapter and verse, you will notice the name of the king to be Azariah. However, in 2 Chronicles 26:16-21 Azariah is called Uzziah, both being the same king.

This is the lesson Isaiah writes , “here is your leprous king, who is in type suffering under God's hand for you, the backslidden servant nation of Israel” (Isaiah 53:6). “He shot up as a sapling” because due to his father's death in battle, Uzziah had to take the throne at the early age of 16. “He was taken away” (53:8) because of his affliction as a leper. In other words, Uzziah was taken away from the royal palace, his court and people, to spend his life in a house of isolation unto the day of his death and “was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of his people to whom the stroke was due.” And so on.

If, by chance, the Christian reader still feels that this one chapter ― 53 ― out of the sixty-six by Isaiah, is not talking about the nation of Israel and is, instead, describing an individual ― a man-god; he is being dishonest and/or delusional. An honest non-delusional person would have to admit, the truth, Isaiah 53 is not be about Jesus.

"Where knowledge ends, religion begins." -Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-1881)

DISCLAIMER:

Citation of Hebrew scripture and sources in articles or analyses is not in any way an acceptance, approval or validation of the Jewish religion, its works or scriptures. The Hebrew bible, like the Christian New Testament, is fictitious; From a 6-day creation of the universe; a cunning, walking, talking snake; big fish tales; world flood and an "Invisible Man in the Sky" ― it is all fiction, a bold sham perpetrated on mankind.

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