Yet while it is
likely that John reads Isais’s theophany in Isaiah 6 as a Christophany, it is
not necessarily the case that John wholly replaces Isaiah’s vision of God with
a vision of Jesus. Instead, the very ambiguity of John’s language suggests that
it can be read in reference to both Jesus and God: the title “Lord” (κυριος)
often applies to both God and Jesus, and the pronoun “his” (αυτου)
could technically apply to both God and Jesus as well (i.e., the narrator does
not specifically say that it is “Jesus’s Glory” but only “his Glory”). John’s
statement that Isaiah “saw his Glory,” therefore, could be read in relation to
Jesus and God simultaneously. (Brittany E. Wilson, “Seeing Jesus,
Seeing God: Theophany and Divine Visibility in the Gospel of John,” in John
Among the New Testament Writers: Early High Christology, ed. Christopher M.
Blumhofer, Diane G. Chen, and Joel B. Green [Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2024], 61)
The LXX exchanges the MT’s “robe for Glory” for πληρης ο οικος της
δοξης αυτου while the targums exchange it for
Shekinah. John’s ταυτα
επιεν ‘Ησαιας οτι
ειδεν την δοξαν αυτου, και ελαλησεν
περι αυτου can be read in one of several ways: (1)
John interpreted Isaiah’s temple vision of God’s Glory (Isa 6) as a revelation
of the Glory of the pre-incarnate, preexistent Jesus, and then spoke about him,
Jesus, in his prophecy (Isa 49, 52, 60); (2) John interpreted Isaiah’s temple
vision of God’s Glory (Isa 6) as a throne vision, in which Isaiah peered into
the heavens to see the pre-incarnate, preexistent Jesus as a human shaped
figure of Glory (like that of Dan 7 or 1 En. 69 and akin to the extended throne
vision of Ascension of Isaiah) and, then, spoke about him (Isa 49, 52, 60); (3)
John interpreted Isaiah as having looked into the future to see the Glory of
the incarnated Jesus as realized in his earthly signs that culminated in
Jesus’s death (i.e., as recounted in John’s Gospel) and spoke about it (Isa 49,
52, 60); or (4 John interpreted Isaiah has having (fore) seen the Glory of Jesus
(Isa 49, 52, 60) and spoke about him (Isa 49, 52, 60). The last option is to be
preferred. Rather than making Isaiah say he saw something he did not (Isa 6
says the prophet saw Yahweh’s Glory, not Jesus’s), or transforming the setting
of the experience from the temple to the heavens, or having Isaiah prophesy
about the specifics of the life of Jesus, option (4) depends only on John
interpreting Isaiah’s servant as Jesus. The connection between suffering/death
and Glory is already present in Isaiah. (Carey C. Newman “The Glory of John,”
in John Among the New Testament Writers: Early High Christology, ed.
Christopher M. Blumhofer, Diane G. Chen, and Joel B. Green [Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 2024], 258 n. 46)
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