I don't want to see Jewish commentators who view those passages as speaking about the messiah.
What I want is solid arguments based not on commentators, but on the Tanach, that Isaiah 53 speaks about the messiah.
Possibly we can do both. You claim that Christians "made up" the Suffering Servant idea of the Messiah so it should be appropriate to point out that Jews have also regarded the Suffering Servant passages to be messianic.
The book I mentioned by Raphael Patai,
The Messiah Texts, is a scholarly study of Jewish writings on the messianic passages in scripture, including such sources as the Babylonian Talmud, the Zohar and later rabbis such as R. Nahman, and many others. Patai is not a believer but a scholar who follows the modernist views of the Bible and is simply interested in how the "myths" about the Messiah were understood in various Jewish writings.
The Suffering Servant passages were definitely regarded as messianic in many of these sources. In his Introduction he writes of the "Deutero-Isaiah" passages about the Suffering Servant, as "describing the call, mission, sufferings, death and resurrection of this mysterious individual. ... the Aggada, the Talmudic legend, unhesitatingly identifies him with the Messiah and understands especially the descriptions of his sufferings as referring to Messiah ben Joseph..." [one of the two Messiahs that show up in the Jewish writings]
Patai points out at the beginning of his first chapter that Jewish and some Christian scholars regard the Suffering Servant passages as referring to Israel as a whole. "Yet these same passages became in Talmudic times identified with the Messianic theme, and so they have remained in Jewish folk consciousness throughout the ages." He goes on to say the idea is developed from the Isaiah passages about the Suffering Servant in the Talmud, the Midrash and the Zohar.
The point of all this of course, again, is simply to show that Christians did not make up the idea of the Messiah as the Suffering Servant, but that it was understood to be messianic by many Jewish sources as well.
You say in your answer to PaulK above:
According to Christianity, the whole chapter of Isaiah 53 and the last verses of chapter 52, from verse 13, are talking about Jesus. Why do they think so? Because the NT says so, and because it fits so nicely with the Christian story about a suffering messiah. And what proof do the Christians have that the subject in Isaiah 53, the suffering servant, is the messiah?
The writings of the various Jewish interpretations of the scriptures ought to go some way toward showing that it isn't only the New Testament (whose writers are almost all Jews anyway) but many nonChristian Jews who find those passages to be messianic. That may not be proof but then how do you prove something that's a matter of interpretation anyway? The fact that it is shared by many serious Jewish interpreters of the scriptures ought to carry a great deal of weight.
For reference here are the Suffering Servant passages:
Isa 52:13 Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.
Isa 52:14 As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men:
Isa 52:15 So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for [that] which had not been told them shall they see; and [that] which they had not heard shall they consider.
Isa 53:1 Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
Isa 53:2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, [there is] no beauty that we should desire him.
Isa 53:3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were [our] faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Isa 53:4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
Isa 53:5 But he [was] wounded for our transgressions, [he was] bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace [was] upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Isa 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Isa 53:7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
Isa 53:8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
Isa 53:9 And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither [was any] deceit in his mouth.
Isa 53:10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put [him] to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see [his] seed, he shall prolong [his] days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
Isa 53:11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, [and] shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
Isa 53:12 Therefore will I divide him [a portion] with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Hard NOT to see Jesus in this passage I would think.
There are other passages in Isaiah that are understood to be messianic and are about the Suffering Servant:
Isa 42:1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, [in whom] my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
Isa 42:2 He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.
Isa 42:3 A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.
Isa 42:4 He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law.
Isa 42:5 Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:
Isa 42:6 I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;
Isa 42:7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, [and] them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
Isa 42:8 I [am] the LORD: that [is] my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.
Isa 42:9 Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.
Isa 49:1 Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.
Isa 49:2 And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me;
Isa 49:3 And said unto me, Thou [art] my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
Isa 49:4 Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: [yet] surely my judgment [is] with the LORD, and my work with my God.
Isa 49:5 And now, saith the LORD that formed me from the womb [to be] his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the LORD, and my God shall be my strength.
Isa 49:6 And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.
Isa 49:7 Thus saith the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, [and] his Holy One, to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the LORD that is faithful, [and] the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose thee.
Isa 49:8 Thus saith the LORD, In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages;
Isa 49:9 That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that [are] in darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures [shall be] in all high places.
Isa 50:4 The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to [him that is] weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.
Isa 50:5 The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.
Isa 50:6 I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
Isa 50:7 For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.
Isa 50:8 [He is] near that justifieth me; who will contend with me? let us stand together: who [is] mine adversary? let him come near to me.
Isa 50:9 Behold, the Lord GOD will help me; who [is] he [that] shall condemn me? lo, they all shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up.
In verse 3 of Isaiah 49 Israel is addressed, and as I pointed out above some think all these messianic passages refer to Israel as the Suffering Servant. That looks like quite a stretch to me of course. Some Christian theologies say that Jesus stands for Israel so that the verse is addressed to Him anyway. The rest of the passage certainly applies to Him.
You also said that there is nothing about a dying Messiah in scripture, but there is, in Daniel 9:24-26, which Patai also references, and this passage speaks explicitly of the Messiah:
Dan 9:24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
Dan 9:25 Know therefore and understand, [that] from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince [shall be] seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
Dan 9:26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof [shall be] with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
This is also the famous passage by which we can calculate the exact timing of Jesus' riding the donkey into Jerusalem from a particular decree to rebuild Jerusalem after the Babylonian Captivity.
{By the way, you mention in your OP Jesus riding a donkey as if that means nothing, but that's the only time he rode a donkey that we know of and his riding that animal into Jerusalem was symbolic of a King announcing that He comes in peace, in the context of Middle Eastern customs.)
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