Farewell to Deutero Isaiah Or Prophecy

FAREWELL TO DEUTEROISAIAH OR PROPHECY WITHOUT A PROPHET

Ulrich Berges

Introduction

The present article is divided into five parts. First, the main stages of the development of the Deutero-Isaiah-hypothesis in Is 40–55 will be presented. In the second part the most important critical voices against the theory will be heard. In the third part the results of redac- tion-critical research will be summarized and evaluated. The fourth part will offer an alternative explanation, and this new reading will be put to the test in the fifth part by an analysis of some crucial passages in Is 40–48.1

I. The Main Stages of the Deutero-Isaiah-Hypothesis2

The biblical testimony seems to be unequivocal because the superscript in Is 1:1 presents all sixty-six chapters of this book as the “vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah“. There is no other prophet who bears this name either in the biblical tradition or in rabbinic literature. According to the Martyrium Jesaiae from the last third of the 1st century ce Isaiah died as a martyr, sawn in two, under the Judean king Manasseh (cf. Hebr 11:17; jSanh 10,2; bSanh 103b). The testimony of the Great Scroll of Isaiah strengthens the authorship of Isaiah for the whole text because Is 40:1 is written immediately after 39:8, admittedly as a new paragraph, but in the last line of column XXXII (see the difference with Is 34:1 where a three-line space is

1 This restriction has only a practical reason, in that the first volume of my forth- coming commentary in the Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament (HThKAT) is limited to Is 40–48. 2 U. Berges, Profetie zonder profeet. Het afscheid van Deuterojesaja (Nijmegen, 2007). 576 ulrich berges left at the bottom of column XXVII, i.e. after Is 33:24).3 The theological reason lies in the conviction that the word of YHWH is valid through all generations. That was also the belief in Ben Sira’s statement about Isaiah at whose command the sun turned backwards in the days of Hezekiah and who saw the future events and comforted the mourners of Zion (Sir 48:22–25). The idea that Isaiah was the author of the whole book remained unchallenged until the end of the 18th century, with the exception of Abraham Ibn Ezra. In his Commentary on Isaiah, written in 1145 in Lucca, he compares the last part of the book about the future con- solation with the book of Samuel which, according to the orthodox opinion, was written by Samuel himself. For Ibn Ezra that could only be true as far as the words in 1 Sam 25:1: “now Samuel died . . .”. The conclusion lies at hand: only those parts of the book of Isaiah can be retraced to the prophet himself where he figures among the living, i.e. until ch. 39. Ibn Ezra did not openly present his conclusion about the non-authorship of Isaiah for Is 40ff because he feared the orthodox reaction.4 With the breakthrough of critical biblical research, the gap in the narrated time (“Erzählzeit”) of more than 150 years between Is 39:8 and 40:1 could not be bridged over any more by a reference to the visionary force of Isaiah ben Amoz. The most serious argument against his authorship was the fact that the name of Cyrus II (559–530 bce) is explicitly mentioned twice (Is 44:28; 45:1). It was especially at this point that orthodox-ecclesial and rationalistic-liberal opinions confronted each other. The discussion still exists nowadays as the fol- lowing quotation shows: “Isaiah of Jerusalem did indeed predict the Babylonian exile, and in so doing showed how the towering theology that he applied to events in his own lifetime would become even more towering in relation to those new situations that he could see in out- line, but not in detail”.5 But such a position cannot be maintained any more without reservations: “These facts cannot mean anything else but

3 Cf. D.W. Parry and E. Qimron, The Great Isaiah Scroll (1Q Isaa). A New Edition (STDJ 32; Leiden, 1999). 4 H. Graf Reventlow, Epochen der Bibelauslegung Bd. II. Von der Spätantike bis zum ausgehenden Mittelalter (München, 1994), pp. 256f; U. Simon, “Ibn Ezra between Medievalism and Modernism. The Case of Isaiah XL–LXVI” in: J.A. Emerton (ed.), Congress Volume, Salamanca 1983 (VTSup 36; Leiden, 1985), pp. 257–271. 5 J.N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah. Chapters 40–66 (NICOT; Grand Rapids, 1998), p. 6.