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Outline Studies Session 26 (Appendix 1) A synopsis of Isaiah Why a synopsis? Isaiah was the great prophetic champion of the kingdom of God, especially in its millennial expression. His words form an enormous book filled with dissimilar types of literature (narra- tive, epistolary, poetic, prophetic, apocalyptic) that at times seem to lead nowhere. Unlike Genesis or Acts, Isaiah does not simply tell a story (with the exception of chapters 36-39). Unlike Romans, it does not defend a particular theology. John Oswalt (upon whose work much of this paper is based) makes a key point about the way Isaiah wrote: Isaiah was not a straight-talking prophet; he was a poetic prophet. Look at the way the type is laid out on the pages of your Bible. It looks like poetry. Only rarely in the pages of Isaiah do you see the blocks of type we associate with the narrative portions of the Bible or with other books we read. In order to understand this kind of writing we need to think about why someone chooses to write in poetic form. The most important reason is that poetry is best at communicating the sort of wisdom that our culture makes it difficult to hear.19 Isaiah seems to the uninitiated more of a collection of random sections than a unity with a point to make. The difficulty in finding a central idea that unites all 66 chapters has caused many to abandon the effort. Isaiah does have a unifying theme, however, and a very profound one, a theme that places it at the center of God’s purpose in the world. Is it a unity at all? The book’s unity has been roundly attacked for 300 years and with some degree of success, at least in critical circles. Most writers on Isaiah take it for granted that either two or three differ- ent people wrote the book, and the majority of seminaries have adopted such views in their exegesis courses. Sometimes these authors are given “names”: “Isaiah I” (chapters 1-39), “Deutero-” or “Second Isaiah” (chapters 40-55 or 40-66), and sometimes even “Trito- 225 Isaiah” (chapters 56-66). Most conservative students, by contrast, regard it as a unity, coming from Isaiah the prophet, a man who lived from about 735 to about 680 BC. Is there a case for a unified Isaiah? A very strong case indeed; in fact, in my own view, a definitive set of arguments. The most obvious of these is that whenever anything like a complete manuscript of Isaiah has been found, it has always included both “parts” of the writing. The materials from the Dead Sea, discovered in 1947 at Qumran, contain Isaiah as we know it in its entirety. The Greek transla- tion of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, also reflects this unity and includes all 66 chapters. Why did it take so long for the unity of isaiah to be questioned? The hidden agenda in critical scholarship has always been the assumption that we are alone in the universe. God surely does nothing that is visible and compelling, and certainly the fu- ture cannot be predicted. Since (1) Isaiah 40-66 is all about God comforting Judah in their misery in Babylon, and in finally causing the nation to return from captivity about 538 BC, and since (2) it is impossible for a prophet living in 700 BC to predict such a thing, therefore the author of Isaiah 40-66 must have lived after the return from the exile—probably about 400 BC, and probably was a student of Isaiah’s original work, chapters 1-39, though he would have dubbed these chapters “the book of Isaiah.” Such is the critical view. The same antisupernaturalistic worldview that colors so much that passes for scholarship in the universities infects it in the seminaries as well. Of course, in the actual composition of Isaiah 40-66, the deutero-Isaianic imposter wrote prophecy after the fact and passed it off as prediction. He was thus fundamentally a liar and deceiver who only in modern times is hailed as a religious genius. And in spite of the fact that Isaiah 40-66 contains many brilliant prophet- ic sections, this author’s name is utterly unknown today. The “pupil” may have risen well above the “master,” but not so much so that anybody remembers who he was. If he was so great, why didn’t he publish his own book under his own name? He would no doubt have become famous in his own right. One possible explanation: perhaps what he lacked in in- tegrity he made up for in humility. Oswalt comments: The most striking argument for the unity of the composition of Isaiah is the present form of the book. If in fact the present composition is the work of at least three major authors and a large number of editors or redactors, it becomes very hard to explain how the book came to exist in its present form at all. The degree of unity which is to be found in the book (e.g., the use of “the Holy One of Israel” 13 times in chs. 1–39 and 16 times in chs. 40–66 and only 7 times elsewhere in the Bible) becomes a problem. Thus it becomes necessary to posit a “school” of students of “I Isaiah” who steeped themselves in the style and thought of the “master.” It would be out of such a group that “II Isaiah” sprang during the Exile and from which, later still, came the writings which now constitute chs. 56–66. Aside from the fact that 226 there is no other evidence for the existence of this “school,”7 it is hard to imagine how it ever would have come into existence for Isaiah (and not the other prophets) in the first place.20 It should also be remembered that in the full-length Isaiah scroll from Qumran the text of Isaiah 40:1 begins on the same line that concludes chapter 39. The copyist certain felt no necessity of allowing for a difference of authorship of the section to come. For him, it was natural to suppose that he was merely copying the continuing work of the prophet Isaiah. What other lines of evidence support the unity of isaiah? A number of things, only a few of which will be mentioned here. 1. The New Testament writers freely use Isaiah and attribute the authorship of all three sec- tions to the prophet who lived during Hezekiah’s reign. In fact, the writers quote Isaiah more than any other prophet. The apostle John in writing his gospel (12:37-40) reflects that the rejection of Jesus constituted no surprise; the event itself was in accord with the ancient testi- mony of Isaiah: But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: “LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT? AND TO WHOM HAS THE ARM OF THE LORD BEEN REVEALED?” [Isa. 53:1] Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: “HE HAS BLINDED THEIR EYES AND HARDENED THEIR HEARTS, LEST THEY SHOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, LEST THEY SHOULD UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEARTS AND TURN, SO THAT I SHOULD HEAL THEM.” [ISA. 6:9-10] John quotes here both from chapters 1-39 and from chapters 40-66 and attributes both writ- ings to the same person. Other New Testament attributions are listed in the table below. Isaiah reference New Testament Quote Intro 1:9 Romans 9:29 “as Isaiah said before” 6:9-13 Matthew 13:14-15 “the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled.” 6:9-13 John 12:39-41 “Isaiah said again” and “Isaiah said these things.” Acts 28:25-27 “the Holy Spirit rightly said to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet” 9:1-2 Matthew 4:14-16 “spoken by the prophet Isaiah.” 10:22 Matthew 4:14-16 “spoken by the prophet Isaiah.” 11:10 Romans 15:12 “and again Isaiah says.” 29:13 Matthew 15:7-9 “well did Isaiah prophesy to you.” 40:3-5 Matthew 3:3 “spoken of by the prophet Isaiah.” Luke 3:4-6 “written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet” John 1:23 “as the prophet Isaiah said.” 42:1-4 Matthew 12:17-21 “spoken by the prophet Isaiah.” 53:1 John 12:38 “the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah.” Romans 10:16 “For Isaiah says” 227 53:4 Matthew 8:17 “spoken by the prophet Isaiah.” 53:7-8 Acts 8:28-33 “he was reading the prophet Isaiah.” 61:1-2 Luke 4:18-19 “[in] the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.” 65:1-2 Romans 10:20-21 “Isaiah is very bold and says” 2. The primary argument in favor of a late author of 40-66 is a philosophical assumption rather than a datum drawn from the text. Isaiah is preeminent in arguing that God’s power is proven, in fact, from his predictions of the future—this in contrast to idols, who can do noth- ing, and God notes in Isaiah 41:21-24: “Set forth your case, says the Lord; bring your proofs, says the King of Jacob. Let them [the idols] bring [their proofs], and let them tell us what is to happen. Tell us the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome; or declare to us the things to come.
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