Relocating Isaiah 1:2-9

This paper argues that the sixth chapter of Isaiah consists of an account of the inauguration of the prophet and that the placement of this account at this point in the text is significant for at least two reasons.

2006

Oxford University Press, 2021

A Teacher for All Generations: Essays in Honor of James C. VanderKam, 2011

In an insightful and influential essay originally published in 1978, Peter Ackroyd asked, "Why is there so substantial a book associated with the prophet Isaiah?" 2 Ackroyd was, of course, not the first person to ask this question, and he was not the last. Indeed, the composition and formation of the book of Isaiah continues to attract research and hypotheses because of the issue's complexity and significance. The modern critical discussion about the formation of the book of Isaiah may be said to have begun in the late 18th century when J. C. Döderlein and J. G.

T. Wasserman, G. Andersson and D. Willgren (eds), Studies in Isaiah: History, Theology and Reception (LHBOTS 654; London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark), 3–21, 2017

Horizons in Biblical Theology, 2013

Within the most influential book in the course of history is “the vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz.” This is the book of Isaiah — the epitome of prophetic eloquence. Isaiah uses alliteration and parallelism to prophesy of God, the Holy One of Israel, who will save His people. Isaiah is a compelling work challenging critics to reconsider predictive prophecies. This introduction to the book of Isaiah searches for a compelling plea to challenge scholarship to reconsider its approach to Isaiah. The methodological approach of this introduction notes the link of ancient witnesses to Isaian authorship. This approach also examines the structure of Isaiah’s text compared to its theological messages. By affirming Isaiah’s textual background, scholarship can cross-examine the suppositions of historical criticism. The conclusion will result with either a growth of complex ideas or a simplified understanding of facts.

in James Charlesworth (ed.), The Continuity of the Prophetic Genius of Isaiah (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2018), 35–72., 2018

Introduction In this article I will raise some thoughts about the continuity of writing in First Isaiah (Isa 1–39). Isaiah started to Prophesy during the last year of Uzziah. His last datable activity was recorded during Sennacherib's campaign against Judah in 701 BCE. However, it is clear that not all the material which is found in First Isaiah is to be dated to his time. It is possible to find additions of a later date in the text. No scholarly consensus exists today regarding the appropriate methods by which the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible, including the book of Isaiah, are to be analyzed. The diachronic classical methodology employed by the late nineteenth and early twentieth century critics sought to distinguish, by means of literary-historical considerations, between a given prophet's actual words and later additions to and revisions of that prophet's message added by scribes and exegetes, in order to reconstruct the different compositional stages of prophetic books. The study of the book of Isaiah has advanced immeasurably in the last decade within the 'traditional' literary-historical method. However, dating biblical texts based only on classical biblical research, such as intertextuality, the development of religious ideas or grammar, as is mostly done, is problematic. In contrast, one of the main tendencies in contemporary Biblical studies is to read prophetic books as uniform and homogeneous literary works which are all late, at least as late as the time of their final production. Biblical scholarship has shifted in the last decades towards an aestethic-literary synchronic analysis. Thus, there has been an increasing tendency in recent scholarship to question whether it is even possible to perform such a reconstruction of the compositional stages of Proto-Isaiah. According to contemporary trend in Biblical studies, the original core of the book of Isaiah remains concealed behind the long process of reshaping and reformulation within the book. Scholars are reluctant to attempt reconstructing its compositional stages. Naturally, this tendency disregards the stages in the formation of the prophetic literature and their original ‘Sitz im Leben’. Others, combine the synchronic approach with a diachronic approach. As a consequence, there exists a growing trend in scholarship that views the prophetic books, including Isaiah, as a creation of the Persian and the Hellenistic periods. Such a viewpoint disregards the ancient origins of the prophetic literature, or views it as mere literature, without inquiring into the historical circumstances behind their composition. It is commonly accepted that much of the material in Proto-Isaiah is not original to the prophet. The oracles in the Book of Isaiah are commonly dated to a variety of periods: Conservative scholars date most of the work to the eighth century, the period of Isaiah himself; others to a Josianic/"Assyrian redaction - end 7th century; to the Exilic or postexilic Persian period, whether composed by Deutero or Trito Isaiah (6/5th and 5/4th c. BCE); to the Hellenistic (4th-3rd centuries) or even late Hellenistic/ Maccabean period (ca. 150 BCE). This clearly affects the question of composition and understanding of the book. Furthermore, setting certain oracles in the wrong historical context hampers the understanding of the original intent of the prophecies. In the following, I will survey various prophecies in the Book of First Isaiah and will date them chronologically according to historical events which they reflect. It seems that during the ministry of Isaiah, as well as during the decades after his death, there was a continuous and constant "Fortschreibung" i.e, updating, editing and composing of prophecies relevant to international relations, the fate of the exiles and God's intervention in these issues. On the other hand, the lack of major editing and additions dating to the Post Exilic Period (neither Persian nor Hellenistic) would point to the finalizing of the bulk of the Book of First Isaiah just a couple of decades before the earliest datable prophesies in Deutero-Isaiah mentioning Cyrus, King of Persia. This has ramifications on the editing process of the Book of Isaiah, a subject, which is highly debated in the past decades.

These notes represent the handouts given to students taking the West of England Ministerial Training Course module: TM218.5 FIRST TESTAMENT TEXTS: ISAIAH between 2005 and 2007.