Laato - Message and Composition of the Book of Isaiah: An Interpretation in the Light of Jewish Reception History

The aim of this study is to deal with the theological message of the Book of Isaiah and promote a thesis that an early Jewish reception history helps us to find perspectives to understand it. Understanding the message of Isaiah is also related to the complicated redaction history of the Book during which its composition was formed. While the composition is difficult to reconstruct in all details, the message of Isaiah as understood in early Jewish reception history often becomes apparent in relation to certain aspects of the compositional structure of the Book of Isaiah. Therefore, this study is not only an attempt to understand the message of Isaiah but also to contribute to its composition. Before developing my thesis, I shall present some of the in my view most important modern theories to understand the composition of the Book of Isaiah. As many good surveys have already been done on older studies on the Book of Isaiah I limit myself to those modern approaches which not only consider older research but which I have also found most helpful in describing the stand of modern research on the composition of the Book of Isaiah. Literature on the Book of Isaiah is so enormous nowadays that I am sure that I have missed many good studies. This being the case, what follows is not an extensive survey of research.

Isaiah 139 and the Final Form of the Book of Isaiah

Peter Hffkens survey in focus. The earlier idea that the Book of Isaiah could be divided into three parts, namely Isaiah 139, 4055 and 5666 each containing collections from three different prophets, has practically lost its meaning. Today scholars argue that Isaiah 139 contain texts which should be related intimately to Isaiah 4066, and Isaiah 4055 and 5666 are closely linked with each other too.

An illustrative example is the scholarly discussion which concerns the very beginning of the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah 1. Already in the 1950s L. J. Liebreich argued that Isaiah 6566 contains linguistic references to Isaiah 1. What concerns Isaiah 1 has become a natural starting-point to all texts in Isaiah 139. Scholarly research today begins with the presupposition that every chapter in Isaiah 139 is potentially related to the latter part of the Book, and therefore Isaiah 139 can no longer be separated from the so-called Deutero-Isaiah (Isaiah 4055) and Trito-Isaiah (Isaiah 5666) corpuses.

Some recent studies illustrate this well. Rainer Albertz, in his article, I shall return to his work in this Introduction.

Ulrich Berges study Jesaja: Der Prophet und das Buch (2010) takes as its starting-point that the Book of Isaiah is one literary unit which has a dense network of literal allusions between the different parts.

Jacob Strombergs study Isaiah After Exile (2011) takes, methodologically-speaking, quite a similar approach to Williamsons, but his focus is on Trito-Isaiah rather than Deutero-Isaiah. Stromberg begins his study with the statement that if the earlier scholarship represented by Duhm sought to establish the composite nature of the book, more recent studies have begun to recognize the many connections between each section within it. Stromberg refers to several scholars who have argued that Isaiah 5666 presupposes and alludes to earlier material in Isaiah 155. He himself speaks about the author of the Third Isaiah who is the reader of the earlier Isaiah material and finally also the redactor of the whole Book of Isaiah.

A good example of the modern way of analyzing a theological theme in the Book of Isaiah is the study of Bernd Obermayer, Gttliche Gewalt im Buch Jesaja (2014). He deals with the texts of the Book of Isaiah where divine violence has been handled, and goes through different parts of the book, Isaiah 112, 1327, 34, 3637, 4055 and 5666, detecting connections between them as well as certain literary developments. Thus, the topic of the divine violence is seen from the perspective of diachron reflektierten Synchronie.

Another illustrative study on a theological theme in the Book of Isaiah is Michael Maiers Vlkerfahrt im Jesajabuch (2016). His topic deals with the pilgrimage of the peoples to Zion; he discusses all relevant texts in the Book of Isaiah, seeks their internal links and finds similar theological concepts in the texts which are located in all three parts, Isaiah 139, 4055 and 5666. Nevertheless, Maier also finds that it is not possible to read all relevant texts concerning the pilgrim

The task of this study implies that I am interested in analyzing the message of Isaiah in the present form of the Book of Isaiah which means that the final compositional structure and historical reasons behind its development cannot be ignored. Indeed, many parts of the Book of Isaiah contain traces of earlier compositional levels, and in this study, I will argue that they have influenced the way the message of the Book of Isaiah should be understood.

The question of the existence of the so-called prophet Deutero-Isaiah responsible for Isaiah 4055 has been an important topic in the research on the Book of Isaiah. The hypothesis of Deutero-Isaiah has been the focus of critical examination since scholars detected how the texts in Isaiah 139 are linked with those in Isaiah 4055. Two main solutions dominate in recent scholarly discussion.

First, the internal links between Isaiah 139 and Isaiah 4055 have been related to the literary development of the Book of Isaiah. A person (or alternatively a group) who stood behind Isaiah 4055 was responsible for the formation and early redaction of Isaianic traditions in the early postexilic period. Hugh G. M. Williamson has presented one of the most attractive proposals concerning this theory. In his important study, Book Called Isaiah (1994), Williamson discusses several texts in Isaiah 139 which are linked with the texts in Isaiah 4055 and comes to the conclusion that earlier Isaianic material collected in Isa 112 and Isa 2831 were actualized during the time of the exile. According to Williamson, it is possible to see traces of the so-called Deutero-Isaianic redaction in the present form of the Book of Isaiah. This is not to say that this redaction would have been final, but rather that it was an important stage in the development of the Isaiah material.

The recent critical emphases on avoiding using the concept Deutero-Isaiah should be balanced with the basic remark which Abraham ibn Ezra already noted in his commentary, namely that Isaiah 4066 seems to presuppose a different historical period than Isaiah 139. history between Isaiah 39 and Isaiah 40. Isaiah is still mentioned by name in Isaiah 39 but never again in Isaiah 4066. From Isaiah 40 onwards many historical references made are to the people in exile by the rivers of Babylon and to Cyrus who will destroy Babylon. This illustrates that the composition of the Book of Isaiah aims at presenting a historical overview from the time of Isaiah to the Babylonian exile and the return from there.