Image via WikipediaIn a recent post, I critiqued a post from John Loftus in which a book by Jonathon Pearce is promoted. The book is called Free Will?: An investigation into whether we have free will, or whether I was always going to write this book. There was a quote from the book suggesting that God only care about Israel and never intervened in the lives of anyone other people in the Old Testament. I gave several examples of how the Bible does not support this.
Ryan Anderson seems to be very interested in commenting and trying to "debunk" the things I write. I thank God for that because at least he reads what I write. Amazingly, his problem with the post isn't with my point...it's with one of the texts I referenced Isaiah 45:13. What I wrote was:
It's a bold statement to say that God did not intervene in any of the rest of the world outside of Israel during antiquity. How would you know that? God plainly says He is in control of everything - not just with what concerns Israel. A simple example: God claims that Cyrus is his agent centuries before Cyrus is even born.
"I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness: I will make all his ways straight. He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, but not for a price or reward, says the LORD Almighty.” - Isaiah 45:13
Cyrus was the emperor of the Persian Empire who ended the 70 year exile of the Jews after the destruction of Jerusalem and the first Temple in 586 BC. Isaiah was written in the 8th Century BC.
Ryan Anderson Wrote:
Two points on Isaiah, 1) since the earliest manuscript of Isaiah is from the 1st century BCE, that "prophecy" is less than amazing... and 2) we have three different Isaiah authors, one for 1-39, another for 40-55 and another for 56-66. You can't use the date for chapters 1-39 for the other sections and claim "prophecy".
The ensuing exchange culminated in his asking me to explain why do I reject multiple authorship theories for the book of Isaiah. I am going to reference a few outside references. I do not see any reason to believe that the prophet and priest known as Isaiah did not write all 66 Chapters of Isaiah.
What are the reasons why people advance the ideas of multiple authors of Isaiah?
The critical schools deny that Isaiah wrote the latter chapters of 40-66 for basically three reasons. First the name of Isaiah is not mentioned in these chapters, second the material does not seem to fit the time period of Isaiah and third the style of Hebrew is different from the rest of Isaiah.aFrom another source.
Advocates of this theory attempt to demonstrate that the style, theology and background of Isaiah 1–39 are unlike those of either 40–55 or 56–66.Second Isaiah—but not First—they argue, depicts God in purely monotheistic terms. Also, First Isaiah is seen as a prophet of judgment, who placed his hopes on the Davidic king, and Second Isaiah a prophet of comfort who pinned his expectations on the Lord’s suffering servant.
More substantial are the arguments focusing on the backgrounds of the respective chapters.The Old Testament prophets in general are widely understood to have written from their own unique historical situations.Even if one acknowledges that Isaiah could have predicted the Babylonian captivity, it is argued, it is unlikely that he wrote chapters 40–55,since those texts were written from within the context of captivity. Also, the Persian king Cyrus (c.539 B.C.) is mentioned by name in 44:28 and 45:1, 13, suggesting that Cyrus was a contemporary of the author of chapters 40–55.The background of Third Isaiah is posited to be different again. By this point Jerusalem had been rebuilt, its citizens no longer under threat from either Assyria or Babylon.b
Who were the First to Advance these Ideas?
I. Period Before Modern Critical Scholarship
- The first person to question Isaiah's authorship of chapters 40-66 was Moses ibn Gekatilla (2nd century A.D.)
- His views were preserved and adopted by a prominent medieval Jewish scholar, Ibn Ezra.
II. Period of Modern Scholarship
- The German Johann Doederlein (lived in the 1700s)
- In 1789 he argued that chapters 40-66 were written during the exile
- He made this assertion because he couldn't believe that an eighth century writer could have predicted the fall of Jerusalem (587 B.C.), much less the rise of Cyrus the Great, who restored the exiles in 538 B.C.
- Ernst Rosenmueller from Leipzig (1768-1835)
- He expressed doubts about chapters 13 and 14.
- His reasoning was, "If Isaiah could not have written chapters 40-66 because it predicts things he never saw, how could he have written a similar set of predictions in these chapters?"
- Rosenmueller began the process of denying Isaiah's authorship of much of chapters 1-39.
- Bernard Duhm and K. Marti - Rise of Trito-Isaiah Theory
- Around the turn of the last century--from 1892 to 1900) Bernard Duhm and K. Marti claimed that they had found evidence--from the text of Isaiah itself--that chapters 56-66 were written by Trito-Isaiah (and should be separated from chapters 40-55).
- They argued that Trito-Isaiah wrote his material in Jerusalem around the time of Ezra (450 B.C.)
- Duhm argued that Jewish writers inserted their own writings throughout the book of Isaiah (as late as the first century B.C.).
- In this view the book of Isaiah--far from being the work of one man, was a patchwork quilt of helter-skelter insertions and editings by anonymous Jews.
My Take
As I stated in my arguments in my comments in the other thread there is no reason at all to add more than one author. A change in subject from chapters 1-39, 40-55, and 56-66 do not at all mean that someone else is writing. From the first century, Jews understood that the Messiah was coming through David. There is no change in subject matter...it is all about God. Isaiah contains not just the promise of the Messiah but also the punishment and exile of Judah, and it's restoration!!! The return from Babylon and the future restoration of the world to true peace.
He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. - Isaiah 2:4
Added to the fact that people supposed multiple authors because they could not understand how a man could give such details to things that he did not see or experience. I don't understand the confusion. It's simple: That is what one would expect from a true prophet of the true and living God.
For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.- 2 Peter 1:21
I also came across this detailed well-crafted essay:
Authorship Analysis of the Book of Isaiah
Further references:
a. Isaiah
b. Multiple Authorship Theories of Isaiah
c.Multiple Authorship Theories of Isaiah
d. Authorship Analysis of the Book of Isaiah
