Be in prayer today as Jason preaches the Lord’s message to His people here at Living Hope. Below is some extraneous material for those who hear the message today:
One of the first attacks on Scripture by higher Biblical criticism was aimed at the book of Isaiah. Source critics have divided Isaiah into three parts and set for their theory explaining: Proto-Isaiah (chapters 1-39), containing the words of the 8th century BC (before Christ) prophet and 7th century BC expansions; Deutero-Isaiah (chapters 40-55), a 6th century BC work by an author who wrote under the Babylonian captivity; and Trito-Isaiah (chapters 56-66), composed probably by multiple authors in Jerusalem shortly after the exile.
While these theories are interesting and make for creative writing, the integrity and truthfulness of the book itself directs the reader back to a straightforward reading of the book. The book of Isaiah was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by “Isaiah the son of Amoz” (Isaiah 1:1) and his vision provides insights that those unfamiliar with or incapable of believing in the supernatural intervention of God find hard to accept. The introduction of Isaiah in the ESV Study Bible provides a general explanation of the issue and a simple explanation and answer to the questions surrounding Isaiah’s authorship.
Some scholars theorize that more than one author was responsible for this book. These scholars spread the authorship of the book through multiple hands writing over the course of around 200 years. This theory proposes that, though chapters 1–39 are largely the work of Isaiah, chapters 40–66 are the work of an anonymous prophet living during the Babylonian exile, over a century after Isaiah. Many propose further that chapters 56–66 were composed by yet another, still later, anonymous prophet. This would yield First Isaiah (chs. 1–39), from the late eighth century B.C.; Second Isaiah (chs. 40–55), from the middle of the sixth century; and Third Isaiah (chs. 56–66), from sometime in the fifth century. There are three primary reasons offered for not attributing chapters 40–66 to Isaiah the son of Amoz: (1) Chapters 40–66 assume the exilic period as their background. (2) Chapters 40–66 have differences in style from chapters 1–39. (3) The detailed predictions in the latter section of the book would have been meaningful to the exilic and postexilic community of Judah, but (according to this view) would not have been relevant to the people of Isaiah’s own time.
These reasons for dividing the book suffer from severe shortcomings, and it is better to take the heading (1:1) as indicating that the entire book comes from Isaiah, the son of Amoz.
1. There is unified testimony from the ancient world for single authorship. (1) The NT refers to passages throughout the book as the work of Isaiah (see Matt. 3:3; 4:14–16; 8:17; 12:17–21; 13:14–15; 15:7–9; Mark 7:6–7; Luke 3:4–6; 4:17–19; John 1:23; 12:37–41; Acts 8:27–35; 28:25–27; Rom. 9:27–29; 10:16, 20–21; 15:12). The NT acknowledges no other author or authors. The testimony of John in John 12:41 is especially instructive: “Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him.” “These things,” which is plural, refers to the two previous quotations in John 12:38 (using Isa. 53:1, from the so-called “Second Isaiah”) and John 12:40 (using Isa. 6:10, from so-called “First Isaiah”), but John refers to the one person, Isaiah, who both “saw his glory” and “spoke of him.” (2) The intertestamental book of Sirach (48:24–25) and the first-century Jewish historian Josephus (Jewish Antiquities 11.5–6) attest Isaiah’s authorship of the whole book. (3) A Hebrew manuscript of Isaiah in the Dead Sea Scrolls bears witness to the seamless unity of the book as the work of Isaiah. (4) It is hard to imagine how prophets could have issued such oracles as those of Isaiah 40–66, which were of such importance in the history of Judah, and yet fade into obscurity. (5) Later OT authors seem to cite prophecies from chapters 40–66, which they could not have done if the book were broken up as described (e.g., see note on 60:7, used in Ezra 7:27).
2. There are many distinctive features of Isaiah’s style that run through all three parts. For example, Isaiah’s characteristic title for the Lord is “the Holy One of Israel,” which appears 25 times in the whole book (12 times in Isaiah 1–39; 11 times in chs. 40–55; and twice in chs. 56–66). It appears only six times outside of Isaiah: twice in Jeremiah, three times in the Psalms, and in 2 Kings 19:22 (cf. Isa. 37:33). The phrase “high and lifted up” is a feature of Isaiah, appearing in 2:12–14; 6:1; 52:13; 57:15 (i.e., in each of the three sections; see note on 6:1). The notes will show other aspects of coherent thought and expression in Isaiah. Any differences of style can be explained by the different topics of the chapters and by different stages in Isaiah’s life (e.g., Isaiah may have written chapters 40–66 after the Assyrian invasion of 701 B.C.).
3. The predictive material in chapters 40–66 is highly relevant both to the exilic audience and to Isaiah’s own day. Certainly it demonstrates the Lord’s rule over history; these chapters appeal to it for that purpose (e.g., 41:21–29), and Josephus (Jewish Antiquities 11.5–7) records a story of the impression the specific prediction of Cyrus (Isa. 44:28) made on the Persian monarch when he learned of it (a prediction made about 150 years in advance). The biblical worldview, which begins with the majestic Creator, can readily accept this. Further, chapters 40–66 often mention pagan religion, but specifically Babylonian material is rare (46:1); most address Canaanite idolatry, which Judah mixed in with their worship of Yahweh (e.g., 57:5; 66:3, 17; cf. 40:19; 41:7, 29; 42:17; 45:16–20; 46:6; 48:5; and the extended satire on idolatry, 44:9–20)—and this was no longer a problem in Judah after the fall of Jerusalem.
However, the primary significance of this predictive material resides in a wider context. The whole book portrays God’s plan for Judah as a story that is headed somewhere, namely, toward the coming of the final heir of David who will bring light to the Gentiles. Israel was created for this very purpose, and it will require that God’s people be purified of those members whose lives destroy that mission (see note on 1:24–28). This prospect of a glorious future enlists all believing readers to dedicate themselves to living faithfully and to embrace the dignity of playing a part in its development (cf. 2:5).
At the heart of Isaiah’s message is God’s purpose of grace for sinners. If that ultimate miracle is accepted—and one cannot be a Christian without accepting it—then a lesser miracle is no barrier. Indeed, the prophet making predictions of future events is not a problem; it is, as Isaiah intended it to be, encouraging evidence of God’s sovereign salvation intercepting a sinful world.
Crossway Bibles, The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008), 1233-34.
