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A common theme in Isaiah's prophecy is asking the people of Israel: Can you trust the God that you serve? How does this question impact the question of authorship?
Show Notes
A common theme in Isaiah's prophecy is asking the people of Israel: Can you trust the God that you serve? How does this question impact the question of authorship? Hear about the timeline of Isaiah's life and prophecy and the arguments against and for Isaiah's penmanship.
Creators and Guests
What is The Study Podcast?
The Study Podcast is an in-depth look at the Bible with Dr. Paul Wegner and Dr. Alex Stewart.
Tyler Sanders 0:01
Welcome to Study Isaiah, the podcast where we examine the language, historical context, and meaning of the book of Isaiah with Dr. Paul Wegner. I'm Tyler Sanders and across from me is Dr. Wegner, who is going to tell us the Hebrew word of the day.
Paul Wegner 0:15
I cheated today because instead of just one word, I gave you a whole verse, but it's actually kind of neat. It's Isaiah 42:8, "I am the Lord, that is my name and my glory to another I will not give." That's the part I wanted to show you, "my glory to another I will not give", that's emphatic because it's so out of order. You would expect, "I will not give my glory to another" or something like that. But it's totally out of order. It's "and my glory to another I will not give" so just emphatic, "and my praise the idols". So I just thought it was neat the way God said that and wanted to let you know, He's not sharing His glory with anybody. And especially not idols that He thinks are nothing.
Tyler Sanders 1:04
Okay, so what about this in the Hebrew indicates that...is it the word order? Is that what you mean? The emphasis, that's where the emphasis comes from?
Paul Wegner 1:11
Yeah. It's harder to know in a dependent phrase, which we have here. Usually, it starts off with the verb but this one clearly put the verb as far back from the 'glory' and 'to another I will not give', he put it as far back as he could. So it seems like to me it's really emphatically saying, 'I won't do that, ever.'
Tyler Sanders 1:33
That's fascinating.
Paul Wegner 1:34
Yeah. And in fact, 'lo' plus an 'imperfect' often means, it's a permanent prohibition, "I will never give my glory to another".
Tyler Sanders 1:43
That's great. Can you pronounce it to us in Hebrew? The phrase there?
Paul Wegner 1:48
Oh, yeah. Kah-voe-dee la-ah-ha-ray.
Tyler Sanders 1:52
So say it again, kah-voe-dee.
Paul Wegner 1:54
Yes, laah-ha-ray. Ha-ray.
Tyler Sanders 1:54
Kah-voe-dee la-ha-ray. That's great, two Hebrew words in a Hebrew phrase.
Paul Wegner 2:04
And I cheated, sorry about that.
Tyler Sanders 2:07
That's okay. Let's talk about authorship. Before we get too deep into the actual book, which we will, we will one day. But let's talk a little bit about authorship. That's a big discussion. That's a discussion that when I was especially a first year seminary student, I don't think I totally understood why it was so important. Maybe this is something other people will go through too, I think my first semester I was in a New Testament class, we're studying the Gospels, we did several weeks of lead up before we actually got into the text. And I remember thinking like, why? What are we doing? How's all this stuff so important? Then I learned how it all kind of fits together, you know, you have to work through those pieces. So, all that to say, what do you think is important about authorship and Isaiah? Why is this something we need to know about before we get into the text?
Paul Wegner 3:01
Sure. Seems like to me, it's probably crucial to know if God actually said something. Isaiah, the book, clearly suggests that Isaiah wrote it. The major problem is that there is a gap of 150 years between chapter 39 and 40. And so people have had to try to explain, how did that happen? In my mind, it's a theological issue. If God can't tell the future, then He's no different than the other gods, or so called gods. And in Isaiah, He actually says in chapter 41, if He can't tell the future, then He's a false God, nobody should trust Him. So if that's true, it's a theological issue. So the question is, did God actually prophesy and tell us that they were going to come back from Babylon? And if so, that's a long term prophecy for them. It's interesting, in the book of Isaiah, it actually has short term prophecies so that you'd know whether Isaiah was really a prophet or not. Then you've got these long term prophecies, one that's 150 years in the future. And then in the back, in the end of the book, it's even further, clear into the future. So if you can't trust Isaiah to be a man of God, giving this information for short term, you certainly couldn't trust him for the long term. So what happens is that God gives these little short term ones, so that you know you can trust him for the long term ones, too. So I think it's a theological issue. We'll get into it, but I think that's where it really hangs on. Is it, can God do this? I think the answer is yes.
Tyler Sanders 4:42
Yeah. Before we get into it, just for a quick reminder for all of our listeners, we'll be discussing dates a lot. A lot of times when we're discussing dates, we're discussing BC. So if numbers sound a little out of order, there's a reason for that.
Tyler Sanders 4:59
Okay, so to kick this off, I've got a question I got from your commentary, actually. One of the things you said is, there's recent scholarly interest in the literary unity in Isaiah, but they're not taking the idea of single authorship very seriously.
Paul Wegner 5:16
Yeah.
Tyler Sanders 5:17
Can you tell me where that's coming from?
Paul Wegner 5:19
Yeah, Hugh Williamson was the one that actually said, I quoted in my book. And he says in the last 30 or so years, that there's been a real interest on seeing how the book holds together and what the overall message is. It's kind of funny because that was kind of our goal all the way long and now scholars are just starting to see that. But what happened is probably about 50 years ago, they tore it into such little pieces, that you had no major themes running throughout the book, it was just little bitty pieces. Well, now it's starting to go back to say, there's got to be an overall theme or a message to the book as a whole. So that's more what they're examining than they have been in the past. And instead of breaking it down into little authentic parts and non-authentic parts and stuff like that, now they're trying to figure out, how does this book hold together? And so even liberal scholars are more doing that than they've ever in the past.
Tyler Sanders 6:18
That's fascinating.
Paul Wegner 6:19
Yeah. I think what I'm going to need to do though, is show you some really important dates for the book of Isaiah, then when we start talking about, how does this book hold together? It'll make some sense.
Tyler Sanders 6:30
Okay.
Paul Wegner 6:30
So what I tried to do is I tried to give you what I figured are the key things that you need to know. First of all, Isaiah's call is about 740 BC. In chapter six, it says, "In the year that King Uzziah died". So that gives us a starting time, and then it gives what looks like his call. So I'm assuming that's probably the first thing that happened in the book. Then the syro-ephraimite war is 733 to 732 BC. And that's actually crucial, because what happened there is the Northern Kingdom and Syria came against Judah. And Judah then calls on Assyria for help, and actually God warns them and says, If you do that, from now on, you're going to be under their power. Pretty much that's what happened. Sumaria is destroyed in 722 BC, so from about that time on, there's only a southern kingdom, there's no longer a northern kingdom. Okay? Sennacherib's attack in 701 BC is really crucial to understanding, mainly why God is protecting...I think that's probably one of the most important passages where God actually steps in and delivers the nation. I think it was so that people would know that God can do it, even though later He's not going to do it because they've gotten so wicked. At this point, He actually steps in and actually protects them. So now they know He can do it.
Paul Wegner 7:51
The last event that Isaiah probably would have known about was in chapter 37, where it talks about Esarhaddon becoming king, his father dies and he becomes king. And that's dated about 681 BC. So that's probably about the last thing he would have seen in his lifetime. Okay, but that means he's prophesying for like, 60 years. That's a long time. Then another crucial event is the Babylonian exile, even though there's one verse that tells about it. And then the last thing is them returning from Babylon, and that's pretty much chapters 40 to 66.
Tyler Sanders 8:32
Yeah, okay.
Paul Wegner 8:33
So those are the big picture things that I think are crucial for you to know. And to jump between chapter 39 and 40 is where the big issue happens. That's why people have such a problem with the book.
Tyler Sanders 8:45
Yeah, yeah. Because we're really covering about a 200, about 200 years, really, from Isaiah's call to the return.
Paul Wegner 8:51
Even more.
Tyler Sanders 8:51
Yeah, a little more.
Paul Wegner 8:53
Okay. What I want to do is, I want to start off with this quote. This was from Whybray, "All but the most conservative scholars now accept the hypothesis put forward by Doederlein in 1775, but already anticipated by Ibn Ezra in the 12th century". Now, first of all, that's not quite true. First of all, I don't consider myself the most conservative scholar, but I actually believe that Isaiah did write the book. And liberal scholars have argued that he did not, and it started back in the 1700s. I'll give you that, but I'm not convinced that Ibn Ezra, in the 12th century, believed that either, from what we can tell that's not true. Anyway, "These prophecies contained in chapters 40 through 66 of the book of Isaiah, are not the words of the eighth century prophet, Isaiah, but came from a later time". See, in my mind, you got to ask the question, how could that happen? How could a part of a book that was written by somebody else get associated or joined to the prophet Isaiah? And they claim that there's other examples of that like apocryphal books; Judith, 2nd Esdras and stuff like that. But the problem with those is, they knew those were not authoritative scripture. So putting them on the same category is scripture, I have a real problem with that. And some of the reasons they knew it wasn't biblical texts is because they had errors in them. Well, they haven't found those in the biblical texts. So that's part of it anyway.
Paul Wegner 10:27
Okay, let's keep going, "A further hypothesis of Bernard Duhm in 1892, that chapters 56 through 66 must be equally distinguished from chapters 40 through 55, has met with less unanimous agreement, but it's nevertheless very widely accepted". Actually, that's not true anymore. When he wrote it in 1975 it was true. Most people don't believe that anymore. Probably the most common view is one held by Hugh Williamson. And he argues that the book of Isaiah started, the core started in the eighth century prophet, but then it was added to by others and groups of people, maybe not groups of people, but other editors all the way through. So it's not that there were three Isaiah's anymore, most people don't agree with that anymore. Anyway, "all but the most conservative" that, that really hurt me.
Tyler Sanders 11:23
Little bit of a dig.
Paul Wegner 11:24
I believe what Scripture says, so now I'm one of the most conservative. Oh, well. What can I say? But that was in 1975. Hugh Williamson summarizes the direction of this study. And this one is more up to date, this was in 2009. "The most noteworthy development in the study of the book, Isaiah, over the past two decades or so has been the rediscovery of the book's unity." That's what you were mentioning in the beginning.
Tyler Sanders 11:51
Yeah.
Paul Wegner 11:51
"This does not in the least mean, however, that scholars have reverted to the view that the book was written by a single individual. While that position is still defended from time to time, it is more normal for a view of overall literary unity to be held in conjunction with sometimes quite radical analysis of the history of the book's growth over two or three centuries, with many hands contributing to it." That's what the most standard view is today, that the book has grown over time and [Williamson] says even up to two or three centuries later. Which makes sense, because if [Isaiah] is in the 700s, you want to get it after the exile so that you can prophesy these things. You know, instead of prophesying, saying, look here's what's happened. So that's what's going on. And that's probably the most common view and Hugh Williamson is one of the preeminent scholars on that.
Tyler Sanders 12:45
And is this mostly just like a response to the idea of like miraculous prophecy is miraculous?
Paul Wegner 12:51
It's some of that, although Hugh Williamson doesn't believe that. Here, let me show you some of the arguments so that you can see how it developed. First, "Chapters 40 through 48 deal with the Israelites return from Babylon after 539 BC..." Nobody doubts it. That's pretty much what it is. "...and would have little relevance to a people living in Israel in the eighth century BC". That's where I question it. My understanding is, if these people here in chapter 39, they're going to go into Babylonian captivity and then they hear nothing else, the question then is; does our God still love us? Does he care for us? Are we going to be wiped out forever? In actual fact, God's answer is no, I will bring you back and I will take care of you and I will save a remnant of you. So in my mind that still has relevance to an eighth century people who hear that God is going to bring them back from that captivity. And I think that's crucial. So I disagree with that part.
Paul Wegner 12:51
Okay. S.R. Driver dates the book between 549 and 538 BC because the conquest of Babylon is still in the future and the union of the Meads and the Persians appears to already have taken place. So they're trying to...because it talks about God bringing a deliverer from Midia, from the north and stuff like that, they know Cyrus is coming. So that must mean it has to be about that time when he's becoming popular and strong. Okay, so remember now [Driver]'s thinking, everything has to be to those people that he's talking to. Well, I don't believe that that's necessary. That's his logic though. All right, "The text also describes Jerusalem as ruined and deserted." Now remember, that's an issue that's going to be important. He can prophesy these things are going to take place and they don't have to be 'in' them already. See, that's what Driver's arguing. If these things are happening and Jerusalem is in ruins, the only way they know that is if they see it and it fits that time. Okay, "The temple has been long in ruins and the Jewish nation is in exile in Babylon, despairing of ever being released". All of that's true, but I see it as future, looking into it, not having to be there. Okay, so that's number three. Number four; "When considering these events, scholars generally argue it's unlikely that Isaiah could have taken such a lengthy, futuristic standpoint to address people over a century in the future. They conclude, therefore, that the exile is presupposed, rather than predicted." That's kind of their key thing. And my thing is; no, this is God telling them what's going to happen in the future so that they can be ready for it and know that God hasn't given up on them. Now, I think it's funny also, [Driver & Williamson] are not consistent. They argue that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses, but written several 100 years later. And yet if you read it, it certainly sounds like he's talking at that time. So if that's true, how come Moses could do that, but Isaiah can't do that, or so it seems like to me they're not consistent. Either have Moses writing in the time that he's supposed to, in the 1400's, or have Isaiah writing when he's supposed to. I just think it's inconsistent for them. So I thought, that's interesting.
Paul Wegner 14:16
Ok. Cyrus is mentioned, now remember that specifically is a person's name. That's amazing. 150 years in the future, God speaks and gives a specific name. So they argue that there's basically nothing else like that. Well, that's not actually true because if you remember Micah 5:2 actually says that this deliverer is going to be born in Bethlehem, not Jerusalem. That's a very specific place. So in actual fact, it's very close to what's happening with Cyrus being mentioned, I think. And some people have a problem with Micah 5:2, but there most of them will argue that [Micah] is talking about the future deliver. So if that's true, then it seems like Isaiah ought to be able to do it too. All right, they have a knowledge of Babylon, "The detailed references to Babylon and it's god, suggests to some scholars that the author is writing from Babylon during the time of the exile or later. Sometimes even specific events such as the return from Babylon are referred to as past tense as though they've already happened." And I talked about those as being a prophetic perfect. The idea that it's so certain that it's going to happen, that God can put it in the past tense. So I'm not sure that this actually is a good argument, because if you think about it, even in the eighth century these guys would have had interactions with Babylon, so they would have known their gods and stuff like that. Just because it has a very detailed knowledge of Babylon, doesn't really mean that they're living there. But even if they were that's fine. God can know these kinds of things.
Paul Wegner 19:15
Next one, unique literary style; themes and vocabulary. "Scholars have pointed out the difference in vocabulary and style between the various parts of the book." For a good summary, S.R. Driver did that back in 1913. "The words or phrases that are said to be found or repeated in Isaiah 44, but not in Isaiah 1 through 39." In actual fact, that's not true at all. Of the 10 words that they claimed only happened in the second part, all these other ones, you can actually find them in both parts of the book. So at least about seven of them, or however many they are, they actually do occur in both. But it seems to me that when an author has a really good reason for stating a totally different theme, like the difference between chapters 1 through 39 and 40 through 66, it would seem like they should use a different vocabulary, it wouldn't surprise me at all. But what I was surprised at, is there very few differences. Now, the phrases are different. Like "I am the Lord, there is no other". But once again, if you think about it, that's what God's trying to prove in the second part. Or "I am the first and I am the last." Again, He's trying to show that 'I was with those people in the past when they were back in the seven hundreds, and I'm going to be with them in the future when I bring them out of Babylon.' So the ones that are there seem to me to make perfectly good sense as to why they're unique in that second part. So this one, in my mind, is a pretty poor argument because in actual fact, very few of them actually occur only in one spot.
Tyler Sanders 19:54
I think it's a difficult argument to make because there's a lot of reasons...there's a ton of have reasons...things that have nothing to do with anything, that a style could change.
Paul Wegner 20:05
And if you think about it, John Roberts, who's I think a brilliant scholar argues that it's over 60 years- [Isaiah] prophesied for over 60 years, you can't expect him to have the same vocabulary over the whole period of his life. So of course, you're gonna see things different. And I thought, well, yeah, that's a pretty good point.
Tyler Sanders 20:24
Have you ever read anything you wrote like five years ago. Oh, my goodness. My goodness. It's hard.
Tyler Sanders 20:30
All right. So that's that one. "Isaiah 40 through 48 is said to be characterized by the following stylistic features; duplications of words to signify impassioned ardor of the preacher." While this type of repetition is rare in Isaiah 1 through 39, it does happen. Like chapter 29:1 has repetition. So that one is true. But I think it's the context that suggests that those repetitions are more likely. Then they have differences in structure of sentences, "Relative particle is omitted with much greater frequency than the earlier parts of Isaiah." Now, remember, I'm not necessarily convinced that Isaiah didn't use an amanuensis in the last part of it, either. I mean, I have no problem arguing, if Paul can use a scribe or somebody else, I would assume that Isaiah could too even though Isaiah is a scribe. I mean, he knows how to write. He's claimed to be a scribe. So it would seem like to me it makes sense that if you use a different amanuensis, or something like that, it might have different words. I just don't think there's enough differences that you can actually do that. Okay. "The style of Isaiah 40 through 66 is much more flowing, the rhetoric is warm and impassioned." Once again, exactly what I'd expect if you're trying to convince these people that God is powerful enough to bring them out of Babylon.
Tyler Sanders 22:02
This is what they'll be holding on to while they're there.
Paul Wegner 22:04
Exactly. Okay, so those are the kinds of things I think are doubtful. Not long ago, they tried a computer analysis. A guy named Radday, concluded that the book was not a unity. However, when he did that, he actually argued that it had different divisions than the ones that were earlier. So I thought that was kind of interesting. Then Adams and Rincher, in 1973, did the same test and found out it was a unity. I think what's going on, is that there's such a low vocabulary, there's not a lot in this, and I think to get conclusive evidence on these, you'd have to have a lot more vocabulary and a lot more similar kind of material, which you don't have. "These conflicting finds can be attributed to differences in methodologies, the limited amount of Hebrew vocabulary examined and the inherent difficulties in developing analog rhythms to analyze complex language." So a guy named Posner in 1963, pointed out it's probably never going to happen, we'll never be able to actually prove or even convincingly argue that there was two different authors. Computer analysis is just not going to work. It's disappointing, but it makes perfect sense. All right. So that's that one. "Traditionally, arguments for a single..." now let's go to single author, "traditional arguments for a single author of the book come largely from early Jewish sources." Actually, one of the places states that Hezekiah and his men wrote, but it probably means edited or compiled the book of Isaiah. And then Christian sources, specifically John 12:38-41, where John introduces quotes from both Isaiah 6:10 and Isaiah 53:1 by saying, "Isaiah says elsewhere, and this was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet."
Tyler Sanders 24:03
Yeah, that's pretty fascinating.
Paul Wegner 24:06
In fact, why don't we look at that passage, John 12. Okay, here's what it says. "These things Jesus spoke, and he went away and said..." I'm sorry, "and hid himself from them. Though he had performed many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet which he spoke, 'Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?'" Now that's the Isaiah 6:10 passage. "For this reason they would not leave for Isaiah again said, "He has blinded their eyes and harden their hearts so that they would not see with their eyes and..." Oh, I'm sorry. The first part was Isaiah 53, and then the second part now, "He has blinded their eyes and harden their hearts." This one is Isaiah 6:10. So He's taken both parts of Isaiah and sections of that and saying Isaiah said these things.
Tyler Sanders 24:55
Yeah, right.
Paul Wegner 24:55
So it seems like to me, He's-it's pretty convincing that He's believing that both parts were done by Isaiah. So it seems like to me that's pretty significant.
Paul Wegner 25:06
All right, theological reasons. And I think this is the strongest one. "Traditionally, Isaiah 40-66 has been understood as God's revelation to the nation of Israel concerning their future. Given in order to encourage them, even though they will experience adversity," they're going to go into the Babylonian captivity, "God will ultimately keep His promises to them. God knows that this is happening and will protect them through the adversity." In my mind, that's crucial. That's a theological issue, that if God doesn't keep them and protect them in the exile, we've got a theological flaw think. "It is interesting that one aspect by which God chooses to use to differentiate Himself from all other gods is His ability to tell the future, something no other god can do." Let me show you the verse. So here's the passage. It's in Isaiah 41:21-24. "'Present your case,' the Lord says, 'Bring forward your strong arguments,' the king of Jacob says, 'Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place. Ask for the form of events, declare what they were, that we may consider them and know their outcome.'" So that's what he's first saying. I'm a historian, I could actually tell you the past events, right? But he doesn't mean that, what he means is; tell me those past events and tell me why you did them. Right. Now God can do that. Why did He bring the Israelites through the Red Sea, and destroy the Egyptians? Well, to protect His people. He wants to know; okay, if you're a god, and if you have done these past events, tell me why you did them. So that's what He means when He says, "Tell me the past things or announced to us what is coming." That'd be the future things. All right. "Declare the things that are going to come afterwards that we may know that you are gods. Indeed do good or evil that we may anxiously look about and fear together." Now God's getting into mocking them, right? So He says, do anything good or bad and I'll fear you, too. Okay? "Behold, you are of no account, and your work amounts to nothing. He who chooses you is an abomination." Here's God's saying that if you choose those idols, that can't do anything, it's an abomination. So if God can't tell the future, or if God can't do these kinds of things, then He's no different than the idols, and choosing Him would be an abomination.
Tyler Sanders 27:24
Yeah.
Paul Wegner 27:24
So theologically, I can't see how God can mock the false idols and still not be able to tell the future. That's my strongest argument. It seems like to me, God's making fun of people who can't do that.
Tyler Sanders 27:37
Yeah.
Paul Wegner 27:37
Okay. It's very ironic that one of the strongest arguments for Second Isaiah, put forth by Williamson, does not question that God can tell the future. Okay, so Hugh Williamsom is one of the few that do that. Instead, he argues that if a prophet claims that things prophesied in the past have been accurately fulfilled, then it presupposes the validity of predictive prophecy. It also demands that the speaker should himself be located after the fulfillment of those predictions. Several times God says to the nation of Israel that they will be His witnesses after these predicted events are fulfilled. "'You are my witnesses,' declares the Lord, 'and my servant whom I have chosen in order that you may know that and believe me, and understand that I am He. Before me there was no god formed, and there will be none after Me. It is I who declared and saved and proclaimed, and there is no strange god among you. So you are my witnesses.'" See, several times He's saying, okay, Israel, you're going to be my witnesses when these things happen, you're going to know that I was telling you the truth.
Paul Wegner 28:42
He's got a great point here. And it took me a long time to figure out where the flaw was. The flaw is that he's not speaking to one person. He's speaking to the nation of Israel. If he's speaking to the nation of Israel, there's going to be people alive at the time when the prophecy was given, there's only also going to be people alive at the time that they're fulfilled. So He can say to the nation you are my witnesses. Because there were people all the way along there.
Tyler Sanders 29:09
They can cover several generations.
Paul Wegner 29:10
Exactly. So it took me a while to figure out why that was a problem because it makes it clear that Israel is going to be His witnesses. And if He was talking to just one person that'd be impossible, but seeing that He's talking to the nation, that is possible.
Paul Wegner 29:28
Later in the same book, Williamson favorably quotes S.R. Driver, "In the present prophecy, there's no prediction of the exile. The exile is not announced as something still future. It is presupposed." Now, remember, he's not talking about chapter 39, where it said it was going to happen. He's talking about 40 through 66, were in there it sounds like they're coming back from it. And only the release from it is predicted. "By analogy, therefore, that which, according to Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the author should have lived in the situation that he presupposes, and to which he continually eludes." First of all you've got to think, in my mind it's kind of circular reasoning, you've already got to assume there's a division between chapter 39 and 40. If you look at chapter 39, it claims that Isaiah is the author. and that he foresaw these things. So when you look at just chapters 40 through 66, he's arguing; no, those are living in a time when God's telling them they're going to come back. So he's saying those are things that are already presupposed, they're not-
Tyler Sanders 30:31
It assumes this is the context, essentially.
Paul Wegner 30:33
Now, here's the problem with that, as far as I see it. Driver's not even consistent. Once again, go back to Moses. He claims the JEDP theory, and that Moses is not living in the time when he claims he is, but must be living later. Well, okay. Why can't Isaiah foresee the future and have God telling him what things were taking place, and then be able to explain them that way? And I also think it's important that he does it like they're presupposed, it's because that makes it more realistic. So that when they actually are in Babylon, it's not going to be a real big surprise for them. They can go back to the book and say; oh, we were already told this was going to happen and that we're going to come out of this. So it seems like to me, it is logical for a prophet to shoot himself into the future and give it very realistic terms like he's there and all that, but saying that God is going to get you out of this. I think that's the only real way that they're going to actually know that God can actually do this is if he makes it real realistic.
Tyler Sanders 31:38
Well, it makes that message specific to a moment or a series of moments, right?
Paul Wegner 31:43
Yeah.
Tyler Sanders 31:44
You're here, but you haven't been released yet. But that's what we're talking about.
Paul Wegner 31:48
I think so.
Tyler Sanders 31:48
There's gonna be a release.
Paul Wegner 31:49
Yeah. Otherwise, Isaiah is lying. Right? Because the way he pictures the book, it makes it sound like he's foretelling these things. And if he's not foretelling these things, then that's like Isaiah is lying, I think. I've had a real problem with that, seems like Driver is very inconsistent. It suits his purposes is the reason.
Paul Wegner 32:11
All right. This argument seems to be circular reasoning for the book of Isaiah in its present form, suggests that the eighth century prophet wrote the book, and that God is predicting that the nation of Israel will return from the Babylonian exile. Thus his assumption that it presupposes an exilic setting is answered by the book itself, in that God predicts these events. If you only take part of the book, I can understand what he's doing. But if you read it as it lays out, it's saying that God foretold these things.
Tyler Sanders 32:40
When was Driver writing this?
Paul Wegner 32:42
Back in the 1900's, at the turn of the century, 1913, something like that.
Tyler Sanders 32:46
How are other scholars responding to him today? Now with the idea of more unity, you know, a literary unity across the book, is there any...?
Paul Wegner 32:55
You know what? They still use as a foundation, a lot of the stuff him and-even Hugh Williamson is going to use Driver as a foundation and then argue that; no, then it must be somebody later who's editing this book.
Tyler Sanders 33:08
Okay.
Paul Wegner 33:09
So these arguments have been pretty strong. Even though Hugh does not believe in, you know, that God can't tell the future, a good share of them did, and that's why it became so popular.
Tyler Sanders 33:19
Yeah.
Paul Wegner 33:20
Okay. Similar wording or phrases. Some scholars have argued for a single author based on similar wording across the book, like the title; the Holy One of Israel. That occurs 12 times in the first part of the book and 13 times in the second part. And so it's interesting, that's a title. My only problem with that is that if I was-if I really was an editor and I was trying to make it look like Isaiah wrote the whole thing, I would use-I would those words-
Tyler Sanders 33:48
Yeah, that'd be an easy way to do it.
Paul Wegner 33:49
Yeah, that would do it. So I don't believe that's a very strong one, okay. It's similar to pre-exilic prophets. As mentioned earlier, the headings in the books of Isaiah are similar wording and structure to the other pre-exilic books. And that's, I think, pretty strong. Clearly in the heading, it tells you when these kings live and stuff like that, so it's making it pretty clear. Even the way they do it is very similar to like Micah or some of the other books that are in that early time period.
Paul Wegner 34:18
All right, canonicity to the book. Here's another, what I would say a big one; "Traditionally Isaianic authorship was assumed by witnesses both Jewish and Christian, but two critical theories of canonicity are that the book was written by a prophet and that it claims to come from God." Okay, that's my logic. Okay. "Modern scholars have been fairly willing to accept the possibility that other authors or redactors added to the prophetic works without jeopardizing their authoritative stature." Charlesworth was one of the main ones, but he was arguing for pseudepigraphical books, which are books that were never in the canon. And that's where I think it's different because that was one of the arguments against them being part of the canon was that they were written by people who they didn't claim to be written by.
Tyler Sanders 35:06
Yeah.
Paul Wegner 35:06
So it seems like to me, he's taking oranges and apples. We're taking books that aren't even similar and arguing that; Oh, look. Because it happened here, it can happen to these ones-well, they knew these were different books. And part of the reason was because they knew they weren't written by the person they claimed to be.
Tyler Sanders 35:23
Right.
Paul Wegner 35:23
First of all, how can a book get joined together with parts from another person, seems really odd to me. But then to argue from a pseudepigrapha is a lousy argument.
Tyler Sanders 35:34
Yeah. Because it basically means no one could have known this-
Paul Wegner 35:37
Yeah.
Tyler Sanders 35:37
But they knew it about other things.
Paul Wegner 35:38
Yeah. And one other interesting thing is Beckwith has some really strong arguments to show, that just isn't possible. It just won't happen. Part of his logic was; look at the pseudepigrapha. They knew those were not part of the canon. And the reason they knew it wasn't part of canon was because they claimed to be authored by somebody who didn't write them.
Tyler Sanders 35:59
Yeah.
Paul Wegner 36:00
It's interesting, over a dozen times in the book, the book claims to be from Isaiah. Isaiah either had this vision or, a couple places he's told to write things down. And in chapter six through nine, in that section there, it's in-a lot of it's in first person. A lot of people argue that that's gotta be at least probably from Isaiah.
Paul Wegner 36:22
Anyway, content of Isaiah; "Motyer argues that some of the wording is not in line with Babylonian setting. The idolaters go into the woods to cut a tree for carving, not possible in Babylonia." Remember, there aren't many trees in Babylon anyway. They actually had to-that's part of the reason they went to Lebanon is they needed to get building materials. Okay? "These trees are the ones that Palestine knows. And the oils are those of Western Asia. The landscapes and climates are those of the West-mountains, forests, trees, snow, land refreshed by rain and not by irrigation." Those are not Babylonian cultural images, they're more from Palestine. So I think he's got a decent point there.
Tyler Sanders 36:23
Yeah, that's pretty clever.
Paul Wegner 36:43
Also, Isaiah 40:20 suggests that the idol makers choose wood that will not rot. Trees that naturally do not rot would be like cyprus, redwood, white oak. Those kinds of things. Junipers, cedars. Most of those are found in Israel, but not in Babylon. That causes some people to argue that Deutero-Isaiah lived in Palestine, though it is not really very common anymore.
Paul Wegner 37:32
All right. They talked about idolatry. When the Israelites came back from Babylon, idolatry was not a problem. When we look at Ezra, Nehemiah, the bigger problems are inter-marrying with other people, usury, stuff like that, not idolatry. And not the kind of idolatry that was in pre-exilic where it talks about them going up on the high places and stuff like that. Well, in Babylon, they had idolatry, but it was more worshipping the sun and moon and stars like that. So it seems like that it's a different kind of idolatry that's talked about in this part of Isaiah. So it seems like to me that's a pretty good argument. If idolatry wasn't a major problem when they came back from the exile, then why does Isaiah mention it so often? Yeah, I think it's like 12 times he mentions idolatry. I'm going; 'Wow, that's a big problem, it sounds like. He keeps bringing it up.' And it's not the kind of idolatry that they had in Babylon. So I think both of those are pretty strong arguments. I actually, Norman Whybray, the person that I quoted earlier-
Tyler Sanders 38:36
Oh, yeah.
Paul Wegner 38:37
I was at an Old Testament conference with him once, and he was reading a paper on Isaiah. And I asked him about why idolatry was such a problem in Second Isaiah, when post-exilic didn't seem to have that problem and his logic-and he said to me, "Obviously, it was because Isaiah talks about it so much." And I'm going, he didn't even catch that. But that was just like circular reasoning; 'it's got to be there because Second Isaiah has got to be post-exilic.' Well, in my mind, it doesn't have to be and so it was circular reasoning to me. And he didn't catch it. And I didn't bring it up.
Tyler Sanders 39:14
Yeah, you didn't push it.
Paul Wegner 39:15
Oh well. New Testament evidence. "There are several New Testament authors that quote from various parts of Isaiah and acknowledge that the words come from Isaiah." Now, it's more than just saying 'from the book of Isaiah'. A lot of times, like in Acts 28:25, "The Holy Spirit spoke truth to your ancestors when He said through Isaiah the prophet..." That's not just saying that that's 'in the book of Isaiah', that's Him speaking through Isaiah. So it seems like it's a lot more specific than just being 'in the book' of Isaiah.
Tyler Sanders 39:48
Yeah. Same thing in John 12 we looked at earlier. Right?
Paul Wegner 39:50
Exactly, yep.
Paul Wegner 39:52
Conclusion. All right. As Smith clearly observes, it is not crucial to know the certainty of who had the pen in his hand, Isaiah or a scribe. The introductions in the book of Isaiah suggest that Isaiah had the visions, but not necessarily that he recorded them all. It doesn't ever really say he wrote them down. Okay, that's where that Baba Bathra-which says that Hezekiah might have edited and his men might have edited them. It could be noted though, that Isaiah is said to be a royal scribe, and therefore would have been skilled at both reading and writing. It's funny, Isaiah and Moses, two of the people that we know were trained in writing-Moses gets his training in Egypt, under Pharaoh, so he had to have an awful good training. Two of the people that were probably the most likely to be able to write, people have seemed to have the most problem with, which I think is funny.
Tyler Sanders 40:44
It is, yeah.
Paul Wegner 40:45
Oh, well. Later, the chronicler calls the book "The Vision of the Prophet Isaiah". So he's clearly linking it with Isaiah. Even if he's not saying he wrote it, he's saying he had the vision. I think those are pretty convincing arguments. Are there any of them you want to talk more about?
Tyler Sanders 41:05
I have one more, one more question. Actually, one more phase of this. I think we mentioned it last week, we talked a little about the scrolls at Qumran.
Paul Wegner 41:15
Oh, okay.
Tyler Sanders 41:16
That there's a break between chapters 33 and 34. A three line break, right?
Paul Wegner 41:23
Yeah.
Tyler Sanders 41:23
That's like the middle, in terms of word count, right? That'd be like the exact center?
Paul Wegner 41:28
Well, at least it's real close.
Tyler Sanders 41:29
Close to that? Okay. The idea was that potentially, they did that because it wouldn't fit on a whole-you couldn't get all of Isaiah on one scroll or something. Is that right? But then we found at Qumran there was an entire-
Paul Wegner 41:41
Yeah, the Isaiah Scroll is all on one roll. So it is possible to get it on there. So the question is, why did he do that? And I think it's probably more for the logic of breaking it up into halves. Even though you could still get it all in one scroll, it's letting you know, this is about the middle of the book. It is interesting, it's not after chapter 39 where you'd expect it if it was a...if that was a natural break. It's not there.
Tyler Sanders 42:09
Right. So what does that tell us? That they probably saw this as a united book?
Paul Wegner 42:15
I would think so.
Tyler Sanders 42:16
Or could say that, I guess?
Paul Wegner 42:17
Yeah. You know, by that time- it was written in about 100 BC. By that time, I don't think there's any doubt that it's all put together. It seems like most people would try to argue that earlier it was being joined and stuff like that but by 1st century BC there doesn't seem to be any doubt. that it's seen asScroll, One Book,
Tyler Sanders 42:17
One scroll.
Paul Wegner 42:17
One scroll, yeah.
Tyler Sanders 42:20
Well, I have another quote from your commentary actually. You said, "The heart of this dilemma is a theological issue not simply a literary one. Can Israel's God know and control the future?" And you got into that a little bit, but I was wondering, if you could go over that one more time for us?
Paul Wegner 42:59
Do you remember that verse in chapter 41? Where God is mocking the false gods? And if He can't do what He claims He's mocking them for doing, then it seems like to me, no one should trust Him either. So that's why I think it's a theological issue. Can this God do what He claims He can? Or can't He?
Tyler Sanders 43:20
It's about the nature of God essentially.
Paul Wegner 43:22
Yeah. And so it goes back to the logic of; can He do this? Now, Hugh Williamson doesn't doubt that God could do this, and that He can predict the future and stuff like that. But he argues that these things, you know, to be witnesses, you have to be after the fact to what to know they actually happened. But I've argued that's not a very good argument, because we're talking to a nation. Because the nation of Israel is going to go there, and even well past the exile, right? When they come back, when you get to chapter like 55 into 65, and He's talking about a new heaven and a new earth- if Israel can't trust their God to get them back from the exile, how are they going to trust Him to bring this time of victory or this deliverance, so much so that righteousness is filling the earth and stuff like that, how's that going to happen if their God can't even get them out of Babylonian captivity?
Tyler Sanders 44:17
Yeah.
Paul Wegner 44:18
So it seems like to me this is a bigger picture; can you trust the God that you serve? Or can't you? And it seems like everything in the book of Isaiah is saying; of course, you can trust Him and here's reason after reason after reason as to why you can trust Him. First, I'm going to get you out of Babylon, then I'm going to have Cyrus build your temple for you. All of these things that He's going to have happen and as they're watching them going; man, if He can do that, I'm sure He can do the next step and deliver us and bring righteousness on the earth too.
Tyler Sanders 44:51
And earlier you said 'predict the future' but would you say it's more like 'determining the future'?
Paul Wegner 44:58
Yeah, yeah. For us, it's like He's predicting it.
Tyler Sanders 45:02
Like Isaiah's predicting it, or maybe in our temporal-
Paul Wegner 45:05
In God's mind, He is just determining what's going to happen.
Tyler Sanders 45:09
That's great. All right, one more question. Do you think the authorship of Isaiah affects how we view the rest of Scripture? Is this a crucial thing for us to understand as we approach the whole rest of the Bible?
Paul Wegner 45:21
Man. I've always thought it does. And that's why...I have to tell you, I'm in the minority that Isaiah actually wrote the book. There's not a...there's some of us out there but there aren't a lot. You heard what Williamson said. But it seems like to me that if this was a story that was made to look like their God could tell the future, but He really can't, then I would think it's gonna affect the rest of Scripture too. Seems like to me then, this god is not as...in fact, it seems like He's a deceptive god even. Because the way He has Isaiah explain it makes it sound like He can tell the future, that He's going to bring Cyrus and all that. If He really didn't do that, then I have a problem with knowing what kind of God do they serve? Is He really a truthful god? Or is He deceptive? And even if He let Isaiah write part of it and then had another author write some of it, so that made it look like God foretold the future, I got a real problem with that. And I think that's going to affect the rest of Scripture, too. Book of Revelation. If I can't trust Him in Isaiah, can I trust Him for those future things in the book of Revelation?
Tyler Sanders 46:34
Well, and maybe even instances in the New Testament that refer back to Isaiah...that complicates that relationship, a lot I would imagine.
Paul Wegner 46:43
Yeah I think so. So I believe the answer is yes. I think it's going to affect how you understand this God, who claims to be able to do these things, if he can't really do.
Tyler Sanders 46:52
Yeah. Well, we'll get into that even more when we get into the text. I think we'll see a lot of examples of that. As we normally do, for more reading...we talked about a lot of different scholars who've written about this and talked about this. If a person's interested in knowing more, where should they go? Who should they read?
Paul Wegner 47:13
I think there's two that are, more in what I call my camp. There's more than that but John Oswald, a brilliant scholar, he's a brilliant scholar, and he's written a two volume work on Isaiah. And it's been out there since 1979, I think, the first part and then later. But he's done a great job and holds the views that we do. Another one would be Gary Smith. His commentary would be another one that would hold our kind of views. And then a third scholar would be the one that did the Tyndale commentary before me, Motyer. He definitely holds Isaiah authorship. So there are still some good commentaries out there that hold that Isaiah wrote the book.
Tyler Sanders 48:00
Okay. Well, it's very helpful. Thank you so much again for your time and thank you for listening. And be sure to join us next time as we study Isaiah.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai