Benjamin D. Sommer. A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66. Contraversions: Jews and Other Differences. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. xiii, 355 pp.

Extract

Benjamin D. Sommer elevates the analysis of inner-biblical interpretation to the next level of sophistication and rigor in this volume, a substantially revised version of his University of Chicago doctoral dissertation written under the direction of Michael Fishbane. He focuses on the reuse of older biblical material in a specific biblical text, Isaiah 40–66. These chapters of the book of Isaiah, seen as an addition made a century and a half later to Isaiah 1–39, are assigned to an anonymous sixth-century prophet called, for the sake of convenience, Deutero-Isaiah. By treating the reuse of older biblical material in Deutero-Isaiah, Sommer is able to delineate what might be distinctive in Deutero-Isaiah's methods of inner-biblical interpretation, a desirable next step in the analysis of inner-biblical interpretation. What is impressive in Sommer's book is his ability to move to larger issues in biblical studies and to parallel issues in other academic and intellectual pursuits often ignored in biblical studies. The book also exhibits a clarity of writing and argument in what in many ways is a highly technical subject.