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Poetry, Prophecy, Hermeneutic: Recent Studies in Isaiah

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

A. Graeme Auld
A. Graeme Auld
Affiliation:
New CollegeEdinburgh
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Extract

There is seldom a lack of new studies of Isaiah. In this article I want to mention some aspects of a few recently published studies which direct our attention in different ways to the book of Isaiah, rather than to Isaiah of Jerusalem (or the so-called ‘second Isaiah’) as an individual with an historical role. Not that I am not concerned with the historical Isaiah of Jerusalem: in fact the concern is greater than the following reviews might suggest. Positively I am insisting that our quest for him must start from the book of Isaiah in all its variety and complexity, and not from its few familiar and congenially informative prose sections. Then the more negative suggestion that Isaiah may not have been a ‘prophet’ (at least in the sense that tradition came to regard him) is an attempt to clear the ground for a better point of view.

Type
Article Review
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 33 , Issue 6 , December 1980 , pp. 567 - 581
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1980

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References

page 567 note 1 In earlier versions it was delivered to the Edinburgh Theological Club and to the Balmore Group in October and November 1979 In addition to the discussion on these occasions, I am indebted to correspondence on the topic with my Glasgow colleague, Robert Carroll.

page 567 note 2 Edinburgh, The Handsel Press (1979).

page 567 note 3 Gunkel, H., Die Propheten (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht, 1917)Google Scholar. Cf. also Klatt, W., Hermann Gunkel, FRLANT 100 (Göttingen, 1969).Google Scholar

page 568 note 1 Fohrer, G., Das Buck Jesaja, ZBK (Zürich-Stuttgart, 1960/1964)Google Scholar; Introduction to the Old Testament (London, 1970); Kaiser, O., Isaiah 1–12/13–39, London, SCM, 1972/1974)Google Scholar; Introduction to the Old Testament (Oxford, Blackwell, 1975).

page 568 note 2 Wildberger, H., Jesaja 1–12/13–27/28-, BKAT X (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1972/1978/-).Google Scholar

page 568 note 3 Barth, H., Die Jesaja-Worte in der Josiazeit: Israel und Assur als Thema einer produktiven Neuinterpretation der Jesajauberlieferung WMANT 48 (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1977).Google Scholar

page 568 note 4 They are Isa. 8.9f; 8.23b–9.6; 10.16–19; 14.24–27; 30.27–33; and 31.5, 8b–9.

page 569 note 1 Vermeylen, J., Du Prophète Isaïe à l'Apoealyptique: Isaïe, I-XXXV, miroir d'un demi-millénaire d'expérience réligieuse en Israël I/II (Paris, Gabalda, 1977/1978).Google Scholar

page 570 note 1 London, SCM (1979).

page 570 note 2 Mischievous, because his concern is largely with the predictive aspect of prophecy.

page 570 note 3 Festinger, L., and others, When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World (Minneapolis, 1956).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 571 note 1 Much of Carroll's study treats the intellectual aspects of prophecy and its interpretation. All the more welcome is his quotation towards the end (p. 213) from Joshua Bloch on the ‘sovereignty of imagination’.

page 571 note 2 Blenkinsopp, J., Prophecy and Canon: A Contribution to the Study of Jewish Origins (London, University of Notre Dame Press, 1977).Google Scholar

page 572 note 1 Ackroyd, P. R., ‘Isaiah I–XII: Presentation of a Prophet’, Congress Volume, Göttingen 1977, VTSuppl 29 (1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 572 note 2 Cf. Ackroyd, , ‘An interpretation of the Babylonian Exile: a study of 2 Kings 20 Isaiah 38–39’, SJT 27 (1974).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 573 note 1 Ackroyd is persuaded that the function of Isa 2.1 is not to introduce a section of the book, but to claim that the immediately following verses—which appear in a slightly different form in Micah too (4.1–4)—stem from Isaiah.

page 574 note 1 This title or form of reference is known to the Chronicler—2 Chron. 32.32.

page 574 note 2 I find particularly stimulating his chapters on ‘Deuteronomy’ and ‘No Prophet like Moses’; and the passage in pp. 143–146 on criteria of verifiability and the self-authenticating nature of the prophetic vision.

page 574 note 3 I mean, they make sense of the text, and offer a sensible account of its possible development—but this is not to lay bare the actual processes of growth.

page 574 note 4 In his introduction to Isa. 24–27, Wildberger, op. cit., p. 895, confesses his amazement at the differences over many details between Kaiser and Vermeylen despite their broad similarity in approach.

page 574 note 5 Carroll's opening chapter is on ‘Interpreting the Prophetic Traditions’.

page 575 note 1 ‘Prophets’ are criticised in 3.2; 9.14; 28.7; 29.10; while ‘prophet’ is used as Isaiah's title in 37.2; 38.1; 39.3.

page 575 note 2 I am thinking of such undoubted classics as Lindblom, J., Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Oxford, Blackwell, 1962)Google Scholarvon Rad, G., Old Testament Theology, II (Edinburgh, Oliver & Boyd, 1965)Google Scholar; and Ringgren, H., Israelite Religion (London, SPCK, 1966).Google Scholar

page 576 note 1 The phrase quoted is from Mackey, James P., Jesus: the Man and the Myth (London, SCM, 1979)Google Scholar; he also reminds us that ‘there are more ways of recovering a character from history than finding his diary.’

page 576 note 2 Laberge, L., La Septante d'Isaie 28–33 (Ottawa, chez l'auteur, 1978).Google Scholar

page 576 note 3 See Janzen, J. G., Studies in the Text of Jeremiah, Harvard Semitic Monographs 6 (Cambridge, Mass., 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. (And for a useful bibliography on the Hebrew Vorlage of the LXX, see Tov, E.., ‘The Nature of the Hebrew Text underlying the LXX: a Survey of the Problems’, JSOT 7 (1978)).Google Scholar

page 576 note 4 For an interesting discussion of appropriate exegetical method when confronted by different versions of a text, see Greenberg, M., ‘The Use of the Ancient Versions for Interpreting the Hebrew Text: a Sampling from Ezekiel ii i–iii 11’, Congress Volume, Göttingen 1977, VTSuppl. 29 (1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 576 note 5 Irwin, W. H., Isaiah 38–33: Translation with Philological Notes, Biblica et Orientalia 30 (Rome, 1977).Google Scholar

page 577 note 1 For a brief criticism, see the strictures on ‘semantic emendation’ by Barr, J., within a review in Ex Times, 89 (1978) p. 313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 577 note 2 This is well stressed in the review of Irwin by Watson, W. G. E. in Biblica 59 (1978) pp. 132–134.Google Scholar

page 577 note 3 Vermeylen agrees with Kaiser and others that vv. 16aβ–17a have been added to 28.14–22, proposing an exception, or of Fering a last chance within the destructive flood; but Irwin suggests a good structure for 28.16, and treats vv. 17–18b as a separate poetic unit. Similarly, in the same chapter, Vermeylen treats vv. 19–20 and v. 21 separately, while Irwin links v. 19 to the preceding v. 18c and treats vv. 20–1 together.

page 578 note 1 Lowth, R., De Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum (London, 1753)Google Scholar. (E.T. by G. Gregory, London, S. Chadwick and Co., 1847).

page 578 note 2 In addition to his work on the prophets already, mentioned (n. 3), see Gunkel, H., ‘Fundamental Problems of Hebrew Literary History’ in What Remains of the Old Testament? (London, George Allen & Unwin, 1928).Google Scholar

page 578 note 3 Of course, given that over half a millenium separates Isaiah of Jerusalem from our only extensive evidence to date of non-Israelite Northwest Semitic poetry, Ugaritic parallels in the Isaiah tradition should not be used as evidence of relatively early date within that tradition.

page 578 note 4 I am struck by the apparently a priori conception of what is truly ‘prophetic’ that leads to unusual defensiveness in exegesis, when Wildberger comments on Isa. 28.23–9 (op cit., pp. 1083–96), or Westermann on Isa. 56.1–8 (Westermann, C., Isaiah 40–66 (London, SCM, 1969), pp. 309–306).Google Scholar

page 579 note 1 When it came to be debated, in the period after the prophetic canon was complete, whether Jesus or any other was a prophet, it is difficult to decide whether ‘prophet’ signified member of such a religious movement or someone endowed with a fresh (poetic) use of language and symbol—whether the debate was more influenced by the ‘traditional lineaments’ or by empathy with the contents of the prophetic canon. (One is struck by the intuition of the Ethiopian eunuch—Acts 8.32–4—that the servant of Isa. 53 is an individual.)

page 579 note 2 A point made very strongly by M. Noth in connection with the development of Pentateuchal tradition.

page 579 note 3 London, SPCK (1979).

page 579 note 4 London, SCM Studies in Biblical Theology, 2nd Ser. 32 (1976).

page 580 note 1 He has in mind Ps. 68.12 (in its ‘hallowed translation’) and the second half of Ps. 85 (vv. 9–14).

page 580 note 2 Is it such ‘compulsiveness’ and ‘immediacy’ that passages like Isa. 28.23–9 and 56.1–8 lack—a wisdom parable and a sacral ruling? Eaton here seems close to Eissfeldt, O. in the chapter ‘Prophetic Sayings’ within his The Old Testament: An Introduction (Oxford, Blackwell, 1965) p. 78Google Scholar: ‘Even among these, who have long since outgrown the most violent ecstatic state which is to be described as possession (cf. I Sam. xix, 18–24), it is nevertheless quite clear that their sayings ultimately derive from the moments of divine possession, moments whose compulsiveness is described by Amos in the words: The lion has roared who will not fear? Yahweh has spoken who can but prophesy? (iii, 8)’

page 581 note 1 Cf. McKane, W., Prophets and Wise Men, SBT 44 (London, SCM, 1965).Google Scholar

page 581 note 2 This is the tide of the book by R. N. Whybray BZAW 135 (Berlin, de Gruyter, 1974), who locates this tradition principally in the books of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes.