The Integrity of the Book of Isaiah: New Evidence of Single Authorship

ISBN-13: 9781905447039 / Angielski / Miękka / 2005 / 188 str.

M. W. J. Phelan

Opis

For over two thousand years the book of Isaiah was accepted as the exclusive work of the son of Amoz, the friend of Hezekiah. The translators of the Septuagint regarded the book as a single work. The well-known discovery at Qumran in 1947 of two different copies of Isaiah also testifies to its unity. One of these scrolls is virtually complete and is normally dated to the late second century B.C.E. The New Testament adds its very considerable, and for the believer, decisive weight to the traditional viewpoint, as may be seen from the eighty-seven occasions where it cites the prophet's words. In addition to this, the Masoretic Text, the standard Hebrew text of the Hebrew Canon, and the unanimous testimony of all the ancient texts, versions, Jewish traditions, and the early Christian Church, report the book to be a single work. At the end of the eighteenth century however, this view that had held sway for millennia began to be challenged. Isaiah, it was asserted was a compilation by different authors, and various so-called proofs of this were brought forth by the critics. Since then, this view-point has gained a massive momentum so that it is now considered to be the orthodo