The Book of Isaiah

A Pre-teaching Interpretation Paper:
Today, the word “Messiah” commonly incites George Handel’s renowned oratorio or the person of Jesus Christ, whose second name is a Greek translation of the word. This is understandable given the pervasiveness of Christianity as a religion in the world. However, not only has the word been understood differently in different circles, it has also been attributed to and claimed by different individuals throughout the history. This paper seeks to evaluate the claim made by third-century Rabbis Bar Kappara and Hillel II that King Hezekiah of Judah is the Messiah.  In order to do that, what the word means to Jews in Ancient Near Eastern and Rabbinical contexts needs to be considered.
Although Rabbi Joseph has refuted Hillel II’s claim,  it is still a worthy endeavor to give the claim a second hearing, especially as Mika Pajunen noted that “there was renewed interest in these traditions,” referring to Deuteronomistic and Chronistic traditions, “to highlight the unity of the people and hence also their common heritage” after the destruction of the second temple.  Therefore, the account of Hezekiah in Chronicles will be exegeted, highlighting its uniqueness from that in Kings and, by extension, Isaiah, and drawing implications if the thesis, “King Hezekiah is the fulfillment of Yahweh's promise for THE Messiah,” is supported by Chronistic perspective.

In Jesaja 45 lijkt de profeet hard uit te halen naar de afgodendienaars. Zou je de tekst snel doorlezen, dan lijkt er een polariserend verhaal te worden gebracht. Alsof de Eeuwige Zich in nietsontziende woorden tegen de andere volkeren richt. Nee, dan Zijn eigen mensen-het volk Israël! Maar staan we stil bij de diepere lagen in de tekst, dan ligt dat beeld toch iets genuanceerder.

Deze preek is een uitnodiging om, via de methode van Lectio Divina, tekstueel in de schoenen van de Ander te gaan staan. En zo samen op weg te gaan naar een veelkleurig God die verzoent en verbindt.

As one of several Cognitive-Critical approaches to the Bible that I've written, this essay applies the Logotherapy theory of Viktor Frankl to the Suffering-Servant Motif in Isaiah with existential implications for first audience and later readers. Presented in the festschrift for Wayne Rollins, edited by J. Harold Ellens (the "fathers of Bible-and-psychology studies"), with great appreciation!  Pages 173-196 in Psychological Hermeneutics for Biblical Themes and Texts; A Festschrift in Honour of Wayne G. Rollins Vol. 1. Edited by J. Harold Ellens (London: T & T Clark / Continuum, 2012).

A phrase-by-phrase comparison of Isaiah 44:26-28 and Isaiah 45:1-6, with the Cyrus Cylinder and the histories of Xenophon and Herodotus, shows with amazing accuracy how the prophesies of Isaiah about Cyrus, given nearly 200 years before they happened, were fulfilled.

Gli studi più recenti basati su accurate analisi filologiche del testo, giungono a rigettare una comprensione semplificata del libro d'Isaia, quasi fosse una raccolta di tre opere separate e indipendenti, aprendo la strada a nuove ipotesi. Secondo alcuni esisterebbe un redattore unico relativamente recente, responsabile di aver raccolto e rielaborato materiali autentici prodotti da scuole di profeti vissuti in epoche diverse, mentre secondo altri il redattore unico sarebbe proprio l'antico Isaia dell'VIII secolo, divulgatore, di alcune profezie sulla caduta di Babilonia (metropoli religiosa dell'idolatria, della magia, della divinazione, della stregoneria e dell'astrologia), sull'intervento liberatorio di un generico "Signore Unto" e sul successivo ritorno in patria degli esuli del Regno del Nord (Isaia 11,11; Isaia 11,16; Isaia 19,23; Isaia 27,13; Isaia 52,4-5), dopo le massicce deportazioni messe in atto dal re assiro Sargon II.

https://digilander.libero.it/domingo7/Isaia.htm

My intention in this paper is to expound the exegetical method of St. Thomas Aquinas by looking at one particular passage in the book of Isaiah upon which he commented at length throughout his writing career. Aquinas’s remarks on the prophetic vision of Isaiah are worthy of study both for the variety of exegetical methods and sources that he brings to bear upon the text, as well as for the wealth of literal and spiritual meanings that he is able to draw forth from the passage. By looking at the different emphases that Aquinas gives in his various expositions on the vision of Isaiah, it will become clear how much his method developed and deepened over time. In order to see how Aquinas’s exegesis of Isaiah 6:1-4 evolved, it will be necessary to look first at one of his earliest works, his commentary on the book of Isaiah which he began while still a student under Albert the Great and continued at the university of Paris. After that, I will look at Aquinas’s closing remarks at the end of his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, written not long after, wherein he gives a brief comment on the prophet’s vision. Then, I will examine the 12th sermon of Aquinas in which he gives a detailed Trinitarian exposition of the text. This will lead into a discussion of his two works on the gospel of John, namely the Catena Aurea and then his own commentary in which he gives a thoroughly Christological interpretation of the prophet’s vision. I will end my historical examination of Aquinas’s texts by looking at the Prima Secundae of the Summa Theologiae wherein he gives some final comments on Isaiah 6:1, and correlates it to the layout and structure of the temple of Jerusalem. Before closing, I will attempt to draw some common themes found in Aquinas’s various writings and summarize his use of sources and methods of interpretation.

Isaiah 52:13-53:12, the fourth Servant Song, remains a source of heated discussion not only in modern Christian-Jewish polemics, but also among scholars. As we will see, scholars disagree over the interpretation of the song and, particularly, the identity of the servant. The purpose of this study is to apply the historical-critical approach to this passage to ascertain the identity of its servant character.     
    A variant of a minority viewpoint will be adopted in this paper. I will argue that the servant of Isa. 53 is best understood as Israel personified and that the poem can be read as a type of summarised allegory – a retelling – of the tragic story of Israel, beginning from its selection, relating its transgression, the subsequent divine punishment inflicted by God and culminating with Israel’s forgiveness and deliverance by God. It will be argued that a poem’s text should not be subjected to a brute literal exegesis. Moreover, it will be reasoned that personalised and moving descriptions are provided in Deutero-Isaiah for Zion-Jerusalem, thereby cautioning us from a literal reading of such descriptions.

L’articolo si occupa della citazione di Is 40,3 in Gv 1,23, in cui Giovanni Battista definisce la propria identità dinanzi ai Farisei. Dopo una breve presentazione della funzione testimoniale di Giovanni, la ricerca analizza la discussa presenza del tema del “nuovo Esodo” nel contesto di Is 40,3 e nel Quarto Vangelo, nonché le possibili allusioni a Isaia in Gv 1,29.32-33.34. Dall’indagine risulta che il tema del “nuovo Esodo”, presente nel contesto isaiano tramite sottili appigli, tali da apparire delle evanescenze, si riscontra invece con più chiari segnali nel Quarto Vagnelo, tali da costituire dei riverberi di significato assai illuminanti. Tra elementi di continuità e di rottura, l’assunzione di Isaia in Giovanni risulta allora intessuta con il tema del “nuovo Esodo”. In tale complesso percorso ermeneutico, Giovanni è compreso come l’araldo testimone della verità che inaugura il nuovo e definitivo intervento salvifico compiuto da Dio in Gesù Nazareno.

The study reviews how scholars have approached the authorship of the book of Isaiah and the kind of methodologies used in analyzing the text along the centuries. This is done in light of the resources which are now available in order to provide a more accurate and up to date assessment of the authorship and methodology which in turn may serve as a solid basis for future exegesis and theological exposition of the book. Following this comprehensive review, the study has found out that beginning in the 20th and 21st centuries, scholarship on the book of Isaiah has displayed interest in the authorship and methodologies employed in the study of the book, but there is seemingly no agreement among scholars. The features of the study of the book in the last two centuries are predominantly the reverberation of arguments and sometimes newer or combined methodologies in approaching the text. A biblical/theological scholarly dialogue to fashion out the best way in dealing with issues in Isaiah is recommended to address the unending discourses and debates on the authorship and methodology of the book of Isaiah. This will bring a lasting settlement to the apparently conflicting positions in Isaianic scholarship.

Sennacherib's Campaign Against Judah
The campaign of Sennacherib against Judah is one of the most widely researched in Biblical Studies and Ancient Near East, and one that also poses scholarly challenges. Allusion to the event is found in Isaiah, Kings, and Chronicles, but there is no correlation between the Assyrian and Biblical descriptions of the same event. Dan’el Kahn offers a textcritical analysis of these Biblical passages that allude to the military events. Detecting repetitions, breaks in the narrative, and contradictions and inconsistencies in the texts, he traces and reconstructs different and discrete sources. Kahn demonstrates that the Biblical passages are based on earlier sources that were later edited and revised by a third hand. Based on historical events that are found in non-Biblical texts, he also offers new dates for the sources. He claims that the narrative was written for the book of Isaiah, arguing that it predates the version found in Kings

In this article I attempt to analyze a Coptic manuscript sa 52 (according to the nomenclature of K. Schüssler), from the collection of Pierpont Morgan Library. In this parchment codex we have almost the entire text of the Book of Isaiah in the Sahidic dialect of the Coptic language.
The first part of this book is particularly important: the so-called Proto–Isaiah. One third of the text of Proto–Isaiah in Sahidic can be found only in our manuscript sa 52!
The presentation and analysis of the codex sa 52 is divided in several parts. The first part contains a short history of our manuscript against the background of the whole Pierpont Morgan collection. In the second part there are some technical informations about our codex (its form, measurements, shape of the letters, manner of writing, etc.).
The third part is dedicated to the Coptic text itself and its comparison with the Greek text of the Septuagint (according to the edition of J. Ziegler). In the last part – based on several examples – we try to answer the following question: how the Coptic text of sa 52 helps us in our interpretation of the Greek text of Proto–Isaia, especially when the
text of Septuagint is difficult and unclear.

In this paper I explore the theological potential of the trans*formation of the body in popular culture, more specifically, in the performance of drag artist Conchita Wurst (Tom Neuwirth) at the Eurovision Song Contest finale of 2014. Contrary to Dana International, the first (known) trans* woman to win Eurovision for Israel in 1998, Conchita did not " pass " as either male or female. As a " bearded lady " , she operates on the borderline of the masculine and the feminine, combining the aesthetics of both as she performed the winning song Rise Like A Phoenix. In various media, Conchita was read as a contemporary Christ figure. With her parted long hair, kind eyes, dress and beard she does indeed resemble those representations of Jesus Christ that have become dominant in the " religious imagery of visual piety " of Western popular culture. Both the performance of the song and Conchita as a stage character play with themes of misrecognition, suffering and resurrection. Read as a " Christ-like figure " by Eastern Orthodox church leaders, moreover, Conchita was accused of blasphemy. I argue that if we take Conchita seriously as a contemporary Christ figure, she enables us to construct a liberationist theology of uncertainty, in particular the enduring uncertainty of gender-bending. To do so, I will attempt to understand current cross-dressing performances such as Conchita's from a genealogy of the beard, focusing on the meaning of the beard in biblical times as well as the history of women with facial hair: the archive of the bearded lady. In the Old Testament and in Christian tradition, beards have often been simultaneously one of the most important markers of hegemonic masculinity as well as the site where this masculinity might be jeopardised. In the archive of the bearded lady we find women on the margins of society (funfair " freaks " , witches, old ladies from the countryside) as well as confident queer activists who publicly claim the beard, showing how it fails as the ultimate marker of masculinity.

The interpretation of the biblical books started already in the Bible itself, in which one can easily notice the plethora of quotations, allusions to, and echoes of other biblical texts. This study analyzes the quotation of Isaiah 49:16a found in the apocryphal Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch. By analyzing the immediate context of this verse in the Book of Isaiah, its form, and historical background, the meaning of the text within its original context is revealed. Then a similar analysis applies to the form and the historical context of this verse within its new context, namely in 2 Baruch 4:2. The confrontation yields a significant number of possible interpretations and applications of this Isaianic text within its new context.

This essay argues that the book of Isaiah locates Hezekiah within a figural history that assigns a prospective significance to his deliverance from the Assyrian flood, on the one hand, and his deliverance from death, on the other.  In this way, the book argues that God's commitment to David, activated by faith, is stronger than both the Assyrian foe and death itself.

Scholarly treatments of Isa. 22.15-25 address the action by Shebna that led to his harsh punishment, the scope of the oracle, and the related question of the nature of the affinity
between vv. 15-19 and 20-25. The reconsideration in this article suggests a different understanding of this passage. Based on terminological examination of the passage, comparison to Ezek. 43.6-9, and consideration of the realia of keys and their holders, this study suggests that Shebna’s transgression can be identified as encroachment on Davidic and divine authority by undertaking to hew his tomb in close proximity to the Temple. It examines Shebna’s position as second to the king, his transgression and punishment, the portrayal of the transfer of authority from Shebna to Eliakim, and the role of the image of the bolt-pin in this oracle.

God loves animals and gives them a special place in creation. So, do animals also have a place in God’s work op redemption? Will there be animals on the new Earth? Will we see our beloved pets in the afterlife? This book takes up the challenge to think in a responsible way through these questions.
The author focuses in particular on the physical restoration, the prophetic proclamation of the coming animal peace, the attitude of God and humanity towards animals, and the questions of the relationship between biblical life, the future of animals, and vegetarianism. What can the Bible and Christian doctrine reveal to us about God’s way with animals?

The book of the prophet Isaiah does not cease to question the critics, presenting itself (like the study of the Pentateuch) as an excellent training ground for the
study of the formation of texts and the biblical canon. Until even ten years ago, the
Italian scene was still broadly convinced of the «classical» subdivision of Isaiah into
three parts each attributable to a single author (First-, Second- and Third-Isaiah). It
is now showing itself much more amenable to a unitary reading of the Book of Isaiah, indicating the interconnections and the work of redaction which gradually took
place over a considerable span of time. The two exegetical approaches, diachronic
and synchronic, can also dialogue and provide reciprocally interesting perspectives
with a view to a greater understanding of the text, its message and his value. To this
intense dialogue must be added, in the last twenty years, a further perspective which
looks at the book of Isaiah, starting from its Jewish and early Christian reception,
that is, from the writings of Qumran, the numerous New Testament quotations and
the ancient rabbinic and patristic literature. This symphony of approaches makes
Isaiah a field that is still fruitful for exegetical interpretations so that these writings
do not cease to question the literary interpretation, the theology and also the believing reflection. This article seems to produce a summary of the studies, some dated
and some more recent, and formulates a hypothesis on the formation of the book.

El tema de Salvación recorre el Libro de Isaías empezando por el nombre del profeta que le da su denominación al mismo. En efecto Isaías en hebreo significa Yahveh salva. De éste modo el título expresa una fórmula concisa que luego se desarrolla a lo largo de los textos. En este artículo centraremos nuestro estudio en el uso dela raíz nhם en este libro.

Whether one prefers intertextuality, intratextuality, allusion, or reverberation, it is apparent that in some way authors of the New Testament engaged the texts from the Old Testament. Witherington enters the rhetorical fray with a unique approach, namely by investigating how the New Testament authors handled the book of Isaiah, one of their most frequently cited or borrowed books of the Old Testament. Witherington's interest, however, is not merely pointing out where subtle allusion exist that would otherwise be missed by the untrained eye. Nor does he attempt to make a case for the New Testament authors relying either on the Hebrew text or on the Greek translation as the base text for these same authors, as recent works in the field have done. Rather, Witherington demonstrates through careful exegesis of both the text of Isaiah and their corresponding New Testament references that the New Testament authors employed an array of hermeneutical strategies in their implementation of Isaiah. Due to the authors' deep-seated familiarity with Isaiah, and the fact that they were often working from memory rather than a text, Witherington suggests that these authors were often "riffing" off the prophet, often filtered through the interpretive lens of later Jewish sources.

Abstract
It has been suggested that the books of Job and of Deutero-Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55) have a variety of similarities in their linguistic features and common subject-matter and because of this, it has been argued that there is literary dependence or influence of one book upon the other. Although such an author-oriented approach, by which scholars explain similarities by the theory of literary references, has some value, there is no specific reason to understand those similarities by a sort of direct literary dependence. Instead, these two books are likely to include the common scribal mindset of the Persian period. Here I put forward shared ideas of God’s universal control and freedom which are distinct from the Mosaic covenant and the ideas of the Hellenistic period. With these comparisons between Job/Deutero-Isaiah and other concepts in the Hebrew Bible, I propose the dating of the two books and argue that these cultural ideas about God’s control and freedom reflect the Persian scribal idea on the formation of the two books.

Isaiah 40‒48 emphasizes that Yahweh is a unique creator-god. Did the author(s) arrive at this idea by adopting, adapting or refuting other texts and traditions, and, if so, which? This article offers fresh arguments and re-examines the potential relations between Isaiah 40‒48, Zoroastrianism, Babylonian religion and the creation account in Genesis 1.

Unpublished response paper to Mark F. Rooker, “Characteristics of the Hebrew of the Recognized Literary Divisions of Isaiah,” in Bind up the Testimony: Explorations in the Genesis of the Book of Isaiah, ed. Daniel I. Block and Richard L. Schultz (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2015), 195–225.

The question of the relationships between the Book of Isaiah and the Book of the Twelve Prophets is a crucial one, as multiple similarities in language and motifs demonstrate, but far from sufficient efforts have been made to clarify it. This volume authored by experts pursuing diverse methodological approaches presents a more integral picture of the different kinds of relationships or thematic convergencies which are characteristic either of both corpora as a whole or for some of their specific parts. The joint efforts result in an overview showing the diversity of semantic, intertextual, literary, redactional, historical, and theological aspects of the mutual references between the Isaiah and the Twelve which counter all one-dimensional proposals trying to explain the growth of these correspondences.

Though scholars have found other evidence, which will be discussed in a later work, to suggest two authors, or perhaps even three authors responsible for these works, the time period of the book alone clearly demonstrates that more than one writer is responsible for the writings that became known as Isaiah.

Isa. 56. 1-8 advocates for the inclusion of foreigners and eunuchs into the worshipping community amidst the nationalistic and ethnocentric struggles of post-exilic Yehud. This article supports this inclusion for Asian and Asian American immigrants and individuals in the U.S., who continue to be regarded as the “perpetuate foreigner.” Moreover, by interpreting eunuchs as sexual minorities, it argues for the acceptance of LGBT persons in conservative Asian American churches who have usually been resistant to receiving them.

Keywords: Foreigners, immigrants, sexual minorities, Asian American churches.

This article focuses on Isaiah 12 – an important text that concludes the first main section of the Book of Isaiah (BI). The analysis focuses on the structure and redaction of this text. The text is interpreted as a meaning-making text against the background of trauma as described in this first main section of the BI.

Isaiah 5:1-7 appears to draw on a Sumerian creation story in which the first humans were planted in the ground as a seed and grew into people. By using this agricultural metaphor for the origin of Israel, Isaiah is able to push his listens to remember Judah's history with YHWH and the unfortunate direction it has taken. It also allows him to plant the seeds of hope that the davidic monarchy will continue and the House of Israel will one day be restored.

Salvation is a subject that goes through the whole book of Isaiah. The same prophet’s name is related with this word as actually in Hebrew Isaiah means “YHWH saves”. So the title of the book shows in a concise way what will be developed through the book. In this essay we’ll focalize specially in the use of root נחם in the book of Isaiah.