52...ISAIAH: SPLIT PERSONALITY PROPHET...PT. 1: OVERVIEW                                    Based on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah...Read more there.

Controversy has raged SINCE the late 1700s, over whether the Book of Isaiah is the work of one, two, three, or even more prophets. In his 'Essays in Satire', Roman scholar Ronald Knox (d.1957) made fun of this as: 'turning Moses into a syndication of press cutting agencies & Isaiah into the goodly fellowship of the prophets'. While this might still be amusing, the passage of time, with the increasing knowledge it has brought scholars has shown both accusations to be more true than less! In the end, though, does it matter whose name is on the cover of a book if the contents have God's authority stamped on them?

By now wide agreement that two different Prophets writing at quite different times produced 'Isaiah' CH.1-55. Put simply, a common view is that a Prophet named Isaiah writing from c.740BC is responsible for CH.1-39. While some scholars consider this Isaiah 'kept going', more believe his work was continued by another Prophet during the Babylonian Exile. The first exile took place in 597BC, with the Jewish people allowed to return home from 538BC when Cyrus of Persia overthrew Babylon. During this period, another Prophet coming to be known as 'Deutero' (Second)-'Isaiah' continued on from the original Isaiah's work. Scholars tell us there is a lot of internal linguistic evidence showing  CH.40-55 could not be the work of the original Isaiah. Some credit this second Prophet not only with CH.40-55, but with the rest of the book. However, some now think CH.56-66 may be the work of yet another Prophet, referred to as 'Trito' (Third) 'Isaiah', or that these last chapters are actually a composite work by more than one person [1]. This last may be a helpful way of looking at things without getting bogged down in technicalities! In the end, if we are led by God's Spirit to accept the contents as God's Word, that is surely more important than questions of authorship, interesting though they may be! These brief introductions to Isaiah will be based on the premise that we have the original Isaiah, Deutero-Isaiah, & a third, probably composite, 'Trito' Isaiah.






[1] The NJB notes (p.1170) suggest these chapters may well be the work of Deutero-Isaiah's followers.