How Many “Isaiahs”?

7. How have many scholars questioned the writership of Isaiah, and why?

⁷ The issue of prophecy is one thing that has caused many scholars to question the writership of Isaiah. These critics insist that the latter portion of the book must have been written by someone who lived in the sixth century B.C.E., either during or after the Babylonian exile. According to them, the prophecies of Judah’s desolation were written after their fulfillment and hence were not really predictions at all. These critics also note that after Isa chapter 40, the book of Isaiah speaks as if Babylon were the prevailing power and the Israelites were in captivity there. So they reason that whoever wrote the latter portion of Isaiah must have done so during that era​—during the sixth century B.C.E. Is there a solid basis for such reasoning? Absolutely not!

8. When did skepticism regarding the writership of Isaiah begin, and how did it spread?

⁸ It was not until the 12th century C.E. that the writership of Isaiah was called into question. This was by Jewish commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra. “In his commentary on Isaiah,” says the Encyclopaedia Judaica, “[Abraham Ibn Ezra] states that the second half, from Isa chapter 40, was the work of a prophet who lived during the Babylonian Exile and the early period of the Return to Zion.” During the 18th and 19th centuries, Ibn Ezra’s views were adopted by a number of scholars, including Johann Christoph Doederlein, a German theologian who published his exegetical work on Isaiah in 1775, with a second edition in 1789. The New Century Bible Commentary notes: “All but the most conservative scholars now accept the hypothesis put forward by Doederlein . . . that the prophecies contained in chapters 40-66 of the book of Isaiah are not the words of the eighth-century prophet Isaiah but come from a later time.”

9. (a) What dissecting of the book of Isaiah has taken place? (b) How does one Bible commentator summarize the controversy surrounding Isaiah’s writership?

⁹ However, questions about the writership of the book of Isaiah did not stop there. The theory regarding a second Isaiah​—or Deutero-Isaiah—​gave birth to the notion that a third writer may have been involved.a Then the book of Isaiah was dissected further, so that one scholar ascribes Isa chapters 15 and 16 to an unknown prophet, while another questions the writership of Isa chapters 23 to 27. Still another says that Isaiah could not have penned the words found in Isa chapters 34 and 35. Why? Because the material closely resembles that found in Isa chapters 40 to 66, which had already been credited to someone other than the eighth-century Isaiah! Bible commentator Charles C. Torrey succinctly summarizes the result of this reasoning process. “The once great ‘Prophet of the Exile,’” he says, “has dwindled to a very small figure, and is all but buried in a mass of jumbled fragments.” However, not all scholars agree with such dissecting of the book of Isaiah.