The Book of Isaiah

Scholars generally claim the prophetic book is not belonged to or written by one author. A prophetic book can mean multiple collections from different authors over centuries.

Bernard Duhm’s impact on OT scholarship is huge. He claims the works of Isaiah is the work of 3 separate authors (Trio-Isaiah). According to him this prophecy originated in 700 BCE.

Three major compositions:
o 1st Isaiah – chap 1-39 (700 BC) – oracles about Jerusalem
o 2nd Isaiah – chap 40-55(550 BC) – during the Babylonian exile
o 3rd Isaiah – chap 56-66(500 BC) – dealing with proper worship

He argued, if you look at the content from 40-55, there is a big difference from the content 1-39, he called it 2nd Isaiah. He said this was written probably during the Babylonian exile. This oracle seems to rest upon a theme from the return of exile.

And if one looks closely enough from 56-66, one will see another shift, and he called it the 3rd Isaiah, which is probably compiled by a school of prophet or another prophet following the rebuilding of the 2nd temple. This section does not seem to deal with return from exile, but seem to deal with issues related to proper and legitimate worship in the temple.

This theory is difficult for many people to swallow. There is of-course many reasons and findings for the theory. However, is this happened simply because scholars find it hard to believe the prophet why he was able to prophesy correctly the event two centuries down the road?

Early Jewish and Christian tradition did not question the authorship. They held true the single authorship of Isaiah. It was till the 19th century that the multiple authorship theory became the crux of the issue.

The problem here is if Isaiah is truly written by different authors in different time periods, then there would be no prophecy but merely history. Of-course, we still can argue and convince ourselves prophecies maybe given earliest through oral tradition, but were documented two centuries later. Nonetheless, if you were not so convinced in the first place how much would you buy into the second explanation?