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Dear yair,
An interesting summary of Isaiah. Would you like to comment on how the Book seems to be repeating itself? Or would you say it does not do this? For example, what you write regarding chapters 25-30 sounds much rather like what is written concerning later verses, regarding the unification of the tribes and the speading of Israel's benign influence in the world, etc. Not that I am criticising the author of Isaiah for such a repetion, if indeed you believe that repetition is what he is doing? Indeed, I rather like repetitiousness when it is well done.
Would you say repetition is a characteristic of Hebrew prose in general? After all the linear uncyclical trajectory of modern rational thought, most characterised by the scientific method and the rational idiom, is surely only one way of thinking. Aristotle doesnt have the final word on logic, surely?
As you presumably know modern scholars believe Isaiah was written by more than one person, and at different times. It is supposed, I imagine, that this is an explanation for the repetitiousness..?
I am thinking that some critics of your analysis might ask themselves : how can you know what periods of time particular prophecies relate to..some of them evidently concern events that happened over 2000 years ago, others concern events still future to us today. And yet does the text itself refer to the size of these time gap periods? Im just wanting to think objectively. I'm not being negative or hostile etc.
Obviously these thoughts may not be relevant for the site...
Finally, are you yourself convinced Isaiah was only written at one time and by one person. If so, was it written down at that time in the form that we have it today by that particular person? If not, does this really matter anyway. Why, if it is so, would it necessarily mean that Scripture is therefore suspect, etc...as the driving forces behind biblical criticism perhaps are wanting to imply.
Best wishes and have a nice run up to Hannukah
Jonathan
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Answers:
Your Questions covered the following fields:
(a) Does Isaiah repeat itself?
(b) Repetition in Scripture in general.
(c) Was Isaiah written by more than one person?
(d) The applicability or lack of it of Prophecy in our times.
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(a) Does Isaiah repeat itself?
Your remark concerning the repetition is based more on the summary we made than
the actual text.
The summary we made was of a few lines emphasizing those points we consider most
pertinent from our point of view. The limitation and emphasis on certain issues
may be due to our own predilections.
I would not say that Isaiah repeats himself. He may return to the same themes
but with different perspectives and the addition of new points.
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(b) Repetition in Scripture in general.
Repetition occurs. The Malbim constantly emphasized that everywhere the same
message seems to be repeated it
comes to add a new facet to the subject or a different applicability.
Other Commentators tended to take it for granted and to see in the repetitions
an emphasis on the importance of the subject spoken of.
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(c) Was Isaiah written by more than one person?
Recent scholarship in Israel is divided on this issue.
Some say that it is all one person. This is our view.
My father also told me that though there are differences in different parts of
the work an underlying unity still exists.
Another view says there were "schools" of prophets.
Certain "prophecies" emanated from these schools and were repeated by the
people.
It was not so much a literary society but more a verbal one.
People memorized things and repeated them.
Isaiah and the other Prophets may have incorporated in their works whole streams
of these "popular" prophecies. This does not reflect on the question of Divine
inspiration. The popular prophecies may also have been inspired and the Prophet
would have been inspired to include them in his work.
This is discussed in the Commentary "Daat Mikra" of Mosad haRav Kook.
Likewise, Isaiah wrote his book over a period of time.
As is the way with Prophecy he related to different events in his lifetime and
from what would happen shortly afterwards as an outcome
of them. He related to these events as prototypical of what would happen in the
Latter Days.
All Scripture is like this.
There would therefore have been a "collection" of prophecies of Isaiah.
These were later collected and edited apparently by King Hezekiah and again by
Ezra and affirmed by Members of the Great Assembly that preceded the Sanhedrin.
This is another reason why the "Oral Law" of the Sages should be respected.
They are the ones who decided what books would be in the Bible and how these
Books were composed.
They were inspired by the Almighty in this work.
Rabbi Aryek Kaplan, "A Handbook of Jewish Thought" (Jerusalem 1979) says on the
matter of Isaiah:
<<8:71
<<The book of Isaiah was written by the school of King Hezekiah [Baba Batra
15a]. it was customary for the prophets to write down their prophecies shortly
before their death [ibid]. just as Moses had done [Deut 31:9]. However, their
public prophecies were declared before the Sanhedrin and recorded by them [ibid,
San. 1:2; San 17b]. Since Isaiah was murdered by King Menasseh, [Yebamot 49b] he
did not have a chance to set his prophecies in writing.[Baba Batra 15a] This was
later done by the Sanhedrin which had been established by King Hezekiah, and
which functioned for many years after his death.[ibid]
Kaplan gives several sources for what he says and we have not included all of
them in the square brackets.
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(d) The applicability or lack of it of Prophecy in our times.
We have been asked this question before and answered it.
A full study of the Conceptual Principles has not however been done by us and at
some stage perhaps should be.
At all events, all Prophecy that was written down has a message for our time.
All Prophecies concerning the future are applicable to the Last Days.
In many cases the Prophet describes an event in his own time or predict
something that will happen shortly afterwards and then veers away to describe
something in the distant future.
Also history often repeats itself in ever expanding circles.