1 Isaiah (Book and Person)
Isaiah (Book and Person)
III. Judaism
A. Second Temple and Hellenistic Judaism
The book of Isaiah, originally a product of multiple
authors compiled over centuries, was by the early
2nd century BCE attributed as a whole to its the
author of its first section (chs. 139), Isaiah ben
Amoz (8th cent. BCE). From the beginning, his
prophecies and sayings were regarded as authorita-
tive and interpreted as a source of inspiration, to
which exegetical glosses and addenda were continu-
ously supplemented. This ongoing process of ex-
pansion, interpolation, and revision continued
throughout the period of textual fluidity, up to its
canonization as a fixed book in the Second Temple
period. The notion of Isaiah as the work of a single
author, including the prophecies of comfort and
restoration in the later layers of the book (e.g., chs.
4066; usually dated the 6th cent. BCE or even af-
ter), is reflected, e.g., in Ben Sira (48:1725; ca.
180 BCE).
Isaiah was arguably the most read prophetic
book during the Second Temple period, as reflected
in the extensive number of citations and allusions
to that book in the literature of the period (see be-
low). By the 1st century BCE, it is likely that several
sections of the book were also included in weekly
haftarot a series of selections from biblical pro-
phetic writings that were publicly read in syna-
gogue as part of Jewish religious practice (Luke
4:1619). Like today, more sections of haftarot prob-
ably came from the book of Isaiah than from any
other prophetic book. Thus, the public audience
had frequent exposure to the text.
Ancient versions and translations of Isaiah used
in different Jewish communities (e.g., the Old
Greek, Qumran scrolls, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan)
suggest that the eternal relevance of the book was
widely assumed, be it in Jerusalem, Galilee, Qum-
ran, Egypt, or Babylon. The scribal practice of these
texts, or their Vorlagen, displays contemporaneous
attempts at modifying, highlighting, or de-empha-
sizing certain descriptions and passages of Isaiah
(e.g., messianic and eschatological messages) in or-
der to recontextualize and apply its teachings to a
new situation. The book thus functioned as a living
text for understanding the events unfolding in the
world.
The veneration of Isaiah as an ideal figure grew
in the Second Temple period. This admiration
helped to develop edifying traditions of his life
which, having circulated in a presumably oral man-
ner for centuries, were incorporated with some
variations in The Lives of the Prophets (1st cent. BCE),
The Martyrdom of Isaiah (1st cent. BCE), 4 Baruch
(9:2122), and Josephus Antiquities of the Jews (1st
cent. CE). These martyrological legends include ac-
Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception 13 ( Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston 2016)
2
counts of Isaiahs persecution and death on Manas-
sehs order, possibly implied in Hebrews 11:37 (end
of the 1st cent. CE), and known in rabbinic litera-
ture (bYev 49b; bSan 103b; ySan 10:2; PesRab 4.4).
These narratives were thus known among different
circles and affected the piety of religious devotees.
Some critics also consider their possible influence
on the formation of the passion narratives in the
NT.
The book of Isaiah is extremely rich and diverse
in subject matter, and different social and religious
groups in the Second Temple period accommodated
it according to their own worldviews, self-under-
standings, and value systems. For example, its im-
portance for the Qumran community is indicated
by the number of its manuscripts found in Qumran
(at least twenty separate scrolls) as well as in the
number of allusions and citations of the book in
Qumran literature. The Qumran commentaries,
known as pesharim, reflect the sense of the impend-
ing end-time of world history, conceiving of its
community as the holy seed the remnant of the
remnant (Isa 6:13; 10:2021) while those in Jeru-
salem and elsewhere, as the men of scoffing who
are in Jerusalem (Isa 28:14), were doomed to escha-
tological destruction. As seen in Thanksgiving Hymns
and other Qumran writings, the Servant Songs in
Isaiah also played a formative role in the image (or
perhaps self-image) of the Teacher of Righteous-
ness.
The book of Isaiah is also the most quoted pro-
phetic text in the NT (e.g., Matt 1:23; 2:23; 3:3;
4:1416; 8:17; 12:1721; 13:1415; 15:8; 21: 45).
Early Christian churches perceived the life and
death of Jesus as the fulfillment of messianic proph-
ecies in Isaiah, including the conception of Jesus
(Matt 1:23; Luke 1:35) and the notion of Jesus as
the servant of Isa 53 (Acts 8:3235). Pauls self-refer-
ence as the servant of the Lord (Rom 1:1) who
ministers as a light for the Gentiles (Acts 13:47;
cf. Isa 42:6) among the coastal lands and beyond (cf.
Isa 41:1; 42:4; 49:1; 66:19) also reflects the impact
of Isaiah on his self-understanding and religious
orientation.
Isaiah is also a key to understanding the origins
and history of Jewish-Christian polemic, especially
on such theological issues as whether or not the
universalism of biblical monotheism will eventually
renounce the elected status of (old) Israel and the
obligation of the Sinaitic covenant. For these de-
bates derive, at least in part, from ambiguities
within and multiple readings of Isaiah that can, in
turn, generate conflicting interpretations of those
issues. For example, should the prophetic promise
that foreigners be granted access to the divine ser-
vice in the temple as priests (Isa 66:1821) be inter-
preted literally or as rhetorical hyperbole? Does the
critique of sacrificial cults as abominations (66:3)
object to the entire system of temple activities or,
3 Isaiah (Book and Person) 4
rather, the way in which things are carried out in
the temple?
These issues demonstrate the major impact
which the book of Isaiah had on the emergence of
Jewish Sectarianism in the Second Temple period
in general and the subsequent history of Judaism
and Christianity in particular.
Bibliography: Blenkinsopp, J., Opening the Sealed Book: In-
terpretations of the Book of Isaiah in Late Antiquity (Grand Rap-
ids, Mich. 2006). Broylers C. C./C. A. Evans, Writing and
Reading the Scroll of Isaiah: Studies of an Interpretive Tradition, 2
vols. (Leiden 1997). [Esp. vol. 2] Childs, B. S., The Struggle
to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids,
Mich. 2004). Roberts, J. J. M., The Importance of Isaiah
at Qumran, in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Second
Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins (ed. J. H.
Charlesworth; Waco, Tex. 2006) 27386. Sawyer, J. F. A.,
The Fifth Gospel: Isaiah in the History of Christianity (Cambridge
1996). Troxel, R. L., LXX-Isaiah as Translation and Interpre-
tation: The Strategies of the Translator of the Septuagint of Isaiah
(Leiden 2007).

Job Y. Jindo

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception 13 ( Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston 2016)