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GodHeals
Guest
Hi,
Are the Deutero-Isaiah (Isaiah 40–55) and other like it considered the Word of God?
Thanks!
Brian
Are the Deutero-Isaiah (Isaiah 40–55) and other like it considered the Word of God?
Thanks!
Brian
Are the Deutero-Isaiah (Isaiah 40–55) and others like it considered the Word of God?
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J
Joe_5859
Guest
Of course. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be in the Bible.
Remember, Deutero-Isaiah (and Trito-Isaiah) are a theory based on some textual clues. Regardless of how the book came to be written and put together, what’s most important for our purposes is the fact that the whole book is in Scripture and part of Divine Revelation. It’s interesting to look into the origins of the text, and such an endeavor can even tell us important things, but at the end of the day we have to look at it as a whole.
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GodHeals
Guest
Thank you for the post, Joe. The reason I ask, is because I have the NEW JEROME BIBLICAL COMMENTARY, and it mentions them, but there are no commentary for them. So, this had me thinking, why not… I think this is a popular commentary too…Of course. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be in the Bible.
I am not sure if it is in every bible, since not in all manuscripts. Is it in all Catholic Bibles? I would like to find a nice chart on such things. If you know of any, please let me know.
I found this one:
Any further thoughts? Thanks!
J
Joe_5859
Guest
Good ol’ Raymond Brown, huh?
Yeah, Brown comes from the school of thought that takes a lot of that stuff for granted.
The idea of dividing Isaiah in this way is relatively new (last couple of centuries). Basically, the theory is that Isaiah 40-55 (and Isaiah 56-66) differ enough in style and substance that many biblical scholars believe it to have been written by different prophets in the “Isaiahan school” at a later time.
There’s some good evidence for this. Isaiah lived around the year 700 BC. And yet, in Isaiah 40-55, he speaks at length about the Persians freeing the Israelites from the Baylonian captivity in the mid-500s (even mentioning the Persian leader Cyrus by name). It’s hard to think of an interpretation of those chapters that references something other than the Babylonian captivity. Of course, then again, it is divinely-inspired prophecy.
I think it’s at least possible that God could have revealed future plans to the original Isaiah.As interesting as all these things are, I tend to take a lot of it with a grain of salt. 100 years ago, separating out the 4 “Suffering Servant Songs” in Deutero-Isaiah was en vogue. Nowadays, most scholars recognize those distinctions as somewhat arbitrary. Who knows what they’ll say in another hundred years.
But whether one man named Isaiah wrote the entire book back in 700 BC or whether a team of Isaiahan-inspired guys cobbled the thing together over the course of a couple hundred years, it is the book as we have it today (with all 66 chapters) that is part of Divine Revelation.
I took a class in college on Isaiah 40-66. I could keep going, but I might have to bust out my old notebook.
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Joe_5859
Guest
Oh, and that chart is pretty interesting. It doesn’t really have anything to do with Deutero-Isaiah, though. It’s just comparing how two different translations of Scripture number their verses. Deutero-Isaiah is not part of the Deuterocanonical books (those books that Catholics recognize as scriptural but Protestants don’t), even though they both have the word “deutero” in them.
“Deutero” basically just means “second”. So the book of Deuteronomy = “Second Law” because it came after the “first law” (the 10 Commandments). Deutero-Isaiah means “Second Isaiah” because it refers to a speculative person who wrote in the name of Isaiah.
All Christians and Jews recognize the full Book of Isaiah (all 66 chapters) to be part of Scripture.
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patrick457
Guest
You want to know what’s funny? Fr. Brown came under attack from conservatives for not being conservative enough and at the same time came under attack from liberals for not being liberal enough.Good ol’ Raymond Brown, huh?
Yeah, Brown comes from the school of thought that takes a lot of that stuff for granted.
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COPLAND_3
Guest
That is only an academic theory, not fact, nor is it a traditional thought. If it was a fact, which I don’t personally believe it, it would not in any way effect the Divine inspiration of it. If the Church has declared anything to be canonical, then no matter what its canonical without question.
In my opinion, I think it undermines the reliability of the faithful care that has been taken in handing down the Scriptures from the sacred writers, especially when those who claim that Daniel and Jonah didnt write Daniel and Jonah, or somebody else used the names of other prophets and so on in order to give more creedence to their writings, in other words they lied in order to trick people to accept their writing as coming from someone greater than themselves. In my opinion that’s garbage!!
In my opinion, I think it undermines the reliability of the faithful care that has been taken in handing down the Scriptures from the sacred writers, especially when those who claim that Daniel and Jonah didnt write Daniel and Jonah, or somebody else used the names of other prophets and so on in order to give more creedence to their writings, in other words they lied in order to trick people to accept their writing as coming from someone greater than themselves. In my opinion that’s garbage!!
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patrick457
Guest
You want a simple answer? Yes.
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patrick457
Guest
For a little variety, playing the devil’s advocate for a moment here (something I don’t get to do often
): why would it ‘undermine’ things? And even if, say, Daniel and Jonah didn’t write Daniel and Jonah, why would it be a ‘lie’? Just how would we define ‘lie’ here? Let’s pretend for a moment that yes, the ‘author’ (I don’t know what you meant by the word, but for a moment let’s use it here in the sense of ‘if you’re not the guy who’s actually dipping the pen and writing the words on some writing material then you’re not the author’) of Daniel is indeed not Daniel. Does that mean the contents of book could no longer be ‘true’, having been undermined by the ‘lie’?
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minichibi
Guest
Depends on how you define lie here. If a “prophecy” is written when or after the events it had previously prophesized happened it is not a prophecy anymore.For a little variety, playing the devil’s advocate for a moment here (something I don’t get to do often
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COPLAND_3
Guest
Being deceptive and leading readers to believe you are somebody that you are not, that’s in a problem in my eyes. That was what gnostics were known for. For most of Jewish and Christian history it has been believed that Daniel and Jonah wrote Daniel and Jonah. I am amazed that Christians would but into the idea that the book of Daniel was written after those prophecies were fulfilled! That’s a thing that antichristians try to say.For a little variety, playing the devil’s advocate for a moment here (something I don’t get to do often
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patrick457
Guest
How would define a ‘prophecy’ then?
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COPLAND_3
Guest
The facinating thing about the book of Daniel is that he prophesied what was going to happen in the future, and he was proven correct after it happened. But some have accused the writer to be someone who wrote after those things happened and forged Daniel’s name to deceptively appear as a prophet. That would be like me writing about things that happened within the last 50 years and then forgeing John Henry Cardinal Newman’s name to it. As for me, I cannot accept that.
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minichibi
Guest
A word directly from God to the prophet. I agree with Copland with “Being deceptive and leading readers to believe you are somebody that you are not”, these books could have been written that way for whatever reason, to make people accept the incoming events: “See? The prophet said Cyrus would free the israelites from Babylonian captivity!”, but did he? If that was a late redaction or interpolation, why should I believe him if he’s apparently writing with an agenda?
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minichibi
Guest
My point. Textual critics argue that the language used is too recent to be written before the events happened.
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COPLAND_3
Guest
I have found that textual critics and translators usually make some of the lousiest interpreters of Scripture.
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minichibi
Guest
The problem is that I found this interpretation in the introduction notes in my catholic bible.
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COPLAND_3
Guest
Let me guess, it was the NAB?
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patrick457
Guest
Must be. At least I can’t think of anything else.
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minichibi
Guest
I’m bad with acronyms, but no, it’s not an English translation. It’s an European one. Anyway, this one Bible reduces the whole OT to nothing but mythology. Reading it gave me more questions than answers… anyway, do you disagree with the textual critics opinion?
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