The Opponents of Third Isaiah: Reconstructing the Cultic History of the Restoration.

• Author: Hurowitz, Victor Avigdor

Most contemporary biblical scholars follow B. Duhm's proposal that the book of Isaiah contains the words of at least three distinct prophets or prophetic groups. Chapters 1-39 preserve some prophecies of Isaiah, son of Amoz, who flourished in the eighth century, to which were added numerous prophecies composed after him. Chapters 40-55 stem from an anonymous prophet active during the Babylonian exile who witnessed the advent of Cyrus, king of Persia. Chapters 56-66 derive from a person or group writing in the Persian period, probably in Eretz Israel. Numerous theories have been advanced about the exact makeup, date, authorship, and interrelationship of these three components of the canonical book.

Brooks Schramm, in a revision of his University of Chicago dissertation (1993), focuses on the third part, known as Third Isaiah or Trito-Isaiah. A thorough survey of previous literature leads him to accept the view that Isaiah 55-66 is not the work of one individual but derives from a group writing in at least three discernible stages in Eretz Israel over a period of several years in the early post-exilic period. Third Isaiah reflects upon the prophecies of the slightly earlier Second Isaiah, trying to solve the vexing problem of why the glorious salvation promised by Second Isaiah did not come to full fruition. The main type of prophecy characterizing Trito-Isaiah is a so-called "salvation-judgment oracle" which combines promises of ultimate salvation with words of rebuke revealing why salvation has been delayed.

But the central question Schramm addresses is: who are the people or groups chastised by the prophetic voice? Most of the volume (chapters three and four) is an incisive debate with Paul Hanson who suggested that these opponents were Zadokite priests then in control of the Jerusalem temple (The Dawn of Apocalyptic, rev. ed. [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979]). Hanson had drawn a sharp dichotomy between two contemporary groups. The one are "good guys," who are visionary, prophetic, alienated, oppressed, anti-establishment, socially progressive, and so on. The other are "bad guys," in whose number were realistic, ruling class, oppressive, rich, establishment Zadokite priests.

Through an exegesis of the entire Third Isaiah, Schramm whittles away at Hanson's theory. Hanson appears as heir to anticlerical attitudes of nineteenth-century Protestant biblical scholarship. These prejudices are exacerbated by a contemporary liberal agenda. In...