Kyros im Deuterojesaia—Buch: Redaktions-geschichtliche Untersuchungen zu Entstehung und Theologie von Jes 40-55 (review)

Hebrew Studies 34 (1993) 158 Reviews KYROS 1M DEUTEROJESAIA-BUCH: REDAKTIONSGESCHICHTLICHE UNTERSUCHUNGEN ZU ENTSTEHUNG UND THEOLOGIE VON JES 40-55. By Reinhold Gregor Kratz. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 1. Pp. X + 254. TUbingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1991. Cloth, DM 148. Zurich has long been associated with money and banking. In the last decade or so, however, the Theology faculty of the city's University has been establishing a reputation for something quite different-study of the formation-history of Isaiah (1-39) 40-66. The leader in this endeavor is O. H. Steck, Professor of Old Testament in the Faculty, who has authored numerous articles on the topic which have recently appeared as two volumes of collected essays (see Sludien zu Trilojesaia [BZAW 203; Berlin-New York: de Gruyter, 1991] and Gottesknechl und Zion. Gesammelte Au/salze zu Deuterojesaja [Forschungen zum Alten Testament 4; TUbingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1992]). Steck's efforts have been ably seconded by his pupil, Kratz, whose above-cited work represents a reworked version of his 1990 Habilitationsschrift for which Steck served as Doktorvater. (It appears as the first volume in a new monograph series with the Englishly curious acronym of FAT!) Whereas his mentor's publications have concentrated on Isaiah 48-55 and 56-66, Kratz focuses on the first half of the "book" of Deutero-Isaiah, that is, chaps. 40-48. He commences his investigation of this segment with an introduction in which he calls attention to the problem posed by a melange of indications of both homogeneity and heterogeneity that characterize Isaiah 40-55 as well as to the various approaches which scholars have adopted in the face of this state of affairs, that is, the form-critical and the synchronic/holistic in particular. Kratz himself sees a redactional-critical approach as the one offering the most promise for explicating the unity in disunity that is Isaiah 40-55. Therefore he devotes approximately twothirds of his monograph to an analysis, informed by this approach, of the seven pericopes within Isaiah 40-48 in which Cyrus occupies a prominent place (whether mentioned by name or not) and which are generally recognized as core elements within that section, that is, 45:1-7; 41:1-5, 21-29; 46:9-11; 44:24-28; 45:9-13; 48:12-15; 42:5-9. Within each of these passages Kratz distinguishes between a basic stratum and its subsequent amplifications and reworking on the basis of, for example, syntactical, stylistic, and terminological indications along with contextual tensions /discordances. (Among his fmdings is-shades of C. C. Torrey!-that Hebrew Studies 34 (1993) 159 Reviews the two mentions of Cyrus by name in 44:28 and 45: I derive, respectively, from a later redactional hand which, however, he dates earlier than Torrey did his redactor.) Kratz complements his redactional-critical analysis of the "Cyrus pericopes " of Isaiah 40-48 with an synthetic presentation of the formationhistory of that segment (as also, though more schematically, of 49-55 as a whole). The first written version of that complex consisted of a Grundschrift in which oracles of salvation, "discussion words," and "judgment speeches against the peoples and their gods," themselves ultimately going back to the oral ministry of an anonymous prophetic figure (Second Isaiah), were brought together and framed by 40:1-5 and 52:7-10. He dates the compilation of the Grundschrift to shortly after 539 B.C.; in it Cyrus figures importantly, though not by name, as YHWH's agent in delivering Jacob/lsrael from Babylonian enslavement. In the years c. 530-520 the Grrmdschrift was amplified with what Kratz calls the ZionFortschreibungen which one finds in Isaiah 49-55*. Here, the focus shifts from Babylon to the people's situation back in JerusalemfZion. The next major redactional moment in the formation of Isaiah 40-55, designated here as the Kyros-Ergiinzungsschicht, derives from the years 520-515. The insertions and additions introduced at this level reflect hopes also discernible in Haggai, Zechariah 1-8* (and Ezra 4-5*) of a Persian religiopolitical initiative which would eventually result in the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple and also the re-establishment of all peoples in the...