The Book of Isaiah Chapters 40-66 (review)

Hebrew Studies 40 (1999) 320 Reviews reconstruction of the literary shape of chapters 2-33. the assignment of this entire material to Ezra's period is too much for him. Hence. he uses Form Criticism as a means for reminding his readers that some literary fragments of the original Isaiah have been preserved. even though not in their historical setting. Sweeney has designed a literary creation, inspired by a theological design rather than a firm literary methodological foundation. Yehoshua Gitay The University ofCape Town Rondebosch 7701 Sowh Africa gitay@beattie.uct.ac.za THE BOOK OF ISAIAH CHAPTERS 40-66. By John N. Oswalt. NICOT. Pp. xviii + 755. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. 1998. Cloth, $48.00. Any assessment of the contributions to Isaiah studies made by Oswalt in this volume must begin by looking at the purposes of the NICOT series. The general editor's preface indicates that these commentaries seek to present the best of biblical scholarship. including "recent methodological innovations .... e.g., canon criticism, the so-called 'new literary criticism,' reader-response theories and sensitivity to gender-based and ethnic readings " (p. x). However. the editors also claim a distinct Protestant Evangelical purpose and "the conviction that the Bible is God's inspired Word, written by gifted human writers, through which God calls humanity to enjoy a loving personal relationship with its Creator and Sustainer" (p. x). This theological agenda thoroughly pervades Oswalt's work, although he never discusses his presuppositions. Since the modem commentary developed in the historical-critical age and promotes via its format the illusion that the author's interpretations are objective and value neutral, Oswalt would have done well to acknowledge his interpretive bias directly. As it stands, many lay readers (and the series is aimed at this audience) could accept his apologetic reading of the text and scholarly material without a sense of how far afield his conclusions rest from most Isaiah studies. Given his theological presuppositions, Oswalt's readings of Isaiah 40-66 are not at all surprising. He takes Brevard Childs' Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture as a starting point for his argument that Isaiah must be read as a unity historically and theologically. While Childs followed most twentieth century scholarship and distinguished between the authors Hebrew Studies 40 (1999) 321 Reviews of Isaiah 1-39, 4~55 and 5~6, he contended that the compilers/editors of the latter sections intentionally suppress the historical details so as to encourage a unified reading of the text. Childs' work responded directly to the increasing atomization of the book by fonn critics and provided an important corrective to historical-critical scholarship gone awry. While never refuting the basic concept of divisions in the Isaianic corpus, he opened up a new possibility for reading which considered the role of editors and compilers in pulling together distinct and different documents to create the image of one text. By contrast, Oswalt argues that "the conviction that these chapters had to be written about 540 B.C. rests squarely on the prior conviction that Isaiah of Jerusalem could not have known the future in any supernatural way" (p. 5). The idea of distinct historical settings in Isaiah, for Oswalt, limits God by saying that God could not communicate knowledge or control of the future through prophets and so he suggests that biblical scholars correct their understandings of prophecy to make room for revelation from God and prediction of the future. Rather than evaluate the various arguments for dating sections of Isaiah differently or exploring the complexities of textual production, Oswalt appears to desire a return to reading as performed prior to the rise of historical-critical methodologies. Scholars must, he contends, accept the claims of the book as it stands. This approach wipes out scholarly consensus on Isaiah in the course of a handful of pages-not to mention a century of biblical scholarship. Nowhere does the Christian bias of Oswalt become more clear than in his treatment of the servant songs. Oswalt identifies the servant as Christ and dismisses the idea that the servant could be the nation Israel or a prophetic figure. This argument rests on his understanding of the servant's theological...