Controversies Over Book of Isaiah

Among the controversies is the belief that "Two different people wrote what is today known as Isaiah (called Deutero-Isaiah)" (Hoh 2000 1). Another critic writes that "The book of the Bible that has become the source of the most controversy between our two religions is the book of Isaiah" (Git 2002 2). She refers to the fact that most Isaiah translations do not accept the idea of a Virgin birth. It seems that the Hebrew word for virgin is "betulah" while the Book of Isaiah refers to "alma" which merely indicates a young woman.

There is also the controversy about the fact that some believe Isaiah was actually predicting, if not actually having knowledge of the Messiah. The Christians, of course, believe that Christ was that Messiah, while Jews claim the Messiah of the Bible is yet to appear.

To some, Verse 53 seems to indicate this acknowledgment of Christ, because it speaks of "an outstanding Servant of the Lord whose v

. . .
ese prophecies predicts Jesus, but he thinks they are all messianistic, pointing toward God's break with the Davidic monarchy and the building of a new, unsullied monarchy from the stump of Jesse" (Reddin 2002 126). What this indicates, therefore, is that the Jewish people under their traditional kings, dating from Solomon through David and their successors will now be undergoing a radical change to a new monarchy. It is interesting to note that this prophecy did not seem to stir tremendous excitement, anger, or disbelief among the Jews of that time period. And, it may be for this reason that some scholar insist this prophecy, and others, were written after the fact, and by someone else. Another controversy about the actual authorship of Isaiah comes from those who tend to prove that Isaiah was carefully edited, revised, truncated, and some verses changed around in their order to meet the needs of a much later generation. In other words, the Book of Isaiah as it is now in the Bible is not a single work of a single time period by a single author. "Chapters 1-39 are the result of a process of successive editing, restructuring and adjustment that extends from the eighth century into the Persian and even Hellenistic periods" (M
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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