Quote:
Originally Posted by rameumptom
Word Print study was done on Isaiah, showing there probably was a Deutero-Isaiah,
|
Actually word print study isn't as conclusive as you think. First, the Qumran document matches our current Isaiah very well. It doesn't show any evience of massive doctoring. It shows no evidence of major redactional editors or the like. The only "evidence" that ever comes foward is a word print analysys. And maybe the word print analysis is correct and there were many authors. There is no conclusion among scholars on how many authors there were. It ranges from 1 to many. For example Y. Radday did an investigation and concluded that 1-12 was one author, 23-35 was another, 40-48 was another, 49-55 another, and 56-66 another. And word print analyis does show a degree of unity to the work, for example, the phrae "Holy One of Israel" is a very rare phrase in the Bible and it shows up in chs 1-39 16 and chs 40-66 7 times. Similiar concepts also show up in various parts of the book. So word print analysis hardly leads to the conclusion of just 2 authors and there is no consensus on how many. And word print analysis does not lead to the conclusion of Barker. That's her theory and is not the natural conclusion from the evidence.
If the work is not a unity, I think it becomes difficult to explain how we got the present form of the book at all. You have to end up positing a school of "I Isaiah" who followed their master before the exile, and a group of "II ISaiah" students who grew out of the first school during the exile. The tendency seems to have become to whittle down Isaiah into very small units of which later redactors, presumably of these various "Isaiah" schools, add their prophecies and that the actual original Isaiah was limited to the first part of the book and wasn't much more that Amos and Hosea in size. It should be noted though that contemporaries of Isaiah (Amos, Hosea) did not spark such movements of prophetic schools nor is there any other evidence that there was a school of Isaiah with which to redact more prophecies onto the original.
The only consensus among scholars is that Isaiah isn't a unity. But that is where we began and an argument can be made to the unity of the book. (can provide a bibliography of works that do if anyone is interested).
Also, of the disputed chapters from Deutero-Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, it only includes the chapters that do not make Yahweh and Elohim one being: one of the clear points of the Deuteronomist view.[/quote]
Well, the problem is that 961 times in the OT, YHWH is explicitly called Elohim. It's not limited to Isaiah. Deut 6:5 is a good example that even Jesus quotes in Matt 22. So saying that all instances in the OT of YHWH being equated to Elohim is a carry over from a Babylonian corruption is premature. This also fails to take into account both the DSS and the SP, both groups of which had no love for followers of Ezra's reforms, aka the Pharisees, but both groups also include the equating of YHWH to Elohim and both groups include all of the Torah with only a few slight variations.
Also, I Nephi 22 quotes Deut 18 which includes the exact same "Lord your God" phrase that translates to "YHWH Elohim"
20 And the
Lord will surely
prepare a way for his people, unto the fulfilling of the words of Moses, which he spake, saying: A
prophet shall the
Lord your God raise up unto you, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass that all those who will not hear that prophet shall be
cut off from among the people.