What are your thoughts on the authorship of Isaiah? I know that most scholars believe the book consists of the prophecies of two, three or more prophets, including various editorial insertions (e.g. chapters 36-39). It does seem plausible that chapters 40 onward were written at a later date (after the Babylonian exile). Is this whole idea heretical, or probable? Perhaps it just takes more faith to believe that one man actually did prophesy all these things! I don't doubt that God could have chosen to work through more than one prophet in this book, but if he did I feel led to believe something that isn't true (that one man wrote the book). -- David Laing (Gainesville, Florida)
I have a few thoughts for you. First, Isaiah 8 seems to indicate that Isaiah had his disciples write down his prophecies and arrange them. Next, many biblical books have multiple authorship. That in itself is not a problem--after all, the Bible itself is a multi-author composition, right? Yet scholars who bisect Isaiah after chapter 39 in order to deny genuine prophecy (e.g. the explicit mention of Cyrus in chapters 44 and 45) do create a problem, and do a great disservice to us all. Perhaps Isaiah should be attributed to more than one author, but this should be done on sound literary and theological grounds, not on the basis of prejudice against prophecy. I am sure you would agree.
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