Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Isaiah Old and New: Exegesis, Intertextuality, and Hermeneutics by Ben Witherington III

2018; Catholic Biblical Association; Volume: 80; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/cbq.2018.0015

2163-2529

H. G. M. Williamson,

Mormonism, Religion, and History

Reviewed by: Isaiah Old and New: Exegesis, Intertextuality, and Hermeneutics by Ben Witherington III H. G. M. Williamson ben witherington iii, Isaiah Old and New: Exegesis, Intertextuality, and Hermeneutics (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017). Pp. xv + 508. Paper $34. By Witherington's count there are over four hundred quotations from or allusions to Isaiah in the NT. Isaiah thus ranks with Psalms as the most frequently referenced book from the Hebrew Bible in the Christian NT. Many monographs and articles have treated the use of Isaiah in one part of the NT or another, but this is apparently the first attempt to survey the subject as a whole. The approach is straightforward. Following a substantial first chapter that lists the passages in full and discusses such topics as the use of the Hebrew and Greek forms of the text, W. takes each major section of the Book of Isaiah in turn, gives an introductory account of its "original" meaning, and then discusses the principal NT references. He helpfully provides parallel translations of the MT and the LXX of the main passages analyzed. Finally, a series of seven appendixes, amounting to some 135 pages, deals with more or less related subjects, often with particular attention to recent publications. The longest by far (nearly sixty pages) is a detailed summary with interspersed comments of Brevard Childs, The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004). In a much shorter discussion, W. presents his (admittedly speculative) solution to the question of authorship of the Book of Isaiah: Deutero-Isaiah was Isaiah's great-grandson, and Trito-Isaiah may have been one of his disciples. The amount of material covered in this book is impressive, and W. is careful not to try to force all the uses of Isaiah in the NT into a single pattern. For example, he is alert to the distinctions between the use of shared and suggestive imagery, on the one hand, and repeated patterns of divine behavior, on the other. It is also intriguing to observe how he almost dragoons the qualities of lyric poetry into a modern form of the traditional sensus plenior approach (this is my categorization, not his). The style of writing is generally easy to read and fully accessible. W. is usually careful to explain technical terms and subjects in a way that nonspecialists will appreciate. I noted one curious inconsistency in this, however. Whereas he feels it necessary, for instance, to explain what the Septuagint is, including the comment that "LXX" "is Roman numerals for the number seventy" (p. 22), he generally cites the NT in Greek with no accompanying translation or discussion. This may well be off-putting to the intended readership. Other reviewers will no doubt rightly concentrate on the NT dimensions of this book, and of course this is the area of W.'s greatest expertise. I approach it from an OT perspective, however. Amid much that is good and helpful, I found his discussion of authorship too simplistic. He is to be commended for not seeking to uphold authorial unity, but he ascribes all of chaps. 1–39 (perhaps except chaps. 24–27) to the eighth-century prophet, which even moderately conservative commentators now regard as unrealistic. It is precisely the passages that seem fully to reflect the language and outlook of the later parts of the book that [End Page 129] help to bind the whole together as a literary unity. W.'s exegesis, introductory as it is, would have been enriched by engagement with this development in research on the book. His dialogue partners are in any case few and selective. There can be no doubt that this book must have been written quickly (and I note that the publisher is already announcing a companion volume on the Psalms as imminently forthcoming). It is open for debate how far an author should go in tracking the work of other scholars in a relevant field, but at least enough should be done to avoid mistakes. In his discussion of the key verse 7:14, for instance, W. states that "it is quite clear from the definite article before 'almah in the Hebrew that the prophecy has a definite...