Editing Book of Isaiah (section)

== Composition ==
[[Image:Isaiah scroll.PNG|thumb|200px|right|Scroll of Book of Isaiah]]

=== Authorship ===
While it is widely accepted that the book of Isaiah is rooted in a historic prophet called [[Isaiah]], who lived in the [[Kingdom of Judah]] during the 8th century BCE, it is also widely accepted that this prophet did not write the entire book of Isaiah.{{sfn|Brueggemann|2003|p=159}}{{sfn|Stromberg|2011|p=2}}
* Historical situation: Chapters 40–55 presuppose that Jerusalem has already been destroyed (they are not framed as prophecy) and the Babylonian exile is already in effect – they speak from a present in which the Exile is about to end. Chapters 56–66 assume an even later situation, in which the people are already returned to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple is already under way.{{sfn|Stromberg|2011|pp=2–4}}
* Anonymity: Isaiah's name suddenly stops being used after chapter 39.{{sfn|Childs|2001|p=3}}
* Style: There is a sudden change in style and theology after chapter 40; numerous key words and phrases found in one section are not found in the other.{{sfn|Cate|1990b|p=414}}

The composition history of Isaiah reflects a major difference in the way authorship was regarded in ancient Israel and in modern societies; the ancients did not regard it as inappropriate to supplement an existing work while remaining anonymous.{{sfn|Stromberg|2011|p=4}} While the authors are anonymous, it is plausible that all of them were priests, and the book may thus reflect [[Priestly source|Priestly]] concerns, in opposition to the increasingly successful reform movement of the [[Deuteronomist]]s.{{sfn|Barker|2003|p=494}}

=== Historical context ===
[[File:Great Isaiah Scroll.jpg|thumb|right|300px|The [[Isaiah scroll]], the oldest surviving manuscript of Isaiah: found among the [[Dead Sea Scrolls]] and dating from about 150 to 100 BCE, it contains almost the whole Book of Isaiah and is substantially identical with the modern [[Masoretic text]]{{sfn| Goldingay | 2001|pp = 22–23}}]]
The historic Isaiah ben Amoz lived in the [[Kingdom of Judah]] during the reigns of four kings from the mid to late 8th-century BCE.{{sfn|Stromberg|2011|p=2}}{{sfn|Brettler|2010|pp=161–162}} During this period, [[Assyria]] was expanding westward from its origins in modern-day northern Iraq towards the Mediterranean, destroying first [[Aram-Damascus|Aram]] (modern Syria) in 734–732 BCE, then the [[Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)|Kingdom of Israel]] in 722–721, and finally subjugating Judah in 701.{{sfn|Sweeney|1998|p=75}} Proto-Isaiah is divided between verse and prose passages, and a currently popular theory is that the verse passages represent the prophecies of the original 8th-century Isaiah, while the prose sections are "sermons" on his texts composed at the court of [[Josiah]] a hundred years later, at the end of the 7th century.{{sfn|Goldingay|2001|p=4}}

The conquest of Jerusalem by [[Neo-Babylonian Empire|Babylon]] and the exile of its elite in 586 BCE ushered in the next stage in the formation of the book. Deutero-Isaiah addresses himself to the Jews in exile, offering them the hope of return.{{sfn|Barker|2003|p=524}} This was the period of the meteoric rise of Persia under its king [[Cyrus the Great]] – in 559 BCE he succeeded his father as ruler of a small vassal kingdom in modern eastern Iran, by 540 he ruled an empire stretching from the Mediterranean to Central Asia, and in 539 he conquered Babylon.{{sfn|Whybray|2004|p=11}} Deutero-Isaiah's predictions of the imminent fall of Babylon and his glorification of Cyrus as the deliverer of Israel date his prophecies to 550–539 BCE, and probably towards the end of this period.{{sfn|Whybray|2004|pp=11–12}}

The Persians ended the Jewish exile, and by 515 BCE the exiles, or at least some of them, had returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the Temple. The return, however, was not without problems: the returnees found themselves in conflict with those who had remained in the country and who now owned the land, and there were further conflicts over the form of government that should be set up. This background forms the context of Trito-Isaiah.{{sfn|Barker|2003|p=524}}