Robert Johnson

Itinerant Thoughts Robert Johnson

A quick Google search of the structure of Isaiah in the bible shows you several things. Firstly, it has the same amount of chapters as the amount of books in the recognized Bible as we know it. Some would argue there are seventy two books, I know, but I choose to stick with sixty six books, thank you. Then we see that it is split into three sections. It is both theological and literary in style and begins with First Isaiah, which goes from chapter one to chapter thirty nine and then the tone changes. It is then, when Deutero-Isaiah, or Second Isaiah, takes over until chapter fifty five that some very famous words appear. Then, for the remaining chapters, we name the writer as Trito-Isaiah, or Third Isaiah. (chapters 56-66) The fact that it took two hundred years to compile does suggest not reading it literally, as this is a book by Isaiah, or even about Isaiah, but it is about so much more than that. It is a list of woes and prophecies against God's people and their enemies, of course, but it is also an account of how life has changed, from a sociological standpoint, as well as a theological one. For anything written over that time and by three different men (we assume male) has to be a construct to bring this idea of the man called Isaiah into something more of a concrete image, rather than a mixed up mash of ideas that may, or may not, even be from him.