11.

11. Was there a School of Disciples? One theory which has been a good deal discussed in recent years is that Isaiah’s own words were gathered together and handed down by his disciples over a period of perhaps two or three centuries. Some of those disciples, it is argued, were among those exiled to Babylon, and they included among them the great poet who came to be known as Deutero-Isaiah, who was responsible for chs. 40–55 of our present book. There are certain clues which seem to favour this line of interpretation. 8:16 is a difficult verse, but a typical translation is that of NRSV ‘Bind up the testimony, seal the teaching among my disciples.’ (For other ways of understanding this verse, see the commentary.) Various scholars have supposed that this is an indication of the beginning of a process that lasted at least 200 years. Eaton, for example, detects a ‘definite connection of master and disciples with the centre of worship (i.e. Jerusalem), yielding a disciplined succession into and beyond the exile’ (Eaton 1982: 59). On this view there was a clearly structured tradition, owing its origin to the historical Isaiah of the eighth century (sometimes rather misleadingly described as ‘Isaiah of Jerusalem’), closely linked in its concerns and manner of expression with the worship of the Jerusalem temple, and reaching new theological and liturgical insights as its conviction grew that the days of exile were coming to an end (Eaton 1979. Albertz 1990: 253–5 recognizes the force of these links, but notes also that the later stages of the Isaianic tradition drew on sources other than words attributable to Isaiah himself).