6.

6. Until a decade or so ago these considerations were generally regarded as sufficient to justify treating the book of Isaiah as two, or three, separate and unconnected blocks of material. Some of the points made by historical critics may be less securely based than might at first sight appear; in particular their tendency to treat poetry as if it had precise reference to historical events can give a false sense of security. We shall note this particularly when we look at the ‘Babylonian’ chapters, 40–55. Nevertheless the substance of their work has not been challenged. Yet despite this, the agenda of Isaiah studies has changed dramatically, so that a recent survey of such studies can speak of ‘the current focus’ of scholarly attention being ‘the final form of the book of Isaiah as a whole’ (Sweeney 1993: 141), an issue barely touched on in most historical-critical work.