9.

9. There are some issues which the two views have in common. We may accept that the various parts of the book of Isaiah are diverse in their origin. What next should be examined is the fact that this heterogeneous material has been brought together into one book. In this connection we must first of all remember the unanimous testimony of the ancient witnesses to the unity of Isaiah. The book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), in the Apocrypha, refers to Isaiah in an eighth-century context, but also ascribes to him the theme of comforting ‘those who mourned’ (Sir 48:24), a clear reference to Isa 40, i.e. the later part of the book. The chronological problem is resolved by the supposition that the prophet himself ‘saw the future’. That evidence comes from the second century BCE. From roughly the same period the scrolls of Isaiah from Qumran, among the earliest found and best preserved of the Dead Sea scrolls, do not reflect any division between chs. 39 and 40. From a somewhat later period it is clear that the New Testament regards Isaiah as one book. Among many passages which could be quoted, perhaps the most striking is Jn 12: 38–41, because of the way in which it links material from different parts of the book of Isaiah.