What are facts about the Book of Isaiah?

Answer 1

The Book of Isaiah is virtually three books in one, with three different authors who wrote in quite different times and places.

The first part of the book was written by Isaiah, son of Amoz, who lived in Jerusalem in the time of Kings Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. For scholarly convenience, he is often referred to as First Isaiah.

The second part of the book was written by an anonymous author in Babylon, more than a century later, during the Babylonian Exile.

Chapters 56-66 were subsequently written by an anonymous author after the Return from Exile.

Later Christians have sought to find various 'prophecies' about Jesus in the Book of Isaiah. The most famous of these is the reference to Isaiah 7:14, where Isaiah prophesied that 'the young woman' would conceive and bear a child, whose name would be Immanuel. This prophecy came true just a few verses later. However, the early Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, mistranslated this to say that a virgin would conceive and bear a child. Centuries later, the author of the Gospel of Matthew would rely on this mistranslation to show that it was prophesied that Jesus would be born of a virgin. When this error was pointed out to the early Christians, they insisted that the Jews had altered their sacred texts so as to undermine the Christian Gospel. However, pre-Christian copies of the Book of Isaiah have been found at Qumran among the Dead Sea Scrolls, leaving no doubt that Isaiah 7:14 should be read as 'the young woman' ( a specific woman), not 'a virgin'.