Isaiah and the Twelve (original) (raw)

2020, Isaiah and the Twelve: Parallels, Similarities and Differences

Richard J. Bautch, Joachim Eck, and Burkard M. Zapff, eds. Isaiah and the Twelve: Parallels, Similarities and Differences. BZAW 527. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020. This volume is the fruit of an international conference on “Isaiah and the Twelve: Jesaja und die Zwölf” held at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt from 31 May to 3 June 2018. On this occasion, both established and mid-career scholars came together for exchange and discussion in order to explore vital questions posed by the relationship between the Book of Isaiah and the Book of the Twelve. The topic is of crucial importance as the two corpora share a large number of common ideas, concepts, motifs and linguistic features although, at the same time, the questions of the development, functions and meanings of these shared phenomena regularly defy all attempts at finding simple and straightforward explanations. As a result, this field of research, while both promising and challenging, has yet to be placed in a proper and full light. There has been, for example, piecemeal exegesis of certain pericopes which invite comparison because they are strikingly similar, most famously Isa 2:2-4 and Mi 4:1-5, but few studies envisage the books of Isaiah and the Twelve as a whole. The present volume is a first step towards a more comprehensive picture of the various kinds of similarities and differences characteristic of the two corpora, and it offers a wide range of methodological approaches toward the explanation and interpretation of such phenomena. It develops insights about the theological meaning of key themes in each corpus and their respective importance and weight. It advances the discussion on questions of diachronic developments, including the presence or absence of mutual influence in certain stages of the growth of the corpora. Moreover, the studies published in this work present further knowledge about characterstics, endeavours and processes which were typical of Israelite prophecy in the relevant stages of biblical history. It is a peculiar feature of the Book of Isaiah to unite under the name of one single prophet several different but also remarkably related parts, each of which was composed by several authors. The Book of the Twelve, on the other hand, combines twelve shorter scriptures, nearly all of them composed by more than one author, under the names of twelve different prophets, yet it simultaneously possesses a specific coherence as a whole due to recurring themes which are not only spread all over the corpus of the Twelve but also have counterparts in the Book of Isaiah. In consideration of this both fascinating and complex picture, the topics discussed in this book shed light on the envisaged field of study in basically three different ways. Some of them reflect on relationships between Isaiah as a whole and individual prophets of the Twelve. Another approach focuses on relationships between the Book of the Twelve as a whole and a part of Isaiah. A third type of questioning identifies and analyses recurring thematic threads characteristic of both corpora. While older research, as far as it considered the question at all, assumed that similarities between prophets such as Isaiah and Micah could be due to influence exerted on the basis of a personal discipleship, several articles in this volume come to the conclusion that most of the similarities and allusions occurring in Isaiah and the Twelve have their origins in the redactional processes which gradually shaped the prophetic books. This insight is all the more interesting when the redactional processes in question are located in remarkably different contexts. Another fundamental observation is that quotations, allusions and intertextual connections tend to be dynamic in their contents, developing and transforming theological messsages by means of re-contextualization. Yet, this does not lead to religious fragmentation but rather to a multi-faceted and profound unity. The methodological diversity mirrored in the contributions on specific problems concerning Isaiah and the Twelve calls for overarching perspectives allowing to correlate the various insights with each other. In response to this desideratum, the Festvortrag by R. Voderholzer provides a counterpoint to specialized research by developing general thoughts on the role of exegesis, in particular the exegesis of biblical prophets, for Christian faith. A synthesis draws an overall picture of converging insights and tendencies which have become visible through the individual contributions. The result of the research presented in this volume is an overview of the manifold semantic, intertextual, literary, redactional, historical and theological aspects of the relations between the Book of Isaiah and the Book of the Twelve which surpasses all one-dimensional attempts at resolving the problem of how these mutual correspondences came to exist.