RYPIIA; KeVKI.ATIONS, SpURIOUS.
IV". Interjral Authenticity of the Prophecies of Isaiah. —The Jewish synagogue, and the Christian Church during all ages, have considered it as an undoubted fact that the prophecies which bear the name of Isaiah real- ly crii^inated from that prophet. Even Spinoza did not cxi)rossly assert, in his Tractatus Theolof/ico-Politiciis (viii, 8 ), that the book of Isaiah consisted of a collection originating from a variety of authors, although it is usu- ally considered that he maintained this opinion. But in the last quarter of the 18th century this prevailing conviction appeared to some divines to" be inconvenient. All those who attack the integral authenticity of Isaiah agree in considering the book to be an antiiology, or gleanings of firophecies, collected after the Babyio'nian exile, although they differ in their opinions respecting the origin of this collectiim. Koppe gave gentle hint's of this view, which was first explicitly supported by Eichhom in his Introduction. Eichhorn advances the hypothesis that a collection of Isaian prophecies (which
might have been augmented, even before the Babylo- nian exile, by several not genuine additions) formed the basis of the present anthology, and that the collectors, after the Babylonian exile, considering that the scroll on which they were written did not form a volume pro- portionate to the size of the three other prophetic scrolls, containing Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and the minor prophets, aimexed to the Isaian collection all other oracles at hand whose authors were not known to the editors. In this supposition of the non-identity of date and authorship, many German scholars, and lately also Hitzig and Ew- ald, followed Eichhorn. Gesenius, on the contrary', main- tained, in his introduction to Isaiah, that all the non- Isaian ]irophecies extant in that book originated from one author, and were of the same date. Umbreit and Kcister on the main point foUow Gesenius, consideri,.:g chaps, xl to Ixvi to be a continuous whole, written by a pseudo-Isaiah who lived about the termination of the Babylonian exile. In reference to other portions of the book of Isaiah, the authenticity of which has been ques- tioned, LTmbreit expresses himself doubtingly, and Kos- tor assigns them to Isaiah. Gesenius declines to answer the question how it happened that these portions were ascribed to Isaiah, but Hitzig felt that an answer to it might be expected. He accordingly attempts to ex- plain why such additions were made to Isaiah, and not to any of the other prophetical books, by the extraordi- nary veneration in which Isaiah was held. He says that the great authoritj- of Isaiah occasioned important and distinguished prophecies to be placed in connection with his name. But he himself soon after destroys the force of this assertion by observing that the great au- thority of Isaiah was especially owing to those prophe- cies which were falsely ascribed to him. A considera- ble degree of suspicion must, however, attach to the boasted certainty of such critical investigations, if we notice how widely these learned men differ in defining what is of Isaian origin and what is not, although they are all linked together by the same fmidamental tend- ency and interest. There are very few portions in the whole collection whose authenticity has not been called in question by some one or other of the A-arious impugn- ers. Almost every part has been attacked either by Doderlein, or by Eichliom (who, especially in a later work entitled Die Ikhraischen Propheten, Gcitting. 1816 to 1819, goes farther than all the others), or by Justi (who, among the earlier adversaries of the integral au- thenticity of Isaiah, uses, in his Vermischte Sdiriften [vols, i and ii], the most comprehensive and, apparently, the best-grounded arguments), or by Paulus, Kosenmiil- ler, Bauer, Bertholdt, De AVette, Gesenius, Hitzig. Ewald, Umbreit, or others. The only portions left to Isaiah are chaps, i, .3-9 ; xvii, xx, xxviii, xxxi, and xxxiii. All the other chaps, are defended by some and rejected by oth- ers ; they are also referred to widely different dates. In the most modern criticism, however, we observe an incli- nation again to extend the sphere of Isaian authenticity as much as the dogmatic principle and system of the critics will allow. Recent critics are therefore disposed to admit the genuineness of chaps, i to xxiii, with the only exception of the two prophecies against Babylon in chaps, xiii and xiv, and in chap, xxi, 1-10. Chapters xxviii-xxxiii are allowed to be Isaian by Ewald, Um- breit, and others.
Divines who were not linked to these critics by the same dogmatical interest undertook to defend the in- tegrity of Isaiah, as Hensler (Jesaias neu iihersetzt 1788), Piper (Intef/ritas .lesaice, 1793), Beckhaus {Ueber die IntH/ritdt di r Prophetischen <S'c^r//?eH, 1796), Jahn, in his Kiuhitunf/, who was the most able among the ear- lier advocates, Dereser, in his Bearheitung des Jesaias, iv, 1, and Greve {Vaticinia Jesaia, Amsterdam, 1810). All these works have at present only a historical value, because they have been surpassed by two recent mon- ographs. The first is by Jo. Ulrich Moller {De Au- thrntia Oraniloriim .Tesaiw, chap, xl-xlvi, Copenhagen, 1825). Although this work professedly defends only
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the latter portion of the book of Isaiah, there occur in it many arguments applicable also to the first portion. The standard work on this subject is that of Kleiiiert {Die Aechtheit des Jesuias, vol. i, Berlin, 1829). It is, however, very diffuse, and contains too many hypoth- eses. The comprehensive work of Schleier ( Wurdirjimg der FAmmrfe gegeii die Altestammtlichen \Veissu(/ungen ill Jesaias, chap, xiii and xiv) of course refers more es- pecially to these cliapters, but indirectly refers also to all the other portions whose authenticity has been at- tacked. Since the objections against, the various parts of Isaiah are all of the same character, it is very incon- sistent in Kiister, in his work IHe Proiiheien des alien Testamenles, to defend, in page 102, the genuineness of chaps, xiii, xiv, and xxi, but nevertheless, in jiages 117 and 297, to ascribe chaps, xl-lxvi to a pseudo Isaiah.