This essay works toward three goals. First, it lays some groundwork for researching prophetic literature as a source for ancient Judean historical thought. Prophetic literature reveals a great deal about how ancient Judeans thought about and with their past, as it was represented in their literary repertoire. Second, it examines Isaiah 40-48, to see how this sort of second-order thinking about the past is on display in a particular passage of text. And third, it draws some preliminary conclusions about historical thought in this text and how it relates to historical thinking evident in other Judean literature.
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Cf. Ulrich F. Berges, The Book of Isaiah: Its Composition and Final Form (trans. Millard C. Lind; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2012), pp. 304-5.
Cf. Linville, “Mythoprophetics,” p. 408; also Duperreault, “Poetics of History,” pp. 261-62. Note the cosmogenic statements in 44:24 and 45:7-8, which encapsulate the Cyrus passage.
Cf. Barry Schwartz, Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 17-20.
Barry Schwartz, Abraham Lincoln in the Post-Heroic Era: History and Memory in Late Twentieth Century America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), pp. 221-28.
See, e.g., Chavel, “Prophetic Imagination,” pp. 14-19, for a thorough discussion.
E.g., Westermann, Isaiah 40-66, p. 49; John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 40-66 (nicot; Grand Rapids, mi: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 57-58; Zapff, Jesaja 40-55, pp. 234-35; Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40-55, pp. 107-8, 192-93; Golingay and Payne, Isaiah 40-55, vol. 1, pp. 49-51; Ulrich Berges, Jesaja 40-48 (HThKAT; Freiburg: Herder, 2008), pp. 128-29; Paul, Isaiah 40-66, p. 138.
Cf. Duperreault, “Poetics of History,” pp. 264-68, who comments that, in Isaiah 40-55, “[c]reation is explicitly historicized” more than in any other prophetic text (265).
Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40-55, p. 219, comments that this passage is very much at home with Deuteronomic thinking (e.g., Deut 29:1-3).
Megill, Historical Knowledge, p. 4 (italics in the original).
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This essay works toward three goals. First, it lays some groundwork for researching prophetic literature as a source for ancient Judean historical thought. Prophetic literature reveals a great deal about how ancient Judeans thought about and with their past, as it was represented in their literary repertoire. Second, it examines Isaiah 40-48, to see how this sort of second-order thinking about the past is on display in a particular passage of text. And third, it draws some preliminary conclusions about historical thought in this text and how it relates to historical thinking evident in other Judean literature.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 250 | 42 | 7 |
Full Text Views | 219 | 5 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 126 | 16 | 0 |