John F. A. Sawyer

Daughter of Zion and Servant of the Lord in Isaiah: a Comparison

This paper’ is a response to three recent developments in Isaiah research. The first is epitomized in the title of Tryggve Mettinger’s monograph, A Farezvell to the Servant Songs. A Critical Examination of an Exegetical Axiom 2 The four passages about the Servant of the Lord which Bernhard Duhm isolated as ’Servant Songs’,3 can now be restored to their context in Isaiah, and this has made us think again,

The gospel according to Isaiah.

ince the publication of T/7<? Fifth Gospel. Isaiah in the History of Christianity in 1996, another book of interest to biblical experts has been published under the same title: The Fifth Gospel. The Gospel of Thomas comes of Age. Unlike this modern assessment of the importance of the Gospel of Thomas, however, fuelled no doubt by current questioning of Church dogma and the romantic circumstances of its accidental discovery at Nag Hammadi, Isaiah’s claim to be a Gospel goes back at least fifteen hundred years to Jerome’s observation that Isaiah is ’more evangelist than prophet because he describes all the mysteries of Christ and the Church so clearly that you would think he is composing a history of what has happened rather than prophesying about what is to come’. It also reflects the views of countless generations of Christians, of all varieties, who from the very beginning have used Isaiah in art, architecture, literature, theological treatises, sermons, hymns and paraphrases to express every aspect of their religious traditions in as much detail and with as much conviction as

Book Reviews : Hebrew Spoken By Real People

to AD 200, A. Lindemann quotations from Paul and varying estimates of him and, in probably the most interesting article, F. Neirynck examines in detail the theory that Mark depends on certain apocryphal gospels which many have traditionally classed as unorthodox. Other articles throw light on the main theme in relation to the Johannine corpus (Sevrin, J. Beutler), to Matthew (P. F. Beatrice in relation to Barnabas, J. Verheyden in relation to Ascension of Isaiah), to synoptic tradition in Didache (C. M. Tuckett), its survival outside the Gospels (M.-E. Boismard), and to the New Testament in Polycarp’s Philippians and the use of material by 2 Peter from Jude (J. Kahmann). J. Delobel deals with the textual tradition of the Lord’s Prayer and T. Baarda with

Book Reviews : New Questions About Zephaniah

Judges seriously as ’a structured entity in which elements are shaped to contribute to the integrity and significance of the whole’ (p. 11 ). We are enabled to do this if we recognize that irony is a dominant structural device in the book. The introduction (1 :13:11 ) establishes a basis for later irony by presenting us with opposing perceptions of the Israelite occupation of Canaan. Yahweh is concerned (2 :13:11 ) with the integrity of the covenant, the people (1:3-36) with occupation of the land at any cost. Examples of irony thereafter are not difficult to find (e.g. Jael’s deceptive and brutal acts on her own initiative are honoured by the Israelites more than Deborah’s honourable leadership under Yahweh; Gideon, receiving more from Yahweh than any other judge, yet does more harm than any to Israel). The instances and intensity of irony indeed increase as the narrative progresses. The final chapters (Jdg 1721), in which human self-assertion reaches its zenith and concern with the covenant its nadir, are dominated by Levi, Benjamin and Dan ’in bitter contrast to the promise of their names’ (p. 191). ’All the anticipation of the tribes standing on the threshold of the promised land has come to nothing because each man is his own judge and does what is right in his own eyes’ (p. 190). There is certainly a wealth of interesting material in this book. That it is a little difficult to read for

Book Reviews : Jerome's Commentary on Daniel

Rylands Eth. 23 is reproduced photographically, and in the apparatus the variants of a representative number of other manuscripts are given, while in vol. II (which has an introduction on the textual tradition) there is a new English translation of the Ethiopic, accompanied by textual notes on its relationship to the Aramaic and Greek fragments. Since Charles often translated, not the Ethiopic, but what he