CHAPTER V ONE ISAIAH BY PROFESSOR GEORGE L. ROBINSON, D. D.,
MCCORMICK THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS “For about twenty-five centuries no one dreamt of doubt- ing that Isaiah the son of Amoz was the author of every part of the book that goes under his name; and those who still maintain the unity of authorship are accustomed to point, with satisfaction, to the unanimity of the Christian Church on the matter, till a few German scholars arose, about a century ago, and called in question the unity of this book. Thus wrote the late Dr. A. B. Davidson, Professor of Hebrew in New College, Edinburgh, {Old Testament Prophecy, p. 244, 1903). THE HISTORY OF CRITICISM The critical disintegration of the Book of Isaiah began with Koppe, who in 1780 first doubted the genuineness of chapter 50. Nine years later Doederlein suspected the whole of chapters 40-66. He was followed by Rosenmueller, who was the first to deny to Isaiah the prophecy against Babylon in chapters 13:1-14:23. Eichhorn, at the beginning of the last century, further eliminated the oracle against Tyre in chapter 23, and, with Gesenius and Ewald, also denied the Isaianic origin of chapters 24-27. Gesenius also ascribed to some unknown prophet chapters 15 and 16. Rosenmueller went further, and pronounced against chapters 34 and 35; and not long afterwards (1840), Ewald questioned chapters 12 and 33. Thus by the middle of the nineteenth century some thirty-seven or thirty-eight chapters were rejected as no part of Isaiah’s actual writings. In 1879-80, the celebrated Leipzig professor, Franz 70
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