Isaiah
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
one of the greatest of the Hebrew prophets. He was the supposed to be the prophet Amos, the son of Amos, whom some of the fathers names being identical in Greek; in Heprophet being Amos, and Isaiah's father brew, however, they are different, the Amots. As in the vision recorded in Isaiah vi, the prophet is represented as being in the court which none but the descendants of Aaron might enter, he probably between 783 and 788 b. c. He was perhaps a priest. He was born married a woman to whom, as to him, prophetic gifts were given (Isa. viii: 3). One of his sons was called Shear-jashub return (vii: 3); another Maher-shalal- = a remnant returns, or a remnant will hash-baz = hasten to the spoil, quickly carry off the prey. Isaiah exerted great Ahaz, and yet more under Hezekiah. influence at the court of Jerusalem under He was contemporary with Amos, Hosea, Micah, and perhaps with Joel. Besides his prophecies, he wrote also biographies or histories of Uzziah (II Chron. xxvi: 22), and Hezekiah (xxxii: 32). Tradiorder of King Manasseh, his tragic fate, tion says that he was sawn asunder by it is supposed, being alluded to in Heb. xi: 37. The Prophecies of Isaiah, the first and It is headed "The vision of Isaiah, the most important of the prophetic books. son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Kings of Judah." If chapter vi is chronologically the earliest of any, and describes his first call to the prophetic office, his utterances would commence in 758, 757, or 756 b. c. If the prophecies are arranged in the order of time, time, then chapters i-v would belong to an earlier period. Omitting these writings of uncertain date, the next utterances are in the reign of Ahaz, none apparently belonging to the 16 years of Jotham's reign. He continued at least till the fourth year of King Hezekiah, 712 b. c., a period of 44 to 46 years. This is the minimum span of his prophecies; the maximum is much greater. Viewed as a poetic composition the book of Isaiah exhibits genius of a very high order.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's in 1921 treated the book as one man's work, dating the whole of it to a 44-year ministry ending around 712 B.C. Mainstream scholarship now divides it: chapters 1-39 belong largely to the eighth-century prophet, while chapters 40-55 ("Second Isaiah") were written by an anonymous voice during the Babylonian exile around 540 B.C., when Cyrus of Persia is named, and 56-66 later still. The most concrete change came in 1947, when the Dead Sea Scrolls yielded the Great Isaiah Scroll from about 125 B.C., a nearly complete copy roughly a thousand years older than any manuscript available to Collier's editors, and one that showed the traditional Hebrew text to be remarkably well preserved. The tradition that Manasseh had him sawn asunder is still recognised as tradition, not history.
Written for this edition, 2026.