In “The Formation of the Book of Isaiah: Foundations and Current Issues,” Marvin A. Sweeney analyzes the history of scholarship about the editorial processes that gave rise to the Hebrew text as we have it. As scholars have long done, he takes Bernhard Duhm’s nineteenth-century commentary as a starting point, but then shows the myriad ways in which more recent scholars have challenged his presuppositions and greatly improved on his findings. In the process, he identifies many of the themes and features in the book that have led him and other interpreters to perceive a redactional shaping of the book in four major phases—broadly one per century in the eighth through fifth centuries bce. Sweeney’s most significant contributions to the study of Isaiah, reflected here, have been his demonstration of the Davidic covenant in the final form of the book and his refinement of our understanding of the Josianic layer from the late seventh century bce.

Lucas L. Schulte analyzes “The Book of Isaiah in the Persian Period.” This was a crucial time in the book’s overall development. He shows how Persian emperors were able to enlist scribal elites in various subject nations and win their support. The well-known Cyrus Cylinder from Babylon may be the most prominent example, but Isa 40–66 also reflects its own interpretation of this international Persian Royal Propaganda Model. This chapter also shows how the later parts of the book of Isaiah interacted with religious and sociopolitical issues in the postexilic Persian province, comparing and contrasting it with the viewpoints of Ezra and Nehemiah in particular.

The opening chapter presents an overview of some of the historical-critical issues that shape a theological reading of the text. A better understanding of literary, historical, and social issues provides an interpretive control for theological articulation.

After an introduction (§5.1), this chapter investigates the uses of metaphorical seed language in the Hebrew scriptures (§5.2), Greco-Roman Judaism (§5.3), the New Testament (§5.4), and finally 1 Peter (§5.5). In the Hebrew scriptures, seed language is completely human, though invested with divine promise. This chapter will then look at how the concept of “holy seed” was democratized to all Israel in Ezra and Jubilees (§5.2.4 - 3.3.1). This democratization went hand in hand with the strong concern for Israel’s corporate holiness. The New Testament (§5.4) usage of the seed idiom reflects contemporary Jewish usage. However, a new question was on the table for early Christians: how were Gentiles to be brought into the people of God and included as Abraham’s seed? Philo seems to be the first Jew to actively discuss divine seed, but with Stoic influences (§5.3.2). Divine seed is rare in the New Testament (§5.4). Despite claims (cf. Jn 3:5, 1 Jn 3:9), 1 Peter is the only New Testament text to discuss seed endowed with divine qualities that generates believers (§5.5). This chapter examines 1 Peter’s continuity with tradition, but also its innovation.

The Bible contains competing maps of Israel’s homeland, and these maps bear directly on questions of belonging and status for communities that affiliated with Israel. This first chapter of Part II compares the conceptions of the conquest that inform these maps.