Wort Gottes und Schuld Israels: Untersuchungen zu Motiven deuteronomistischer Theologie im Deuterojesajabuch mit einem Ausblick auf das Verhaltnis von Jes 40-55 zum Deuteronomismus

Abstract

Wort Gottes and Schuld Israels: Untersuchungen zu Motiven deuteronomistischer Theologie im Deuterojesajabuch mit einem Ausblick auf das Verhaltnis von Jes 40-55 zum Deuteronomismus, by Antje Labahn. BWANT 143. Stuttgart/Berlin/Cologne: Kohlhammer, 1999. Pp. 320. C36.00. In this ambitious work Antje Labahn investigates the presence of Deuteronomistic motifs in Second Isaiah and from her literary-critical analysis draws larger conclusions regarding the relationship between the Deuteronomistic movement and Second Isaiah as a literary work and prophet. Whether her efforts are judged to be successful depends on readers sharing her confidence that we can parse texts as closely as she does. Likewise, one must also accept her conviction that Second Isaiah's compositional history can be traced with some precision. Labahn argues that Second Isaiah went through two intentional Deuteronomistic redactions in the postexilic period. The first entailed merging existing text with passages that evoke the Deuteronomistic theology of history. She theorizes that this expansion was intended to explain the people's abiding suffering even after their return to Judah under Persian rule: they endured continued difficulties in Judah because they still labored under the burden of God's judgment on earlier generations and their own disobedience. Labahn sees this theme in passages such as Isa 42:24-25; 43:24b, 27, 28b; 46:8, 12-13; 47:6-7; 48:ld, 4, 5b, 76, 8-9, 17-19; and 50:1-3. A second Deuteronomistic redaction of Second Isaiah added the notion that the Word of God expressed the Lord's will for Israel. Labahn finds this theme especially in Isa 40:5b, 6b-8, and 55:10-11, and she suggests that it was added to reassure postexilic Judeans of God's abiding interest in them and their fate. Both Deuteronomistic redactions, says Labahn, were thoroughly integrated with the existing portions of Second Isaiah. Beyond the evidence of these two redactional stages Labahn identifies other signs of quasi-Deuteronomistic material in Isa 40-55. These passages, however, were part of what Labahn suggests was a widespread, unconscious postexilic adaptation of common Deuteronomic rhetoric and motifs to existing texts and traditions. As such they did not result from formal Deuteronomistic redactions of Second Isaiah. Also at this stage Labahn sees the merger of motifs and rhetoric from Second Isaiah and the Deuteronomic tradition with others from the Psalms, David-Zion theology, the Priestly tradition, and still other existing theological trajectories. Labahn identifies exemplars of this fusion of traditions in many passages. For example, she asserts that Isa 54:7-10 combines Deuteronomic topoi with traditions from Second Isaiah, Zion theology, and the Priestly tradition. Likewise, Isa 55:2b-5 mixes the Deuteronomic notion of the promise to David with motifs from Second Isaiah. Other passages Labahn treats from this perspective include 41:8b-9; 43:3b-4; 49:18; 51:1, 7-8, 12-16; 55:07. Labahn's literary-critical analysis leads her to wonder what the relationship between the prophet responsible for Isa 40-55 and the Deuteronomistic movement was. Why did it take until the postexilic period for the two traditions to find common cause? She observes that while most agree that the Deuteronomistic tradition likely grew up in Judah and Second Isaiah first developed in Babylon, different social and geographical settings do not account entirely for the differences between them. …