Milesius wrote:As a undergraduate, I took classes in Attic Greek, the Hebrew Scriptures, and Ancient Greek religion from an expert in Hellenistic Judaism. (Incidentally, I discussed your Maccabees paper with him months ago while we were both on Facebook and he didn't think much of your claim either.) I also took a New Testament class from someone else in the religious studies department. This is in addition to the books and articles I've read on my own.
So you have no degrees that focus on this area, you've just taken a few courses? I guess as far as credentials and formal training goes, I've got you beat by quite a bit. Who was the expert in Hellenistic Judaism? What were his specific concerns with my paper?
Milesius wrote:Yes, it is. It is disputed by conservative Jewish and Christian* scholars.
And their disputes are not methodologically sound and don't really have any currency outside the devotional circles for which they're produced. They are thus not disputed within scholarship, but just within devotional groups that participate in scholarship. The clearest sign of this is the fact that while commentaries these days often point out that the evidence indicates Deutero-Isaiah was written in the sixth century BCE (this theory goes back to Ibn Ezra, in fact), none of them take the time to actually engage what little has been offered up to the contrary. The issue is settled enough that there's no need to continue making the argument. See, for instance, Blenkinsopp's Isaiah volumes in the Anchor Bible series. Even the Word Biblical Commentary has this to say about the issue:
Some conservative scholars have opposed the division, maintaining the unity of the entire book, the authorship of Isaiah in the 8th century B.C., and these chapters as predictive prophecy [he then cites three books from the 50s]. But the arguments for a 6th century date have proved decisive for most interpreters.
That's the end of the engagement with the objection from conservative scholars. The question cannot be said to be disputed on any actual grounds within scholarship as a whole.
Milesius wrote:We don't see that with the Pseudo-Paul of the Pastoral Epistles, who was from a related community and wrote in the same language as Paul.
There's no indication the author/s of the Pseudo-Paulines were trying to mimic Paul's style.
Milesius wrote:Incredibly, it is also the kind of thing you would expect if the same person wrote the whole book.
So obviously it cannot be marshaled as evidence of either. This is what I pointed out. All the evidence that is methodologically sound points to different authors.
Milesius wrote:LOL. Did they just quote the Chapters 1-39, or the whole book?
The whole book. The conflation of the two compositions had been executed well before the communities responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls arose.
Milesius wrote:Where?
Pages 36-37:
Although I deny the existence of a Deutero- (or a Trito-) Isaiah, I admit that there are significant differences between chapters 1-39 and chapters 40-66. Thus if one were to refer to "First and Second Isaiah" in the same sense as "First and Second Timothy" or "First and Second Peter," this would not be objectionable. Chapters 40-66 are a "new letter," perhaps written many years after chapters 1-39, but the same prophet was responsible for both sections!
Milesius wrote:Even if that is the case, I think it is pretty weak evidence against single authorship.
It's just one of the clues that something is amiss. Obviously nothing hinges on it. The evidence for single authorship is even weaker, however, and in its totality.
Milesius wrote:But if it is true, as Clements says, that it is not so much vocabulary and style that prove the author of chs. 1-39 could not have written chs. 40-66, but that the latter chapters seem to have been written to another historical context than the author's own,16 perhaps it is the scholarly understanding of the phenomenon of biblical prophecy that needs to be corrected, not the traditional view of the book's authorship. (John Oswalt. The book of Isaiah: Chapters 40-66. Eerdmans, 1998)
This is begging the question quite flagrantly.
Milesius wrote:Perhaps. Neither of us have a window into his mind though.
True, we must rely on what little information we have, and it stands out as strikingly negligent of Jeremiah if Deutero-Isaiah did in fact exist when he wrote. These are the kinds of things that raise questions, especially when the only real evidence for single authorship (similarity in style) is something that is quite easily and quite commonly faked.
Milesius wrote:I'll have to check it out.
I'm interested in what you have to say.
Milesius wrote:*I don't have in mind Mormons here.
Of course not.