the analysis of the language in predetermined sections of the book (the language of chs.
1-12
as opposed to the language of chs. 40-48) able to do justice to variations in similar segments,
such as paragraphs and sentences? Does not the "averaging" involved in treating the book in
sections tend to level off some variations which might otherwise appear? None of this is to
question the integrity with which Radday's study was undertaken and performed, but it is to
point out that the evidence is still not as objective as a manuscript in which only chs. 1-39 (or
some such) would appear. 6
As just noted, the most striking argument for the unity of the composition of Isaiah is the
present form of the book. If in fact the present composition is the work of at least three major
authors and a large number of editors or redactors, it becomes very hard to explain how the
book came to exist in its present form at all. The degree of unity which is to be found in the
book (e.g., the use of "the Holy One of Israel" 13 times in chs. 1-39 and 16 times in chs. 40-66
and only 7 times elsewhere in the Bible) becomes a problem. Thus it becomes necessary to
posit a "school" of students of "I Isaiah" who steeped themselves in the style and thought of
the "master." It would be out of such a group that "II Isaiah" sprang during the Exile and from
which, later still, came the writings which now constitute chs. 56-66. Aside from the fact that
there is no other evidence for the existence of this "school,"7 it is hard to imagine how it ever
would have come into existence for Isaiah (and not the other prophets) in the first place.s
A. Kasher, "The Book of Isaiah: Characterization of Authors by Morphological
Data Processing," Revue de ['Organizations Internationales pour l"Etude des Langues
and par Ordinateur 3 (1972) 1-62, concluded that the composition is not a unity,
but his results pointed to different divisions of the book than did Radday's. For a
review of the difficulties inherent in the statistical approach, cf. R. Posner, "The
Use and Abuse of Stylistic Statistics," Archivum Linguisticum 15 (1963) 111-139.
6. It is ironic that those who lauded the reliability of Radday's methodology as it applied to Isaiah were
much less convinced of its reliability when he recently reported that the same methodology established
the unity of the book of Genesis. Cf. Y. Radday, et al., "Genesis, Wellhausen and the Computer," ZAW 94
(1982) 467-481.
7. Cf. P. Ackroyd, "Isaiah I-XII: Presentation of a Prophet," VTSup 29 (1978) 29, for a comment on this lack of
evidence. See also R. E. Clements, "The Prophecies ofIsaiah and the Fall of Jerusalem," VT 30 (1980) 434-
35; and W. R. Watters, Formula Criticism and the Poetry of the Old Testament, BZAW 138 (Berlin: de Gruyter,
1976), pp. 67-68.
8. 8:16, "Bind up the testimony, seal the teaching among my disciples," is frequently referred to as the
impetus for the founding of a school. But this is hardly reason enough. In fact, the context makes it plain
that the reference is to Isaiah's predictions concerning the outcome of the Syro-Epbraimite War.
