Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 65:2 (Jun 2022)
Article: Prophetic Inspired Redaction And Raymond B. Dillard’s Understanding Of Deutero-Isaiah
Author: John J. Yeo

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Prophetic Inspired Redaction And Raymond B. Dillard’s Understanding Of Deutero-Isaiah

John J. Yeo*

^* John J. Yeo is Professor of Old Testament at Southern California Seminary, 2075 East Madison Avenue, El Cajon, CA 92019. He may be contacted at [email protected].

Abstract: Inspired redaction was employed by Old Testament scholars within the Old Princeton-Westminster tradition to explicate the presence of anachronistic statements and obsolete toponyms within the Old Testament canon. Foundationally, the concept requires that individual divinely inspired prophets had written authoritative revelatory texts that were subsequently updated by one or more divinely inspired prophets during the canonical period. In contrast to his predecessors, Dillard was the first to assert that the concept of inspired redaction could be applied to an anonymous prophet who lived during the Babylonian exile. This study demonstrates that Dillard adopted the critical theory of Deutero-Isaiah by a radical revision of the evangelical concept of inspired redaction while positing a school of Isaianic disciples and propagating the notion of a divinely inspired canonical process through multiple Isaianic authors. Moreover, it shows that Dillard published his views on Deutero-Isaiah in spite of his inability to procure the necessary biblical evidence.

Key words: Isaianic authorship, inspired redaction, Deutero-Isaiah, evangelical scholarship, call narrative, Old Testament canon

The concept of inspired prophetic redaction has been employed by Old Testament scholars within evangelical scholarship in general and within the Old Princeton-Westminster tradition in particular as a way to clarify the presence of anachronistic statements and obsolete toponyms within the Old Testament canon.1 Michael Grisanti helpfully defines the parameters of inspired redaction with the following salient points: (1) Each Old Testament biblical book possessed canonical status from its preliminary form, which was written by the inspired prophet, until its final form, which may have been updated by a later inspired prophet during the canonical period when God was giving his Word to his people. (2) The close of the Old Testament canon serves as the dividing line between inspired editorial activity (such as modernizations and explanatory glosses) and uninspired scribal activity (which belongs to the discipline of textual criticism). (3) The Israelite covenant community permitted only recognized prophetic figures to make adjustments to the

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biblical text.2 Moreover, Grisanti...