Saturday, January 30, 2021

Gleason Archer and the Authorship of Isaiah: The Evidence from Idolatry

  

A most decisive objection to a post-Exilic date for the composition of Isaiah Ii is to be found in the numerous passages which refer to idolatry in Israel as a wide and prevalent evil. Isaiah 44:9-20 contains a long diatribe against the folly of making graven images for worship, as if this were a major problem in contemporary Judah. This passage cannot be dismissed as a mere challenge to contemporary pagan nations, for there are too many other passages which speak of idolatry having being practiced by the author’s own countrymen at that time (cf. 57:4, 5: “Against whom do ye sport yourselves? . . . Enflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks?”).

 

Not only is ritual prostitution here referred to, but also the sacrificing of babies to Molech and Adrammelech, an infamous practice carried on during the reign of Manasseh in the Valley of the Sons of Hinnom (II Kings 21:6; II Chron. 33:6). And again, Isaiah 57:7: “Upon a lofty and high mountain thou set thy bed; even thither wentest thou up to offer sacrifice.” This is an obvious allusion to worship in the high places (bāmōt), a type of worship which flourished in the pre-Exilic period, but never thereafter. Again, 65:2-4: “I have spread out by hands all the day unto a rebellious people . . .  a people that provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and burning incense upon bricks; that sit among the graves and lodge in the secret places, that eat swine’s flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels” (ASV). In the very last chapter we find that idolatry is still being practice. In 66:17: “They that sanctify themselves and purify themselves to go unto the gardens, behind one in the midst [or: one asherah], eating swine’s flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, they shall come to an end together, saith Jehovah” (ASV). Plainly these things represent vicious evils which were going on at the time the prophet composed these words. (Gleason L. Archer, Jr., A Survey of Old Testament Introduction [Chicago: Moody Press, 1964], 329-30)