Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Donald W. Parry on Presentism and Interpreting Isaiah

  

Question. Why is Isaiah so difficult to understand?

 

Answer. There are three chief reasons for this: (1) Isaiah wrote in an ancient form of poetry, called poetic parallelisms (there are about 1,100 parallelisms in Isaiah); (2) he used hundreds of symbols, which are scattered throughout his writings; and (3) Isaiah’s book contains many different “speakers,” or individuals who express words. These speakers include the Lord, Isaiah, God’s covenant people, King Hezekiah, the wicked, and many others. Some of the speakers are non-human objects, such as clay, trees, and cities. (Donald W. Parry, Search Diligently The Words of Isaiah [Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2023], 197)

 

Question. What is presentism and why does it hinder us from understanding Isaiah?

 

Answer. Presentism is “the tendency to interpret past events in terms of modern values and concepts” (Apple Dictionary Version 2.2.1 [143.1]). Our culture is remarkably different from Isaiah’s. Many of the components that make up our culture—fashion, dress, social habits, music, arts, languages, dialects, mass media, cuisine, sports, commercialism, governments, politics, literature, architecture, and technology—can easily misdirect us or even disconnect us from comprehending Isaiah’s writings and the words of other Old Testament prophets.

 

Question. Based on the concept of presentism, what are some biblical examples of difficult-to-comprehend passages in Isaiah?

 

Answer. One example is located in Isaiah 20: “At the same time spake the LORD by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, GO and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot” (v. 2). Because of presentism, this passage may seem very strange to us. But other Old Testament prophets also performed actions that may seem to be peculiar. For example, Jeremiah made a yoke and placed it around his neck (see Jeremiah 27:2; 28:10); Ezekiel shaved the hair of his head and his beard, divided it into three parts, and then struck one-third, burned one-third, and scattered one-third (see Ezekiel 5); and the prophet Ahijah ripped a new outer garment into twelve pieces and gave ten pieces to Jeroboam (see 1 Kings 11:29-31). If we depart from presentism and carefully study each of these passages in terms of their historical and symbolic context, we can find greater meaning and understanding within them. (Ibid., 197-98)