Isaiah among the Ancient Near Eastern Prophets

Focusing on the phenomenon of prophecy in the ancient Near East, this study offers a comparison between parts of First Isaiah and the Assyrian prophecies. In the first part, the material from First Isaiah and from seventh-century Assyria is investigated in its own right. The second part is a comparison of the Isaiah tradition in its earliest shape with the prophetic material from seventh-century Assyria. The topics dealt with in the comparison are the interrelation of prophetic oracles and historical events, the functions of the prophets, and the literary development of prophecy. The study shows that ancient Israelite prophecy, of which the historical Isaiah was an exponent, was much in conformity with ancient Near Eastern prophecy in general.

Matthijs J. de Jong, Ph.D. (2006) in Old Testament Studies, Leiden University (the Netherlands) is working at the Netherlands Bible Society and affiliated to the Faculty of Religious Studies at Leiden University.

In 2007 the author won one of the five Research Prizes yearly awarded by the Erasmus Prize Foundation in recognition of an exceptional PhD dissertation by a young academic researcher in the field of the humanities and social sciences.