Isaiah THE BOOK OF

Edited by Christopher R. Seitz

"The strengt of the present volume, Reading and Preaching the Book of Isaiah, is recisely that the possible tension between the histori-cal and literary contexts is never fully resolved. Both perspectives commend themselves to the sensitive reader and preacher of Isaiah..

In this one rense, the threefold presentation of Isajah in the follow-ing chapter is itsell far more than the result of practical accom-modation or mere convenience. As the reader moves through the bicorical world of three Isaiahs and three Israels in three distinct periods, the question of unity and coherence in the sixty-six-chapter book is not set aside. For ultimately the unity of the Book of Isaiah is not to be sought in issues of single authorship or uni-form historical setting, but rather in the common witness of all sixty-six chapters to the one God of Israel, Isaiah's 'Holy One,' who casts down and raises up, whose justice shapes the cosmos itself, and whose promises extend into a future beyond the horizon of the book's own historical and literary world."