Poetry, Catastrophe, and Hope in the Vision of Isaiah

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Prof Francis Landy (Professor Emeritus, Professor Emeritus, Dept of History, Classics and Religion, University of Alberta)

Poetry, Catastrophe, and Hope in the Vision of Isaiah

Prof Francis Landy (Professor Emeritus, Professor Emeritus, Dept of History, Classics and Religion, University of Alberta)

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English

Oxford University Press
07 August 2023

Literature: history & criticism; Old Testaments; Christian theology; Judaism: sacred texts; Judaism: theology

The book of Isaiah is one of the longest and strangest books of the Hebrew Bible, composed over several centuries and traversing the catastrophe that befell the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the 8th and 6th centuries BCE. Francis Landy's book tells the story of the poetic response to catastrophe, and the hope for a new and perfect world on the other side. The study traces two parallel developments: the displacement of the Davidic promise onto the Persian Empire, Israel, and the prophet himself; and the transition from exclusively male images of the deity to the matching of male and female prototypes, whereby YHWH takes the place of the warrior goddess.

Poetry, Catastrophe, and Hope in the Book of Isaiah consists of close readings of individual passages in Isaiah, commencing with Chapter One and the problems of beginning, and ending with Deutero-Isaiah, composed subsequent to the Babylonian exile. The volume is arranged thematically as well as sequentially: the first chapter following the introduction concerns gender, the second death, the third the Oracles about the Nations. At the centre there is what Landy calls 'the constitutive enigma', Isaiah's commission in his vision to speak so that people will not understand. This renders the entire book potentially incomprehensible; the more we try to understand it, the greater the difficulty. For Landy, this creates a model of reading and writing, the challenge and the risk of going up blind alleys, of trying to make sense of a disastrous world. Isaiah's commission pervades the book. Throughout there is a promise of an age of clarity as well as social and political transformation, which is always deferred beyond the horizon. Hence it is a book without an ending, or with multiple endings. In the final chapters, the author turns to the central Chapter Thirty-Three, a mise-en-abyme of the book and a prayer for deliverance, and the issues of exile and the possibility of return. Like every poetic work, particularly in an era of cultural collapse, it is a critique of the past and a hope for a new humanity.

By: Prof Francis Landy (Professor Emeritus Professor Emeritus Dept of History Classics and Religion University of Alberta)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 240mm, Width: 160mm, Spine: 30mm
Weight: 1g
ISBN: 9780198856696
ISBN 10: 0198856695
Pages: 512
Publication Date: 07 August 2023
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Francis Landy taught Jewish Studies and Hebrew Bible for 31 years (1984-2015) at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, in Canada. His area of specialization is the Hebrew Bible, focusing on the literary interpretation of the text. He has published three books and numerous articles, on all areas of the Hebrew Bible, but the book of Isaiah has been his focus for the last twenty years. He has interests in literary and religious studies theory, postmodernism, and Kabbalah. He was president of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies in 2009 and 2010, and sits on various editorial boards. He lives in Victoria.

Reviews for Poetry, Catastrophe, and Hope in the Vision of Isaiah

This innovative and beautifully written monograph delves deep into the poetic vision of the book of Isaiah. Landy's powerful prose creates a gallery of evocative and conflicting images, as he lays bare the inherently dialectic character of the book. All its central characters - God, Jerusalem, the Davidic heir, even death itself - are unstable entities that evolve and metamorphose throughout the book, yet ultimately return to their earlier state. God, Isaiah's male protagonist is also a gender-fluid deity, Jerusalem, his female counterpart, is simultaneously an attractive Edenic beauty and a soiled object of abhorrence, and the prophet turns out to be a liminal figure who negotiates between the two. * Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, Professor in Old Testament Exegesis, ALT School of Theology *