Deutero-Isaiah: The Prophet of the Exile
Most Christians believe that the book of Isaiah was written by one person, the prophet Isaiah who lived in Jerusalem in the eighth century B.C. This belief is based on two factors. First, people believe that Isaiah wrote the whole book because the book bears his name.
Second, people believe that Isaiah spoke about the coming Messiah and thus, to deny that Isaiah was the author of the book is to deny the inspiration of the Bible. Christians who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible believe that, if the Bible says Isaiah wrote the book, then to deny that Isaiah wrote his book is to deny the inerrancy of the Bible.
This view, however, is misleading for two reasons. The Bible is the inspired word of God even though Isaiah did not write the whole book of Isaiah. Second, just because the name of a person is on the title page of a book, it does not mean that that person wrote the book. Let me explain.
In the Old Testament we have the book of Samuel, more precisely, we have 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel. But 1 Samuel 25:1 says: “Now Samuel died.” But 1 Samuel continues through Chapter 31 and then there is 2 Samuel. If Samuel died in Chapter 25:1, who wrote the rest of the book? We do not know and that is not important, because whoever wrote the book of Samuel was as inspired to write the book as if Samuel had written the whole book himself.
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