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For the past century and a half, a near consensus among scholars of the Hebrew Bible has held that the book of Isaiah was not written entirely by the prophet Isaiah, but rather that different parts were written by different authors at different times. Isaiah himself lived in the eighth century BC, but of the sixty-six chapters in the book bearing his name, scholars date all of chapters 40–66, as well as various portions of chapters 1–39, to the sixth century or later.

This new understanding of Isaiah creates potential problems for the Book of Mormon. The Nephite record frequently quotes Isaiah passages that are said to come from the brass plates of Laban, a collection of scriptural texts that Lehi’s family took from Jerusalem around 597 BC. That date comes a century after the prophet Isaiah lived but several decades before the book of Isaiah began to reach its final form as described by most modern Isaiah scholars. Although Isaiah chapters 48–53 are thought by scholars not to have even existed in 597 BC, the Book of Mormon draws upon the brass plates to quote that material. Similarly, although Isaiah chapters 2–14 and 29 are thought to have undergone significant editing after that same date, the Book of Mormon quotes them very close to how they appear in their current form as presented in the King James Version of the Bible.

Latter-day Saints have responded to this alleged anachronism since the early 1900s, and they have done so using four different approaches. Rather than argue for a specific approach, my goal in this study is to help readers understand all four of these approaches, which have never been brought together before, so they can appreciate the variety of ways one might think about and respond to this important Book of Mormon issue. I will begin by highlighting the major reasons why most biblical scholars see multiple authors in Isaiah, then summarize each of the four basic Latter-day Saint approaches, and then conclude with a comparison of these approaches. Whatever approach one prefers to take, I do not believe that this issue in any way gives cause for doubting one’s faith in the Book of Mormon as the word of God.

Academic Assessments of Isaiah

Before reviewing Latter-day Saint responses, it will be helpful to briefly highlight the major reasons why most biblical scholars believe the book of Isaiah was written by more than one author and that parts of the book were written or edited after Isaiah’s lifetime. My intention is to explain the academic consensus fairly so that readers can appreciate what scholars say and why they say it, but I do not intend to imply that these arguments are immune to criticism. Certainly there are different ways of understanding the issues involved. However, there is not space here to fully explain each argument, let alone evaluate its strengths and weaknesses. If readers wish to explore these arguments in more detail, the studies cited in the notes can provide much more comprehensive analyses.

Most scholars believe that the book of Isaiah is a composite text because, first, the book’s narrative voice(s) may be read as implying that other authors wrote portions of it. Isaiah speaks in the first-person voice in some chapters (Isaiah 6, 8), and editorial headings name him at the beginning of certain blocks of chapters (1:1; 2:1; 13:1). Many chapters, however, contain no first-person references other than the author quoting God (1–5, 9–12), or they contain a few scattered first-person statements without identifying the prophetic voice behind them (13–19, 21–35, 40–66), making them formally anonymous. In addition, some chapters describe the prophet Isaiah in the third person (7, 20, 36–39), strongly suggesting that whoever wrote these chapters, it was not him.[1]

Second, Isaiah 40–66, as well as various portions of Isaiah 1–39, are dated to the sixth century or later because they seem to be set during the Jewish exile in Babylon.[2] For example, the impending downfall of Babylon is predicted (see 43:14; 47:1–15; 48:14) thanks to the victory of the Persian king Cyrus (see 44:28–45:8), who we know achieved this around 540 BC. Scholars who do not allow for the possibility of predictive prophecy (the idea that prophets can know the future) assume that the eighth-century Isaiah could not have known the details of what would happen in the sixth century, and thus these chapters must have been written by someone living during that time. However, there are also many biblical scholars whose religious beliefs allow for predictive prophecy but who still believe that these chapters were written by a sixth-century prophet. This is because some passages assume the chronological perspective of someone who writes before the fall of Babylon in 540 but after the fall of Jerusalem and the start of the Jewish captivity in 586. The promise that Jerusalem will again be inhabited and its temple rebuilt (see 44:24–28), for example, presupposes that Jerusalem and its temple have been destroyed.[3]

Third, several passages in Isaiah 40–66 quote from biblical texts that were not written until after Isaiah’s lifetime, including the books of Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Nahum, as well as certain late psalms.[4] For example, Isaiah 49:13–26 is a fourteen-verse unit that quotes or alludes to at least fifteen passages in the book of Lamentations, which was written in response to the theological and social fallout resulting from the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. Isaiah 49 creatively reverses all the negative situations and feelings that Lamentations had expressed, and the fact that the ideas and phrases are spread out in Lamentations but are tightly woven together in Isaiah suggests that Isaiah 49 is responding to Lamentations, not the other way around.[5] There are so many additional allusions to other biblical texts in Isaiah 40–66 that one study concluded that this section is “one of the most allusive” in the Bible.[6] Collectively, these quotations of and allusions to texts that were not composed until after the life of Isaiah strongly suggest to scholars that Isaiah 40–66 came later.

Fourth, numerous studies have suggested that there are certain ideas, themes, and writing styles that distinguish much of Isaiah 1–39 from Isaiah 40–66. For example, the figure of the “servant of the Lord” is prominent in chapters 40–55 but does not appear earlier, while chapters 40–55 mention little about the messianic king who is prominent in chapters 1–39.[7] In Isaiah 40–66, God calls himself “the first” and “the last” (41:4; 44:6; 48:12), “redeemer” (41:14; 43:14; 44:6, 24; 48:17; 49:7, 26; 54:5, 8; 59:20; 60:16), “the creator” (40:28; 43:15), and “saviour” (43:3, 11; 45:21; 49:26; 60:16), but God does not use any of these titles even once in Isaiah 1–39. Several passages in Isaiah 1–39 suggest to scholars that Isaiah did not believe that Jerusalem would ever be completely destroyed, and yet Isaiah 40–66 assumes that it already has been (e.g., 44:26).[8] Certain vocabulary words are also distinguished, such as the verb ����ʾ (“to create”), which appears sixteen times in Isaiah 40–66 but only once in Isaiah 1–39.[9] Although it is certainly not impossible that one author could have made such dramatic changes in the way he writes, Occam’s razor suggests to most scholars that one or more additional authors is the best explanation for these observations.

Fifth, scholars have analyzed the vocabulary, grammar, and syntax of Hebrew inscriptions, biblical texts, and postbiblical literature, which has allowed them to trace how the Hebrew language changed over time. Hebraists distinguish between two primary stages of biblical language: Classical (or Standard) Biblical Hebrew, which characterizes the language of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings; and Late Biblical Hebrew, which characterizes Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, and Esther.[10] In historical terms, Classical Biblical Hebrew was the language of the monarchic or preexilic periods (tenth–seventh centuries BC), while Late Biblical Hebrew was standard in the postexilic or Second Temple periods (beginning in the late sixth century BC). Some scholars also refer to a third developmental phase, Transitional Biblical Hebrew, to describe several biblical texts that show mixed features from both Classical Biblical Hebrew and Late Biblical Hebrew.[11] Books that feature these mixed characteristics, such as Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Haggai, and Jonah, almost always have ties to the historical events of the sixth century BC (the fall of Jerusalem, the Babylonian exile, and the initial return to Judah), which makes perfect sense of what we know of the dating of Classical and Late Biblical Hebrew books. Within the book of Isaiah, chapters 1–39 are broadly at home in Classical Biblical Hebrew, although there are portions and pieces that seem to have been written later. Chapters 40–66, however, reflect a different stage of the language and correspond to the intermediate phase of Transitional Biblical Hebrew.[12] For example, the verb hlk generally appears in the qal stem in the Hebrew Bible (over one thousand times) except for some two dozen appearances in the piel stem, almost all of them in chronologically later texts such as Ezekiel and Lamentations (this usage continues to develop in Hebrew and is frequent by the Mishnaic period). Isaiah 59:9 uses the piel form ��ǝ�󲹱���ŧ��.[13] The point here is not just that the vocabulary, grammar, and syntax of Isaiah 40–66 are different from the earlier chapters; it’s that they are different in precisely the same ways that other biblical texts from the eighth century and the sixth century are different.

On the basis of these and other observations, biblical scholars since the late 1700s have proposed that Isaiah 40–66, as well as portions of Isaiah 1–39, were composed by someone other than (and later than) the prophet Isaiah.[14] In 1892 Bernhard Duhm’s influential Das Buch Jesaia solidified the growing consensus that chapters 40–66 were written during the Babylonian exile and also introduced the idea that chapters 56–66 were the work of yet another author writing even later.[15] Duhm’s three-part division of chapters 1–39 (called First Isaiah or Proto-Isaiah), 40–55 (called Second Isaiah or Deutero-Isaiah), and 56–66 (called Third Isaiah or Trito-Isaiah) dominated scholarly assumptions for decades. However, while those divisions are still considered a convenient starting point for talking about the development of Isaiah, they are now widely recognized as too simplistic.[16]

Today, Isaiah chapters 1–39 are considered to be an anthology consisting of an original core of writings by Isaiah that was subsequently edited and supplemented over time.[17] Though there are a variety of views on how to subdivide these chapters, recent scholarship has also emphasized that Isaiah 1–39 is not a random hodgepodge but rather a carefully edited corpus whose sum is greater than its parts.[18] Isaiah 40–55 is usually considered to be the work of an exilic prophet for all the reasons outlined above.[19] Duhm and others had seen Isaiah 40–55 as an independent block of material, but in recent decades the understanding has grown that Isaiah 40–55 was from its very beginning composed in view of some version of Isaiah 1–39, actively responding to it, shaping its material, and even adding to it.[20] Isaiah chapters 56–66 are usually not thought of as the work of a single author but instead as having developed in stages over time.[21] However, the contrast between chapters 56–66 and 40–55 is not as sharp as between 40–55 and 1–39, so there is a lingering debate about whether these final eleven chapters should be separated at all.[22] Whatever the exact process of development, several scholars have advocated that the author(s) of the final chapters also had a hand in the final editing of Isaiah 1–66 as a whole.[23]

Since the 1980s, Isaiah scholarship has seen a paradigm shift with a refocus on analyzing the book as a literary whole. While there is still a consensus that the book of Isaiah was written and edited by various authors living at various times, current scholarship is not content to simply divide up redactional layers but seeks to understand why the parts were fit together as they are today. This approach prioritizes the final form of the text over hypothetical sources and helps answer the long-standing criticism that Duhm’s model ignored the many themes and verbal connections that permeate all sixty-six chapters.[24]

In sum, while there are widely divergent views among scholars today about the particulars of how to date the texts of Isaiah and how to understand its formation, there is a solid consensus that the book had a long and complicated developmental history that included many hands beyond those of the prophet Isaiah. While there are still some scholars today who argue for Isaiah’s authorship of the entire book, their positions are very much in the minority.[25]

With that background in mind, we can now explore how Latter-day Saints have responded to the potential chronological challenge this creates for the Book of Mormon. I have grouped the responses into four basic approaches.

Approach #1: Use the Book of Mormon to Dismiss the Scholarly Dating of Isaiah

While all Latter-day Saints utilize the Book of Mormon as evidence when considering Isaiah, some have taken the specific approach of outright dismissing the academic arguments regarding the dating of Isaiah when those arguments appear to conflict with the Book of Mormon in any way. In this view, the Book of Mormon itself is the ultimate authority, and any argument that appears to contradict it is proved wrong automatically. Because the Book of Mormon quotes from both First Isaiah and Deutero-Isaiah, this demonstrates that the academic arguments are wrong and that Isaiah must have written the entire book.

One of the earliest advocates for this approach was James E. Talmage, who claimed in 1929 that biblical scholars were only seeking “to rend, mutilate and generally discredit the Book of Isaiah” and that their arguments need not be taken seriously.[26] In fact, Elder Talmage suggested that getting into the details of the scholarly arguments is decidedly unnecessary given that the Book of Mormon is “sufficient” to settle the issue.[27]

Many Latter-day Saint authors, such as Bruce R. McConkie, Glenn L. Pearson, Mark E. Petersen, Robert J. Matthews, and Robert L. Millet, have followed Elder Talmage’s lead. They bring up theories of multiple authorship briefly, but rather than engage the scholars’ arguments, they simply refer to the Book of Mormon and conclude, as one author put it, that the scholars “are obviously in error” and “their arguments may be discounted en toto.”[28]

Approach #2: Argue for the Unity of Isaiah Using Biblical Evidences

Other Latter-day Saints have agreed that Isaiah wrote the entire book attributed to him and that there is no real challenge to the Book of Mormon, but they have not felt satisfied simply citing the Book of Mormon to make their case. (After all, using the Book of Mormon as proof of the Book of Mormon could be seen as circular reasoning.) These scholars have felt that a more rigorous defense is needed, one that engages with the scholarly arguments on their own terms—that is, by using the text of Isaiah in the Bible. Authors who have used biblical evidences to argue for the unity of Isaiah have included B. H. Roberts, Sidney B. Sperry, LaMar Adams, Monte Nyman, Victor Ludlow, Kent Jackson, Avraham Gileadi, and Jeffrey Chadwick.

Most of these authors have employed a dual approach of both critiquing the evidences set forth for authorial diversity and making positive arguments in favor of authorial unity. When critiquing the academic arguments for multiple authors, every one of them takes exception to the common academic assumption that prophets cannot engage in predictive prophecy. If we allow that prophets can know the future, these Latter-day Saint authors maintain, then we can grant the possibility that Isaiah did know about Cyrus of Persia and the fall of Babylon and everything else described in these later chapters.[29] They also address the differences in vocabulary, themes, and literary style that characterize Isaiah 40–66, usually with the explanation that a single author can write about subjects differently in the process of gaining experience and addressing new situations.[30] Some have questioned, If a prophet lived during the exile and was so great that he could compose literature as sublime as Isaiah 40–55, why then was his name entirely forgotten to history?[31]

To argue in favor of a unified Isaiah, these authors point to the Book of Mormon’s quotations and attributions as prime evidence.[32] They invoke the fact that ancient writers, such as the New Testament authors, the translators of the Septuagint, Ben Sira, and the scribes at Qumran who produced the Dead Sea Scrolls, all seem to take the unity of Isaiah as a given.[33] They also describe the numerous words, phrases, and themes that run across the entire book, such as the divine title “holy one of Israel,” which appears twenty-five times in Isaiah (and just six other times in the rest of the Old Testament) with a roughly equal distribution in all parts.[34] Kent Jackson adds that a focus on judgment followed by a theme of hope, as found in the shift from Isaiah 1–39 to Isaiah 40–66, is common in prophetic books.[35] LaMar Adams performed a computerized statistical study of Hebrew vocabulary and concluded that Isaiah 1–39 and 40–66 are more similar than they are different.[36] Avraham Gileadi has argued that Isaiah has a two-part “bifid structure” with each half containing seven units that parallel those in the other half, a structure that he understands to indicate the careful craftsmanship of a single author.[37] Although all these authors argue for Isaiah’s “essential unity” (Jackson’s term), many also concede that the book may not have come down to us in exactly the form Isaiah left it, owing to either light scribal corruptions[38] or the possible addition of small portions by later editors, such as chapter 1 and/or chapters 36–39.[39]

Some of these arguments are more persuasive than others—Adams’s statistical analyses, for example, have had their methodology called into question,[40] and Gileadi’s model of Isaiah’s structure has not been widely adopted, even by fellow Latter-day Saint scholars.[41] A few key evidences in favor of multiple authorship, such as the third-person descriptions of Isaiah in some chapters, the quotations from exilic books, and the linguistic shift from Classical to Transitional Biblical Hebrew, have never even been brought up in most Latter-day Saint publications.[42] Still, arguments in favor of Isaiah’s unity have been persuasive to a number of Latter-day Saints, which for them has rendered the challenge to the Book of Mormon a nonissue.

Approach #3: Work with Isaiah Scholarship and Find Nuanced Ways to Account for the Brass Plates

Not all Latter-day Saints have believed that the biblical evidence points to Isaiah’s unified authorship or that the Book of Mormon evidence requires it to. As he evaluated Isaiah scholarship, Hugh Nibley decried the academic propensity for chopping up the Bible into pieces whenever scholars detect the slightest change in vocabulary, subject, or tone. He also thought that biblical scholars are far too confident about their ability to date texts, and he was not impressed by the fact that different scholars come to vastly different conclusions.[43] However, Nibley did not advocate that the book of Isaiah was a unified text authored by Isaiah alone. He believed there would have been an original version of the book written by Isaiah and that this Isaianic core was explained, updated, and expanded over a long period of time by those who were dedicated to Isaiah’s teachings and worldview. Our present book of Isaiah could have ended up with “genuine words of Isaiah” in any chapter of the book, and also with “words that are not his” in any chapter, although Nibley was not interested in trying to pinpoint the exact locations of either.[44]

Nibley’s view of the book of Isaiah’s development drew on studies by biblical scholars who suggested that Isaiah’s prophecies were preserved by a school of disciples who edited and added to them over a few generations.[45] His primary inspiration, however, was the Book of Mormon, which “attests the busy reshuffling and reediting of separate pages of sacred writings that often go under the name of a single prophet.”[46] The Book of Mormon itself is a composite text created by different authors and editors, and it describes other records that developed through a similar process. “Each transmitter did not merely hand the records intact to the next one,” wrote Nibley, but “every one of the successive editors did something to them—abridging, annotating, explaining, translating, doing what he could to make the ancient words more comprehensible to his own age and the people who should come after.”[47] Nibley stressed that such textual revisions should create no theological problems for Latter-day Saints, who believe in continuing revelation.[48] As long as subsequent prophet-editors are in tune with the spirit of the message of the original prophet-authors, adding to or updating the original words does not violate the integrity of the text, nor does it disqualify the text as the work (broadly defined) of the original author.[49]

As regards the book of Isaiah, Nibley’s approach to scriptural development meant he was comfortable with the idea of multiple authors and a lengthy period of development. Although he thought scholars dated texts with an impossible level of (presumed) precision born of overconfidence, he was open to the possibility that they might be correct, or at least on to something, in some of their observations. Nibley thought it perhaps significant, for example, that the Book of Mormon quotes only from chapters 48–54 (and part of 55) in the Deutero-Isaiah material (roughly corresponding to the subunit of chapters 49–55 that many scholars see in Deutero-Isaiah) and utilizes very little of what could be construed as material from Third Isaiah. He also observed that when quoting his large Isaiah block, Nephi strikingly skips chapter 1 and begins with what we call Isaiah 2, which could possibly confirm the academic proposal that Isaiah 1 was composed later as an introductory text. In fact, Nibley went as far as to speculate that perhaps the version of Isaiah on the brass plates was not much bigger than what Nephi includes in 1 Nephi 20–21 and 2 Nephi 12–24.[50]

In sum, Nibley’s approach to the book of Isaiah took many of the scholars’ observations seriously, even if he did not agree with how they divided up the book or with all their conclusions regarding how to date blocks of text. Nibley also opened up new possibilities with his suggestion that the Book of Mormon only proves that certain Isaiah chapters predate Lehi, whereas many other Latter-day Saints have assumed that if the Book of Mormon quotes from any part of Isaiah then that means the whole book must have been on the brass plates.

Several Latter-day Saints, including John Tvedtnes, William Hamblin, John Welch, Kevin Christensen, and Daniel Ellsworth, have utilized Nibley’s approach. Like Nibley, they do not accept every scholarly theory, but they do engage with Isaiah scholarship and allow that it may provide useful insights on occasion. They are also cautious regarding what we can definitively say was on the brass plates: if the Book of Mormon does not quote a chapter, then the Book of Mormon cannot be used as proof of Isaiah’s authorship of that chapter.[51] Most of these authors, however, are more conservative than Nibley on Isaiah’s authorship, indicating that their personal preference still leans toward the book’s overall unity.[52] Their proposals explaining how the book might have developed after Isaiah stem from a desire to be careful not to shut the door on possibilities for which the Book of Mormon allows.

The main contribution these authors have made to develop Nibley’s model is to propose specific chronological frameworks for the book of Isaiah’s textual evolution, which is something Nibley did not want to commit himself to. To understand these proposals, a quick review of key dates (all BC) may be helpful:

700 Approximate death date for Isaiah. At this time, Assyria is the major superpower.

605 Babylon becomes the new superpower following the Battle of Carchemish.

597 After the king of Judah rebels against Babylon, the Babylonians take control of Jerusalem and install a new king, Zedekiah. They also take ten thousand Judahites into captivity in Babylon (among these were Ezekiel and Daniel). After this tragedy, Lehi and “many” other prophets predict that if the people of Jerusalem do not repent, the city will be completely destroyed (1 Nephi 1:4).

597+ After Lehi and his family flee Jerusalem, they stay an indeterminate amount of time (weeks? months? years?) in the desert. Eventually they return to retrieve the brass plates and then leave for good.

586 Following Zedekiah’s rebellion against Babylon, the Babylonians return and completely destroy Jerusalem. Even more Judahites are taken into exile.

We have, then, approximately a century between Isaiah’s death and the time when Nephi took the brass plates, which creates space for additions and editing to happen. John Welch opines that “if such compiling or editing is accomplished by a skilled person duly called and inspired to prepare the final text, the Latter-day Saint view is not troubled by the prospect of such subsequent involvement.” Welch’s personal preference is that this work would have been complete “fairly soon” after Isaiah’s lifetime, but he acknowledges that the only real limit is that everything quoted in the Book of Mormon had to have been written and attributed to Isaiah in time to be copied onto the brass plates.[53] However, although Welch’s seventh-century timeframe would account for some of the scholarly observations regarding Isaiah 48–53—the differences in vocabulary and style, for example—it still would not satisfy scholars who point to the assumed exilic setting, or the appearance of linguistic features post-dating Classical Biblical Hebrew, or the familiarity with Jeremiah.

Addressing those remaining points, however, William Hamblin proposed a different chronological framework. Because Isaiah 40–55 seems to assume a setting during exile, most scholars believe that the prophetic author, “Deutero-Isaiah,” spoke after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC (and probably closer to the rise of Cyrus around 540). However, Hamblin suggests a modified chronology: what if Deutero-Isaiah—perhaps one of the “many prophets” of 1 Nephi 1:4—began prophesying his words of comfort to the captives in Babylon not after the second exile in 586 but after the first in 597? Hamblin proposes that if Nephi sojourned in the desert for, say, three years before returning for the brass plates, that would give time for Deutero-Isaiah’s prophecies to have been written and copied onto the plates before Nephi took them.[54]

This reconstruction could theoretically allow for the Deutero-Isaiah material to be on the brass plates and account for many of the scholarly observations regarding Isaiah 40–55. Like Welch’s proposal that authors and editors may have revised the text in the seventh century, Hamblin’s dating explains the differences in vocabulary and style that appear in the Isaianic corpus. But because Hamblin moves a little into the sixth century BC, after the initial exile in 597, it could also explain why Deutero-Isaiah speaks to Judahites in exile, why his Hebrew has begun to show signs of linguistic transition, and why he is familiar with Jeremiah.

Hamblin’s scenario still requires predictive prophecy for Deutero-Isaiah to have known the future destruction of Babylon and the return that would follow, so secular scholars would reject this proposal on those grounds alone. But once again, this comes down to an ideological difference about whether prophets can know the future and speak outside their own temporal setting. Another objection might be that the author of Deutero-Isaiah is most often thought of as living in Babylon himself, but some scholars have made the case that he did speak from Jerusalem.[55] A third objection might be that portions of Isaiah 40–55 assume certain post-597 events have already happened, such as the destruction of the temple (44:28) or Cyrus’s rise to power (44:28; 45:1), but none of these specific references appear in the material quoted from the brass plates (48–53), leaving open the possibility they were composed even later.

In the end, Hamblin’s proposal will “not [be] an entirely satisfactory solution” for everyone; there are several details about which a case could be made that it still does not satisfy the academic dating of this or that feature.[56] But for those who want to balance a serious consideration of the scholarly consensus with a commitment to the idea that the Isaiah chapters quoted in the Book of Mormon made it onto those brass plates by the time Nephi acquired them, Hamblin’s scenario probably represents the best compromise put forward to date. It still requires accepting at least “a degree of unresolved tension” with the academic consensus, but since it has closed the gap from centuries down to a few decades, the tension is significantly alleviated.[57]

Approach #4: Explore How Divine Intervention Might Have Affected the Text of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon

A final approach to Deutero-Isaiah in the Book of Mormon suggests that the solution to the problem lies neither in academic arguments about the Bible nor in historical reconstructions establishing how the Book of Mormon’s Isaiah chapters could have made it onto the brass plates. Rather, this approach looks at the possibility that divine intervention has in some way disrupted the normal historical processes by which the text of Isaiah moved from author(s) to redactors to copyists to translators, and from one geographical and temporal setting to another.

From the Book of Mormon’s descriptions of its own nature, purpose, and development, it is clear that God had very specific plans for this book and what he wanted it to contain and accomplish in the last days (see 1 Nephi 13:30–41). Furthermore, God’s ability to make sure the Book of Mormon had what he wanted was not limited by the normal “rules” for which texts should be available to people in a particular geographical or temporal setting. Consider that the Book of Mormon contains Malachi chapters 3–4 (quoted in 3 Nephi 24–25). That God wanted “future generations” to read Malachi 3–4 in the Book of Mormon is specifically declared in 3 Nephi 26:2. Following the normal historical rules for textual transmission, however, Malachi chapters 3–4 are anachronistic—since they were not composed in Jerusalem until centuries after Lehi left Jerusalem, it should be impossible for people in ancient America to have had those texts so many centuries before Columbus brought the Bible to the New World. But God is not bound by those rules. In this case, he completely circumnavigated the constraints of time and geography by literally descending from heaven and telling the people, “Here are some texts you don’t have but that I want you to have” (see 3 Nephi 24:1; 26:2).

Returning to the Isaiah quotations in the Book of Mormon, it’s worth asking if in the end it really matters if Deutero-Isaiah did not exist or if First Isaiah would have looked very different when the brass plates left Jerusalem in 597 BC. As Nicholas Frederick and Joseph Spencer explain, “[If] God wished modern readers of the Book of Mormon to have a fuller Isaiah text than was available to Nephi on the brass plates,” then God could have found a way to make that happen.[58] Or as Nephi puts it, “The Lord knoweth all things from the beginning; wherefore, he prepareth a way to accomplish all his works among the children of men; for behold, he hath all power unto the fulfilling of all his words” (1 Nephi 9:6).

If we assume for the sake of argument, then, that the scholarly consensus is more or less correct and that the Book of Mormon Isaiah texts are anachronistic, how and when might God have intervened to include them? Various suggestions have been offered, usually not by way of hard argument but to illustrate the theological possibilities. Anciently, God could have had still-to-be-written or still-to-be-redacted texts inserted into the brass plates ahead of their (re)creation decades later.[59] God could have revealed such texts directly to Nephi.[60] God could have allowed Nephi in the spirit world to posthumously edit his own books using the writings of Deutero-Isaiah.[61]

Some have suggested that God intervened at the time of the Book of Mormon’s translation into English. Blake Ostler and others have presented the case that the Book of Mormon is overall an ancient text but that certain concepts and passages, like the Deutero-Isaiah quotations, were added by Joseph Smith acting under divine inspiration.[62] Others have suggested that Nephi did include these Isaiah texts on the plates, but it was a different version of Isaiah than that represented in the Book of Mormon’s English translation. Book of Mormon scholars have persuasively argued that the English Book of Mormon is a “cultural translation” that sometimes communicates meaning to modern readers via a nonliteral rendering of what was on the plates, including a dedication to the language and phrasing of the King James Bible.[63] This opens up the possibility that the Isaiah chapters were modified by the translation process. Brant Gardner proposes one scenario: that by Nephi’s day there existed a core Isaianic corpus that primarily addressed the calamities associated with the Assyrian threat, and that during the Babylonian exile this original Assyrian edition underwent a Babylonian makeover in which certain prophecies were reapplied and certain details added in order to make them relevant to the new situation. But even though Nephi was working with the original Assyrian edition of Isaiah, the English translation of the Book of Mormon presents the Babylonian edition because that was the version passed down through the ages until its inclusion in the King James Bible. This would have created what appear to be anachronisms, but only because the inspired Book of Mormon translation is not providing the exact wording from the gold plates.[64]

We could not prove any of the scenarios described above, but knowing exactly what happened is not the point. The point is that the whole question of Deutero-Isaiah in the Book of Mormon changes dramatically when we consider even the possibility that God, just as he did with Malachi 3–4, at some point circumnavigated the expected historical limitations on what texts of Isaiah should have been available in specific times and places. If he wanted Deutero-Isaiah in the Book of Mormon—and the Book of Mormon itself suggests he did (see 3 Nephi 23:1–4)—he would have had any number of ways to make sure that happened, regardless of whether they produced the “anachronisms” so horrifying to historical-critical scholars. “Once one accepts the possibility of divine intervention,” Grant Hardy astutely observes, “the theology can accommodate the (always tentative) results of scholarship.”[65]

Synthesis and Evaluation

The four approaches discussed above are the primary ways that Latter-day Saints have approached the question of Deutero-Isaiah in the Book of Mormon.[66] I conclude with a synthesis and evaluation.

The first approach is to dismiss the alleged anachronism on the premise that the Book of Mormon is true and therefore anything that presumes to contradict it is false. While this approach is laudable for its commitment, it may be inadequate for some Saints. A century ago, Elder Talmage reported that when people asked him if he had “looked into” the claimed anachronism of Deutero-Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, his response was to ask them, “Why trouble yourselves about the matter?” and then bear his testimony of the Book of Mormon.[67] More recently, however, President M. Russell Ballard has declared, “Gone are the days when a student asked an honest question and a teacher responded, ‘Don’t worry about it!’ Gone are the days when a student raised a sincere concern and a teacher bore his or her testimony as a response intended to avoid the issue.”[68] Not every Latter-day Saint will feel the need to explore historical issues such as Deutero-Isaiah, but President Ballard’s counsel reminds us that others are best served when they combine faith with studied reasons for belief (see Doctrine and Covenants 88:118).

One set of studied reasons, therefore, is supplied through the second approach, which undercuts the alleged Book of Mormon anachronism by using biblical evidences to argue that Isaiah did indeed write the entire book of Isaiah. Authors following this path have made several worthwhile arguments, pointing out places where certain academic assumptions (like the impossibility of predictive prophecy) are not shared by people of faith, as well as places where some biblical scholars have made claims that go beyond the evidence. At the same time, Latter-day Saint arguments for Isaiah’s unity have largely had the goal of convincing the already convinced. Academic scholars studying Deutero-Isaiah have produced numerous book-length studies making the case for an exilic setting, analyzing the changes in themes and style, demonstrating the use of Late Biblical Hebrew, and exploring the dependency on Jeremiah and other exilic texts, among other issues. The Latter-day Saint counterarguments, however, have largely consisted of book chapters, typically six to eight pages in length, that address these topics either superficially or not at all. I am not suggesting that this approach is without merit or that Latter-day Saint scholars could not advance worthwhile arguments for Isaiah’s unity in the future, but at present no one has produced an up-to-date defense of Isaiah’s unity that addresses all the issues with the detail and rigor that would be necessary to truly challenge the academic consensus on its own terms.

But is a complete rebuttal of the academic consensus even necessary? Some have argued that efforts to engage biblical scholarship on its own terms is doomed to an impasse because Latter-day Saint assumptions about scripture and historical-critical assumptions about scripture are simply too divergent to find common ground on key questions.[69] Others have cautioned that if Isaiah did not write the whole book, and if there are other ways to account for the Book of Mormon’s Isaiah quotations, then arguing for unified authorship may not be a productive path anyway.

The third approach, then, starts with the premise that working with academic scholarship is the best way forward, even if we cannot accept all its conclusions. It approaches the Book of Mormon’s use of Isaiah with greater nuance, suggesting that the Book of Mormon can only prove that the specific chapters it quotes from would have been on the brass plates. Some Latter-day Saints taking this position have explored how the Deutero-Isaiah chapters may have been authored or edited during the century that passed between Isaiah’s death and Nephi’s acquisition of the brass plates. If the Deutero-Isaiah material was produced relatively close to the Babylonian crises of the early sixth century, that would allow for many of the scholarly observations while simultaneously allowing that those texts could have made it onto the brass plates in time for Nephi’s departure.

These first three approaches are different, but they are united in assuming that the Isaiah quotations in the English translation of the Book of Mormon should literally represent what was on the gold plates, that the quotations on the gold plates should exactly duplicate what was on the brass plates, and that the brass plates were copied from a version of Isaiah that independently existed around 597 BC—and thus that the reality of the Book of Mormon as an ancient text depends on whether we can establish that a version of Isaiah independently existed around 597 BC that correlates with the Isaiah quotations in the English translation of the Book of Mormon. These assumptions have been shared by both believers and critics, but they are only assumptions.

The fourth approach explores the new space created by challenging those assumptions. It asks how divine intervention may have interrupted the textual transmission of Isaiah and produced results that we cannot completely explain through historical-critical analysis, faithful or otherwise. If God wanted to have “anachronistic” texts put into the brass plates or the small plates of Nephi, he could have found a way to do it. For example, given that the English translation of the Book of Mormon was clearly designed to interact with the King James Version of the Bible, the Isaiah quotations possibly ended up reading a little differently from how they had read on the plates. The possibility of divine intervention at any stage in the development of either the book of Isaiah or the Book of Mormon means that the standard assumptions about which versions of Isaiah should have existed at certain points in history may be entirely unjustified.

Of course, to postulate divine intervention is to make a theological argument, not a historical one. But too many people, both faithful defenders of the Book of Mormon and antagonistic detractors, have failed to appreciate how much Deutero-Isaiah in the Book of Mormon is a theological issue. There’s nothing wrong with making historical arguments to the best of our ability, be that defending Isaiah’s authorship of the whole book or postulating which Isaiah chapters could have existed by a certain year. But the discussion will always end up back at divine intervention anyway. We are talking about a book that claims to have been created by the direction of Jesus Christ thousands of years ago so that it could be delivered by an angel to a farm boy to translate by the gift and power of God. It makes no sense for either a believer or a critic to acknowledge that premise but then treat the Deutero-Isaiah question strictly as a historical issue for which only historical evidence is admissible. To evaluate the Book of Mormon from a purely secular framework is to misunderstand what the text claims to be.

Some Latter-day Saints will not be bothered by this issue. Some will accept biblical arguments for Isaiah’s unity. Some will appreciate historical arguments for the plausibility of the brass plates. Some will find satisfaction in the possibility that Nephi received a revealed text or that Joseph Smith’s translation changed the wording. Whatever approach they take, I believe this issue does not challenge the Book of Mormon’s claim to be an inspired translation of an ancient text. The Book of Mormon was never intended to stand or fall solely on historical evidence, which God told Nephi he planned to deliberately withhold from our secular, skeptical, latter-day world (see 2 Nephi 27:20–23).[70] “I am a God of miracles,” the Lord declared, “and I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith” (v. 23). If Deutero-Isaiah’s presence in the Book of Mormon requires us to exercise our faith, then that may be one more way in which the Book of Mormon does exactly what it is supposed to do.

Notes

[1] See H. G. M. Williamson, “Isaiah: Book of,” in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets, ed. Mark J. Boda and J. Gordon McConville (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 369.

[2] See John N. Oswalt, “Who Were the Addressees of Isaiah 40–66?,” Bibliotheca Sacra 169 (2012): 33–47.

[3] The eminent British biblical scholar S. R. Driver made the case over a century ago that because the Babylonian exile is presupposed in Isaiah 40–66, rather than being predicted, to identify the author as living during the exile is not imposing an interpretation onto the text but rather accepting what the text itself implies. See An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1891), 224.

[4] See Patricia Tull Willey, Remember the Former Things: The Recollection of Previous Texts in Second Isaiah, Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series 161 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997); and Benjamin D. Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998).

[5] See Willey, Remember the Former Things, 188–93.

[6] Sommer, Prophet Reads Scripture, 3.

[7] See Herbert M. Wolf, Interpreting Isaiah: The Suffering and Glory of the Messiah (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1985), 30.

[8] See Leslie J. Hoppe, The Holy City: Jerusalem in the Theology of the Old Testament (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), 57–71.

[9] Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40–55: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 19 (New York: Doubleday, 2002), 110.

[10] See Joseph Lam and Dennis Pardee, “Standard/Classical Biblical Hebrew,” in A Handbook of Biblical Hebrew, vol. 1, Periods, Corpora, and Reading Traditions, ed. W. Randall Garr and Steven E. Fassberg (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2016), 1–18; and Matthew Morgenstern, “Late Biblical Hebrew,” in Garr and Fassberg, Handbook of Biblical Hebrew, 43–54.

[11] See Ronald Hendel and Jan Joosten, How Old Is the Hebrew Bible? A Linguistic, Textual, and Historical Study, Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018), 73–84; and Aaron D. Hornkohl, “Transitional Biblical Hebrew,” in Garr and Fassberg, Handbook of Biblical Hebrew, 31–42.

[12] See Shalom M. Paul, “Signs of Late Biblical Hebrew in Isaiah 40–66,” in Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew, ed. Cynthia Miller-Naudé and Ziony Zevit, Linguistic Studies in Ancient West Semitic 8 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012), 293–99; and Hendel and Joosten, How Old Is the Hebrew Bible?, 79.

[13] See Paul, “Signs of Late Biblical Hebrew in Isaiah 40–66,” 295.

[14] See Marvin A. Sweeney, “On the Road to Duhm: Isaiah in Nineteenth-Century Critical Scholarship,” in “As Those Who Are Taught”: The Interpretation of Isaiah from the LXX to the SBL, ed. Claire Mathews McGinnis and Patricia K. Tull, Symposium Series 27 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006), 243–61.

[15] See D. Bernhard Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia, übersetzt und erklärt, Handkommentar zum Alten Testament (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1892).

[16] See Uwe Becker, “The Book of Isaiah: Its Composition History,” in The Oxford Handbook of Isaiah, ed. Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 37–56.

[17] See Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 19 (New York: Doubleday, 2000); Marvin A. Sweeney, “Re-Evaluating Isaiah 1–39 in Recent Critical Research,” in Recent Research on the Major Prophets, ed. Alan J. Hauser, Recent Research in Biblical Studies 1 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2008), 93–117; and Hyun Chul Paul Kim, “Recent Scholarship on Isaiah 1–39,” in Hauser, Recent Research on the Major Prophets, 118–41.

[18] See Jacob Stromberg, “The Book of Isaiah: Its Final Structure,” in Tiemeyer, Oxford Handbook of Isaiah, 19–36.

[19] See Klaus Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 40–55, trans. Margaret Kohl, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001); Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40–55; and Katie M. Heffelfinger, “Isaiah 40–55,” in Tiemeyer, Oxford Handbook of Isaiah, 111–27.

[20] See H. G. M. Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah: Deutero-Isaiah’s Role in Composition and Redaction (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994).

[21] See Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 56–66: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible 19 (New York: Doubleday, 2003); and Andreas Schüle, “Isaiah 56–66,” in Tiemeyer, Oxford Handbook of Isaiah, 128–41.

[22] See Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, “Continuity and Discontinuity in Isaiah 40–66: History of Research,” in Continuity and Discontinuity: Chronological and Thematic Development in Isaiah 40–66, ed. Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer and Hans M. Barstad, Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments 255 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 13–40.

[23] See Jacob Stromberg, Isaiah after Exile: The Author of Third Isaiah as Reader and Redactor of the Book, Oxford Theological Monographs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

[24] See Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 311–38; R. E. Clements, “The Unity of the Book of Isaiah,” Interpretation 36 (1982): 117–29; David Carr, “Reaching for Unity in Isaiah,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 57 (1993): 61–80; Marvin E. Tate, “The Book of Isaiah in Recent Study,” in Forming Prophetic Literature: Essays on Isaiah and the Twelve in Honor of John D. W. Watts, ed. James W. Watts and Paul R. House, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 235 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996), 43–50; Rolf Rendtorff, “The Book of Isaiah: A Complex Unity. Synchronic and Diachronic Reading,” in New Visions of Isaiah, ed. Roy F. Melugin and Marvin A. Sweeney, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 214 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996), 32–49; Marvin A. Sweeney, “The Book of Isaiah in Recent Research,” in Hauser, Recent Research on the Major Prophets, 78–92; Roy F. Melugin, “Isaiah 40–66 in Recent Research: The ‘Unity’ Movement,” in Hauser, Recent Research on the Major Prophets, 142–94; Christopher B. Hays, “The Book of Isaiah in Contemporary Research,” Religion Compass 5, no. 10 (2011): 549–66; and Ulrich F. Berges, The Book of Isaiah: Its Composition and Final Form, trans. Millard C. Lind, Hebrew Bible Monographs 46 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2012), 1–37.

[25] See Oswald T. Allis, The Unity of Isaiah: A Study in Prophecy (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1950); R. K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1969), 764–95; Edward J. Young, The Book of Isaiah: The English Text, with Introduction, Exposition, and Notes, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972), 3:538–49; John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 1–39, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986), 17–28; J. Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 25–30; and Richard L. Schultz, “How Many Isaiahs Were There and What Does It Matter? Prophetic Inspiration in Recent Evangelical Scholarship,” in Evangelicals and Scripture: Tradition, Authority, and Hermeneutics, ed. Vincent Bacote, Laura C. Miguélez, and Dennis L. Okholm (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 150–70.

[26] James E. Talmage, in Conference Report, April 1929, 45, 47.

[27] Talmage, in Conference Report, 46.

[28] H. Clay Gorton, The Legacy of the Brass Plates of Laban: A Comparison of Biblical and Book of Mormon Isaiah Texts (Bountiful, UT: Horizon, 1994), 50–51. See Bruce R. McConkie, “Ten Keys to Understanding Isaiah,” Ensign, October 1973, 81; Glenn L. Pearson, The Old Testament: A Mormon Perspective (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980), 56–57; Mark E. Petersen, Isaiah for Today (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981), 140–42; Robert J. Matthews, “Establishing the Truth of the Bible,” in First Nephi, The Doctrinal Foundation, ed. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988), 201; and Robert L. Millet, “The Influence of the Brass Plates on the Teachings of Nephi,” in Second Nephi, the Doctrinal Structure, ed. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1989), 213.

[29] See B. H. Roberts, “Higher Criticism and the Book of Mormon, Part II,” Improvement Era, July 1911, 774, 777; Sidney B. Sperry, Book of Mormon Compendium (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1968), 496–97; L. LaMar Adams, “A Statistical Analysis of the Book of Isaiah in Relation to the Isaiah Problem” (PhD diss., Brigham Young University, 1972), 34–35; Monte S. Nyman, “Great Are the Words of Isaiah” (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980), 254; Victor L. Ludlow, Isaiah: Prophet, Seer, and Poet (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1982), 542–44; Kent P. Jackson, “Authorship of the Book of Isaiah,” in Studies in Scripture, vol. 4, 1 Kings to Malachi, ed. Kent P. Jackson (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1993), 82–83. Jeffrey R. Chadwick’s solution here is different: he sees Isaiah 40–66 as describing not the return following the Babylonian exile but rather the rebuilding following the Assyrian invasion in 701 BC, when Isaiah was still alive. See Chadwick, “The Great Jerusalem Temple Prophecy: Latter-day Context and Likening unto Us,” in Ascending the Mountain of the Lord: Temple, Praise, and Worship in the Old Testament, ed. Jeffrey R. Chadwick, Matthew J. Grey, and David Rolph Seely (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2013), 370; and Chadwick, “The Insights of Third Isaiah: Observations of a Traditionalist,” in The Unperceived Continuity of Isaiah, ed. James H. Charlesworth (London: T&T Clark, 2019), 77–80.

[30] See B. H. Roberts, New Witnesses for God: II. Book of Mormon, vol. 3 (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1909), 449–60; Sperry, Book of Mormon Compendium, 497–98; Adams, “Statistical Analysis,” 37–38; Nyman, “Great Are the Words,” 255–56; Ludlow, Isaiah, 544–45; Jackson, “Authorship,” 83–84; Chadwick, “Great Jerusalem Temple Prophecy,” 370; and Chadwick, “Insights of Third Isaiah,” 77–79.

[31] See Roberts, New Witnesses for God, 3:452–53; Sperry, Book of Mormon Compendium, 497; and Ludlow, Isaiah, 547.

[32] See Roberts, New Witnesses for God, 3:460; Sperry, Book of Mormon Compendium, 499–500; Nyman, “Great Are the Words,” 256; Ludlow, Isaiah, 543, 547; Jackson, “Authorship,” 84; and Chadwick, “Great Jerusalem Temple Prophecy,” 369–70.

[33] See Roberts, New Witnesses for God, 454–56; Sperry, Book of Mormon Compendium, 493, 502–4; Adams, “Statistical Analysis,” 36; Nyman, “Great Are the Words,” 257; Ludlow, Isaiah, 546–47; and Jackson, “Authorship,” 82.

[34] See Sperry, Book of Mormon Compendium, 504–6; Adams, “Statistical Analysis,” 38–39; Ludlow, Isaiah, 547; Jackson, “Authorship,” 83; and Chadwick, “Insights of Third Isaiah,” 77, 79, 87.

[35] See Jackson, “Authorship,” 83.

[36] See Adams, “Statistical Analysis.” See also L. LaMar Adams and Alvin C. Rencher, “The Popular Critical View of the Isaiah Problem in Light of Statistical Style Analysis,” Computer Studies in the Humanities and Verbal Behavior 4 (1973): 149–57; and Adams and Rencher, “A Computer Analysis of the Isaiah Authorship Problem,” BYU Studies 15, no. 1 (1974): 95–102.

[37] Avraham Gileadi, The Literary Message of Isaiah (New York: Hebraeus, 1994), 33–43 (alternatively, see pp. 1–13 in the 2012 second edition, which features some textual updates but lacks the full translation of Isaiah and the appendixes from the first edition).

[38] Adams, “Statistical Analysis,” 35; Nyman, “Great Are the Words,” 253; Ludlow, Isaiah, 548; and Jackson, “Authorship,” 84–85.

[39] See Kent P. Jackson, Lost Tribes and Last Days: What Modern Revelation Tells Us about the Old Testament (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005), 77n5; Chadwick, “Great Jerusalem Temple Prophecy,” 369; Kent P. Jackson, “Isaiah in the Book of Mormon,” in A Reason for Faith, ed. Laura Harris Hales (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2016), 77n19; and Chadwick, “Insights of Third Isaiah,” 77.

[40] A. Dean Forbes, “Statistical Research on the Bible,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 6:196–97, concludes that the “homogeneity of Isaiah” found by Adams and Rencher “is an artifact resulting from inadequate sampling.” Latter-day Saint wordprint expert John L. Hilton cautioned that for the book of Isaiah in particular, computer analysis cannot be conclusive. See his study “Wordprinting Isaiah and the Book of Mormon,” in Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, ed. Donald W. Parry and John W. Welch (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1998), 439–43.

[41] Gileadi’s books, despite numbering more than a dozen, are not utilized or referenced very frequently in others’ published works. As examples, note their absence in Donald W. Parry, Jay A. Parry, and Tina M. Peterson, Understanding Isaiah (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1998); Ann N. Madsen and Shon D. Hopkin, Opening Isaiah: A Harmony (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2018); and Terry B. Ball, Isaiah: An LDS Perspective on the Beloved Prophet’s Message (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2018).

[42] Jackson, in “Authorship,” 82, briefly acknowledges that Isaiah is not mentioned after chapter 39. He responds by pointing out that no other prophet is named there either.

[43] See Hugh Nibley, Since Cumorah, 2nd ed. (Provo, UT: FARMS; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1988), 50–51, 123–24.

[44] Nibley, Since Cumorah, 125–34.

[45] See Douglas Jones, “The Traditio of the Oracles of Isaiah of Jerusalem,” Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 26, no. 1 (1955): 226–46; and J. H. Eaton, “The Origin of the Book of Isaiah,” Vetus Testamentum 9, fasc. 2 (1959): 138–57.

[46] Nibley, Since Cumorah, 125.

[47] Nibley, Since Cumorah, 129.

[48] See Nibley, Since Cumorah, 133.

[49] See Nibley, Since Cumorah, 129.

[50] See Nibley, Since Cumorah, 125.

[51] See John A. Tvedtnes, The Isaiah Variants in the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1981), 135; John W. Welch, “Authorship of the Book of Isaiah in Light of the Book of Mormon,” in Parry and Welch, Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, 432–33; Kevin Christensen, “Paradigms Regained: A Survey of Margaret Barker’s Scholarship and Its Significance for Mormon Studies,” Occasional Papers 2 (2001): 78; Christensen, “The Deuteronomist De-Christianizing of the Old Testament,” FARMS Review 16, no. 2 (2004): 69–70; and Daniel T. Ellsworth, “Their Imperfect Best: Isaianic Authorship from an LDS Perspective,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 27 (2017): 7.

[52] See Tvedtnes, Isaiah Variants, 130, 135; Hamblin, “‘Isaiah Update’ Challenged,” Dialogue 17, no. 1 (1984): 4; and Welch, “Authorship,” 423–30, 434–35.

[53] Welch, “Authorship,” 427.

[54] See Hamblin, “‘Isaiah Update’ Challenged,” 4–5.

[55] See Hans M. Barstad, The Babylonian Captivity of the Book of Isaiah: “Exilic” Judah and the Provenance of Isaiah 40–55 (Oslo: Novus, 1997); and Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, For the Comfort of Zion: The Geographical and Theological Location of Isaiah 40–55, Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 139 (Leiden: Brill, 2011).

[56] Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 69.

[57] Christensen, “Paradigms Regained,” 78.

[58] Nicholas J. Frederick and Joseph M. Spencer, “The Book of Mormon and the Academy,” Religious Educator 21, no. 2 (2020): 182.

[59] See Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon, 291n31.

[60] See Michael Austin, “Lesson #36: Isaiah Made No More Difficult than It Needs to Be,” By Common Consent, September 18, 2018, https://bycommonconsent.com/2018/09/18/isaiah-made-no-more-difficult-than-it-needs-to-be-a-k-a-the-glory-of-zion-will-be-a-defense-bccsundayschool2018/. On this point, consider that Nephi knew about the existence and contents of the book of Revelation seven centuries in advance of its composition (see 1 Nephi 14:18–27).

[61] See Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon, 291n31.

[62] See Blake T. Ostler, “The Book of Mormon as a Modern Expansion of an Ancient Source,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 20, no. 1 (Spring 1987): 66–123; see also Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon, 291n31; and David Bokovoy, “The Truthfulness of Deutero-Isaiah: A Response to Kent Jackson (Part 2),” Rational Faiths, May 18, 2016, https://rationalfaiths.com/truthfulness-deutero-isaiah-response-kent-jackson-part-2/.

[63] Royal Skousen, the world’s foremost expert on the text of the Book of Mormon, calls it “a creative translation that involves considerable intervention by the translator” (whether that be Joseph coming up with the wording or a divine being pre-translating words to be given to Joseph). The King James Quotations in the Book of Mormon, part 5 of The History of the Text of the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: FARMS and BYU Studies, 2019), 212. See also Brant Gardner, The Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2011), 183–95.

[64] See Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, vol. 1, First Nephi (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007), 381, 383–84; see also Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon, 291n31.

[65] See Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon, 69. Hardy also quotes Israeli scholar Meier Sternberg: “Where the Holy Spirit operates . . . all earthbound notions like access and competence lose their force as criteria of authorship” (292n31).

[66] A few Latter-day Saints have taken a much less common approach of accepting the academic dating of Isaiah, deciding that the Book of Mormon’s quotations are anachronistic, and then seeing that as at least one reason to conclude that the Book of Mormon is not an ancient text but a nineteenth-century production. Some have found it possible to still see the Book of Mormon as inspired scripture even though they reject its historical claims. The Church, however, remains committed to the ancient providence of the Book of Mormon. See Dallin H. Oaks, “The Historicity of the Book of Mormon,” in Historicity and the Latter-day Saint Scriptures, ed. Paul Y. Hoskisson (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2001), 237–48.

[67] Talmage, in Conference Report, 46.

[68] M. Russell Ballard, “By Study and By Faith,” Ensign, December 2016, 22.

[69] See Ellsworth, “Their Imperfect Best,” 1–27.

[70] See Joseph M. Spencer, “The Book, the Words of the Book: What the Book of Mormon Says about Its Own Coming Forth,” Religious Educator 17, no. 1 (2016): 64–81.