Book Order Bible

Isaiah Replay

Isaiah is unique among the books of the Bible for the way it perfectly matches the 66 books of the Bible with it's own distinct 66 divisions. Like Isaiah other books clearly match content to the 66 books of the Bible in order, but unlike Isaiah the other books do so at an uneven pace, where Isaiah replays the books of the Bible chapter by chapter.

Due to Isaiah's 66 chapters it really is the key to discovering the Bible's book order. The matching number of chapters to books was the initial clue that lead to the idea that each chapter might match a book in the Bible. The book order was discovered with the realization that each book would need to be moved around before finding it's match in Isaiah.

Many people have observed that Isaiah is like a miniature Bible. The introduction to the book of Isaiah in the New King James Bible says "Isaiah is like a miniature Bible." Shortly after successfully matching the books of the Bible to the chapters of Isaiah I was sharing the study with my brother who commented that the same idea had occured to him.

Perhaps Isaiah's witness to the 66 book canon of scripture is one of the reasons this book was the only whole book pulled from the caves of the Dead Sea Scrolls and used as the centerpiece in the Shrine of the Book in Israel. Isaiah is a standing witness to the whole Bible.

Authorship of Isaiah

The authorship question has been a hot topic in recent years with two major viewpoints. The traditional view is that the prophet Isaiah wrote the entire book of Isaiah while the more recent perspective argues that multiple people took part in the creation of the book of Isaiah.

Both sides of the issue agree on one fact, that the tone of Isaiah changes at chapter 40. The critical view which suggests The question of who wrote the book of Isaiah is a little odd if you believe God inspired the writting of scripture. That's enough for me, but there's a historic debate among folks who are concerned with the question of authorship that sheds light on the design of Isaiah.

The traditional answer to the question of who wrote Isaiah says the prophet Isaiah wrote the book. The more recent critical view says the general tone and message of Isaiah changes starting in about chapter 40 and carries on through the end of the book and thus several different people probably wrote the book.

While other scriptures demonstrate the prophet Isaiah wrote the whole book, the critical view that anticipates multiple authors due to a split book actually makes lots of sense once you realize Isaiah has a parallel structure to the Bible. Isaiah 40 is the start of the New Testament, so regardless of who actually penned the words the themes and tone does change in accord with God's design of the book.

The Dead Sea Scrolls discovery has shed light on the fact that individual writings that became the books of the Bible did not come into existence all at once. Many writtings underwent extensive changes in the same way a modern author, editor and publisher might potentially rework a book manuscript many times before going to press with the camera ready version. So in the final analysis scripture appears to credit the prophet Isaiah with the authorship, though others may have helped, and the result parallels the whole Bible according to God's ultimate design.

Use

By matching the books of the Bible to the chapters of Isaiah several uses for Isaiah are uncovered. The first use is of course the ability to corretly order the books of the Bible. Due to the equal number of parts in Isaiah and the Bible the match is obvious and quite easy to solve. Other replays are not dependent on chapter breaks and thus more difficult to find so Isaiah is naturally the first place to solve the book order question.

The second use of Isaiah is solving other replays. When working on other replays, they match both the books of the Bible and the chapters of Isaiah. You can imagine layering Isaiah over the books of the Bible and using the content in both to find other replays in the Bible. Each successive replay is layed on top of the others eventually creating a massive interrelated matrix.

The third use of Isaiah is interpretive. With each chapter in Isaiah related to a book in the Bible and other replays the words of the prophet begin to add new meaning to old stories as the Bible begins interpreting itself through this tightly woven matrix of scriptures.

Example

One example of the interpretive nature of Isaiah is seen in the way Isaiah 16 interacts with the book of Ezra.

The book of Ezra is concerned with the return of Jews from captivity in Babylon to Jerusalem where they eventually rebuild the temple. When Ezra left Babylon for Jerusalem Artexerxes sent him with money to buy lambs and other animals for sacrifice.

What you don't know from reading Ezra is why Artexerxes was so happy to send the Jews back to Jerusalem, and send Ezra with silver no less. That's where Isaiah supplies the missing link with his commentary on Ezra.

This seemingly nebulous statement in Isaiah 16:1 about sending a lamb to Zion makes lots of sense when Ezra is the context. Why did Artexerxes happily send the Jews to Jerusalem and even underwrite Ezra's work with silver? Because he was sending a lamb to the ruler of the land. Who is the ruler of the land? God himself. What was that lamb? Not the animals for sacrifice as much as Ezra and the Jews sent home by Artexerxes.

So using Isaiah 16 as commentary about Ezra adds a depth of understanding to what was happening in Ezra not obvious from the book of Ezra itself. And pairing Ezra with Isaiah 16 brings to light a reading in a prophetic book difficult if not impossible to understand without it's matching book.

Ryan Eaton
October 5, 2007