This paper considers the varied order of the latter prophets between the Hebrew Bible and the list found in the Babylonian Talmud tractate Baba Bathra 14b. How does one explain the sequence “Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah” found in Baba Bathra 14b? The discussion focuses on how the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah may have conceived of their own work in relation to what came before. This paper assumes that the so-called Deuteronomistic history was not a late exilic or post-exilic composition and considers some reasonable explanations for the content of the books as they have come to us in final form.
First, the book of Isaiah shows evidence of having been written as a direct commentary on the Kings scroll to a certain point in its narrative. The material that the book of Isaiah shares with Kings seems to suggest that the Kings scroll was partially composed by the prophet Isaiah and that he composed his own book of prophetic material as a commentary as suggested by Stephen Dempster in Dominion and Dynasty. Subsequently, the material that the book of Jeremiah shares with Kings also suggests that Jeremiah both completed the composition of the Kings scroll and connected his own commentary effectively displacing the book of Isaiah. The book of Ezekiel naturally falls between the books of Jeremiah and Isaiah on principles outlined in Baba Bathra 14b itself.
This paper contributes to ongoing discussions relating to our theory of canonization and how the idea of canon relates to that of inspiration. It does not discuss the formation of The Book of The Twelve. There is work to do in further considering the literary connections between Isaiah and The Book of The Twelve. As a collection of much smaller books, it may be the case that a similar process of self-conscious connection was happening naturally collecting these shorter books because of their relative size.
This study attempts to account for the internal evidence that the Hebrew Scriptures are written by those who believe themselves to be speaking for Yahweh himself and composing a work that is inspired by Yahweh. This self-recognition suggests that they would naturally each have some concept of how their own work fits in with existing Scriptures. Therefore, it is reasonable to attempt to make sense of how they may have done so, and as evangelicals, there is work to do in order to provide reasonable explanations that take into account of a more complex understanding of OT composition as argued for in a recent paper by Michael Grisanti.1 Whether or not this theory is, in the end, satisfactory, the enterprise that it represents should be taken seriously.
1. Michael A. Grisanti, “Inspiration, Inerrancy, and the OT Canon: The Place of Textual Updating in an Inerrant View of Scripture.” JETS 44.4 (2001): 577–98.