In this lightly retouched doctoral 1990 University of Michigan doctoral dissertation carried out under the supervision of D.N. Freedman, Andrew Bartelt seeks to bring together rhetorical criticism and poetic stylistics and then to apply both fields to the first twelve chapters of Isaiah.
Bartelt carried out his work when more than two decades of energetic research had been dedicated to the disparate fields whose ‘confluence’ he seeks to discover (chapter one, ‘Introduction: focus and method’, pp. 1-32). It is almost a truism that scholars of Hebrew poetry may be the least agreed group of human beings on the planet. Bartelt might have sensed the irony of his summary statement: ‘(D)espite extensive research, both ancient and contemporary, the basic definition of poetry as verse remains only somewhat clarified.’ We can intuit that certain material is distinct from prose, it seems, though the particular distinctness we search to explain evades our science. Bartelt declares himself in favor of an eclectic approach where word-, syllable-, and tone-counting play a minimal role. He wants to rehabilitate the basic work of Lowth, who notably kicked off the modern quest for poetic structure in the Hebrew Bible.
If Lowth is favored as iconic, Muilenburg’s work on rhetorical criticism is fairly feted, in that he ‘demonstrated that larger compositions may reflect a structural integrity and unity that had not been appreciated by the attention to the hypothetical definition and history of small and separate units so typical of the form-critical method.’
Thus does the pendulum swing–healthily, in this reviewer’s opinion–towards assumptions of compositional prowess as one studies the Hebrew prophets rather than classical Formgeschichte’s almost creedal confidence that the literature began as short, sharp oracular declarations. To his credit, the author recognizes that ‘(a)ttention to the “final form” of the text should seek to combine the concerns of both historical and literary methods, but they need to be allowed to inform and complement each other.’ Alas, scholars who attempt to do so will be faulted for lack of methodological focus, even as other subfields of literature move behind hidebound polarities, leaving us biblical scholars clawing for a methodological ladder-rung that too often reduces a beautiful and complex text to one that is merely there.
In studying the relatively brief chapters 2-12 of Isaiah, Bartelt places the once paradigmatic but now hotly contested Denkschrift at the core of the material. He will question the common assumption that this autobiographical (?) material was inserted in a way that caused displacement, arguing instead that chapters five and nine were constructed around the Denkschrift. That a young scholar can write a work like this under one of the guild’s eminences is proof positive that Isaiah scholars live in interesting times.
Chapter two (‘Isaiah 5:8-25’, pp. 33-64) establishes the method Bartelt uses in each of his exegetical chapters. Attention is given to ‘The boundaries of this unit’, ‘Text’, ‘Translation’, ‘Notes on Translation and Text’, ‘Lineation’, ‘Syllable Counts’, ‘Stress Counts’, ‘Prose Particles’, ‘Verse and Strophe Structure’, ‘Gross Structure’, and ‘Thought Progression’. Most significantly, ‘there is an intricate but clear structural pattern in Isa 5:8-25 on the level of stanzas and “panels”, which indicates an overall unity to the composition. Further, there are a number of internal rhetorical features, such as wordplay and repetition, which attest to the integrity of the pericope as a unit. Structural and rhetorical analysis have confirmed the original hypothesis that the correct boundaries of this unit extend from v. 8 through v. 25’.
If that seems a small payoff for 30 pages of excavation, it is salutary to recall that such an extensive tranche of compositional integrity would have been considered out of the question by the classical form critics.
Chapter three (Isaiah 9:7–10:4, pp. 65-95) follows the same format. The author argues that the details of this passage do not fit with the assumption of an inserted Denkschrift that has displaced it from its natural neighbor, 5:8-25: ‘(I)t is proposed that there is a structural integrity to the unity 9:7–10:4 that goes beyond previous division of the piece simply into four stanzas, although this observation has certainly been the starting point. The balancing of the lengths of the various subunits has played a significant role, whether measured by syllables, accents, or even individual words. But I have also noticed the use of poetic and rhetorical devices, such as word play, repetition, chiasm, and inclusio, as structural markers.’
‘This careful, complex, and integrated structural unity suggests that the composition of 9:7–10:4 is structurally independent of the material in 5:8-25 and that my initial hypothesis (pp. 65-66) can be confirmed.’
Bartelt next turns to the relationship that may be claimed to exist between the two lengthy passages he has thus far surveyed independently (chapter four, ‘The Macrostructure of Isaiah 5:1–10:4’, pp. 96-139). The author displays a preference for ‘placement’ or ‘replacement’ over ‘displacement’ as the operational term for the compositional moves that created the text as it now stands. In contrast to metrically based reconstruction of an original text (Duhm, Gray) and the assumption of a ‘long redactional process’ (Barth, Vermeylen, Kaiser, Clements), Bartelt proposes ‘a compositional unity that bespeaks a coherent plan and organization in the text as it now stands. At this point, then, questions of redaction become simply matters of dating both the content of the text and the process of composition, and if a date can be determined within the historical context of the prophet/poet to whom the work is attributed, questions of a prehistory of the text become unnecessary’.
Though one might blanch at the potential reductionism of such an ambition, one ought not a priori rule out the achievement of Bartelt’s objective if managed by capable hands. Bartelt finds close structural similarities between 5:8-25 and 9:7-10:4 that are ‘hardly the result of coincidence or haphazard redactional activity’. The discovery animates his search for further evidence of the kinds of parallels that would suggest the texts have been intentionally constructed to mirror or otherwise concretely relate to each other. Indeed, one ought to regard ‘the two poems as complementary’.
This search for intentional structure leads Bartelt to a signally judicious treatment of the Denkschrift and the ‘transitional’ panels on either side of it. One discerns by these pages the shape of a rather ambitious but nonetheless plausible presentation of chapters that one has learned by repetition to regard as a composite work of disparate if not chaotically arranged materials.
Chapter five (‘Isaiah 10:5–12:6’, pp. 140-188) applies the by now familiar methodology to discovering three-part unity in that section, one that builds upon the material of 5:1-10:4, including the Denkschrift.
Bartelt’s treatment of chapters 2–4 posits a still greater macrostructure that embraces these chapters as its opening section, but only in the linear sense of the text as it is placed before us (chapter six, ‘Isaiah 2–4’, pp. 189-243). That is, ‘the large subsection in chaps. 2-4 is to be understood both as an introduction to chaps. 2-12 (if heard in linear way) and as part of the conclusion to chaps. 2–12 (if heard in a circular way, from the middle out). Indeed, the contents of chaps. 2–4 function on both levels … They announce a future and a hope, but only after the present situation has been dealt with. The theme of future restoration is picked up again in the corresponding large section at the end of chaps. 2–12, in 10:5–12:6, but only after the present situation describe3d in 5:1–10:4 has been dealt with. That these central chapters clearly–and structurally–surround the Denkschrift indicates the focus of the entire literary unit upon the present situation, namely, the fearful and faithless response of Ahaz to the Syro-Ephraimite threat.’
A thirteen-page ‘Conclusion’ neatly summarizes the author’s points (chapter seven, pp. 244-256). Parallelism a la Lowth and is the basic formal component of the poetry under review, with meter serving a complementary and restraining influence. It is more prudent to count syllables than stresses. Syntax serves the meaning; meter serves the structure.
Additionally and at a higher level of abstraction, the poems around the Denkschrift–as demarcated by Bartelt–frame this autobiographical piece with remarkable formal symmetry and suggest that they were designed to accomplish just that. Additionally, when taken together, the Denkschrift and the poems and transitional panels that surround it form an elaborate chiasm with its center located precisely on the Immanuel statement of 7.14.
If one hears the sound of a gentle drip-drip-drip behind the noisy density of a doctoral dissertation, it is not that the work under review has sprung a leak. Rather, it is the slow but sure drainage of the water that has been carried for three generations by the classical form critics who have exercised such care in the analysis of Isaiah and the other prophets. A new generation of critics has built upon their work while rejecting core pieces of their constituent dogma.
The result is a series of monographs like this one that–even if not persuasive at every point–present a fresh and compelling picture of the prophetic literature as large-scale, complex, and thoughtful poetry
Canter Bridge 
Leave a comment