Canter Bridge

This revised doctoral dissertation is useful principally for the material it draws together into one place and for its methodology, which attempts to develop a relative chronology of the evolution of apocalyptic and then to place Isaiah 24-27 at the proper place on that scale.

In his literature survey (‘Unsettled Problems in Isaiah 24-27’, pp. 1-22, Millar draws attention to the wide range of solutions that have been proposed to the section’s problems of date and genre (particularly the relationship between apocalyptic and eschatological literatures). He is attracted to P. Hanson’s attempts to reconstruct a social matrix that explains the ‘dawn of apocalyptic’ in terms of alternate visions of what post-exilic life should be, and to arguments from background materials in Canaanite mythology and parallels in the Oracles Against the Nations and enthronement psalms. Millar proposes a new look at these matters and at issues of the passage’s structure.

A second chapter (‘The text and prosody of Isaiah 24-27) attempts an analysis of the poetic style of chs 24-27, then makes a comparison with Isaiah 51.9-11 and Ugaritic Text 5.1.1-5. Millar finds close parallels between Isaiah 24-27 and both comparison texts, though he believes the similarities to the Deutero-Isaiah text are more compelling.

A substantial third chapter (‘The Structure of Isaiah 24-27’, pp. 65-102) argues that the Isaiah Apocalypse shares four themes with Canaanite myth as this can be documented from the Ugarit material in the early 1970s: threat, war, victory, and feast. The persistence of these motifs in the biblical material, argues Millar, justifies the assumption of an institutional-cultic matrix that renewed them regularly. The best explanation is found not in the reconstruction of an unknown feast, but rather in the feast of tabernacles, viewed as an annual New Year’s feast. Here Millar cites Mowinckel’s well-known theory of an institutional setting of the psalms, critiquing in a measured aside Westermann’s consideration the ‘Sitz im Leben in life’ precludes such an institutional setting for the Psalms.

Two significant moves round out the chapter. First, the author reconstructs a hypothetical celebration in which these themes—recognizable in Bible and Ugarit—might have been reenacted on an annual basis. Then, he elaborates his view of a reuse of these themes by Second Isaiah after the exile had de-institutionalized them.

A final chapter (‘Isaiah 24-27 and the Origin of Apocalyptic’, 103-120) seats the apocalypse in Second Isaiah circles (‘a close disciple of Second Isaiah’) based on considerations of prosody. This writer utilizes materials already in circulation to elevate the confrontation of historical enemies that is found in the OAN to a new level of Yahweh-confrontation of powers that are now described in the language of myth:

‘In the eyes of Second Isaiah, Yahweh was moving against elements of the created order. And yet, faithful to the prophetic stance, he was not falling back into the perspective of nature mythology. History was being periodized (Is. 42:19). Yahweh’s destruction of creation was not a return to the beginning . He was ushering in a new age … It was this radical openness toward the future which preserved both Second Isaiah and apocalyptic from the cyclical character of nature myth. Myth was turned to the service of history.’

The ‘recrudescence of myth’ occurs under the influence of Second Isaiah as the writer of the apocalypse applies the ancient Holy War tradition of the song of deliverance to Zion’s imminent deliverance from the inconcinnities of history. The singing/shouting of the apocalypse corresponds to the `new song’ of Second Isaiah; both herald the dawning of a new age.

It is a pity that Millar’s work has gone out of print, for the fourth chapter is one of the clearest statements of the birth of apocalyptic in the exilic period that is available. Millar does not go as far as P. Hanson in discerning the parties engaged in intramural squabbles during the period in question. Though I honor Hanson’s courage in pushing the evidence the farthest conclusions it can be made to support, my tastes run more in Millar-ian directions. I find his general reconstruction of the Isaiah Apocalypse as a history-defying and regenerative statement from out of Jerusalem’s ashes attractive and compelling.