Articles

Section

Spring 2006 ISSUE

Isaiah's place in Jewish and Christian interpretation is quite different-if nothing else because so much of Isaiah is used in early Christianity to "point" to Jesus. The complexity continues into the practice of preaching in our day. Although the Torah receives pride of place for preaching purposes in the synagogue, Isaiah does have a role in the Haftarah readings. In contemporary Christian lectionaries, Isaiah is one of the most important sources for readings from the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible.

All this is to say is that "Preaching Isaiah" makes for a wonderful meeting ground to explore how homiletics, yes, homiletics, might be pursued on an inter-religious basis. In this issue three Biblical scholars dive deeply into Isaiah in light of their traditions and their task of training future preachers to interpret well, to help us understand some of the homiletical possibilities as they see them. The participants are Paul D. Hanson of Harvard University Divinity School, Andrea Weiss of Hebrew Union College, and Ellen Davis of Duke University Divinity School. All three articles were first presented at a session of the Consultation on Homiletics and Biblical Studies held at the Society of Biblical Literature's annual meeting in Philadelphia last November.

The articles were written to be in conversation with each other. To that end, we invite you to discuss these articles in the bulletin board.

Christians Hearing Isaiah

Ellen F. Davis
Professor of Bible and Practical Theology
Duke Divinity School

"...what might make Isaiah initially compelling for preachers in 21st-century North America is the possibility of discerning a symmetry between our situation and that of the eighth-century prophet."

The Holy One of Israel and the Message of Social Justice in Isaiah of Jerusalem: A Model for Contemporary Proclamation

Paul D. Hanson
Florence Corliss Lamont Professor of Divinity
Harvard Divinity School

"Should we not raise questions regarding the hermeneutic that led [Bush] to take an image from the Servant Songs of the Book of Isaiah, to transform that image's meaning from an announcement of peace to war, and then to attribute it to Christ who in turn becomes the one ordaining America to go to war against Iraq?"

Teaching The Preaching Of Isaiah

Andrea L. Weiss
Assistant Professor of Bible
Hebrew Union College

"As more excitement is generated by adult education programming, is less time and energy going into social action events? Isaiah 1 and Isaiah 58 challenge my students to grapple with the interplay of these two types of commandments and to think about how the prophets' words apply to contemporary Reform Jews."