It’s his book, The Vision of All: Twenty-five Lectures on Isaiah in Nephi’s Record, which we’ll delve into today with a special emphasis on the material pertaining to the writings of Isaiah in the Old Testament. Welcome, Joe.

We don’t actually think of the word “fun” when we’re talking about studying Isaiah, but that’s exactly what you’ve tried to do in this book. How did you go about making Isaiah accessible for the mainstream member who wants to start studying more deeply?

What do you think the root of that burden is?

What do you say to that?

There’s one reaction to Isaiah that’s sort of like, “No idea what’s going on here at all. I know I’m supposed to care about this. I can’t even get started. Who knows?” And a kind of guilt is associated with that.

The other attitude that you tend to find is one where someone gets a little symptomatically excited about Isaiah in a way that makes you wonder what they’ve got up their sleeve, right? Where they think they’ve solved the puzzle, and they’ve got all the answers, and they can show you exactly what it all points to in the last days or something like that. Of course, they’ve got a mood as well. A mood of a kind of perverse excitement, maybe, or something.

Isaiah, maybe because of this sense of burden or responsibility we feel toward it, is going to affect us; we can’t be indifferent to it. But we do tend to go in these two, almost polar opposite, directions.

I’ve discovered along the way a kind of second reason to do this. One thing that’s really remarkable about the Book of Mormon’s treatment of Isaiah is it’s not monolithic. That is, Nephi has one way of approaching Isaiah, but Abinadi has a very different way of approaching Isaiah. I think you can distinguish Lehi and Jacob from Nephi. When Jesus Christ himself comes in 3 Nephi, he’s got yet another approach to understanding Isaiah.

The Book of Mormon discourages in a certain way what is maybe a very natural reaction on our part to read Isaiah as if there’s one definite meaning, and I’ve got to figure out that meaning. This is a real benefit to reading Isaiah starting from the Book of Mormon. It doesn’t tell us, “Here’s the meaning. Now you’ve got to sort that out and so on.” But, instead says, “Here’s a range of possible ways of reading it and different circumstances under which it might be read in different ways.” We don’t get locked too quickly into a certain kind of definite approach.

“The angel also says, ‘They have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and precious. Also, many covenants of the Lord have they taken away.’ Did you catch that? The abomination of the great and abominable church would seem to be that they reframed the Bible so that’s its message concerning the Abrahamic covenant effectively disappeared.”

What was the reframing?

You can track in early Christian history the development of a non-Jewish reading, if you will, or a non-covenantal reading of the Old Testament. In the first century, in the writings of Paul, in the Gospel of Mark, it’s very clear that even by the end of the first century, beginning of the second century, the dominant picture is one where the Gentile converts have replaced historical Israel. The covenant was not about them, it’s about us—European Christians. And that was the dominant picture in Christianity right up until the Holocaust when Christians began asking questions about that tradition.

Right from the title page, the Book of Mormon states for the reader, “Here’s the purpose.” It’s about making clear these covenants and showing a very specific remnant of Israel their part in that. Even the statement there about Jesus where it says, “Also to Jew and Gentile, to show them that Jesus is the Christ, the everlasting God,” but then it goes on, “manifesting himself unto all nations.” And that seems to be the picture—the traditional Christian picture where Jesus came in one time and one place is too narrow, and it misconstrues what God has done in history with the covenant people. It’s a bigger picture, and that runs, I think, from the title page right through the entire book.

To ask the question who or what is the book of Isaiah, or who is Isaiah, what is the book of Isaiah, is to ask a question about a book that’s primarily in itself focused on a pretty narrow slice of history. Though the patterns and structures in it are so rich—the way it outlines what was happening in Isaiah’s own day are patterns that are so rife with content that they can be repeated. So, we find life still in Isaiah though Isaiah himself, I think, is looking at a pretty narrow little picture.

That would be a problem for the historicity of the Book of Mormon at least on a straightforward read because the Book of Mormon uses parts of Isaiah that are supposed to have had their origins after the time Nephi’s family would have left Jerusalem. There’s a kind of difficulty if a Latter-day Saint can’t too quickly or too simply buy in wholesale to what’s happening in Isaiah scholarship. At the same time, there’s a lot of really rich stuff going on in Isaiah scholarship that I think Latter-day Saints stand to learn a great deal from.

How to answer to the question is difficult. Who was Isaiah? We can say something about who Isaiah of Jerusalem was—eighth century, living at a very specific time and context. We could say more about that if you want. There are parts of the book that seem to have their origins or have a lot of trappings of a later time—mid-sixth century Babylon or later.

It’s a kind of open question for Latter-day Saints on how to make sense of that.

Most of what’s happening in Isaiah scholarship today, sort of cutting edge if you will, is trying to reconstruct the process of that development. If that’s the right hypothesis. They are reconstructing the development of the book of Isaiah over the course of several generations. People invested in the importance of those original prophets’ messages.

Israel, during Isaiah’s day, is just not getting the picture of what God is trying to do with this nation, and the result is going to be exile, and ruin, and destruction, and so on. It’s interspersed with these promises of a time to come where that will be reversed. The whole second half of the book is intensely focused on restoration.

Where there has been judgement, now—and usually where the people draw the line is between chapters 39 and 40—the book opens with comfort. “Comfort my people.” Right? “You’ve received double for all your sins, now come back. Come back.” This cleanly divides the book into two halves in this way.

In a lot of ways, Isaiah is the richest of these because he seems to account for it, explain it. He’s a prophet who is speaking to a people who will not listen and God himself seems to be behind that and making the people not listen. As a result, Isaiah decides these prophecies that are welling up in him have got to be for a people that aren’t around yet. So, write them up. Seal them up. Wait for someone who will listen.

Through the second half, you’ve got these moments where—they’re usually translated in the King James Version as “cry” or “cry out”—but the verb in Hebrew can be translated as “read.” If what we have here in the second half is an opening of the book that was sealed up in the first half—now, as there’s comfort and restoration, and so on happening in the second half—part of that is now we have a people who is finally prepared to unseal the book that Isaiah has sealed up, to read it, and to receive the promised blessings of restoration, which is peace.

You’ve got my interest.

What God is doing is using this history to winnow—it sounds really dangerous—but to winnow Israel down to just the remnant that will be prepared and ready. That’s not a foreign idea for a Latter-day Saint because this is how the Book of Mormon ends— tragically, with tens of thousands of people falling, but left behind is the remnant that could finally be prepared. Isaiah seems to be working with a very similar idea. This is what God is doing in history. It’s a mystery, but it’s what he’s up to.

The best way to make sense of this is to watch for larger patterns. Can you track the basic story? Think about how a child learns language. Right? Something like that, “Okay, I know those four words that just got used, can I use context clues to reconstruct a general picture that’s enough to go on? Great.” I think that’s the way to do it. You read through a chapter, and you’re going, “These eight verses mean nothing to me,” but do the other ones tell a story? And if so, don’t get worried about the details for now.

My concern is that we tend to read the book of Isaiah only looking for Jesus. And the result is, “Okay, I don’t know what’s going on—that kind of looks like Jesus. Good. Now, I don’t know what’s going on—that kind of looks like Jesus.” We’re really just skimming and looking for things that maybe we can tie to Christ. I think that’s a mistake.

It makes it hard to read most of the material for one, because even if there are places where Isaiah is very clearly talking about Christ, we’re talking about 4 or 5 passages in 66 chapters. We should be looking for the rest of the material first, and then we can get clear about things that may speak about the Messiah.

The word messiah just means anointed one. There were two primary kinds of people who were anointed in Old Testament times, if you will—kings and priests. To speak of the Messiah is to speak of the anointed one—the priest or the king.

What’s really key here is what develops through this complicated history surrounding the house of David. People are familiar with King David, of course, this glorious king who has this kind of tragic ending and so on. He receives a promise that his dynasty, his family, will remain on the throne indefinitely. Of course, they end up being, a lot of them, terrible, and idolatrous, and eventually the Jews are hauled off into exile.

How on earth do you make sense of this promise when the history doesn’t seem to make much good on it? And so, there slowly develops, very clearly in Jewish history, this anticipation of a king still to come. David’s promise is focused on something that’s going to set things right here eventually. This is how they see it: “We’re waiting for a king who will finally set us straight, who will have the right relationship to God. That’s the Messiah.”

The later you get, later in the first century, the more there’s the sense that Jesus was God come in the flesh. That’s debated. It’s worth saying, that’s the picture that’s dominant or the consensus. There are scholars who go, “No, there are traces of Christ being God in some of this early stuff,” so that’s still an unfinished question.

You have given us three chapters or verses that are traditionally interpreted from the book of Isaiah by members of the LDS church as being messianic. Let’s go over them.

In context, it’s really clear what Isaiah is talking about is, “Okay, these nations are going to be destroyed. How long is it going to take? Okay, some woman here is pregnant. By the time she has a child, and that child knows the difference between good and evil, these nations will have been destroyed.” If the prophecy were, “Okay, 750 years from now, Christ will be born, and by then, these nations you’re worried about going to be—”. This isn’t helping the king he’s talking to. Right? In context, it’s clear that Isaiah’s not, directly at least, speaking about what we would understand to be the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

We should be really clear that Isaiah himself is not talking about that, but we, with the spirit, could see it as saying something more than what is historically there. But then we’ve got to be honest about what it’s also historically doing.

Isaiah announces, “Someone is coming to the throne. There’s this child that’s taking the throne.” In context, it’s relatively clear that what we’re talking about is Hezekiah, who in fact, later in the book of Isaiah, as well as in the book of Kings, defends Jerusalem against Assyria successfully. This is the child that’s born in context of the book of Isaiah.

This one, I mean it’s worth saying, with chapter seven it’s very, very clear from the context, we are not talking about this very distant coming New Testament Messiah. Though we can read it that way and other ways. Chapter nine, it’s a little murkier, right? It’s pretty obvious that it’s Hezekiah from context, but it’s kind of weird to call the king “The Mighty God.” It’s almost like there’s a certain Christian messianism or something that’s beginning to get a foothold or something like that. A strict historical reconstruction, however, makes it really clear we’re talking about events in the eighth century.

Here is where I think we get something like genuinely messianic prophecy. And I think there is a solid scholarly consensus that by the time you get to Isaiah 11, we’re looking to a distant future. Hezekiah does not fit the bill.

We’re talking about a coming king who is going to render peace and establish global peace. The whole earth will be covered with the knowledge of God and the animals will get along and all this kind of thing. So here, it gets bigger. The picture is too big to fit Hezekiah. It’s almost as if over the course of chapters 7, 9, and 11, we’re moving broadly away from local circumstances to genuinely messianic.

Watch for the theme of the remnant. It’s one of the most dominant themes. As you’re reading the book, watch for what’s being said about the remnant. What’s happening with Israel? At one point are they wicked? At what point are they potentially righteous? What is God doing with them to get them to the right place? And what role is the remnant playing?

It’s really important to keep clear in your head when we’re dealing with judgement and when we’re dealing with restoration. Recognize this kind of constant shift that’s happening—judgement, judgement, restoration, judgement, judgement, restoration. And then eventually, full-blooded restoration.

The Messiah is going to be a part of that story, but that’s the story, the bigger story within which the Messiah is playing a role.

To read it carefully, we’ve got to track what is happening with Israel’s relationship to God. And it’s a systematic story. It unfolds point-by-point. The nations have a certain role to play. Israel has a certain role to play. There are times where what we’re dealing with is Israel astray. There are times where what we’re dealing with is Israel repentant. And we’ve got to watch that unfold point-by-point.

It’s a book that over and over again can teach us God’s dealings in history with the covenant people. I really like the phrasing that you get from Second Nephi (2 Nephi 6), but it’s Jacob talking. He says, “Okay, so my people,” this is the first time we hear Jacob’s voice, but he says, “I’ve talked to you lots in the past. And when I’ve talked to you in the past, I’ve taught you many things from ancient history. I’ve taught you things from the past. But today, I want to teach you about what is and what is to come.” Two things, right? We want to move to the present, and we want to look at the future. And he says, “I’m going to read you Isaiah.” That’s an interesting move, right? He wants to say, “We can look at what’s going on right at this moment,” they’re literally living through this on the other side of the world. Babylon is hauling Jews off into exile at that moment. “Here’s what is, but also, here’s what’s to come.”