Scribal Culture and Intertextuality

Literary and Historical Relationships between Job and Deutero-Isaiah

By (author) JiSeong James Kwon

Book cover: Scribal Culture and Intertextuality

Extent: 296 pages

Publisher: Mohr Siebeck

Subjects: Biblical Studies

Series: Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2.Reihe

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(May 2016)

ISBN: 9783161543975

6.1 x 9.21 inches

Price: $141.00

In stock

JiSeong James Kwon discusses similar linguistic expressions and themes between Job and Deutero-Isaiah, and attempts to find out a common historical background. He argues that both Job and Deutero-Isaiah significantly reflect common scribal ideas, although each text belongs to wisdom and prophetic genre.


In this work, JiSeong James Kwon examines a variety of scholarly arguments concerning the distinctive literary and historical relationship between the book of Job and the second part of the book of Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55), so-called Deutero-Isaiah. The general methodology in a comparative study between biblical texts has been the author-oriented approach which traces the complex interrelationships between corresponding texts, considering many verbal and thematic similarities. But this approach often arises from the misleading concepts of literary dependence from an early source to a later one. Here, JiSeong James Kwon argues that scribes were writers of biblical materials and belonged to a group of the literate elite in Judahite society. Resemblances between the two books result from the production of a scribal culture. This view may shed a light on traditional researches influenced by form-criticism, which divides the literate groups in Israelite society into different professional groups-priests, sages, and prophets.

  • By (author) JiSeong James Kwon