Introduction to Isaiah

Learning how Isaiah encodes the book order has been a journey of discovery. At the beginning the subject of book order was not even in mind. The thought was simply that Isaiah's chapters might relate to the books of the Bible. On a second look it was clear that Isaiah patterns the books, but in a new order.

The First Attempt

The idea that Isaiah might correlate with the books of the Bible first came in the latter part of 2001. I was reading the Bible one afternoon and turned to Isaiah 40. As I read the familiar opening to that chapter, "A voice crying in the wilderness...", I had a thought. What if the chapters of Isaiah relate to the books of the Bible. After all, the chapters of Isaiah and books of the Bible are both 66 in number, and John the Baptist comes on the scene in book 40, quoting Isaiah 40.

I turned to Isaiah 66, and found reference to "...new heavens and a new earth..." a key phrase in the book of Revelation. Great, I thought, it seems to be working.

As I continued looking for correlations I didn't see very many. I figured I had stumbled onto a couple of random correlations so I forgot about it for what would turn out to be about three years.

A Second Try

On December 14, 2004 I turned again to Isaiah 40 during a devotional reading time and the earlier study came flooding back. A debate ensued within as I argued the two sides. The idea that Isaiah relates to the rest of the Bible was too compelling to discard, but the first attempt to find good correlations had come up short.

As I contemplated the whole thing I remembered a book I had read in the intervening period. The First Edition of the New Testament, by David Trobisch, a professor of New Testament Language and Literature, makes the case for printing Bibles with the books of the New Testament arranged in the Greek order. It was obvious from this read that the Greek book order is superior to that used in modern Bibles, so I was on board with the idea by the end of the book. However, the lasting value for me was simply learning that the subject of book order was not as settled as my experience had conditioned me to think. Understanding there is debate over which historical book order is best was the catalyst I needed to shift the mental debate I was having about Isaiah.

I had a stereotypical "lightbulb" moment as the pieces connected in my mind. Mr. Trobisch had shown that the arrangement of the books can effect their meaning, their interpretation. This is why he argued for the Greek order citing examples where the Greek order provides better understanding than the modern order. What I realized in that moment was that scripture itself, and not history, should witness to the book order that's best, assuming their is an intended order. Mr. Trobisch's case was resting on the historical order of the books found in the Greek manuscripts, but assumed that because it's an historical order or perhaps because it's the earliest order, that it's the best order. With this as his basis he then argued for it's superiority compared to the modern order citing various inter-book relationships that make more sense in the Greek order.

The rest of the thought, once I realized scripture itself must be the only basis for the book order, was that Isaiah may actually be the place in scripture where the book order is given. In other words, instead of trying to match the chapters of Isaiah to the modern order of the books, let Isaiah's chapters, which we have no evidence of ever having changed their order, determine the order for the books. It made too much sense to me and provided a possible solution to my debate. The reason I felt so compelled to align the books and chapters was because this really does work, but the reason it did not appear to work was that I assumed a modern book order. I simply needed to weight Isaiah's chapter order above the modern book order and try again.

With that I was off to the first chapter of Isaiah with the book of Genesis in mind. Since to my knowledge the book of Genesis has never been placed in any other position in any book order other than first, and because Genesis does begin at the beginning both in name and content, it seemed like the safest place to start testing. After all, if Isaiah wasn't going to tell me Genesis comes first I was going to be in for a rough ride.

I found in Isaiah 1:9-10 that the well-known story of Sodom and Gomorrah, found in Genesis 19, was referenced.

Okay, I thought, that is obvious enough. Let's move on.

I went to Isaiah chapter 2 and found the first stanza was all about a mountain, a law and a house.

I knew the book of Exodus well enough to know that after the departure from Egypt these things are exactly what the book of Exodus is about, starting in chapter 19 and running through the end of the book. Wow, I thought, this is actually working so far, though not with any divergence from the modern book order.

I moved onto Isaiah 3 and had trouble understanding it relative to Leviticus or any other book so I skipped it, though later I came to understand that it has a very compelling correlation with Leviticus.

In Isaiah 4 I found reference to a writing about survivors.

This was a profound match with the book of Numbers with it's two census counts, the second being the survivors at the end of the 40 years in the wilderness. In fact, even the reference to the "fruit of the land" in this passage of Isaiah was a match to the generation that would gain the Promised Land and eat of such fruit as the spies brought back. I was really getting excited at what I was seeing.

I continued reading through Isaiah chapter by chapter comparing what I found to the books at the front of the Bible. Most chapters had clear correlations. By the time I arrived at Isaiah 8 I had trouble relating it to the book of Ruth, the book in position 8 of the modern book order. I skipped it, like I had Leviticus, and went to Isaiah 9 and what should have been the book of First Samuel. This is where it became interesting. As I read Isaiah 9 I was drawn to this passage.

Like many people I was familiar with the subject matter of this passage. It's a reference to the Davidic covenant, the promise god made to David about a never ending throne. Ultimately that promise will be fulfilled in Jesus as multiple passages in the New Testament explain. However, I was also familiar with the location of the original story in the Old Testament. It's not in First Samuel. It's in Second Samuel. Here's the passage in it's entirety:

As I pondered the obvious match between Isaiah chapter 9 and Second Samuel I realized the reason Ruth did not have any correlation with Isaiah chapter 8 is simply because Ruth isn't the 8th book according to Isaiah. This was the first evidence that Isaiah was diverging from the modern book order.

I backed up and looked at Isaiah chapter 8 again, but with First Samuel in mind. Very quickly the chapter is focused on a woman who conceives a child.

I realized this matches the story of Hannah conceiving Samuel at the beginning of First Samuel.

I also found reference to part of King Saul's story in Isaiah chapter 8.

Multiple details in this part of Isaiah 8 agree with the story found in First Samuel chapter 28 including 1) consulting a familiar spirit, 2) hunger, and 3) time of day, in this case night.

At this point I was overwhelmed, but soaring. I had just read 9 chapters into Isaiah and in all but 1 or 2 places found strong correlations with the opening books of the Bible, except, most importantly, Ruth was nowhere to be found, but instead First Samuel and Second Samuel each slid one position forward.

About Ruth

Not finding a witness to Ruth in the expected place in Isaiah did not bother me because of an interesting history I already had with the book of Ruth. In short, a professor in Bible College had explained one day in class that in a certain Jewish manuscript the book of Ruth followed the book of Proverbs instead of the traditional order where it follows the book of Song of Songs. He said this might actually be warranted given the way Proverbs ends with the search for a "virtuous woman" and Boaz describes Ruth with the same exact Hebrew phrase when he finds her at his feet and calls her a "virtuous woman." The point the professor made and I completely agree with is that Ruth is the book Proverbs was looking for.[1]

I was fascinated by this lesson and never did forget it. When I could not correlate Ruth with Isaiah chapter 8 and realized it must go somewhere else I remembered this lesson and waited with anticipation to see if Isaiah would place Ruth after Proverbs. Not only was that the case, but this whole system of chaining books together in context provided a second witness on Isaiah's book order. That system, dubbed The Book Chain, became a whole study in it's own right.

A New Book Order

All my spare time for the next several months was spent studying Isaiah and the books of the Old Testament. I went through a process of elimination as I matched the most obvious chapters and books and saved those that were more difficult.

My tool for the process was a set of 3" x 5" notecards. I wrote the chapter numbers of Isaiah on 66 cards and taped them up high on my bedroom wall. I then wrote the names of the 66 books on cards. Whenever I found a correlation between a given chapter of Isaiah and a given book I taped the book card below the chapter card.

I found some really fun and easy matches that placed books in a very different order and location than found in the modern book order. Two of my favorites were the Naked Prophet and Leviathan.

Once upon a time Isaiah went "naked and barefoot."

Turns out one other prophet did the same.

Because Micah is the prophet who goes naked and barefoot like Isaiah, and Isaiah did this in chapter 20, the book of Micah sits in slot 20 of Isaiah's book order.

Leviathan is an interesting study, but a small one in terms of word occurrences. Aside from one mention in Isaiah 27 and two in Psalms, all other mentions are in Job, particularly in Job 41 where leviathan is the actual subject for at least a long paragraph.

The take away is two-fold. First, Yahvah can handle leviathan. Second, Job sits in slot 27 of Isaiah's book order.

In the New Testament the Gospels came together with one change. John moved from the last position to the first, which made sense given the way John begins.

It also allowed Luke and Acts, traditionally separated by John, to stand together, which was satisfying given they tell an ordered story.

Revelation was already safely tucked away in slot 66, having been understood from the earliest days of this study. What remained to be done was the placement of the Epistles between Acts and Revelation. Initially this proved to be a challenge.

I was able to place Philippians in slot 45, following Acts. There was an obvious match in the theme of knee bowing and tongue confessing.

Beyond Philippians I had trouble finding confident matches. I worked at this in my spare time for a week or two and eventually just asked a friend and research partner who had been watching my progress if he would lend me his eyes in case I was missing something obvious. Phil was happy to oblige and wanted me to start by reviewing slot 45.

We turned to Isaiah 45 and began to read, but as we read Phil saw themes matching Paul and Barnabas in prison, a story in the book of Acts. He wondered if maybe Acts was in the wrong position and shouldn't be moved to slot 45. We turned to Acts to read the story. I had to agree that the story was a good match to what we saw in Isaiah 45. But Isaiah 45 still had a good match with Philippians. We sat there stunned for a moment. I think psychologists call what we experienced "cognitive dissonance." How could Isaiah 45 simultaneously have correlations with the book of Acts and the book of Philippians? The solution to this conundrum was contained in the realization that the place in which the story of Paul and Barnabas occurred was none other than Philippi. Another lightbulb moment, like the original, and we realized Isaiah 45 could speak both to the book of Philippians and the story in Acts if Paul's travel itinerary in Acts was also a map of the book order.

With that idea we read forward in the book of Acts and began to place books in the order of the places Paul traveled. As Acts called out the book we compared it with the corresponding chapter in Isaiah and found this to be working, though with two caveats. First, whenever Paul traveled to a place that did not have a letter in it's name, a letter written to an individual took it's place. Knowing which letter took it's place was simply a question of which had the strongest correlation to the passage. The second caveat was that further in the book of Acts, where Paul spends many chapters in Jerusalem and then Caesarea, the books simply align based upon correlations and not a change in location within the narrative of Acts.

In addition to Acts calling out place names like Philippi or Crete, two times it calls out the name of an individual which happens to also be the name of a book. When Paul traveled to Athens, a place that didn't receive a letter, he wrote a letter to Timothy requesting he and Silas to join him in Athens.

There are two letters written to Timothy. First Timothy asks Timothy to stay where he is and Second Timothy asks Timothy to come to where Paul is. The one that fits this story in Acts is Second Timothy.

Jacob (commonly called James) is the other individual whose book is called out in the narrative of Acts. Upon Paul's arrival in Jerusalem he goes to see Jacob.

Through the Acts itinerary, with it's couple caveats, and through the second witness of Isaiah, we were able to place all the Epistles in an evening. Suddenly we had a new book order from one end of the Bible to the other.

In absolute terms only 9 books retained their original position when compared to the modern book order (which differs from the Hebrew and Greek orders) and 30 retained at least 1 of their neighboring books when compared to the modern book order. Isaiah's book order is quite different.

Isaiah's Book Order

The following table is a starting point for how each book relates to a chapter of Isaiah.

[1] Both Dr. Trobisch and the Bible College professor were studying certain books in context to neighboring books to understand them better. Book order was informing meaning.