Reading the Book of Isaiah

"Many scholars have approached both the origins of ancient city laments in some of the oldest Sumerian texts and how this "genre" found its way into the Tanakh/Old Testament. Randall Heskett goes a step further. He uses both historical criticism and a form-critical approach to analyze and assess Lamentation and Restoration of Destroyed Cities as oral traditions of ancient Israelite prophetic genres. He also shows how a later exilic/post-exilic redactional framework may have semantically transformed older prophetic genres about destruction and restoration to be reflexes of the events around 587 BCE"-- "Many scholars have approached both the origins of ancient city laments in some of the oldest Sumerian texts and how this "genre" found its way into the Tanakh/Old Testament. However, no one has treated Lamentation and Restoration of Destroyed Cities form-critically as oral traditions of ancient Israelite prophetic genres. Neither have scholars shown how a later exilic/post-exilic redactional framework may have semantically transformed older prophetic genres about destruction and restoration to be reflexes of the events around 587 BCE. Since much of the greater book of Isaiah responds to the destruction of the cities of Judah and the capitol city of Jerusalem, the homecoming of the exiles, and the rebuilding of Jerusalem, this monograph will treat the original oral levels of tradition history and later exilic/post-exilic redactional levels of "Lamentation and Restoration of Destroyed Cities in the Scroll of Isaiah..." Finally, the concluding chapter will address city laments within biblical theology and how they may inform such events as the destruction of our own twin towers on 9-11"--