Violence disturbs And violent depictions when encountered in the biblical texts are all the more disconcerting Isaiah 63 1 6 is an illustrative instance The prophetic text presents the Arriving One in gory details trampling down people pouring out their lifeblood v 6 Further the introductory note that the Arriving One is coming from Edom cf v 1 may suggest Israel s unrelenting animosity towards Edom These two themes the gory depiction and coming from Edom are addressed in this book Irudayaraj uses a social identity reading to show how Edom is consistently pictured as Israel s proximate and yet othered entity Approaching Edom as such thus helps situate the animosity within a larger prophetic vision of identity construction in the postexilic Third Isaian context By adopting an iconographic reading of Isaiah 63 1 6 Irudayaraj shows how the prophetic portrayal of the Arriving One in descriptions where it is clear that the Arriving One is a marginalised identity correlates with the experiences of the stooped exiles cf 51 14 He also demonstrates that the text leaves behind emphatic affirmations mighty and splendidly robed cf v 1 alone cf v 3 by which the relegated voice of the divine reasserts itself It is in this divine reassertion that the hope of the Isaian community s reclamation of its own identity rests

Violence, Otherness and Identity in Isaiah 63 : 1-6 PDF

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