Historical Bridge: From Crisis to Consolation Is. 35 is positioned at the end of the Proto-Isaiah collection (chapters 1-39) sometimes called First Isaiah. While its hopeful, restorative language strongly aligns it with the theological traditions found in chapters 40 and beyond, it is sandwiched between specific prophecies of doom and destruction against nations like Edom in Ch. 34, and narrative prose about Isaiah and the end of Hezekiah’s reign (36-39), likely copied directly from Second...

Isaiah, which in Lectionary Year A comprises four Sundays of Advent’s Old Testament readings, is a book of Messianic Hope, preparing us for the arrival of the promised King, but we read it differently than Isaiah’s immediate audience. Isaiah was written in a tumultuous time in Israel’s already eventful history. The frame of reference spans nearly 400 years, beginning in the 740s BCE and culminating in a final edit at around 350 BCE, addressing specific events of the Assyrian crisis, the...

A Summary of our Sunday Adult formation Discussion on November 9th Introduction to Matthew I. Scholarly Context and Sources We discussed the  Four-Source Hypothesis  as a potential explanation for the literary relationship between the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), known as the  Synoptic Problem . This hypothesis represents the dominant academic consensus. Four-Source Hypothesis:  Matthew is a compilation built from three hypothetical sources: Markan Priority:   Mark  was the...