Gitay: The Holistic Reading Of The Book Of Isaiah

13 an interpreter with regard to the prophet’s intention and his audience’s perception.38 For Gitay, the prophetic text is not a planned composition but a dynamic communicative discourse that can be deciphered on the basis of “its rhetorical situation and its global theme.”39 He argues, for example, that Isaiah 1-12 represents a series of speeches that have been arranged in a certain thematic and stylistic order for effective communication with the audience.40 Gitay attempts to discern both the persuasive intent of the prophet and the conscious rhetorical strategies of the prophetic discourse through which the speaker (or the writer) attempts to reach his listeners.41 There are some elements that should be considered in the process of rhetorical

The use of the new literary critical approach contributes to the holistic reading of the Book of Isaiah by analyzing its stylistic, structural, and thematic features from a literary point of view. This approach provides interpreters with an important insight into the communicative function of the text, drawing their attention to the role of the reader/audience. Furthermore, new literary criticism enables interpreters to be attentive to the persuasive intents and effects of biblical text with literary sensitivity. Accordingly, the new literary approach sharpens the interpreters’ way of looking at the text in its complex literary world. In spite of the above contributions, there are some weak points that should be considered. The new literary approach tends to understand the Book of Isaiah only as a literary artifact, neglecting the referential nature external to it - such as theological and historical factors.48 Furthermore, the emphasis upon the decisive role of the reader in deciphering the meaning of the text is problematic because the reader controls the meaning of the text instead of the intention of the author. Accordingly,