Deutero-Isaiah and the Book of Mormon | Ep. 1642 | LDS Discussions Ep. 16

Deutero-Isaiah represents one of the most stubborn challenges to Book of Mormon historicity. The text quotes extensively from Isaiah chapters 40 through 66, material that biblical scholars agree was composed during or after the Babylonian exile. Since Lehi and his family departed Jerusalem around 600 BCE, decades before that exile occurred, these chapters should not exist in the Book of Mormon record. Yet they appear throughout the narrative, word for word, copied directly from the King James Version including the translators' italics.

Background: The Multiple Authors of Isaiah

For more than a century, biblical scholars have recognized that the Book of Isaiah bears the fingerprints of multiple authors. Chapters 1 through 39 address the immediate threat of Assyrian invasion and reflect the political realities of the eighth century BCE. The tone shifts dramatically at chapter 40. Suddenly the text speaks