Summary and Conclusions

The statistical results in this study do not support the divisionist claim that little or no evidence exists for unity of the book of Isaiah. To the contrary, results form the statistical analyses over a wide range of types and numbers of stylistic variables unique to Isaiah chapters 1-39 and chapters 40-66. These elements include function prefixes, marker words, prepositions and conjunctions, certain word families, first letter, and last consonantal letter of the Hebrew words, and repetition rates of certain types of phrases.

The two parts of Isaiah most often claimed to have been written by different authors, chapters 1-39 and 40-66, were found to be more similar to each other in style than to any the control group of 11 other Old Testament books. The book of Isaiah also exhibits greater internal consistency than any of the other 11 books.

These computerized results do not exclude the possibility that minor changes in the text have been made by scribes and editors since the time of its origin. However, the evidence indicates that in spite of such possible changes, deletions, or additions, an overall style has been retained, as measured by the literary variables examined.

The results of our research bear witness that the author of Isaiah has a literary unity characteristic of a single author.