Understanding Isaiah

Q

I have heard it said that Isaiah has 66 books and that they are each a summary of the same numbered book in the bible. For instance the first book of Isaiah summarizes the book of Genesis. What are you thoughts on this subject. I have read Isaiah and have found that it does indeed mention Sodom and Gomorrah. But it does not seem to summarize it?

A

I would only go as far as to say that like the Bible has 66 books, Isaiah has 66 chapters. The first 39 chapters of Isaiah have a message similar to the 39 books of the Old Testament, and the final 27 are more like the 27 books of the New. This difference has actually led some liberal scholars to speculate that Isaiah was written by two different people, the so called Duetero-Isaiah hypothesis.

As if to anticipate this and disprove it in advance, in John 12:38-40 Jesus quoted first from Isaiah 53:1 and then from Isaiah 6:10 attributing both to the same Isaiah.