I disagree. There is no reason Isaiah can't be studied using the same methods one would use to study the Iliad. But we need to understand that the conclusions of any such analysis are speculative, and that they don't change the meaning or significance of the scripture.
Isaiah can definitely be studied with methods used with other literature such as the Iliad! I think those methods, though, must inevitably become integrated with meaning and significance. In other words, out methods will/must affect our theology. To think that we can somehow distill them and guard them from one another so that they don't change the meaning of the text strikes me as a naive task.
I somehow reconcile my faith with these "secular" methods using R.H. Niebuhr's view of Scripture (which kind of scares me as I say it, because he has such a low Christology). Nonetheless, I'll try to take gems wherever I find them. Niebuhr makes a distinction between insider history and outsider history. So the Hbrw Bible is defined an insider history. The events are secondarily verifiable, but these events as mere historical event are meaningless. These historical events are given meaning through the theological grid that Scripture superimpose upon them (i.e. The Syro-Ephraimitic crisis of 732-735 b.c.e. which Isaiah spoke of is an historical event - the theological grid that makes it an insider history involves the South's need to follow YHWH alone rather than resort to treaties with Damascus or Samaria). The meaning given to these events as sacrilized secular history is the crucial factor. The same events are in view in both versions of the history and both are "true" in their own senses. We can use "secular" methods to ascertain the outsider history rather than the insider history (Maybe now I'm just being naive ... ACK!!!).
I've now written a whole post and I'm not sure if I even came toward any understanding....DOUBLE ACK!!!.... It is a good thing that my faith does not rest on my complete cognitive understanding of the status of Scripture.
I disagree. There is no reason Isaiah can't be studied using the same methods one would use to study the Iliad. But we need to understand that the conclusions of any such analysis are speculative, and that they don't change the meaning or significance of the scripture.
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If one could look at the chronology and any corresponds between Biblical times of that day! We might see some of the same situation being repeating today!
How the world related to those of the religious community.
Sometimes when reading scriptures one focus on the immediate region and not on the climate of the whole nation that effects each other on some level.