Christian Beltran
- John Goldingay falls into the trap of believing Isaiah was written by multiple authors without using evidence from the original Hebrew texts. Goldingay spends little time on this matter, but if you're theologically conservative this book is going to bother you. In Goldingay's assement of Isaiah 7, he claims that Matthew consistently quotes Isaiah out of context out of the belief that the prophecies in Isaiah should only be viewed within their original historical context (this gets VERY problematic when you get to Goldingay's analyses of the servant songs). Goldingay also has an odd tendency to refer to God as Yaweh throughout the book. After investigating the author's claim in the acknowledgments that he used his own translation for the book, I found that Goldingay is the sole translator of an indiosyncratic translation called "The First Testament" that is theologically liberal (despite its claim for literalness) and preoccupied with leaving every name in the Old Testament transliterated. Unsurprisingly, his translation (as well as the section on Isaiah 7 in this book) renders Isaiah 7:14 as "young girl" instead of "virgin" as Goldingay doesn't believe this verse is a prophecy of the Messiah as that supposedly imports New Testament theology into the Old Testament. You're better off looking for one of the more reputable commentaries on Isaiah if you want a better understanding of this magnificent book of the Bible.