Harmonizing Isaiah: Combining Ancient Sources

Harmonizing Isaiah: Combining Ancient Sources, by Donald W. Parry, contains a unique translation that combines readings from four different witnesses of Isaiah: (1) the Great Isaiah Scroll, one of the most complete of the Dead Sea Scrolls; (2) the Masoretic Text, which is the Hebrew manuscript that was used to translate the King James Version of the Bible; (3) the passages from Isaiah in the Book of Mormon; and (4) the Joseph Smith Translation of Isaiah. By using variant readings from these sources, Parry hopes to provide a clear and accurate study aid for students of the book of Isaiah.

In addition to combining the readings of different versions of Isaiah, Parry has rendered his translation in modern English and formatted the text into parallel lines of poetry. This clarifies the meaning of the words of Isaiah while retaining the beautiful poetic structure of the book. Parry also includes an introduction in which he gives a brief history of the Great Isaiah Scroll, explains his reasons and methods for his new translation, reviews the different forms of poetic parallelism, and provides sources for further study. In the two appendices, Parry includes lists of archaic words and chiastic structures found in the book of Isaiah.