Do You Have to See to Believe?

“Do You Have to See to Believe?” That question has been screaming in my ears for weeks since the significant archeological find in Jerusalem.

It may or may not be the Prophet Isaiah’s signature.

Which may or may not prove that there was an Isaiah.

Oh, come on now folks! Would a half inch piece of clay convince you of anything at all? And it probably won’t convince anyone that Isaiah ever lived either, let alone wrote 66 of the most wonderous chapters in the Bible.

Even archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar, who found the piece of clay with Isaiah’s name on it warned in her announcement, this bulla (clay seal) might not be the Prophet Isaiah’s. She stated: “The name of Isaiah… is clear, [however] the absence of this final letter… requires that we leave open the possibility that it could just be the name Navi” or Isaiah, not the Prophet Isaiah. However, just as easily, it could be the miller Isaiah’s or the baker Isaiah’s or even the delivery man’s.

What a bunch of bull(a) and speculation this find has caused!

Look for me it is pretty simple, I don’t have to find the empty tomb to believe in the resurrection. Nor do I need to see gold plates or archeological evidence, to know in my heart the Book of Mormon brings me to Christ, it just does. So why all this hubbub about Isaiah?

The problem is pretty clear; almost no one has read the book. Sure when I read Isaiah parts are confusing, but then I come across verses like these in Isaiah 9:

The people that walked in darkness
have seen a great light,
and they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death,
upon them hath the light shined.
For unto us a child is born,
unto us a Son is given:
and the government shall be upon His shoulder:
and His name shall be called
Wonderful, Counsellor,
The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace.

And man I feel the lyrics burn testimony in my hear as Handel fills my mind with music. Isaiah speaks to me! What about you!

This bulla thing has opened the door to something else: people who call themselves Bible “scholars” apparently dispute the authorship of Isaiah. Who in the heck knew that?

Nearly every article I have read, and that has been a bunch of them, brings up the “Isaiah Problem.”

“Who wrote the book,” they ask, “no single person could.”
“Did Isaiah Write All of Isaiah?” “It just is not possible for men to predict the future,” they say, “it had to be written after the fact. And by a team of authors, no one writer could be that good.”

Oh my gosh, read the book and solve the problem! Feel God’s hand in the words, and you will know Isaiah as Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles does when he wrote,

“Isaiah is by every standard the messianic prophet of the Old Testament and as such is the most penetrating prophetic voice in that record.”—Christ and the New Covenant: The Messianic Message of the Book of Mormon