The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1101 page)

 
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(
c.
1160–1235).
Kabbalist
. Isaac the Blind was the son of
Abraham
ben David of Posquières. Described as ‘the father of the Kabbalah’, he was the author of several works including a commentary to the
Sefer
Yezirah
(ed. G. Scholem, 1963).

 
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Isaiah
.

Hebrew prophet of the 8th cent. BCE, and name of a prophetic book of the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament. An early tradition relates his death as a martyr in the reign of Manasseh (
c.
690–
c.
640). He is called Sha‘ya in Islamic tradition.
The book of Isaiah falls into three parts: chs. 1–35, 36–9, and 40–66. Chs. 40–66 take up the theme of the redemption of Israel and its mission in the world. Since the 19th cent. these chapters have been known as ‘Deutero-Isaiah’, on the recognition that they were written by a later author to encourage the Jewish exiles in Babylon shortly before their release in 537 BCE. Chs. 56–66 seem to presuppose that the
Temple
had been rebuilt, and are therefore often distinguished as ‘Trito-Isaiah’.
The
Ascension of Isaiah
is an
apocryphal
work, originally Jewish, but now with Christian interpolations.

 
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Upani
ad
.

The shortest (eighteen verses) of the principal
Upani
ads
, so-called from its opening word, Lord, though also known from its full form as
v
syam
. It is often regarded as containing the whole essence of the Upani
ads.