What Do Isaiah and Batman Have in Common?

A closeup of jars, probably once filled with wine, at Tel Kabri in modern-day Israel. (Andrew Koh)

I’m guessing you’ve never thought of Batman while reading the book of Isaiah. Me neither. But in Isaiah’s Daughter, this courageous prophet must slip through a secret entrance in his personal wine cellar and enter a honeycomb of underground caves to rescue his friends. I thought he was a little super-hero-ish as I wrote some of his courageous decisions. His words. His deeds.

Granted, Isaiah’s family-owned home and its secret entrance wasn’t as snazzy as Bruce Wayne’s bat-cave, but his courage felt every bit as inspiring and his purpose vastly more eternal.

Fiction Must Feel Real

But were my imagined scenarios realistic? Underground tunnels in ancient Israel? A secret passage? A personal wine cellar? After several weeks of research, my crazy ideas seemed entirely plausible, stoking my fascination for this enigmatic prophet.

Proof Is in the Prophet

Isaiah’s ministry spanned the reigns of four kings—Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah (Isaiah 1:1)—who were, according to Jewish tradition (Talmud Meg. 10b), his cousins. Isaiah’s royal heritage would likely have placed his home within the palace complex directly south of Yahweh’s Temple, under which remains to this day a web of caverns called Solomon’s Quarries. (CLICK HERE for a map of the quarries, or HERE to watch a video of a descent into the caves.)

But what about a wine cellar? Might the cousin of a king have a wine cellar in his home? Fellow biblical novelist, Carole Towriss, shared an interesting article about not only the existence of wine in ancient Israel but the abundance of it—and even current DNA testing done to discover its contents of mint, honey, and juniper. (CLICK HERE to read the article.)

Isaiah & Batman’s Key Similarity

Yes, Isaiah and Batman have three similarities:

A secret entrance
An underground hideout
A wine cellar

…But who cares—right? It’s the message of their lives that matters. Batman, as a fictional comic-book hero, illustrates that only after evil is punished can salvation come. The prophet Isaiah—a factual, living, breathing, human being, who lived and died over eight hundred years ago—relayed a similar message after receiving it from God’s throne room. The Holy One of Israel will punish all unrepentant evil, yet He provides salvation for anyone who believes.

“According to what they have done, so will he repay wrath to his enemies and retribution to his foes…people will fear the name of the Lord, and from the rising of the sun, they will revere his glory…‘As for me, this is my covenant with them,’ says the Lord. ‘My Spirit, who is on you, will not depart from you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will always be on your lips, on the lips of your children and on the lips of their descendants—from this time on and forever,’ says the Lord.” Isaiah 59:18-19, 21 NIV

Isaiah needed no cape, no black car, and no side-kick named Robin. He was a courageous hero for God, who fought the wickedness of his day with the words of his testimony. Lord, let the same be said of me.