plural. Thus most of our surviving manuscripts read, ‘As it is written in the prophets’ (hence KJV). However, textual critics are virtually certain that the reference to Isaiah is original and so some explanation is required. The most common is that Mark is using a testimony source where the texts had already been combined. Mark ascribes it to Isaiah either because he was unaware of its composite nature or because ‘Isaiah’ stands for ‘prophets’ in the same way that ‘Psalms’ can stand for ‘writings’ (see