Prophetic intentionality and the Book of the Twelve: a study in the hermeneutics of prophecy

Collett, Donald C

This study explores the hermeneutical issues raised by critical approaches to the Book of the Twelve and their implications for the concepts of authorial intent, history, and canon. By means of a critical engagement with the Twelve’s modern reception history it seeks to demonstrate that with few exceptions, recent attempts to come to terms with the peculiar character of the prophetic intentionality at work in the Twelve reflect the continuing impact of historicism and its hermeneutical legacy upon the study of Old Testament prophecy. As a result the key roles played by theological pressures and the hermeneutical significance of canon in the Twelve’s formation history continue to be marginalized, particularly with respect to the eschatological and typological moves involved in the redactional expansion of prophecy.

The study seeks to constructively address these problems by offering a theological exegesis of Hosea 1:5 and 2:23-25, arguing that the study of these ‘Day of the Lord’ texts and the larger theological significance of Hosea’s prologue for the Twelve has been virtually eclipsed by the central hermeneutical role assigned to Joel by the Twelve’s modern interpreters. The larger contribution to the hermeneutical logic of prophecy rendered by Hosea’s ‘wisdom coda’ (Hosea 14:10) has also not been given its proper due, exegetically speaking. With these concerns in mind, the study then proceeds to argue that Hosea’s prologue establishes a theological context for the logic of prophecy, eschatology, and typology in the Twelve which finds its hermeneutical ground in Exodus 32-34 and the continuing theological significance of Yahweh’s name for his providential dealings with Israel. In this way Hosea’s prologue constrains the interpretation of prophecy and the DOL in the Twelve by linking their theological function to the significance of Yahweh’s name for Israel. The wisdom coda both embraces and extends this agenda for readers of Joel through Malachi by instructing them in the proper stance toward prophecy and “the ways of Yahweh” toward Israel and the nations vis-a-vis his revealed character in Exodus 34:5-7. The book of Hosea thus ends by establishing hermeneutical guidelines for the “wise” interpretation of prophecy, a stance which is then further facilitated by the summons to wisdom in Joel’s prologue (1:1-4) and Joel’s own deployment of the DOL in Joel 1-2.

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The law and the prophets : a Christian history of true and false prophecy in the book of Jeremiah

Tarrer, Seth Barclay

The present study is a history of interpretation. In that sense it does not fit neatly into the category of Wirkungsgeschichte. Moving through successive periods of the Christian church’s history, we will select representative interpretations of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and theological works dealing explicitly with the question of true and false prophecy in an effort to present a sampling of material from the span of the church’s existence. This study seeks to function as a hermeneutical guide for the present interpretive problem of interpreting true and false prophecy in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible by displaying ways various interpreters have broached the subject in the past. In this way it may prove useful to the current impasse concerning the notion of false prophecy in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. Seeing continuity, or a family resemblance, in the Christian church’s interpretation of true and false prophecy in relation to the law’s role amongst exilic and post-exilic prophets, we will observe those ways in which a historically informed reading might offer an interpretive guide for subsequent interpretations of true and false prophecy.

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