You Are My People: An Introduction to Prophetic Literature - Softcover

Stulman, Lois; Kim, Hyun Chul Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0687465656 ISBN 13: 9780687465651

Verlag: Abingdon Press, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

Building on recent developments in biblical studies, this book introduces the prophetic literature of the Old Testament against the background of today's postmodern context and crisis of meaning. Pulsating with anxiety over the empire--Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian--the prophet corpus is a disturbing cultural expression of lament and chaos. Danger, disjunction, and disaster bubble beneath the surface of virtually every prophetic text. Sometimes in denial, sometimes in despair, and sometimes in defiance, the readers of this literature find themselves living at the edge of time, immediately before, during, or after the collapse of longstanding symbolic, cultural, and geo-political structures. These written prophecies not only reflect the social location of trauma, but are also a complex response. More specifically, prophetic texts are thick meaning-making maps, tapestries of hope that help at-risk communities survive.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Louis Stulman is a professor of religion at the University of Findlay. He holds a Ph.D. in biblical studies and a master's degree in philosophy from Drew University.

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You Are My People

An Introduction to Prophetic LiteratureBy Louis Stulman

Abingdon Press

Copyright © 2010 The United Methodist Publishing House
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-687-46565-1

Chapter One

Reading the Prophets as Meaning-making Literature for Communities under Siege

Wartime prayers, wartime prayers in every language spoken, For every family scattered and broken —Paul Simon

One of the sure results of twentieth-century Near Eastern scholarship is that prophecy is an oral phenomenon. Prophets in ancient Israel were primarily spokespersons and intermediaries, not writers; the essence of their enterprise was the spoken word, perhaps even the brief poetic utterance. At the same time, we have become increasingly aware of the difficulty in exhuming ancient prophets (or for that matter in locating contemporary ones!). As Martti Nissinen recently put it: "No videotapes or sound recordings are available to authenticate the oral messages of the prophets." Instead, we have access to this oral phenomenon only in written sources.

Although this observation may seem self-evident, it is neither incidental nor merely a matter of modus operandi. Contemporary studies of language have made us well aware that the transition from spoken to written prophecy involves more than a mimetic transposition. Writing does not preserve meaning with externalized precision; rather, it restructures and reconfigures thought. Robert P. Carroll noted: "When the spoken oracle becomes a written document, that is, transcribed from the sphere of uttered word to that of written documentation, changes and even transformations take place. The precise nature of such changes may be debatable, but that change does take place should not be a matter of dispute." Similarly, Ronald E. Clements observes that "written prophecy is necessarily different from oral prophecy precisely because it is written and is thereby made subject to the gains and losses that written fixation entails." The point is this: when the spoken word of the prophet is transcribed, some degree of "metamorphosis" occurs.

In the most modest of terms, written prophecy has fewer geographic and temporal limitations than its counterpart. Whereas oral prophecy functions within well-defined spatial and temporal categories, written prophecy moves about freely in diaspora, both figuratively and literally (for example, Jer 29:1-14). Accordingly, prophetic texts can do what prophets cannot; and they can go where prophets are forbidden. Scrolls have access to insolent kings who are intent on silencing disturbing prophets. And even though brazen acts of political force can destroy scrolls, others can be produced, demonstrating their resilient character. As Regina Schwartz states, despite royal disdain for the text, "the text persists." Walter Brueggemann suggests that "God will generate as many scrolls as necessary to override the king's [i.e., Jehoiakim's] zeal for autonomy." In spite of its liabilities, the scroll—as symbol, literary artifact, and potent presence—compensates for the vanquished prophet.

Written prophecy, however, is more than a liberated surrogate of the spoken word. Prophetic speech and prophetic writing represent two different though complementary enterprises. Prophecy as oral communication is raw, iconoclastic, immediate, and exacting. It seeks to bring about fundamental changes in social arrangements, often before the collapse of long-standing and cherished structures—political, religious, economic, and symbolic. Prophecy as written communication attends to the survivors. It takes shape during and after the frightful events; all the while it engages in artful reinterpretation and reenactment. This complex literary activity in ancient Israel—which no doubt involves a degree of "routinisation" (coined by Max Weber)—strives to find meaning and reform values during times of war and social dislocation. To be sure, the shift from orality to writing involves a realignment of intentionality, setting, and audience.

Written prophecy converts prewar oracles into postwar texts. It transforms prophets of doom into prophets of salvation. Written prophecy marches to the beat of "scroll time" rather than to the directives of ordinary (chronological) time. It is governed by a Sitz im Buch rather than a Sitz im Leben. And eventually written prophecy comes to enjoy an authoritative role that eclipses its oral counterpart, not only in the postbiblical world but also in the evolving biblical tradition itself. In some embryonic form the prophetic text wields the power to dismantle entrenched social and mythic structures. It serves as the basis to judge the legitimacy of oral prophecy. And it seeks to generate hope and a sense of identity in people whose world has collapsed, whose cherished forms of life have been confounded and whose conceptual universe has been shattered.

Building on these observations as well as on other recent developments in the interpretation of the Latter Prophets, we would suggest that written prophecy is survival literature for communities under siege and at risk of symbolic and cultural collapse. In large measure this literary artifact shows marked signs of liminality and danger because of hegemonic constraints; written prophecy is a rich and varied symbolic response to these devastating forces. More specifically, it functions as a meaning-making map intended to help war-torn communities and conquered societies endure decimating loss. While this symbolic map is diverse and wide-ranging, and at times even cacophonic, it is not formless. By being attentive to distinguishing characteristics and overarching structures, one can identify an anatomy of hope amid the literary chaos.

These wide-ranging claims are clearly predisposed—and probably doomed—to formalistic fallacies. Our only defense is that they are intended not to be definitive but only suggestive and, it is hoped, generative. In that spirit, we offer a series of brief statements on the character of written prophecy in the Bible.

The prophetic literature is survival literature for postwar communities living through monstrous events. Coarse language of violence together with penetrating images of cultural ruin run through the literary terrain. Shocking scenes of brutality give the corpus its erratic and discontinuous quality. Put concretely, written prophecy bears witness to unmanageable social and symbolic dissonance as a result of colonizing forces located on the Tigris and Euphrates. As Donald E. Gowan has said, the two focal points of the prophetic literature are the fall of Samaria in the eighth century (by the Assyrian military machine) and the collapse of Jerusalem in the sixth century (by the neo-Babylonian armies). We would suggest that community survival within the Persian Empire is also a focal concern of this literature. Primarily because of imperial constraints—imposed by Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia, and their designs toward absolute power—the prophetic corpus is a literary artifact of terror and vulnerability, a disturbing cultural expression of lament and chaos. Its multiple voices are often raw, unpredictable, and violent because savage forces perceived as both human and divine have devastated symbolic and social worlds.

From the testimony of survivors, both ancient and contemporary, we know that such wreckage not only causes physical and emotional havoc, but it also evokes probing questions about...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Abingdon Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0687465656
• ISBN 13: 9780687465651
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 340
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland