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LATE ISRAELITE
PROPHECY
SOCIETY O F BIBILICAL L I T E R A T U R E MONOGRAPH
SERIES
edited by Leander E . Keck
Associate Editor James L . Crenshaw
Number 23 LATE ISRAELITE PROPHECY: Studies in Deutero-Prophetic Literature and in Chronicles by David L . Petersen
SCHOLARS PRESS Missoula, Montana
LATE ISRAELITE
PROPHECY:
Studies in Deutero-Prophetic Literature and in Chronicles by David L . Petersen
Published by SCHOLARS PRESS for The Society of Biblical Literature
Distributed by SCHOLARS PRESS Missoula, Montana 59806
LATE ISRAELITE PROPHECY: Studies in Deutero-Prophetic Literature and in Chronicles by
David L . Petersen
Copyright ® 1977 by The Society of Biblical Literature
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Petersen, David L Late Israelite prophecy. (Monograph series—Society of Biblical Literature ; no. 23) Based on the author's thesis, Yale, 1972. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Bible. O.T. Prophets—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Bible. O.T. Chronicles—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 1. Title. I I . Series: Society of Biblical Literature. Monograph series ; no. 23. BS1505.2.P47 1976 224'.06 76-26014 ISBN 0-89130-076-7
Printed in the United States of America Edwards Brothers. Inc. Ann Arbor. Michigan 48104
Preface This study is based upon a 1972 Yale Ph.D. dissertation from which it differs in both detail and theory. Several chapters of that earlier work have been excised for the sake of both economy and coherence. 1 am indebted to the University of Illinois for providing clerical and financial assistance, particularly Faculty Summer Fellowships in 1973 and 1974. Thanks are also due to W. R. Schoedel for wise prodding, B. S. Childs for helpful criticism, Charlann Winking for careful manuscript preparation, and especially to S. Dean Mc Bride for valuable assistance at numerous stages of this work. To the editors of the S B L Monograph, Leander Keck and James Crenshaw, I am also grateful for guidance. September 1975 Urbana, Illinois
v
Table of Contents Chapter
I
II
Preface
v
Introduction
1
The Deutero-Prophetic Literature A.
IV
13
C.
Deutero-Prophetic Literature: Attempts at Definition Revision of the Prophetic Task— The Deutero-lsaianic Corpus An Anti-Prophetic Polemic
19 27
D.
Prophecy in the Future
38
B.
III
Page
13
Chronicles and Levitical Prophets
55
A. B. CD. E. F.
55 64 68 77 85 86
Chronicles and Levitical Singers Heman, the King's Seer Levitical Prophets and Holy War Hezekiah's Temple Cleansing and the Levites Prophets to Levites Josiah's Passover and Levitical Singers
Conclusions
97
vii
Chapter I
Introduction The study of Israelite prophecy has always been an important component of Old Testament scholarship and of ancient intellectual history. Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel have provoked comparisons with the ancient Greeks and the Sages of the East. These prophets were Israel's claim to a place in Jasper's axial age, a period of a few centuries in which a basic transforma tion of man's self-understanding took place. And yet many explanations and theories have developed about Israel's prophets in contrast with attempts to understand the other formative figures of this axial age. We know Plato to have been a peripatetic philosopher and Gautama Buddha, a mendicant sage; but the prophets have been labelled everything from unbalanced mantics to sober prophets of doom. One of the most puzzling features of Israelite prophecy is what numerous scholars have designated late Israelite prophecy