Thus Speaks Ishtar is a collection of essays about
prophets and prophecy in the ancient Near East during the
"Neo-Assyrian Period." This was the time when some of Israel's
greatest prophets emerged, ...and we also have from the same general
period a number of prophetic texts found on the site of the ancient
Assyrian city of Nineveh. The book examines the basic idea of
prophecy and how this is shaped by the way we study the subject,
and it then presents a number of fresh insights on a range of
prophetic topics. These include the relationship between Israelite
and other forms of prophecy in Assyria and Egypt and the
relationship between what prophets said and the written forms in
which their words were passed on. Other topics of contemporary
interest include what these prophetic texts have to say about the
environment, the place of intercession in Israelite and Assyrian
religion, and whether the message of the trailblazing Israelite
prophets of the eighth century was basically about judgment and
community ruin or about hope and community well-being.
When Eduard Nielsen's Oral Tradition appeared in 1954 the author's main motivation for writing it was frustration with what was felt to be serious shortcomings in current methods of Old Testament ...research. Influ-enced by "Scandinavian" scholarship (above all Pedersen, Nyberg, and Engnell), Nielsen wishes to replace historical critical approaches with more adequate, updated methods. In particular, he wants to integrate insights into the oral processes that lead to the creation of the literature of the Hebrew Bi-ble into his exegetical techniques. For comparative purposes, Nielsen utilizes texts from ancient cultures where orality was predominant. He discusses above all Greek, Mesopotamian, and Old Norse sources. In view of the huge interest in orality and memory in academia today it is obvious that Nielsen was far ahead of his time. It is more than regrettable that so little attention has been paid to this pioneering work.
Much evidence on the phenomenon of prophecy has come down as part of stories and narratives. The essays in this volume search the role of prophets and prophecy in a variety of text, mainly from the ...Hebrew Bible.
This volume contains the proceedings of a Symposium "Prophecy in the Book of Jeremiah", arranged by the Edinburgh Prophecy Network in the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh, 11-12 May ...2007. Prophetic studies are undergoing radical changes at the moment. Whereas it was formerly believed that the "historical Jeremiah" was hidden under countless additions and reinterpretations, and thus changed beyond recognition, it was still assumed that it would be possible to recover the real prophet with the tools of historical critical methods. However, according to a majority of scholars today, the recovery of the historical Jeremiah is no longer possible. For this reason, the meeting in Edinburgh gathered specialists from Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, United Kingdom and the USA, in order to find new and different approaches to the study of prophecy.
New Perspectives on Old Testament Prophecy and History presents innovative and thought provoking essays on biblical prophecy and Old Testament history by colleagues, students, and friends of ...Professor Hans M. Barstad, in honour of his esteemed career in biblical studies.
PDF
