Baylor REL 1310 - Unit 2 - Mowry 2025

Biblical Books: Amos, Lamentations, Isaiah, Hosea, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Haggai, Jonah, Ruth, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, Daniel.

Psalms - Longer

Proverbs - Shorter

Lectures:

**The underlined parts are the parts you need to know for the test. The rest of the text is for passage identification help or further understanding the underlined text.

The Pre-Exilic Prophets

Amos, Hosea, & Isaiah 1-39

Introduction to Prophetic Literature

Most prophetic literature is poetry, as seen by the different style and less structure (ex: less paragraphs, more line-by-line). Because of this, Israelite Prophetic Literature was unique in the ancient world. There is only one known similar text by a non-Israel “prophet” for hire, ironically one by the same name as one mentioned in the Bible as being hired by the Babylonian king. 

Prophecies began as short, isolated, spoken oracles. We have these prophecies written down for virtually every other Near Eastern culture. They are for a very specific person for a specific purpose. However, the Israelite books are very unique in the are collected together into one long book, and therefore they are divorced from their historical context and universalized, (“universally applicable”) which makes it harder to read. The universalization leads to updating. 

Form of Prophecy

  • Oracle

    • Short 

    • Poetic

    • Often demarcated by oracular formulations (“thus says the Lord”)

The Prophets

Pre-Assyrian

  • Amos (North/Israel)

Assyrian

  • Hosea (North)

  • Isaiah (south/Judah)

  • Micah (south)

Post Assyrian

  • Nahum (south)

  • Zephaniah (south)

Socioeconomic Context: The Northern kingdom is at the height of its power before Assyria comes into the scene. The southern kingdom is at its height of its power after the fall of Assyria. The economy is based on a system of Patrimonial land grants. Land was important as basically everyone was farmers and Shepards and therefore needed land. If you didn’t have a male child and died, your land is lost and your wife and daughters go to slavery; it was not an equitable or equal society. This concerned the Prophets.

**Note: Passage identification is hard for Exam 2 since the prophets say very similar things, so know where each prophet was, unique aspects, and how powerful they were  

The Book of Hosea

  • Hosea was a northern prophet (Israel) with access to centers of powers (important)

  • Chapters 1-3 include an unusual biographical narrative about Hosea being told to marry a prostitute (Gomer)

    • This was a prophetic sign act; a weird act that got people interested and asking questions

    • Prophets would use shocking imagery to illicit emotions 

  • His children’s names were significant signs

  • Concerned with the worship of Baal

Book of Isaiah

  • Chapters 1-39 take place in a different time and vantage point than 40-66

  • 1-39 is in the South/Judah in the early Assyrian period

    • Isaiah originally had access to the temple and was important

  • 44-60 takes place in Babylon and the end of the exile

The Book of Amos

  • Shepherd of Tekoa, “just some dude”

    • Not an administrative employee

    • From the southern kingdom, however most of his oracles concern the northern kingdom

  • Chapters 1-2: Oracles against the Nations (“hey Babylon, you suck and are destined to die”) - Popular among the people

  • Chapters 3-6: Oracles against Israel (“hey Israel, you suck and are destined to die”) - very unpopular among the people

    • Goes over Israel’s past sins, current sins, and their impending downfall

  • Chapter 7-9: Amos’s visions

    • Locusts on Israel

      • Amos intercedes

      • Note: Jacob = Israel 

    • A shower of fire on Israel

      • Amos intercedes

    • A plumb-line (a device used to measure stuff, as God will measure stuff)

      • At this point an Israelite kicks him out

      • So, Amos cant intercede

    • A basket of fruits

      • It’s a pun, end and fruit sound very similar

    • Prophecies of a coming destruction by a Mesopotamian imperial force would have resonated with a Judahite audience, even thought it was meant for Israel initially

  • Chapter 9-11: Hopeful promise of rebuilding 

Prophetic Readings Today

Approach One: Theological-Personal: Automatically assume the “side” of the prophet. The “you” it commands = you, now.

Approach Two: Sociological-Typological: Access the structures lying beneath the text and attempt to translate those to current society

  • Amos condemned the rich at the time due to the inequality, so we should be against inequality

  • “Maps” the situation of the prophet onto the current society, paralleling various groups to the babylonians, Israelites, etc. 

Lamentations

Reflections on the Loss of Jerusalem

The author of Lamentations if Jeremiah, according to the LXX and Rabbinic tradition. However, the Hebrew Text has no author, and is known by the name Ekah, hebrew for  “How” instead of Lamentations (“how has this happened”). 

The book is in Qinah Meter (rhythm) with unbalanced lines (‘loping style’). It is also a Acrostic Poem, where there first line of each stanza begins with the next letter of the (hebrew) alphabet. Each chapter is an acrostic.

  • 1-2, 4 is a simple acrostic (A, B, C).

  • 3 is a triple acrostic (AAA, BBB, CCC)

  • However, 5 is a empty acrostic/not an acrostic

Chapters 1-4 is sad, but hopeful. However, the end of 5 is truly hopeful. 

The Book of Jeremiah

“The Weeping Prophet”

History: The MT and LXX versions of Jeremiah are drastically different. The LXX is much shorter and has the chapters are in different orders, but that isn’t a huge issue since they’re not a linear narrative.

Literary Structure: The Book of Jeremiah contains several different types of literature

  • Poetic Oracles

  • Narratives about the Prophets

  • Sermons with strong Deuteronomistic emphasis

Timeframe: King Josiah to Zedekiah (one that got exiled) and beyond

Location: Judah and Babylon

Narrative:

  • Jeremiah was an outsider prophet, cant even get in the temple.

  • Influenced by Josiah’s reforms

  • Chastises/Critiques subsequent kings

  • Gets punished and thrown in prison, but is ultimately correct

  • Buys a plot of land (illegally, its the Babylonians, but its a sign act) before being exiled to Egypt

  • Critiques Zion Theology

    • Zion Theology was the idea that because the temple of the Lord is in Jerusalem and God promised David his line would sit on the throne forever (metaphorical, taken literal) therefore Jerusalem was invincible.

  • Critiques of resistance against Babylon

The Call (to action) of Jeremiah:

  • No otherworldly vision, unlike Ezekiel and Isaiah

  • Jeremiah initially rejects the mission

  • More puns involving an almond tree and boiling pot

Ezekiel

Timeframe: Ezekiel is among those who were deported/exiled with Jehoiachin in the first Babylonian deportation in 597 BC. He records his vision of Jerusalem in 586 BC and ends in the ‘main’ exile.

Location: Judah and Babylon

Narrative

  • Ezekiel is a priest and an elite in Jerusalem society, so likely a priest in the temple of Jerusalem

Structure: Classic Tripartite Structure

  1. Judgement against Judah

  2. Judgement against other nations

  3. Message of Hope

Theological Issue with the Exile

Ezekiel provides a overwhelming description of God because the idea back them was that when two nations fought, their gods fought, and their fight determined the earthly outcome. However, the Babylonian conquering made it seem like God lost. This vision is showing how in control and powerful God is. However, if God is in control, why did he let this happen to his people?

There are four prophetic scrolls, of those Isaiah and the Book of the twelve skip the exile altogether.

Jeremiah

  • Rooted in Deuteronomistic theology

  • Israel failed to upheld the convenant

    • Maintaining social justice

    • Worship of Yahweh (God) alone

  • The Exile was Yahweh’s curse against Israel

Ezekiel

  • Rooted in Priestly theology (Zion Theology)

  • Israel failed maintain the level of holiness necessary to commune with the divine

  • Specifically in the temple

  • Yahweh’s was forced to abandon the temple, thus removing Yahweh’s protective power from Jerusalem

These prophetic responses were the shift from Henotheism (worshipping one god but believing others exist) to true Monotheism (only one God)

So, the overarching question becomes if Israel cant stop sinning, how will Israel be reconciled?

  • Jeremiah: Law written on the heart

  • Ezekiel: An entirely new heart

What will a transformed Israel look like?

  • Messianic Leader

  • Rebuilt Temple

Voices of the Return

Haggai & Ezra

Historical Developments since The Exile

Babylon was being threatened by to the Persian empire. In 539 BC, the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great captured the city of Babylon without bloodshed because their king had supposedly gone mad and taken a 7-year vacation. This was the end of the Babylonian empire. Under Cyrus and his son, Cambyses II, the Persian Empire grew to become the most expansive empire in the ancient Near East.

The Persian Empire was able to maintain this empire through a policy of regional autonomy, which kept people happy and less likely to rebel. All they had to do is pay taxes. The “Edict of Cyrus” allowed the return of the exiled Jews and the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. The return from exile triggered a shift from a Monarchy to a Diarchy (two rulers).

The Growing Influence of Priesthood

  • Israel is no longer dependent on prophecy to hear a word from God

  • Most of the “prophecy” in the post-exilic period is written interpretation of existing prophecy

Book of Haggai

  • The book focuses on the reconstruction of the temple (finished 515 BC)

  • It had been 14 years since the return, so why did they not finish the temple yet? Boo!

  • When they made the temple, it was kinda small and sad. It takes until King Herod (Jesus time) rebuilding the temple.

  • Prophecy is conditional in the bible, not all prophecies come true because people changed their ways (ex: Jonah)

Book of Jonah

  • God commands Jonah go to Nineveh Jonah instead goes to Tarshish, which to people back then was as far as one could go. He literally went to (what he thought was) the end of the earth.

  • On the boat to Tarshish, Jonah faces a great storm, which he realizes is a consequence of his disobedience to God's command.

  • The sailors throw him over and pray to God

  • Sheol = a Godless place, the deep/pit, a place of the dead with no good or evil. Kinda like a purgatory

  • Jonah gets swallowed by a fish and then spat out 3 days later near Nineveh and says that Nineveh is going to die in 5 days

  • All of Nineveh freak out and repent, fast, put on sacks for clothes (even on the animals lol?), and God forgives them and doesn’t destroy them.

    • The prophecy doesn’t say “if you don’t repent, you’ll be destroyed,” its “you will be destroyed,” but they don’t get destroyed because they repent. The prophecy isn’t unstoppable, its conditional.

  • Jonah kinda sucks, he’s a sell-out to a king (another book) and gets mad that the people of Nineveh repented because he hates them and wanted them to die.

Psalms

The Hymnbook of Ancient Israel

Psalms is in the Ketuvim. The Tanakh is organized according to authority and according to the development of the canon. The major exception to this rule is the Book of Psalms.

Psalms is part of The Five Megilloth. These are festive scrolls read on Jewish Holidays.

  • Ruth (shavuot)

  • Lamentations (Tisha B’Av)

  • There are others, but you don’t need to know them

Many features we associate with poetry are not in Hebrew poetry, such as abnormal syntax/structure, rhyming, and meter. Hebrew poetry is identified with economy of language (saying as much with as few words as possible), use of metaphors/wordplay, literary devices, and parallelism.

Bishop Robert Lowth proposed that Hebrew poetry was characterized by couplets (or occasionally triplets) in three types of arrangements

  • Synonymous Parallelism (restatement)

    • Praise the LORD, all you nations!

      Extol him, all you peoples! (Ps. 117:1)

  • Antithetical Parallelism (contrast)

    • A wise child makes a glad father,

      but a foolish child is a mother’s grief. (Prov. 10:1)

  • Synthetic parallelism (causal, sequential, shared motif or theme)

    • He brought me to the banqueting house,

      and his intention towards me was love. (Song 2:4)

Adele Berlin and Robert Alter noted that the second or third line is often an intensification of the first.

  • And I will bring to an end the sound of mirth and gladness,
    the voice of the bride and bridegroom in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem;
    for the land shall become a waste

The Psalter

The Psalter is a collection of individual Psalms, gradually accumulated over centuries. These individual Psalms would be grouped together to form smaller collections. They are arranged into five “books.”

Many Psalms begin with a superscription which may contain author, recipient, instructions to musicians, narrative context, etc.

Psalm Analysis

Form Criticism - classifies units of scriptures according to identified literary patterns and seeks to identify the social setting from which the work came.

Most of the Psalms would have been used as temple worship.

Contemporary Scholarship suggest there might an overarching logic to the order of the psalms in the psalter.

  • Psalms 1-2 provide a thematic introduction into the entire book

  • The Hallelujah psalms (146-150) provide a fitting ending (hallelujah was used as an ending word in songs)

  • The transition between books 3 and 4 represent a turning point lamenting the kingship of Israel (in 586 BC) is further reenforced by the kinds of psalms found on either side.

  • Taken together, the psalter can be said to move from despair to hope.

“Wisdom” in Proverbs

Wisdom Literature is concerned with preserving culturally accumulated wisdom future generations.

  • Focusing on issues of daily life, especially how to relate with others

  • It is also primarily concerned with morality and ethics (right relationship)

  • Rooted in religiousness

Three books associated with the wisdom tradition in the Hebrew canon – Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job.

Proverbs is a form of wisdom literature (known from canonical and deuterocanonical works). Ecclesiastes and Job challenge/respond to the wisdom tradition from within (as wisdom literature).

Proverb: A short, memorable saying about some fundamental truth of life.

Proverbs can be contradictory because thats how reality works. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” and “out of sight and out of mind” are both true, but contradictory. Same is true with “Do not answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself. Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes.” They’re both true; theres no way to win. If you see a stupid argument on twitter, you cant win; either you dumb yourself down arguing with them or they think they’re right because no one has an argument against them.

Although these were the gained wisdom of many years of experience, they were not made to be eternal truths for all the time in all situations. Proverbs are only useful in context and when applied to the correct situation.

Proverb Structure:

  • Chapters 1-9: Wisdom is characterized as a women (as is folly)

  • The Book of Proverbs values:

    • Temperance/Self-control

    • Religious dedication/piety

    • Justice

      • The concept of universal justice is transactional (“karma”)

      • Job and Ecclesiastes challenge transactional justice

        • Job: Is this concept true?

        • Ecclesiastes: Nihilism, we cant know so whatever, enjoy life.

The Book of Job

The book of Job is concerned with the question of Theodicy— why is there evil in the world? 

The conclusion is basically that you cannot even begin to comprehend God and His intentions, humans are not qualified to question Him. There’s not a true answer, just the idea that we can use multiple “answers” depending on the situation to comfort one another, and God is the only one with the true “answer.” 

The Blind Men and The Elephant: Blind men come across an elephant and each describes what they feel, and they find very different “things” because one feels the trunk, one feels the tusk, one feels the body, one feels the tail, etc. All are “true,” but they cannot understand the full elephant— the full ‘‘answer.” 

Daniel and Apocalyptic Scripture

The Book of Daniel

  • The Book of Daniel is written in two languages (Aramaic and Hebrew)

  • The book is set at the height of the Babylonian Empire, but its believed it was written much later (167 BC)

  • Diaspora Literature is narratives about Israelites succeeding in the court of a major foreign power.

  • Apocalyptic means hidden, apocalyptic literature tells the story of what happens in Heaven.

  • Characteristics of apocalyptic literature

    • Fantastical Visions

    • Angelic Guide/Interpreter

    • Elaborate cosmology

    • Dense symbolism 

  • Daniel was likely written with context of the reign of Antioches IV Epiphanes.