Abstract
With this volume, James D. Nogalski has submitted a comprehensive and critical introduction to the Hebrew Prophets. Demonstrating that the prophetic scrolls functioned ‘as a kind of curriculum of instruction regarding what went wrong for Israel, Judah, and Jerusalem’ (p. xvi), he unravels the historic and theological processes that shaped the books. He succeeds in demonstrating both how the prophetic messages functioned in their own time, and how they hold meaning for audiences today.
The introduction is structured into six chapters, following the canonical order of the prophetic books. The first three chapters focus on the three major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel (chs 1–3), while the Book of the Twelve is presented in the three following sections. Drawing on his prolific research on this scroll, Nogalski distinguishes between ‘The Beginnings of the Twelve’ (ch. 4), ‘The End of the Twelve’ (ch. 5) and ‘The Remainder of the Twelve’ (ch. 6). He sets three goals for the introduction to achieve, which govern the structure: First, the focus on the final form of the scrolls leads to a sub-chapter each that introduces structure and concerns of the books. Second, the insight that the books are not the product of a single author is addressed in a part that assesses evidence for editorial work and traces the literary development of each book. Finally, the author pays specific attention to reading the books as scrolls, meaning that he looks for editorial works as well as innerbiblical connections between the books. The historical-critical approach results in a specific focus on ‘the ways in which assumptions about and interpretations of historical events have been woven into these prophetic collections’ (p. xviii).
While Nogalski makes it clear that the depiction is informed by his own opinion, the single chapters draw also upon current scholarship, which allows the reader to critically assess the portrayal of the prophetic literature. Furthermore, each chapter is supplemented with bibliographical notes and discussion questions to support the students’ learning. This volume is a great companion to the author’s ‘Interpreting Prophetic Literature’ (2002) and equally promises to become a standard reference for teaching the Hebrew Prophets.