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121 Chapter 7 Prophetic Identity and Conflict in the Historic Ministry of Jesus At the time of Jesus, the prophetic form of Jewish identity was more than half a millennium old. Elijah, Isaiah, and other prophets prophesied in Israel long before the exile in Babylon: Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Second Isaiah prophesied during the exilic period, and Haggai, Zechariah, and others did so later. Moreover, the works of these prophets occupied a large part of scripture. That the word of God himself came to these prophets was believed, and the words of the prophets were still relevant. Hence, Jesus preached on Isaiah 56 and Jeremiah 7 when he cleansed the temple.1 The most remarkable feature of prophetic Jewish identity is that it did not defend the outward features of normal Jewish identity. On the contrary, it was liable to attack central Jewish observances in the name of God. The two features most subjected to attack in the Bible were the state of Israel and the temple cultus. For example, Micaiah son of Imlah correctly prophesied the defeat of Israel, contrary to the lying spirit which informed Zedekiah and others (1 Kgs 22). Isaiah has God object to the people’s sacrifices, tell them to stop trampling his courts, and reject their new moons, Sabbaths, and appointed festivals. Then he calls on them to cease to do evil, to do good, to seek justice (+p#$m), and the like (Isa 1:11-17). Jeremiah predicted the destruction of the temple, if people did not repent (Jer 7). Hosea has God threaten the end of Israel’s Sabbaths and major festivals (Hos 2:13). Jeremiah called upon people to circumcise themselves to the LORD (Jer 4:4) and declared that the house of Israel was uncircumcised in heart (Jer 9:26). It follows that the moral behavior of Jews was regarded as more important than physical circumcision. This was liable to cause great trouble for truthful prophets in Israel. Maurice Casey For example, Micaiah was imprisoned on reduced rations (1 Kgs 22:26-27). Uriah, son of Shemaiah, was put to death, which Jeremiah narrowly escaped, both for prophesying the conditional destruction of Jerusalem and the temple (Jer 26). By the time of Jesus, there were also stories of the deaths of other prophets. For example, the story was told of Isaiah being martyred by being sawn in half (Mart. Isa. 5). Jesus knew such traditions so well that he predicted his own death in a general statement that it would not do for a prophet to perish outside Jerusalem (Luke 13:33).2 In Israel, therefore, the prophetic form of identity was potentially damaging for many Jews, and lethal for prophets. In the Diaspora, it was potentially lethal for the Jewish community as a whole because of its central ability to attack Jewish observances in the name of God. In the Diaspora, Jewish observances protected Jewish identity. If a prophet had arisen in Alexandria and threatened, like Hosea, to end Israel’s Sabbaths and major festivals, he would have reinforced existing threats from Gentiles and assimilating Jews to destroy the Jewish community. Moreover, there were no limitations to what a Diaspora prophet might have attacked, if he felt that observance of it was not centerd on God. Yet Diaspora observance was essential for the maintenance of Jewish identity . This reality is surely the reason why not a single prophet ever arose in the Diaspora. It was too dangerous a place for the prophetic spirit to attack aspects of normal Judaism. The most recent prophet before Jesus was John the Baptist. The centre of John’s prophetic ministry was baptism, which symbolised repentance . Mark’s account briefly delineates a successful popular ministry (Mark 1:4-6). Mark also says that “everyone,” that is, people in general as opposed to only the chief priests, scribes, and elders, believed that John was truly a prophet (Mark 11:32). Jesus believed that John fulfilled the prophecy that Elijah would come before the day of the Lord (Mal 3:23-24, see Mark 9:11-13; Matt 11:7-10//Luke 7:24–7).3 Major points of John’s ministry are confirmed by Josephus (Ant. 18.116–19), who effectively gives the popular success of John’s prophetic ministry as the reason why Herod Antipas put him to death. This shows serious conflict between Jewish prophetic identity and the official Jewish leadership in Jerusalem followed by conflict with a Jewish tetrarch severe enough to lead...

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