Prophets or Projectors? Challenges to Credibility in Hebrew Prophecy

P rophets or P rojectors? C hallenges tozyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfe C redibility in H ebrew P rophecy T H O M A S J E M IE L I T Y This essay on the need for a rhetoric of credibility in the Hebrew prophets and the similarity of that rhetoric to what appears in satire marks a second stage in an ongoing study of satire in biblical prophecy. An audience of literary scholars already familiar with the patterns, con­ texts, strategies, and the like of satire will be agreeably surprised, I hope, at the extent to which Hebrew prophecy reveals satiric features, and may be prompted, consequently, to explore biblical prophecy for the light it throws on the nature, characteristics, and even origin of satire. Ulti­ mately, but not here, I propose to consider why Hebrew prophecy is so often satiric, why prophecy so often intersects with and becomes indistin­ guishable from satire. My study was initially prompted by Northrop Frye’s description of Blake’s The M arriage o f H eaven and H ell as “the epilogue to the golden age of English satire, ... a vigorous Beethovenish coda ... big with portents of the movements to follow.”1 Those move­ ments, of course, took the form of the prophecies that Blake turned to after earlier satiric ventures like the M arriage and the Songs o f Innocence and o f E xperience. This very development in Blake’s career and Frye’s analysis of it bring out repeatedly the intricate connections between prophecy and satire, and especially the prophecy of the Hebrew Scrip­ tures, whose inspiration and character Blake so vigorously and imagina­ tively assimilates. If, as prophet and satirist, Blake is inspired with a 445 4 4 6 / J E M I E L I T Y zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA vision of a more desirable future as well as a searing insight into the stifling, myopic present, a vision, in other words, of the stark contrast between the ideal and the real, the possible and the actual, then he embodies the vision and the motivation characteristic of both prophecy and satire. The insight that judges and thereby proclaims a more desir­ able alternative is precisely the core of either proclamation and provides in that very judgment the common denominator that shows in the Hebrew prophets the rhetorical strategies and contexts common to sat­ ire.2 The completed first stage of this research discusses the wide variety of satire in Hebrew prophecy: from witty invective on the one hand to fantasies of gargantuan sexual excess on the other, quasi-allegorically figuring, as in Ezekiel, the religious apostasy of Israel and Judah.3 Fur­ ther research will show in detail how these same prophetic texts present the Hebrew prophets speaking of themselves and their mission in roles strikingly similar to roles assumed by the satirists. The prophet appears as a good man, appealing to traditional but forgotten values and urging a return to a more decent way of living; or, quite frequently, as the heroic man, challenging the grossest moral excess sometimes masquerading as religion itself; or, on rare occasions, as the naive man, puzzled by his involvement in controversy and pleading the most innocent of motives.4 The scholarship of satire can, indeed, find even more familiar elements in this prophetic self-presentation: the reluctance to be a prophet; the fear of reprisal; the awareness that one’s striking high prompts, as in Hosea, the caution of not naming names; the insistence on the ultimately healthful nature of the message, however much pain it causes along the way; the prophetic career itself portrayed as a turning from a more desired, albeit unspecified, alternative —the prophetic career, in other words, as something unexpected, unanticipated. This preliminary awareness, however, of the frequent likenesses between prophetic and satiric personae prompts an inquiry into why such a strategy of favorable self-presentation even appears in a text—the Hebrew Scriptures — where presumably no real difficulty can impede identifying a true prophet. A spokesman of Yahweh, after all, carries impeccable credentials. Why should a rhetoric of credibility even appear in Hebrew prophecy? Why do the Hebrew prophets have to sell them­ selves? Two initial clarifications: this commentary...