Major Prophets
- Major Prophets
There is a close affinity between the traditional Igbo-African culture and its treatment of women and the traditional Jewish culture as attested in the OT and the status of women in that culture. My article examines the implications of the lives, ministries, actions, and inactions of women prophets in the OT for Christian women living in contemporary southeastern Nigeria, the homeland of the Igbo people. Despite the obvious differences in time and place between the OT women prophets and today's Igbo Christian women, I argue, among other things, that the life and ministry of the former challenge present-day Igbo Christian women to be much more courageous and self-confident, to raise their moral standards, to speak out all the more, to participate more actively in the political leadership of their region and the nation as a whole, and to be even more committed to the Word of God which summons them to be women of fewer words, but conversely of mighty deeds of prophetic witness in whatever situation they may find themselves. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.]
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In J. Wellhausen's reconstruction of the evolution of ancient Israel's religion, the prophets of the 8th/7th cents. b.c. played a key historical role: under the outer influence of the Assyrian threat and their personal religious experience and convictions, these figures [End Page 524] prepared the way for the "Judaism" of the postexilic era as a religion of (written) law on the one hand and of ethical individualism on the other. With reference to more recent discussions of the prophets and their books, B. questions whether the 8th/7th cent. prophets, whom a number of contemporary scholars, including B. himself, see more as bearers of a message of assurance for their hearers rather of all-encompassing doom as envisaged by Wellhausen, did, historically speaking, play the role assigned them by Wellhausen. On the other hand, B. also acknowledges that in the literary presentation of these figures in their extant books they do indeed function in the manner Wellhausen ascribes to them as a matter of historical fact.—C.T.B.
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This article studies the use of vocabulary related to healing in the prophetic literature of the HB. In it, d. S. makes the case that words associated with healing are normally used with a metaphorical sense in this corpus, where it functions as a theological concept involving certain specific elements which are creatively reworked in each prophetic text using healing vocabulary. In the first part of my study, I offer an overview of the different words for healing throughout the HB. Thereafter, I focus on the specific use of this vocabulary as a metaphor in prophetic texts, likewise taking into account its usage elsewhere in the corpus of the HB. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.]
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N. introduces his discussion of his title topic with the following statement concerning it (p. 213): "Divination, magic, and prophecy are closely related concepts that nevertheless should not be confused with each other. The purpose of this short essay is to bring some clarity to the use of these three concepts as analytical tools by way of mapping their differences and interfaces. I will first...
