The Prophetic Literature: Interpreting Biblical Texts Series

by Marvin A. Sweeney

Biblical Studies

Biblical texts create worlds of meaning, and invite readers to enter them. When readers enter such textual worlds, which are often strange and complex, they are confronted with theological claims. With this in mind, the purpose of the Interpreting Biblical Texts series is to help serious readers in their experience of reading and interpreting by providing guides for their journeys into textual worlds. The controlling perspective is expressed in the operative word of the title--interpreting. The primary focus of the series is not so much on the world behind the texts or out of which the texts have arisen as on the worlds created by the texts in their engagement with readers.


Although these books of the prophets are based upon the careers and experiences of some of the most talented and provocative individuals of their times, the books must be read first as literature. Each book displays its own unique organization, literary characteristics, and theological outlook in presenting the prophets. In the case of Jeremiah, interpreters must even consider two distinctive forms of the book in the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint. By guiding the reader through the literary structure and language of each of the prophetic books as well as the social roles of the individual prophets, this volume opens the reader to greater understanding and appreciation of the prophets of Israel and Judah.
"Fact packed and crystal clear, Marvin Sweeney’s Interpreting Biblical The Prophetic Literature invites readers to tour the landscape of ancient Israel’s Latter Prophets corpus. Sweeney serves as a first-rate guide, equipping readers with basic knowledge to grasp, and grapple with, the literary legacies of the canonical prophets. True to the series title, he interprets texts with an eye to major, dynamic themes in Jewish and Christian traditions. The volume proves a reliable guidebook for readers wishing not only to survey, but also to engage in dialogue with, ancient Israel’s canonical prophets."
Katheryn Pfisterer Darr, Professor of Hebrew Bible, Boston University
"The aim of the series Interpreting Biblical Texts is pedagogical. This well-written, easy to follow, and coherent book serves its purpose well. More importantly, it certainly invites and guides its readers in the enterprise of interacting with the prophetic books in a way that is informed by recent, academic scholarship on this literature."
Ehud Ben Zvi, History and Classics & Interdisciplinary Program of Religious Studies, University of Alberta

"This is a new and interesting approach to the prophetic literature, which will be illuminating for theological reflection in our own post-Holocaust era."

John J. Collins, Holmes Professor of Old Testament, Yale



Marvin A. Sweeney is Professor of Hebrew Bible, Claremont School of Theology, and Professor of Religion at Claremont Graduate University.

Genres: Theology, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2005

Reviews

[Jared]

Sweeney's entry in Abingdon's IBT series presents a good summation of current critical scholarship on the prophetic books with a nice sensitivity to the impact of literary structure and canonical placement on the overall theological message of each prophetic book. Though Sweeney is very careful not to "tip his hand" on his opinions of the various compositional theories (using phrases like "Many scholars think..." or "Most scholars agree..."), it is clear that he has no particular issues with the various current reconstructions. While such an approach is perfectly fine, in and of itself, it creates this rather odd contradiction of side-by-side "synchronic" and "diachronic" readings that never really reconcile with each other. To a conservative eye like mine, it looks very much like, "Here's what the prophetic book ACTUALLY says...and here's what critical scholars speculate it SHOULD HAVE said." For example, Sweeney notes that many scholars think Zechariah's vision of Joshua's enthronement was ORIGINALLY a vision of Zerubbabel's enthronement...though there is no real textual evidence for such an assumption. Sweeney does not succeed very well in making the historical reconstructions and various compositional theories sound convincing. I found myself wondering at points how much Sweeney himself believed in the theories he was explaining or if he was simply obliged to include them; there was a decided lack of "enthusiasm" in the claims about the compositional processes that actually works, I think, AGAINST the book.

Sweeney, however, is one of the few critical scholars who maintains a good theological sense of the text as a whole, able to trace in broad strokes (as a survey requires) the overarching messages and themes, their interconnections and echoes, as well as their distinctives and even disagreements with each other. I think Sweeney's scholarly gifts shine particularly bright in his presentation of the Minor Prophets as a single "Book of the Twelve," especially when he demonstrates how the different ordering of the books give the LXX and MT versions of the Twelve very distinctive theological emphases. (Sweeney has carried this work forward in MUCH greater detail in his 2 volume commentary on the Minor Prophets in the Berit Olam series.)

My rating of the book has more to do with my rather low opinion of most compositional theories as exercises in futile speculation; they are interesting, of course, but in the end, cannot be proven or debunked...there simply is insufficient evidence to make those kind of judgments. Sweeney is a very capable writer, whose diction is clear and easy-to-read. I do not think this will be my first recommendation to a beginning scholar looking to acquaint themselves with the key interpretive issues and discussions in OT prophetic literature but it IS a survey worthy of at least one read, if for no other reason than to see clearly the contrast between diachronic and synchronic approaches to these texts.

[Erik Champenois]

A good summary of the (late) prophetic books that both summarizes their content, provides brief background information (including, though briefly, scholarly source criticism assessments), and describes interconnections between the prophets (such as the uses of Isaiah by some of the twelve prophets).