Introduction to the Twelve

Congratulations! You've found the first entry in our new Online Bible Study!

For our first topic, we're going to be reading our way through the twelve minor prophets, those little books that come all in a row at the end of the Old Testament. Most of us haven't spent a great deal of time meditating on the words of Haggai or Habakkuk. These little books can sometimes be strange and foreign-seeming. But they are valuable for our encounter with God and His Word and vision for our world. Hopefully, this will be a fun journey!

For those who haven't done Bible study with me before, you should know that I move very, very, very slowly. Both of my in-person Bible studies began the Book of Acts in the fall of 2014. One has just finished, and the other still has almost ten chapters to go. I suspect things will go a little faster online, since it won't be so easy to get off topic! But we will be reading deeply, and that takes a while. (This is really just a warning for those of you who are more impatient in nature!)

I also like to have a book on hand as a guide and help to sit alongside the Bible. As Lutheran Christians, we believe that the interpretation of scripture takes place not for individuals alone, but within the context of the whole community of faith. For example, I never settle on the meaning and interpretation of scripture in the preparation of my sermons without consulting what several other people (usually scholars and theologians, but sometimes figures from the history of the church or devotional writers as well) have to say about it. It's important to check yourself, and make sure you're not inventing new things in the reading of scripture, imposing your own theology on the Bible (called eisegesis) rather than drawing true theology FROM the Bible (called exegesis).

The primary work I'll be using to give our journey through the twelve minor prophets that needed checkpoint is a book in the commentary series "Conozca su Biblia" published by Augsburg Fortress. This series is a set of short Spanish-language commentaries by Latino/a, Latin American, and South American authors. To be honest, the only reason I chose it was that it was convenient--already sitting there on my shelf, and short enough that I can scan its contents pretty quickly! The volume is called "Los doce profetas menores" (The twelve minor prophets) and is by Dr. Alejandro F. Botta, currently Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible at Perkins School of Theology. If I quote from this book, as I'm going to do today, I'll be using my own translation to English. I'll also be supplementing, I'm sure, from a variety of other sources, such as the Heremenia commentary series on individual prophets, or the more general works on the prophets by Gerhard von Rad, Klaus Koch, or Abraham Joshua Heshel. (You might notice that this list is missing a woman's name. I'll be looking for a female scholar to complement these others as well, but I haven't had the chance to go looking yet.)

Now that housekeeping is out of the way, I want to get started by talking a little bit about prophecy in general. These thoughts apply not just to the twelve minor prophets, but to prophecy throughout the Old and New Testaments and beyond.

We tend to get our idea of what prophecy is all about from the Greeks. The most famous of these is probably Tiresias, the blind prophet that appears in the Oedipus cycle by Sophocles. Tiresias announces to Oedipus' parents that he will grow up to kill his father and marry his mother. Of course, the actions they take to stop this from happening have no effect, and indeed, Oedipus kills Laius on the road, and then marries Jocasta when arrives in Thebes, not knowing until later what he has done. This prophet can see the future, and the actions he predicts will come to pass, no matter what.

Related to this is the "craft" of divination, the various means by which a person could consult an oracle or seer to try to predict the future. The Oracle at Delphi was the most famous of these sorts of prophets. She sat above a a naturally-occurring steam grate in the earth, breathing the (probably mildly-hallucinogenic) fumes and using this state of mind to make predictions. Most were probably pretty vague. This sort of divination practice came in many forms in the ancient world. One of the most popular in the lands around Israel was the reading of the internal organs of a sacrificed animal--especially the liver. Long lists of different shapes and signs would be consulted. Perhaps an enlarged left lobe to the liver would mean that crops would be fruitful this year. What we can most learn from this sort of practice is that people are weird.

Weird as it may be, though, the idea of prophecy has come down to us from these sources, and we generally try to apply that understanding of prophecy to our Bible. The prophets, so our reasoning goes, were people in ancient Israel who could predict the future. That's what we expect to find in them. And that is not, in fact, what the prophets wrote to do.

Here's what Alejandro Botta has to say: "The Hebrew Bible presents a vision of the prophetic work that is very distinct from the one that the modern reader usually attributes to it. Contrary to that what is often assumed, the prediction of the future does not play a significant part in the work of the prophet. Instead, it is the present, the here and now and their immediate consequences for the people that concerns him most. The prophet is a human being called by God to a specific mission: To proclaim the divine vision for the world and society, and to call to conversion to that vision. The prophet has a very peculiar vision of society. That which for us are marginal issues are for the prophet essential questions. In our society, we are only barely concerned with the many orphans, widows, or aliens (both legal and illegal) who are unable to find a way to sustain themselves. But for the prophet, this situation is a disaster of cosmic proportions that will cause the ruin of the entire nation and bring divine punishment on those responsible." (1)

This is a pretty different understanding of the prophet than we usually use as we approach the Biblical text, but it's far more accurate a description of the real work of Israel's prophets than our typical conception of prophecy. The most useful part of this description, I think, is Botta's idea of a "divine vision." Similarly, another scholar (Koch, I think) described prophets as people who see the world the way God does. They use different lenses to perceive what's going on around them than most of us do. Instead of seeing what is, they see what could be, the potential that creation had in it when God first created everything and called it good.

As we begin reading the prophets, try to keep this idea in mind. With God's help, perhaps we too will be able to glimpse the world as God does, to develop lenses through which we can see God's hopes and dreams for His creation. And, perhaps, that will lead us to begin living our lives differently, to live more fully in that vision than in the view our society tends to have for the world.

Some questions for thought:

1) What about this idea of prophecy surprises you? How does it change your expectations as you think about reading the prophets' words?

2) What might we be missing about the world by not seeing it through God's eyes?

3) How might we cultivate a new set of lenses for ourselves, one that will bring what "for us are marginal issues" into focus as "essential questions?"

Comments:

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Mark says:

1) When I first learned it, it came as a welcome surprise.  I don't know how to predict the future, but I do understand how someone can understand scripture and proclaim it, even to unwelcome ears.  So I'd say it makes the prophets more human than divine, and it's easier to relate to that.

2) Someone who sees the world through God's eyes can spot those who don't, but not the other way around.

I'll turn the question around and ask "How do we know when we're seeing the world through God's eyes?"

3) It's hard to do it alone.  I'll wager all the great theologians and prophets of history initially trained and studied in a community that supported and guided their understanding.  Group bible study is a good start!

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Carl says:

1) It seems we think of most prophecies as passive bestowals of knowledge from God to a prophet.  A private encounter, a sign, or a dream were among the vehicles of enlightenment.  A prophet was aware of God's promises, commandments, and will; couple this with a mirroring of history, and not surprisingly, a prophecy could be generated.

This changes my expectations in that prophets become wise men, not just messengers or scribes.

2) Many things, some of which may be or are beyond comprehension, but some ideas about God's might emerge.  ...what do I know?  Perhaps discussion will help.

3) Perhaps by focusing on people, their needs, and causes for their attitudes and actions, we may begin to approach seeing things through God's loving eyes.  I think we are going to find this perspective is a summation of microcosms, not a broad brush observation.

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Pastor Aaron says:

1) I really like the idea of thinking of the prophets as wise men instead of messengers; as more human, rather than somehow mystically in touch with The Divine.  We should be careful not to push *too* far in that, though.  There are phrases that come over and over again throughout the prophetic literature.  In Hebrew it's na'um YHWH, or ko 'amar YHWH.  In English, "This is a saying of YHWH," or "This is what YHWH says."  The prophet presumes to speak for God, perhaps even in God's own words.  That's a step back away from "wise men" and toward "messengers."

Which is to say, I prefer the understanding I gave of people like Botta and Koch.  But if they're *just* seeing things the way God does, why do they think they can speak God's own words?  We're going to have to look for the nuance in this idea as we read.

2) From both of your thoughts, I wonder if this question doesn't have a clear answer (yet).  I like you turning it on it's head, Mark, to wonder how we know.  There are lots of people who claim to see things through God's eyes, but seem to others to be pretty distant from the God we know.  How can we be sure we've got it right?

3) The idea of reading and studying and being formed in a community is awfully important.  I remember trying to gather a group for Evening Prayer at seminary.  There was a little prayer chapel on the second floor, which was where we initially tried to have our services.  It was small enough for the crowd that gathered, though I always felt it a bit stark.  But it was situated as a balcony overlooking the main chapel.  Often there would be other people using the main chapel space, perhaps for organ practice or the like.  It felt disruptive.  So we started looking for another space.  But a passing complaint to a faculty member elicited a surprise response:  The prayer chapel was intentionally designed to be open-air to the rest of the chapel, as a reminder that our prayer, even when done privately, really took place in community.  (Honestly, I didn't find this a particularly helpful response, practically speaking.  But the theology was good and the point was well-made.)

I like, too, the idea of seeing through God's eyes in a "summation of microcosms."  That sense of God's intimate involvement with each one of us, personally, valuing us highly on our own, seeing us for who we are, rather than just a big mass of humanity--that's pretty central to my own theology.  It makes a lot of sense that it's going to be the needs of people, their attitudes and actions, that reveal to us God's will and God's vision, rather than some sweeping glance at our politics or social systems.  It will be interesting to see how the prophets do this.  They often speak TO nations, and TO kings and governments.  But they also often speak ABOUT people.  (And we'll see whether I'm right about that when we start to dig in!)