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The Phenomenon of Israelite Prophecy in Contemporary Scholarship

Brad E. Kelle
Currents in Biblical Research 2014 12: 275
DOI: 10.1177/1476993X13480677
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CBI12310.1177/1476993X13480677Currents in Biblical ResearchKelle: The Phenomenon of Israelite Prophecy in Contemporary Scholarship
Article
The Phenomenon of Israelite

Prophecy in Contemporary
Scholarship
Currents in Biblical Research

2014, Vol. 12(3) 275320
The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/1476993X13480677
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Brad E. Kelle
Point Loma Nazarene University, USA
Abstract
In the mid-twentieth century, the classic historical-critical approach to the Hebrew Bibles
prophetic books gave way to the study of Israelite prophecy as part of a social phenomenon
known throughout the ancient Near East. Since the 1980s, research on the phenomenon
of Israelite prophecy has been marked by two main paradigms. The first extends the
basic phenomenological approach and identifies Israelite prophecy as a socio-historical
phenomenon shared across various ancient cultures. Prophecy was a form of intermediation
between the divine and human, and a sub-type of the larger religious practice of (nontechnical) divination. The second paradigm questions the usefulness of the biblical texts
for reconstructing the ancient realities of prophecy and suggests that Israelite prophecy
was a literary phenomenon that emerged among scribes in postexilic Yehud. Within these
paradigms, present research offers new insights on lines of inquiry, such as the relationship
between prophecy and psychology, prophets in the Second Temple period, and female
prophets and prophecy. Overall, scholarship reflects a sharpening distinction between
ancient Hebrew prophecy as a socio-historical phenomenon and biblical prophecy as a
literary/scribal phenomenon, and generally approaches Israelite prophecy not as a single
phenomenon but as a set of related phenomena.
Keywords
Analogies for prophetic figures, anthropology, Book of the Twelve, charismatics, divination,
ecstasy, intermediaries, lay prophets, literati, Mari, models for prophetic figures, NeoAssyrian Prophecy, orator, postexilic prophecy, prophecy, prophetic book, psychology,
scribes, sociology, women prophets
Corresponding author:
Brad E. Kelle, Professor of Old Testament, Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, CA 92106, USA.
Email: BradKelle@pointloma.edu
276
Currents in Biblical Research 12(3)
1. Introduction
The focus of this article is scholarship since the 1980s which treats the phenomenon of ancient Israelite prophecy, with an eye to the background of the contemporary approaches. This type of study constitutes one aspect of scholarship on
the Hebrew Bible (HB) prophetic literature, a field marked by an enormous
amount of research in the modern era. A phenomenological approach to Israelite
prophecy has stood at the center of prophetic scholarship at least since the mid1970s, with profound developments in the 1980s and 1990s (for recent surveys
of the topic, see Deist 1989; Huffmon 1992; Schmitt 1992; Blenkinsopp 1995:
115-65; Gordon 1995; Gitay (ed.) 1997; Baker 1999; Hayes 1999; Nissinen
2004; Wilson 2004; Kelle 2006; Rooke 2006; De Jong 2007; Nissinen 2009;
Petersen 2009a; Nissinen 2010; Stkl 2012). For an annotated bibliography of
recent prophetic scholarship, see Sandy and OHare 2007.
At the time of its emergence in earnest, the phenomenological approach represented a major paradigm shift in the scholarly study of Israelite prophecy (see
Deist 1989; Nissinen 2009). The classic historical-critical approach had dominated prophetic study throughout most of the twentieth century. As scholarship
developed, however, new consideration of ancient Near Eastern texts and sociological and anthropological data led to the emergence of new perspectives. By
the late 1970s and early 1980s, the quest to study Israelite prophecy as an ancient
phenomenon became established at the center of the field. Scholars proposed
multiple models and analogies for prophets and prophecy. Rather than biographical and redactional interests or particular theological content, scholars focused
on prophecy as an observable occurrence (phenomenon) throughout the ancient
world. They attempted to identify what prophets in general were, the social
dynamics of how they functioned in their contexts, how they related to other elements in society and culture, what backgrounds and traditions shaped their identity and practice, and, perhaps most especially, what were the recognizable
markers and definitional boundaries of so-called prophetic activity and identity
in a wide range of societies and cultures. Blenkinsopp (1995: 115-16) observes
that scholars sought to identify a kind of Weberian ideal typea construct
based on abstraction and conceptualization that has the purpose of guiding
inquiry back into the mass of available data. Hence, alongside the issues mentioned above, topics about the essence of prophecy that formed the substance of
research by the 1970s included (see Blenkinsopp 1996: 1; Gitay 1997: 1):
the historical roots of prophecy,

differing types of prophecy and their societal connections,
the nature and production of prophetic literature, and
the nature of its relationship to the prophetic experience.
Kelle: The Phenomenon of Israelite Prophecy in Contemporary Scholarship
277
As a result of developments since the emergence of the phenomenological

approach, current research on the phenomenon of ancient Israelite prophecy is
marked by two major paradigms that stand alongside of and in tension with one
another. The first remains socio-historical in nature and continues to approach
Israelite prophecy as part of a wider, ancient social phenomenon. The second
paradigm, discussed below, is literary in nature, treating prophecies as literary
and ideological compositions.
The socio-historical paradigm extends the perspectives of the phenomenological approach that emerged in earnest in the 1970s and 1980s. Comparative,
historical, sociological, and cross-cultural analysis leads scholars to focus on
defining behaviors and social dynamics, with the conviction that prophetic-type
figures from different cultures shared an essential commonality in identity, function, and practice as part of a larger phenomenon of prophecy in the ancient Near
East. Since the 1980s, the primary formulation of this paradigm has identified
Israelite prophecy as part of the specific phenomenon of intermediation, usually
relying on oracular pronouncements and constituting a sub-type of divination, a
general practice known in various forms throughout the ancient world (e.g.,
Huffmon 1992; Blenkinsopp 1996; Barstad 2000; Nissinen 2004; de Jong 2007;
Stkl 2012). Nearly all of the recent introductory textbooks on the HB prophets
reflect this definition of prophecy (see Petersen 2002; Hutton 2004; Sweeney
2005; Cook 2006; Leclerc 2007; Redditt 2008; Lundbom 2010).
One of the most vexing issues within this first paradigm is the relationship
between the HB prophetic texts and the socio-historical realities of prophecy.
This issue includes the recognition of the literary character of the prophetic
books and the question of whether the HB texts provide accurate access to a real
phenomenon of prophecy in ancient Israel. These concerns have given rise to a
second paradigm in current study of the phenomenon of Israelite prophecy, especially since the 1990s. This paradigm is literary in nature. Scholars working
within this paradigm challenge the long-standing assumption that the HB prophetic literature should be understood in terms of ancient prophetic activity (e.g.,
Auld 1983; Carroll 1983; Davies 1998; Ben Zvi 2003). They see the prophetic
books as literary and ideological compositions produced by scribal literati in the
postmonarchic period whose depictions of prophets and prophecy are late creations, and are part of a particular intellectual discourse. Israelite prophecy as we
have access to it is a literary phenomenon that may or may not bear any relationship to the realities of prophecy throughout the ancient Near East.
These two current paradigms and the creative tension between them generate
diverse understandings of prophetic identity and activity that cannot be subsumed under a single model. Current research features a sharpening distinction
between ancient Hebrew prophecy and biblical/literary prophecy. Additionally,
research since the 1980s has included the reconsideration of some traditional
278
questions surrounding Israelite prophecy, as well as the pursuit of previously

unexplored lines of inquiry. Overall, present scholarship approaches Israelite
prophecy not as a single phenomenon, but as a set of related phenomena, with
only limited agreement about what Israelite prophecy was, or how it related to
other ancient Near Eastern prophetic activity.
2. Backgrounds to Contemporary Study

a.The Classic Historical-Critical Approach
Developments in prophetic study from the late 1800s to the early 1980s provide
the background for todays two major paradigms in scholarship on the phenomenon of ancient Israelite prophecy, and the new avenues of inquiry emerging from
them. The beginning of Enlightenment critical study of prophecy, perhaps conveniently associated with the works of Duhm (1875) and Wellhausen (1883), introduced a new set of categories that shaped approaches to ancient Israelite prophecy
until the latter part of the twentieth century (see Barton 1986; Gray 1993; Hutton
2004: 5-9). These perspectives reconceived the prophets as religious individualists who concentrated on ethics in opposition to the religious institutions of their
dayforthtellers (rather than foretellers) and creative innovators of a new religious genius featuring ethical monotheism (Blenkinsopp 1995: 118).
From these categories, the classic historical-critical paradigm dominated prophetic research over the first half of the 1900s (see Deist 1989; Nissinen 2009).
Prophetic study centered on aspects such as genres and speech forms, psychological aspects of prophetic experiences, prophets relationship to the cult and
other institutions in ancient Israel, tradition history evidenced within the prophetic writings, and the composition and redaction of the prophetic books (see
Hayes 1999). Most especially, the dominance of form, tradition, and redaction
criticism, along with a prevailing romanticism, contributed to a historical-critical
paradigm dedicated to the reconstruction of the historical biographies and circumstances of the HB prophets and the recovery of the ipsissima verba (actual,
spoken words) of the individual prophets. Even as new comparative data from
ancient Near Eastern texts and sociological investigations became increasingly
availabledata that would eventually contribute to the development of the new
phenomenological approachhistorical-critical perspectives attempted to establish the uniqueness of the Israelite prophet as an office that was separated from
similar figures in other cultures and social institutions within Israel (Deist 1989:
6-7; for surveys of the history of prophetic interpretation through the 1980s, see
Limburg 1978; McKane 1979; Neumann 1979; Wilson 1980).
b. Hebrew Bible Terms and Depictions

Another background element to todays approaches involves the issue of sources.
Almost from the outset of modern prophetic research, scholars recognized the
279
problem of sources for defining the character, identity, and practices of ancient
Israelite prophets. Then, as now, no direct evidence existed for identifying the
nature of prophets and prophetic activity in ancient Israel and Judah. With the
exception of one or possibly two references to a Judean prophet on ostraca from
Lachish (ca. early sixth century bce; discovered in the 1930s; see below), the HB
provided the most direct source. The assumption throughout modern study has
been that a socio-historical reality of ancient prophecy stands behind the biblical
references. Even so, scholars recognized that the HB depictions of prophecy are
variegated and inconsistent, and the texts in which they appear offer later, second-hand retrospectives on and, at times, redefinitions of the ancient realities of
prophecy. Given the nature of the sources, scholarship throughout much of the
twentieth century relied predominantly on the biblical books associated with the
so-called classical prophets of the Assyrian through Persian periods, even as
the relationship between these figures and the preceding pre-classical prophets
mentioned in the Deuteronomistic History remained vexed (see below).
A first aspect of the biblical sources that provided one of the common beginning points in the modern study of the phenomenon of Israelite prophecy was the
consideration of the specific Hebrew terms used to denote prophets and prophecy within the HB (for recent discussions, see Blenkinsopp 1995: 123-29;
Nissinen 2004; Stkl 2012: 171-200). Especially since the discovery and decipherment of ancient Near Eastern prophetic texts from Mari and Assyria, scholars have noted that the persons designated as prophets in contemporary
scholarly parlance bore a large number of differing titles in both the HB and
other ancient contexts. For the Israelite prophets, scholars have traditionally
focused on the Hebrew term navi, the HBs most general and inclusive term for
prophet. Debate continues over the words etymology, perhaps meaning someone who is called or someone who calls upon the gods (see Fleming 1993;
Petersen 2009a: 622-23; Stkl 2012: 157-202). The equivalent term appears only
in a limited fashion in ancient Near Eastern prophetic texts (most notably, as a
type of diviner at Mari; see Fleming 1993; Huffmon 1997: 14). By contrast, navi
appears as a label in a wide variety of texts across the HB, leading scholars to
conclude that there was a long history of development through which it became
the standard term used by later editors to designate originally distinct but related
persons and activities. On the basis of this observation, a significant trend in
modern scholarship has attempted to penetrate behind the artificial standardization represented by the HBs use of navi and identify the meaning of the various
Hebrew terms associated with prophets and their possible implications for understanding the dynamics and function of prophecy in Israel. Petersen (1981) drew
upon previous etymological and sociological investigations to offer the most
substantial example of this trend (see also Petersen 1997, 2002, 2009a). He
argued that the specific Hebrew terms for prophets constitute four role labels
(roeh, ish ha-elohim, hozeh, navi ), with each label reflecting a diverse type
of prophetic activity in society.

In his view, these labels represent prophetic
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figures who functioned in diverse ways, even in the same period (cf. Grabbe
1995: 82). Moreover, Petersen concluded that each of the distinct kinds of prophetic behaviors generated different types of literature (prose divinatory chronicles, narrative legends, vision reports, divine oracles, prophetic sayings), each of
which can be classified as prophetic literature (see Petersen 1997: 24-29).
In recent scholarship, this etymological line of inquiry has gained fresh
momentum, but led to some new perspectives that depart from the older historical and sociological conclusions concerning prophetic roles and behaviors. The
ongoing comparative study of ancient Near Eastern prophetic texts continues to
generate new examinations of the Hebrew terms in relationship to those used in
texts from Mari, Assyria, and elsewhere (e.g., Nissinen 2004, 2010; de Jong
2007: 171-90, 287-356; Stkl 2012: 157-202). Yet, one now finds an increasing
emphasis on the literary and secondary nature of the HB descriptions as the central problematizing factor for studying the phenomenon of ancient Israelite
prophecy (e.g., de Moor 2001; Auld 2003; Ben Zvi 2000, 2009b; Edelman 2009).
In this view, the differing Hebrew terms do not permit clear definitions and distinctions of prophetic roles and behaviors. More importantly, for some, the older
insights about the secondary redefinition and reapplication of terms such as navi
in the biblical texts lead to the conclusion that all such labels are late, artificial
standardizations done by scribes in the Persian period. Hence, the scribes may
have included a number of things under the label of prophet or prophecy that
were not part of the ancient phenomenon, and this possibility complicates any
effort to connect the biblical picture of prophets to a supposed historical phenomenon behind the text (e.g., Edelman 2009). At the very least, for a wide range
of current scholars, ongoing attention to the nature and development of the HB
terms has produced an increased recognition that the modern category label of
prophet overlaps with but is not identical to any one category of persons and
behavior from the ancient world (see Stkl 2012: 192-99).
A second aspect of the biblical sources that has provided part of the background for contemporary approaches broadens from terminology to the overall
depictions of prophets and prophecy within the HB. These biblical portrayals
provided a crucial and sometimes definitive starting point for twentieth-century
scholarships efforts to identify the phenomenon of ancient prophecy. In spite of
an abundance of biblical material related to the particular religious specialist of
the prophet (see Grabbe 1995), the starting point in modern scholarship has been
the recognition that the HB contains no general statement of the nature and function of prophecy, but only hints or fragmentary remarks (Hayes 1999: 310;
Lundbom 2010: 7; see also Wolff 1987; Petersen 2009b). As noted above, twentieth-century scholarship concentrated on the so-called writing or classical
prophets beginning with Amos and Hosea in the Assyrian period (see Wolff
1987). There has been a consistent recognition that the biblical portrayals of
these prophets are not homogenous in form, content, or theological perspective;
281
yet, modern interpreters have typically identified several characteristic elements

shared by the depictions (see Hayes 1999: 310; Kelle 2006: 57-63):
1) association with persuasive public speech in particular social and political
contexts, at times employing figurative language and unique vocabulary;
2) preaching of forewarning and repentance; and,
3) prediction of future events, with authenticity being judged by fulfillment.
Additionally, the descriptions of prophets and prophecy within the
Deuteronomistic History (especially Samuel and Kings) played a role in identifying the phenomenon of ancient Israelite prophecy in earlier decades of the
twentieth century. Aside from a few brief references in the Pentateuch (e.g., Gen.
20.7; Exod. 7.1; 15.20), Samuel and Kings provide the first extensive information about prophets (e.g., Samuel [1 Sam. 3.20], Gad [1 Sam. 22.5], Nathan [2
Sam. 7.2]). Scholars considered how those depictions related to the classical
prophets and how, if at all, these depictions should factor into understandings of
what prophecy was in ancient Israel (e.g., Albright 1969; Wilson 1978; Koch
1983; Wolff 1987). Blenkinsopps classic study on the history of prophecy (1996,
orig. 1983) articulated many of the earlier formulations. The biblical historiographical books presented pre-classical prophets as wonder-workers operating
within bands or groups often characterized by ecstatic behavior, or as royal counselors engaged with the king and warfare, providing advice to the monarch and
assisting in transitions of royal power (see Petersen 2009a: 628-29; Grabbe 2010:
127). Overall, scholars before the 1980s characteristically took an evolutionary
approach that identified the prophecy in the Deuteronomistic History as a different type (pre-classical) of prophecy, and drew a sharp distinction between the
nature of this prophecy and that described in the books of the classical prophets
(see Haran 1977; various essays in Petersen (ed.) 1987; Bergen 1999. For recent
discussion see Blenkinsopp 1995: 129-38 and Barstad 2009).
In recent years, the issue of the biblical depictions of the prophets has continued to factor into changing views of the phenomenon of ancient Israelite prophecy. Most notably, recent scholars consistently challenge the earlier evolutionary
perspectives and labels that identified a sharp distinction between pre-classical
and classical prophecy. Recent interpreters acknowledge that changes in prophetic activity occurred from one era to the next, especially concerning the
prophets audience, the character of the literature attesting to prophetic activity,
and the general political circumstances, but the earlier and later prophets shared
a fundamental continuity at the level of the broader phenomenon and social function (see Blenkinsopp 1995: 138-44; Petersen 2009a: 628-29). Blenkinsopp
(1995: 140), for instance, finds no essential discontinuity between the pre-classical and classical prophets if they are more properly compared at the level of a
common activity, rather than specific literary depictions or a certain
282
profession. Additionally, more recent examinations of the biblical depictions

have stressed the implications of their literary character and development.
Scholars increasingly emphasize that the biblical traditions concerning the
prophets do not necessarily constitute descriptions of how prophecy actually
was, but a reflection of prophecy based on later perceptions (de Jong 2007:
323). Hence, one can only proceed cautiously, if at all, from the biblical depiction to any supposed historical phenomenon in ancient Israel.
This recent emphasis has also broadened the consideration of sources to
include the depictions of prophecy in the postexilic biblical materials (see below,
section 6c. The Second Temple Period and the End of Prophecy). Petersen
(2009b), for instance, proposes that the ways the Israelite prophets were remembered and depicted changed over time. In the period after 586 bce, the biblical
writers constructed new images of prophets that differed from those presented in
the preexilic prophetic texts, re-casting them first as servants of YHWH rejected
by the people, and subsequently as proclaimers of the Torah throughout the entire
sweep of Israels history.
3. Phenomenological Models and Analogies in the

Twentieth Century
Along with the biblical terms and depictions, the paradigms of current study find
their most immediate background in the models and analogies for Israelite
prophets that were proposed throughout the twentieth century. Some of the early
models and analogies depended upon older historical-critical perspectives and
the biblical depictions (for a collection of several of the significant studies from
Gunkel, Mowinckel, Weber, and others, see Petersen 1987). By the mid-twentieth century, however, the increasing use of comparative sociological and anthropological data and the study of the ancient Near Eastern prophetic texts solidified
a phenomenological approach to Israelite prophecy that sought to understand it
as part of a general social and religious practice in the ancient world. This
approach operated with the conviction that behind the HB prophetic books stood
not simply singular inspired persons, but a larger socio-historical phenomenon of
prophecy. Hence, scholars became focused on developing heuristic models and
analogies through comparative study that could provide conceptual clarity concerning the character, identity, and function of prophets. The models and analogies were both historical and typological in nature: historical analogies being
drawn from the same time period as Israels prophets, and typological analogies being drawn from non-contemporary time periods (see Kelle 2006). The
diversity of the portrayals of prophetic behavior in all available sources generated a wide range of models and analogies, and constitutes an ongoing problem
for all such proposals (see Hayes 1999; Petersen 2009a: 625).
283
Several surveys of twentieth-century scholarships most common models and

analogies are available (Petersen 1987, 1997, 2000; Hayes 1988: 29-39; Baker
1999; Kelle 2006) (for the development of models and analogies before the modern period, see Glatzer 1946; Hayes 1999: 311; Kelle 2006: 64). Petersen (1987;
2000; see also Kelle 2006) provides a useful thematic typology with rubrics to
organize the models and analogies. His first rubric includes analogies for the
phenomenon of prophecy that operate with the view that a prophet is someone
who has an intense experience of the deity (Petersen 2000: 33). The rubric
encompasses the analogy of ecstatics, an analogy that focuses on the psychology and personal experiences of the prophets. It compares the prophets with
religious persons from various cultures who underwent transnormal experiences
such as frenzies or trances in order to receive or communicate messages from the
deity (e.g., Gunkel 1903; Hlscher 1914; for discussion, see Petersen 1981:
25-26; Hayes 1999: 315-16). The ecstatics model fits into the larger scholarly
trend throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries of examining the relationship between prophecy and psychology (e.g., Delizsch 1869; Foster 1875;
Kurtz 1904; see more recently Strawn and Strawn 2012). Gunkel was one of the
earliest to propose that the prophets received their messages through ecstatic
experiences, and Hlscher extended this notion by proposing that Israel adopted
such ecstatic prophecy from its Canaanite environment.
The model of ecstatic prophets has received numerous reexaminations and
largely fallen out of favor over the last century (e.g., see Parker 1978; Wilson
1979; Michaelson 1989). Early challenges often argued for the uniqueness of the
Israelite prophets as those who had a rational consciousness that allowed them to
participate in the divine pathos (Heschel 1962). Other scholars concluded that
the ancient Near Eastern texts yield little, if any, explicit evidence for ecstatic
behavior among prophets (Huffmon 1992; Petersen 1995). Additionally, developments within the fields of anthropology and psychology have raised ongoing
questions about definitions of ecstasy, trance, and related terms, as well as
efforts to distinguish more carefully between ecstasy/trance as a kind of behavior and possession as a means of communication (Overholt 1986: 333-34;
Grabbe 1995: 108-12). Within the most recent prophetic scholarship, Stkl
(2012) has reassessed ecstatic behavior in the ancient Near Eastern textual
sources and argued that it belongs only to lay rather than professional prophets (see 4. Current Paradigm One below). Lay prophets were those (such as the
in Mari texts) who had other primary roles and only occasionally
muhhum
engaged in prophetic activity.

Petersens (2000: 34) second rubric encompasses models that saw the prophet
as one who speaks or writes in a distinctive way. Under this rubric falls the
analogy of poets. As expressed in the key work of Herder (1833; see also
Heschel 1962), this model emphasized the poetic nature of the prophetic literature, but also saw the prophets as something akin to European Romanticists:
284
brave individualists or free spirits, who provided oppositional voices to the institutions of their day. Some scholars since the 1970s have further developed this
approach, recently in connection with the emerging literary paradigm described
below (e.g., Robertson 1977; Carroll 1983). Challenges to this model have consistently questioned the under-valuing of non-poetic material in the prophetic
literature, and the adequacy of the individualistic and oppositional picture of the
prophets within society (Clements 1976: 54-55; Wilson 2004).
The third rubric of Petersens (2000: 35) typology sees the prophet as one who
acts in a particular social setting. This statement encompasses the model of cultic functionaries for Israelite prophets. The roots of this model go back to the first
part of the twentieth century, when older views of the prophets as individuals who
stood oppositionally on the edge of society began to give way to an interest in the
relationship of the prophets to the cult in ancient Israel and a sense that they were,
in fact, integrally related to such societal institutions (see Hayes 1999: 316).
Mowinckel (1921; see also Johnson 1962) led the way in arguing that the prophets did not simply use cultic forms of speech, but functioned within the realm of
the temple and were often depicted as closely related to the priests (e.g., Jer. 23.11;
26.7, 16; 27.16; 35.4; Zech. 7.1-3). More specifically, within the general model of
cultic functionary, some scholars proposed the role and office of the covenant
mediator as the definition of the phenomenon of Israelite prophecy: the prophets
as functionaries who spoke at supposed covenant renewal ceremonies in Israel
and whose preaching guarded and relied upon earlier covenant traditions (e.g.,
Von Rad 1965; Muilenburg 1967; Clements 1975). While some elements of
ancient Near Eastern texts from Mari and Assyria bolstered portions of this model,
scholarship in general has concluded that the cultic dimension was only an occasional or partial dimension of Israelite prophecy, and not its definitional or essential element (see recent summary in Petersen 2009a: 633-34).
Petersens (2000: 36) fourth rubric encompasses the analogy of charismatics, which returns to elements of the poets/individualists model: The prophet
possesses distinctive personal qualities, for example, charisma. Weber (1964),
for instance, saw prophets as individuals who had an extraordinary power and
authority that attracted loyal bands of followers (perhaps the groups of prophets
from some of the biblical depictions). They exercised this authority by working
predominantly outside of and in opposition to traditional institutions. Predictably,
criticism of this analogy has centered on its individualistic portrayal of prophecy
over against institutions (see Blenkinsopp 1995: 117). Clements (1997) notes
that charisma does not qualify as the defining element of Israelite prophecy,
especially since the clearest sign of a prophet having such authority is that he
achieved canonical statussomething achieved by only a very few of those who
presumably participated in the larger phenomenon of prophecy.
The fifth rubric of Petersens (2000: 37) typology, the prophet is an intermediary, encompasses several specific analogies that gained prominence in mid- to
285
late twentieth-century scholarship. More significantly, the emergence of these

analogies and the interpretation of evidence that undergirded them brought to
fruition a major paradigm shift in research on Israelite prophecy by the 1970s
and 1980s. As opposed to the classic historical-critical approach, these new perspectives solidified the approach to Israelite prophecy as part of an observable
occurrence (phenomenon) shared widely throughout the ancient world and
marked by some general practices, functions, and social dynamics (Deist 1989).
The foundation for this revised approach rested on comparative study of two
particular sets of data: (1) cross-cultural sociological and anthropological data
for prophet-like figures in ancient and modern societies, which garnered new
attention in the 1960s and 1970s, and (2) ancient Near Eastern prophetic texts,
some of which were known already in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but only
received widespread publication and sustained analysis in later decades (see
Huffmon 1992; Nissinen 2003).
The first foundation of cross-cultural sociological and anthropological
research on Israelite prophecy built upon the earlier use of these disciplines by
scholars such as Hlscher (1914), which had departed from the notion of largescale uniqueness for the Israelite prophets that had been prevalent in the late
1800s. This new research used anthropological field study data and selections of
available texts to examine religious figures, such as shamans, spirit-mediums,
and diviners, from other ancient and modern societies, such as Native American,
African, and Indian. Data about the social identities, roles, and functions of these
figures showed them to be prophet-like individuals and allowed illuminating
comparisons with Israelite prophets at the level of types and patterns. Rather
than searching for correspondences in individual behaviors or the content of
their messages, this study undertook a comparison on the level of social patterns
and structures designed to illuminate the primary functions that might be shared
by Israels prophets. Such analysis reached its heyday in the 1980s, particularly
in the work of Wilson (1980), Buss (1980, 1981), Petersen (1981), Culley and
Overholt (1981), and Overholt (1986, 1989). Wilson, for example, used crosscultural parallels to foreground the issue of the prophets relationship to other
social institutions within ancient Israel. He distinguished central prophets, who
operated in conjunction with institutions such as the temple and court, from
peripheral prophets, who stood outside of and in opposition to the central power
structures, even as he separated the Ephraimite or Northern prophetic tradition
from the contemporaneous Judean tradition (see also the distinction between
urban and provincial Judean prophecy in Blenkinsopp 1996: 4). Similarly,
Overholt compiled a cross-cultural source book on prophecy that gathered texts
related to prophet-like individuals found among traditional peoples such as the
Seneca Indians, African tribes, and the Pacific islanders (1986: vii, 4). Overholt
compared the HBs and other texts portrayals of the making of such religious
figures, their behavioral characteristics, and social functions. In his later
286
work, Overholt (1989) developed these and other cross-cultural parallels and the
light they shed on the dynamics of prophecy and its authorization within societies. Several works by Grabbe (1995, 2000, 2009, 2010) exemplify recent
attempts to gather cross-cultural parallels and analogies for Israelite prophets. In
one essay (2010), for instance, he presents eight potential cross-cultural parallels: Wana shamanship (Indonesia), Tenskwatawa (Ohio, USA), Dodo possession spirits of southern Niger, a spirit medium in Northern Uganda, Tromba
spirits of northwest Madagascar, Hopi prophecy (American southwest), shamanism in the Mongol state, and Swahili possession cults. Grabbe sees these figures
and movements as functional parallels only, in which one can identify similar
types, behaviors, and themes to those found in the biblical prophets (on comparative themes, see Grabbe 2009).
Across the final decades of the twentieth century, the various sociological and
anthropological studies gave rise to the conclusion that all of the religious figures
being considered share the chief function of communicating messages or information from the divine or spirit world to the human world (e.g., Wilson 1980:
27-28; Overholt 1986: 9). As scholars compared the data for the Israelite prophets with that from these cross-cultural figures, this general function of intermediation seemed to be the underlying similarity. Beginning especially with Wilson
(1980), intermediary became the dominant label/analogy used to describe the
overall nature of Israelite prophets (see also Overholt 1989: 4; Nissinen 2000:
vii). An intermediary was a religious figure who stood between humans and the
deity to transmit divine messages, and Israels prophets, it was argued, were part
of that larger religious function known in different ways across various ancient
and modern cultures.
The second foundation of comparative study that shaped the approaches under
Petersens (2000: 37) rubric of intermediaries was the analysis of ancient Near
Eastern prophetic texts, especially those included in the collections from Mari
and Assyria. Among numerous texts from throughout the ancient Near East that
mention prophets and prophecy, only the Mari and Neo-Assyria corpora contain
more than one or two references from a single context. As noted above, some of
the ancient Near Eastern texts were already known in the late 1800s and early
1900s (see Hlscher 1914), but received widespread publication and analysis in
the second half of the twentieth century (for the major publications of the Mari
and Neo-Assyrian materials, see Durand 1988; Parpola 1997). For recent collections and studies of the relevant ancient Near Eastern texts, see Ringgren 1982;
Huffmon 1992, 1997; Nissinen 1998, 2003, 2004; Kckert and Nissinen 2003;
de Jong 2007; Petersen 2009a; Stkl 2012: 29-152.
Nissinen (2004: 25) has recently tabulated that the presently available ancient
Near Eastern evidence consists of 140 individual texts, which comprise two
basic kinds: (1) oracles of deities in written form and (2) references in documents of different kindsthat mention prophets, quote their sayings, or speak of
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their activities (for a collection of transcription and translations, see Nissinen

2003). The largest collection is the Mari texts from the eighteenth century bce,
which consists of fifty letters, mostly addressed to the king, as well as some other
documents (see Durand 1988; Huffmon 1992, 1997; Nissinen 2004). These
prophets mainly address issues related to the king, especially concerning the
kingdoms political and religious life. The Neo-Assyrian corpus from Nineveh in
the seventh century bce is the second largest. Parpola (1997) enumerates ten
tablets with twenty-nine oracles addressed to Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, as
well as more than twenty other texts of various kinds that mention or allude to
prophets (see now Nissinen 1998; de Jong 2007; Lenzi 2008; Stkl 2012).
Beyond the two largest collections, scholars have identified evidence for prophecy outside of the immediate area of Israel and Judah in individual texts from a
variety of time frames and areas. These include letters, ritual texts, omens, and
more, spanning the twenty-first to second centuries bce (see Nissinen 2004).
These include proposed textual evidence from Ugarit (Wyatt 2007; cf. Stkl
2012: 18) and oracles of the goddess Kititum (Ishtar) at eighteenth-century
Eshnunna, as well as debated cases such as two fourteenth-century plague
prayers (Nissinen 2004: 27) and Zoroasters poetic dialogues (Gathas) with the
creator god (Koch 1997; Gerstenberger 2009). From West Semitic sources within
Syria-Palestine, scholars have primarily considered the Egyptian Report of
Wenamon set in Byblos (eleventh century bce), Zakkur Inscription from Hamath
(early eighth century bce), Deir Alla Inscription from the Transjordan (eighth
century bce), and Amman Citadel Inscription of an oracle from Milkom (ninth
century bce. See Ringgren (1982), Nissinen (2004) and Stkl (2012). Direct possible evidence for ancient Israelite prophets outside of the Bible has remained
limited to two or three letters among the Lachish ostraca, with most scholars
identifying references on ostraca 3.20 and 16.5, and some proposing an additional reference on ostracon 6.5 (see Blenkinsopp 1995: 123; Nissinen 2003:
212-18, 2004: 28, 2010: 7).
Within the study of comparative sources, one of the most active debates centers on the genre of texts known as literary prophecies or literary predictive
texts and whether such texts constitute evidence for ancient Near Eastern prophecy (cf. Shupak 198990; Grabbe 1995; Nissinen 2003, 2004; Petersen 2009a;
Radine 2010; Weeks 2010; Stkl 2012). Akkadian texts in this category include
the Marduk Prophecy, ulgi Prophecy, Uruk Prophecy, Dynastic Prophecy
(Hallo 1997: I, 480-82). Egyptian texts in this category include the Sayings of
Neferti, the Admonitions of Ipuwer, the Demotic Chronicle, and the Prophecy of
the Lamb (Hallo 1997: I, 93-110). These compositions are oriented toward their
own time, but depict this present as the future time of the characters making the
predictions (Weeks 2010: 38). The scholarly consensus traditionally rejected
these texts as comparative sources for prophecy because, although they are predictive, they do not feature divine-human intermediation, and appear to
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be primarily literary compositions that do not reflect the kinds of prophetic

activities apparent in the Mari and Neo-Assyrian texts (e.g., Nissinen 2003,
2004; Stkl 2012: 14-15). The Sayings of Neferti, for example, do not connect
the predictive message to communication from a deity, and most of the other
texts lack any human intermediary who carries the predictive word. If one defines
prophecy on the model of the Mari and Neo-Assyrian texts as divine communication to a human through another human primarily through oracular means,
these texts do not seem to fit the phenomenon. This view has special significance
for the question of whether prophecy existed in Egypt, since these literary predictive texts are the only potentially prophetic Egyptian sources available (see
Shupak 198990; Grabbe 1995: 86-94). By disqualifying the literary predictive
texts, scholarship on the comparative ancient sources has traditionally concluded
that Egypt was the one major exception to the existence of the social phenomenon of prophecy as intermediation in most cultures in the ancient Near East (e.g.,
Stkl 2012: 14-15).
Recently, however, some scholars have argued that the Akkadian and Egyptian
literary predictive texts should be included in comparative sources for Israelite
prophecy (Grabbe 1995; Radine 2010; Weeks 2010). This perspective has
emerged partly out of a growing emphasis on the differences between the HB
prophetic books, which are complex literary compositions with sophisticated
poetry and artistry composed well after the time of the prophet(s) they describe,
and the texts related to prophets from places such as Mari and Assyria, which are
predominantly unpolished contemporary archives of prophetic words. From this
starting point, some scholars have argued that the often discounted literary predictive texts make the best comparison for the prophetic compositions within the
biblical literature (Radine 2010; Weeks 2010). The logical consequence of the
use of the literary predictive texts, it is argued, is to question the assumed relationship between the biblical compositions and the social phenomenon of prophecy, and to emphasize the essential literary identity of Israelite prophecy (Grabbe
1995: 86-94; see below: 5. Current Paradigm Two). This view shifts the identification of prophecy away from the function of human intermediation to a set of
literary expressions and conventions (see objections in Stkl 2012: 14-15).
Along with the question of the literary predictive texts, another debate over
the nature of the sources, especially the more traditionally identified texts from
places such as Mari and Assyria, has centered on the specific terms used to refer
to figures engaging in prophetic activity, and the comparison of those terms
with vocabulary found in the HB (see the survey in Nissinen 2003). Terms such
and pilum in the Mari texts and raggimu in the Neo-Assyrian texts
as muhhu(m)
provided fertile ground for the study of prophecys relationship to cultic institutions and oracular inquiries. Stkl (2012) has recently reviewed the relevant
as profesterms and challenged previous theories that identified the muhhu(m)
sional prophets who engaged in ecstatic behavior, and the pilum as answerers
to oracular inquiries rather than spokespersons of divine messages.
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Out of such discussions about sources, comparative study led scholars from the
mid-twentieth century to a basic definition of prophecy that fits the rubric of intermediaries, and was thought to be shared across the various cultures and settings.
As Huffmon (1992: 477) expressed it, ancient Near Eastern prophecy was inspired
speech at the initiative of a divine power, speech which is clear in itself and commonly directed to a third party (see also Grabbe 1995; Weippert 1997). This definition suggested that prophets throughout the ancient Near East were involved in
various ways (both marginally and prominently, directly and indirectly) with the
royal and cultic institutions of their day. At Mari, for example, some prophets
engaged in criticism of the king, especially concerning cultic matters, and prophets
at both Mari and Assyria occasionally addressed public audiences in order to influence behavior or opinion against the background of particular historical situations
(Huffmon 1997: 18; Parpola 1997: xlv; Nissinen 2003). These characteristics
seemed to many scholars to fit the impression of Judean prophets given by the sole
Judean source outside the Bible in the Lachish otraca (see above). Even so, newer
assessments of the ancient Near Eastern comparative data have increasingly recognized the need to seek more precise methodological principles for comparative
study (see especially Nissinen 2010; Stkl 2012). This effort tries to take account
of the diversity of the ancient Near Eastern materialsincluding both their similarities to and differences from the biblical textsand the need to consider each
representation of prophetic activity as a product of its own cultural setting (see
Blenkinsopp 1995: 115; Nissinen 2003, 2010).
Overall, then, just like the sociological and anthropological data, the available
ancient Near Eastern textual evidence suggests that there was an established
practice of prophecy that centered, as Petersens (2000: 37) typology suggested,
on intermediation (Nissinen 2004). In keeping with this rubric, two specific analogies emerged from comparative study in the last three decades and have
remained operative. The analogy of prophets as messengers found early expression in the work of Westermann (1967), who began with the conviction that the
messenger speech and accompanying messenger formula were the primary form
of prophetic discourse. Ross (1987) developed this analogy by drawing more
directly upon the characteristics of royal messengers in the ancient Near East. On
analogy with the king and royal court, the prophets located their authority in the
one who sent them, and received their messages from the deity and divine council. Similarly, Holladay (1987) drew specifically upon Assyrian statecraft and
diplomatic practices to offer the analogy of royal heralds. These heralds,
Holladay posited, participated in the courts deliberations and carried the word of
the king out to other locations.
The final rubric of Petersens (2000: 38) typology, the prophet has a distinctive message, encompasses two analogies that emerged at different times in
twentieth-century scholarship. Under the nineteenth-century influence of
Wellausen, Duhm, and others, when the view of prophets shifted from foretellers to forthtellers, an emphasis also emerged on morality as the defining
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characteristic of prophetic religion and preaching (see Hayes 1999; Wilson

2004). Scholars offered the model of ethical monotheists to characterize the
prophets. In this view, the Israelite prophets were bold champions of ethical religious practices, and stressed the individual and internal elements of religious
experience. A similar analogy has its roots in an earlier generation, appearing
immediately after the Protestant Reformation, but moving in a slightly different
direction: prophets as social reformers. This analogy saw the prophets as challenging existing institutions related to religion, politics, and economics. Attention
to this analogy highlighted again the differences between the biblical texts, in
which prophets engage in significant social criticism of rulers and people, and
the ancient Near Eastern sources, in which evidence for such criticism is limited.
The social reformers analogy gained new momentum in the mid-twentieth century due to the increasing prominence of cross-cultural sociological and anthropological study (e.g., Kapelrud 1961; Cohen 1979). In recent years, new
formulations of this analogy have nuanced earlier, one-dimensional constructions that identified the victims of social injustice as peasants and subsistence
farmers in villages, and proposed interpretations that question the dichotomy
between cities and villages and highlight the plight of the working poor within
the urban centers (Houston 2006, 2010). The major challenge to the social
reformer analogy, however, has come from within German scholarship throughout the twentieth century (e.g., Schmidt 1973; Koch 1983). These scholars
argued that the Israelite prophets first received a certain, yet non-rational, prediction of the future, and only then sought reasons in their societies to explain their
vision of the future. At their essence, the prophets were not cool-headed social
critics, but rather seers whose social criticism was secondary (Barton 2009: 74).
In spite of the vast diversity of twentieth-century models and analogies, the
comparative study of cross-cultural sociological and anthropological data and
the ancient Near Eastern prophetic texts solidified a phenomenological approach
to Israelite prophecy (see Deist 1989). By the 1980s, this approach occupied
center stage in prophetic study and led to the formulation of todays major
paradigms.
4. Current Paradigm One: Israelite Prophecy as a SocioHistorical Phenomenon

Since the 1980s, when approaching Israelite prophecy as part of a socio-historical phenomenon in ancient Near Eastern culture became established at the center
of scholarship, the majority of research has developed this perspective into a
now-dominant paradigm. Comparative sociological, anthropological, and textual analysis continues to provide the impetus for what is now the first of two
major paradigms in prophetic study. The focus remains on shared behaviors,
functions, and social dynamics, with the conviction that prophetic-type figures
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from Israel and Judah shared an essential commonality with those from elsewhere as part of a larger phenomenon of prophecy in the ancient world.
Some of the major contributors to the current articulations of this phenomenological paradigm include Huffmon (1992), Grabbe (1995), Blenkinsopp (1995,
1996), Weippert (1997), Nissinen (2000, 2003, 2009), Barstad (2000, 2009), de
Jong (2007), and Stkl (2012). Many of their studies center on the use of ancient
Near Eastern texts for understanding Israelite prophecy because they see such
study as a way to overcome the lingering problem of dating, and the relationship
among the various biblical and extrabiblical prophetic texts. Since it is difficult
to date precisely the biblical prophetic texts, recent scholars increasingly ask
what kind of comparisons could be made without precise knowledge of the age
and historical contexts of the texts (Nissinen 2010: 5). In the view of many interpreters, phenomenological comparisons provide the answer. Approaching the
question of Israelite prophecy through comparative study of a phenomenon that
crosses chronological and cultural lines alleviates the problem of dating.
Although separated in some cases by several centuries and extensive processes
of redaction, the HB and ancient Near Eastern prophetic texts share a common
pattern visible at the phenomenological level (see Barstad 2009; Nissinen 2010).
In addition to the potential for dealing with the problem of dating, recent
scholars find the phenomenological approach to Israelite prophecy able to deal
with several questions that had plagued twentieth-century scholarship on the
prophets, especially within the older historical-critical approaches. Deist (1989:
11) summarizes,
For instance, if the texts published under the prophets names contain very few real
prophetic words, if the reconstruction of oral tradition from literary texts is not
really reliable, if the picture of a prophet in Deuteronomistic texts differs fairly
substantially from that in Chronistic textsif the designation of the classical
prophets as true prophets is to be ascribed to Deuteronomistic editors and not to the
prophetic consciousness as such, what then was a prophet? (italics original)
For a significant number of scholars today, approaching Israelite prophecy as

part of a larger cross-cultural, sociological phenomenon in the ancient world
provides a way to navigate these issues and clarify the nature of Israelite prophets. The operative conviction is that although no genetic relationship can be
identified through phenomenological study, [p]rophet-like individuals from different cultures share a certain prophet-likeness. This is the common ground on
which they are compared (Stkl 2012: 6).
Within this paradigm, prophetic study since the 1980s has first and foremost
strengthened the identification of the phenomenon of prophecy with the general
social function of intermediation. Numerous contemporary scholars identify
prophets as intermediariesfigures who reportedly function to receive a supernatural revelation, communicate it to persons and communities, and carry their
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concerns back to the deity (see Petersen 2009a: 624). As noted above, the identification of Israelite prophecy with the phenomenon of intermediation emerges
especially from comparative sociological and anthropological studies of figures
such as shamans, mediums, and diviners in ancient and modern societies (Wilson
1980, 2004; Petersen 1981; Overholt 1986, 1989). Overholt (1989), for example,
surveys numerous cross-cultural examples of prophet-like figures to advance
the thesis that the social dynamics of intermediation involved not only the interaction between the deity and the prophet, but also the prophet and the audience
in the context of certain social expectations. Hence, prophets worked within
various channels of feedback, crafted their messages according to the societys
understanding of proper prophetic behavior, and received validation as a legitimate divine intermediary from their audience (Overholt 1989: 23). Increased
comparative study of the ancient Near Eastern prophetic texts has also strengthened the idea that the intermediation of the divine is the common phenomenological denominator of biblical and ancient Near Eastern prophets. Nissinen, for
instance, concludes that prophecy throughout the ancient Near East shared the
primary function of mediating divine messages, and this definition is the only
one comprehensive enough to account for all the evidence (see 1998, 2000,
2003; see also Petersen 2000). As the discussion of twentieth-century models
and analogies has shown, scholars often debated whether certain aspects of
prophecy such as the social and religious conditions of the activity, the personal
qualities of the individuals, or the distinctive elements of the message constituted
the defining essence of the phenomenon. By contrast, recent comparative study
of the ancient Near Eastern texts suggests that these aspects were subordinate to
the one basic understanding of prophecy as a process of transmission (Nissinen
2003: 1).
Several works since the 1990s provide full articulations of Israelite prophecys connection with the phenomenon of intermediation. Weipperts (1997: 197)
definition of a prophet has become standard:
[a] person who (a) through a cognitive experience (vision, an auditory experience, an
audio-visual appearance, a dream or the like) becomes the subject of the revelation of
a deity, or several deities and, in addition, (b) is conscious of being commissioned by
the deity or several deities in question to convey the revelation in a verbal form (as a
prophecy or a prophetic speech) or through nonverbal communicative acts
(symbolic acts), to a third party who constitutes the actual addressee of the message
(quoted in Petersen 2000: 39).
Similarly, Huffmon (1992: 477) defines prophecy as inspired speech at the initiative of a divine power, speech which is clear in itself and commonly directed
to a third party. Grabbe (1995: 107) identifies a prophet as a mediator who
claims to receive messages directly from a divinity, by various means, and communicates these messages to recipients. Nissinen (2004: 20) describes prophecy
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as the activity of transmitting and interpreting the divine will (for similar definitions, see Barstad 1993; Blenkinsopp 1996; Crenshaw 2000; Petersen 2000;
Kelle 2006; Stkl 2012). Petersen (2009a) attempts to refine and specify this
definition for HB prophecy by arguing that the biblical texts present prophecy as
a phenomenon of intermediation that arose especially at times of crisis and
uncertainty when normal social relations and operations have been disrupted.
Hence, Israelite prophecy was not limited to the monarchial period only, but was
generated by contexts of crisis in the exilic and postexilic periods, as well (but
cf. Blenkinsopp 1996: 154-57, and below, section 6c. The Second Temple
Period and the End of Prophecy).
Some contemporary scholars have raised questions about the adequacy of certain elements of intermediation as the essential definition for the phenomenon of
prophecy (e.g., the assessment of Weipperts definition in Petersen 2000: 40).
Some objections focus on whether the HB depictions actually reflect a primary
function of intermediation for prophets (Balentine 1984), or whether Israelite
prophets may have stood apart from a wider tradition of intermediation established among ancient Near Eastern prophets (Fenton 2001). Even so, the intermediary definition allows interpreters to take account of the great diversity in
prophetic roles and functions depicted in the available evidence, but also to identify a general category that unites the various prophetic figures and their observable actions (Petersen 2009a: 625). In this view, prophet can designate those
who mediate between the divine and human realms in some recognizably distinctive ways, but without necessarily being restricted to particular message content, institutional location, or personal/psychological qualities.
Alongside the primary identification of prophecy with the social phenomenon
of intermediation, the current phenomenological paradigm identifies some distinctive elements that make prophetic intermediation different from other kinds
of intermediation that appear in biblical and extrabiblical texts (e.g., priestly
practices). Foremost among these elements is the notion that prophecy is intermediation that occurs primarily through oral proclamation. The notion of prophets as spokespersons who offer inspired speech appears in many of the current
definitions of the phenomenon (e.g., Huffmon 1992: 477; Weippert 1997: 197).
Modern scholars recognize the presence of symbolic actions and other kinds of
non-verbal behavior depicted in the biblical and extrabiblical texts, and some
recent interpreters place more emphasis on the forms of prophetic communication that go beyond oral proclamation (see Petersen 1997, 2000). Nonetheless, a
centerpiece of this first paradigm in current study is the conviction that speaking in order to transmit divine messages was the main characteristic of ancient
prophets (Nissinen 2004: 19; see also Schmitt 1992: 482). For many interpreters,
the HB texts seem to fit this conception well, as they predominantly depict the
prophets as spokespersons associated with divine-human communication in the
form of persuasive discourse and argumentation (Gitay 1981, 1996; Hayes 1988;
Barton 1990; Nissinen 2004; Kelle 2005, 2006).
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Alongside intermediation and oral proclamation, a third element in recent

scholarship on Israelite prophecy as a socio-historical phenomenon constitutes
the paradigms most burgeoning area of study. Several works since the 1980s
reflect an emerging consensus that Israelite prophecy should be understood as a
sub-type of the broader religious phenomenon of divination known throughout
the ancient world. As Edelman (2009: 49 n. 6) recently summarized, There has
been a growing recognition that prophecy was one of many distinctive ways to
determine the divine will and was an integral form of ancient Near Eastern divination. In this sense, divination refers most generally to institutions and practices designed to ascertain and make known the divine will through a variety of
manipulative means, often featuring but not restricted to the use of physical
objects and mechanical actions (see Grabbe 2010: 128; Nissinen 2010: 15). The
seeds of this identification appeared already in Blenkinsopps classic statement,
which linked early Israelite prophetic groups with local sanctuaries and the
mediation of the divine will especially concerning warfare and the cult (1996:
32). Likewise, Koch (1983: 7) identified prophecy as one trend among many in
the manticism known throughout the ancient Near East. More recently, Cryer
(1991, 1994) establishes links among ancient prophecy, magic, and divination.
Overholt (1989: 141), however, provides the most explicit explanation that the
identification of prophecy as a type of divination depends upon a phenomenological approach that focuses on the comparable functions of various religious
intermediaries in society rather than their specific actions or content:
To speak of divination and prophecy as in some respects different implies an
emphasis on the observable activities of the bearers of these roles To speak of them
as the same assumes that the most relevant point of comparison is the social function
of intermediation/communication.
More recent articulations have strengthened prophecys identification as a

type of divination. For example, Nissinen (2003: 1; see also 2004, 2010) defines
prophecy as another, yet distinctive branch, of the consultation of the divine that
is generally called divination, and Leclerc (2007: 36) identifies it as part of a
larger religious tradition that seeks to establish communication between divine
beings and humans. Most recently, Stkl (2012: 7, 10) surveys the ancient Near
Eastern prophetic texts and concludes that prophecy, magic, and divination are
not as distinct as previously thought, and prophecy represents a subcategory of
the defining religious category of divination (see also Ellis 1989; Grabbe 1995:
139-55; Weippert 1997; Petersen 2000; Barstad 2002; Cancik-Kirschbaum 2003;
Kitz 2003; de Jong 2007; Scurlock 2010). The effort to overcome traditional
scholarly dichotomies that saw a substantial qualitative difference between
prophecy and divination stands at the heart of these new approaches (see Nissinen
2004: 21; 2010: 17). The traditional tendency to sharply differentiate prophecy
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from divination owes much of its origins to the HB, which contains some
acknowledgment that prophecy is a form of divination (1 Sam. 28.6; see Grabbe
1995: 139) and allows certain divinatory practices, but condemns most types of
divination. The biblical texts use various terms whose meanings are not always
clear to designate persons who practice divination (e.g., soothsayer, augur, sorcerer; see Overholt 1989: 118-25). They also describe several specific acts for
seeking the divine will, including the use of Urim and Thummim (Num. 27.21;
1 Sam. 14.41), inquiring of an ephod (1 Sam. 23.9-12), and casting lots (Josh.
18.6-10). Handy (2007: 62-64) categorizes the different personnel alluded to in
the texts into four categories: (1) professional, technical intermediaries (omen
readers, professional court staff), (2) professional non-technical intermediaries
(court prophets, ecstatics), (3) amateur technical intermediaries (sorcerers and
omen readers outside the professional hierarchy), and (4) amateur non-technical
intermediaries (prophets outside of the professional guilds and royal court). He
observes that only the amateur, non-technical prophets and professional technical diviners (such as priests using Urim and Thummim or lots) are characteristically accepted by the biblical writers.
In conjunction with the complex biblical assessments of different methods of
divination, recent arguments for the identification of prophecy as a sub-type of
ancient divination rely heavily upon evidence from ancient Near Eastern texts
(see Weippert 1997; Nissinen 2004; Stkl 2012). From this perspective, many
scholars add the specification that prophecy represents the particular sub-type of
divination designated by a variety of labels in current studies: non-inductive,
intuitive, non-technical, or mediated. Contemporary research increasingly
takes divination as the general religious category and then distinguishes between
non-technical/intuitive divination (prophecy) and technical/inductive divination
(extispicy, haruspicy, astrology, etc.) (Koch 1983; Weippert 1997; Nissinen
2004, 2010; Leclerc 2007; de Jong 2007; Stkl 2012). Prophecy, then, is a type
of divination in which knowledge of the divine will is received intuitively
(visions, auditions, dreams, observations, etc.) without the manipulation of physical objects or the need for technical training. As Nissinen (2010: 15) observes,
technical, instrumental, or inductive divination in Mesopotamian society was
practiced by academics who specialized in astrology or examination of animal
entrails, and were linked to literary and scribal education. By contrast, prophets
were often linked to the social institutions of temples and the cult and did not rely
on learned technical skills. Stkl (2012: 10) offers the most recent and nuanced
articulation: he divides the general role of diviner into technical diviner and
intuitive diviner and further divides intuitive diviner into dreamer and
prophet. Hence, a prophet is one specific kind of intuitive diviner within the
broad phenomenological category of diviner.
In conjunction with the identification of prophecy as intuitive/non-technical
divination (as opposed to inductive/technical divination), Stkl (2012: 13, 37-38)
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has recently articulated a second key identification/distinction: professional versus lay prophets. He argues that this distinction within the socio-historical phenomenon of prophecy is essential for understanding the biblical and extrabiblical
evidence (for challenges to this proposal, see de Jong 2007: 327-38; Gafney 2008:
69). In Stkls view, professional prophets were those whose primary social
function was to serve as a prophet, and lay prophets were those who had another
primary social role (e.g., a role in the cult or service to a wealthier citizen) but
occasionally engaged in prophecy as intermediation primarily through oral proclamation. This distinction helps to clarify the various terms used to designate
figures who engage in prophecy in both the biblical and extrabiblical texts, as well
as the different behaviors with which they are associated. In the Mari texts, for
instance, Stkl (2012: 14, 37) proposes that the figures labeled muhhumwho
are most often associated with ecstatic behaviorwere not professional prophets
(unlike the pilum), but were cultic officials who occasionally prophesied as lay
prophets. Hence, the ecstatic behaviors associated with them should not be seen
as definitional for the phenomenon of prophecy. Likewise, most of the classical
HB prophets were only lay prophets, who had other primary social roles (e.g.,
priest). Therefore, they were not typically labeled with the Hebrew term navi,
which was the primary designation for professional prophets until the postexilic
period, when it took on a broader connotation.
5. Current Paradigm Two: Israelite Prophecy as a

Literary Phenomenon
As the approach to Israelite prophecy as a socio-historical phenomenon has continued to develop in recent years, prophetic scholarship since the 1990s especially has featured an increasing emphasis on the literary character of the HB
prophetic books and the pressing question of whether these books provide accurate access to an actual phenomenon of prophecy in ancient Israel. These concerns have given rise to a second paradigm in current study of the phenomenon
of Israelite prophecy (for general discussion, see Wilson 2004; Nissinen 2004,
2009). In general terms, scholars working within this paradigm identify the prophetic books as relatively late literary creations of scribes in the postmonarchic
period, whose depictions of prophets and prophecy cannot be used reliably to
recover the reality of prophecy in the ancient world in any meaningful or extensive waywhatever the forms of such reality may have been. In other words, the
HB texts are the only extensive source for Israelite prophecy, and Israelite prophecy as we know it from these texts was created through a literary process. While
not denying the possible reality of Israelite prophets and their activity, this second paradigm maintains that Israelite prophecy as we have access to it is first and
foremost a literary/written/scribal phenomenon that is part of a larger ideological
discourse among intellectuals in postmonarchic Judah, and does not bear any
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direct relationship to the realities of prophecy throughout the ancient Near East.
The biblical prophetic books themselves constitute the phenomenon of Israelite
prophecy, and they, rather than historical or social reconstructions of purported
prophets and their activities, should be the object of study.
As this general description indicates, the primary background element that has
given rise to the current literary paradigm is a renewed emphasis on the HB prophetic books as postmonarchic literary products of creative scribes, who fashioned new compositions designed to address their own historical and social
circumstances. This view departs from traditional theories of the development of
the prophetic books, which began with form and redaction criticisms focus on
brief units (oral or written) supposedly originating with the prophets themselves.
The traditional approaches espoused an evolutionary model in which the prophets original words passed through a longer or shorter history of collection and
editing, overseen by the original prophets followers (disciples), and eventually
resulted in complex literary compositions whose developmental layers could
still be discerned in the texts (see Gunkel 1925; Engnell 1970; Koch 1983: 16568; Schmitt 1992; Blenkinsopp 1996; Crenshaw 2000; Barstad 2009; Troxel
2012). By contrast, scholars working within this second current paradigm identify the prophetic books as literary creations generated primarily by Persianperiod literati, and not as the result of a transmission process that goes back to
the historical prophets. Edelman (2009), for instance, suggests that scribes
selected the prophetic personages mentioned in the books from a large corpus of
materials, perhaps even archives from some historical prophets, and then developed various oracles, dreams, visions, etc. found within that corpus into compositions addressing their own time (see also Ben Zvi 2009a). Even the parts of the
books usually identified as vestiges of older materials may, it is argued, more
accurately represent the innovative work of the scribal creator of each canonical
collection (Davies 2000; Edelman 2009). The upshot of these views is the conviction that, since the HB prophetic books are not archival preservations of prophetic words and activity, but are instead creative constructions of the past by
scribes from a later era, they cannot serve as reliable sources for reconstructing
the socio-historical phenomenon of ancient prophecy (Edelman and Ben Zvi
2009; Ben Zvi 2009a, 2009b). Rather, the study of Israelite prophecy must focus
on the phenomenon of the biblical books themselves, in the final shape in which
we have access to them.
A second background element that has given rise to todays literary paradigm
begins with the present form of the HB prophetic books and emphasizes their
fundamental dissimilarity to the ancient Near Eastern prophetic texts. Several
scholars note that the biggest difference between ancient Near Eastern and
Israelite prophecy is the literature associated with each: How is it that while the
rest of the ancient Near East has left us isolated prophetic oracles, ancient Israel
has left us books? (Troxel 2012: 10; see also Ben Zvi 2009b; Edelman 2009;
298
Petersen 2009a: 628). Neo-Assyrian and Mari texts, for example, are predominantly reports of the prophecy of living individuals produced not long after their
proclamation, but the HB texts are crafted literary compositions (Ben Zvi 2009a).
For some current scholars, this difference constitutes further evidence that the
biblical texts do not provide access to a socio-historical phenomenon of Israelite
prophecy that stands behind the compositions, at least not in the same way that
the ancient Near Eastern texts do (e.g., Ben Zvi 2009a, 2009b; Radine 2010;
Weeks 2010; Troxel 2012).
Based on these background elements, the perspectives within this second current paradigm emerged in earnest in the 1980s and 1990s, with special attention
to the book of Jeremiah. In a series of articles in JSOT (see now Davies 1996),
Auld (1983) made one of the initial challenges to the historicity of the label
prophet attached to the biblical figures, suggesting instead that the biblical
prophets are primarily literary creations of the postexilic period, and Carroll
(1983) proposed that the prophets were originally poets who were only secondarily identified as prophets who mediate the divine word. In response to some
early critiques (Williamson 1983; Overholt 1990b), Auld (1990) and Carroll
(1990) acknowledged that the biblical picture of prophecy generally fits with the
ancient social phenomenon known from elsewhere, but maintained that this does
not demonstrate the historicity of the biblical figures and their activities (see also
Davies 1998; Auld 2003; but cf. Overholt 1990a; Barstad 1993). These early
articulations advanced the primary argument that one cannot use the biblical
texts in order to access whatever the reality of the phenomenon of Israelite
prophecy was, and scholars should instead focus their concentration on the literary products themselves. Israelite prophecy, as far as it could be reconstructed
reliably, was most directly a literary phenomenon.
In the years since these early formulations, new studies of the issue of orality
and literacy in ancient Israel have played an increasingly prominent role for
scholars working within this second paradigm. New investigations have focused
on the nature of oral literature and culture, levels of literacy within the ancient
Near East, and the relationship between oral and written literature (e.g., Niditch
1996; Young 1998a, 1998b; Schniedewind 2004; Carr 2005; Schaper 2005;
Rollston 2010). Throughout the twentieth century, prophetic research included
debates over the role of oral versus literary tradition in the production and preservation of prophetic words (e.g., Mowinckel 1946; Nielsen 1954; for a survey
of works on oral literature in the second half of the twentieth century, see Overholt
1986: 314-29). By the year 2000, however, Ben Zvi (2000: 2) could assert that
questions of writtenness and orality stand at the heart of issues central to the
study of the prophetic books in the Hebrew Bible, prophets and prophecy in
ancient Israel, and Israelite history at large (see also Stulman and Kim 2010).
Studies of orality and literacy have typically concluded that the transition from
an oral to a written culture was gradual, with both oral and written literature
299
co-existing and interacting for a long period (see Niditch 1996; Young 1998a,
1998b; Ben Zvi 2000; Schniedewind 2004; Rollston 2010). Even so, some recent
studies have argued that, while Israel did have formal literary education for
scribal elites from as early as the tenth or ninth centuries bce, literacy rates (i.e.,
the ability to read and write using a standardized system) among the general
population outside of the professional scribal class were low (e.g., Ben Zvi and
Floyd 2000; Rollston 2010; but cf. Millard 1995; Hess 2002; Schniedewind
2004). For many scholars working within this second, literary paradigm, these
findings seem to undermine traditional assumptions that prophets or their followers wrote the prophetic books as records of oral proclamation, and to confirm
the notion that the biblical prophetic texts are late, scribal productions that were
accessible to a limited audience of trained literati (Ben Zvi and Floyd 2000; Ben
Zvi 2000; Davies 2000; Troxel 2012; cf. Crenshaw 2000). For example, Ben Zvi
(2000: 21; see also Culley 2000) explains the presence of elements resembling
oral address in the prophetic books as products of the literary scribes being
influenced by Israels traditionally oral culture, and by the scribes practice of
reading aloud to non-literate audiences.
Since the year 2000, scholarship has yielded stronger and more developed
articulations of all the elements of this second current paradigm of prophetic
study. These works continue to question the link between the biblical depictions
and the historical phenomena, and intensify the focus on the production of the
prophetic books as creative compositions by scribes in the postmonarchic period.
They share the perspective that identifies Israelite prophecy first and foremost as
literature created by these literati, that is, as a literary, rather than a socio-historical phenomenon. Numerous works by Ben Zvi (2000, 2003, 2005, 2009a,
2009b, 2009c; Ben Zvi and Floyd 2000; Edelman and Ben Zvi 2009) exemplify
these newer articulations by arguing that biblical prophecy developed as a written phenomenon detached from the social-historical roots of ancient Near Eastern
prophecy. Persian-period scribes constructed the images of past prophets as part
of a larger ideological discourse (see also Davies 2000; de Moor 2001; Sweeney
2005; Floyd 2006; Edelman 2009; Weeks 2010; de Jong 2011). In this view, the
authoritative prophetic book represents a concept that only developed in the
postmonarchic setting and, though claiming association with a prophetic personage, it deliberately served to de-historicize the presentation of past prophets in
order that their words could provide social cohesion and self-identity to a new
community (Ben Zvi 2009a: 75; see also Ben Zvi 2003, 2005; Conrad 2003).
Ben Zvi (2009c) also challenges the usual conclusion that the HB prophetic
books developed as distinct, independent compositions, arguing instead that they
developed in an integrative way as one social group in postmonarchic Judah read
and re-read a shared set of ideas and images (see also Gerstenberger 2009). These
insights from the second current paradigm have contributed to recent Book of
the Twelve approaches that regard the composition and content of the so-called
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Minor Prophets as a unified and coherent process and product (e.g., House 1990;
Nogalski 1993a, 1993b; Redditt 2000, 2001, 2003, 2008; but cf. Ben Zvi 1996).
The perspectives within the literary paradigm of contemporary study have
generated some significant critiques, often from the perspective of the sociohistorical paradigm described above. Some scholars question the conclusion that
purposeful scribal editing indicates a late, literary phenomenon by noting that the
same kind of scribal selection, editing, and composition appears within a shorter
time frame in the Old Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian prophetic texts (de Jong
2007: 436-37; Stkl 2012: 26, 218) . One Assyrian tablet (SAA 9 1) even seems
to have been compiled from earlier sources that were reshaped at the accession
of Ashurbanipal (Nissinen 2010: 9), and some of the recent studies on literacy
suggest that ancient scribes were capable of significant literary activity as early
as the ninth century bce (Rollston 2010: 134). Other scholars reassert the importance of the similarities between Israelite prophets and other prophetic figures
from the ancient Near East and elsewhere at the level of social functions and
dynamics (Barstad 1993; 2000). Ultimately, however, the new approaches within
this second paradigm foreground the question of whether Israelite prophecy is
better understood as a literary phenomenon rather than a social institution
(Davies 2009: 69; see also Davies 2000; Nissinen 2009). In so doing, they leave
interpreters to ponder how sharply one should distinguish between ancient
Israelite/Hebrew prophecy and biblical/literary prophecy (see Conclusion).
6.Traditional Questions and New Lines of Inquiry

Within both socio-historical and literary approaches, contemporary study of the
phenomenon of ancient Israelite prophecy since the 1980s has featured the
reconsideration of some traditional questions and the pursuit of previously unexplored lines of inquiry. Both of these elements have emerged from insights
gained within the two major paradigms described above. Not all of the reformulations and new lines of inquiry are novel, yet they now receive increased attention in ways not achieved in earlier periods.
a. Psychology and Prophecy

One of the classic lines of inquiry into the phenomenon of prophecy that has
received new attention in contemporary study concerns the relationship between
psychology and prophecy. The roots of this inquiry go back to notions about the
psychology of prophetic experience in the late 1800s and early 1900s, especially in relation to theories about ecstatic experiences within prophetic activity
(e.g., Delizsch 1869; Foster 1875; Kurtz 1904; Hlscher 1914; see discussion
of ecstatics model above). Early research often sought to establish specific psychological and personality profiles for the prophetic figures, and the subsequent
301
emergence of new (modern) psychology with Freud and Jung shifted to a focus
on the unconscious and the psyche (see Strawn and Strawn 2012). Due to a number of factors, however, these kinds of psychological approaches to the prophets
fell out of favor by the mid-1900s, as scholars began to question the feasibility
of psychoanalyzing prophetic figures known only from ancient literary documents (see Lindblom 1962).
Strawn and Strawn (2012) describe a renewal of interest over the last few
decades in psychology and the Bible in general (e.g., Rollins and Kille 2007;
Brueggemann 2009) and psychology and the prophets in particular. Within the
field of psychology, newer emphases on the self, relational psychology, neuropsychology, and cognitive science have displaced older approaches. Within
prophetic research, numerous psychological theories and perspectives now contribute in various ways to the study of different prophets, their books, and traditions (see Buss 1980; Edinger 2000; Joyce 2010). Strawn and Strawn (2012)
identify three main categories for the psychological study of the prophets in contemporary research:
The Psychological Affect of the Prophets (The Psychology of the Prophets
Themselves) includes the study of ecstatic experiences, abnormal prophetic psychology, visions, dreams, trances, and so on. Recently, insights
from trauma theory have played an especially prominent role in this type
of study (e.g., Smith-Christopher 1999; Bowen 2010; OConnor 2011;
Kelle 2013). The focus here is a type of psycho-history more related to
the dynamics of the prophetic book than person, examining a book as an
example of literature that reflects the traumatic experience of exile and is
a way the exilic community coped with that trauma (Strawn and Strawn
2012: 616).
The Psychological Effect of the Prophets (The Psychology of the Prophets
Audience) also involves psychodynamics such as trauma, with a specific
focus on the function the prophetic books had on the psychologies of particular audiences.
The Psychology of God (According to the Prophets) explores divine
traits portrayed in the prophets, particularly depictions of concomitant
divine propensities toward wrath and mercy.
b. Rhetoric, Orators, and Prophets

Rhetorical analysis of the biblical prophetic books has been a long-standing part of
modern research (see Black 198889; Trible 1994). Although many rhetorical
approaches focus only on the literary aspects of the texts, some scholars in the last
three decades have used the perspectives of rhetorical study to offer new proposals
concerning the phenomenon of ancient Israelite prophecy. Many of these works
302
propose that the political orators of ancient Greece (e.g., Demosthenes in the fourth
century bce) provide a phenomenological analogy for the ancient Israelite prophets
(for earlier proposals of this analogy, see Strachey 1853; Duhm 1875; Buss 1969).
The starting assumption is that even though ancient Israel apparently did not
engage in systematic theoretical discussions of rhetoric, produce rhetorical handbooks and manuals, or explicitly use the canons of classical rhetoric, the social
functions and preserved messages of the prophets compare fruitfully with those of
ancient Greek political orators. Several works by Gitay (e.g., 1981, 1991, 1996,
2001) have led the way in this regard, proposing that the nature and function of the
Greek orators, while differing from the prophets in various respects, provide a
heuristic (rather than historical) model with phenomenological similarities in
social patterns, structures, functions, and characteristics.
Without wholly endorsing the orator analogy, some recent studies within the
socio-historical paradigm described above highlight indications of public audiences and addresses in the ancient Near Eastern prophetic texts (see Huffmon
1997: 18; Radine 2010: 101-103). Several works go further, however, and
develop the analogy by highlighting certain social roles and functions of the
Greek orators within the political assembly, especially their duties to discern and
articulate the meanings and implications of events before they are evident to the
common people, and to persuade the people toward particular courses of action
and more ethical, harmonious relations (Hayes 1988; Irvine 1990; Shaw 1993;
Jones 1996; Kelle 2005; for a recent introduction to the prophets that devotes
attention to rhetoric and persuasion, see Lundbom 2010). Most recently, Kelle
(2006) undertakes an extensive comparison of the Greek orators and Israelite
prophets designed to show that the orators match most closely of any analogy
with the social roles and functions of the prophets as portrayed in the biblical
texts (especially the picture of prophecy as a discourse designed to persuade in
particular circumstances). He suggests that the comparison helps explain some
vexing aspects of the prophetic texts (heavy variation in styles and genres, and
lack of explicit detail concerning historical circumstances). Remer (2009) provides a similar examination using Roman orators (e.g., Cicero), but reaches different conclusions regarding the prophets involvement with practical concerns
by focusing almost entirely on the content of the two groups messages.
The orator analogys attempt to connect prophetic language and function to
rhetorical-historical settings provides a potential response to the current literary
paradigms disconnection of the prophetic texts from the possible social phenomenon of prophecy in the ancient world (see Barton 1990). On the other hand,
Nissinen (2009: 117) acknowledges that the biblical prophets can be fruitfully
compared with Greek orators, but also notes that questions about the correspondence between the biblical texts and the social phenomenon require one to
ask whether the same can be said about ancient Israelite, Judaean, or Yehudite
prophets. Beyond the orator analogy, some recent studies pay attention to other
303
possibly beneficial comparisons from the context of ancient Greece. Lange

(2009) examines the Greek practice of gathering oracles into extended collections as a possible corollary to the construction of Hebrew prophetic scrolls.
Flower (2008) looks to ancient Greek divination (e.g., the Delphic Pythia) and
concludes that Greek and ancient Near Eastern divination differed in many
respects, with Greek seers having a much wider range of activities than ancient
Near Eastern diviners (see also Huffmon 2007; Stkl 2012: 23-25).
c.The Second Temple Period and the End of Prophecy

The question of when the phenomenon of Israelite prophecy and the production
of prophetic literature ended has constituted an ongoing inquiry within modern
prophetic research. Several data points have generated this question (see Barton
1992; Petersen 2009a: 646, 2009b). No HB prophetic book dates explicitly
beyond the sixth century (even if portions of some may have originated later),
and Second Temple period texts such as Nehemiah and Chronicles have few
references to prophets, or portray them quite differently from the classical prophetic books. The prophets often appear more as teachers, with a closer alignment to the cult. Some postmonarchic texts even present a seemingly negative
view of prophecy (e.g., Zech. 13.2-6), while others imply that it will need to
make a return in the future (Joel 2.28-29). Throughout much of modern study,
these data points suggested that at the very least the later biblical writers operated with a picture of prophecy that differed significantly from that preserved in
the books attributed to the classical prophets (Petersen 2009b). The traditional
scholarly view went further, however, and suggested that the phenomenon of
Israelite prophecy known from earlier died out after the time of Malachi (this
discussion is bound up with the vexed issue of the relationship between the phenomena of prophecy and apocalypticism; see Collins 2003; Grabbe 2003a;
Petersen 2009a: 643; Gerstenberger 2009). In this view, particular social conditions, especially the institutions of a monarchy, were necessary for prophecy in
such a way that it had to be replaced by other means of intermediation centered
on cultic and scribal practice when those required social conditions no longer
pertained (see Barton 1992; Petersen 2009a: 646; cf. Greenspahn 1989 and
Sommer 1996). Prophecy as reflected in the classical prophets ceased, and whatever remained was largely the product of cultic and scribal circles (e.g., Cross
1973: 223, 343; Hanson 1975; Petersen 1977; Koch 1984: 187; Sommer 1996).
Already in the 1980s, some scholars re-opened the question of the end of
prophecy and the nature of prophets in the postexilic period (Blenkinsopp 1996
[see original, 1983]). The two most significant studies by Barton (1986) and
Gray (1993) challenge the underlying assumptions of the traditional view that
the classical prophets provide the only model for Israelite prophecy, that is, a
model of counter-cultural protest. Seen from this traditional perspective, prophecy
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does not appear in the postexilic texts. But Barton examines the interpretation of
the prophets in texts between the mid-third century bce and mid-second century
ce. He concludes that while prophecy like that found in Amos and Hosea was
envisioned by these texts as belonging to the past, the texts also reinterpreted
prophets into a new model in which they were inspired messengers who spoke
oracles for God relevant to the ethics and events of these later communities. The
question of prophecys end is the wrong question; postexilic readers simply
visualized scriptural prophecy in terms of institutions they did know (Barton
1986: 269; italics original). Gray likewise examines Josephuss writings (especially Against Apion 1.41; Ant. 3.218) and concludes that while Josephus thought
the continuous line of prophetic succession ceased in the Persian period, he also
believed that individuals still existed through whom God communicated in ways
that were analogous to the classical prophets. For both Barton and Gray, the
belief expressed in some texts that prophecy had ceased does not mean that the
postexilic period was devoid of anything that could be understood as prophetic
activity. Even if prophecy in the Second Temple period largely became the
scribal interpretation of previously given prophetic revelations, some recognizable prophets likely existed in an intermittent and marginal fashion (see also
Overholt 1989: 149-61; Schniedewind 1995).
Nissinen (2004, 2010) also acknowledges a fundamental change in the nature
of prophecy in the Second Temple period, which saw the decline and marginalization of classical prophecy in favor of a literary prophecy in which the interpretation of written prophecies became the preferred and authoritative sort of
divination (2010: 18). While marginalized, however, the traditional type of
prophecy as oral proclamation did not cease entirely (see also Floyd 2006; Floyd
and Haak 2006; Redditt 2008: 12). Similarly, the collection of essays in De Troyer,
Lange, and Schulte (2009) questions the notion that prophecy ended with the last
canonical prophets, and proposes that it extended into later Jewish texts, especially Qumran texts, primarily as literary/scribal activity rather than oracular pronouncement. Petersen (2009b) attempts to identify the stages through which the
memories and depictions of ancient Israelite prophets developed over time. In the
years after 586 bce, he argues, biblical writers depicted the prophets in ways that
differed from their presentations in the classical prophetic books, most notably as
servants of God whose oral proclamations were rejected by the people (Petersen
2009b: 198-99). Subsequently, Petersen (2009b: 204) observes that Persianperiod texts such as Ezra further revamped the image of prophecy as the proclamation of the Torah, and edited earlier texts to extend the presence of prophets as
far back as Israels entrance into the land. Overall, the new assessments of the
question of prophecys end share the perspective that one must broaden the definition of prophet and prophetic activity to include postexilic (especially literary and scribal) formulations that have traditionally been excluded from the
consideration of prophecys existence (see Grabbe 2003b; Nissinen 2009: 108).
305
d. Broader Definitions of Prophets and Prophecy

Some of the efforts to identify postexilic reformulations as legitimate instances
of ongoing prophecy play a role in another burgeoning line of inquiry in contemporary prophetic study. Building from an increased recognition that the category of prophetic literature within the HB is difficult to define precisely, some
recent works are specifically devoted to broadening what is considered prophetic literature, especially beyond the prophetic books, and prophetic activity,
especially beyond the traditional focus on oracular proclamation. These perspectives attempt to overcome the older boundaries often drawn within the interpretation of biblical and ancient Near Eastern prophetic texts in ways similar to the
new appreciation of divination within the socio-historical paradigm described
above. On the literary level, against the restrictive view that prophetic literature
should be defined only as literature spoken or written by prophets, Petersen
(1997) argues that prophetic literature rightly describes any kind of literature
that was generated by the activity of prophetic figures (see also Petersen 2002,
2009a). In his earlier investigations of the various HB role labels, he proposed
that each label reflects a diverse type of activity (seeing visions, giving oracles,
etc.), each of which should be considered prophetic, and each of which produced a particular kind of literature (Petersen 1981). Thus, Petersen (2009a: 637)
then advocates a fairly broad definition of prophetic literature, namely as literature attesting to the activity of prophets, either stemming directly from them or
reporting about them. This perspective does not restrict prophetic literature to
that associated with the classical period of the prophetic books, and incorporates a wide variety of material across the canon. Whereas the new literary paradigm discussed above explained the canonical identification of a wide variety of
figures and activities with prophets and prophecy as a late, artificial, scribal
maneuver not reflective of the actual phenomenon of ancient prophecy, Petersen
suggests scholars have worked with an overly restrictive identification of real
prophecy and its literature in the first place.
Other recent works take these insights to another level with regard to what
may be properly labeled as prophetic activity. Gafney (2008) asserts that scholarship has operated with too narrow a definition of prophecy on the basis of the
classical prophets, and thus has excluded from consideration numerous kinds of
activities and figures that should rightly be considered part of the phenomenon
of prophecy in ancient Israel and elsewhere. By contrast, she argues that viewing
the biblical and extrabiblical textual evidence without this restrictive definition
reveals that the phenomenon of prophecy encompassed multiple techniques of
inquiry of the Divine (Gafney 2008: 17). A broad range of interpretive practices are associated with male and female figures in various ancient Near Eastern
and biblical texts, including delivering oracles, interceding in prayer, teaching
Torah, singing and dancing, and giving healthcare (Gafney 2008: 24). The
306
association of these practices with some identifiable prophetic figures in certain

texts, she concludes, suggests that one can label these actions as prophetic
activities in nearly any case in which they appear. This type of broadening of
prophetic persons and activities runs counter to the conviction held by some
within the newer literary paradigm that these diverse and expanded practices
have been deemed prophetic only artificially by later scribal editors of the texts
(e.g., Edelman 2009). Rather, Gafney suggests such practices constitute part of
the social phenomenon of ancient Israelite prophecy.
e. Female Prophets and Prophecy

One specific facet of the recent attempts to broaden the definition of prophets
and prophecy is the identification of female prophets and their activities. Much
of this interest revolves around the attempt to demonstrate that women prophets
were more prevalent and significant in the ancient world than traditionally recognized, even though their activities often fall outside the scope of typical prophetic behavior based on the model of the classical prophets. Beginning from the
conviction noted above that certain activities of intermediation other than oracular pronouncement (e.g., intercessory prayer, teaching, dancing, singing, etc.)
should be identified as prophecy in ancient Israel, recent investigations seek to
highlight women involved in these activities, assigning them prophetic status.
Scholars have long discussed textual evidence, both within Israel, and elsewhere in the ancient Near East, which indicates that women could be prophets
(see Petersen 2009a: 624). Some of the initial works in this recent line of inquiry
focused on the five named female prophets in the HB (Miriam, Deborah, Huldah,
the wife[?] of Isaiah, Noadiah), but often concluded that these women and their
activities were anomalies under certain unstable circumstances, and thus were
not part of a larger phenomenon of female prophecy (e.g., Ackerman 2002).
More recently, several works have attempted to answer more positively the question of whether some women and their activities who are not labeled as prophets
in the HB might be identified as such, thus pointing to the existence of an established phenomenon of female prophets. Butting (2001) and Fischer (2002) focus
on the biblical depictions. Gafney (2008) expands the examination to include
references to female prophets in ancient Near Eastern texts as well as biblical
texts. She specifically argues that the named biblical female prophets were not
anomalous. Female prophecy fit the definition of multiple techniques of inquiry
of the Divine, but was especially marked by association with social contexts
involving scribal, musical, healthcare, and lamentation practices (Gafney 2008:
17). Marsman (2003) likewise offers a major study on social and religious roles
of women in ancient Israel and Ugarit, which includes a detailed section on
female prophets. Critiques of this new line of inquiry into female prophecy generally resemble Stkls (2012) acceptance of the expansion of the number of
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recognized female prophets, even while resisting the extensive broadening of the
category of prophetic activity: the recognition of more female prophets does
not mean that we should expect to find them lurking behind every masculine
plural or every time a woman performs a divinatory act, in the same way that not
every male diviner is a prophet (Stkl 2012: 201).
7. Conclusion
Recent scholarship on the phenomenon of Israelite prophecy has addressed a
wide range of questions and employed various methodological approaches that
often reflect the changing trends within biblical studies in general. Now, in the
opening decades of the twenty-first century, two major paradigms exist side by
side in a creative tension. The first paradigm sees ancient Israelite prophecy as a
social and historical phenomenon. It focuses on defining behaviors and social
dynamics, with the conviction that prophetic-type figures from different cultures
shared an essential commonality in identity, function, and practice as part of a
larger phenomenon of prophecy in the ancient Near East. The second current
paradigm presents ancient Israelite prophecy as an essentially literary phenomenon. It builds upon the recognition of the literary character of the prophetic
books, as well as the pressing question of whether the HB texts provide accurate
access to a real phenomenon of prophecy in ancient Israel. Scholars working
within this paradigm approach the prophetic books as literary and ideological
compositions produced by scribal literati in the postmonarchic period, making
these depictions of prophets and prophecy late creations.
Presently, the socio-historical paradigm holds the central place in scholarship
on the phenomenon of ancient Israelite prophecy. Especially prominent is the
conclusion drawn from comparative study of ancient Near Eastern texts and
sociological and anthropological models that Israelite prophecy in its essence
was a kind of intermediation between the human and divine, and a sub-type of
(non-technical) divination known in various forms throughout the ancient world.
The increasing prominence of the second, literary paradigm, however, highlights
several lingering challenges for future work within the first, socio-historical paradigm. Future study must continue to wrestle with the most basic question of the
relationship between the literary texts and the external socio-historical phenomenon of prophecy (see Barstad 2000). Scholars seeking the external phenomenon
must still begin with the available literary texts, confronting the apparent reality
that the most adequate comparison concerning Israelite prophecy is at the literary level with other non-biblical texts, rather than with the activity that supposedly generated the texts (Nissinen 2010). Given these and other lingering
challenges, Davies concludes that future research on ancient Israelite prophecy
faces one overarching question: Is biblical prophecy, then, a social phenomenon
or a literary one? If both, what is the connection between ancient Israelite/
308
Judaean intermediaries and the biblical prophetic literature? (1996: 14, emphasis original).
In response to these ongoing issues, a number of current scholars, especially
those working within the first major paradigm, increasingly propose a guiding
distinction that seems likely to mark future scholarship on the phenomenon of
ancient Israelite prophecy. For instance, Nissinen (2004, 2009, 2010) proposes
that future work must distinguish carefully between Ancient Hebrew Prophecy
and Biblical Prophecy. The former refers to the social and historical phenomenon present in ancient Israel, within which persons recognized as prophets
mediated divine messages. The latter designates literary representations connected with canon formation that do not necessarily represent the ancient realities of the prophetic phenomenon. The use of this distinction acknowledges that
written Israelite prophecy is now known only in creative, exegetical, and scribal
reinterpretations from the Second Temple period, and these reinterpretations
likely distort the picture of the preexilic social phenomenon (Nissinen 2004:
28-31). In contrast to some voices within todays second, literary paradigm,
however, this view suggests that interpreters need not define the phenomenon of
ancient Israelite prophecy in terms of the HB literature, but can gain access to the
socio-historical phenomenon hidden within these texts by using the comparative
models derived from other ancient Near Eastern texts and sociological and
anthropological data (Nissinen 2009). Still, future scholarship, as is presently the
case, will likely feature differing views on the amount of connection between
ancient Hebrew and biblical prophecy, and the level to which one must disengage the texts from the phenomenon (Weeks 2010: 29).
Overall, the current state of research on the phenomenon of ancient Israelite
prophecy indicates a level of complexity that resists any singular approach.
Future scholars will perhaps benefit most by holding todays various approaches
and paradigms in a creative tension rather than seeking to establish one to the
exclusion of the other. Moreover, the multiple dimensions, approaches, and paradigms that mark current study suggest that scholars should no longer conceive of
ancient Israelite prophecy as a single phenomenon, but perhaps as a set of related
phenomena that may include historical, social, anthropological, religious, and
literary aspects. This approach opens the door for future study to employ crossdisciplinary and collaborative efforts in order to explore what the various prophetic phenomena are and how, if at all, they may be related to one another.
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CBI12310.1177/1476993X13480677Currents in Biblical ResearchKelle: The Phenomenon of Israelite Prophecy in Contemporary Scholarship