The Prophets with Dr. Kenneth Hanson: Recent Episodes
Dr. Kenneth Hanson
True prophets are often the ones we least suspect of greatness. In the case of ancient Israel they often lacked social standing and possessed no special pedigree. Their authority derived solely from the power of their message. So it was with a remarkable man of righteous indignation, who arrived on the scene in the middle of the eighth century before the Common Era. His name was Amos.
His book, involving a series of questions and answers – a disputation of sorts. In the final analysis, Israel's prophetic line didn't vanish suddenly. Like old soldiers, and old social justice warriors, they just slowly faded away. They came out of nowhere, and when all of their messages had been communicated, they simply walked off the stage. And the rest is history...
During the span of only a few decades, in the early sixth century before the Common Era, the Jews returning from Persian exile (in the wake of the generous edict of the emperor Cyrus) accomplish some remarkable things, including the rebuilding of their holy temple, on the ruins of the old, and erecting a new set of walls for Jerusalem’s protection and defense. A series of “later prophets” – including Haggai, Zechariah, Joel and Malachi – encourage them in these formidable tasks, though many modern scholars tend to shun them, as being too focused on Israel alone and the “Jewish particular.” Still, the prophets of these days are unsurpassed “motivational speakers,” who focus the people’s energy, not on Solomon-like grandiosity but on a national symbol and “community center,” supported by the tithes and voluntary contributions of the local citizenry.
“Comfort, comfort my people.” These remarkably compassionate words are found in the 40th chapter of the book of Isaiah. The prophecy goes on to say enough suffering! It's time to return to the conquered land of Israel. But instead of the Red Sea being crossed, God has made a path in the desert. This is an incredibly powerful and hope-filled message, but is it something that might have been uttered by the great prophet Isaiah, living in the eighth century BCE? Or was there a second, anonymous prophet, perhaps belonging to the school of Isaiah, who wrote in the name of the original prophet but who lived some two centuries later, around 546 - 538 B.C.E.?
How many social justice movements today involve groups of marginalized, disenfranchised people, living in one form of exile or another? But despite the exile and the yawning chasm between humanity and the divine world, Ezekiel’s God is intimately present among his people even if only to pin the looming disaster on them. It's the people who have broken the covenant. Jewishly speaking, the covenant is a contract, that can be terminated and set aside if it is not adhered to faithfully. Like Jeremiah, Ezekiel opines that rebellion against Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar is the same as rebelling against God. Yet, the prophet switches abruptly from condemnation to consolation, and brings up the notion of a "new heart.”
An amazing phenomenon occurred following the conquest of the southern Israelite kingdom, known as Judea. Whereas the northern ten tribes (conquered by the Assyrians in the year 722 B.C.E.) vanish from the stage of history, the remnant of the two southern tribes, Benjamin and Judah, uncannily survive in exile. The prophet Jeremiah had conveyed to the people a mission that gave them a reason to go on. But now it fell to a priest name Ezekiel to add flesh to bone and keep hope alive.
It was Jeremiah who had the insight to understand that paganism was fated for destruction. All through his life he struggled against idolatry. It was a losing battle, but in losing the battle he may well have won the war. Because he gave his people – the Jews – a reason, not only for surviving but for overcoming the pain of exile and the next 2,500 years of suffering, persecution, and Holocaust. It's argued that the whole shape and character of post-biblical Judaism is indebted to Jeremiah more than any other Israelite.
Among the many oracles produced by ancient Israel’s prophetic class, there was one social activist who not only deserves special attention, but who may well rival even Isaiah as the most profoundly important of any prophet ever born, bar none. That someone is Jeremiah. His was a voice who, like the earlier Isaiah, heralded not tri- umphalism, but the stern reality that the people divinely chosen to be a light to the na- tions were about to experience the darkest of nights.
If the book of Jonah might be seen as a counterbalance to the “Israel first” message of Nahum and Obadiah, we have an additional challenge to the mentality of “vindictive triumphalism” in the oracles of Habakkuk. Here’s a prophet who lives on the cusp of the Babylonian invasion of the land of Israel, around the turn of the 6th century B.C.E., his job being to make sense of it all. He’s like Nahum in concentrating his fire on Israel’s oppressors rather than on his own people; but he goes much farther, in raising the question of theodicy — the morality of God's actions.
One of the most well-known stories in all of biblical literature is also on many levels one of the least credible. It’s found among the books of prophecy, but it has little to do with the themes and messages conveyed by the rest of the prophetic class. Nor does it touch the enduring themes of social justice that are the hallmark of Israel’s prophets. The one commonality Jonah has with other prophets is his reluctance to take the job. Here’s how it all goes down…
Whenever the biblical prophets are mentioned, we perhaps ought to think of them, not as “foretellers,” but as forth-tellers – of justice. Enter, the prophet Nahum, who may well be the fly in the ointment to all of that. Here’s a prophet who says nothing about Israel's own transgressions, but points an accusing finger directly at Assyria, with its capital, Nineveh. That brings us to one more so-called “minor prophet” — Obadiah. Here we have another example of an Israelite prophet who, surprise of surprises, is “all in” for Israel.
After the esteemed prophet Isaiah died, no other Israelite oracle arose for another 50 to 75 years. But then came Zephaniah, who, like Isaiah, boasted a distinguished pedigree, being descended from the House of David. In the tradition of the social justice warriors who went before him, he doesn’t just castigate the foreign lands round about; he points an accusing finger at Judah itself!
It's time to meet the prophet Micah, whose name poses the question: Who is like God? To modern ears such a question is just religious talk. But to the ancients there was no concept more utterly radical than a single deity, understood as being completely and utterly separate from the physical universe. And that is the actual meaning of the Hebrew word “Holy” (kadosh) – “separate.” But who exactly was this Micah? A militant nationalist? A true visionary, proclaiming an “anointed” figure to sit on David’s throne, and who happens to hail from Bethlehem? The answers await…
No other biblical book has inspired the cause of ethics and justice across the ages as the book of Isaiah. It’s only fitting that we should take up the story behind the man, and try to get a sense of what made his poetry and prose stand out among all the literature ever composed. Who was this prophet Isaiah, and what ageless messages does he still convey to human society?
There was something in the air, a new spirit, inspiring new ideas. It’s fair to talk about a creative new age across the ancient world, extending from the 800s to the 200s B.C.E., known as the Axial Age. To the west, it was the age of the great Greek philosophers, including the likes of Socrates and Plato. Far to the east, there was the Buddha, Confucius and Lao Tsu. In Israel it's the age of one of history's first great social justice warriors – Hosea.
True prophets are often the ones we least suspect of greatness. In the case of ancient Israel they often lacked social standing and possessed no special pedigree. Their authority derived solely from the power of their message. So it was with a remarkable man of righteous indignation, who arrived on the scene in the middle of the eighth century before the Common Era. His name was Amos.