This volume is the fifth in a series directed to both students and scholars of the OT. Each volume seeks to provide various viewpoints in specific areas of biblical study, including, in the editor’s words, ‘not only key, ground-breaking works, but also significant responses to these’. The present volume certainly accomplishes this goal, whilst setting the arbitrary limit of a 1975 ‘watershed’.

Excluding the editor’s framework chapters, there are 36 entries, nearly equally divided between journal articles and extracts from volumes. The articles are organized into seven parts, each of which has a very useful topical bibliography, adducing other sources which had to be left out due to editorial choice and the size of the volume.

Part I looks at ‘The Near Eastern Background’ of biblical prophecy. Although it contains only two entries, its prime position within the volume serves to highlight Israel’s integration with the milieu of the ancient Near East. The inclusion of only two articles is offset by the wisdom of their choice: M. Weinfeld’s ‘Ancient Near Eastern patterns in prophetic literature’ and A. Malamat’s ‘Prophecy at Mari’—both of which delineate both the continuity and discontinuity of biblical prophecy with that of surrounding nations.

‘The Message of the Prophets’ is the focus of Part II. Again there are only two entries in this, the next to smallest section of the book. This is primarily due to the fact that, in the editor’s words, ‘there is a limit to the number of times that the prophetic “message(s)” can usefully be restated according to the traditional categories’. Thus the two selections reflect two ‘colours’ from the spectrum of perspectives related to the message of the prophets: the ethical emphasis of Israelite prophecy (J. Barton) and the possible pre-exilic basis for the oracles of salvation (C. Westermann).

Part III, ‘The Art of Biblical Prophecy’, is far and away the longest section of the book, and perhaps the topic which most lends itself to an ever-expanding ‘canon’. It is comprised of twelve excerpts, ranging from ‘Symbolic action’ and ‘Speech act theory’ to metaphor, drama, poetry and inner-biblical interpretation in prophetic literature. ‘Art’ is the operative term inasmuch as it applies to the prophetic literature whether or not this originated as spoken oracle, written document or dramatic enactment.

In Part IV, ‘Prophecy and Society’, the selected articles, for the most part, bring to bear various aspects of the social sciences on the prophetic tradition and literature. Some of the problems explored are: did the prophets chronologically precede Torah, whilst not taking precedence over Torah? (G. Auld); was the conflict between the Israelite prophet and society more a case of Deuteronomic ideology than historical fact? (B. Long); the nature of false (and true) prophecy from an anthropological perspective (R. Wilson); the ‘failure’ of prophecy and the prophets’ apperceptions of their vocation in the light of cognitive dissonance theory (R. Carroll).

Part V looks at ‘The Developing Tradition’—an examination of the problems attendant on the writing down of prophetic utterances and their subsequent reshaping through redaction. Zimmerli’s article ‘From prophetic word to prophetic book’ is one this author found quite useful. It takes a ‘long-term’ view of prophecy, stressing the fact that both the writing down and the redaction of prophetic messages in no way lessen their authority; rather, this was a process whereby that authority was preserved and unleashed for new situations. Otto Kaiser’s ‘Literary criticism and Tendenz-criticism: methodological reflections on the exegesis of Isaiah’ to this reader’s mind runs the risk (all too common today) of atomizing the prophetic text to the point of rendering it meaningless. B. Childs’s ‘The canonical shape of prophetic literature’ (1978) came as a counterbalance to Otto. For those fed up with the virtual assault on biblical literature by disciplines fairly well removed from Scripture (psychology, sociology, etc.), Childs’s article serves as a corrective in that it seeks to remind us of the ‘big picture’—specifically the role played by the process of canonization. To examine Scripture without regard to canon is, according to Childs, to miss ‘the critical function which it exercises in respect to the earlier stages of the literature’s formation’.

Part VI, ‘Prophecy after the Prophets’, focuses on Israelite prophecy after the ‘classical’ period and outside the Hebrew Bible. ‘Did Israelite/Jewish prophecy come to an end?’ is the question posed and answered by T.W. Overholt. C.T. Begg’s article examines how the prophetic tradition was appropriated and used by Josephus, and a similar treatment with regard to the early Christian community is found in the entry by J. Sawyer. F.F. Bruce provides a study of how the Septuagint translators brought their own interpretation of the prophets into their translation of the Hebrew scriptures.

The final part, ‘Future Directions’, is a brief excursus on ‘whither prophetic studies?’. Apart from the editor’s closing chapter, there are only two entries. The first is a three-page excerpt from W. Schmidt’s Old Testament Introduction, entitled ‘Contemporary Issues’, which according to the editor is meant to set into high relief the following substantial article by F. Diest: ‘The prophets: are we heading for a paradigm switch?’ Separated by barely ten years, there could not be a better contrast regarding change of outlook in the study of the prophets. Schmidt’s overall concern is with discerning the ‘authenticity’ or ‘inauthenticity’ of the prophetic texts, whereas Deist basically consigns this (as well as other issues raised by historical, literary, form and canonical criticisms) to an early grave, with the epitaph ‘the dominant paradigm’. In its place come ‘new archaeology’, ethno-anthropology, empirico-positivism and socio-economic criticism (to name only a few), all serving to make a (brave?) new paradigm for research into the biblical prophets. The problem with Deist’s new paradigm is that in seeking to ask ‘new questions’, the real agenda would seem to be the subversion of biblical data, and the new paradigm adherents are apparently those who see information derived from the biblical text as inherently wrong. Along with the volume’s editor, this reviewer would concur that ‘the more traditional approaches must not be submerged in a deluge of self-indulgent new readings of texts, strong in whimsy and individualist in observation’.

In sum, this is certainly a useful volume, balanced in its representation of diverse viewpoints in the study of Israelite prophecy. It is a worthwhile tool for student and scholar alike.

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