Orientation to the Course

BS601 — Prophetic Literature Second Semester 2019

Primary Literature

English Bible Hebrew Text

OR Two other Bibles

Secondary Lit.J. Blenkinsopp, A History of Prophecy in Israel

Secondary Lit.J. Blenkinsopp, A History of Prophecy in Israel W. Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination

Secondary Lit.

J. Blenkinsopp, A History of Prophecy in Israel W. Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry

Secondary Lit.

J. Blenkinsopp, A History of Prophecy in Israel W. Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry Global Bible Comm

BS601 Orientation.key - June 11, 2019

Secondary Lit.

Articles as found on my website: www.RevAaronD.com

(See list on syllabus)

Assessment40% — Class Participation 30% — Research/Exegesis Paper 30% — Sermon/Other Practical Theology Project

PoliciesAttendance Assignment Due Dates English Writing Skill Citations TALK TO ME

BS601 Orientation.key - June 11, 2019

ISRAEL’S HISTORY (AN OVERVIEW ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE)

REV. AARON DECKER

1500

~13,800,000,000 B.C.E. (OR 4004 B.C.E., I GUESS)

1000 500 0

CREATION OF THE COSMOS

Donald Jackson, St. John’s Bible

1500

~1600 B.C.E

1000 500 0

CALL OF ABRAHAM

AND SARAH

Griffith Foxley

1500

~1200 B.C.E.

1000 500 0

EXODUS FROM EGYPT

GIFT OF THE TORAH

Yehoshua Wiseman

1500

~1199 B.C.E.

1000 500 0

WANDERING IN THE DESERT

Sadaeo Watanabe

1500

~1150 B.C.E.

1000 500 0

CONQUEST OF CANA’AN

PERIOD OF THE JUDGES

Mike Segal

History of Israel Overview.key - June 11, 2019

1500

~1000 B.C.E.

1000 500 0

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MONARCHY

SAUL, DAVID, SOLOMON

Marc Chagall

1500

~930 B.C.E.

1000 500 0

THE KINGDOM DIVIDES

William Brassey Hole

1500

722 B.C.E.

1000 500 0

ASSYRIANS DESTROY SAMARIA

Don Lawrence

1500

~620 B.C.E.

1000 500 0

REFORMATION OF KING JOSIAH

Franck Dion

1500

597 B.C.E.

1000 500 0

BABYLON DESTROYS

JERUSALEM

EXILE BEGINS

James Klotz

1500

539 B.C.E.

1000 500 0

PERSIANS DEFEAT

BABYLON

EXILE ENDS

Relief from Cyrus’s Palace in Pasagardae

History of Israel Overview.key - June 11, 2019

1500

5TH CENTURY B.C.E.

1000 500 0

REBUILDING

Bernadette Lopez

1500

322 B.C.E. / 198 B.C.E.

1000 500 0

MACEDONIAN EMPIRE

SELEUCID EMPIRE

Mosaic of Alexander the Great from Pompeii ~100 BCE

1500

140 B.C.E.

1000 500 0

HASMONEAN (JEWISH MACCABEAN)

KINDGOM

Paul Reubens

1500

63 B.C.E.

1000 500 0

ROMAN EMPIRE AND

THE HEROD KINGS

James Tissot

1500

7 C.E.

1000 500 0

BIRTH OF JESUS

Greg Weatherby

1500

70 C.E.

1000 500 0

FIRST JEWISH- ROMAN WAR

SECOND TEMPLE DESTROYED

Francesco Hayez

History of Israel Overview.key - June 11, 2019

1500

136 C.E.

1000 500 0

END OF BAR KOCHBA REVOLT AND THE

ROMAN-JEWISH WARS

JEWS AND CHRISTIANS BANISHED FROM

JERUSALEMIsraeli Postage Stamp, 1961

History of Israel Overview.key - June 11, 2019

INTRODUCING PROPHECYWhat isn’t this prophecy thing about?

REV. AARON DECKER

GREEK PROPHECY

Prediction: “What will happen if...” Oracular Speech Seers (Untrusted)

GREEK — ORACULAR SPEECH

Sibylline Oracles, Book V Then a great destroyer of pious men shall come, and he shall show conspicuously the letter seven times ten. His son, however, whose initial sign denotes three hundred, shall usurp the power, And after him shall be a destined one, a soul destroyer, of the number four.

Charlesworth Translation of the OT Pseudepigrapha

GREEK — SEERS

Tiresias, Oedipus Rex Do you know the family you come from? Without your knowledge you have turned into the enemy of your own relatives, those in the world below and those up here, and the dreadful scourge of that two-edged curse of father and mother will one day drive you from this land in exile. Those eyes of yours, which now can see so clearly, will be dark. What harbour will not echo with your cries?

Translation by Ian Johnston, 2007

ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN PROPHECY

Decisions: “What will God do?” Extispicy, Haruspicy Belomancy, Etc. Casting Lots (1 Sam 9)

ANE — EXTISPICY

H.T. 152, 14th Century Elam [If the head of the naplāsu doubles back <in> the middle (of it) there is a piece of flesh, Šamaš] will assist my army. [If the middle of the naplāsu doubles back <in> the middle (of it) there is a piece of flesh, Ištar] will assist my army... If at the right head of the naplāsu a piece of flesh is elevated like a stalk, a misfortune will come upon my army at the beginning of the year...

Parsa Daneshmand. An Extispicy Text from Haft-Tappe. JCS 56 (2004): 13–17.

What Is Prophecy.key - June 11, 2019

ANE — BELOMANCY

Ezekiel 21:21–23 For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the way, at the fork in the two roads, to use divination; he shakes the arrows, he consults the teraphim, he inspects the liver. Into his right hand comes the lot for Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to call out for slaughter, for raising the battle cry, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up ramps, to build siege towers. But to them it will seem like a false divination

New Revised Standard Version

ANE — CASTING LOTS

1 Samuel 10:20–21a Then Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot. He brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its families, and the family of the Matrites was taken by lot. Finally he brought the family of the Matrites near man by man, and Saul the son of Kish was taken by lot. Acts 4:24–26 Then they prayed and said, “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.

New Revised Standard Version

EARLY CHURCH PROPHECY

Christology: “Does This Predict Jesus?” Messianic Expectation Jesus, Jesus Everywhere Allegory

EARLY CHURCH — MESSIANIC EXPECTATION

Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III.21.4 Carefully, then, has the Holy Ghost pointed out, by what has been said, His birth from a virgin, and His essence, that He is God (for the name Emmanuel indicates this). And He shows that He is a man, when He says, “Butter and honey shall He eat;” and in that He terms Him a child also, [in saying,] “before He knows good and evil;” for these are all the tokens of a human infant. But that He “will not consent to evil, that He may choose that which is good,”—this is proper to God; that by the fact, that He shall eat butter and honey, we should not understand that He is a mere man only, nor, on the other hand, from the name Emmanuel, should suspect Him to be God without flesh.

Trans. W. H. Rambaut. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Vol 1. 1885.

EARLY CHURCH — JESUS, JESUS EVERYWHERE

Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Song of Songs, II.3 I must ask you to try to give your whole attention here.  The mouth that kisses signifies the Word who assumes human nature; the nature assumed receives the kiss; the kiss however, that takes its being both from the giver and the receiver, is a person that is formed by both, none other than “the one mediator between God and mankind, himself a man, Christ Jesus.”  It is for this reason that none of the saints dared say: “let him kiss me with his mouth,”  but rather, “with the kiss of his mouth.”  In this way they paid tribute to that prerogative of Christ, on whom uniquely and in one sole instance the mouth of the word was pressed, that moment when the fullness of the divinity yielded itself to him as the life of his body.

Translated by Kilian Walsh, 1971

EARLY CHURCH — ALLEGORY

Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, VI.14. There were also, however, those who, from the worship of the heavenly bodies, did not return to the Maker of them. For this was the sway given to the nations to rise up to God, by means of the worship of the heavenly bodies. But those who would not abide by those heavenly bodies assigned to them, but fell away from them to stocks and stones, “were counted,” it is said, “as chaff-dust and as a drop from a jar,” (Isa 11:15) beyond salvation, cast away from the body.

Ante-Nicene Fathers. Vol 2. 1885.

What Is Prophecy.key - June 11, 2019

INTERPRETATIONS TODAY

Note: These are interpretations of ancient prophecy today. This does not address the phenomenon of modern prophets, which we will address at the end of the semester.

No Consensus Not Real Decoding Apocalyptic Social Justice

TODAY — NOT REAL

• The physical science principle of entropy means time can only flow in one direction. Biology, psychiatry, and philosophy have shown that we are ultimately separated from each other and permanently Other; God is the greatest other.

• There is no proof that there even is a God, let alone that he tells people what’s going to happen.

• We made it through Y2K and 2012 just fine! We’ve heard over and over again that the world is coming to an end. It hasn’t happened yet.

TODAY — DECODING

Is there any evidence in the Bible that the United States is still here after World War III, the Euphrates River War described in Revelation 9: 13-21? In Revelation 12:13, the dragon, Satan is depicted making war against the woman, Israel. Then, Israel is rescued by “two wings of a great eagle.” And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. (Revelation 12:14) There is no doubt that the United States is in Daniel 7: 4. In Revelation 12:4 it is not quite as explicit. If this is true, it means that the United State is still a factor in the world when Satan begins to come against Israel three and one-half years before Armageddon.

Irvin Baxter. “Where is the United States in Bible Prophecy?” EndTime Ministries. www.endtime.com Accessed 1 Jun 2019.

TODAY — SOCIAL JUSTICE

If we were to seek to articulate this point in today’s terms, we could say something like the following: the concern for matters of social justice is deeply rooted in the biblical tradition (over six hundred texts could be cited). Anyone who is committed to that tradition will be truly concerned about social justice and, in every age, will seek to address these issues anew with communities of faith in very public ways. To be concerned about social justice in this way is then, basically, a conservative agenda. It could be said that anyone who does not attend carefully and explicitly and publicly to issues of social justice in our life together betrays the cause of conservatism.

Terrence E. Fretheim. “The Prophets and Social Justice: A Conservative Agenda.” Word and World 28.2 (Spr 2008): 159–168.

HEBREW PROPHECY

Seeing Through God’s Eyes Overlapping (Non-Linear) Time Future and Past are Tools to speak to... ...the Present! Always! Unique to Israel

ISRAEL’S FIRST FAMILY

The Leader Moses — The Hero

The Priest Aaron — The Ritualist

The Prophetess Miriam — The Ecstatic

Election, Birth, and/or Wealth

Pretty Much Anyone

Birthright Only by Clan

Artwork by Sefira Ross, from www.chabad.org

What Is Prophecy.key - June 11, 2019