The Oxford Handbook of the Prophets

The Latter Prophets--Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Book of the Twelve--comprise a fascinating collection of prophetic oracles, narratives, and vision reports from ancient Israel and Judah. Spanning centuries and showing evidence of compositional growth and editorial elaboration over time, these prophetic books offer an unparalleled view into the cultural norms, theological convictions, and political disputes of Israelite communities caught in the maelstrom of militarized conflicts with the empires of ancient Egypt, Babylonia, and Persia. Instructive for scholar and student alike, The Oxford Handbook of the Prophets features wide-ranging discussion of ancient Near Eastern social and cultic contexts; exploration of focused topics such as the persona of the prophet and the problem of violence in prophetic rhetoric; sophisticated historical and literary analysis of key prophetic texts; issues in reception history, from these texts' earliest reinterpretations at Qumran to Christian appropriations in contemporary homiletics; feminist, materialist, and postcolonial readings engaging the insights of influential contemporary theorists; and more. The diversity of interpretive approaches, clarity of presentation, and breadth of expertise represented here will make this Handbook indispensable for research and teaching on the Latter Prophets.

Carolyn J. Sharp is Professor of Homiletics at Yale Divinity School. She is interested in homiletical theory and praxis shaped by insights from biblical studies, feminist perspectives on power, and ecotheology. Her books include Irony and Meaning in the Hebrew Bible (2009), The Prophetic Literature (2019), Joshua (2019), and Jeremiah 26-52 (2021).

Introduction (Carolyn J. Sharp)

I. CONTEXTUALIZING THE PROPHETS
A. Ancient Social and Cultic Contexts

1 Intermediation in the Ancient Near East (Martti Nissinen)
2 Prophecy and Priesthood (Lester L. Grabbe)
3 Prophecy and Diaspora (Jill Middlemas)
4 Prophecy in Persian Yehud (Jon L. Berquist)
5 Prophecy and Apocalyptic (Stephen L. Cook)

B. Historical Methods and Textual Representation

6 Material Culture, Iconography, and the Prophets (Brent A. Strawn)
7 Textual Criticism of the Prophetic Corpus (Eberhard Bons)
8 History and Memory in the Prophets (H. G. M. Williamson)


II. INTERPRETING THE PROPHETS
C. Literary Criticism

9 Isaiah: Structure, Themes, and Contested Issues (Ulrich Berges)
10 Jeremiah: Structure, Themes, and Contested Issues (Mark Leuchter)
11 Ezekiel: Structure, Themes, and Contested Issues (Andrew Mein)
12 The Twelve: Structure, Themes, and Contested Issues (Rainer Kessler)
13 Daniel and Apocalyptic Imagination (Anathea E. Portier-Young)
14 Metaphorization and Other Tropes in the Prophets (Julia M. O'Brien)
15 Genre Criticism and the Prophets (Barbara Green)
16 Redaction Criticism and the Prophets (James D. Nogalski)

D. Topical Studies

17 The Prophet as Persona (Else K. Holt)
18 Prophetic Words and Acts as Survival Literature (Louis Stulman)
19 God and Violence in the Prophets (L. Juliana Claassens)

E. Reception History

20 The Prophets and Qumran (Alex P. Jassen)
21 The Prophets in the New Testament (J. Ross Wagner)
22 Rabbinic Reception of the Prophets (Isaac B. Gottlieb)
23 Early Christian Reception of the Prophets (Ronald E. Heine)
24 Medieval Reception of the Prophets (Mary Chilton Callaway)


III. ENGAGING THE PROPHETS
F. Situated Readings

25 Contemporary Jewish readings of the Prophets (Marvin A. Sweeney)
26 Feminist Interpretation of the Prophets (Christl M. Maier)
27 Womanist Approaches to the Prophets (Valerie Bridgeman)
28 Materialist Analysis of the Prophets (Gale A. Yee)
29 Postcolonial Readings of the Prophets (Steed Vernyl Davidson)
30 Queer Readings of the Prophets (Jennifer J. Williams)
31 Postmodern Engagements of the Prophets (Amy Kalmanofsky)

G. Interdisciplinary Interventions

32 The Prophets and Theology (Shannon Craigo-Snell)
33 The Prophets and Ethics (Traci C. West)
34 The Prophets and Pastoral Care (Michael S. Koppel)
35 The Prophets and Homiletics (Leonora Tubbs Tisdale & Carolyn J.
Sharp)

H. Future Horizons in the Study of the Prophets
36 Futures in Prophetic Studies (Walter Brueggemann)
37 Future Horizons in Study of the Prophets (Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer)