Prophetic Career Research Articles

Judean Reception of the Elisha Narratives

Abstract Scholars have noted scribal attempts to undermine Elisha’s prophetic reputation in his promise to the Shunammite woman (2 Kgs 4:8–17). However, these readings fail to adequately consider the intertextual links between Elisha’s promise and Yahweh’s promise to Abraham (Gen 18:1–15): Why did the scribes link Elisha’s promise with Yahweh’s promise, especially when the narrative is largely hostile against Elisha? Paying attention to the possible context in Achaemenid Yehud, this article proposes a new interpretation of Elisha’s promise: It highlights scribal efforts to subjugate and silence Bethel, a northern Israelite cultic site believed to be the repository for Elisha traditions during this period. And it argues that the Judean scribes deliberately linked Elisha’s promise with Yahweh’s promise, as an “antithetical parallelism” to support their attempts to stigmatise Bethel’s traditions by pointing readers toward Elisha’s human weaknesses and limitations in his prophetic career.

“The Robe of Righteousness”: Exilic and Post-Exilic Isaiah in The Book of Mormon

“The Robe of Righteousness”: Exilic and Post-Exilic Isaiah in <i>The Book of Mormon</i>

Jeremiah the Suffering Prophet - his Communication of Judgment and Promise of Blessings

The Book of Jeremiah is the second of the Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. The prophet Jeremiah witnessed first-hand, a nation struggling to survive. Jeremiah comes through plainly as a person contemplating his role as a servant of Yahweh with scant good news for his people. Jeremiah's heart-rending message is communicated by both his prophecies and account of Jerusalem's destruction. Jeremiah’s prophecies are unambiguous and pessimistic and aimed at rebuking people who had become idolatrous and debauched. Yahweh appointed Jeremiah to proclaim the destruction and building of a nation that would ultimately lead to His Kingdom. He thus also offers his people hope and his prophetic warnings are also promises that returning to Yahweh will lead the people to divine blessings and he states that Yahweh will eventually honour his pledge with the Jews. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11). For forty years Jeremiah preached to the unrepented Judah and Israel. Jeremiah used verbal communication to challenge the religious hypocrisy, economic dishonesty, and oppressive practice of Judah leaders and those who followed them. The article concludes that Jeremiah’s experiences prepared him and put him in good state to comprehend resources which Yahweh provides. He fought throughout his life and he attained lofty spiritual levels demonstrating his piety. His prophetic career coincided with the last years of Judah’s independence before it was overrun by the Babylonians. Jeremiah prophesied that Yahweh would make a covenant with Israel, superseding the old Mosaic Covenant; Yahweh would then write his law on the hearts of men rather than on stone tablets and they would all come to know Him directly and receive his compassion and forgiveness. Jeremiah was an effective prophet who could clearly communicate his vision based on Yahweh’s wishes, and he provided constructive feedback to people, and strongly stated what people needed to do. This brief study primarily employs a literature study, and a biblical-theological approach to interpreting the book of Jeremiah is also integrated. His communication strategy is also unpacked as it ensured that the people had suitable information about Yahweh’ wishes, towards maintaining close steadiness in their lives and preventing any ambiguity as to the outcome of iniquity and also Yahweh’s promises to a faithful people.

False Prophets in the Book of Jeremiah: Did They All Prophesy and Speak Falsehood?

ABSTRACT Scholars have often considered the conflict between Jeremiah and the other prophets in the book as fundamental traits of his prophetic career and biographical accounts of the life of Jeremiah. This article defends an alternative view: prophetic conflicts in Jeremiah are literary creations produced by later redactors to strengthen Jeremiah’s status of true prophet of Yhwh, as it appears clear in addressing the clash between Jeremiah and some of other prophets in the book: Passhur, Ahab, Zedekiah and Shemaiah. In fact, none of these characters was originally a prophet nor was he connected to any prophetic activities. It was the work of later redactors that turned these characters into prophets of falsehood, in so reinforcing Jeremiah’s prophetic prerogatives in comparison.

The Preacher of the Meccan Qur'an: Deuteronomistic History and Confessionalism in Muḥammad's Early Preaching

There has been a trend in recent scholarship on the Qur'an to downplay the role of Muḥammad in delivering and preaching the Qur'an, such that one is almost presented with a disembodied Qur'an which has no relationship to his prophetic career. The disappearance of Muḥammad from the Qur'an, and the pretence that there is no preacher, allows for a radical rereading of the text, such that one can then claim not only that it is an outgrowth of a Christian preaching environment, but that the Qur'an's main audience was a Biblically-saturated community. However, there is also a more serious issue at hand. Our Fragestellung about what the Qur'an has to tell us about Muḥammad is problematic. It seeks to reconstruct his life in the manner of a nineteenth-century biography, outlining a linear and comprehensive life-story. The Qur'an is unlike the Gospels, we are repeatedly told: there is no sustained biography of Muḥammad there to be found, and no chronological order to its parts. Indeed, the mantra that the Qur'an does not tell us much about Muḥammad is now a truism in Qur'anic studies. However, the Qur'an is packed with information about Muḥammad: it is actually a record of his preaching. In this article I will investigate the most important details we can find in the Qur'an about Muḥammad, and assess the image of the preacher of the Qur'an as fashioned there. I will then develop the historical implications of my analysis, and show that when we analyse the information in the Qur'an we can obtain historical information about Muḥammad, his community, and their respective ideas. The analysis will be confined to the image of Muḥammad in the Meccan parts of the Qur'an: the topic of his image in the Medinan Qur'an is a matter for another study.

Asketiske praksisser i Koranen: Vigilien som case

In this article, I propose that Peter Sloterdijk’s etymological definition of áskesis as an ‘exercise’ is useful when approaching the Qur’ānic attitude(s) to ascetic practices, including in particular the text’s references to vigils. From a close reading of two passages in sūrat l-muzzammil (Q 73:1-9, 20), I argue for a chronological development in the Qur’ānic invitations to vigil practices. In this way, the Qur’ānic articulations of vigils can be understood as two types of ascetic ‘training programmes’, developing from the Prophet’s own extraordinary initiation practice to a more general ‘maintenance’ practice for the ordinary believer. Such a development appears to be consistent with the overall historical frame of Muḥammad’s prophetic career. By opening for a broader understanding of ‘asceticism’, the Qur’ān can be seen as taking part in a general ascetic tendency of the Axial Age.

Jesus and the Continuing Exile of Israel in the Writings of N.T. Wright

N.T. Wright’s thesis that the historical Jesus conducted his prophetic career in the context of a widespread belief that Israel was in a protracted state of exile has courted much controversy. This study sketches Wright’s articulation of the return-from-exile theme in Jewish literature, describes some of the scholarly criticisms to this view, and defends a chastened view of Wright’s thesis that return-from-exile remains a useful category for understanding Judaism and Jesus even if it does not necessarily carry the meta-narratival freight that Wright attributes to it.

Rethinking Prophecy

Rethinking Prophecy

Gender and Prophecy in Late Medieval Valencia

Gender and Prophecy in Late Medieval Valencia Ronald E. Surtz This essay contrasts and compares the careers of two visionaries, one male (Agostí Ferrandis), the other female (Tecla Servent). Both had prophetic careers in the same geographic area, the Kingdom of Valencia, at the end of the fifteenth century, and the authenticity of the messages of both was questioned by the ecclesiastical establishment. I will argue that, while the issue of gender is always relevant to the visionary experience and to the discernment of spirits, Ferrandis’s status as a male cleric did not guarantee the automatic acceptance of his divine messages, nor was Servent’s status as a laywomen automatically detrimental to her prophetic career. Agostí Ferrandis, vicar of the Dominican monastery of Corpus Christi in Lutxent, announced in a sermon delivered in that town around Christmas of 1475 that the Virgin Mary had appeared to him and warned that people should mend their ways, for her son was greatly angered at humankind.1 In [End Page 299] the sermon the friar preached on New Year’s Day in the cathedral of Xàtiva, he predicted that a frightful sign of divine anger would be visible everywhere in the world, but only God knew whether that portent would consist of floods, fire, or earthquakes. The Virgin Mary urged people, he alleged, to repent, go to confession, receive the Eucharist, and pardon wrongs done to them so as to be in a state of grace when the terrible moment came. Those who repented would be saved, while sinners would perish. Ferrandis also predicted that as a sign that his predictions would come true, he would disappear from the world before the month of March (Dietari 374). The aldermen of Valencia sent the nobleman Joan de Pròxita to invite Ferrandis to preach in that city. The friar arrived there on 25 January 1476, lodging in the home of the lawyer Miquel Albert.2 On Sunday, 27 January, he delivered a sermon in the cathedral of Valencia in which he reiterated that he had seen the Virgin Mary, and he exhorted all to repent, claiming that only those in a state of grace would be saved from the approaching calamity. The following Monday he preached once again in the cathedral and claimed that the Virgin had appeared to him twice the preceding night; his sermon moved the members of the congregation to forgive one another, confess their sins, and receive communion. Ferrandis then went on to disseminate his message of repentance in nearby cities and towns, where numerous people from Valencia followed him and his words inspired many to convert to a holier life. On Friday, 9 February, the friar returned to Valencia, but Guillem de Vich (the vicar general of cardinal Rodrigo de Borja, the city’s archbishop) and the royal governor Joan Roiz de Corella forbade him to continue to preach in Valencia, and so on 13 February he returned to his monastery in Lutxent (374–75).3 [End Page 300] Miquel Albert reported by letter to the town council of Valencia that he had followed Ferrandis to Lutxent and that on 22 February it was discovered that the friar had disappeared from his cell.4 A few days later he was located in the hermitage of Santa Ana, to which, no longer wishing to preach, he had retired to engage in penitential acts (376).5 Was this what Ferrandis had meant when he had announced at Christmas in Xàtiva that he would disappear from the world? On 4 July the canons of the cathedral chapter met and voted that Ferrandis’s supernatural experiences were due to diabolic temptation, not divine inspiration (“que hera temptacio e no cosa divina” [376]).6 Only master Bernat Peres considered the friar’s lifestyle holy (“era de santa vida”) and believed that all he had said was the truth. On 10 August Joan de Pròxita, who had been a great admirer of Ferrandis, died, and his widow bid Ferrandis come to Valencia and requested that he and the other friars pray for her husband’s soul (376).7 Taking advantage of the friar’s presence in Valencia, the diocese’s vicar...

Mormonism and Same-Sex Marriage: Towards a Mormon Theology of Gender

From its beginning, a key part of Mormonism’s general appeal was its accessibility; its ability to make abstract conceptions of divinity tangible, systematic, and readily understood. Joseph Smith Jr., Mormonism’s founder and first prophet, rejected the creeds of wider Christendom as “[teaching] for doctrines the commandments of men [while] having a form of godliness, but [denying] the power thereof.” Throughout his prophetic career, Joseph Smith consistently “eternalized” temporal concepts as his emerging theology transformed early Mormonism from a mostly-Protestant form of Christianity into what Jan Shipps has called a new “full-scale religious tradition.”Perhaps the most poignant and most significant example of this process can be seen in Joseph Smith’s evolving conception of God. While it would be difficult to argue that Smith ever held strict Trinitarian views, it is clear that in Smith’s first prophetic act – the purported “translation” of the Book of Mormon by dictation to a scribe between 1827 and 1830 – Smith’s views were at the very least, modalistic. By 1838, however, Smith had completely rejected both Trinitarianism and modalism and began to teach the complete and distinct separation of members of the Godhead. In 1843 Smith taught that “the Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit.” In essence, Smith had stated that man is of the same species as God; that God the Father was quite literally, an “exalted” man.In this paper, I briefly examine the implications of this teaching on modern Mormonism’s conception of God and gender; two ideas which within Mormonism’s systematic theology, are inexorably intertwined. Given this context, I will then explore how this conception has lead directly to modern Mormonism’s moral opposition to homosexuality generally and its subsequent political opposition to same-sex marriage specifically. I will also argue that the modern Mormon dogmas used to justify this political and moral opposition may in fact, represent a significant departure from the original teachings of Joseph Smith.

The Prophecy and Passion of al-Hārit b. Sa'īd al-Kaddāb: Narrating a Religious Movement from the Caliphate of 'Abd al-Malik b. Marwān

AbstractThis study examines the historical reports on the 'false prophet (kaddāb)' known as al-Hāritb. Sa'īd from both a historical and literary perspective. From the historical perspective, I investigate how a Syrian mawlā began a prophetic movement in the Umayyad mosque of Damascus during the caliphate of 'Abd al-Malik, which subsequently spread throughout the caliph's army. My study then follows the second phase of al-Hārit's career in which he flees Damascus to initiate an underground movement in Jerusalem where, once uncovered and captured, the would-be prophet is crucified on a cross. By examining al-Hārit's alleged associations and followers, such as Umm al-Dardā' al-Suġrā and Ġaylān al-Dimašqī, I attempt to gauge the scope and subsequent influence of al-Hārit's brief prophetic career. From the literary perspective, my study argues that one of the principal transmitters of the ahbār on al-Hārit's prophetic career, Abū Bakr b. Abī Haytama (d. 279/892), considerably doctored the early accounts in order to fashion a parodic, expanded narrative largely of his own making. I thus contend that Ibn Abī Haytama, by culling tropes and anecdotes from sīra- and qisas-material on the lives of Muhammad and Jesus, constructed a biography of al-Hārit that cast him as a farcical version of a genuine prophet.

Baha'i Approaches to Christianity and Islam: Further Thoughts on Developing an Inter-Religious Dialogue

This paper aims to present a novel Baha'i contribution to inter-religious dialogue, one that is based on developing intellectual bridges between the religions. It is argued that the concept of continuity of revelation is a framework by which religions can dialogue about their differences and similarities. Some preliminary aspects of this concept are outlined from scripture and current scholarship in Christianity and Islam. There are three aspects to continuity of revelation: commonalities between the religions, non-exclusivity and non-finality in relation to their claims. The paper concludes that a central theme of inter-religious dialogue should be the nature and lives of the prophet-founders. In the context of Christian Muslim dialogue, the challenge that the prophetic career of Muhammad represents for Christians is discussed in relation to Abdu'l-Baha's talks in the West. Finally, the importance for Baha'is of contributing to the western discourse on Islam is explored.

Explaining Away the Greek Gods in Islam

Explaining Away the Greek Gods in Islam John Walbridge Of the angels newly fallen from heaven, Milton tells us: Nor had they yet among the Sons of Eve Got them new Names ... Men took ... Devils to adore for Deities: Then were they known to men by various Names, And various Idols through the Heathen World. Among the devils worshipped as gods among the ancients were the Olympians: Th’ Ionian Gods, of Javans Issue held Gods, yet confest later then Heav’n and Earth Thir boasted parents; Titan Heavn’s first born With his enormous brood, and birthright seis’d By younger Saturn, he from mightier Jove His own and Rhea’s Son like measure found; So Jove usurping reign’d: these first in Creet And Ida known, thence on the Snowy top Of cold Olympus rul’d the middle Air Thir highest Heav’n; or on the Delphian Cliff, Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds Of Doric Land.... Paradise Lost, I: 364–65, 372–75, 508–19 [End Page 389] Milton’s assertion that the Greek gods were demons goes back to the centuries in which those ancient gods slowly yielded to the new and jealous triune God of the Christians. Augustine in The City of God does not deny the reality of the old gods but identifies them as dead heroes or as demons. The power of the old gods was still manifest to the Christians of antiquity; it was their moral worth, not their existence, that was to be challenged. Such an interpretation is not found in Muslim accounts of the Greek gods. For all practical purposes Greek polytheism was entirely dead by the time Islam came onto the scene. Indeed, even Arabian polytheism, though still vigorous when Muhammad began his prophetic career, died out within three decades of the proclamation of Islam. Pious Muslims might be offended by the icons in Christian churches, but the temples of the Greek gods were gone these three centuries or more, their statues broken up and their stones stolen to build churches. The other forms of polytheism with which Islam came into contact—Zoroastrianism (the most important), Buddhism, Hinduism, and gnostic religions like Manichaeism and Harranian Sabianism—could rightly be understood as forms of monotheism (or dualism). Only the occasional idol temple in some out-of-the-way place—the shrine of the god Zun or Zur in Zamindawar in Afghanistan, 1 for example—might illustrate pure idol worship, but such institutions were soon destroyed and posed little intellectual challenge. Thus, by the time highly intellectual forms of Islam came into being in the eighth and ninth centuries, there was no real idol-worshipping paganism to oppose. Despite the uncompromising monotheism of Islam, polytheism aroused little emotion for the generations of Muslims born after the passing of the Prophet’s companions. Shirk, polytheism, went on to have a rich history in Islamic thought, but it was idols of the soul, not idols carved from stone and wood, that stirred the imaginations and fears of serious Muslims. The Muslim contact with Greek polytheism was thus not with living pagans but with literary allusions in Greek philosophical and scientific texts. In late antiquity philosophy had been the last bastion of paganism, a fortress whose outworks may have been stormed perhaps but whose citadel still held out, manned by doughty and commited fighters like Proclus and Simplicius. But the fortress had at last fallen, and even the ancient philosophers had finally been brought to the baptismal font. The fact that they knew little more than the names of Greek gods was another factor preventing Muslim scholars from taking alarm at Greek polytheism. The obvious first question to ask when we examine what Muslims thought of the Greek gods is what they might have known about them. How indeed do we know about Greek religion? Mostly we know mythology from literature: Hesiod, Homer, Greek drama, and manuals of literature and rhetoric. None of [End Page 390] these sources were available to Muslims. The translators were not interested in literature, which they knew resisted translation, so even Homer appears in Arabic sources as a sage, one of a number of authors of wise sayings...

Review

Book reviewed in this article:Muhammad and the Origins of Islam, F.E. PetersIslamic Thought:23 Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad cAli Dashti, F.R.C. Bagley, translator

Twenty-Three Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad, ᶜAli Dashti, trans. F. R. C. Bagley, Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1994, xviii + 228 pp. (first published London: George Allen &amp; Unwin, 1985 in hardcover).

<b><i>Twenty-Three Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad</i></b>, ᶜAli Dashti, trans. F. R. C. Bagley, Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1994, xviii + 228 pp. (first published London: George Allen &amp; Unwin, 1985 in hardcover).

23 Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad, by Ali Dashti. Translated by F.R.C. Bagley. 228 pages, notes on the author and translation, indices. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 1994 $15.95 (Paper) ISBN 1–5685-9–029-6

23 Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad, by Ali Dashti. Translated by F.R.C. Bagley. 228 pages, notes on the author and translation, indices. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 1994 $15.95 (Paper) ISBN 1–5685-9–029-6 - Volume 29 Issue 1

Twenty Three Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad

Twenty Three Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad

Lucrecia's dreams: politics and prophecy in sixteenth-century Spain

Branded by the Spanish Inquisition as an evil dreamer, a notorious mother of prophets, the teenager Lucrecia de Leon had hundreds of bleak but richly imaginative dreams of Spain's future that became the stuff of political controversy and scandal. Based upon surviving transcripts of her dreams and on the voluminous records of her trial before the Inquisition, Lucrecia's Dreams traces the complex personal and political ramifications of Lucrecia's prophetic career. This hitherto unexamined episode in Spanish history sheds new light on the history of women as well as on the history of dream interpretation. Charlatan or clairvoyant, sinner or saint, Lucrecia was transformed by her dreams into a cause celebre, the rebellious counterpart to that other extraordinary woman of Golden Age Spain, St. Theresa of Jesus. Her supporters viewed her as a divinely inspired seer who exposed the personal and political shortcomings of Philip II of Spain. In examining the relation of dreams and prophecy to politics, Richard Kagan pays particular attention to the activities of the streetcorner prophets and female seers who formed the political underworld of sixteenth-century Spain.

REVIEWS

REVIEWS Get access ALI DASHTI, Twenty-three Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammad, tr. from the Persian by F. R. C. Bagley, George Allen and Unwin, London 1985. Pp. xviii + 228. JOHN HAYWOOD JOHN HAYWOOD LEWES, SUSSEX Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Semitic Studies, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2, AUTUMN 1988, Pages 335–336, https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/XXXIII.2.335 Published: 01 October 1988

'Ali Dashti: Twenty three years: a study of the prophetic career of Mohammed. Translated from the persian by F. R. C. Bagley. xviii, 228 pp. LondonGeorge Allen and unwin, 1985. £15.95.

'Ali Dashti: Twenty three years: a study of the prophetic career of Mohammed. Translated from the persian by F. R. C. Bagley. xviii, 228 pp. LondonGeorge Allen and unwin, 1985. £15.95. - Volume 50 Issue 3