The Hebrew Prophets after the Shoah. Hemchand Gossai
Читать онлайн книгу.
href="#ulink_11955bb2-20c0-55bd-9f9b-24974458b62e">9. Tracy, “Hidden God,” 13.
10. Sweeney, Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah, 8.
11. Ibid., 9.
12. Ibid., 13.
13. Ibid., 103.
14. O’Brien, Challenging Prophetic Metaphor, xxi.
15. Sweeney, Reading the Hebrew Bible after the Shoah, 198–99.
16. Brueggemann, “Fissure Always Uncontained,” 73.
17. Bard, “Nazi Olympics,” n.p.
18. Ibid.
19. Fretheim, Untamed Creation, 101.
20. Hall, God and Human Suffering, 58–60.
21. LaCocque and LaCocque, Jonah, 139.
22. Ibid.
23. Wis 11:23–24.
24. LaCocque and LaCocque, Jonah, 143.
25. Ibid., 145.
26. Hos 8:14.
27. Hos 4:6.
28. Lapsley, “Genius of the Mad Prophet,” 136.
29. Birch, Let Justice Roll Down, 294.
30. Isa 42:9–10a.
31. Lapsley, “Genius of the Mad Prophet,” 134.
32. Jer 6:15.
33. Smith-Christopher, Theology of Exile, 76.
34. See Sells, “Kosovo Mythology,” 180–207.
35. Langer, Shoah Testimonies, 39.
2
Prophecy and Prophetic Literature
Arguably it is the case that biblical scholarship over the last 400 years or so has been shaped principally by the Reformation/Counter-Reformation and the Enlightenment. In large part what this has done is to emphasize the centrality of rationalistic thinking and somewhat later, historical criticism. Indeed for a prolonged time these methods have been granted a privileged status in biblical scholarship, and in all of this time, while surrounded by the presence and influence of imperialism and colonialism, biblical scholars have been remarkably reluctant to employ other methods in shaping the trajectories of biblical hermeneutics.
There are two greater dangers within the field. One is an uncritical acceptance of the principal tenets of the discipline, and the other, its failure to relate it to the society in which its work is done. Biblical Studies is still seduced by the modernistic notion of using the rational as a key to open the text and fails to accept intuition, sentiment and emotion as a way into the text. By and large the world of biblical interpretation is detached from the problems of the contemporary world and has become ineffectual because it has failed to challenge the status quo or work for any sort of social change.36
It is sometimes quite difficult for us to understand the encounters between the Hebrew prophets and the communities and peoples with whom they related, and the relationship between God and these prophets. For the most part these kinds of divine and prophetic encounters are absent, or at best sparese in today’s world. Invariably when I speak to groups about the Hebrew Prophets, I ask the question, “who are the prophets in our generation or who have been the prophets in the last century or so?” Without providing too many details, I have suggested to the various audiences that they use the Hebrew Prophet as something of a model. In posing this question I typically have not had any preconceived names that I am seeking to elicit in particular, but the responses that I have received have been quite revealing. There was often a challenge to generate names and while Gandhi and Martin Luther King invariably made the list, it was typically not long before names of popular preachers or even celebrities were cited. It is not to suggest in any way that many of those named did not have merit in terms of who they were and what they did, but to speak of a prophet is distinctive. Occasionally one confuses a minister or priest with a prophet. And while it is true that a member of the clergy might be prophetic in his or her message from time to time, it should never be the case that the roles are seen to be interchangeable. Certainly within the Hebrew Bible there is no confusion between the prophet and the priest. Why might there be confusion between the roles of clergy and prophet today? And indeed why is it that many find it difficult to embrace the role of prophet today, along the lines of the manner of the Hebrew prophet?
First, we live in a world where the technological and scientific developments have generated a healthy element of cynicism for most people in terms of that which might be prophetic. In part because of the quest to have empirical proof for practically everything, there has developed a kind of division between what can be believed and what must be proven. We witness from the various topics on which the Hebrew prophets spoke that all of life was rooted in God and therefore one could not proceed with arguments that separated one section of life from the other. This was an intensely important issue as the people of ancient Israel sought to remove the practice of worship from the ethical elements of life. In effect they sought to separate the care of the neighbor (understood to be a secular matter) from the worship of YHWH (a sacred matter). This division was to trigger sharp invectives from Israelite prophets. Certainly this unity of the sacred and the secular was not unique to Israel, for it was also present in other Near Eastern societies and it continues to be an essential aspect of the spiritual and biblical inheritance of both Jews and Christians.
Second, in today’s society, there are some who have laid claims to have had private revelations from God. While there are loyal groups of believers who are willing to subscribe to and follow such religious figures and the revelations they claim to have received, it is often through their monetary support that they sustain such persons. Many others view such “private revelations” available to the public for a price with a certain degree of justifiable suspicion. The “private line to God” is not a saleable feature of religious experience in contemporary society. Recent