Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 21:4 (Dec 1978)
Article: The Emergence Of The Writing Prophets In Israel In The Mid-Eighth Century
Author: Harold P. Scanlin

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The Emergence Of The Writing Prophets In Israel In
The Mid-Eighth Century

Harold P. Scanlin*

*Harold Scanlin is associate professor of Bible at the Evangelical School of Theology, Myerstown, Pennsylvania.

To what can one attribute the dramatic change in the methods of prophetic practice as the “classical” prophets emerged in Israel in the mid-eighth century?

And what were the precipitating factors which caused this change? These intriguing questions have prompted a bewildering variety of answers in the past century of Biblical criticism. The usual view of the critical school sees the emergence of the “classical” prophets as the spokesmen for a new theology; they introduced monotheism to Israel. They were in essence the architects of Israelis faith.1 They were thus originators rather than transmitters of faith. Although this keystone of the Wellhausen school has in many places been repudiated,2 some contemporary advocates of this view may still be found.3

Generally, however, recent studies of the prophets have emphasized their role as interpreters rather than innovators of tradition. For example, Walter Brueggemann views the ministry of Hosea in this way.4 The prophets may be viewed as calling the people of Israel to account for their breach of covenant relationship with the Lord, as exemplified in the rib (covenant lawsuit) speeches. Although adding further dimension to the ministry of the prophets, this approach has not answered our initial question.

Still another approach is the consideration of the role of oral tradition. The function and development of oral tradition, with its relationship to written form, has been the special concern of the Scandinavian school of OT scholars. H. S. Nyberg, for example, maintained in his Studien im Hoseabuche (1935) that little if any prophetic material was preserved before the exilic period. Rather it was transmitted orally through the discipline of memory and oral preservation with a rigor and accuracy with which contemporary western minds are unfamiliar.5

In modification of this approach G. Widengren6 has drawn upon the analogy of early Arabic literature, which existed side by side in both literary and oral form. He concludes that

the prophets, because of developing their activity in an urban milieu and themselves in most cases surely belonging to priestly circles, were well acquainted with writing; further … their prophecies were often written down by themselves, ...

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