Syntax of 2 Ki 23:3?

This post belongs in the category "pernickety Hebrew grammar questions."

In 2 Ki 23:3 we have a verb (כָּרַת, in green) and a string of three infinitive constructs with ל (in red below):

וַיִּכְרֹ֥ת אֶֽת־הַבְּרִ֣ית׀ לִפְנֵ֣י יְהוָ֗ה לָלֶ֜כֶת אַחַ֤ר יְהוָה֙ וְלִשְׁמֹ֨ר מִצְוֹתָ֜יו ... בְּכָל־לֵ֣ב

...לְהָקִ֗ים אֶת־דִּבְרֵי֙ הַבְּרִ֣ית הַזֹּ֔את

Most of the translations I'm aware of translate each infinitive construct as expressing the purpose of the making of the covenant. Thus, the ESV reads:

"and [he] made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments ... with all his heart ... , to perform the words of this covenant."

A distinction, however, is made between the last infinitive ("to perform") and the previous two by the insertion of a comma. The NIV goes its own way by translating it as "thus confirming." The NRSV translates the second infinitive as a gerund "keeping," again introducing a distinction for the last infinitive.

When I first read this sentence, I thought that all three infinitives equally expressed the purpose of the forming of the covenant. However, the Andersen-Forbes Phrase Marker analysis tags the first two infinitives as "object complements" (i.e. they "complete" the object of the verb "covenant") whereas the final infinitive is set apart as expressing the "aim" of the verb. To me, this would mean that walking after the Lord and keeping his commandments represent the content of the covenant whereas performing the the words represents goal of the covenant. It would also mean that "the words of the covenant" does not refer to words in addition to the commandments, witnesses etc., but is rather a summary of such things (which is typically Deuteronomistic, by the way).

If that is right, it would seem that the NIV's translation, unique as it is, is better than the others (though I would translate "thus performing" rather than "thus confirming"). The Elberfelder also makes the distinction by inserting the word "um": "und schloß den Bund ... dem HERRN nachzufolgen und seine Gebote ... zu bewahren ... , um die Worte dieses Bundes zu erfüllen."

Two questions:

1) how would you translate it?

2) how is לְהָקִ֗ים set apart from the other infinitives? Is it just the semantics of the clause, or are there syntactic indications (e.g. there is no waw beforehand)?

Quote of the day: Christian materialism

Israel in the land is meant to be a taste of what God intends for the whole of his creation.

Once more we are reminded of God’s concern for the whole of life as he has made it. Brueggemann rightly states: “This concern for a material, physical promise gives credibility to Christianity as a religion of materialism. When Christianity went spiritual and denied its proper focus on land it rightly earned the strictures of Marxism.”[*] [**]

[*] Brueggemann, Land, 191.

[**]Bartholomew, C. G., & Goheen, M. W. (2004). The drama of Scripture: Finding our place in the biblical story (83). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

Propotional exegesis in the Minor Prophets

In my last post, I claimed that a canonical approach to Biblical exegesis, at least in the sense in which Brevard Childs and Christopher Seitz understand it, does not lead to flat, synchronic reading. Rather, it requires what Seitz called proportional interpretation, "a balancing act."

In relation to the Book of the Twelve (the Twelve Minor Prophets), the example given in my last post was the necessity of distinguishing the different types of juxtaposition found within the Twelve and between the Three (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel). "Proportionality" also needs to be maintained when correlating the general with the particular. Thus, regarding Jonah, Seitz says:

[b]oth the specificity and historicity of Jonah's world of reference, and the larger design within which one is to comprehend that, are guarded in a canonical reading, allowing Jonah to speak from within the witness of the Twelve (148, emphasis mine).

Here is a more detailed quote on Obadiah:

Working simply on the basis of Obadiah as in independent work, Childs and others point to the careful way in which Edom retains a distinctive historical specificity, but at the same time has been brought into explicit association with a larger theme—the day of YHWH—in respect of all national powers.1 Neither side of this association has been blurred in the final form of the book. The Day of YHWH theme, whatever else it may be in Obadiah, and in association with Edom, in prominent in the book of the Twelve as a whole. Indeed, for many it is the chief theme under which any number of different editorial moves have been organized in the final form of the collection. Without endorsing this view, it remains a valuable if partial insight. What may be said about the profile of Edom and the nations within Obadiah as a single witness holds true as well for the theme of the Day of YHWH in Obadiah, on the one hand, and in the surrounding witnesses of the Twelve, and the other. That is, the integrity of both realities must be guarded and not merged. (137, emphasis mine; Seitz references Collins, Mantle of Elijah, 70.).

To play on a term from Karl Barth, we need a Zusammensehen and not a Zusammenklappen (Barth, Einführung).

The need for proportional exegesis

What is proportional exegesis? Proportional exegesis is exegesis which takes into account all the dimensions of the text and gives them their proper due. The so-called "canonical approach," as conceived by Brevard Childs and developed by Christopher Seitz, attempts to do this - contrary to many misrepresentations of the approach as pure synchronic method (it's not even a "method"). In his book Prophecy and Hermeneutics, Seitz mentions three dimensions of the Biblical text, especially as they relate to the canonical shape of the Twelve: the historical, literary, and theological. I have commented on this in more detail my post The canonical shape of the twelve Minor Prophets.

Maintaining these three dimensions in proportion (there are no doubt more, feel free to suggest) requires a lot of subtlety on the part of the interpreter, what Seitz calls a "balancing act." For example, the distinction between the collection of the three Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel) and the Twelve must be taken seriously. According to Seitz, for the Three, “different orders can exist, and the present arrangement is such that the integrity of the individual books is what matters, not their inner relationships or particular order” (91). The Twelve, on the other hand, have been preserved in a different way. “On the one hand, like the Three, they have their own integrity as a single independent work. Unlike the Three, however, they manifest a twelvefold internal character that is clearly marked and is an essential feature of them/it” (91).

Seitz goes on,

The question now is not one of whether historical particularity is a feature of Israel's prophetic witness in general or of the Minor Prophets in particular; it most surely is, and the superscriptions appear calibrated to make this aspect clear formally. What is at issue is how one handles this dimension of the witness in a proportional way and in accordance with the formal character of the witness (92, emphasis mine).

The implications this should have for the interpretation of the Psalms should be clear. In my interpretation of Psalm 24, I will be attempting to avoid the extremes of traditional form criticism on the one hand, which seeks only to interpret the Psalm within the context grid of some context external to the Psalter (though see Millard, Komposition, for a form critical analysis of the Psalter per se), and so-called "canonical approaches" (different to the one described above), which treat the Psalter as a book like any other, consisting of chapters strung along a plot line.

For similar thoughts by Brevard Childs on the need for proportionality in interpretation, see my post Two Testaments, four Gospels: The theological significance of juxtaposition. See also my post on Diachrony and Synchrony in a "canonical approach."

Review of G. Michael O’Neal. Interpreting Habakkuk as Scripture: An Application of the Canonical Approach of Brevard S. Childs

This is a review of a book that I just have to read, posted by Heath Thomas to a private blog of which I am a member (with his kind permission, of course!). I will have to read it, not only because it is about Brevard Childs - the subject matter of 50% of my doctorate - but also because it attempts to do exactly what I am attempting to do. Reading Heath's review calms me somewhat, as it seems that he has noted weakness that I think are axiomatic. For example, unless one grasps that Childs' approach is not a method one will not have understood Childs. I also think that one cannot grasp Childs without 1) having read his entire corpus (or at least most of it, the most important book being his massively underread Biblical Theology) and 2) without reading Karl Barth. So, without further ado ...

In this post I would like to review a recent monograph dedicated to Childs' canonical approach and Habakkuk.

Brevard Childs stands as a major figure in Old Testament scholarship in the past fifty years, and his influence is felt in a series of recent publications that honour him. Though perhaps not fully understood by those who disagree with or embrace his work, Childs nonetheless evokes strong response, leading some to renounce his general approach (Barr and Barton) and others to adopt it, though with qualifications (Seitz). However one views Childs’ contribution to the academy (or to the church), it is one that should not be ignored. In recognition of his importance as an interpreter of Scripture, the balanced monograph of Interpreting Habakkuk as Scripture is a welcome contribution to the field.

In this revised doctoral dissertation (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) O’Neal aims to expound upon the initial ‘sketches’ of Brevard Childs’ canonical approach and apply them particularly to a biblical book (Habakkuk). As such, Habakkuk becomes a case-study in canonical interpretation. O’Neal explains Childs’ theological approach to the Old Testament as Scripture, compares Childs’ approach to Habakkuk in Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (IOS) against the approach of his larger Exodus commentary, and then assesses Habakkuk in light of a close text-critical translation. He then tests Childs’ views on the failure of historical-critical scholarship to read Habakkuk sufficiently (theologically) by surveying this field of scholarship, and then presses further toward a canonical/theological interpretation of Habakkuk both within its own horizons and then within the horizon within the book of the twelve (Minor Prophets). O’Neal rounds out the volume by exploring the theological and hermeneutical implications of Childs’ approach, where his canonical orientation is felicitous and infelicitous, and possible avenues for future research.

For those interested in Childs or canonical theology, they will find in O’Neal a sure footed guide that clearly elucidates central tenets of the canonical approach especially laid out in IOS. It is fruitful to see some of the outlines sketched in IOS brought into more robust colour and shape. His analysis of the text of Habakkuk is careful and well documented and will serve as a useful tool in future research whilst his style is amenable and lively. Especially useful are his lucid text critical comments and interaction with the MT. Likewise, O’Neal advances theological thinking in regard to the horizons of both Habakkuk the book and its place and function within the Book of the Twelve, arguing that Habakkuk serves in its canonical context to reorient the reader to adopt God's perspective on human history - suffering may be endured because God is at work redemptively in history.

Nonetheless, some deficiencies detract from the volume. O’Neal does not engage with recent work in the field of canon and biblical interpretation. To be fair, the focus of the volume – to explore Habakkuk as a kind of case-study on Childs’ canonical approach – necessarily draws attention to the discussion on Habakkuk in IOS. Still, greater attention to Childs’ thinking across the spectrum of his publications up to the present would serve to provide depth and nuance to the understanding of his ‘canonical approach’ and how it impinges upon interpreting Habakkuk as Scripture. This may stem from a latent misappropriation of Childs’ programme as a method rather than a general orientation to the Scripture, which comprises another drawback. O’Neal uses ‘method’ interchangeably with ‘approach’ throughout the monograph. Finally, greater attention on the range of Childs’ contributions may have served to sharpen his general understanding of Childs’ own thinking. An area that would have been particularly strengthened, perhaps, lay in his discussion on the canonical shape of Habakkuk the book as well as the book within the Twelve. How do Childs’ conceptions of (the controversial) ‘canonical intentionality’ or elsewhere ‘canon consciousness’ relate to these? Barton has engaged Childs on this very point and offered other alternatives. A focus upon current research in the field would have added to his analysis, particularly those who disagree with Childs, beyond the criticisms of Barr, such as Brueggemann and Barton.

These caveats noted, O’Neal skilfully addresses the difficult book of Habakkuk in light of Childs’ canonical approach. His analysis no doubt will be consulted in future Habakkuk research.

Notes:

1) The Spring 2008 volume of Princeton Theological Review centred upon ‘theological exegesis’ and its essays ‘give tribute in this issue to one of the 20th century’s most respected and groundbreaking theological exegetes, Brevard Childs. He is for many a model of faithful Christian scholarship and exegesis, and his recent passing in June 2007 provides us with an opportunity to reflect on and commend his important work’. Peter Kline, ‘Prolegomena,’ PTR 38(2008): 5. Note as well the influential volume that arose out of a consultation discussion the implications of Childs’ approach: C. Bartholomew, S. Hahn, R. Parry, C. Seitz, and A. Wolters (eds.) Canon and Biblical Interpretation (SHS 7; Milton Keynes: Paternoster / Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006). Childs contributed an essay to the volume.

2) D.T. Olsen, ‘Seeking the “Inexpressible Texture of Thy Word”: A Practical Guide to Brevard Childs’ Canonical Approach to Theological Exegesis,’ PTR 38(2008): 53-5. And note Childs’ reticence to identify his orientation to the Scriptures as a ‘method’ in Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 382.

3) Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1979), 79, 187.

4) Childs, Introduction, 62, 65; Biblical Theology, 70.

5) J. Barton, ‘Unity and Diversity in the Biblical Canon,’ in Die Einheit der Schrift und die Vielfalt des Kanons (BZNW 118; ed. J. Barton and M. Wolter; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003), 11-26

A canonical approach to the Twelve Minor Prophets

I've argued elsewhere that Christopher Seitz's conception of a "canonical approach" to Scripture (like Childs') is not a form of postmodern interpretation which brackets out all questions of historical development or authorial intentionality. It is a complex phenomenon, involving historical, literary, and theological considerations (see, e.g. my post Continuity in tradition-history). Below, see 1st) his summary of the final form of The Twelve as the product of intentional juxtaposition and 2nd) his understanding of the nature of the phenomenon:

1) Canonical Shaping of the Twelve:

It is "clear that the placements of later books next to earlier ones is an intentional move, arising from the canonical process itself, and is not a reader-response imposition by readers tired of older approaches and looking for new ones. Just as YHWH's roaring from Zion ends Joel and begins Amos, Amos ends with a promise of Edom's (9:12), and Obadiah unhesitatingly describes it. Jonah provides an occasion not of Israelite but of Ninevite repentance, which makes the prophet sore but which reminds the reader that God is not above relenting over evil powers like Edom (whom he has punished in Obadiah already) or even the powerful nation of Assyria. He can treat them with the same patience and kindness he has lavished on his own people, in different ways and dispensations, in Hosea, Joel, and Amos or in the context of Edom's destruction of Obadiah (17-21). Micah establishes the limits of God's patience, now toward the preserved remnant of Judah, strikingly at the exact middle point of the Twelve as a whole (3:12)—a prophecy that bore repeating in a later conflict over Jeremiah's similar preaching against the temple and king (see Jer. 26:18)" (p. 237).

2) The nature of the phenomenon:

"We know that as a historical datum, very soon after the final prophetic book (Malachi?) took shape, the Twelve are regarded as a collection (Sirach, Qumran). Indeed, in Sirach the existence of the Twelve is something of a cliché: it is referred to as a given, without argument or assertion. The literary evidence for internal editorial affiliation, linkages, and intentional juxtapositions is becoming increasingly clear as scholars turn to this sort of inquiry. And I have tried to probe into the theological coherence of the twelve-book collection that may be the intended consequence or, indeed, the originating engine, driving the historical and literary dimensions of canonical shaping "(217, emphasis original).

Jonah and the nations: a "figurative" reading

What is the correct context for interpreting the Book of Jonah, the context that gets us to the substance of its witness? The classic historical approach would locate it in its post-exilic setting and come up with something along the lines of Blenkinsopp: the forgiveness of the evil Assyrians represents "the breaking of the bond of divine causality" inside the prophetic office (Seitz, Prophecy and Hermeneutics, 147). What about its canonical/literary context, however? I've posted on Seitz's understanding of typology, both as inner-biblical literary technique as well as prophetic hermeneutical intention. What would it mean to read Jonah as a book “figured into” a larger divine history? Seitz offers the following thoughts on how the canonical “universe of associations" into which the book of Jonah “has been figured and within which it establishes its ongoing prophetic address as the fifth witness of the Twelve” (147) creates a different picture of divine forgiveness and the nations:

Yhwh is “slow to anger”—but he his also “great in might, and YHWH will by no means clear the guilty” (Nah. 1:3). Of Assyria it was ultimately said, “for upon whom has not come your unceasing evil?” (3:19). Jonah ended with a question about divine compassion. Nahum ends with a question about worldly power and its capacity to look divine grace in the eye, as well as an episode of true repentance, and then carry on according to its own dark designs. Here Nahum is telling no detached theological truth, but is speaking of the way of worldly power as it moves through the chapters of history. And Habakkuk sees a worse chapter coming than the one about which he registered his initial complaint (1:2).

The witness of the Book of the Twelve

As part of my ongoing analysis of Seitz's Prophecy and Hermeneutics (see the summary of and intro to the thread so far here), I offer, in the most spartan form possible, a list of key theological realities testified to by the combined witness of the Book of the Twelve, realities perceived only when one goes beyond the fragmentary witness of the individual prophets (pp. 214-216):

-God's history is an organic whole, rather than episodic and disconnected;

-the nations other than Israel have a different, but parallel, place in God's economy;

-there is an ideal stance vis-à-vis God consisting in prayer and discernment;

-God is patient, but not patient without limit.

This, according to Seitz, is the theological telos to which all the prophets found in the Twelve, in all their individuality and historical particularity, are wishing to point us. Yet how did he get there? Is it enough to confess that all the prophets witness to “the selfsame divine reality”? On that score, Seitz concludes, “all are first and all are last, at one and the same time” (149). Yet how do we coordinate this varied witness and identify their kerygmatic core? For this we need to look closely at the nature of the Biblical witness, the subject of my next post.

Symbolism and prophetic referentiality

Here is Brevard Childs' final example of the way in which prophetic oracles, spoken in time and space to a particular audience for particular reasons, have been rendered as Sacred Scripture for future generations of the faithful. The rest are collected in my post, Canonical Shaping of the Prophets.

8 ) Prophetic symbolism has been given a radical new eschatological interpretation by shifting the referent within the original oracles. Scholars have long recognized that the visions in Zechariah 1-6 appear once to have functioned independently of each other and to have been addressed to particular historical situations both preceding and following the return from the exile (cf. Galling). But the tension between the original visions and their present framework points to an intentional theological shaping. The prophetic visions of Zechariah are now set in the second year of Darius, that is to say, some twenty years after the return from Babylon. The deliverance from the exile now lies in the past. Although the traditional language of the second exodus from slavery has been retained, it has been given a new reference. The language of hope now points to a still future event in which Israel's redemption lies. The original focus has been eschatologized and projected once more into the future. The community of faith which lives after the return still anticipates the future in the language of the past. Israel will still "flee from the land of the north," "escape to Zion," and God will dwell in her midst ( Zech 3 : 6ff. ).

The Book of Joel offers another example of a radical eschatologizing of an original oracle (Joel 1—2) which had only faintly adumbrated the full mension of the End in the locust plague, but Israel learned to understand it as the prelude to the Day of Yahweh when God would hold the final assize (Joel 3).

To summarize, these examples of canonical shaping of the prophetic literature in the history of ordering Israel's tradition as Scripture do not begin to exhaust the richness of Old Testament interpretation, but at least they give a hint of the creative dimension involved in the collecting process.

My take on "verbal revelation"

I recently quoted James Smart, who claims that

revelation is in the text itself, in the words ... It is through these words and no others that God intends to speak to us, and, when he does, we know that there is no other kind of inspiration than verbal inspiration.

Criticisms were made in the comments. Particularly insightful were those of Bob Macdonald:

Torah is not text but engagement with the one to who the text points. The medium is neither the messenger nor the source of the message (emphasis mine).

I agree with both points of view. They don't contradict each other, rather, they are pointing to two different dimensions of the issue. Smart's comment refers to the place where revelation is accessed now, whereas Bob's comment refers to the revelation itself. Revelation itself is, as Barth put it, the reality of God-with-us (Immanuel), and this is hardly a text but a living reality.

Nevertheless, what does it mean to say that “God is with us”? What is the nature of this reality? Our dogmatic assumptions must shape our approach to the text.

In the Bible, God's self revelation is seen as progressive (Exodus 6:3). The “one to whom the text points” is a profound being (Andrew Louth puts it eloquently here), one that needs to be sought. He certainly reveals himself suddenly and without expectation—and still does!—but he also hides himself and wishes to be found. In the Old Testament he is to be sought at specific places: cultic centres and ultimately the temple. He also reveals himself through the laws of the universe (the burden of Wisdom literature), through his written Torah, through the example and teaching of elders, priests, and parents. Within this universe, text is at least one medium of revelation.

Within this unfolding story of the Bible, however, we see that texts take on more and more significance. Moses receives his revelation directly from God, but he writes it down and the text becomes the vehicle of ongoing revelation and guidance (see my post, God, Moses, and Scripture). According to Jer 36, Jeremiah has his prophecies written on a scroll which survives to speak to new generations. C. Seitz summarises the implications of this chapter as follows:

the chapter tells of the victory of the Word of God. The king can kill prophets who speak God's word (see Jer 25:23); he can debar God's spokesman from the temple (Jer 36:5); he can callously burn God's word in a brazier until the entire thing is consumed (Jer 36:23). But the prophet lives to speak the word anew, and the scroll is recomposed (Jer 36:32). And more to the point: the new scroll will outlive the divine spokesman and the evil generation headed by Jehoiakim. In the end, God's word cannot be thwarted (ZAW 101:1, 1989, p. 14).

Indeed, Seitz sees a parallel between Jeremiah's scribe Baruch and Moses's successor Joshua:

just as Joshua brough new tables of the tôrāh to a new generation in a new day, so too the scribe Baruch symbolizes the survival of a new scroll from the prophet Jeremiah which will address a new generation of faith “in all the places to which (it) may go” (Jer 45:5) (p. 18).

He concludes that in Jer 45

we see a foreshadowing of the movement of prophecy into a new mode, as clarified in a later rabbinic dictum: “Since the day when the Temple was destroyed, prophecy has been taken from the prophets and given to the wise” (B. Bathra 12a).

We need to add to this our growing understanding of the nature of Biblical tradition itself, which went through a process of textualization or “inscripturation.” We see this in particular in the case of the “Book of the Twelve.” The “reality of revelation” within time and space to particular prophets is one thing, but within the context of God's economy of salvation it seems that the witness to this original Word has been enriched and expanded so that its true dimensions, understood with the advantage of hindsight (e.g. exilic redaction), find literary (“verbal”) expression in the final form of the text.

This is the conclusion of a scholar not known for his commitment to “synchronic” reading: Jörg Jeremias. See his comments on the literary (though not "historical" - in the narrow sense of the word) interrelation of Hosea and Amos:

The book of Amos very probably never existed without Am 7:10-17, and 7:10-17 very probably never existed without its hermeneutical key in Am 7:9. this verse urges the reader not to perceive Amos as an isolated prophet but to relate his message to the message of Hosea. They are to be seen as two messengers with one common message … .

The curiosity of the modern historian about the specific and singular elements in one prophet was quite alien to the traditionists. They did not want the words of either Hosea or Amos to be read with historical interest for a distant past but with a current interest in their words as a help for present problems. They were asking about the one message of God by two messengers (but without creating something like Tatian's harmony of the gospels). … (1996: 181, 182-183)

(I've posted a similar quote by Jermias in German, in Canon and the essence of prophecy)

This is simply a brilliant way to express the key concern of Childs' canonical approach. See also my thread on New Testament scholar Paul Minear, who holds that the Bible's view of “reality” should challenge that of the historian's - with hermeneutical implications.

The typologizing of prophetic oracles

I now come to the penultimate post on the different ways in which Israelite prophecy was rendered as Scripture for the community of faith. For the other six, go to my post Canonical shaping of the prophets. This is taken from Childs' article, "The Canonical Shape of the Prophetic Literature," 1995.

Oracles which originally functioned in a variety of historical settings have been arranged into set patterns which serve a new typological role in relation to the coming rule of God. The clearest examples of a patterning schema are the alternative blocks of oracles of judgment and salvation in the Books of Isaiah (compare 1:1-31; 2:6-22; 3:1-26, with 2:1-5; 4:2-6) and Micah (cf. chaps. 1, 2, 6 with 2:12f.; 4 and 5). The effect of this move is that a typological sequence subordinates the original historical one and refocuses the material on the dominant theological purposes undergirding all prophetic proclamation.

Prophetic redaction as a "rule of faith"

Today I return to my interrupted thread on the various ways in which the prophetic material in the Bible was rendered to function as canonical Scripture for future generations of the community of faith. My last post was on the subordination of chronology to typology.

6) The original prophetic message was placed within a rule-of-faith which provided the material with an interpretative guideline. It is generally recognized by critical scholarship that two appendices have been fixed to the conclusion of the Book of Malachi. To dismiss these verses as a "legalistic corrective" stemming from some disgruntled priestly editor is to misunderstand the canonical process utterly. Rather, the first appendix reminds the whole nation that it still stands under the tradition of Moses. The imperative to "remember the law of my servant Moses" does not weaken Malachi's attack on the nation's sins, but it sets a check against any misuse of the prophet's words which would call into question national solidarity in the name of additional requirements for the pious. The canonical effect of the first appendix to Malachi testifies that the law and the prophets are not to be heard as rivals but as an essential unity within the one divine purpose. The effect of the second appendix (Mal 4:5-6) is to balance the memory of the past with the anticipation of the future.

In a similar way, the ending on the Book of Ecclesiastes is another example of a rule-of-faith which would also order a wisdom book from a perspective informed by God's commandments (Eccl 12:13) and the coming judgment (v. 14).

Hosea: the "metaphorisation" of prophecy

In addition to extending the prophetic message, how else were the prophetic traditions rendered as Holy Scripture?

2) The shaping process changed the level on which the original prophecy functioned in order to afford the witness a new metaphorical role. The original message of Hosea was directed to the inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom in the mid-eighth century. The prophet's word constituted a sustained attack on Israel's syncretistic religious worship which had changed the worship of Yahweh into a fertility cult. Hosea appropriated the language of his opponents to claim all the areas of fertility, land, and kinship for Yahweh, Israel's faithful lover. The sign acts of chapter 1 functioned as a history-creating act of divine judgment which actualized the threat in the giving of names of judgment. But in its collected form the original material has been arranged to reflect an important hermeneutical shift in the function of Hosea's witness. The prophet's realistic language is now understood metaphorically. Regardless of the prehistory behind the sign acts in chapters 1 and 3, the present shape of these chapters has given the material a symbolic interpretation. It is quite impossible to reconstruct a history of Hosea's marriage from these two chapters. Rather, the intent that the sign acts be understood metaphorically is made explicit in both chapters 1 and 3 (cf. 1:2, 4f., 6f., 9; 3:1, 4, 5). Moreover, the placing of chapter 2 as an extended metaphor in between these two chapters provides the editor's symbolic key for interpreting them.

Amos: the extension of a prophetic message

The effect of the canonical shaping of the prophetic literature reveals an enormous variety in the manner by which the traditions were rendered as Sacred Scripture. The purpose of this thread is to post eight examples taken from Childs excellent article on the subject, "The Canonical Shape of the Prophetic Literature," pp. 513-522 in "The Place is Too Small for Us": The Israelite Prophets in Recent Scholarship. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995 (available for free on ATLA).

1 ) An original prophetic message was expanded by being placed in a larger theological context. The Book of Amos provides a classic example of this frequent canonical move. An important problem within the Book of Amos turns on how to interpret the sudden shift from a message of total judgment of Israel to one of promise for Israel in chapter 9. Often the shift in tone has been understood as an attempt to soften Amos' harsh message by a later generation who was either offended at the severity or who tried to make room for the later restoration of Judah. However, the editors of chapter 9 did not soften Amos' message of total judgment against sinful Israel by allowing a remnant to escape. The destruction is fully confirmed (9:9-11). Rather, the tradents effected a canonical shaping by placing Amos' words in a broader, eschatological framework which transcended the historical perspective of the prophet. From God's perspective there is a hope beyond the destruction seen by Amos. The effect of chapter 9 is both to confirm the truth of Amos' original prophecy and to encompass it within the larger theological perspective of divine will which includes hope and final redemption. To distinguish between genuine and non-genuine oracles is to run in the face of the canon's intent (p. 49).