Chapter 16 – The Latter Prophets[1]

In the beginning of the fourth part of the introduction Childs summarizes the traditional interpretation and the historical critical approach to the Latter Prophets. He concludes, especially regarding the critical approaches, that not much interest has been directed toward the final form of the prophetic books. However, recently a new interest in the canonical shape of the prophetic books has appeared.

Childs makes the following observations regarding the particular ordering of the books in the Latter Prophets in the present Hebrew canon: 1) It is often presupposed that the canonization of the latter prophets are secondary to the former prophets, but it has to be established that the historical factors at work in the collecting and ordering of the prophetic books remain very obscure. One is dependent upon what can be drawn from internal evidence of growth; 2) The order of the Latter Prophets varies considerably within Jewish lists, and the Greek and Latin orders vary extensively from the Hebrew. The only major implications is that the Hebrew canon assigned an important role to its tripartite division which set it apart from the Greek, and that the order of books within the Latter Prophets has no great canonical significance (in contrast to the Pentateuch); 3) The effect of the canonical process is found in the shaping of the individual prophetic books, and the production of a prophetic collection as a unified block over against the Torah.

[1]. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, 306-10.

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Som ett exempel på punkt 3 (”The effect of the canonical process is found in the shaping of the individual prophetic books”) kommer jag i mitt nästa inlägg i serien om Childs Introduction och hans metod ”A Canonical Approach” summera hans syn på Jesaja som en kanonisk bok i Gamla testamentet. Eftersom Jes 65-66 är huvudtexten för mitt eget forskningsprojekt som doktorand vid Åbo Akademi, är det intressant för mig att studera hur Childs tillämpar sin metod på Jesajas bok.