Customer Reviews

Prophecy and Hermeneutics: Toward a New Introduction to the Prophets (Studies in Theological Interpretation)

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Seitz has written a provocative volume on how the prophets have been understood in the modern past and how more recent scholarly challenges should change that. His basic point is that past analysis has emphasized a hypothetically accepted arrangement of the prophets based on history above the accepted canonical order. He believes that the canonical order should be given equal weight, actually greater priority, over such historical/chronological reconstructions. A telling illustration for Seitz is the location of introductions to the prophets in libraries, some among the histories of Israel and some in the canonical (books of the Bible) sections. For Seitz this illustrates the quandary.

The author sets the stage by viewing hermeneutical approaches through the eyes of several past scholars who wrote on the prophets. Greatest emphasis is give to Von Rad because Seitz, in part agrees with Von Rad's insights but also because he sees limitations in Von Rad's hermeneutic. His assessment of Von Rad's contributions and limitations is concise and well worth reading; it is certainly one of the better.

For Seitz, historical reconstructions of the prophets are speculative and fail to pay attention to canonical links created by later writers. Working with the received canonical order offers a significant starting place for assessing interpretive clues to each book. In short, one should pay more attention to the links between books in the canon that assumed chronological reconstructions. Or as Seitz says, "historical approaches have not sufficiently comprehended the impact of the canon and the final shaping of the prophetic materials as itself historically crucial," 99. Seitz does not reject historical background but wants to emphasize canonical connection over historical arrangement.

The author then illustrates his thesis with reference to the Minor Prophets or the book of the Twelve. While the author makes some good points he seems to assume that such canonical links will be readily identified and accepted. Little discussion is given to the subjectivity of accepting such links or the weight one should place on them. While some seem to be obvious (he frequently refers to his own work on the sections of the book of Isaiah as an example) they, too may be driven by the interpreter's presuppositions. Given authors that often shared similar cultural and religions norms, a similar language base, and similar structures such links should be expected.

If you are looking for a book on the hermeneutics of the prophets this is not the book. If you a seeking an illustration of how literary and canonical studies have influenced the interpretation of the prophetic literature in relationship to tradition history then read Seitz's work.

Previous reviews have made the language and style of Seitz writing a significant factor against it. While I agree that Seitz style is not the most friendly, one must take into account his primary audience: academics who live within a particular (read: narrow) realm of associations and have a particular history to which they owe debts, direct or indirect. Most of what Seitz does in the book is to give an account of this history of Old Testament Studies focused upon the interpretation of the prophets (and in particular, the specific genre of "introduction" to the prophets). Thus, for approximately 2/3 to 3/4 of Seitz work is a review of the literature. The first review is retrospective and dialogic: he is bringing up the past in order to both articulate its basic assumptions and to point out the specific consequences of these assumptions upon the interpretation of the prophets. Once he has formulated this historical account, he can properly begin to acknowledge the difficulties and deficiencies of this now "traditional" approach to the prophets in light of contemporary developments and reconsiderations. This reevaluation constitutes the second review of the literature, and it carries Seitz up to the last portion of the book, where he can begin to sketch a portrait of how an "introduction" to the prophets could look given the new understanding of the prophets that he formulates out of the current literature. If you can approach the book as a sort of "syllabus" for the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, and in particular the Prophetic books, you'll find Seitz language a bit more palatable.

Mr. Spender's review takes account of Seitz's intellectual engagements (Von Rad and canonical-approach scholars), but he laments Seitz's failure to acknowledge or account for the "subjective" nature of the "links" between the prophets. The reason Seitz doesn't address these directly is because he is not advocating any particular reconstruction of these links, but rather attempting to justify the general approach that sees the prophets self-consciously associating their own messages with the prophets' messages that have come before. Identifying the particular ways in which this association takes place is a secondary issue for Seitz, and one that he does not leave entirely unaddressed, since he does acknowledge the necessity of formulating care in discerning what associations are actually there, as opposed to being conjured by the interpreter (one must also note that "conjuring" is a prototypical danger of most OT studies, and especially of those in the school of thought that Seitz is critiquing). The book that Seitz is writing is really a first formulation of and justification for the "figural" understanding of the prophets--their inter-associational nature with themselves and the rest of the Old Testament; and how this approach anticipates the NT use of the OT.

Seitz book really is a masterpiece of scholarship both in its acknowledgment of previous tradition and its pushing the issue for new developments that deepen and even succeed over previous understandings and approaches. I hope that the book becomes a paradigm shifter in the study of the exegesis of Christian Scripture.

This is NOT an "Introduction to the Prophets," as the title and the blurbs imply. It is rather a book about what an introduction to the prophets should be. It is decidedly not for the general reader, even for the general reader with some knowledge of the OT. The author assumes that readers already have in-depth knowledge of the 12 minor prophets.

I have great respect for Christopher R. Seitz and I am a big fan of his. I have read two of his other books and I have read several contributions by him contained in other books. He is simply brilliant, a scrupulous scholar, and his point of view is based primarily on the Canonized Holy Scriptures although he is not afraid to gain insights from other sources of information. This particular book plows new ground and therefore is not as easy to read as some of his earlier work. I need to re-read it. I think its worth the time and effort. In this effort, he is working with other pioneers to enlarge both our knowledge and perspective. Perhaps, when I re-read "Prophecy and Hermeneutics," I can add another star or two to my rating, but I am a tough grader, so do not think I am implying this is just a mediocre effort.
Gary Leedes