The Prophets

A one-semester survey of the Latter Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Book of the Twelve. Chapters 1 to 3 build the tools the rest of the course needs - what the prophetic office was and how a person came to hold it, the recurring forms prophetic speech takes (judgment oracle, salvation oracle, sign-act, apocalyptic vision), and how to read this literature responsibly - in its ancient Near Eastern setting, in its canonical shape, and across the church's several interpretive traditions. Chapters 4 to 8 read Isaiah as a single book with a three-part shape: the Assyrian-crisis chapters, the nations and apocalypse material, Hezekiah's turn, the comfort and new-exodus chapters, and the servant songs, closing with the theology that holds the whole book together. Chapters 9 to 12 read Jeremiah and Lamentations together: the prophet's call and confrontations, his confessions, the new covenant, the fall of Jerusalem, and the poetry that grieves it. Chapters 13 to 15 read Ezekiel's call, judgment oracles, and new-temple vision. Chapter 16 reads Daniel as court tale and apocalypse together. Chapters 17 to 20 work through the Book of the Twelve four books at a time, reading it as one scroll rather than twelve unrelated pamphlets. Chapter 21 asks how the prophets are read in light of the New Testament, and closes the course.

Scripture is quoted from the World English Bible. Where serious and faithful scholarship disagrees - on the authorship and unity of Isaiah, the text-critical relationship between the Hebrew and Greek Jeremiah, the date and genre of Daniel, the identity of the Suffering Servant, and how far a prophecy of judgment can be called conditional - this course names who holds what rather than choosing for the reader. It assumes no Hebrew. It is not a verse-by-verse commentary on any one book, and it does not cover the Former Prophets (Joshua-Kings) or the Writings, which are studied elsewhere.