Assessment
Continuous Assessment: 50% Final Examination: 50%
Module Aims
To enable students to interpret the Old Testament prophets and the literature attributed to them.
Indicative Syllabus:
- Prophecy within its Ancient Near Eastern context
- Brueggemann’s conception of the prophetic imagination
- Prophets in Samuel-Kings: The Elijah cycle
- Eighth-century prophets: Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Micah
- Jeremiah and the fall of Jerusalem
- Exilic prophets: Second Isaiah
- Post-exilic prophets: Haggai and Zechariah
- Key themes: critique and energising; Zion theology; social justice; Exodus
- Prophetic tales: Jonah
Learning Outcomes
- — Interpret prophetic texts within their historical, socioeconomic, political and religious context
- — Apply appropriate reading strategies to a variety of prophetic genres
- — Compare the treatment of key theological themes and motifs across a number of different texts
- — Discuss the role of prophetic imagination in both biblical and modern contexts
- — Suggest ways in which the prophetic literature continues to be significant for the life of faith
Bibliography
- — Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination. (40th anniversary edition) Fortress Press, 2018.
- — Carol J Dempsey, The Prophets: A Liberation-Critical Reading, Augsburg Fortress, 2000.
- — Nahum Ward-Lev, The Liberating Path of the Hebrew Prophets: Then and Now, Orbis, 2019.