Exilic and post-exilic prophecy and the orality/literacy problem

Abstract

This paper explores the uses of writing as documented in late pre-exilic and especially in exilic and post-exilic Judaean prophetic texts in the context of the orality/literacy debate. It delineates the impact the rising importance of writing had on Judaean prophecy and attempts to show that writing as a new "technology of the intellect" (J. Goody) irreversibly altered the character of Judaean prophecy. The paper also demonstrates that the concept of an orality/literacy continuum is likely to distort our view of the significance of writing in Israelite prophecy—and, indeed, of Israelite history as a whole. Against this background, it makes sense to reconsider the relationship between prophecy and scribalism. The passages from exilic and post-exilic prophetic texts discussed in the present paper indicate that, from the late pre-exilic period onwards, the contacts between prophets and priests/scribes became closer and closer.

On Performance Criticism, Lived Religion, and the Hebrew Bible

“…This line of thought is most heavily promoted by Niditch with her vision of an 'oral-literate continuum' (Niditch 1996: 14;see, also, Niditch 2015;Schellenberg 2015;Nam 2015;Schuele 2015), with the 'literacy hypothesis' based on the work of Parry and Lord largely falling out of favor (for proponents of this hypothesis, see Goody and Watt 1963;Goody 1986;Havelock 1986;and Ong 2002). The topic of orality vs./and literacy does, however, continue to permeate throughout the field with recent examinations on prophecy (Ben Zvi and Floyd 2000;Schaper 2005), history (Person 2010), and poetry (Vayntrub 2019) using similar methodologies.…”

Prophecy in the Ancient Levant and Old Babylonian Mari

“…While a biblical prophetic book such as Amos represents a redacted collection of oracles that are purported to originate with the named individual, the written phenomenon of literary prophecy renders the text immutable when we examine its final form today. As Schaper () explains, the words of the transmitted message become fixed and are granted an unchanging status. However, the creation of a book of prophecy also legitimizes the permanent status of the named prophet in the history of interpretation.…”

The Phenomenon of Israelite Prophecy in Contemporary Scholarship

“…In the years since these early formulations, new studies of the issue of orality and literacy in ancient Israel have played an increasingly prominent role for scholars working within this second paradigm. New investigations have focused on the nature of oral literature and culture, levels of literacy within the ancient Near East, and the relationship between oral and written literature (e.g., Niditch 1996; Young 1998a, 1998b; Schniedewind 2004; Carr 2005; Schaper 2005; Rollston 2010). Throughout the twentieth century, prophetic research included debates over the role of oral versus literary tradition in the production and preservation of prophetic words (e.g., Mowinckel 1946; Nielsen 1954; for a survey of works on oral literature in the second half of the twentieth century, see Overholt 1986: 314-29).…”