The Prophets

"This book has monumental stature. It is fresh and vivid. . . aflame with prophetic vision." —James Muilenburg From the author of Man is Not Alone and God in Search of Man, comes Abraham Heschel's 1962 masterpiece of Biblical scholarship, The Prophets. The Prophets provides a unique opportunity for readers of the Old Testament, both Christian and Jewish, to gain fresh and deep knowledge of Israel's prophetic movement. The author's profound understanding of the prophets also opens the door to new insight into the philosophy of religion. Abraham J. Heschel's The Prophets, originally published in 1962, provides a unique opportunity for readers of the Old Testament, both Christian and Jewish, to gain fresh and deep knowledge of Israel’s prophetic movement. The book includes detailed examinations of the stories of the prophets Amos, Hosea, Isahiah, Micah, Jeremiah, as well as explorations of the theology and philosophy of pathos, the theory of ecstasy in modern religious scholarship, an excavation of the relationship between prophecy and psychosis, and a comparative view of prophets throughout the world. Heschel's project is excavate and examine the consciousness of the prophets: not just the content of their prophecies, but the type of faith-based experience they personified. Heschel's exegetical skill and profound understanding of the prophets opens the door to new insight into the philosophy of religion - a wonderful text for anyone interested in the dialectic of the divine-human encounter.According to popular definition, prophets accurately predict the future. In Jewish tradition, as Abraham Joshua Heschel explains in The Prophets , they earn the title by witnessing the world around them with outstanding passion. Prophets are those whose "life & soul are at stake" in what they say about "the mystery of [God's] relation to man." They're "some of the most disturbing people who have ever lived." Yet they're also "the men whose image is our refuge in distress & whose voice & vision sustain our faith." This book, a classic text on the subject, contains sophisticated, straightforward discussions of each of the Hebrew prophets, the primary themes of their preaching & comparisons of Israel's prophets to those of other religions'. Throughout, he avoids the two great temptations in any discussion of overstating the supernatural quality of a prophet's epiphany ("A prophet is a person, not a microphone") & reducing prophesy to a merely human phenomenon. Instead, he describes the prophet's peculiar status as God's spokesman in a way that does justice to its "He speaks from the perspective of God as perceived from the perspective of his own situation."--Michael Joseph Gross (edited)