Loading...Most of the so-called “minor prophets” (called that because their books are shorter than those of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel) are both terrific and terrifically under-read. So I think maybe I should post a bit on each of them (there are twelve). (I started last week with Zechariah) One of my favorites is Hosea, which tells a heart-wrenching story and delivers an unusually powerful message.
The following is an edited version of my discussion in my book The Bible: A Historical and Literary Introduction (Oxford University Press).
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Do you think the story of Hosea’s unfaithful wife and three children is pure fiction, created to support his prophecy (sort of a fable)? Or, did Hosea have an unfaithful wife which prompted him to use this metaphor for Israel? Just wondering what your sense is of how creative the prophets got in their writings.
Yes, I think that’s the case (fictoinal account), though there’s no way really to know.
I incline to believe that is real.
Also, I don’t think the emphasis is that his wife is [going to be] unfaithful, I think the emphasis is that his wife is (was) a prostitute and that he, as a just man, made her decent and respectable again by marrying her. I wouldn’t think prostitutes had rights or were integrated in the society; but a wife of a man was. I think it’s the equivalent of a nowadays incel marrying a 35 yo single mom with a mixed kid. The new couple, despite to each displeasure, will benefit society per whole, as the kid[s] are healthier and more financial stable in a traditional household.
Then the wife is an allegory to the society, like a microcosm mirroring a macrocosm, and the just man, the prophet, tries to alleviate the society doing his small part in it, taking part of the burden and making it better. Also the temple prostitutes were related to Baal. There’s also an ethnic/racial element to it… See 5:7 and 7:8–9. Mixed people = not good.
My comment is unrequested and unwarranted however I think it will please Bart’s liberal tasting buds. And probably of other readers, too.
When I read books like Hosea, the language feels intense/harsh at times. Is that because I’m reading it from the comfort of a relatively peaceful society today? Would people in the prophets’ own time have heard it the same way, or would that kind of language have sounded normal to them?
I wish we knew. As with all the writings of the Bible, we have no reports of how Hosea’s immediate audience (for whom he wrote) understood or felt about it.
This thread reminds me of Ezekiel Ch23, where, in the allegorical descriptions of Judah and Israel, the writer seems to repeatedly use unnecessarily (porno)graphic detail to make his point (at least by today’s standards). I guess it’s simply that today we have our own standards of inhibition and back then they were different and so this kind of directness and detail was “normal” for them?
Yes, they can be very graphic at times…
Bart. I watched an episode of ‘The Naked Archaeologist’ that focused on the early life of Jesus who investigates the site of Bethlehem of Galilee near Nazareth where Israeli archaeologist Aviram Osiris of the Israeli Antiquities group claims that this was the site of the nativity of Jesus. A Byzantine church was built at the site. He, ‘The Naked Archaeologist’. Simcha Jacobocivi also explores Sephorus, and interviews John S. Kloppenborg about how Jesus and Joseph probably worked in this Roman town and Jesus may have learned some Greek. Is any of this valid? Jacobocici is often called a pseudo-archaeologist so I don’t know if these claims stand up.
Kloppenborg is a top-rate scholar. I disagree with him on this point. There is no evidence in my view that puts Jesus in Sepphoris. It is never mentioned in the NT and Jesus never goes to citeis at all in the Gospels. If he did know any Greek, it woul dhave been on the most basic level of, say, an American tourist trying to get around outside a toursted area in Poland who has picked up some words to take care of basic needs. (Where’s the bus station??)
What is the consensus on the roots of the Jews’ worship of other gods as described in Hosea? Was it because Judaism had polytheistic roots from which the sole worship of Jehovah evolved? Or was it because the Jews were surrounded by polytheistic cultures which influenced their religious practices? Or both?
Probably both. Most people thorughout history have worshiped whichever gods seem to be able to provide them with the most help.
In Hosea Yhwh spares the kingdom of Judah, where the lineage of the royal king would come out (2 Samuel 7:12-16). I wonder how would the gospel writers know the right moment to write the gospels about Jesus being this royal king in the lineage that came¹? And another question, is 2 Samuel 7:12-16 talking about the future royal next king to rule²?
Best,
I’m not sure what you are asking in the first question. The disciples of Jesus believed he was the messiah so they naturallythought 2 Samuel 7 etc. were written about him. It’s not that they were reading 2 Sam 7 and then looking for someone to fulfill it, if you see what I mean.
Hello Dr.Bart Erhman
Did people in Italy know Koine greek in Jesus times? I mean the Romans is written in greek they problabbly understood it?
The educated elite did, yes. It was the lingua franca of the empire.
What about Bethlehem of Galilee as the site of the nativity and the claims of Aviram Oshri as in my last query above?
The problem is that Luke indicates it wsa the Bethlehem that David was from, and that is the Judean one.
I’ve read that the notion that Israelite polytheism was a corruption of an earlier monotheism was an invention of the Deuteronomists, but we see the same idea here. What was the relationship between the prophets and the Deuteronomists?
I’m not quite sure if I’m understanding your question, but I’d say that both the Deuteronomist and the prophets before him maintained that Israel had originally been monotheist but succumbed to cultural pressures to begin to worship other gods.
I just enjoyed reading Hosea in my RSV Oxford bible.