Programme
The study of prophetic texts has often been characterized by fragmentation; little interest has been reserved to the composition within individual books, and to the relationships between the so-called Major Prophets and the Twelve Minor Prophets. Exegesis has usually been interested into the identification of the original forms of the oracles or into the Sitz im Leben of the various biblical passages, without giving enough attention to the text in its present form; moreover, little space has been devoted to hermeneutical and theological issues. A diachronic method was often followed, attentive to the origins and to the history of the formation both of individual books and of the prophetic corpus, rather than a synchronous, canonical methodology, more oriented to the theology of the texts. These observations are the background from which to advance the study. Without denying the value of the studies so far elaborated and the methodology predominantly used, our goal is to explore the links and the relationships between the major and minor prophets from a methodological, hermeneutical, and theological point of view. The questions we will try to answer are the following:
-
How to study the relationships within the prophetic corpus, and what methodology /methodologies to use?
-
What consequences can be derived from the hermeneutical and theological point of view?
-
Which texts can be taken into consideration?
Keywords:
Major Prophets, Minor Prophets, Prophecy, Hermeneutics, Wirkungsgeschichte.