The Open University of Israel

Course Catalog

This course is no longer offered

10709 Prophecy in the Bible 1

Credits: 6 intermediate credits in Bible

Prerequisites: none

Required: Introduction to Biblical Literature

Objectives: The course is designed to acquaint the student with the contents and ideas of biblical prophetic literature and its forms of development as canonic literature; to follow its development from the individual message to comprehensive written expositions; to distinguish the uniqueness of Israelite prophetic literature from external prophetic texts found in the ancient East; to understand the phenomenon of the Israelite prophets, their sources of inspiration, their social, religious and political mission, and their uniqueness compared to various types of prophets in the ancient East.

Through the course, students are presented with systematic knowledge about the various types of biblical prophetic literature, are introduced to new methods and trends in the study of Israelite prophecy, various methods of interpreting prophetic texts and different approaches of historical and literary criticism.

Topics: The prophetic experience and its inspirational sources; Missionary prophecy and its national and social goals; The prophetic message and its expression: Rhetorical means and literary genres; Prophetic literature according to its content, genre and goal; From nationalism to universality and from history to eschatology; Prophecy and apocalypticism; The prophets and the ceremonial religious establishment; Prophecy and historiography; Israelite and ancient Eastern prophecy; The decline of missionary prophecy and the formulation of the prophetic canon.


1There is some overlap in the content of this and other courses. For details, see Overlapping Courses.