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When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. “Peace, Peace, but There is no Peace” Prophetic Conflicts in Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Micah Francesco Arena Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Edinburgh 2018 Word Count: 99721 CONTENTS THESIS ABSTRACT 9 LAY SUMMARY 11 ABBREVIATIONS 13 Chapter 1 FALSE PROMISES OF PEACE: ASSESSING THE PROBLEM 1. Of Peace and Falsehood 17 2. Trusting Divination (Deut 13:1–5; 18:18–22) 21 3. Prophetic Conflicts as Ideological Conflicts 25 4. Methodology of Investigation 34 4.1 Defining Relations between Texts 39 4.2 Establishing Relations between Texts 45 5. Outline of Investigation 48 Chapter 2 PROMISES OF PEACE IN THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH 1. Introduction and Outline 51 2. The Religious Class and the Foe from the North 52 2.1 The Composition of the Book of Jeremiah 54 2.2 They Say, “Peace, Peace!” but there is no Peace (Jer 6:13–15; 8:10b–12) 60 2.3 What Will You Do When the End Comes? (Jer 5:30–31) 67 2.4 Drought and Invasion (Jer 14:11–16) 74 2.5 The Religious Class and the Foe from the North – Observations 83 3. The Prophets and the Community 84 3.1 Extent of Analysis 85 3.2 Prophets of Samaria and Prophets of Jerusalem (Jer 23:13–15) 86 3.3 There Will Be Peace to You (Jer 23:16–22) 88 3.4 Dreams of Falsehood (Jer 23:25–32) 92 3.5 The Prophets and the Community – Observations 94 4. The Prophets and the King of Babylon 95 4.1 The Cycle Jeremiah 27–29 95 4.2 The King of Babylon Will Not Attack You (Jer 37:17–21) 123 4.3 The Prophets and the King of Babylon – Observations 128 5. Pashhur Among the Prophets (Jer 19:14–20:6) 129 5.1 Translation, Critical Notes, Redaction History 130 5.2 Creating Prophetic Antagonists 133 6. Promising Peace and Prophesying Falsehood 134 Chapter 3 PROMISES OF PEACE IN THE BOOK OF EZEKIEL 1. The “Historical” Ezekiel and the Composition of the Book 139 2. The Prophets in the Book of Ezekiel 143 3. Ezek 13:1–16: Translation, Critical Notes, Redaction History 144 4. The Prophets of Israel and the Excision from the Community 150 5. The Land after 587 and the Return(s) from Babylon 154 6. Similarities between Jeremiah and Ezekiel 159 7. Establishing Priority between Jeremiah and Ezekiel 162 8. Promises of Peace in the Book of Ezekiel – Final Remarks 165 Chapter 4 PROMISES OF PEACE IN THE BOOK OF MICAH 1. Preliminary Remarks on the Composition of the Book of Micah 167 2. Blaming the Prophets in Micah 171 3. Prophets, Seers and Diviners (Mic 3:5–8): Overview and Outline 172 3.1 Translation and Critical Notes 174 6 3.2 The Secondary Character of Mic 3:5–8 176 3.3 Peace and War: Micah and the (False?) Prophets 179 4. Textual Relations between Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Micah 184 5. Promises of Peace in the Book of Micah – Final Remarks 187 Chapter 5 CONCLUSION 189 BIBLIOGRAPHY 204 7 8 Thesis Abstract This work looks at a peculiar blaming of the religious class (especially, the prophets) as it appears in the books of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Micah. In these three books, the prophets (coupled with the priests on two occasions but only in the book of Jeremiah) are said to have ,(שקר) to the nation. Such promises are exposed as blatant falsehood (שלום) promised peace and the prophets who uttered them are dismissed as liars who lead the people astray from YHWH. This accusation appears with minor variations in several excerpts throughout these books (Jer 5:30–31; 6:13–15; 8:10b–12; 14:13–16; 23:13–32; 27–29; 37:19; Ezek 13:1–16; Mic 3:5–8). Moreover, especially in the book of Jeremiah, the reader comes across a connection between “falsehood” and the idea of “promising peace”. In the books of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Micah, the dynamics of “prophet of the book vs. other prophets” often turn up and seem to be intertwined with the motif of having promised a false peace. Hence, this study aims to explain the reasons behind such peculiar allegations, which are presented as prophetic conflicts. The terms often used to express these conflicts, in the tradition and in scholarship, are “true” prophets vs. “false” prophets. These labels are however ambiguous, since an analysis of all the passages mentioned above does not appear to delineate the so-called “false” prophets as a homogenous group, who is antagonistic towards the “true” prophets of the tradition. It seems that the books of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Micah originally presented an anti-prophetic attitude, thus accusing all the prophets, and only later new readings (supported by redactional interventions) emphasized the prophetic role bestowed upon their main characters (the prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Micah), thereby generating an interpretation that favours the division of the prophetic class into legitimate and illegitimate members. Consequently, as this work argues, prophetic conflicts are literary creations of some later redactors of the books and are always aimed at backing up their ideological stances. In addition, while analysing the false promises of peace, the present thesis also covers the literary growth and transmission of this theme in the books of Jeremiah (where it seems to originate from), Ezekiel and Micah (where it appears to be secondary and modelled on Jeremiah). Although prophetic conflicts are expression of the ideology of the redactors, such ideology is the product of a cultural and historical environment that at some point during the history of Israel produced this strand of thought within the biblical prophetic tradition. Hence, this research acknowledges that the biblical texts, although not providing any reliable historical reconstruction (because the redactors were not historians by any means), still allow the biblical scholar to attempt to recreate the historical moment and context that may have given birth to the ideology which lay behind prophetic conflicts (and the theme of the “false” prophets), and to trace its historical and literary development in the books of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Micah. 9 10 Lay Summary This work analyses how prophets are considered in the books of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Micah, especially in relation to a peculiar accusation directed at them, namely, that they had promised false peace to a people that found itself on the verge of disaster. This accusation appears widely in the book of Jeremiah (Jer 5:30–31; 6:13–15; 8:10b–12; 14:13–16; 23:13–32; 27–29; 37:19) and once in Ezekiel and Micah (Ezek 13:1–16; Mic 3:5– 8). Blaming the prophets in prophetic books has often been considered by biblical scholars as proof of a historical conflict between the good prophets of the tradition (Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micah) and other prophets who instead were only interested in their personal gain. This latter group is generally labelled as that of the “false prophets”. Hence, in these terms, prophetic conflicts are considered a social phenomenon and an integral part of the development of the religion of ancient Israel. However, the historicity of prophetic literature being debatable, it is argued in this research that the accusation aimed at the prophetic class is part of the literary creations of redactors who were active centuries after the supposed times of Jeremiah (sixth century BCE), Ezekiel (sixh century) and Micah (eighth century) to promote their ideology by using the prestige of prominent figures of the biblical tradition. The aim of this work is to trace the literary development of the motif of promising false peace in one book (Jeremiah) and to show how it was inserted in later books (Ezekiel and Micah). Prophetic conflicts cannot be taken as an expression of a social phenomenon but are literary creations, which were inserted to support the positions of the later editors of these three prophetic books. 11 12 ABBREVIATIONS AB Anchor Bible ABC Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles. A. K. Grayson. TCS 5. Locust Valley, New York: J. J. Augustin, 1975. ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary ABL Anchor Bible Reference Library AIL Ancient Israel and its Literature AJS American Journal of Semiotics Ant. Iud. Josephus Flavius’ Antiquitates Iudaice ASTI Annual of the Swedish Theological Institute ATD Das Alte Testament Deutsch ATANT Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research BATAJ Beiträge zur Erforschung des Alten Testaments und des Antiken Judentums BBB Bonner Biblische Beiträge BETL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium BIS Biblical Interpretation Series BL Bible and Liberation BS The Biblical Seminar BWANT Beitrage zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft CBC Cambridge Bible Commentary CBET Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly CIS Copenhagen International Seminar CSHB Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible 13 CurBS Currents in Research: Biblical Studies EBib Etudes Bibliques ETL Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses FAT Forschungen zum Alten Testament FOTL The Forms of the Old Testament Literature FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments FZB Forschung zur Bibel G Septuagint GCS Goucher College Series GKC Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar.