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When the term “prophet” is mentioned, do you think of an oral communicator of a divine message or of a character in a prophetic book? When the term “prophetic text” is mentioned, do you imagine an oral or a written text? This collection of ten timely essays deals with matters of writings and oral speeches, of writtenness and orality that stand at the heart of issues central to the study of the prophetic books in the Hebrew Bible, prophets and prophecy in ancient Israel, and Israelite history at large. The volume sets an agenda for research in this area from a historical perspective and stresses the importance of comparative material and social realia from the Mesopotamian and Egyptian world. It includes both essays of a methodological nature and particular case studies, and illustrates how the conversation among scholars who follow different approaches and areas of expertise contributes to the elucidation of central issues of research.


Introduction: Writings, Speeches, and the Prophetic Books-Setting an Agenda
—Ehud Ben Zvi

Transmitting Prophecy across Generations
—James L. Crenshaw

Orality and Writtenness in the Prophetic Texts
—Robert C. Culley

“Pen of Iron, Point of Diamond” (Jer 17:1): Prophecy as Writing
—Philip R. Davies

Prophetic Orality in the Context of the Ancient Near East: A Response to Culley, Crenshaw, and Davies
—John Van Seters

The Prophet as an Author: The Case of the Isaiah Memoir
—R. E. Clements

“Write the Revelation!” (Hab 2:2): Re-imagining the Cultural History of Prophecy
—Michael H. Floyd

Scribe and Speaker
—Donald B. Redford

From the Oral to the Written: The Case of Old Babylonian Prophecy
—Karel van der Toorn

Spoken, Written, Quoted, and Invented: Orality and Writtenness in Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy
—Martti Nissinen

Ehud Ben Zvi is Professor Religious Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta. Michael H. Floyd is St. Michael and All Angels Professor of Old Testament at the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest in Austin Texas.