THE PROPHETS

By
James Neal III
March 24, 2018

A BOOK CRITIQUE

Submitted to Dr. McDonald

In Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Course

GBIB 608 Eighth Century Prophets BLENDED B (Spring 2018, McDonald)

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AND MINISTRY

ORAL ROBERTS UNIVERSITY

 BOOK CRITIQUE

Bibliographical Entry

Heschel, Abraham. The Prophets. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1969.

Content Summary

The Prophets is a book written by Abraham Heschel with the intent to take the audience

on a journey to discovering the motivations and mindsets of the various Hebrew prophets that we

read about in the Bible. The author, careful to not alienate non-Christian audiences, includes

much information and study on the prophetic movement of Israel which spans much of the

Judeo-Christian fields.

In the initial stages of the book, one of the more vital points that Heschel presents to the

reader is the theology of Pathos. This theology holds that the prophets of God had a much more

complicated relationship with Him than one can ascertain from reading alone. This relationship

made the Hebrew prophets into men that we revere, but also into men that many people have

grown to fear for their knowledge and peculiarity. Many other religions also have gods who have

heralds or seers, but none of these other religions’ prophets have the authority or ability to

communicate from their deity. Instead, they would bring to people concepts about their god.

“When it comes to the of the God of Israel, however, the prophets disclosed attitudes of God

rather than ideas about God.” (p. 286)

After the introduction of the theology and philosophy of pathos, Heschel leads the

audience on a journey of ecstasy and how it relates to prophecy. He notes that many religions

from all parts of the world directly associated acts of divine nature through humanity in

particular worship and prophecy with humans achieving what they believed to be the highest

form of ecstasy. The prophets, seers, and oracles would use drugs, trances and, sex to create the

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necessary ecstasy to see into the future or receive a necessary word from the deity of their

religion. In this study, Heschel cites Philo of Alexandria, “Who is the first thinker known to us

who developed a comprehensive approach to the understanding of biblical prophecy.” (p. 428)

The problem with Philo, however, was that his school of belief was syncretistic. Meaning he had

tended to recklessly take qualities and attributes of one religion and mix them with another. He

would create a myriad of unproven and non-associative observances of the prophets.

Philo declared that his fundamental principle was “No prophecy without ecstasy.” (p.

429) He believed that any true prophet of God would never prophesy of their own accord. To

read into that further, he found that when an actual prophecy was taking place, the deity would

take full control or possession of the prophet. The prophet would have no power of his mouth

tongue or organs because at that moment the god was in divine possession of the host. The way

that Philo would describe deity was as if they would suddenly come upon the prophet, with no

patience or grace, literally a puppet with strings to be pulled whenever the divine one felt it was

necessary.

Heschel concludes the book with a review and a further magnification of the pathos and

how we should understand it. In this chapter we see, what was this all about. God is divinely

concerned with His creation and does not disengage from us. He is in love and is so holy that He

can find himself in the midst without becoming the subject of His affection. It is remarkable the

God that we have the honor of serving.

Evaluation

“Abraham J. Heschel (1907-1972), born in Poland, moved to the United States in 1940. A

professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, Heschel became an active and well-

known participant in the Civil Rights movement and the protests against the Vietnam War.

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Author of Man Is Not Alone and God in Search of Man.” (Editor’s Notes) This book is well

researched and targets an audience of theological scholars. Students who are in a religious degree

program, as well as theologians who seek to expound on their knowledge of the Hebrew

prophets, can learn plenty from this work. With its many comparisons to prophets of other

religions, the author does not disengage from those who are not believers, however, the audience

who reveres the prophets of the Bible will have the opportunity to pull the most meat from this

text.

The author’s stated purpose for writing the book began as a “study of prophetic

subjectivity.” (p. xiv) Heschel had a desire to communicate that the prophet was more than a

messenger sent by God, He desired to move past the content of the prophet’s message entirely.

He believed that while the words were in their own class of value, it was the spiritual experience

of the prophets from which we should glean. When writing this work, the author presupposes

that the audience has some background with prophets. He also presumes that the audience has

not much knowledge of various world religions and their prophets, oracles, and seers. With this

presupposition, he never leaves the readers to fend for themselves and instead holds their hand

on this long journey.

The author does a phenomenal job of presenting objective information and observations

of the prophets of Israel. When examining their relationship with Yahweh, the author does

present contradictory views of theologians who think it impossible to have this level of

relationship with the real God. Heschel then responds to the dissenting opinions by pointing out

what I believe to be a massive hole in their logic. He uses the Greeks regards to their gods and

seeing that they think that since as people we must separate ourselves from the world, i.e.,

politics, wealth and relationships, to be happy, the same must be true of God. “What holds true

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for man, holds true for the gods.” (p. 300) Here is the problem with that logic, a true God is

different from humanity in these ways. The problem with the Greek religion was that their gods

were merely super-men. They were primarily these superior beings of power, with the abilities to

control the seas or change their forms, yet they had the same lustful desires as men, and they

were not holy.

What makes this book unique is its addressing of the historical and cultural state of the

prophets of the Bible in conjunction with the prophets of other religions. Heschel points out that

despite the pagan gods of the Greek mythology, the God of Bible stands in an entirely different

place. “The theology of pathos propagates that the God of the universe finds himself in the midst

of the affairs of his creation.” (p. 299) He does not lust after his creation nor does He despise it.

Integration

I believe that the author did the audience a great justice in his writings on the prophets. In

2018 ministry has transformed in many ways. So many of our Pastors have now become Life

Coaches; Evangelists have morphed into Motivational Speakers, Prophets into psychics & sooth

Sayers, and Apostles into Multilevel Pyramid Network Builders. What Heschel accomplishes in

this book that can be noted and immediately applied to our ministry today is remembering the

purpose of the gifts. In this case, I do not refer to the gifts of the Spirit but the gifts of Christ to

the church which is the fivefold ministry. Keeping the intended purpose before us will prevent us

from taking God’s gifts and using them for our gain.

We live in a time where the prophets of the church have become more and more about

saying the right things to the right people to get the desired result. What Heschel intends to bring

us back to is having the appropriate experience with God so that the truth of the word is not

hindered or tainted by anything.

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 I believe that the most important chapter is the theology of pathos. I find this chapter to

be the most vital to understanding the foundation of Heschel’s premise. The pathos sets the stage

for the entire discussion of the book. I found the chapter to be informative and eye-opening to a

school of thought that I had truthfully never considered to being vital to myself or others before

reading. The least essential chapter, in my opinion, is chapter 16, prophet, priest and king. I like

the chapter as a stand-alone dose of reading. However, I had a hard time tracking the connections

to the previous chapters. It felt as if it came out of nowhere in certain parts of the chapter. In

other portions, however, the chapter felt comprehensive, and for this reason, it was the least

important to me.

Theological Reflection

The Prophets is a book that intently researches the scriptures for information and nature

regarding the Hebrew prophets. Heschel does not hesitate to look to other religions and sources

for comparisons to the work of the prophets of God. This provides a balanced overview of the

subject of prophets. The book approaches the scriptures reverently and keeps them in context to

the conversation that the author is leading. Scriptural context is one of the most important aspects

of Biblical interpretation. It is only through context that we can keep the order and decency of

the Scriptures intact. Through reading this book I have learned that the prophets of God are not

merely those who give the people of God a direction from God, I have learned that they are

indeed more than messengers. Instead, these prophets are those who have been deeply affected

by the very thoughts and attitudes of the God that they serve. Prophets steward an intimacy that

is not common within the body of Christ for the betterment of the Body of Christ. A journey to

understanding the prophets is definitely one worth taking not just by theologians but by all who

name the name of Christ.