Book Review: Aaron Chalmers on Interpreting the Prophets

Aaron Chalmers 

Interpreting the Prophets: Reading, Understanding and Preaching from the Worlds of the Prophets 
Downer’s Grove: IVP Academic, 2015.
Available at Amazon.com

By Jill Firth

Aaron Chalmers is head of the School of Ministry, Theology and Culture at Tabor College in Adelaide, Australia. He has published articles based on his PhD (Flinders, 2006) on the formula ‘YHWH strikes and heals’ in the Old Testament, and is the author of Exploring the Religion of Ancient Israel: Prophet, Priest, Sage and People (2013). He is currently working on a book which focuses on the conceptual world of the Old Testament.

Interpreting the Prophets grew from Chalmers’ experience as a theological student, where he was inspired by the work of Walter Brueggemann on social justice in the prophets. His goal was to create a suitable textbook for theological students that focussed not only on the content of the prophetic books, but also on the skills needed to read the prophets. He seeks to provide a basic conceptual framework of the three worlds of the text: the historical world, the theological world, and the rhetorical world. A chapter is devoted to each of these. A further chapter investigates apocalyptic, and the book concludes with guidelines for preaching from the prophets. Each chapter has suggestions for further reading, sometimes with an indication as to whether the book is written from a critical or evangelical standpoint. Black and white photographs and illustrations help to clarify the content. The book concludes with a select bibliography, Scripture index and subject index which make it easy to navigate.

The first chapter asks, ‘What is a prophet and what is a prophetic book.’ Chalmers discusses the ‘classical’ prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and the Twelve. This chapter moves helpfully from the known to the unknown, beginning with modern views of prophecy including prediction of the future (like Nostradamus), social reform (like Martin Luther King) or prediction of Jesus. He goes on to note that only a small percentage of prophecy directly speaks of the new covenant or messianic hopes, or of events in our modern times. The ‘vast majority’ (more than 92 per cent) was concerned with Israel’s history in Old Testament times. Textboxes offer information on prophecy in the ANE, court prophets and cult prophets for those who would like to go further.

The second chapter gives an overview of Israel from the eighth to the fifth century BCE, and gives guidelines on how to analyse the historical world of the prophets. ‘The theological world of the prophets’ discusses the themes of the Sinai covenant and Zion to introduce tradition history. In the chapter on prophetic rhetoric, Chalmers introduces various prophetic forms such as disputation, lawsuit and vision report, as well as discussing poetic features such as parallelism, imagery, and rhetorical devices. Hyperbole and hendiadys are covered in textboxes.

‘From Prophecy to Apocalyptic’ places apocalyptic within prophecy, and is defined colloquially as ‘prophecy on steroids.’ Prophecy and apocalyptic are placed on two ends of a spectrum, with OT texts located in various places along the spectrum. Wisdom literature, including mantic wisdom, is also considered to be influential. Chalmers offers a definition of apocalyptic from Grant Osborne’s The Hermeneutical Spiral (2006) which is based on the 1979 SBL definition but has some additional explanatory phrases. Textboxes include Speech-Act theory, Antiochus Epiphanes IV and the Pseudepigrapha.

Guidelines for preaching include practical suggestions such as allowing a couple of months of lead-in time for research on the prophets before actually beginning to preach, and being selective of specific texts. Chalmers notes that the prophets are often repetitive, so preaching through every chapter of a long prophet may not be the most effective strategy. Additionally, the besetting sins of a specific OT setting may not be the salient sins of the preacher’s own congregation, so sensitivity is needed in selecting and applying passages. Citing Elizabeth Achtemeier, he encourages preachers not to focus on what is wrong with us and with our world, but ‘to say what God is doing about them.’

Interpreting the Prophets is clearly written, brief, engaging, and inexpensive (it sells for around $16 Australian). It is a helpful introduction to the prophets which could be used in with theological students or for discussion in a small group Bible study. I will certainly be drawing from the introductory chapter and the chapter on apocalyptic when I teach on the prophets in the coming semester.

Jill Firth teaches in Hebrew and Old Testament at Ridley College in Melbourne, and is completing a PhD on the Psalms.