The Prophetic Imagination
Page 21
In Retrospect (PI at Forty)
Robert Jay Lifton, Witness to an Extreme Century: A Memoir (New York: Free Press, 2011). On pages 67–68 and 381 Lifton outlines the recurring “deadly sins” of totalism.
Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1969).
William T. Cavanaugh, Torture and Eucharist (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998) has traced out the contest of imaginations in Chile under the Pinochet regime. “Social imagination is not a mere representation of something more real; it is not some ideological ‘superstructure’ which reflects the material ‘base.’ . . . The imagination of a society is the condition of possibility for the organization and signification of bodies in a society. The imagination is the drama in which bodies are invested. . . . If torture is the imagination of the state, the Eucharist is the imagination of the church” (57, 229). Cavanaugh quotes from a novel of Lawrence Thornton: “We have to believe in the power of imagination because it is all we have, and ours is stronger than theirs” (279). Cavanaugh concludes: “To participate in the Eucharist is to live inside God’s imagination” (279). It is clear that in ancient Israel the imagination of the royal-priestly-scribal establishment in Jerusalem was very powerful; the prophets sought to out-imagine that enterprise. So among us, the imagination of market ideology (relentlessly offered in the liturgies of mindless televisions and most poignantly through the NFL as a festival of money, sex, and violence) is a powerful form of imagination; the prophetic task, now as then, is to out-imagine that enterprise.
Hopeful Imagination: Prophetic Voices in Exile (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986); Reality, Grief, Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014); The Practice of Prophetic Imagination: Preaching an Emancipatory Word (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012).
“The Costly Loss of Lament,” JSOT 11/36 (1986): 57–71.
Douglas John Hall, Lighten Our Darkness: Toward an Indigenous Theology of the Cross (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976) has provided a reliable compelling exposition of the Theology of the Cross.
“The Liturgy of Abundance, the Myth of Scarcity,” The Christian Century 116/10 (March 24–31, 1999): 342–47.
On market ideology, see most poignantly Gerald Berthoud, “Market,” in The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power, ed. Wolfgang Sachs, 2nd ed. (New York: Zed, 2010), 74–94. Berthoud makes clear that “the market” has morphed from a matrix for trade to a regulatory principle that intends to impose its categories on all of our common life.
Selected Bibliography
Birch, Bruce C. Let Justice Roll Down: The Old Testament, Ethics, and Christian Life. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991. [Note: Chapter 6: “Royal Ideal and Royal Reality,” 198–239.]
Blenkinsopp, Joseph. A History of Prophecy in Israel. Rev. ed. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996.
Chaney, Marvin L. “Systemic Study of the Israelite Monarchy.”
Semeia 37 (1986): 53–76.
Coats, George W. “The King’s Loyal Opposition: Obedience and Authority in Exodus 32–34.” In Canon and Authority: Essays in Old Testament Religion and Theology, edited by G. W. Coats and B. O. Long, 91–109. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977. [Note: this deals with both Moses and Jeremiah]
Gordon, Robert P., ed. The Place Is Too Small for Us: The Israelite Prophets in Recent Scholarship, SBTS 5. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1995.
Gottwald, Norman K. “The Biblical Prophetic Critique of Political Economy: Its Ground and Import.” In God and Capitalism: A Prophetic Critique of Market Economy, edited by J. M. Thomas and V. Visick, 11–29. Madison, Wis.: A-R Editions, 1991. Reprinted in Norman K. Gottwald, The Hebrew Bible in Its Social World and in Ours, Semeia Studies, 349–64. Atlanta: Scholars, 1993.
———. “A Hypothesis about Social Class in Monarchic Israel in the Light of Contemporary Studies of Social Class and Stratification.” In idem, The Hebrew Bible in Its Social World and in Ours, Semeia Studies, 139–64. Atlanta: Scholars, 1993.
———. “Social Class as an Analytic and Hermeneutical Category in Biblical Studies.” JBL 112 (1993): 3–22.
Handy, Lowell K., ed. The Age of Solomon: Scholarship at the Turn of the Millennium. Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East 11. Leiden: Brill, 1997. [24 articles]
Holladay, William L. Jeremiah. Vol. 1. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986.
———. Jeremiah. Vol. 2. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989.
Hutton, Rodney R. Charisma and Authority in Israelite Society. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994. [Especially chaps. 1, 2, 5]
Ishida, Tomoo, ed. Studies in the Period of David and Solomon and Other Essays. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1982.
Koch, Klaus. “The Language of Prophecy: Thoughts on the Macrosyntax of the debar YHWH and Its Semantic Implications in the Deuteronomistic History.” In Problems in Biblical Theology: Essays in Honor of Rolf Knierim, edited by H. T. C. Sun et al., 210–21. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997.
Overholt, Thomas W. Channels of Prophecy: The Social Dynamics of Prophetic Activity. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989.
Smith, Daniel L. The Religion of the Landless: The Social Context of the Babylonian Exile. Bloomington, Ind.: Meyer-Stone, 1989.
Whitelam, Keith W. “Israelite Kingship: The Royal Ideology and Its Opponents.” In The World of Ancient Israel: Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives, edited by R. E. Clements, 119–39. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989.
Whitelam, Keith W. “The Symbols of Power: Aspects of Royal Propaganda in the United Monarchy.” BA 49 (1986): 166–73.
Wilson, Robert R. Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980.
Scripture Index
Old Testament
GENESIS
2–3 45, 47
11:30 75
25:21 75
29:31 75
EXODUS
1:15-22 24
2:23-25 11, 91
3:7-8 12
3:7 91
3:9-10 12
5:7-10 9
5:8 12
8:12 12
8:17-18 10
8:18 96
11:6 13
11:7 15
12:8-11 26
12:30 13
14:13 10
14:30 10, 113
15 12
15:1-18 16
15:1 17
15:2 6
15:18 18, 70
15:20 18
15:21 16
16 26
16:18 31
33:16 31
33:19-20 31
LEVITICUS
19:12 128
25:35-42 31
NUMBERS
6:1-21 83
1 SAMUEL
1:2 75
10, 19 5
2 SAMUEL
1:19-27 41
3:33-34 41
12:15-23 41
18:33 41
19:4 41
23:13-17 41
1 KINGS
2 32
4 27
4:1-6 24
4:4 24
4:7-19 24
4:20-23 26, 30
4:20 32
4:29-34 24
5:13-19 24
5:13-18 27, 30
6:1—7:51 24
8:12-13 29, 30
9:1-9 32
9:10-11 32
9:15-22 30
9:15-19, 26 24
9:22 24, 27
9:23 24
10:1-5, 23-25 24
10:8 32
11 32
11:1-13 xxiii
11:1-3 24
11:28 27
11:40 32
12 27
12:1-19 xxiii
17—
2 Kings 10 86
PSALMS
104 131
137 62
137:3 74
137:7-9 62
145 131
PROVERBS
1:1 24
10:1 24
ECCLESIASTES
1:7-9 41
1:9-10 61
3:4 50
ISAIAH
6:1 46
6:9-10 111
6:10 48
40:1-2 69
40:9-11 72
40:9-10 70
40:28-29 78
40:30-31 78
41:6-7 44
42:10 74
43:18-19 77
43:22-24 72
45:18 66
46:1 72
46:3-4 72
47:1-3 73
49:14-15 71
52:7 71, 72
54:1-3 75
55:1-2 76
54:1 75
55:3 76
JEREMIAH
4:19-20 49
4:22 50
4:23-26 49
4:30-31 53
6:6 94
6:14 55
7:4 43
7:11 87
8–10 50
8:7 48, 50
8:8 55
8:11 55
8:15 51
8:18 51
8:22—9:2 50
9:10 52
9:23-24 132
22 52
22:28 52
22:29 52
22:30 52
27–28 55
30:12-13 54
31:15 53, 69
31:20 54
36:23-24 55
LAMENTATIONS
1:2, 16, 17, 21 69
5:20-21 62
EZEKIEL
22:26 128
HOSEA
4:9 118
6:6 88
11:8-9 90
AMOS
5:1-2 52-53
5:16 52
6:6 56
7:10-17 xix
ZECHARIAH
1:68-79 104
Apocrypha
2 ESDRAS
14:10 117
New Testament
MATTHEW
1:16-17 83
1:18-23 83
2:11 83
2:16-23 82
2:22-23a 83
2:22-23 83
4:23 86
5:4 56, 18
6:12 86
7:28 106
9:10-13 88
9:35-36 89
9:37-38 90
11:28-30 72
12:5-6 88
14:14 89
16 82
17 82
17:6 106
20:1-16 86
22:33 107
23:13-33 94
23:23 132
23:27 56
28:11-15 113
28:19 113
28:20 113
MARK
1:15 84
1:27 106
2:1-12 86
2:1-11 85
2:15-17 85
2:23-28 85
3:1-6 85
3:6 106
3:22 106
4:41 106
5:1-13 86
5:25-34 86
6 85
6:2 106
6:5-6 105
6:34 89
6:51 107
7 85
7:24-30 86
7:37 107
8:2 89
8:31 95
8:32-33 96
9:31 95
9:32 96
10:33-34 95
10:35-37 96
11:15-19 87
11:18 108
12 85
12:13-17 86-87
14:36 118
15:34 96
15:40-41 86
LUKE
1:7 75
1:46-55 104
1:51-53 83
2:17-20 83
2:18 104
2:19 104
2:20 104
4:18-19 84, 03
5:26 106
6:20-26 109
6:20 110
6:21 118
6:22-23 118
7:12-13 89
7:18-23 86
7:22 105
7:23 108
7:36-50 86
9:43 106
10:33 90
11:4 86
11:38 108
15:20 90
16:19-31 92
16:19-21 92
19:41 56
19:41-42 93
19:43 94
19:47 106
20:26 87
22:26 106
23:2 87
23:34 96
23:43 97
23:46 97
24 109
24:21 112
25a 109
25b 109
26 109
37 104
JOHN
2:18-22 87
4:1-26 86
9:1 86
11:1-57 92
11:33-35 92
11:44 92
11:47, 57 93
1 CORINTHIANS
1:25-28 xxxi
2 CORINTHIANS
8:9 112
PHILIPPIANS
2:5-11 98
4:7 102
HEBREWS
11:12 75
1 PETER
3:15 66