How Did They Read the Prophets? Early Jewish and Christian Interpretations (Michael B. Shepherd) - A Review
For Jews, Christians, and Muslims,
the prophets of what Christians call the Old Testament speak loudly. Preachers,
like me, often turn to them to address contemporary concerns and crises. Although
the prophets addressed issues contemporary to them, their messages often speak
to our own concerns. This is especially true of books such as Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Amos, and Micah. The prophets call our attention to the way God sees things,
while pointing out pathways that lead to justice and mercy. From them, we learn
how to walk with God. The prophets themselves draw upon Torah, interpreting it
so that the hearers and readers might know the ways of God. This reminds us how
biblical authors will interpret the words of other biblical authors, such that
Scripture interprets Scripture. We know that this is especially true of the
authors of the New Testament, who regularly draw from earlier texts to
communicate their messages. Jesus himself is portrayed in the Gospels as
drawing on Torah and the prophets for inspiration and authoritative teaching.
As such, he drew on these texts and reinterpreted them to speak to his own
context. That shouldn’t surprise us since Jesus, as a Jewish teacher, would
have known what became scripture.
The question that Michael B.
Shepherd asks as the title of the book under review reveals is How Did They
Read the Prophets? The book’s subtitle clarifies to an extent who
"they" are: Early Jewish and Christian Interpretations. I will
show in due course who Shepherd understands “they” to be.
Michael B. Shepherd, the author of
this book, is a professor of biblical studies at Cedarville University. Before
moving to Cedarville University, he taught biblical studies at Louisiana
College in Pineville, Louisiana, having earned his Ph.D. at Southeastern Baptist
Seminary.
In this book, what Shepherd means
by early Jewish and Christian interpretations focuses largely on interpretations
found within the biblical canon, whether Jewish or Christian. In addition, he
makes use of Jewish targums and midrash. Thus, when it comes to early Christian
interpretations, he largely limits himself to the New Testament. Thus, he does
not engage with the biblical interpretations of figures such as Irenaeus,
Origen, or Jerome. As I read the subtitle of the book, I did expect to find him
engaging with interpreters from the early centuries of Christian history.
However, that is not his focus.
As for the methodology used here,
Shepherd draws on the method used by James Kugel, professor emeritus in the
Bible department at Bar Ilan University in Israel and the Harry M. Starr
Professor Emeritus of Classical and Modern Hebrew Literature at Harvard
University, in his Grawemeyer Award-winning book The Bible as It Was
(Belknap Press, 2017), which focused on the portrayal of Moses as a prophet in
the Pentateuch (Torah). In this particular book, Shepherd focuses on the Latter
Prophets—Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and the Twelve (Minor Prophets). He shares
with his readers that his purpose here is to let the "ancient interpreters
collectively to give a guided tour of the textual details of the composition in
its given form and sequence." In other words, Shepherd is not offering the
reader a general introduction to these books. That is something one will find
elsewhere. Instead, he is interested in how the prophets were interpreted by
biblical authors as well as select Jewish interpreters. Thus, Shepherd focuses his
attention on the way other biblical writers and Jewish writers engaged with the
text of the prophetic writers.
When it comes to textual elements,
Shepherd brings into the conversation the various forms the texts of the
prophetic writings take. This includes the Masoretic Text of the Old Testament,
on which our modern translations largely rely, along with the Old Greek and
Septuagint (Greek) translations. He suggests something that was new to me,
which is that it appears the Old Greek translation relies on Hebrew Texts that
predate the Masoretic Text. In revealing this possibility, we can see how
interpretations emerge over time. It also reminds us that we may value the
Hebrew text; there are likely Hebrew texts that not only predate the primary
Hebrew text of the Old Testament but that Greek translations might offer us a
look at earlier possible interpretations.
Michael B. Shepherd's How Did They Read the Prophets? is accessible to readers
who have some knowledge of the biblical text, though general readers may not
know about the Jewish targums and midrash. However, Shepherd offers chapters discussing
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and then the Twelve, together with a final chapter
on "The Prophets as Exegetes." As he reminds the readers, if they are
looking for an introduction to these books, they should look elsewhere. On the
other hand, though Shepherd appears to take a more conservative view of the
books (I'm not sure whether he considers Isaiah to be one book or two), he does
help us better understand how biblical texts interpret and build upon each
other. Of course, the New Testament writers engaged not only with biblical
texts but also with earlier interpretations that lay outside what we know to be
canonical. We also know that the New Testament writers depended on the Greek
translations, whether Old Greek or the Septuagint, which offer their own
interpretations.
I do want to take note of the final
chapter on “Prophets as Exegetes.” More specifically, Shepherd’s comments about
the role that scribes played as exegetes. He notes that the “older conception
of a scribe as a mere copyist has given way to a newer, more accurate view of
scribes as exegets and composers. The older view of prophets as preachers of oral
messages has been complemented by an awareness that the concept of a prophet
developed in such a way that the scribe became a new prophet” (p. 114). Thus,
the prophets themselves serve as interpreters of other biblical texts. Shepherd’s
book, How Did They Read the Prophets? offers us a helpful introduction
to how biblical writers and biblically adjacent writers interpreted each other.
As I noted above, when it comes to Shepherd’s
understanding of Isaiah, at some points he brings a more conservative view of
inspiration than some, including me, might take. Readers who come to this
conversation from a different vantage point will want to keep that in mind.
Nevertheless, Shepherd’s assumptions regarding inspiration and the perfection
of scripture, while present, do not seem to overwhelm his own interpretations. In
other words, if one understands where the author is coming from, then one can
find insight into the texts that are helpful, so one can better interpret Scripture
as well as understand where interpretations come from. As a reader, while one
might expect, based on the subtitle, that Shepherd would extend his discussion
of early Christian interpreters to include interpreters other than the New
Testament writers, nevertheless, Shepherd sufficiently explains the boundaries
that one understands why the choice was made. Therefore, I do believe that
Shepherd’s How Did They Read the Prophets? has significant value, especially
for clergy.
Copies of this book can be purchased through your favorite retailer or through my Amazon affiliate as well as my Bookshop.Org affiliate.
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