Reworking Masculinity in 1 Esdras (original) (raw)

This is a selection from the book The Chronicler's Prophet and the Temple Restoration at lulu.com. The Purpose of this research was to investigate the character and message of Jahaziel ben Zechariah a Levite son of Asaph who gave a beautiful prophecy to King Jehoshaphat, Judah and Jerusalem just after the death of King Ahab in response to a perceived threat from their neighbors, Moab, Ammon and the Sons of Seir or Edom (2 Chr 20). His message of encouragement like those of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, Haggai, and Malachi directed the audience to trust Yahweh for he would fight their battle for them. Jehoshaphat confirmed his message telling the assembly to trust Yahweh and his prophets. In recent scholarly discussion a number of studies on the identity of Jahaziel and his message have focused on whether or not he is a literary character and his type of prophecy was not from the first temple period but a retrojection of the Chronicler from the second temple period. In other words the Chronicler writing somewhere between the Middle Persian Period and the Hellenistic period retrojected back his experience in the Second Temple Period and created the whole scene of the rumors of war and the character Jahaziel and placed his own words into the mouth of the Jahaziel. Jahaziel then is the voice of the Chronicler. In this study, my approach is to try to understand Jahaziel as the Chronicler understood him. I present the investigation in three main sections. In the first section, we introduce Jahaziel and our argument that the Sitz im Leben of the book must be moved forward to the early Persian Period and it is document enabling Zerubbabel and the post exilic house of David to reestablish the temple cult. This argument is based maninly on the internal evidence of the text itself and the fact that the narrative ends at the coming of Cyrus, not hundreds of years later when the house of David had no power. In moving it here we can see a situation where many of the lessons the Chronicler is trying to teach have a purposeful function. For example, the characters held responsible for their actions throughout Chronicles are ultimately the heads of the house of David, called kings in the first temple period and governors in the early Persian period. They are held responsible for doing right in the eyes of Yahweh and listening or not to his messengers. My argument is that only persons able to act on the many practical materials the Chronicler provides in his lessons are leaders of the house of David, in the early Second Temple period this is Zerubbabel and his house. Jahaziel’s message and Jehoshaphat;s response is a very good lesson for him. In the second section, we review research on Jahaziel from Wellhausen who sees no historical value in the materials to Levin who sees much historical value in the Chronicler’s material. Scholars attitudes to Jahaziel are surveyed in three sections. Those who believe there were no Prophets like Jahaziel in the first temple period cult. Those who are uncertain as to Jahaziel’s role and place. Those who see that there might have been a prophet like Jahaziel in the first temple period and some who believe he was actually there and did prophesy. In the third section, we complete our contribution. We give a literary analysis of the texts concerning Jahaziel. We do this by mainly focusing on the internal evidence of the Chronicler. Secondly a close look at the words used by Jahaziel shows that morphologically, lexically and syntactically there is no reason for them not to have come from the first temple period. One key point here is that the text uses words and syntactic structures which are unique not only in the HB but unique in Chronicles itself. This could mean that it is not necessarily the Chronicler speaking at all but a source which only appears in the reign of Jehoshaphat. The Chronicler calls this source The Words of Jehu ben Hanini. This source contains hapax legomema, a pre-exilic form of the word Jerusalem, and a pre-exilic lexical use of the word amad. Most scholars understand that because the Chronicler wrote after most of the canon was complete, when he uses words which sound like Isaiah, he must have been imitating Isaiah. I consider this assumption unwarranted. If the source on which his words come from are from a pre Isaianic source it is equally possible Isaiah was influenced by the source. We look in section three at the sources behind Jahaziel's words and parallels in the Hebrew Bible, his message to Jerusalem, his relationship to other characters of his time, especially the king and the priest in the light of the covenant of Abraham, Yahweh and David. In this we do a typological comparison with covenants and declaration formulas used in ANE covenants. In addition, his place in the anthropomorphic body of Yahweh. We look at the various terms for prophets and formulae related to prophecy. Thus. we look at Jahaziel and Moses, David, as Levite and as son of Asaph, his place in the temple and the mishmarot. We discover he would have been a Jerusalem prophet like Isaiah, Jeremiah and give special attention to his connection with Zechariah ben Iddo ben Berechiah because in the post exilic period it was he who was along with Haggai the prophet trying to encourage Zerubbabel as Jahaziel son of Zechariah encouraged Jehoshphat. The results of this research will affect the way scholars read the HB and especially the Chronicler. He will be read as practical mentor or teacher who encouraged the post exilic house of David to resurrect the temple and the temple cult. Jahaziel’s message was a key one in this regard encouraging him to understand he was not about man’s work but Yahweh’s work and Yahweh himself would be with him as he was with David, and a key way Yahweh was with him was through his prophets the psalmists and the Levites who in the sons of Asaph were the same persons.