The Burden of Prophecy: Poetic Utterance in the Prophets of the Old Testament - Hardcover

Cook, Professor Emeritus Albert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0809320835 ISBN 13: 9780809320837

Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997

Synopsis

Albert Cook examines the poetic and scriptural thinking of the Hebrew prophets and wisdom writers, focusing on the details of their thematic concentrations and on the posture they assume to orient themselves in their utterances.

Homer, Confucius, the poets of the Confucian anthology, and the authors of the Zend Avesta and the Rig Veda are variously endowed with an authority empowered by the instituted religious thought of their times. Each writer, Cook contends, rests firmly in the reassurances provided by the particular context.

Cook argues, however, that the Hebrew prophet comes forward and presents himself as open to the momentary utterances of God. This God is not primarily an image or a symbol; the Hebrew Yahweh is a force that manifests Himself in developing history. In that dangerous situation, the prophet remains open directly to God and gets a continually renewed verbal authority and power from that flow.

Since, as Cook demonstrates, the prophet is commenting on the constantly changing flow between God and people, every utterance is essentially a progress report rather than a finally poised formulation, even though the utterance is formulated in reference to the basic values of righteousness and the law and in measured analogy to such defining tribal experiences as the Exodus. Radically distinct from other religious poetry, therefore, Hebrew prophecy rises from and refers to a complex and specific occasion.

Most poetry looks toward the past. Keats, Li Po, and Pindar, for example, all offer the profundity of a stocktaking. The poetry of the Hebrew prophet, however, is oriented toward the future. At worst, the prophet’s perception and goal can lead to an informed readiness for the future; at best, they can lead to a restoration of the people's covenant with God. In any case, they will lead to a future whose features are compassed in the articulated vision.

In The Burden of Prophecy, Cook explores the implications of these conditions as he examines the Old Testament books of the prophets and their successors: Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Zechariah, and Daniel.

About this title

About the Author

Albert Cook is Ford Foundation Professor Emeritus of comparative literature, English, and classics at Brown University. He is a prolific poet, playwright, and critic. His twentieth work of literary criticism, The Burden of Prophecy extends his 1968 study, The Root of the Thing: A Study of Job and the Song of Songs. Cook has translated Oedipus Rex and the Odyssey into English verse and published seven books of poetry and numerous essays. He also has published two plays and had four produced.

Review

"A long time ago, I projected a book on biblical poetry that found its expression in The Root of the Thing: A Study of Job and the Song of Songs. Intermittently, I wrote about other parts of the Bible: about Pentateuchal narrative... and about historigraphic assumptions underlying biblical practice. . . . I [also] set the biblical practice of poetry into a larger context of comparable poetry with some religious orientation. Here I turn, finally, to the tonic range of biblical prophecy and to its burden,’ a word that has been adapted into English to mean the kind of message that the biblical prophet conceived himself to be uttering." Albert Cook, from the Introduction

Edition details

• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0809320835
• ISBN 13: 9780809320837
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176