Prophets and Prophecy in the Late Antique Near East

Jae Hee Han

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN:
  9781009297714
• Topic: Theology & Religion

In this volume, Jae Han investigates how various Late Antique Near Eastern communities – Jews, Christians, Manichaeans, and philosophers -- discussed prophets and revelation, among themselves and against each other. Bringing an interdisciplinary, historical approach to the topic, he interrogates how these communities used discourses of prophethood and revelation to negotiate their place in the world. Han tracks the shifting contours of prophecy and contextualizes the emergence of orality as the privileged medium among rabbis, Manichaeans, and 'Jewish Christian' communities. He also explores the contemporary interest in divinatory knowledge among Neoplatonists. Offering a critical re-reading of key Manichaean texts, Han shows how Manichaeans used concepts of prophethood and revelation within specific rhetorical agendas to address urgent issues facing their communities. His book highlights the contingent production of discourse and shows how contemporary theories of rhetoric and textuality can be applied to the study of ancient texts.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Inventing Prophethood?: Baraies the Teacher and His Homily
• 2 Contextualizing Manichaean Prophetology in the Syro-Mesopotamian Borderlands
• 3 “Impregnated by the Hands of God”: Embryology and the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies as Counter-Manichaean Prophetology
• 4 Listening to the Prophet: Late Antique Ideologies of Oral Revelation
• 5 Toward a New Prognosis: Neoplatonists, Manichaeans, and the Ps.-Clementine Homilies
• 6 Angelic Contemplation in the Sar Torah and the Prognostic Turn
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index