Getting Biblical in Daily Life
Judaism
At the most basic level, the Minor Prophets provide insight into Jewish history. Accounts of invasion and captivity may not exactly be ideal for summer beach reading, but the collapse of the kingship and destruction of the first temple helped give rise to such hallmarks of modern Jewish culture as synagogues, rabbis, and oy vey.
Yes, the Minor Prophets don’t always have good things to say about the Jewish community of its time, but that’s okay—it’s like going on ancestor.com and finding out that your great-great-great-grandfather was a horse thief. Tantalizing stories but the bad stuff doesn’t define who you are.
As far as the message goes, the Minor Prophets connect to the Jewish experience in ways that go pretty deep. History of persecution? Check. Hope in the midst of bleak circumstances—cool. The promise of a future when all the nations of the earth will flock to Jerusalem—the local Ministry of Tourism is counting on it.
For Jews, all the prophets, including the Minors, point out the catastrophic consequences of straying from God and his laws, and the pointlessness of worshipping other deities. These consequences aren’t experienced as personal tragedies, but as national ones, threats to the communities at large. Restoration of Judah and Israel meant, at the time, that the nation would live independently under a righteous ruler who would lead the people in remaining faithful to Yahweh.
The idea of the ingathering of the exiles back to Judea offered enormous hope and consolation throughout the years for Jews living in the Diaspora, especially during times of persecution and annihilation similar those described during the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests in ancient times. Even Jews who couldn’t be budged from their lives in North America or Europe today still say the traditional words “Next year in Jerusalem” at the end of every Passover seder or Yom Kippur worship service. For more secular Jews, this is a metaphor for a return to a time of peace and wholeness, not necessarily in the physical land of Israel. As for Jews who see current day Israel as their promised inheritance—well, more on that complicated subject later in our “Hot-Button Issues” section.
The Minor Prophets’ change of emphasis from ritual observance to ethical behavior was a major shift in priorities from Torah times. The Reform denomination of Judaism, founded in the late nineteenth century, developed a set of beliefs based squarely on the message of the prophets. Founders of the movement felt that traditional Judaism, with its many detailed laws for everyday life, was no longer meaningful in an emancipated, assimilated society. They saw the prophets’ principles of social justice as the ethical basis for Judaism and directed their efforts towards these principles rather than ritual observance. Just like the prophets preferred justice over Temple sacrifices, Reform Jews emphasized justice and compassion as the true path to a relationship with God. All branches of Judaism are bound by these ethical principles, but for Reform Judaism, they’re foundational.
Christianity
The messages of faithfulness to God, being in a loving relationship with him, and his compassion and forgiveness are beliefs shared by Jews and Christians. But as one might expect, the Christian faith has a rather different take on the Minor Prophets. For Christians, the Minor Prophets are all about—you guessed it—Jesus. The writers of the New Testament find Christ in practically every verse. They believe that the righteous ruler mentioned so often in the Prophets was Jesus, already arrived and offering the path back to God via faith. The branch of David, the leader from Bethlehem, the ruler entering the city on a donkey, the mention of 30 pieces of silver, the salvation of a remnant of the people—all these themes are echoed in the Christian scriptures as predictions about Jesus’s life and kingship.
In the Talmud, the ancient sages wrote that Moses gave Israel 613 commandments; David reduced them to ten, Isaiah to two, and Amos (5:4) to one: This is what the Lord says to the house of Israel: 'Seek me and live.’(Makkot 24a). Early Christians interpreted this to mean that Jesus had fulfilled the laws of the Torah, which were no longer essential to a relationship with God.
Jesus’s ministry as described in the Christian Scriptures embodied those ethical principles emphasized by the prophets. Like them, he criticized those who went through the motions of observing the laws but dealt harshly with the widows and the poor. For example, according to Matthew, he famously said, regarding the Jewish dietary laws, "Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles." (NRSV Matthew 15:10-11) Like the Minor Prophets, he knew religious hypocrisy when he saw it.
Christians also have a different interpretation of prophesies for the time leading up to the end of the world. For instance, the New Testament book of Acts says that Joel 2:28-29 was fulfilled when the first disciples spoke in many languages on the day of Pentecost.
More recently some Christians have interpreted the Minor Prophets to be a detailed roadmap for the apocalypse—so detailed, in fact, that when the prophet Joel talks about locusts, they believe that he was struggling for an image to describe helicopters going to battle.
Besides prophecies of Christ, another major indicator for Christians is the second half of the fourth verse of Habakkuk chapter 2: “the just shall live by faith.” Them’s fightin’ words for Martin Luther, who was so inspired by this passage that he left the Roman Catholic Church and took Germany with him. The reason? Luther believed that the doctrine known as justification by faith alone (sola fides) leaves no room for personal merit earned by prayer, attending mass or feeling guilty about sex.
Although Catholics and liberal Protestants have pretty much come to agree that the Protestant Reformation is water-turned-to-wine under the bridge, the Minor Prophets still remain a subject of heated debate.
In contrast to Protestant practice, Roman Catholic versions of the Bible tend to follow the Hebrew book of Joel. The Catholic chapter 3 begins with verse 28 of the Protestants’ Joel chapter 2. Moreover, the Eastern Orthodox tradition follows the order of the Minor Prophets in the ancient Greek translation called the Septuagint. The Orthodox order starts with Hosea but then swerves into Amos, Micah, Joel and Obadiah before picking up with Jonah (source). The Eastern Orthodox Church considers the Minor Prophets as saints, with their own special feast days. According to Orthodox tradition, responding to this with “It’s all Greek to me” is grounds for burning at the stake.
Islam
Although Muhammad is the greatest prophet of them all in Islamic doctrine, the Minor Prophets ain’t too shabby.
According to classical Islamic teaching, God has spoken through a series of prophets over the course of human history, beginning with Adam and culminating in Muhammad. The Minor Prophets are part of the crew, up there with Abraham, Moses and Jesus. In fact, one of the surahs, or chapters, of the Quran is called the Surah of Jonah. Like the book of Jonah itself, this chapter of the Quran examines God’s sovereign decree and spiritual conversion, citing as an example the story of Nineveh’s repentance after Jonah preached there (10:98).
But as one might expect, there’s a catch.
Islam does indeed teach that the Hebrew Bible contains messages transmitted through prophets prior to Muhammad. For instance, Hosea 11:9, in which Yahweh says, “I am God and not man,” is seen as proof that Jesus is not God in the flesh. Christians familiar with this argument have all started blogs explaining why they disagree.
Nonetheless, Islam also contends that the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures have become corrupted. One big problem is that the texts now include details that make God’s prophets look bad. In the Quran, Jonah’s mistake is rather mild—he leaves Nineveh too soon after they initially refuse to obey God’s word. To reward Jonah for going back to finish the job, God gives him shade and a Prophet’s Pal app complete with a prophetic timer (source).
The Hadith, or accounts of the life and sayings of Muhammad, also include a report that Muhammad told Muslims that whoever says “I am better than Yunus [Jonah]” has lied. Islamic scholars explain that Muhammad might be quoting other people. An alternate explanation is the Muhammad said this before he became aware that he is indeed the greatest prophet of Allah. Either way, Muhammad is off the hook.