Reading the Prophets as Christian Scripture: A Literary, Canonical, and Theological Introduction

With his 2022 monograph, Reading the Prophets as Christian Scripture, Eric J. Tully undertakes the honorable task to provide an introduction to the Old Testament prophetic books for Christ's Church. The emphasis, as Tully himself notes, is on the preposition "as"—not in the sense that Christian's need to appropriate a certain part of the Hebrew canon by means of a reading strategy, but from the perspective of "insiders" who recognize these writings as given by inspiration for the church (p. 3).

Tully writes in an engaging style, making ample use of illustrations and providing manifold charts, tables, and images which make his work invaluable as a study and teaching aid. All of this highlights the intended scope and audience of the book: Reading the Prophets as Christian Scripture is meant to serve an introductory function for beginning students of theology or interested lay-people.

The tripartite structure of Tully's discussion flows from his introductory identification of issues in reading the prophets today (pp. 4–5): The contemporary Church is removed the theological and historical context assumed in the prophet's messages, the prophetic literature is generically complex, and the prophetic books' arrangement is difficult to understand. While Part 1 of the book addresses the first of these issues, Part III deals with the second and third for each prophetic book individually. Part 2 of Reading the Prophets as Christian Scripture is only loosely related to Tully's introductory comments and focuses on the person of the prophets as well as the literary characteristics of their books.

With regard to Part 1, Tully understands the biblical covenants to form the theological context of the prophets' message who were eager to "apply the previous covenants to their listeners...as well as reveal the new covenant that God will accomplish in the future" (p. 36; emphasis original). Tracing different covenants through the storyline of Scripture until their culmination in Christ, Tully sketches three movements: the biblical covenants are interrelated through progressive adjustment rather than replacement; covenant-partnership tends to become narrower in scope from the world, to the nation of Israel, to David, and to Christ; and the earlier mixed covenant-communities of faithful and faithless (such as the nation of Israel) find an end in the New Covenant promise of Jer 31:31–34. While the discussion is appropriately comprehensive and largely convincing, two comments need be made. Tully tends to collapse the relationship between God and his people into the category of covenant rather than distinguishing the latter as a ratification of the former. This, for instance, forces him to interpret 2 Sam 7:1–17 as a covenant rather than a promise, even though the text itself uses no such category (p. 28). Second, one must caution against an over-realized eschatology with regard to Jeremiah 31:31–34. The NT still envisions unbelievers and the children of believers as sharing in the Covenant community (e.g., 1 Cor 7:14).

The first two chapters of Part 2 (chs. 4 and 5) represent a lengthy exposition of Deut 18:9–22, outlining the marks of true and false prophethood according to the Torah. The key difference consists in the origin of the prophet's message: while a true prophet is called by God to deliver his divine message for a particular audience, a false prophet's speech is unlawfully obtained and may contradict YHWH's commandments. Noteworthily, Tully corrects the nowadays often-held view that prophecy is mainly forthtelling as he maintains that accurate foretelling represents an important criterion to identify legitimate prophets (p. 81).

The following chapter in Part 2 (ch. 6) forms the argumentative core of the book which establish a "roadmap" to read the prophetic writings. Tully argues that the prophets delivered a unified message consisting of recurring patterns which can be broken down into five "phases" relative to the time of the prophet. To outline this roadmap, he again makes ample use of "covenant" as a theological category structuring the prophetic message. His own summary is worth quoting in full:

First, the prophets function as covenant prosecutors and accuse the people of having failed to honor the obligations of YHWH's covenant with Israel in the past. Second, they announce YHWH's wrath on those who do evil and coming consequences in the near future. Third, they call the people to repent of their sin and return to YHWH so that he will restore them from the covenant curses in the near future. Fourth, the prophets proclaim a greater restoration and transformation of the world in the distant future. They explain that this great transformation and renewal will come in the reign of a new Davidic....Fifth, the prophets warn that there is a final eschatological judgement in store for the enemies of God. (p. 91)

Following two more chapters in Part 2 which survey the prophetic writing's rhetorical strategies and possible literary genesis, Tully goes on to apply this grid to each prophetic book individually in Part 3. In doing so, he unfolds each writing's own literary structure and analyzes how its message addresses the five prophetic "phases" outlined above.

His study of Isaiah (ch. 9) shall serve as an example. Tully points out how Isaiah addresses all five "phases" as he rebukes Judah for breaking the covenant (past), prophecies devastation by the hands of the Babylonians and Assyrians (near future judgement), promises a return from exile (near future restoration), and looks towards an eschatological future of both forgiveness and judgement (eschatological future restoration and judgement). To support this point, he breaks down the structure of the book into three major parts following the introduction in chapters 1–6 (chs. 7–39; 40–55; 56–66) which he subsequently expounds in much detail in light of his analytical categories. Overall, Tully's discussion of the individual prophetic books exhibits two commendable qualities: clarity and brevity. His analyses are detailed, well-researched, yet appropriately accessible.

Tully's volume successfully achieves what it claims: providing an introduction to reading the prophetic literature Christianly. As a textbook for students or interested lay-people it must therefore be highly recommended. However, its method raises a number of questions which could have been addressed in more detail. In particular, both key elements in Tully's Christian reading of the prophets, covenant and eschatology (let alone their combination!) are controversial in scholarship. On the one hand, critical scholars typically assume covenant to be a late category which entered the prophetic corpus only in stages of literary "Fortschreibung." On the other hand, a simple word-search suggests covenant to be a far less prominent category in the prophets, where it appears more rarely than in the Pentateuch, not making a single appearance in a number of prophetic books. Similar comments apply to eschatology and its development in biblical times. Even among evangelical scholars today, there is a tendency to reserve eschatology for the post-exilic writings, passages such as Isa 24–27 notwithstanding. Of course, these might be technical issues which simply go beyond the scope of an introductory volume.

Be that as it may, these comments should not detract the reader from the outstanding quality of the book. Tully has done the Church a great service by developing his covenantal-eschatological method of Reading the Prophets as Christian Scripture. More than that, his discussions of each prophetic book in Part 3 are most helpful for the teacher and the student, especially because of their devotion to literary detail. I, for one, plan to use the book regularly for future class preparation and recommend the same to the journal's readers.