Biblical Revelation in its ANE Context

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the study of divine revelation in the Hebrew Bible. Though the word “revelation” does not appear, the concept surely does. Whereas “prophecy” is a term that describes the prophet speaking/writing the divine word; “revelation” is more narrowly defined as Yahweh speaking/revealing his word to the prophet. As such, questions of how he spoke and why he spoke are asked. As a result, the thesis begins with four primary motivations. Firstly, we want to emphasise the significance of differentiating between revelation and prophecy. It is crucial to avoid confusion, considering prophecy as the act of proclaiming a divine message to the people, while revelation is defined as the phenomenon of Yahweh conveying his revelation to the prophet. Secondly, our interest is gaining a better understanding of

הָיהָ דְּברַ-יהְוָה אֶל . That is, when “the word of Yahweh

comes to . . .” a prophet, what does that exactly mean? Thirdly, acknowledging that discussions on divine revelation in the Hebrew Bible are often either philosophical or theological, we hope to contribute to those discussions by establishing an exegetical foundation to support any theological reflection of divine revelation. Lastly, due to the diverse nature and limited explicit details on how Yahweh communicates in the Hebrew Bible, we will pull all the evidence together and propose a model of how the biblical writers describe how Yahweh reveals himself. Ultimately, our overarching goal is to achieve a deeper comprehension of divine revelation throughout the biblical texts, making a concerted effort to reconcile apparent diversity and establish a sense of unity. Methodologically, to arrive at our conclusions, we will explore biblical revelation canonically, philologically, analogically, and even polemically.