The formation of the Book of the Twelve is one of the most vigorously debated subjects in Old Testament studies today. This volume assembles twenty-four essays by the world’s leading experts, providing an overview of the present state of scholarship in the field. The book’s contributors focus on questions of method, history, as well as redactional and textual history.

Contributors to this volume explore the theoretical issues at stake in recent changes in form criticism and the practical outcomes of applying the results of these theoretical shifts to the Book of the Twelve. This volume combines self-conscious methodological reflection with practical examination of specific texts in an effort to demonstrate the practical consequences of theoretical decisions and the value of certain methodological stances.

In antiquity, the twelve books of the Minor Prophets were transmitted as a single volume known as the Book of the Twelve. This 1994 Duke dissertation uses manuscript discoveries from the Judean Desert and a fresh re-appraisal of the Greek translation of the Minor Prophets to argue for the existence of three versions of the Book of the Twelve in ancient Judaism. The differences between these versions illustrate the role that ancient biblical interpretation played in the shaping of the canonical prophetic literature. Among its other contributions, the book marshalls textual evidence for the integrity and chronological priority of the Hebrew text of the Septuagint Minor Prophets as compared to the Masoretic textual tradition. -- Back Cover.

In A Discourse and Register Analysis of the Prophetic Book of Joel, Colin M. Toffelmire presents a thorough analysis of the text of Joel from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics. While traditional explorations of Joel generally engage the book from an historical or literary perspective, here Toffelmire examines syntactic and semantic patterning in the book, and builds from there toward a description of the linguistic register and context of situation that these linguistic patterns suggest. This work also showcases the usefulness of discourse analysis grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics for the analysis of ancient texts.

In The Non-Israelite Nations in the Book of the Twelve Daniel Timmer offers the first comprehensive survey of the ‘nations’ in the Minor Prophets. The study approaches this important but highly diverse theme through the lens of conceptual coherence and demonstrates the interrelation of synchronic/holistic and diachronic/compositional approaches. After exploring the theme in each of the individual books of the Twelve and noting the varying degrees of coherence evident in each case, Timmer brings his findings to bear on contemporary understandings of the Twelve as a collection, arguing for the theme’s coherence across the collection on the basis of each book’s unique treatment of the nations.

Respected scholar David Petersen provides a systematic and comprehensive introduction to the prophetic literature. Petersen takes into account the major advances in current research as he examines both the literature of the latter prophets (Isaiah-Malachi) as well as the Hebrew texts that describe the work and words of Israel's earlier prophets (e.g., Elijah and Elisha in 1 & 2 Kings).