A Message from the Great King : : Reading Malachi in Light of Ancient Persian Royal Messenger Texts from the Time of Xerxes / / R. Michael Fox.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Penn State University Press Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• VerfasserIn: Fox, R. Michael,
• Place / Publishing House: University Park, PA : : Penn State University Press, , [2021]; ©2015
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Series: Siphrut: Literature and Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures ; 17
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (184 p.)

The academy has not been kind to Malachi. Indeed, some of the most influential and seminal studies on the book denigrate its style, message, and overall artistry. This negative assessment proves extensive in the history of scholarship. Furthermore, the studies demonstrating a more positive assessment of Malachi do so without offering serious challenges to these long-standing denigrations. Complicating the matter is the observation that critical study has proffered numerous suggestions for what Malachi contains while failing to provide a viable model of what Malachi actually is.A Message from the Great King presents serious challenges to the guild's prior assessments and conclusions about the book. Through an interdisciplinary approach that synthesizes insights from literary theory, thorough historical reconstruction, and a close reading of the biblical text, R. Michael Fox makes a formidable case that a root messenger metaphor pervades the entire text of Malachi. Viewed and read through this new lens, Malachi's artistry becomes more readily apparent and its theological message more intense and demanding. A Message from the Great King provides serious reassessment of the academy's long-standing denigrations of the book and a compelling answer to what Malachi actually is. Accompanying these insights into Malachi are new methodological procedures and exercises that merit further attention and reflection.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Chapter 1 History of Research: Entrenched Trajectories and a New Direction -- Chapter 2 Methodology: Adapting Michael Ward's Donegality for Investigating Malachi's Root Messenger Metaphor -- Chapter 3 Reconstruction: Building a Messenger Lens for Reading Malachi -- Chapter 4 Poiema: Malachi's Messenger Decorations and Root Messenger Metaphor -- Chapter 5 Logos: The Impact of Malachi's Root Messenger Metaphor -- Appendix 1 Historical Overview of Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius -- Bibliography -- Indexes