Haftarot: How Prophecy Became Liturgy

Elsie Stern, “Concepts of Scripture in the Synagogue Service,” Jewish Concepts of Scripture: A Comparative Introduction (Benjamin Sommer, ed.; New York: New York University Press, 2012), 19. The later chapters of Isaiah were written during the exilic or post-exilic period and only later attributed to Isaiah. Modern biblical scholars use the name Deutero-Isaiah, or Second Isaiah, to refer to chapters 40–55, and Trito-Isaiah, or Third Isaiah, to refer to chapters 56–66.

Biblical translations follow the NRSVue, with modifications.

Michael Fishbane, Haftarot: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation, The JPS Bible Commentary (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2002), xxii.

^{Luke 4:17} καὶ ἐπεδόθη αὐτῷ βιβλίον ⸂τοῦ προφήτου Ἠσαΐου⸃ καὶ ⸀ἀναπτύξας τὸ βιβλίον εὗρεν τὸν τόπον οὗ ἦν γεγραμμένον· ^4:18 Πνεῦμα κυρίου ἐπʼ ἐμέ, οὗ εἵνεκεν ἔχρισέν με εὐαγγ ελίσασθαι πτωχοῖς, ἀπέσταλκέν ⸀με κηρύξαι αἰχμαλώτοις ἄφεσιν καὶ τυφλοῖς ἀνάβλεψιν, ἀποστεῖλαι τεθραυσμένους ἐν ἀφέσει, ^4:19 κηρύξαι ἐνιαυτὸν κυρίου δεκτόν. All Greek texts from the New Testament are from the SBL Greek New Testament.

This is not unusual. See Leonard Greenspoon, “The Septuagint,” in The Jewish Annotated New Testament, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 562–565.

We can see inexact combinations of scripture elsewhere in the New Testament as well. Paul, for example, seems to mash up Isaiah 59:20–21 and perhaps LXX Isaiah 27:9 in Romans 11:26–27. Romans 9:25–26 combines Hosea 2:23 and 1:10. Exact citation did not seem to be a concern. So, too, the earliest manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls reflect still fluid scriptures.

^{Luke 4:21} ἤρξατο δὲ λέγειν πρὸς αὐτοὺς ὅτι Σήμερον πεπλήρωται ἡ γραφὴ αὕτη ἐν τοῖς ὠσὶν ὑμῶν.

Another text from the Hellenistic-Roman era that is concerned with prophecy and its fulfilment is the anthological wisdom collection, Ben Sira, which includes a long prayer that requests the restoration of the dispersed tribes to the land, and petitions to “Bear witness to those you created in the beginning, and fulfill the prophecies spoken in your name” (Sir 36:20). Unlike Jesus, however, the author does not claim the ability to identify fulfilled prophecies.

From a modern perspective, it is thus a pseudepigraph, a work attributed to an ancestral figure from the past.

Thus it presumes that offerings continued at the Temple site even after its destruction. Jeremiah also mentions offerings brought after the destruction of the First Temple (17:26, 41:5).

In my first book, I discuss the phenomenon of scripturalized prayer: Praying by the Book: The Scripturalization of Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, EJL 14 (Atlanta, GA: Scholar Press, 1999).

A similar claim to a heart transformed in exile and prophetic fulfilment which permits prayer, occurs in a Qumran collection of daily prayers, Words of the Heavenly Luminaries (4Q504 18:10–18.)

For a more detailed account, see my book Before the Bible: The Liturgical Body and the Formation of Scriptures in Early Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).

The four dots here represent the tetragrammaton.

The Second Temple was destroyed in 70 C.E. during the Judean Revolt against Rome (66–73 C.E.). The Qumran settlement was destroyed during the same revolt.

The composition was found in Cave 4 of Qumran, the cave that Charlotte Hempel has characterized as a “laboratory of a learned group where data, texts, and ideas are collected and experimented with.” See Charlotte Hempel, The Qumran Rule Texts in Context: Collected Studies, TSAJ 154 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 335.

John Allegro, Qumrân Cave 4 I (4Q158–4Q186) DJD 5; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 61; and Jesper Høgenhaven, “The Literary Character of 4QTanhumim” Dead Sea Discoveries 14.1 (2007): 99–123.

Again, the four dots represent the tetragrammaton.

This is evident, for example, in the first century C.E. book 4 Ezra; see Hindy Najman, Losing the Temple and Recovering the Future: An Analysis of 4 Ezra (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

For a longer discussion of 2 Corinthians 3, see Judith H. Newman, “Speech and Spirit: Paul and the Maskil as Inspired Interpreters of Scripture,” in The Holy Spirit, Inspiration, and Cultures of Antiquity: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Jörg Frey and John R. Levison, Ekstasis 5 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), 241–261 and the “Prayer, Paideia, and Performance: Synergistic Ways of Textualizing Revelation in Second Temple Judaism,” in Second Temple Judaism in Scholarly Perspective: Integrating Recent Developments, ed. Daniel M. Gurtner and Loren T. Stuckenbruck (London: T&T Clark/Bloomsbury, 2025), 157–172. The text has been a classic source of Christian supersessionist misreading, which concludes that Paul is dispensing with the “Old Testament,” entirely or more narrowly negating the “Law.” “The Law,” however, is not mentioned. Moreover, the emphasis on “Moses” suggests that “the Law” mentioned frequently elsewhere in Paul’s letters is not the focus here.

^{2 Cor 3:3} φανερούμενοι ὅτι ἐστὲ ἐπιστολὴ Χριστοῦ διακονηθεῖσα ὑφʼ ἡμῶν, ἐγγ εγραμμένη οὐ μέλανι ἀλλ ὰ πνεύματι θεοῦ ζῶντος, οὐκ ἐν πλαξὶν λιθίναις ἀλλ ʼ ἐν πλαξὶν καρδίαις σαρκίναις.

^{2 Cor 3:5} οὐχ ὅτι ⸂ἀφʼ ἑαυτῶν ἱκανοί ἐσμεν⸃ λογίσασθαί τι ὡς ἐξ ⸀αὑτῶν, ἀλλ ʼ ἡ ἱκανότης ἡμῶν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ, ^3:6 ὃς καὶ ἱκάνωσεν ἡμᾶς διακόνους καινῆς διαθήκης, οὐ γράμματος ἀλλ ὰ πνεύματος, τὸ γὰρ γράμμα ἀποκτέννει, τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα ζῳοποιεῖ. The passage is centrally about media: Paul’s status as discerning interpreter of both torah and prophets, and the status of written media vs. oral. Thus, the text is not referring to the “letter of the Law” which is nowhere mentioned, or literalism as it is sometimes interpreted, but it refers to the ability of Paul to interpret the prophets in relation to and extending the teaching of Moses.

An essential contrast embedded in the passage lies between the living figure of Moses at Sinai and Moses attached to a book that is read “to this very day.” The prophet Moses who knew God face to face is no longer available. What remains preserved is the written Torah of Moses, that might be read in synagogues or other gatherings.

Paul is convinced that the Davidic messiah has arrived in the person of Jesus. In this new age, divine spirit is available which allows for a particular kind of interpretation. This is similar in certain respects to the Qumran yahad, discussed above, and its learned leadership who believed themselves to be offering inspired interpretations for the eschatological and spiritually potent “now.”