This book ""Social Justice in Pre-classical Prophets highlights about pre-classical prophets and the role they played in the Israelite society in promoting social justice. Pre-classical prophets Nathan (2 Samuel chapters 11 and 12), Elijah (1 Kings 18:1-40) and Elisha (2 Kings 4:1-7) were studied and the selected passages were interpreted based on Socio-historical and Reader Response approach.
In 2 Samuel chapters 11 and 12, Prophet Nathan confronts the social sin of king David and working towards establishing justice in Israelite society. Prophet Elijah's response to Baalism based on 1 Kgs 18:1-40 is prophets reply to the religious threat and his method of social justice to defend Yahwism. Elisha and widow narrative in 2 Kgs 4:1-7 reveals the social concern of the prophet towards the marginalized and downtrodden. Through these three pre-classical narratives and their interpretation by the contemporary readers, a Prophetic model was developed for the church to promote social justice.
Rev Duraiswamy is an ordained minister of Evangelical Church of India. He has completed his Bachelors in Indian Philosophy and Masters in Public Administration from University of Madras. He has obtained his Bachelor of Divinity from Serampore College, Kolkata and Master of Theology in Old Testament from Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute, Chennai. He completed his Doctorate of Philosophy from SHUATS, Allahabad. He has taught Old Testament subjects at Calcutta Bible Seminary (CBS) and Madras Theological Seminary and College (MTSC) and served as Academic Dean of both these seminaries.
Currently he is serving as the Bishop's Commissary of ECI Chennai Diocese and Treasurer of Evangelical Church of India and ECI Educational Trust, besides serving as a senior pastor of a local church in ECI Chennai Diocese.
Being a student of Old Testament, I was keen on understanding the biblical text in its context through historical-critical methods. This method was generally considered to be one of the effective tools in interpreting the biblical text and especially understanding the intended meaning of the author. Largely it has been taught and practiced that authors intended meaning can be drawn out mostly by the historical-critical method through textual criticism. Most of the researchers use this method when they study to understand the Hebrew Scripture. Even though this may be true and accepted by most of the Old Testament scholars, we also need to understand that interdisciplinary and post-modern hermeneutics can also bring fresh insights from the Hebrew Scripture to the contemporary readers. So, I have taken up research to study selected biblical texts from a postmodern perspective. However, this is not a in depth study of Hebrew Scripture but selected biblical texts are used to study pre-classical prophets understanding of social justice.
This is also an attempt to allow interaction between two methodologies, Socio-historical approach and Reader Response method on three passages from pre-classical prophetic writings that address social justice. Social justice aspects of the following three passages have been studied using the socio-historical approach and reader response method.
2 Samuel chapters 11 and 12 talks about Prophet Nathan confronting the sin of David and establishing the importance of social justice in Israelite society.
1 Kings 18:1-40 deals about Prophet Elijah's response to Baalism and his method of defending Yahwistic faith in a pluralistic society.
2 Kings 4:1-7 narrates Prophet Elisha's method of doing justice for a widow of a prophet and helping her to live her life peacefully with her children Even though the idea of social justice is pertinent in classical prophets, pre classical prophets were the forerunners in addressing the social justice. That is why, I have selected three narratives of pre-classical prophets to understand their message of social justice. The core objectives of this research was to understand pre-classical prophets and their perspective of social justice, to define pre-classical prophets understanding of social justice through socio-historical criticism, to understand the contemporary readers' interpretation of pre-classical prophets understanding of social justice through the Reader Response method and to bring out the significance of two interpretations and developing a prophetic model for social justice.
In the Old Testament scholarship, there is insufficient knowledge of pre-classical prophets and their understanding of social justice. Many scholars have studied social justice in other parts of the Bible like 8th-century prophets and Gospels. Some scholars have dealt briefly with pre-classical prophets. However, there is a lack of studies in pre-classical prophets and their view of justice. This research, seeks to bridge this knowledge gap in pre-classical prophets and their input towards social justice. An attempt was also made to build a relationship between the intended meaning of the biblical author and the contemporary meaning of the reader of our time.
In modern scholarship coming to us primarily from the West, the historical-critical method is used for interpretation in biblical studies. But recent scholarship looks at the biblical text from postcolonial, postmodern, or contextual approaches for example through the lenses of liberation. This research has sought to bridge the gap between the interaction of these methodologies. This research tries to bring interaction between historical-critical method and post-modern hermeneutics on three passages from pre-classical prophetic writings that address social justice.
Previously, these two methods have been studied separately, but this approach will provide room for the two methods to interact in interpreting the text by contemporary readers. For socio-historical methodology few basic questions were raised like; if the narrative or story claims to be historical, what happened in its context? What are some of the social, historical, or cultural information that can be collected from the text? What background details are necessary to understand the text in a better way and what was life like for the marginalised and downtrodden people during the time of pre-classical prophets. Whereas, Reader Response is a school of literary theory that focuses on the reader and their experience of a literary work in contrast to other schools that focus attention primarily on the author or the content and form of the work. Reader Response looks at the text from the perspective of the marginalised communities who are the researcher's basic reader Community.
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