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The term ecstasy, when it's used in this context, refers to the state of being overcome with
such powerful emotions that reason seems to be suspended, self-control is suspended, what
we might think of as, you know, normative behavior. These things, normal behavior, these
are suspended. Ecstatics would employ music and dance; they would induce a sort of emotional
seizure or frenzy. They would often be left writhing and raving, and the Bible attributes
this kind of ecstatic state to the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of Yahweh, which falls
upon a prophet or rushes upon a prophet, comes upon a prophet and transforms him then into
some sort of carrier or instrument of the Divine Will or the Divine message.
We'll see that we have bizarre behavior among many of the prophets. We even have bizarre
behavior among many of the later literary prophets. Ezekiel, for example, will engage
in all kinds of unusual, outrageous, dramatic behavior as a vehicle for the communication
of his message. And I think this is the heritage of the ecstatic prophecy that was so much
a part of Ancient Near Eastern prophecy. But not all biblical prophecy has this ecstatic
character. The Hebrew word for prophet is a navi, and the word navi seems to mean one
who is called, or perhaps one who announces. That's important because it signals to us
that a prophet is someone who is called to proclaim a message, to announce something,
called by God to carry a message. And so in the Bible we have this phenomenon of what
we call "apostolic prophecy." An apostle is merely a messenger. The word "apostle" means
messenger, one sent with a message. So apostolic prophecy--this refers to messenger prophets.
They are called by God and charged with a mission. They can even be elected against
their will. They must bring the word of God to the world.
This is very different from prophets who are consulted by a client and given a fee to divine
something. This is different. This is the deity now charging a prophet with a message
to a people. So these apostolic prophets are represented
in the Bible as the instrument of God's desire to reveal himself and to reveal his will to
his people. And many scholars have noted that, in a way, Moses is really the first in a long
line of apostolic prophets in the Bible. In some ways, his call and his response are paradigmatic
for some of these later classical prophets. In many of the literary prophets you will
read, they will contain some account of their call, of the sudden, dramatic encounter with
God. Usually the call consists of certain standard stages.
You first have this unexpected encounter with God. Maybe a vision of some kind or a voice
that issues a summons or a calling. And then you have the reluctance of the individual.
And that was also paradigmatic with Moses, wasn't it? The reluctance of the individual
concerned to answer this, but ultimately the individual is overwhelmed and eventually surrenders
to God and his persuasiveness. That happens in many of the prophetic books.
So in the Bible this kind of apostolic prophecy is a little different from ecstatic prophecy.
It's also distinct from divination. Divination is an attempt to uncover the divine through
some technique, or, excuse me, the divine will, through some technique, perhaps the
manipulation of certain substances, perhaps inspecting the entrails of a sacrificed animal.
Divination of this type as well as sorcery and spell casting and consulting with ghosts
and spirits are all condemned by Deuteronomy. This is a very important part of the Deuteronomist's
diatribe against the practices of other nations. But the fact that Deuteronomy polemicizes
so vehemently against these practices is a sure sign that they were practiced--they were
practiced at a popular level. This is probably what Israelite-Judean religion consisted of
to some degree.