Thus Saith the Lord: The Revolutionary Moral Vision of Isaiah and Jeremiah

It's not only that Richard Rubenstein has done an exhaustive amount of historical, anthropological and social research into the world that the Isaiahs and Jeremiah lived in, which is great enough. He is an incredible story teller. I couldn't put this book down just because it was so exciting. I also highly recommend another of his books, "When Jesus Became God." which tells the story of how the early Christian Church fought over and who finally won the battle for whether Jesus would be considered Prophet, Rabi, Messiah or God Incarnate.

The spirit lead me to this book

The author brings important bible scenes to life, and brings us into the conflict between practical military, political, and economic concerns in conflict with the moral vision of the prophets

Not a perfect exploration of the prophets and issues surrounding the colonization of Israel in First Testament times, but Rubenstein unpacks a lot of the messy social and political context that alienates modern readers from these revolutionary prophets of old. With our remove from the "divide and conquer" world that existed before the Common Era, it's easy to ignore the depth of what Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Isaiah of Babylon were doing with their work. It's also easy to fold these early prophecies into "points to Jesus, ayup." No! Rubenstein deconstructs that fallacy by recontextualizing the prophets as oracles in their own day, related to their version of current events.The last chapter missed the mark with me (talking about Jesus when I was hoping for more about Isaiah of Babylon), but the first six make up for that flaw by bringing the worlds of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Isaiah of Babylon to life in great social and political depth. Although this book was not written by a Biblical scholar, his work is well-documented and offers some good observations. Highly recommended for lay-folks who are interested in more Biblical knowledge, clergy who didn't pay much attention in their First Testament classes (but don't want to read Brueggemann before bed), and Bible study groups looking to bring in a new voice.

Richard Rubenstein has again accomplished the difficult task of delivering the lyrics of religious history with such clarity and ease as to win religious and secular audiences alike. While one might expect this book to be about ancient religious history, it is in fact about the eternal resonance of God's earliest Prophets even as we struggle today as individuals, nations, and a world system to make moral sense. It is a recalling of the living voice of the Prophets to guide us through *our* troubled times, at once incomprehensibly more complex than those faced by Jeremiah and Isaiah, and essentially the same. Globalization, empires, wars for resources and religion, societies struggling with their moral responsibilities, shape lives now as then.This book brings alive the Bible's portraits of some of humanity's earliest spiritual heroes and invites them into our lives to remind us how we might respond to our central questions. While elsewhere the author has explored how Jesus became God, here Jesus is located within a prophetic tradition driving a moral revolution demanded by a vision of the unity of God that invites us to a human unity as well, through moral unity. Jolting yet breezy in its originality, provocative and compelling, this book brings the eternal resonance of the Prophets through the pages into the reality of our lives and our choices now. Stirring the mind with clear and enjoyable language accessible to all, Thus Saith The Lord echoes the prophetic call, reminding us of our highest hopes and champions of God who challenged us to live and grow in our darkest hours as well as the light.I found my copy of this Rubenstein book in the philosophy section of an old bricks and mortar shop between Rousseau and Russell, but it could as easily be located between spirituality and politics, and coupled with ancient history and current events. This is one of those books that brings things all together, with a freshness and a familiarity that invites us all to reinvent. Thus Saith The Lord is about the way things are and the way they can be, as told to us by the voice of YHVH on prophetic tongues, from the taproot of monotheistic tradition to our own enactments of empire and globalization, our own opportunities for revolutionary moral action. This book is funny, deep, and serious. More than anything it is immediately relevant.