Boda Presents at Bar Ilan University

Dr. Mark Boda, Professor of Old Testament, delivered a paper at the Bar Ilan Department of Bible: Showcase Conference. The event was held May 9. The conference showcased four recent books within the Bar Ilan Department of Bible (the largest in Israel), including those by James Kugel, Jonathan Grossman, and Eli Assis.Boda’s paper was entitled, “When God’s Voice Breaks Through: Shifts in Revelatory Rhetoric in Zechariah.” The work was related to Eli Assis’s recent book on Joel. The synopsis of Boda’s paper is as follows: Many scholars have noted an awkward flow in the rhetoric of Zech 1:1-6 and 7:1-8:23, ‎highlighting confusing levels of quoted material in Zech 1:1-6 as well as awkward ‎prophetic formulae and odd shifts in speaker in Zech 7:1-8:23. Much energy has been ‎expended on diachronic solutions, looking to underlying sources or redactional activities ‎to explain these features in the text. This paper argues that no matter what the sources ‎were for these texts, the resulting rhetoric appears to be designed to impact the reader to ‎hear the message of past prophecy as fresh revelation for the present generation. This ‎subtle rhetoric resonates with the explicit reference to “the former prophets” in these ‎texts, and lays a foundation for what follows in Zechariah 9-14.