Literature and history dot come. Oh, Hello and welcome to literature and history.

Episode 24, God may relent.

This is the 10th and last show we'll do on the Old Testament and it's on the 17 final books that stretch from Isaiah to Malachai.

These books, the earliest of which were written in the first half of the 700s, B.C. in the Northern

Kingdom, and the latter of which were created well into the Hellenistic period, are called

the prophetic books.

But let's start this episode out with the quote from the New Testament rather than the

old Testament.

The third chapter of the book of Matthew opens up with the following verses.

Quote, in those days John the Baptist appeared in the Prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

The voice of one crying out in the wilderness,

prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

Close quote.

For the past 2,000 years, to Christian readers from the Apostles to the Authors of the New Testament

onward, the Bible's 17 prophetic books are important mainly in that they have a small

handful of oracles announcing the coming of a Redeemer figure.

Chapter 9, 11, 52, and 53 of the Book of Isaiah, along with the third chapter of Malachai.

These have proved the main sources of interest in the prophetic books for Christianity in that they

foretell the arrival of a protector who will usher the Israelites into better times.

But these tiny scraps of the prophetic books, as important as they have been to

theological history, are only a miniscule portion of this substantial section of the Bible.

The composition of the prophetic books began in the 700s

...