Biblical Prophets in Byzantine Palestine: Reassessing the Lives of the Prophets

The Lives of the Prophets is a series of brief biographical sketches of the major and minor prophets of the Hebrew Bible. Generally held to be a Jewish document from the end of the period of the Second Temple, the Lives offers an abundance of geographical, genealogical and narrative detail which is not readily paralleled. This assessment of the work provides a survey of the textual state of the composition and its reception, followed by an examination of the literary structures which underlie the individual vitae . It is argued that the Lives is an evolved, heavily redacted document whose present form cannot predate the fourth century AD. Only within the context of early Byzantine Christian concerns - holy men, sacred sites and the veneration of the saints - does the Lives of the Prophets become a comprehensible and vital text.