Historical Context
As there are no explicit references in the book to datable persons or events, scholars have assigned a wide range of dates to the book. The main positions are:
- Ninth century BC, particularly in the reign of Joash - a position especially popular among nineteenth-century scholars (making Joel one of the earliest writing prophets)
- c.630–587 BC, in the last decades of the kingdom of Judah (contemporary with Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Habakkuk)
- c.520–500 BC, contemporary with the return of the exiles and the careers of Zechariah and Haggai.
- The decades around 400 BC, during the Persian period (making him one of the latest writing prophets)
Evidence produced for these positions are allusions in the book to the wider world, similarities with other prophets, and linguistic details. Other commentators, such as John Calvin, attach no great importance to the precise dating.
Read more about this topic: Book Of Joel
Famous quotes containing the words historical and/or context:
“By contrast with history, evolution is an unconscious process. Another, and perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that evolution is a natural process, history a human one.... Insofar as we treat man as a part of nature—for instance in a biological survey of evolution—we are precisely not treating him as a historical being. As a historically developing being, he is set over against nature, both as a knower and as a doer.”
—Owen Barfield (b. 1898)
“The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)