ORDERING THE MINOR PROPHETS

 

                                  The Twelve (2004, mixed media on canvas)

The title of this post includes the term “Minor Prophets,” which needs some clarification before proceeding any further. For one thing, it is not meant to disparage the worth of those books but simply to distinguish them from the much longer four Major Prophets. Secondly, I should point out that although they are listed as 12 separate books in the Christian Canon, the Jews considered them as one united book going by the name “The Twelve.” The nearly infallible Wikipedia explains that “the Dead Sea Scrolls suggests that the modern order of the [portion of the Hebrew Bible called] Tanakh, which would potentially include the twelve, had been established by 150 BCE. It is believed that initially the first six were collected, and later the second six were added; the two groups seem to complement each other, with Hosea through Micah raising the question of iniquity, and Nahum through Malachi proposing resolutions."

“Many, though not all, modern scholars agree that the editing process which produced the Book of the Twelve reached its final form in Jerusalem during the Achaemenid period (538–332 BCE), although there is disagreement over whether this was early or late.”

Here is a key to the individual paintings above in case you should try to figure out the symbols present in each one.

Hosea Joel Amos Obadiah

Jonah Micah Nahum Habakkuk

Zephaniah Haggai Zechariah Malachi

This order basically follows the same ordering found in both the Hebrew Bible and the Catholic and Protestant Old Testaments. However, there is a slightly different order given in the Eastern Orthodox Bible, based on the Greek Septuagint: Hosea, Amos, Micah, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

But neither ordering is strictly according to the chronological order in which they were composed, as best we can guess. That last order, according to several sources, is listed below:

Approximate Dates (BC)

Neo-Assyrian Era

Jonah 810-783 or 771-754

Amos 760-681

Hosea 752-715

Micah 750-686

Neo-Babylonian Era

Nahum 663-612

Zephaniah 640-625

Habakkuk 605-586

Obadiah 586-576

Persian Era

Haggai 520

Zechariah 520-516

Malachi 477-457

Joel 444-345

But even these rough dates are subject to much discussion. For example, again quoting from Wikipedia, we read the following: “The arrangement found in current Bibles is roughly chronological. First come those prophets dated to the early Assyrian period: Hosea, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, and Micah; Joel is undated, but it was possibly placed before Amos because parts of a verse near the end of Joel (3.16 [4.16 in Hebrew]) and one near the beginning of Amos (1.2) are identical. Also we can find in both Amos (4.9 and 7.1–3) and Joel a description of a plague of locusts. These are followed by prophets that are set in the later Assyrian period: Nahum, Habakkuk, and these are followed by prophets that are set in the later Assyrian period: Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. Last come those set in the Persian period: Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, although some scholars date 'Second Zechariah' to the Hellenistic Era. However it is important to note that chronology was not the only consideration, as it seems that an emphatic focus on Jerusalem and Judah was also a main concern. For example, Obadiah is generally understood as reflecting the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, and would therefore fit later in a purely chronological sequence.” Additional rationales have been proposed for the present order of the books.

Lastly, even though the ubiquitous symbolic number “12” appears to be attractive for such a collection, arguing from literary considerations, one can easily argue that (a) the last three of these books can also be considered as a unified whole and (b) Zechariah, as mentioned above, is really composed of two separate books (see post titled “The Unity of Haggai-Zechariah-Malachi.”).