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4 - Listening to the Prophet

Late Antique Ideologies of Oral Revelation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2023

Jae Hee Han
Affiliation:
Brown University, Rhode Island
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Summary

In this chapter, I contextualize the discourse of orality as the privileged medium of revelation through three corpora; rabbinic idea of Oral Torah, the Manichaean claim that the Kephalaia contain Mani’s Oral Revelation not found in his Written Revelations, and the Pseudo-Clementine’s argument that only Orality (not vision) can guarantee prophetic truth. I ultimately argue that all three drew from a common fund of discursive tools to thematize orality as a privileged site of revelation. After a summary of contemporary discussions on rabbinic Oral Torah, I show how the Kephalaia itself emerged from an “Oral Performative” contexts that was largely independent of textual exegesis of Mani’s books. I argue that, like the rabbis, the Manichaeans privileged the orality because it allowed them to claim that they were simply continuing the revelation that Mani had begun. I then turn to the Ps.-Clementine Homilies and show it thematizes orality in ways that are surprisingly congruent with both the rabbis and the Manichaeans.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Listening to the Prophet
  • Jae Hee Han, Brown University, Rhode Island
  • Book: Prophets and Prophecy in the Late Antique Near East
  • Online publication: 26 October 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009297738.005
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  • Listening to the Prophet
  • Jae Hee Han, Brown University, Rhode Island
  • Book: Prophets and Prophecy in the Late Antique Near East
  • Online publication: 26 October 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009297738.005
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Listening to the Prophet
  • Jae Hee Han, Brown University, Rhode Island
  • Book: Prophets and Prophecy in the Late Antique Near East
  • Online publication: 26 October 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009297738.005
Available formats
×