Scripture: One Book at a Time
The whole of Sacred Scripture is a single narrative that promises and points to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of the World. It is an epic story, the greatest ever told, and told "one book at a time." Each book makes it contribution to the narrative as God reveals God's self to us and his desire that all be saved.
Lesson 33: Joel
Prophet of History and Prophecy
The Book of Joel is perhaps the one book of Scripture in which there is a quite large divergence of scholarly views on where to place the book of the “timeline.” Most books have a concrete marker of time, e.g., during the reign of a certain king. But not Joel. There are all manner of clues, e.g., did Joel quote other books or did they quote him? The list includes: Isaiah, Amos, Ezekiel, Zephaniah, Nahum, Malachi, Obadiah, Micah and Psalm 79. And his development of Amos’ idea of the “day of the Lord” is more developed. Take a moment and read Dating Joel – bit of a deep dive into the importance of dating the Book of Joel – because that will determine how much of Joel is history and how much is prophetic in either vision or hope.
For those who would like to explore details of this book, please consider videos from Fr. Mike Schmitz’s “Bible in a Year” program. You can find the entire playlist here.