The Prophetic Book Of Joel

For this class, I learned a lot of material covered throughout the Old Testament. I learned about the chosen people, their mistakes, their punishment, and how God showed his grace even when they disobeyed. However, there is one group of people that kept the descendants of Abraham throughout their time, the prophets. These people were chosen messengers of God’s word, and even though the messages weren’t always pretty, they were always true. As a result, I have decided to give an insight on the prophetic book of Joel and the message behind this book. In a book titled “Joel: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary,” “the book of Joel consists of seventy-three verses” (Crenshaw, 11). In Crenshaw’s introduction he gives the idea that the book of Joel is clearly written by the prophet, Joel, himself (2008). However, there is no clear indication to tell us exactly when this book of Joel was actually written by the prophet. For example, in a book titled “The Book of Twelve: Hosea- Jonah” by James Nogalski, he states “In the past, suggestions have ranged from the tenth to the second centuries BCE.,” while “ the last thirty years, scholars have reached a broad consensus that Joel is a postexilic writing” (201). Because of this, the placement of this book is …show more content…
Scripture from Biblegateway.com references, “How the cattle moan! The herds mill about because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep are suffering” (Joel 1:18, NIV). According to an article titled “About the Old Testament of the Bible” on Cliffnotes.com, “The prophets of the post-exilic period — Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Joel, and Obadiah — are usually classified among the so-called minor prophets” (2016). Thus, the time period of the post-exilic period refers to Judah’s continued disobedience after God had brought them out of