Ecstatic Hypostases in 1 Sam. 10:10-12; 19:18-24
Ecstatic Hypostases in 1 Sam. 10:10-12; 19:18-24

Summary/Abstract: Clarifying the ecstatic nature of Israel’s prophecy is a challenge to contemporary biblical criticism. Analysis of ecstatic hypostases in I Sam. 10:10-12; 19:18-24 leads to a recrudescent perspective on the Israelite prophetic phenomenon. The identification of ecstatic hypostases in the two texts under analysis helps to clarify the connection between the possession trance and the Israelite prophecy. The Deuteronomist’s interference presents a play of shadows and lights shed on Saul. Despite the focus of the two accounts on the figure of the monarch, the narrator’s intention is to present the rise of the Davidic dynasty. The two texts would hide an ideological and religious conflict of relatively late prophetic groups. The purpose of the dispute is the permanence of ruah Yahweh as a transgression of the episodic manifestations of the pre-monarchical period in the context of ecstatic prophecy. Ecstasy and trance come together under the auspices of the spirit possession phenomenon, which requires a framing in an individual and cultural context.

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