containing parts of the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets (the eighth book in
Nevi'im), from 10th century.
Individual books Scholars usually assume that there exists an original core of prophetic tradition behind each book which can be attributed to the figure after whom it is named. In general, each book includes three types of material: • Autobiographical material in the first person, some of which may go back to the prophet in question; • Biographical materials about the prophet in the third person – which incidentally demonstrate that the collection and editing of the books was completed by persons other than the prophets themselves; • Oracles or speeches by the prophets, usually in poetic form, and drawing on a wide variety of genres, including covenant lawsuit, oracles against the nations, judgment oracles, messenger speeches, songs, hymns, narrative, lament, law, proverb, symbolic gesture, prayer, wisdom saying, and vision. The noteworthy exception is the
Book of Jonah, an anonymous work which contains a
narrative about
the prophet Jonah.
As a collection It is not known when these short works were collected and transferred to a single scroll, but the first extra-biblical evidence for the Twelve as a collection is c. 190 BCE in the writings of
Yeshua ben Sirach, and evidence from the
Dead Sea Scrolls suggests that the modern order of the
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. The comparison of different ancient manuscripts indicates that the order of the individual books was originally fluid. 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 Zephaniah. Last come those set in the Persian period: Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, although some scholars date "Second Zechariah" to the Hellenistic Era. 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.
Sequence of books , the largest extant medieval manuscript in the world, from 13th century. Now at the National Library of Sweden in Stockholm. In the
Hebrew Bible, these works are counted as one
anthology. The works appear in the same order in Jewish,
Protestant and
Catholic Bibles, but in
Eastern Orthodox Christian Bibles they are ordered according to the
Septuagint. The books are in rough chronological order, according to explicit statements within the books themselves. The twelve books are:
Academic debates In the 21st century, “claims for
Persian period influence or origins have ballooned.” The recent Oxford Handbook of the Minor Prophets Jason Radine summarizes the ongoing “Persian Turn” in Minor Prophets scholarship. It refers to a scholarly trend towards dating much of the biblical composition and editing of the Minor Prophets to the Persian period (539–323 BCE). This trend is rooted in earlier scholarly theories, such as the Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis, which suggested that elements of the Pentateuch, particularly the “Priestly” writings, originated during the Persian era. Additionally,
Spinoza’s 17th-century argument that
Ezra authored large portions of the Hebrew Bible influenced this perspective. This trend has gained momentum as a growing number of scholars now posit that many prophetic books, once assumed to date from earlier periods, were likely finalized or significantly edited during the
Persian period. Researchers like Reinhard Kratz distinguish between the original oracles of ancient Near Eastern prophets and the later literary works attributed to them, which reflect the scribal efforts of later editors. This theory has been opposed by other scholars, however. For instance, Heath Dewrell argues that many literary features of the Book of Hosea are also attested in
Neo-Assyrian prophecies. Since these prophetic texts were written close to the time of Hosea and were not substantially edited centuries after their authors' time, Dewrell finds no reason to think that the biblical book underwent any major editing either. While dating texts from the Persian period is appropriate for books like Haggai and Zechariah, which explicitly mention that era, scholars caution against oversimplifying the dating process. Radine argues that categorizing too much biblical material as Persian-era production risks obscuring the complex, long-term development of biblical literature. In particular, the diversity of themes, literary styles, and theological perspectives in the Minor Prophets suggests that their formation spanned a much longer period than the Persian era alone. This view emphasizes the importance of understanding how these texts were shaped within their historical and cultural contexts. However, Radine argues that this approach risks overlooking earlier material that predated the Persian period but was later edited or integrated into these texts. ==Christian commemoration==