This book offers a new and fruitful approach to a major area of Old Testament study. Expressing dissatisfaction with current critical theories of Israelite prophecy, which have regularly depended on the categories of office and charisma to designate essential features, Petersen looks instead to modern ''role theory'' for a conceptual apparatus which can take account not only of what prophets regularly did in common but also of the significant variety apparent in Israelite prophetic performance.