Recently, I mentioned that James and Jude were generic New Testament letters that seemed to be addressed to people who were more Jewish than Christian. Then I discovered that the book of Malachi also seems to be a generic Jewish book, of the Old Testament. Read about the book of Malachi here and the prophet Malachi here. Note that no one actually knows who Malachi was and if he actually existed. The book had to have been written after the completion of the second temple (about 515 BCE) and before the second century. That's a span of three hundred years possibility.
The title of the book, and the supposed author's name, means messenger of Yahweh. It does not seem coincidental that the the book itself purports to be a message from god. Remember the entire bible has a pattern of using names for people and places that do double duty in meaning. These names are not necessarily the actual names attached to individuals who actually existed. The double entendre names are there to give greater substance and authority to the texts, to imbue them with symbolism, metaphor, and a poetic sense of divine inspiration. "Bob has a message for you from god" doesn't sound half as impressive as "(The man whose name is messenger from god) has received a word from the lord."
Interestingly, some early Christians believed Malachi was an angel. This is because an angel was a messenger of god and the word angel was used in the greek text (Septuagint) for the word messenger. The text is called "an oracle" in verse 1. The book is claiming to be the word of the lord. This is the first time on this blog that we have seen a bible book make this claim for its whole text.
Do you think we will find anything new and exciting in this book? We will see. Till next time.
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