All the books of the Prophets in the Bible were composed in the VI and V centuries BC under the impact of the destruction of Jerusalem, the dispersion of the people of Israel, and in the context of the restructuring effort under Persian hegemony. The original readers were the people traumatized by the fall of their holy city and his reign and divided against the restoration project. Micah is no exception, but all the prophets "major" and most "minor prophets" were formed with a collection of sayings and stories about a prophet of the period of the monarchy. Thus, the book of Isaiah is formed based on the sayings of the prophet of that name, who lived in the eighth century BC (Sweeney, Cotter, Walsh, Franke, 2000).
The book of Micah is named after a prophet of Moresheth Gat, a contemporary of Isaiah in the eighth century. Isaiah was in Jerusalem, the city where they made a lot of scriptures of the prophetic books, Micah was from the countryside, and has a rural perspective. While it is natural that between the prophet and his religious and intellectual heirs who composed "his" book have some differences, which are evident in the book of Isaiah, they are much higher in the case of Micah (Haupt, 1910). This issue of Riblah seeks to help the reading of the prophetic books; so that our object of study is not the prophet of the eighth century, but the book was written by the scribes who assume were part of the Judean project management, sponsored by the Persians.
Their socio-political interests were legitimate and strengthen the apparatus of government and its ally religious could not assume ownership interests of anti-urban peasant prophet whose sayings preserved. And yet, the preserved, although in some cases censored. The transition from judgment to salvation is essential to the intent of the book and the faith of their authors.
The Prophet
Micah is so-called "minor prophets", a contemporary of Isaiah. He preached during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah in Judah. Unlike Isaiah, who was a townsman, Micah was a farmer originally from Moresheth-Gat, a town in the foothills, the fertile plain west of Judah, fled away and took refuge in Jerusalem by the Assyrian occupation. Micah found the same problems that Isaiah, the same injustices and the same evil in Judah. Particularly criticized landlords who took advantage of the poor, and provides the same divine judgment against the people and their leaders, as Isaiah had foretold. The message of these prophets is so similar, corroborating the gravity of the situation of Judah. His message was so impressed by the people of his time, his words encouraging the King Hezekiah to undertake religious reform, will be remembered for a century later.
Authorship
It is said that Micah is "Moresheth" because perhaps came from the village of Moresheth-gat, believed he was in the southern part of Judah toward Philistines. Not to be confused with Micaiah son of Imlah, prophesied in the ...