Book of Joel

The Book of Joel (Hebrew: ספר יוֹאֵל Sefer Yo'él) is a Jewish prophetic text containing a series of "divine announcements". The first line attributes authorship to "Joel the son of Pethuel". It forms part of the Book of the twelve minor prophets or the Nevi'im ("Prophets") in the Hebrew Bible, and is a book in its own right in the Christian Old Testament where it has three chapters. In the New Testament, his prophecy of the outpouring of God's Holy Spirit upon all people was notably quoted by Saint Peter in his Pentecost sermon.

The Book of Joel's frequent allusions to earlier Hebrew Bible texts and signs of literary development suggest a late origin and its potential to have been a unifying piece within the prophetic canon.

Surviving early manuscripts

The original text was written in Hebrew.

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this book in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes the Codex Cairensis (895 CE), the Petersburg Codex of the Prophets (916), Aleppo Codex (10th century), Codex Leningradensis (1008). Fragments containing parts of this book in Hebrew were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, including 4Q78 (4QXIIc; 75–50 BCE) with extant verses 1:10–20, 2:1, 2:8–23, and 3:6–21; and 4Q82 (4QXIIg; 25 BCE) with extant verses 1:12–14, 2:2–13, 3:4–9, 3:11–14, 3:17, 3:19–2; Schøyen MS 4612/1 (DSS F.117; DSS F.Joel1; 50–68 CE) with extant verses 3:1–4); and Wadi Murabba'at Minor Prophets (Mur88; MurXIIProph; 75–100 CE) with extant verses 2:20, 2:26–27, 2:28–32, and 3:1–16.

Ancient manuscripts in Koine Greek containing this book are mainly of the Septuagint version, including Codex Vaticanus (B;

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B; 4th century), Codex Sinaiticus (S; BHK:

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S; 4th century), Codex Alexandrinus (A;

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A; 5th century) and Codex Marchalianus (Q;

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Q; 6th century).

Content

After the initial attribution, the book may be broken down into the following sections:

Lament over a great locust plague and a severe drought (1:1–2:17).