Twelve Minor Prophets

Book of Hosea, Book of Joel, Book of Amos, Book of Obadiah, Book of Jonah, Book of Micah, Book of Nahum, Book of Habakkuk, Book of Zephaniah, Book of Haggai, Book of Zechariah, and Book of Malachi.

It is a collection of twelve individual books in the Christian Old Testament, one for each of the prophets. The terms “minor prophets” and “twelve prophets” can also refer to the twelve traditional authors of these works. The term “Minor” relates to the length of each book (ranging from a single chapter to fourteen); even the longest is short compared to the three major prophets: Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah.

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.