Panel: WOMEN AND AGENCY IN LATE ANTIQUITY. FROM SEPTUAGINT TO CHRISTIANITY, AND BEYOND: THEORETICAL APPROACHES AND CASE STUDIES



649_2.2 - THE PROPHETIC SELF/INDIVIDUALITY IN LIGHT OF (AND BEYOND) MAX WEBER. THE JEWISH PROPHETIC SELF AND JOHN'S POLEMICAL REPRESENTATION OF FEMALE PROPHECY IN REV 2:20-24

AUTHORS:
Arcari L. (University of Naples Federico II ~ Naples ~ Italy)
Text:
This paper seeks to explore the concept of the prophetic-visionary self and/or individuality by focusing on the figure of "Jezebel" in Revelation 2:20—24. In the message addressed to the community of Thyatira, Jezebel appears as a female agent whose prophetic teaching and authority are sharply contested and condemned. Although she is presented polemically, her presence functions as a crucial site for negotiating the legitimacy, boundaries, and social control of prophetic charisma within early Christian urban groups. In Weberian terms, the conflict staged in this passage can be read as a struggle over prophetic authority and its ethical and collective regulation, rather than as the expression of a stabilized institutional order. This framework raises critical questions about the construction of prophetic individuality in a negative or antagonistic key: How is the prophetic self imagined when it is delegitimized rather than authorized? Which cultural, symbolic, and gendered models inform the representation of Jezebel's prophetic agency? To what extent does this figure reflect broader Jewish and early Christian debates about prophetic (or visionary) authority and the management of "charismatic" power? These questions extend beyond Weber's original typology, inviting a reassessment of how ancient religious cultures articulated forms of selfhood and individuality through polemical figures and conflictual discourses. Recent developments in anthropological theory and the historical study of the self provide the methodological tools to analyze Jezebel not merely as a heresiological stereotype, but as a meaningful construct through which early Christian groups negotiated the limits of prophecy, embodiment, and religious authority.