the iconoclast's descending

    Verb-Rich Dynamism:  Malachi, Herder, and the Prophetic Preamble to Eschatological Healing Rev. Dr. Douglas Blake Olds (Ret.) December 2, 2025 "The poet is a sophist…a maker of counterfeits that look like the truth." --Plato, Republic "The sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings." -- Malachi 4:2:  ABSTRACT : This theological-prophetic essay proposes a radical re-reading of biblical prophecy not as typological form or symbolic closure but as verb-rich dynamism—an unfolding momentum of divine initiative. Drawing on Aristotle’s correction of Platonic stasis and Herder’s linguistic insights into the Psalms and Prophets, it contends that biblical prophecy operates through verbal lexemes that displace ontology with conative witness. The prophetic mode is reframed as a kinetic preamble to eschatological healing rather than a foreclosed historical pronouncement. Malachi is reinterpreted not merely as the final prophet of the Hebrew canon but as...