ADVENTIST HISTORY


in Zephaniah 1:10, where it means the second part, or a later addition to the city. Tus the word designates the section or district of Jerusalem in which Huldah lived.” In 1893, Matthew Easton extended the same notion. While


noting that the Revised Standard Version properly translated the Hebrew mishneh as “second quarter,” he indicated that the “Authorized Version followed the Jewish commentators, who, following the Targum, gave the Hebrew word its post-Biblical sense, as if it meant a place of instruction.” Tis implied that the ]הָנְׁשִמ[ KJV translators took the word to be vocalized as mishnah suggesting that Huldah resided in ,]הֶנְׁשִמ[ rather than mishneh Jerusalem in the house of teaching or instruction.


Adventists and Huldah Nevertheless, Adventists kept alive the story of Huldah in college. Many Adventist women were named Huldah, especially in the


19th century. Between Huldah Mott in 1857 and Huldah Fritz in 1993, Review and Herald listed about 45 Huldahs, representing every decade except the 1930s and 1980s. Te name appeared mostly in lists of donors or obituaries but also in graduation lists. References to the biblical Huldah, found in Review and Herald/


Adventist Review until about 2000, fall mainly into three categories: 1. Many articles mention Huldah only regarding the


Huldah was not exactly a luminary among Hebrew personalities, nor was she mentioned in the New Testament.


Mystery solved! For whatever reason (and without


explanation), the KJV translators erroneously read the meaning of a Hebrew word from many centuries in the future into the 7th-century BCE story of a female prophet. Huldah did not live or work in an ancient institution of higher education. By the end of the 19th century, even conservative scholars recognized that Huldah did not live “in the college” in Jerusalem. Huldah was not exactly a luminary among Hebrew


personalities, nor was she mentioned in the New Testament. Among patristic writers, she appears only in Jerome—and with no fanfare, since he thought (without biblical evidence) that Josiah sent the delegation to Huldah only because Jeremiah was imprisoned at the time. Apparently, Jerome could not conceive of an official public ministry for a woman.


reformation activities of King Josiah, without any details about her except possibly a note that she lived in Jerusalem. Articles in 12 issues of the church publication quote the KJV statement about her, including reference to “the college,” but without elaboration. Only one article in this category is specifically about Huldah as a prophetess.1 2. In 28 issues of the Adventist magazine, the biblical Huldah


appears in the company of two other female prophets mentioned in the Old Testament: Miriam and Deborah. Most such references concern the issue of prophecy, an ingredient Review and Herald writers expect to find in what they consider to be “remnant” Christianity, and the embodiment of this expectation in Ellen Harmon White, who is overtly or covertly seen to be in the tradition of these biblical prophetesses. 3. Most interesting are the articles in five issues of Review


and Herald—and in other publications—that, despite available published information to the contrary, took seriously the KJV reference to “the college” and imagined a role for Huldah in an educational institution. Besides these general classifications, one other relevant article


deserves special mention. It quoted a series of questions by an unnamed wife of a Congregational minister, reprinted in 1858 from Golden Rule: “Who made Huldah chaplain to the king, instructress of the high priest, and professor in the theological seminary at Jerusalem?”2 Also noteworthy are a few articles and books by early Adventist


authors Alonzo T. Jones and John N. Loughborough. In 1885, Jones echoed 2 Kings 22 in the KJV when he wrote


that Josiah sent messengers to Huldah the prophetess, who “dwelt in Jerusalem in the college.”3 Twelve years later, he similarly wrote that Josiah sent people “to Huldah, the prophetess, who dwelt in Jerusalem in the college, ‘to inquire of the Lord concerning


20 AD VENTIS T T OD A Y


CASPAR LUYKEN, 1708


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