Prophets and Prophecy – Introduction

Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."
Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path."
For the soul walks upon all paths.
~from The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

Welcome to my new series on Prophets and Prophecy

The word prophecy is of Greek derivation, prophecy means speaking before. In modern English it usually implies foretelling the future. Originally, however, this was not a prophet’s essential function. He was the human spokesman of a god (pre-eminently of Yahweh, the God of Israel) and therefore a transmitter of divine messages, which might concern the future or might not.

The Old Testament sometimes employs the term prophet very loosely. For instance, Abraham is a prophet because he is the friend of God. Moses and his brother Aaron are called prophets, and their sister Miriam a prophetess, each for a different reason: Mosses as the appointed mouthpiece of the divine laws, Aaron as their translator into practice, Miriam as a leader of song and dance in God’s praise. The common factor in these four instances is a special relationship with Yahweh.

Prophets exist throughout history in almost every culture. But not all of them are religious, many have been described as prophets in the sense of foretelling the future (as opposed to foretelling a religious message).

There are far too many prophets to attempt to cite all of them here, so I have narrowed the list down to an even dozen prophetic subjects. We start next week with the Old Testament Prophets. In the weeks that follow I’ll also be exploring the following prophets:

The Prophets of Islam
Buddha Siddharta Gautama
Pythia
Casandra
The Norse Volva
Nostradamus
Edgar Cayce
Mother Shipton
Baba Vanga
Erik Jan Hanussen
Potuluri Virabrahmendra Swami
False Prophets

I hope you enjoy reading this series as much as I enjoy doing the research for it. See you next week.