1. the foretelling or prediction of what is to come.
2. something that is declared by a prophet, especially a divinely inspired prediction, instruction, or exhortation.
3. a divinely inspired utterance or revelation: oracular prophecies.
4. the action, function, or faculty of a prophet.
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What Is Prophecy?
A prophecy is a message inspired by God, a divine revelation. The Bible says that prophets “spoke from God as they were moved by the holy spirit.” (2 Peter 1:20, 21) So a prophet is one who receives God’s message and transmits it to others.— Acts 3:18.
How did prophets receive information from God?
God used several methods to transmit his thoughts to his prophets:
1. Writing. God used this method in at least one case by directly supplying to Moses the Ten Commandments in written form.— Exodus 31:18.
2. Oral communication through angels. For example, God used an angel to instruct Moses about the message he was to deliver to Pharaoh of Egypt. (Exodus 3:2-4, 10) When precise wording was crucial, God directed angels to dictate his message, as he did when he told Moses: “Write down these words, because in accordance with these words, I am making a covenant with you and with Israel.”— Exodus 34:27. *
3. Visions. These were sometimes given while the prophet was awake and fully conscious. (Isaiah 1:1; Habakkuk 1:1) Some were so vivid that the recipient participated in them. (Luke 9:28-36; Revelation 1:10-17) At other times, visions were conveyed while the recipient was in a trance. (Acts 10:10, 11; 22:17-21) God also transmitted his message by dreams while the prophet slept.— Daniel 7:1; Acts 16:9, 10.
4. Mental guidance. God guided the thoughts of his prophets to convey his message. This is the sense of the Bible’s statement: “All Scripture is inspired of God.” The phrase “inspired of God” can also be rendered “God-breathed.” (2 Timothy 3:16; The Emphasised Bible) God used his holy spirit, or active force, to “breathe” his ideas into the minds of his servants. The message was God’s, but the prophet selected the wording.— 2 Samuel 23:1, 2.
Does prophecy always involve foretelling the future?
No, Bible prophecy is not limited to foretelling the future. However, most messages from God relate to the future, even if only indirectly. For example, God’s prophets repeatedly warned the ancient Israelites about their evil ways. Those warnings described the future blessings if the people would heed the warning, as well as the future calamity if they refused. (Jeremiah 25:4-6) The actual outcome depended on the course that the Israelites chose to follow.— Deuteronomy 30:19, 20.
Examples of Bible prophecies not involving predictions
> On one occasion when the Israelites asked God for help, he sent a prophet to explain that because they had refused to obey God’s commands, He had not helped them.—Judges 6:6-10.
> When Jesus spoke to a Samaritan woman, he revealed things about her past that he could have known only by divine revelation. She recognized him as a prophet even though he had made no predictions about the future.— John 4:17-19.
> At Jesus’ trial, his enemies covered his face, hit him, and then said: “Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?” They were not calling for Jesus to foretell the future but for him to identify by divine power who had hit him.— Luke 22:63, 64.
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According to CatholicEncyclopedia.com:
As the term is used in mystical theology, it applies both to the prophecies of canonical Scripture and to private prophecies. Understood in its strict sense, it means the foreknowledge of future events, though it may sometimes apply to past events of which there is no memory, and to present hidden things which cannot be known by the natural light of reason.
St. Paul, speaking of prophecy in 1 Corinthians 14, does not confine its meaning to predictions of future events, but includes under it Divine inspirations concerning what is secret, whether future or not. As, however, the manifestation of hidden present mysteries or past events comes under revelation, we have here to understand by prophecy what is in its strict and proper sense, namely the revelation of future events.
Prophecy consists in knowledge and in the manifestation of what is known. The knowledge must be supernatural and infused by God because it concerns things beyond the natural power of created intelligence; and the knowledge must be manifested either by words or signs, because the gift of prophecy is given primarily for the good of others, and hence needs to be manifested. It is a Divine light by which God reveals things concerning the unknown future and by which these things are in some way represented to the mind of the prophet, whose duty it is to manifest them to others.
As the term is used in mystical theology, it applies both to the prophecies of canonical Scripture and to private prophecies. Understood in its strict sense, it means the foreknowledge of future events, though it may sometimes apply to past events of which there is no memory, and to present hidden things which cannot be known by the natural light of reason.
St. Paul, speaking of prophecy in 1 Corinthians 14, does not confine its meaning to predictions of future events, but includes under it Divine inspirations concerning what is secret, whether future or not. As, however, the manifestation of hidden present mysteries or past events comes under revelation, we have here to understand by prophecy what is in its strict and proper sense, namely the revelation of future events.
Prophecy consists in knowledge and in the manifestation of what is known. The knowledge must be supernatural and infused by God because it concerns things beyond the natural power of created intelligence; and the knowledge must be manifested either by words or signs, because the gift of prophecy is given primarily for the good of others, and hence needs to be manifested. It is a Divine light by which God reveals things concerning the unknown future and by which these things are in some way represented to the mind of the prophet, whose duty it is to manifest them to others.
For further reading, please visit: New Advent: Prophecy
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According to Judaism101.com:
Many people today think of a prophet as any person who sees the future. While the gift of prophecy certainly includes the ability to see the future, a prophet is far more than just a person with that ability.
A prophet is basically a spokesman for G-d, a person chosen by G-d to speak to people on G-d's behalf and convey a message or teaching. Prophets were role models of holiness, scholarship and closeness to G-d. They set the standards for the entire community.
The Talmud teaches that there were hundreds of thousands of prophets: twice as many as the number of people who left Egypt, which was 600,000. But most of the prophets conveyed messages that were intended solely for their own generation and were not reported in scripture. Scripture identifies only 55 prophets of Israel.
A prophet is not necessarily a man. Scripture records the stories of seven female prophets, listed below, and the Talmud reports that Sarah's prophetic ability was superior to Abraham's.
A prophet is not necessarily a Jew. The Talmud reports that there were prophets among the gentiles (most notably Balaam, whose story is told in Numbers 22), although they were not as elevated as the prophets of Israel (as the story of Balaam demonstrates). And some of the prophets, such as Jonah, were sent on missions to speak to the gentiles.
For further reading, please visit: Prophets and Prophecy
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According to Wikipedia.com, Islamic prophecy is defined as:
Muslims believe that the Qur'an predicted many events years before they happened and that such prophecies are proof of the divine origin of the Qur'an. The Qur'an itself states "For every prophecy is a term, and you will come to know (it)." [Quran 6:67] Muslims also recognize the validity of some prophecies in other sacred texts like in the Bible; however, they believe that, unlike the Qur'an, some parts of the Bible have been corrupted over the years, and as a result, not all of the prophecies and verses in the Bible are accurate.
Prophets in Islam include "messengers", bringers of a divine revelation via an angel and "prophets", lawbringers that Muslims believe were sent by God to every people, bringing God's message in a language they can understand. Belief in Islamic prophets is one of the six articles of the Islamic faith, and specifically mentioned in the Quran.
Muslims believe the first prophet was also the first human being, Adam (Adem). Many of the revelations delivered by the 48 prophets in Judaism and many prophets of Christianity are mentioned as such in the Quran but usually in altered form and with different names. For example, the Jewish Elisha is called Alyasa, Job is Ayyub, Jesus is Isa, etc. The Torah given to Moses (Musa) is called Tawrat, the Psalms given to David (Dawud) is the Zabur, the Gospel given to Jesus is Injil). Notwithstanding, none of the seven Jewish Prophetesses are mentioned in the Quran as prophets.
Unique to Islam is Muhammad (Muhammad ibn ʿAbdullāh), who Muslims believe is the "Seal of the Prophets" (Khatam an-Nabiyyin, i.e. the last prophet); and the Quran, revealed to Muhammad without witnesses and that he himself did not write down, which Muslims believe is unique among divine revelations as the only correct one protected by Allah ("God") from distortion or corruption, destined to remain in its true form until the Last Day.
In Muslim belief, every prophet in Islam preached the same main Islamic beliefs, the Oneness of God, worshipping of that one God, avoidance of idolatry and sin, and the belief in the Islamic Day of Resurrection or the Day of Judgement and life after death. Each came to preach Islam at different times in history and some told of the coming of the final Islamic prophet and messenger of God, who would be named "Ahmed" commonly known as Muhammad. Each Islamic prophet directed a message to a different group of people, and thus would preach Islam in accordance with the times.