Biblical prophets mostly issued warnings, not fixed forecasts of the future
We picture prophets predicting what must happen. Old Testament prophecy usually worked more like an ultimatum: turn away from a particular wrong, or suffer a particular result. The future stayed open. Sceptics, meanwhile, coined a Latin phrase, vaticinium ex eventu, for supposed predictions actually written after the events they describe.
A prophecy is a message passed to a person, the prophet, by some supernatural being. It may reveal divine law or will, or hidden knowledge such as coming events, and it can arrive through visions or face-to-face encounters with divine figures. Some such stories survive for centuries, either handed down orally or fixed in scripture.
Definitions differ sharply. The Catholic Encyclopedia stresses foreknowledge of the future, though it allows prophecy about forgotten past events or present secrets beyond reason. Saint Paul, by contrast, framed prophesying around building people up, urging them on and consoling them. The medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides described it as an emanation from God passing through the Active Intellect into human reason and then imagination, a view close to that of Al-Farabi, who developed Islam's theory of prophecy. Aeschylus had a mythic explanation: Prometheus gave humans prophecy to shield them from the gods' volatile moods. The Torah itself already warns against false prophets.
In Christian history the gift waxed and waned. Justin Martyr argued prophets had passed from Israel to the church, and the mid-second-century Shepherd of Hermas shows prophecy in use. Montanus stirred controversy less for claiming the gift than for how he used it and what he taught. Examples then grew scarce until figures such as the Scottish Covenanters. The Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, from 1904 to 1906, often called the birthplace of Pentecostalism, revived claims of tongues and prophecy.
Newer movements put prophets at their centre. Seventh-day Adventists regard Ellen G. White as a prophet. Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, said God and Jesus visited him in 1820 and that an angel led him to golden plates he translated as the Book of Mormon. In 1863 Baha'u'llah declared himself a Manifestation of God, describing visions received while imprisoned in Tehran's Siyah-Chal.
Source: Prophecy
