Which prophet was correct?

[*jason*]

(09-21-2015, 09:59 AM)xxlt Wrote: We take it for granted everyone can write. That wasn't always the case. The lack of a written account does not therefore mean someone didn't exist or do certain things.

We take it for granted written accounts are factual. (I read it on the internet so it must be true!) Now, you may think you don't, but at some level you do. Consider this perspective I heard the other day: all history is fiction.

If all history is fiction than you have no more reason to believe with certitude what you learned about, say the Civil War, the Revolutionary War, or WWII in high school or college history classes than you have to believe histories written by a Greek, Roman, or African many hundred years ago. It is all fiction, so accounts of Jesus are no more fictional than accounts of A. Hitler or G. Washington.

Last but not least, there is nothing to suggest the Bible is a history book. It is not even a book, really. It is more accurately a collection of stories, small "books" if you want to call them that, letters, folklore, tall tales, etc. Most have been edited and/or redacted severely, parts have been added, parts have been lost, plus it has been translated and transliterated so much that saying, "I know what the Bible says," is a rather specious claim. So there is that.

But all that aside and on to the original question, which prophet was correct? The OP only named a few prophets. There are many more in just the Bible, so many they are classified as "major prophets" and "minor prophets." When I was a seminary student our basketball team was called "The Minor Prophets." And of course many other prophets have lived in many other traditions. They were all right about many things.

It is funny I, the agnostic, will now sing the praises of prophets and prophecy. One of my favorites was always Jeremiah (from the Old Testament). Prophets do what McLovin does on the DP show. They go (cue the music) "against the grain." They speak truths that a culture denies or ignores. We even have prophetic voices among us today. They often belong to artists, but sometimes to politicians, service workers, and even every day people. Pete Seeger was a prophet. Dr. King was a prophet. Tom Doyle is a prophet. They are simply truth tellers but ones who take risks by speaking the truths others dare not. A prophet is, as Jeremiah described himself, "a voice crying out in the wilderness." Prophets rock.

(Cue my walk off music: "Against the Grain." Virtual high-five to Andrew Perloff.)

my pleasure..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1IiPkQa2iY