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In religion, mythology, and fiction, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person (typically called a prophet) by a supernatural entity. Prophecies are a feature of many and and usually contain divine will or divine law, or preternatural knowledge, for example of future events. They can be revealed to the prophet in various ways depending on the religion and the story, such as visions, or direct interaction with in physical form. Stories of Prophetic books deeds sometimes receive considerable attention and some have been known to survive for centuries through oral tradition or as religious texts.
The Jewish Torah already deals with the topic of the false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:2-6, 18:20-22).
Ichadon's scheme went as planned, and the opposing officials took the bait. When Ichadon was executed on the 15th day of the 9th month in 527, his prophecy was fulfilled; the earth shook, the sun was darkened, beautiful flowers rained from the sky, his severed head flew to the sacred Geumgang Mountains, and milk instead of blood sprayed 100 feet in the air from his beheaded corpse. The omen was accepted by the opposing court officials as a manifestation of heaven's approval, and Buddhism was made the state religion in 527.Korea: a religious history, James Huntley Grayson, p. 34
Prophecy and other spiritual gifts were somewhat rarely acknowledged throughout church history and there are few examples of the prophetic and certain other gifts until the Scottish like Prophet Peden and George Wishart. From 1904 to 1906, the Azusa Street Revival occurred in Los Angeles, California and is sometimes considered the birthplace of Pentecostalism. This revival is well known for the "speaking in tongues" that occurred there. Some participants of the Azusa Street Revival are claimed to have prophesied. Pentecostals believe prophecy and certain other gifts are once again being given to Christians. The Charismatic Movement also accepts spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues and prophecy.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a denomination that traces its history to the Millerite Movement and the Great Disappointment. Seventh-day Adventists "accept the biblical teaching of spiritual gifts and believe that the gift of prophecy is one of the identifying marks of the remnant church." The church also believes Ellen G. White to be a prophet and that her writings are divinely inspired.
Since 1972, the neo-Pentecostal Church of God Ministry of Jesus Christ International has expressed a belief in prophecy. The church claims this gift is manifested by one person (the prophesier) laying their hands on another person, who receives an individual message said by the prophesier. Prophesiers are believed to be used by the Holy Ghost as instruments through whom their God expresses his promises, advice and commandments. The church claims people receive messages about their future, in the form of promises given by their God and expected to be fulfilled by divine action.
The Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders was a council of prophetic elders co-convened by C. Peter Wagner and Cindy Jacobs that included: Beth Alves, Jim Gool, Chuck Pierce, Cindy Jacobs, Bart Pierces, John and Paula Sanford, Dutch Sheets, Tommy Tenney, Heckor Torres, Barbara Wentroble, Mike Bickle, Paul Cain, Emanuele Cannistraci, Bill Hamon, Kingsley Fletcher, Ernest Gentile, Jim Laffoon, James Ryle, and Gwen Shaw.
Following Smith's murder, there was a succession crisis that resulted in a great schism. The majority of Latter-day Saints believing Brigham Young to be the next prophet and following him out to Utah, while a minority returned to Missouri with Emma Smith, believing Joseph Smith Junior's son, Joseph Smith III, to be the next legitimate prophet (forming the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, now the Community of Christ). Since even before the death of Joseph Smith in 1844, there have been numerous separatist Latter Day Saint sects that have splintered from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. To this day, there are an unknown number of organizations within the Latter Day Saint movement, each with their own proposed prophet.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) is the largest Latter Day Saint body. The current Prophet/President of the LDS Church is Russell M. Nelson. The church has, since Joseph Smith's death on June 27, 1844, held a belief that the president of their church is also a literal prophet of God. The church also maintains that further revelations claimed to have been given through Joseph Smith are published in the Doctrine and Covenants, one of the Standard Works. Additional revelations and prophecies outside the Standard Works, such as Joseph Smith's "White Horse Prophecy", concerning a great and final war in the United States before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, can be found in other church published works.
In the sense of predicting events, the Quran contains verses believed to have 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 "Every ˹destined˺ matter has a ˹set˺ time to transpire. And you will soon come to know." 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. The Corruption of the Bible – A Fact Attested by the Quran" The True Call
Sigmund Mowinckel's account of prophecy in ancient Israel distinguishes s and prophets - both in their origins and in their functions:
According to Mowinckel, the early seer and the ecstatic prophet derived from two distinctly different social and institutional backgrounds. The seer belonged to the earliest stratum of Israelite society and was related to the priest who 'was not originally in the first instance a sacrificer, but as with the old Arabs, custodian of the sanctuary, oracle priest, "seer" and holder of the effective future-creating and future-interpreting word of power, the blessing and the curse.' ... Ecstatic prophecy - nebiism - and temple priests were indigenous to Canaanite culture and represented elements adopted by the Israelites. With the fusion of the functions of the seer-priest with the functions of the temple-sacrificial priests and ecstatic prophets, two main groups developed: the priests occupied with cult and sacrifice ... and the 'prophets' who 'continued the more "pneumatic" aspect of the character and work of the old "seers"' and 'were mediums of the divinely inspired "word" which was "whispered to" them, or "came to them"' ... The prophets retained, in guild fashion, the old seer relationship to the cult ....
According to Judaism, authentic Nevuah (נבואה, "Prophecy") got withdrawn from the world after the destruction of the first Jerusalem Temple. Malachi is acknowledged to have been the last authentic prophet if one accepts the opinion that Nechemyah died in Babylon before 9th Tevet 3448 (313 BCE).
The Torah contains laws concerning the false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:2-6, 18:20-22). Prophets in Islam, like Lot, for example, are false prophets according to Jewish standards.
In the Torah, prophecy often consisted of a conditioned warning by their God of the consequences should the society, specific communities, or their leaders not adhere to the Torah's instructions in the time contemporary with the prophet's life. Prophecies sometimes included conditioned promises of blessing for obeying their god, and returning to behaviors and laws as written in the Torah. Conditioned-warning prophecies feature in all Jewish works of the Tanakh.
Notably Maimonides (1138–1204), philosophically suggested that there once were many levels of prophecy, from the highest (such as those experienced by Moses) to the lowest (where the individuals were able to apprehend the Divine Will, but not respond or even describe this experience to others, citing for example, Shem, Eber and most notably, Noah, who, in the biblical narrative, does not issue prophetic declarations). The Guide for the Perplexed /Part II/Chapter XXXIX
Maimonides, in his philosophical work The Guide for the Perplexed, outlines twelve modes of prophecy The Guide for the Perplexed (Friedlander)/Part II/Chapters#CHAPTER XLV from lesser to greater degree of clarity:
The Tanakh contains prophecies from various Hebrew prophets (55 in total) who communicated messages from God to the Israelites, and later to the population of Judea and elsewhere. Experience of prophecy in the Torah and the rest of Tanakh was not restricted to Jews. Nor was the prophetic experience restricted to the Hebrew language language.
In another type of example, it is recorded that there are three Tli Cho prophets who had claimed to have been divinely inspired to bring the message of Christianity's God to their people. This prophecy among the Dogrib involves elements such as dances and trance-like states.
Most reliable academic sources maintain that the associations made between world events and Nostradamus's are largely the result of misinterpretations or mistranslations (sometimes deliberate) or else are so tenuous as to render them useless as evidence of any genuine predictive power. Moreover, none of the sources listed offers any evidence that anyone has ever interpreted any of Nostradamus's pseudo-prophetic works specifically enough to allow a clear identification of any event in advance.Lemesurier, Peter, The Unknown Nostradamus, 2003
Bill Whitcomb in The Magician's Companion observes,
One point to remember is that the probability of an event changes as soon as a prophecy (or divination) exists. . . . The accuracy or outcome of any prophecy is altered by the desires and attachments of the seer and those who hear the prophecy.Whitcomb, Bill. (2004). The Magician's Companion: A Practical & Encyclopedic Guide to Magical & Religious Symbolism. Llewellyn Publications. pp. 530-531.
Many prophets make a large number of prophecies. This makes the chances of at least one prophecy being correct much higher by sheer weight of numbers.
"(P)rophecy can be likened to a bridge between the individual 'mystical self' and the communal 'mystical body'," writes religious sociologist Margaret Poloma. Prophecy seems to involve "the free association that occurred through the workings of the right brain."
Psychologist Julian Jaynes proposed that this is a temporary accessing of the bicameral mind; that is, a temporary separating of functions, such that the authoritarian part of the mind seems to literally be speaking to the person as if a separate (and external) voice. Jaynes posits that the gods heard as voices in the head were and are organizations of the central nervous system. God speaking through man, according to Jaynes, is a more recent vestige of God speaking to man; the product of a more integrated higher self. When the bicameral mind speaks, there is no introspection. In earlier times, posits Jaynes, there was additionally a visual component, now lost.
Child development and consciousness author Joseph Chilton Pearce remarked that revelation typically appears in symbolic form and "in a single flash of insight."Pearce, J. C.9780892819904, Inner Traditions International. ISBN 9780892819904 He used the metaphor of lightning striking and suggests that the revelation is "a result of a buildup of resonant potential." Pearce compared it to the earth asking a question and the sky answering it. Focus, he said, feeds into "a unified field of like resonance (and becomes) capable of attracting and receiving the field's answer when it does form."
Some cite aspects of cognitive psychology such as pattern forming and attention to the formation of prophecy in modern-day society as well as the declining influence of religion in daily life.
Middle English poems of a political nature are linked with Latin and vernacular prophecies. Prophecies in this sense are predictions concerning kingdoms or peoples; and these predictions are often eschatological or apocalypticism. The prophetic tradition in English derives in from Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain (1136), otherwise called "Prophecies of Merlin;" this work is prelude to numerous books devoted to King Arthur. In 18th century England, prophecy as poetry is revived by William Blake who wrote: America: A Prophecy (1783) and Europe: A Prophecy (1794).
Contemporary American poetry is also rich in lyrics about prophesy, including poems entitled Prophecy by Dana Gioia and Eileen Myles. In 1962, Robert Frost published "The Prophets Really Prophesy as mysticism the Commentators Merely by Statistics". Other modern poets who write on prophets or prophecy include Carl Dennis, Richard Wilbur, and Derek Walcott.
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