If I recall from seminary, there were also prophets from inside the temple (Isaiah was one, I think) and prophets from outside (Jeremiah.) Both are prophets.
And I do think there are reports in the text of disputes among prophets, raising the question of "true prophecy."
Being a prophet, like being a priest, was often an inherited position. Amos stated that his position did not come from inheritance but directly from God, and Amaziah, the priest, complained to King Jeroboam against him.
Deuteronomy 13 provides a way of identifying and dealing with false prophets.
The thing is I think we are often looking through the telescope the wrong way. The inspiration is the hard work that goes into trying to put into words the experience of the divine. Yes, we make a mess of it, yes we get it wrong, but the courage to try and tackle the impossible, that is the inspiration.
I do get a kick out of it when I read an insight in an editorial that I thought of myself. That happens sometimes.
But then, prophecy is often just seeing what's happening around you. I remember in seminary, folks would be like "Hey! Jesus was written in the gospels as having predicted the downfall of Jerusalem! That means someone wrote those bits in after the fall of Jerusalem!"
And I'm like "Or...maybe he was just savvy enough to realize that going toe to toe with the Roman Empire wouldn't end well for his compatriots and tried to gently warn them that they were all going to die for their arrogance?
Or, just saying as a third option here, He spoke true prophecy…
Where's the boundary between "true prophecy" and "savvy enough to realise"?
A lot of prophecy is of the form "if you keep on doing xxx then yyy will happen". And, a lot of it could just be the prophet being savvy enough to read the situation - knowing enough of where people (usually the king, or supported by the king) are going wrong, and enough of the world around to identify the threats to the nation. If I was to make a declaration that if the people of the earth and their governments continue to fail to obey the command of God to be stewards of creation, highlighting specifically the wasteful and polluting combustion of fossil fuels, then God will judge us through more severe fires, storms and floods - would that not be in the form of prophecy? Yet, the same (without mention of God and judgement) couched in the language of science has been said for at least 50y by scientists, which is just the results of their collective knowledge of physics and chemistry (or they're "savvy enough to know what's going on").
The apostle Paul wasn't aware of any of it. He died in 65. None of the gospels (Mark: AD 60-75 Matthew: AD 65-85 Luke: AD 65-95 John: 75-100 ) had been completed. In them, or rather it, a singles source, at the end, Jesus wasn't prophesying conditionally. A what-if. Speculating. In 31 AD what were the signs that forty years later Jerusalem would be utterly destroyed by Rome? To the savvy? Whereas by 71 it was moot.
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However, there is sufficient material in other places to indicate that sometimes one person was inspired to contradict another's inspiration.
And a prophet in this sense does not have to be a person with the profession of prophet.
And I do think there are reports in the text of disputes among prophets, raising the question of "true prophecy."
Deuteronomy 13 provides a way of identifying and dealing with false prophets.
Perhaps the same source of inspiration that gave rise to the Inquisition.
Well yeah. The one certainly inspired the other.
Or, just saying as a third option here, He spoke true prophecy…
A lot of prophecy is of the form "if you keep on doing xxx then yyy will happen". And, a lot of it could just be the prophet being savvy enough to read the situation - knowing enough of where people (usually the king, or supported by the king) are going wrong, and enough of the world around to identify the threats to the nation. If I was to make a declaration that if the people of the earth and their governments continue to fail to obey the command of God to be stewards of creation, highlighting specifically the wasteful and polluting combustion of fossil fuels, then God will judge us through more severe fires, storms and floods - would that not be in the form of prophecy? Yet, the same (without mention of God and judgement) couched in the language of science has been said for at least 50y by scientists, which is just the results of their collective knowledge of physics and chemistry (or they're "savvy enough to know what's going on").