What is your scholarly understanding of a prophet?

Answer 1

Some prefer to worship the Profit Margin

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Answer 2

A prophet is someone who was the mouth piece for God. In the Old Testament a prophet was known by saying "thus saith the Lord." A prophet was also known by fortelling the future and it coming to pass. This was a sure sign of a true prophet because only God can tell the future. With the completion of the New Testament, over 1900 years ago, the time of the prophets is over. There is no need for anymore prophets because we know the future, according to the book of Revelation. Today a prophet is someone who speaks forth the Word of God, which simply means someone who is speaking forth what is already written down in the Bible. Any person who claims to have new revelation from God about anything not written in the Bible is a blasphemer and a false prophet, which Jesus said there would be many in the last days.

Answer 3

A prophet is one who foretells events that are to occur in the future.

Answer 4

A prophet, as I understand it (and I'm no expert...) is one who singles themselves out by claiming to have knowledge of a divine being. They often present themselves as "keepers of the truth" and continue to manifest today- Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell (sometimes death can be a good thing...), Jesus, Muhammad (i think I murdered that spelling...) etc.

Answer 5

A prophet is a man who has a message from God and he speaks God's words to man.

Answer 6

A prophet is someone who hears the message that God gives him (or her) and relays it to the people.

Answer 7

Simply put, it is someone who "comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable."

In the old testament, the prophets were less trying to foretell the future, but rather to correct perceived misbehavior and later to ease the suffering of Israelites who were taken into captivity.

Only later were they associated with foretelling specific events, and their words given magical significance.

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Answer 8

One who get guidance from God through inspirations on his heart/mind, through visions and through an Angel is a Prophet of God. Ordinary people do not get vision nor an Angel comes to them with a message from God. When ordinary people asks God for guidance in their prayers in times of making a hard decision, they also get God's guidance directly into their hearts or minds. It is another subject. I will explain later if asked how to get guidance from God.

Many Prophets have been killed by people. The minute they are killed, God sent them straight to heaven. Whereas common people have to wait till the Day of Judgment and are sent to heaven if found deserving.

Prophets get knowledge about God, religion and wisdom about life, death and how to handle affairs of people. A Prophet gives the knowledge to who ever asks him questions for guidance. Like Prophet Joseph told meanings of dreams in prison when asked. God says in Quran that He sent total of 124,000 Prophets to people where ever they lived as an combined group of people.

When God commands a Prophet to start preaching God's messages then he becomes Messenger of God which is higher level than Prophet. Jesus didn't get new law but God gave him wisdom to enforce law of Torah and was commanded to preach. Therefore he was Messenger and enforced laws of Torah with his wisdom. For example when Jesus saw crowd of people were about to punish an adulterer by stoning to death. He said, only those who never sinned themselves can stone her and every one drop his stone. This means before enforcing divine laws society must first become law abiding. It would be wrong to cut a hand of a thief who stole the loaf of bread because of hunger and society didn't care to feed him. In that case they have no right to cut his hand.

We know more about Prophets sent to the people in Middle East because people in the area were familiar with their stories. So Torah, Bible and Quran mentions Prophets of these areas to confirm about them being Prophets of God. Jews received a continuous chain of Prophets for 1400 years between Moses and Jesus. They were never without the guidance of a Prophet amongsts them in this era. After they rejected Jesus and humiliated him and his Virgin mother with dirty labels, divine guidance was stopped for them and the next and last Messenger of God was given to Arabs who didn't have any guidance after the death of Prophet Ishamel son of Abraham over 3 to 4K years.

God gave Moses laws (Shariah) and ordered him to enforce the law on his people. God gave divine messages to David (psalms) and Bible to Jesus. Moses and Jesus were not only Prophets but also the Messengers of God being enforcers of the laws. Noah, Abraham and perhaps also David were Messenger of God.