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Speech That Originates with God

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Speech That Originates with God

Prophecy, across the Abrahamic traditions, is chiefly the claim that certain human speech originates with God rather than with the speaker, and only secondarily, and often not at all, the prediction of the future. The prophet is a mouthpiece and a messenger; foretelling, where it occurs, is a by-product of speaking for a God who is not bound by time.

The three traditions inherit and reshape the office. In the Hebrew scriptures the nevi'im, from Moses to Malachi, deliver God's word to Israel, mostly as summons, warning and consolation rather than forecast. Christianity keeps the Hebrew prophets, reads them as pointing to Christ, and adds prophetic gifts within the early church. Islam sets prophecy at the centre of its account of history: God has sent a long line of prophets (nabi) and messengers (rasul), Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus among them, each bringing the same essential message of submission to the one God, with Muhammad as the last of them, "the Seal of the Prophets" (Qur'an 33:40).

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