For too long the biblical prophets have suffered from the popuar usage of ‘prophecy’ or ‘prophetic’ as prediction, a fallacy fed by some brands of interpretation which major on isolated prophetic elements seeking to find fulfilment of the Old Testament (Judaism) in the New (Christianity) or (more remotely) relating Revelation to the end of the world.
Yet for the last hundred years biblical scholarship has tried to get across the idea that the prophets are best seen as ‘forthtellers’ rather than ‘foretellers’, following the OED definition of a ‘prophet’ as an ‘inspired teacher, revealer or interpreter’.
Reading and reflecting on the prophets from this starting point meets the needs of two different groups of people.
Bible students, whose primary motivation is understanding the scriptures when delivered from wrestling with unfamiliar times, places and circumstances, followed by the need to relate the past to the present with questions and issues not addressed by traditional academic Bible commentaries (intended to meet an important but different need), are often surprised at what crops up when they approach them from a different angle and with one eye on the contemporary situation and their own experience.
Readers, overwhelmed by the world they live in and the problems they encounter daily, and who turn to the Bible texts in the hope of finding some sort of answer or simplistic explanation from a few selective commandments or gospel stories, may also find that discovering prophets still able to throw light on situations vastly different from those in which they worked over 2000 year ago is also very rewarding.