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I haven’t read the book yet, it’s ordered and on it’s way now, but I ran across it while reading an article about Martin Luther King in Smithsonian Magazine. In the article, a biographer of King wrote, Quote:He (King) becomes like a driven Old Testament prophet who is driven to make a witness, knowing that it’s not going to be appreciated. I mean…all those guys used to carry around Herschel’s book
The Prophets.They really identified with the prophets. From that quote my curiosity was piqued. This is is the books review
Quote:According to the popular definition, a prophet is one who accurately predicts the future. But in the Jewish tradition, as Abraham Joshua Heschel explains in The Prophets, these figures earn their title by witnessing the world around them with outstanding passion. Prophets are those whose “life and soul are at stake” in what they say about “the mystery of [God’s] relation to man.” They are “some of the most disturbing people who have ever lived,” and yet they are also “the men whose image is our refuge in distress, and whose voice and vision sustain our faith.” Heschel’s book, one of the classic texts on the subject, contains sophisticated, straightforward discussions of each of the Hebrew prophets, the primary themes of their preaching, and comparisons of Israel’s prophets to those of other religions’. Throughout, Heschel avoids the two great temptations in any discussion of prophesy: overstating the supernatural quality of a prophet’s epiphany (“A prophet is a person, not a microphone”), and reducing prophesy to a merely human phenomenon. Instead, Heschel describes the prophet’s peculiar status as God’s spokesman in a way that does justice to its complexity: “He speaks from the perspective of God as perceived from the perspective of his own situation.”
Our bible dictionary says the job of Prophet is to testify of Jesus Christ. Which sounds closer to Herschel’s ideal. I will let you know what I think when I am finished.
I really like that definition and description, since it fits much better the actual people who are in our scriptures and throughout history outside those scriptures. mom3 wrote:According to the popular definition, a prophet is one who accurately predicts the future. But in the Jewish tradition, as Abraham Joshua Heschel explains in The Prophets, these figures earn their title by witnessing the world around them with outstanding passion.
I agree. Another post asked for our beliefs on modern prophecy. This was difficult for me because I take a skeptical view of anyone from any time being accurate in foretelling the future.
So, JS fits this OT prophet model but what about TSM? In believing TSM to be a prophet I am using the term to mean president or legal head of the church. Ironically the very qualities that make one into a passionate OT prophet figure do not necessarily translate well to moving up the ranks in a hierarchical and administrative organization.
The Old Testament model ( which fits Joseph Smith perfectly) also tends to lead to confrontation and death and/or marginalization. Old Testament prophets are good for society in the sense that we need someone to call us to repentance and remind of our “natural (wo)man” tendencies – but we kill them and seek to destroy or limit their followings when they are too good at it. Personally, I prefer living in a time of modern prophets over a time of Old Testament prophets – even as I respect Old Testament prophets for what they contribute to a world that needs them. Maybe it’s laziness or complacency on my part, but I would rather work out my faith in the relative comfort of my life now than be compelled to do so in the times of my ancestors. I’d rather deal with the issues of having our modern apostles and prophets than the issues of living in the time of Joseph and Brigham. I might be a pioneer theologically in some ways, but I don’t yearn for the time of physical pioneers who faced deprivation and death.
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