[Chapter 5] The Old Testament prophets

Our textbook says on page 174 that the Israelite prophets “…were not prophetic in the sense that they foretold the future.” I don’t see the truth in this statement, when one looks at the number of events the biblical prophets foretold decades and sometimes century’s in advance. One may not believe in the validity of the Bible, but it’s incorrect to say that the Old Testament prophets never at least presumed to foretell events in the future.

The biggest example of the Old Testament prophets foretelling the future is when they speak of the Messiah. According to the Bible (New and Old Testament together), the Old Testament prophets spoke of a coming Messiah, and later in the New Testament Jesus comes and claims to be that very Messiah. One obvious example is in Luke 4:16-21 where Jesus reads the words of an Old Testament prophet in Isaiah 61:1-2, and then states, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” There are other examples; many sources say that there are around 100 Old Testament prophesies that the New Testament Messiah fulfills. 

Isaiah was first written around 700 years before the birth of Jesus as documented in the bible as well as other extra-biblical texts written by historical figures such as Josephus, and Tacitus. Some have suggested that Isaiah was written or rewritten at the time of or after the time of Jesus to make the prophecies fit him, however the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 disproves this theory. They contain word for word the book of Isaiah that is found in the Bible, with the exception of a few words, and every dating method used on the Isaiah contained in Dead Sea Scrolls (including carbon dating) has dated the document no later than 100 BC.
 

Even if you view the Bible as fiction, you still have to admit that the prophets at least professed to act as foretellers of the future. For example in Deuteronomy 18:20-22 (NLT) the writer says, “But any prophet who … falsely claims to speak for me must die.' You may wonder, 'How will we know whether the prophecy is from the LORD or not?' If the prophet predicts something in the LORD's name and it does not happen, the LORD did not give the message.” So the prophets did act as foretellers of the future, and they were actually held accountable to what they predicted.

The textbook is right when it says the biblical prophets warned the Israelites about the consequences of their actions, and that they spoke for God, but it is wrong when it says they didn’t prophecy in the sense of foretelling future events. To say they didn’t is just an unsupported opinion of the authors that should have either not been included in the textbook, or supported with some facts.