Q&A: The Committee for Appointing Prophets
The Committee for Appointing Prophets
Question
Would you trust it if someone told you there was a committee for appointing prophets that worked by the following method:
1. A true prophet can certify another prophet as a true prophet (without any miraculous sign), because after all, the current true prophet received this through prophecy, so it must be true.
2. Even if a true prophet was mistaken about impending calamity, that is legitimate, because a prophecy of wrath can be cancelled even though it was “on the way.”
3. The prophet receives payment and wages for his prophecy.
4. When there is a false prophet who tells the truth, that is actually a test from the Creator — “for the Lord your God is testing you…”
5. The prophet’s level of power and influence over the public, and also over politicians, is very strong.
I don’t know why, but it feels a bit like a “cartel” to me.
Answer
I didn’t understand a word. What do you want from me?
Discussion on Answer
You are making a great many assumptions, and I don’t see any basis for them. The Torah itself speaks about prophets, and if one prophet testifies about another prophet, that is not “a friend brings a friend.”
And innocently enough, I thought all along that he was hinting at the Supreme Court justices in some distorted way.
Let me turn this into a direct question, for the sake of clarifying things:
To the best of my knowledge, most prophets became such through appointment and not through a “test of miracles.” How can one trust this whole matter called true prophets, when an appointment system of the “a friend brings a friend” kind is known to us as a mechanism that can produce corruption / preserve a center of power and appointment from within?
So basically:
A. Who guarantees to us that famous prophets (some of them books in the Hebrew Bible) were true prophets and not false ones (or magicians)?
B. Does the fact that the method is not sound (apparently) teach us that the very idea of prophecy is not sound?
In light of my question, I’m not at all convinced (except perhaps Moses) that the prophecies were the will of God at all, rather than some magical force / sorcery.
Your response to the above.