Q&A: Revelation — Interpretation or Fact
Revelation — Interpretation or Fact.
Question
Hello, and thank you in advance.
My Moroccan mother-in-law says from time to time that her late husband appears to her in a dream.
I also once dreamed about my grandmother who passed away.
The difference between us is the interpretation.
The fact is that both of us saw someone who had died in a dream; she calls it that he appeared to her, and I prefer to stick with the bare fact that I simply dreamed about someone.
When a prophet says that God appeared to him, how do we know that this is not just his personal interpretation? That is, even assuming I believe him and do not think he is lying, he experienced some special experience, but how do we know that his interpretation of the experience is the correct one?
Especially when we have no ability at all to examine and critique his interpretation, because it is his personal experience and we have no access to it.
Answer
That is why one is supposed to test the prophet and check whether his words come true. After he has been tested, he has the presumption of being a prophet who merits revelation.
Discussion on Answer
It could also be that you don’t exist and only a demon is speaking to me in your name. In fact, the whole world doesn’t exist and everything is just false and illusory visions. Anything could be.
You addressed only the second and marginal part of the question.
The main question is: why does the ability to predict the future indicate divine revelation?
And that you did not answer.
The second part was only meant to say that divine revelation is not the only or necessary explanation for the ability to predict the future.
Tell me, according to your approach, why is it possible to prove anything in the world at all? If human ability does not include predicting the future, then someone who predicts the future is apparently drawing from a divine source. Maybe it’s a demon, and maybe he’s just a magician. And maybe gravity, or you too, are also demons. I don’t understand the question.
And beyond that, if the Holy One, blessed be He, established that there is prophecy, then He will not let people confuse us and will not allow them to pass the prophet’s tests. Otherwise there is no room for genuine prophecy either.
First, why are you assuming that the Holy One, blessed be He, established that there is prophecy?
Second, your approach sounds to me like a “God of the gaps.” We do not know why someone has a rare ability to predict the future, so we say that God revealed Himself to him. Does the rarity of a phenomenon indicate divine revelation?
I do not understand the connection at all.
And again I ask: if all of us were blind and there were one sighted person, would you say that God revealed Himself to him?
And I didn’t understand at all the connection to gravity, which is proven every day by millions of observations… (which, by the way, is an example of something that can be proven)
It seems that you are presenting the question as mere skepticism. It’s not like that; I am arguing that a rare ability does not prove divine revelation, just like in the example of the blind and the sighted person.
All right, I’ll explain one more time and then we’ll finish. The Torah says that prophets are supposed to arise among us. We were told that the way to test them is by tests regarding the future. Now a person comes and gives us prophecies about the future that come true. We now have two possibilities: 1. Maybe he is endowed with special powers that nobody knows about. In that case, the words of the Torah would be false. 2. This is one of the prophets the Torah spoke about.
Now it is important to check which of the two is more reasonable. Good luck.
The Torah itself was given through prophecy by Moses. If I cast doubt on prophecy, then I am also casting doubt on the Torah itself.
If the possibility I am suggesting is correct, then Moses, who has the ability to predict the future, is in effect claiming about himself and saying that this is proof that God revealed Himself to him.
And my question applies to Moses himself.
Then you are not discussing prophecy but the Torah. That is a completely different discussion, and it should be presented that way. I’ll refer you to my book, The First Existent.
I know your book well. From what I remember, you do not speak there specifically about the question I raised.
Do we agree that with respect to the prophecy of Moses, predicting the future does not constitute evidence (that can stand on its own) for divine revelation?
No. I am only claiming that it is a different discussion. If Moses performed wonders and predicted future events for them (not for us, but for them), that is indeed evidence.
Rabbi, there could be a situation in which a person, with high probability, could predict an event on the macro level and indeed hit the mark exactly. How, then, can we distinguish between such a case and a prophet?
There is no sharp line. That is exactly what futurists have always relied on, from the Oracle of Delphi to David Passig. But there are predictions that are sufficiently convincing, especially if this repeats itself several times.
Why does the ability to predict the future indicate divine revelation?
Maybe he just has some rare ability to predict the future?
It’s like if all of us were blind and there were a few people who could see, we would say that the fact that they have a sense that we do not have is a sign that God is revealing Himself to them.