Monday, April 17, 2023

Does the Old Testament Teach the Decline or Disappearance of Prophecy?

  

Several passages within the OT itself are often thought to reflect either prophecy’s decline in prestige or its disappearance. Ps. 74:9 is one such text:

 

We do not see our signs; there is no longer any prophet, and there is none among us who knows how long.

 

This psalm is often thought to have originated during the Maccabean period and to reflect the Seleucid capture of the temple (Ps. 74:3-4). Yet it may reflect the situation which attended the destruction of the Solomonic temple in 586 B.C. when the temple prophets may have lost a great deal of their credibility. Ezek. 13:9 and Zech. 13:2-6 are thought to reflect the decline in prestige of prophecy during the exile and postexilic periods. Yet both authors refer, not to the general deterioration in the credibility of prophets, but to the eschatological elimination of false prophets. Similarly, Dan. 9:24 probably refers, not to the historical cessation of prophecy, but to the eschatological climax of the predictions of all the prophets up to and including Daniel. (David E. Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1983], 105)