Prophets Prophets Prophets

 

In the fall of 2003 I took Dr. Lamontte Luker’s course in Old Testament Theology at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary.  A good portion of that course was on the thread of prophecy that runs from the first hint of messengers as prophets in Genesis 32 and first use of the Hebrew word for prophet, nabi, in Exodus 7 through Malachi, the last of the classical prophets.

 

I have commented earlier on my difficulty remembering details and the need to outline and present information in some way that makes it visually interesting.  The charts below were created to help me remember key points about the history of prophecy and about the prophets themselves.  As I have also said, most of the value of such exhibits is in the creation of them rather than in the use of them by others, but they took a fair amount of work and I hate to just toss them out.  They are not worth much now, but at least they are free.

 

The background for all the charts is a timeline covering the approximately 1700 years from Abraham to Jesus.  There are various opinions among Bible scholars about some of these dates, but I had to choose something. The various prophets are shown in chronological order, which varies some from the order in the Bible. The charts also indicate whether  they prophesied in the Northern or Southern Kingdom, and before or after defeat and captivity.

 

If you took Dr. Luker’s course, or a similar one elsewhere, or if you just want to undertake your own study, these might be a helpful review or study/learning aid.  Probably the most shocking thing students learn from such a course is that the prophets were not primarily people who spent their time going around predicting the future but  were usually focusing their comments on the current situation and what it was likely to lead to if folks didn’t change their ways.  

 

Maximum upload size for the charts below is 1 MB so some may be difficult to read. At the bottom of the charts is a file that can be uploaded for better clarity.