agnosticdeist

I've been reading Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason," and one thing Paine alleges is that every instance of the word "prophet" in English versions of the old testament should instead read "poet." Apparently the words are very similar in Hebrew and it got mistranslated (like the famous maiden and virgin). He claims that there are no instances of poets or musicians in the OT (which I'm pretty sure is untrue, I think the book of Samuel says that David was a musician). He claims that when the OT says person X prophecied, that this didn't involve telling the future, but rather writing metered verses and performing them. Does anyone know if this interpretation is accurate? I haven't been able to find the specific instance he sites. Does anyone here know any Hebrew?

Mat Wilder

"Prophecy" doesn't really mean "telling the future" but more like "telling the truth" (about God presumably). It is mistaken to see all prophetic utterances as foretelling concrete futures.

Many supposedly prophetic texts were never interpreted prophetically until long after they were written (and in some cases had already been "fulfilled." See OT "prophecies" foretelling Jesus' birth in Bethlehem.)