In rejecting the opinions of the Montanists, who looked upon the state of inspiration as being a condition of ecstasy and madness, Origen believed that the prophets received their oracles while in complete possession of their rational consciousness. It simply says that prophecy is of divine origin (2 Pet.
It is interesting to notice that the New Testament is silent as to the manner in which God spoke to the prophets. The view of prophetic inspiration held by Philo is definitely not Hebraic and therefore untenable if one would come to a genuine understanding of Old Testament prophecy. The experience of inspiration among the great Hebrew prophets was always considered a result of the divine initiative and was not sought as an end within itself. The Hebrew would have thought in terms of the Spirit coming upon the individual and taking possession of his faculties. The Hebrew never thought of a soul’s departing from the land of reason, as Philo taught, to be possessed by the divine Spirit. Since Philo was attempting to interpret the Old Testament so as to show its similarity to the philosophy of Plato, it was only natural for him to interpret prophetic inspiration in Platonic terms to prove his point. James Hastings (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1914), V, 157. Ingre, “Ecstasy,” Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. Philo, no doubt, held these views of prophetic inspiration because he found that type of ecstatic phenomenon present in Greek thought and culture. Harry Austryn Wolfson, Philo (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1947), II, 28-30.
The prophet was wholly passive while the divine Spirit was active and imparted to him that knowledge of the divine character which he chose to reveal. The prophet was to the Spirit what a flute would be in the hands of a musician. 178.Īccording to Philo, the revelation from God came to the prophet while in a state of mental unconsciousness and inactivity. Inspiration and Revelation in the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946), p. Wheeler Robinson is right when he says that “many attempts have been made” to explain “how” God spoke to the prophets. A New Testament writer states that “no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. The Hebrew prophets stepped forward on the stage of history with a word which they claimed to have received from God. That the prophets were organs of revelation and that they were inspired by God is undeniable if one accepts the claims of the Old Testament as valid. It affected the totality of their life-relationships.Ī consideration of that deep, inward, personal, spiritual experience by which the prophets were inducted into the prophetic ministry brings one face to face with the mystery of inspiration and revelation. They lived constantly under the lengthened shadow of this initial experience with God. The prophets reveal the fount of their inspiration in the accounts of how they were led into the prophetic ministry. The Hebrew Prophetic Consciousness (London: Lutterworth Press, 1947), p. Harold Knight has said that “this experience” of the soul’s confrontation by the living God “is central and determinative” of all that is to follow. These men were conscious of God’s summoning and sustaining them as they sought to reveal his message to the people. Ezekiel was set as a watchman over Israel in order that he might warn them to turn from their wicked ways (Ezek. Jeremiah, the shy and sheltered youth of Anathoth, found himself conscripted into a position from which his timid nature caused him to shrink (Jer. Micah felt that he was possessed by his message and the power to deliver it (Mic. Isaiah, the aristocrat, heard the voice of the divine Sovereign calling for a messenger and knew that the call was meant for him (Isa. Hosea, the brokenhearted husband, saw in his tragic domestic experience the heartbreak of God and felt constrained to proclaim the suffering love of Israel’s Maker (Hos. Even as Israel moved forward because of a consciousness of a covenant relationship with God, so the true prophets entered the prophetic ministry because of the constraint of God’s will.Īmos, the herdsman from Tekoa, declared that he prophesied not out of personal choice, but because God took him from following the flock and inducted him into the prophetic ministry (Amos 7:14-15). The prophets were launched upon their prophetic careers by a definite call.
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