OK, I’m willing to admit that the past gives us a strong indication about what may happen in the future. Hence it might be a very good prophet!
The best?… that would depend on how each of us interprets the notion.
The notion of prophecy, of course.
And since the best( ?!?, 😉 ) way to understand an action is to figure out the motivation behind it…
Let me start with the beginning.
What is a prophecy?
In fact there are two kinds of prophecies. Of promises, actually.
‘Don’t do that or you’ll have to face the consequences’ and ‘if you’ll do such and such, your reward will be this’.
Only very few of the prophets have been using such a clear language. Most of them have preferred to use a much more convoluted manner of expression.
Quite understandably.
First of all, because these were ‘second hand’ promises.
They were not uttered directly by the promising agent but by a more or less ‘self appointed press secretary’. Who had no sure way of knowing whether he had at least a working understanding of the message he was supposed to deliver to his peers, whether they were going/able to understand/accept the message in it’s entirety nor whether they were going/able/willing to abide to all its intricacies.
Secondly, and this is applicable specially to the ‘don’t do it’ kind of prophecy, let’s examine what may happen if/when people do heed to a professed prophecy.
I’ll consider the ‘positive’ case first.
If people do ‘the right thing’, and the reward promptly arrives, they think/feel ‘it is rightfully theirs’, no question asked. The prophet is seldom remembered. And in the rare cases when people do remember they’ve been foretold, the extended thanks rise very rarely above ‘lip service’ level.
If people think they have done ‘the right thing’ but are unaware they have ‘trespassed’, one way or another, they expect ‘their’ reward. Which, usually in this situation, never comes.
Who’s more likely to shoulder the blame? Remember that the people are not aware of not having fulfilled their bidding!
The prophet?
You nailed it!
And there’s a strong possibility that he might get nailed himself!
Let’s examine the ‘negative’ case now.
The one where the prophecy is ‘don’t do that, or else!’
People might choose to heed to the warning. Hence no punishment. Again, the prophet is usually forgotten along the way. Mainly because the bad things he kept speaking about never came through/true. Or even worse, he may be laughed at. But he’s happy. He has helped his people avoid experiencing a bad thing.
Or people might choose to ignore the warning. Hence experience the punishment.
Or, even worse, the people might try to ‘do the right thing’ and fail. For what ever reason. Who would be the most likely to be held responsible by the masses, or blamed by the politicians? For making an incomplete, or mistaken, prophecy…
An even stranger situation develops when the ‘judge’ decides to give ‘his’ people another chance. And postpones the (well deserved?!?) punishment. Is it possible that the people might decide to ignore altogether the prophecy, completely misinterpreting both the prophecy and the misericordia displayed by the judge?
Quite annoying for the prophet, right?
Boring?
You might consider that I didn’t consider all possibilities… for instance that when the reward comes without (in spite?) all demands having (not) been fulfilled. The prophet becomes a laughing stock, right?
Anyway, the whole thing was intentionally meant to be somewhat boring.
This way your attention wasn’t mesmerized and you had a fighting chance to figure out my real point.
Go back up and glance at Byron. He looks back but his body faces the future.
We are the ones called to presently transform the past into the future.
Glancing back tells us where we come from and what we have at our disposal.
Yet we have only one option. To go forward.
To survive and, maybe, to prosper.
Yes, we have a lot of carry-on luggage.
But it’s up to us to use that luggage as a resource or to trundle it along as a burden.
Another prophecy…
nicichiarasa 