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> From: kwildgen [SMTP:[log in to unmask]] > > Is it my imagination,or is there a very thin line between prophecy and > fortune-telling? As I recall, the latter was ferociously forbidden by the > Church, with certain exceptions made for OT types and Jesus himself. > Fortune-telling--fore-seeing future events--was/is one part of seership. Other parts concern obtaining "supernatural" knowledge of current events--like cause of illness, whereabouts of missing people or objects, etc. My understanding, at least for Ireland and the Highlands, is that general condemnation of such practices was more widespread in the modern period. In the late medieval period, for example, some methods employed by seers were considered OK, while others were condemned because they were perceived as invoking "demons." In the modern era of biblical exegesis, prophecy has been defined as something separate and distinct from predicting future events, a speaking out, a call to reform and return to the ways of God. While this was certainly part of the prophet's function, I think to remove the predictive element is a mdern attempt to rationalize away a mindset and attitude that was characteristic of earlier times. The way I see it, even if documents were composed after the events they purported to predict, the audience was supposed to view them as predictions. Francine Nicholson %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%