Prophet
person claiming to speak for divine beings
In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to be a conduit for that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the supernatural source to other people. The message that the prophet conveys is called a prophecy.
Prophethood has existed in many cultures and religions throughout history, including Mesopotamian religion, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, the Abrahamic religions, Mandaeism, Manichaeism, and Thelema.
Etymology
The English word prophet is the transliteration of a compound Greek word derived from pro (before/toward) and phesein (to tell); thus, a προφήτης (prophḗtēs) is someone who conveys messages from the divine to humans, including occasionally foretelling future events. In a different interpretation, it means advocate or speaker. It is used to translate the Hebrew word נָבִיא (nāvî) in the Septuagint and the Arabic word نبي (nabī). W.F. Albright points to the Akkadian Nabu for the origin of these Hebrew (נָבִיא (nāvî) and the Arabic نبي (nabī) words.
The Akkadian nabû means "announcer" or "authorised person", derived from the Semitic root n-b-y or nbʾ. It is cognate with Classical Syriac: ܢܒܝܐ, romanized: nəḇiyyā, Arabic: نبي, romanized: nabiyy, and Hebrew: נביא, romanized: nāḇī, all meaning 'prophet'.
In Hebrew, the word נָבִיא (nāvî), "spokesperson", traditionally translates as "prophet".
The public source identifies “Prophet” as person claiming to speak for divine beings. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Prophet, person and claiming.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q42857. The Library of Congress control number is sh85107528. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Prophet” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.