THE GURU AND THE HEBREW CONCEPT OF THE PROPHET
Keywords:
Guru, Hebrew, Prophet, Called, Confirmed, Charism, Counsellors, Mediators, Building, Uprooting, False GurusAbstract
" You must not be called ' master'; for you have one ' Master', and you are all brothers .,. Nor must you be called 'teacher'; for you have one' Teacher '_ the Messiah" (Mt 23, 8-10). These words of Christ elucidate the biblical concept of guru, the spiritual guide or master. The Bible knows only one guru, God. Human teachers are sent by him to act as his envoys. He provides them their identity as spiritual guides. They are commissioned to transmit or reveal his words to men, and thus guide the people in his path. Dt 18, 18 expresses this very well: "I (God) will put my words in his (prophet's) mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command him." These interpreters of the divine will had the function of mediators between God and man.
References
The Biblical concept of roeh strikingly corresponds to that of the Ancient Babylonian baru : see A. Halder, Associations of Cult Prophets Among the Ancient Semites (UppsaJa: 1945).
Antony Phillips, "The Ecstatic's Father ", Words and Meanings, edited by P. R. Ackroyd and B. Lindars (Cambridge: 1968), pp. 183-194.
J. Lindblom, Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Oxford: 1973), pp. 182-197.
Remi Lack, La Symbolique du Livre d'Isaie (AB 59) (Rome: 1973).
O. Fohrer, Die symbolischen Handlungen der Propheten (ATANT 25) (Zurich: 1953).
W. Bruggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Philadelphia: 1978).
R. P. Carroll, When Prophecy Failed (London: 1979), pp. 16-21.
C. Westermann of the " judgment "Oracles ; Grundformen prophetischer Rede (Mtmchen : 1971).
S. J. De Vries, Prophet Against Prophet (Michigan: 1979).
