Paper short abstract:

Prophecy reflects the way the semitic world in the Ancient Near East thought about political and religious order and the way gods communicated with the king. Prophetic texts consisted on a literary record of history and of interference of gods on political order.

Paper long abstract:

Prophecy is a phenomenon which is characteristic of Semitic religions in the ancient Near East, namely of Mesopotamia and Biblical Israel, reflecting a certain concept of divinity and its relationship and communication with man. We will study prophecy as an important part of these pre-classic religions, analysing its convergences and its specificities. The prophetic text is another dimension of the phenomenon. The literary dimension of oracle will have an important impact on prophetic literature production, a significant part of corpus and of theological structure of the so-called monotheistic religions.

Prophetism is an important feature concerning religions from ancient semitic world expressing man's anxiety toward his fate. Similarities between biblical prophecy and mesopotamian prophecies (Mari and Assyria) are obvious and we may consider a general phenomenon with common features. It is mainly communication between god and man and we must differenciate the oracle from the text with its teological characteristics and developments.

But prophecy is also a phenomenon that reflects an ideology and political thought. We are going to analyse the religious and political and ideological perspectives of prophecy in the ancient Near East.