ABSTRACT
The lack of prophets on the one hand and the prominence of prophetic texts on the other might be connected, though are by no means necessarily so. It would be unlikely that an inspired individual prophet would attribute his insights to ancient texts. In some cases the prophetic element is vestigial, amounting to little more than the suggestion that a prodigy was a threatening event. One would normally associate the lone prophet with inspiration, the group activity with knowledge, experience and rational interpretation. The distinction is in fact anything but absolute. first, the two traditions could perfectly well have coexisted within the activity of the same individual, let alone within the same society; secondly, the inspired prophet could well have generated texts that would be preserved as a record of his lore; and, thirdly, a claim for the legitimacy of a collection of sacred texts might be made by attributing them to ancient prophetic utterance.
