List of Famous Prophets
- Photo: Unknown author / Wikimedia Commons / Public domainJesus (c. 4 BC – c. AD 30 / 33), also referred to as Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus Christ, was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the central figure of Christianity. Most Christians believe he is the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited Messiah (Christ) prophesied in the Old Testament.Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically, although the quest for the historical Jesus has produced little agreement on the historical reliability of the Gospels and on how closely the Jesus portrayed in the Bible reflects the historical Jesus. Jesus was a Galilean Jew who was baptized by John the Baptist and began his own ministry. He preached orally and was often referred to as "rabbi". Jesus debated with fellow Jews on how to best follow God, engaged in healings, taught in parables and gathered followers. He was arrested and tried by the Jewish authorities, turned over to the Roman government, and crucified on the order of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect. After his death, his followers believed he rose from the dead, and the community they formed eventually became the early Church.Christian doctrines include the beliefs that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, was born of a virgin named Mary, performed miracles, founded the Christian Church, died by crucifixion as a sacrifice to achieve atonement for sin, rose from the dead, and ascended into Heaven, from where he will return. Most Christians believe Jesus enables people to be reconciled to God. The Nicene Creed asserts that Jesus will judge the living and the dead either before or after their bodily resurrection, an event tied to the Second Coming of Jesus in Christian eschatology. The great majority of Christians worship Jesus as the incarnation of God the Son, the second of three persons of the Trinity. A minority of Christian denominations reject Trinitarianism, wholly or partly, as non-scriptural. The birth of Jesus is celebrated annually on December 25 (or various dates in January by some eastern churches) as Christmas. His crucifixion is honored on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter. The widely used calendar era "AD", from the Latin anno Domini ("in the year of the Lord"), and the equivalent alternative "CE", are based on the approximate birthdate of Jesus.Jesus is also revered in non-Christian religions. In Islam, Jesus (commonly transliterated as Isa) is considered one of God's important prophets and the Messiah. Muslims believe Jesus was a bringer of scripture and was born of a virgin, but was not the son of God. The Quran states that Jesus never claimed divinity. Most Muslims do not believe that he was crucified, but that he was physically raised into Heaven by God. In contrast, Judaism rejects the belief that Jesus was the awaited Messiah, arguing that he did not fulfill Messianic prophecies, and was neither divine nor resurrected.
- Photo: flickr / CC0Paul the Apostle (Latin: Paulus; Greek: Παῦλος, romanized: Paulos; Coptic: ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; c. 5 – c. 64 or 67), commonly known as Saint Paul and also known by his Jewish name Saul of Tarsus (Hebrew: שאול התרסי, romanized: Sha'ūl ha-Tarsī; Greek: Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, romanized: Saũlos Tarseús), was an apostle (although not one of the Twelve Apostles) who taught the gospel of Christ to the first-century world. Paul is generally considered one of the most important figures of the Apostolic Age and in the mid-30s to the mid-50s AD he founded several churches in Asia Minor and Europe. He took advantage of his status as both a Jew and a Roman citizen to minister to both Jewish and Roman audiences. According to the New Testament book Acts of the Apostles (often simply called Acts), Paul was dedicated to persecuting the early disciples of Jesus in the area of Jerusalem prior to his conversion. In the narrative of Acts, Paul was traveling on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus on a mission to "arrest them and bring them back to Jerusalem" when the resurrected Jesus appeared to him in a great light. He was struck blind, but after three days his sight was restored by Ananias of Damascus and Paul began to preach that Jesus of Nazareth is the Jewish Messiah and the Son of God. Approximately half of the book of Acts deals with Paul's life and works. Thirteen of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament have traditionally been attributed to Paul. Seven of the Pauline epistles are undisputed by scholars as being authentic, with varying degrees of argument about the remainder. Pauline authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews is not asserted in the Epistle itself and was already doubted in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. It was almost unquestioningly accepted from the 5th to the 16th centuries that Paul was the author of Hebrews, but that view is now almost universally rejected by scholars. The other six are believed by some scholars to have come from followers writing in his name, using material from Paul's surviving letters and letters written by him that no longer survive. Other scholars argue that the idea of a pseudonymous author for the disputed epistles raises many problems.Today, Paul's epistles continue to be vital roots of the theology, worship and pastoral life in the Latin and Protestant traditions of the West, as well as the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox traditions of the East. Paul's influence on Christian thought and practice has been characterized as being as "profound as it is pervasive", among that of many other apostles and missionaries involved in the spread of the Christian faith. Martin Luther's interpretation of Paul's writings influenced Luther's doctrine of sola fide.More Paul the Apostle
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- Photo: user uploaded imageMuhammad (Arabic: مُحمّد, pronounced [muħammad]; c. 570 CE – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet, sent to present and confirm the monotheistic teachings preached previously by Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets. He is viewed as the final prophet of God in all the main branches of Islam, though some modern denominations diverge from this belief. Muhammad united Arabia into a single Muslim polity, with the Quran as well as his teachings and practices forming the basis of Islamic religious belief. He is referred to by many appellations, including Messenger of Allah, The Prophet Muhammad, Allah's Apostle, Last Prophet of Islam and others; there are also many variant spellings of Muhammad, such as Mohamet, Mahamad, Muhamad and many others. Born approximately 570 CE (Year of the Elephant) in the Arabian city of Mecca, Muhammad was orphaned at the age of six. He was raised under the care of his paternal grandfather Abd al-Muttalib, and upon his death, by his uncle Abu Talib. In later years he would periodically seclude himself in a mountain cave named Hira for several nights of prayer. When he was 40, Muhammad reported being visited by Gabriel in the cave, and receiving his first revelation from God. Three years later, in 610, Muhammad started preaching these revelations publicly, proclaiming that "God is One", that complete "submission" (islām) to God is the right way of life (dīn), and that he was a prophet and messenger of God, similar to the other prophets in Islam.The followers of Muhammad were initially few in number, and experienced hostility from Meccan polytheists. He sent some of his followers to Abyssinia in 615 to shield them from prosecution, before he and his followers migrated from Mecca to Medina (then known as Yathrib) in 622. This event, the Hijra, marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar, also known as the Hijri Calendar. In Medina, Muhammad united the tribes under the Constitution of Medina. In December 629, after eight years of intermittent fighting with Meccan tribes, Muhammad gathered an army of 10,000 Muslim converts and marched on the city of Mecca. The conquest went largely uncontested and Muhammad seized the city with little bloodshed. In 632, a few months after returning from the Farewell Pilgrimage, he fell ill and died. By the time of his death, most of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam.The revelations (each known as Ayah, lit. "Sign [of God]") which Muhammad reported receiving until his death form the verses of the Quran, regarded by Muslims as the verbatim "Word of God" and around which the religion is based. Besides the Quran, Muhammad's teachings and practices (sunnah), found in the Hadith and sira (biography) literature, are also upheld and used as sources of Islamic law (see Sharia).More Muhammad
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- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainMichel de Nostredame (depending on the source, 14 or 21 December 1503 – 1 or 2 July 1566), usually Latinised as Nostradamus, was a French astrologer, physician and reputed seer, who is best known for his book Les Prophéties, a collection of 942 poetic quatrains allegedly predicting future events. The book was first published in 1555 and has rarely been out of print since his death. Nostradamus's family was originally Jewish, but had converted to Catholicism before he was born. He studied at the University of Avignon, but was forced to leave after just over a year when the university closed due to an outbreak of the plague. He worked as an apothecary for several years before entering the University of Montpellier, hoping to earn a doctorate, but was almost immediately expelled after his work as an apothecary (a manual trade forbidden by university statutes) was discovered. He first married in 1531, but his wife and two children died in 1534 during another plague outbreak. He fought alongside doctors against the plague before remarrying to Anne Ponsarde, who bore him six children. He wrote an almanac for 1550 and, as a result of its success, continued writing them for future years as he began working as an astrologer for various wealthy patrons. Catherine de' Medici became one of his foremost supporters. His Les Prophéties, published in 1555, relied heavily on historical and literary precedent, and initially received mixed reception. He suffered from severe gout toward the end of his life, which eventually developed into edema. He died on 2 July 1566. Many popular authors have retold apocryphal legends about his life. In the years since the publication of his Les Prophéties, Nostradamus has attracted a large number of supporters, who, along with much of the popular press, credit him with having accurately predicted many major world events. Most academic sources reject the notion that Nostradamus had any genuine supernatural prophetic abilities and maintain that the associations made between world events and Nostradamus's quatrains are the result of misinterpretations or mistranslations (sometimes deliberate). These academics argue that Nostradamus's predictions are characteristically vague, meaning they could be applied to virtually anything, and are useless for determining whether their author had any real prophetic powers. They also point out that English translations of his quatrains are almost always of extremely poor quality, based on later manuscripts, produced by authors with little knowledge of sixteenth-century French, and often deliberately mistranslated to make the prophecies fit whatever events the translator believed they were supposed to have predicted.More Nostradamus
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- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainMoses () was a prophet according to the teachings of the Abrahamic religions. Scholarly consensus sees Moses as a legendary figure and not a historical person, while retaining the possibility that a Moses-like figure existed.According to the Hebrew Bible, he was adopted by an Egyptian princess, and later in life became the leader of the Israelites and lawgiver, to whom the authorship of the Torah, or acquisition of the Torah from Heaven, is traditionally attributed. Also called Moshe Rabbenu in Hebrew (מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּנוּ, lit. "Moses our Teacher"), he is the most important prophet in Judaism. He is also an important prophet in Christianity, Islam, the Bahá'í Faith, and a number of other Abrahamic religions. According to the Book of Exodus, Moses was born in a time when his people, the Israelites, an enslaved minority, were increasing in numbers and the Egyptian Pharaoh was worried that they might ally themselves with Egypt's enemies. Moses' Hebrew mother, Jochebed, secretly hid him when the Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed in order to reduce the population of the Israelites. Through the Pharaoh's daughter (identified as Queen Bithia in the Midrash), the child was adopted as a foundling from the Nile river and grew up with the Egyptian royal family. After killing an Egyptian slavemaster (because the slavemaster was smiting a Hebrew), Moses fled across the Red Sea to Midian, where he encountered The Angel of the Lord, speaking to him from within a burning bush on Mount Horeb (which he regarded as the Mountain of God). God sent Moses back to Egypt to demand the release of the Israelites from slavery. Moses said that he could not speak eloquently, so God allowed Aaron, his brother, to become his spokesperson. After the Ten Plagues, Moses led the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, after which they based themselves at Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments. After 40 years of wandering in the desert, Moses died within sight of the Promised Land on Mount Nebo. Jerome gives 1592 BCE, and James Ussher 1571 BCE as Moses' birth year. In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses was called "the man of God".
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Noah
In Abrahamic religions, Noah ( NOH-ə) was the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs. His story is contained in the Hebrew Bible, in the Book of Genesis, chapters 5–9. The Genesis flood narrative is among the best-known stories of the Bible. Noah is also portrayed as "the first tiller of the soil" and the inventor of wine. According to the Genesis account, Noah labored faithfully to build the Ark at God's command, ultimately saving not only his own family, but mankind itself and all land animals, from extinction during the Flood. Afterwards, God made a covenant with him and promised never again to destroy all the earth's creatures with a flood. The flood narrative is followed by the story of the Curse of Ham. In addition to the Book of Genesis, Noah is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in the First Book of Chronicles, and the books of Tobit, Wisdom, Sirach, Isaiah, Ezekiel, 2 Esdras, 4 Maccabees; in the New Testament, he is mentioned in the gospels of Matthew, and Luke, the Epistle to the Hebrews, 1st Peter and 2nd Peter. Noah was the subject of much elaboration in the literature of later Abrahamic religions, including the Quran (Surahs 71, 7, 1, and 21).More Noah- Dig Deeper...Women in the Bible
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- Photo: Metaweb / GNU Free Documentation LicenseAbraham, originally Abram, is the common patriarch of the Abrahamic religions. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the covenant of the pieces, the special relationship between the Jewish people and God; in Christianity, he is the prototype of all believers, Jewish or Gentile; and in Islam he is seen as a link in the chain of prophets that begins with Adam and culminates in Muhammad.The narrative in the Book of Genesis revolves around the themes of posterity and land. Abraham is called by God to leave the house of his father Terah and settle in the land originally given to Canaan but which God now promises to Abraham and his progeny. Various candidates are put forward who might inherit the land after Abraham; and, while promises are made to Ishmael about founding a great nation, Isaac, Abraham's son by his half-sister Sarah, inherits God's promises to Abraham. Abraham purchases a tomb (the Cave of the Patriarchs) at Hebron to be Sarah's grave, thus establishing his right to the land; and, in the second generation, his heir Isaac is married to a woman from his own kin, thus ruling the Canaanites out of any inheritance. Abraham later marries Keturah and has six more sons; but, on his death, when he is buried beside Sarah, it is Isaac who receives "all Abraham's goods", while the other sons receive only "gifts" (Genesis 25:5–8).The Abraham story cannot be definitively related to any specific time, and it is widely agreed that the patriarchal age, along with the exodus and the period of the judges, is a late literary construct that does not relate to any period in actual history. A common hypothesis among scholars is that it was composed in the early Persian period (late 6th century BCE) as a result of tensions between Jewish landowners who had stayed in Judah during the Babylonian captivity and traced their right to the land through their "father Abraham", and the returning exiles who based their counter-claim on Moses and the Exodus tradition.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainJohn the Baptist (Hebrew: יוחנן המטביל Yokhanan HaMatbil, Ancient Greek: Ἰωάννης ὁ βαπτιστής, Iōánnēs ho baptistḗs or Ἰωάννης ὁ βαπτίζων, Iōánnēs ho baptízōn, Coptic: ⲓⲱⲁⲛⲛⲏⲥ ⲡⲓⲡⲣⲟⲇⲣⲟⲙⲟⲥ or ⲓⲱ̅ⲁ ⲡⲓⲣϥϯⲱⲙⲥ, Arabic: يوحنا المعمدان; late 1st century BC – 28–36 AD) was a Jewish itinerant preacher in the early first century AD. Other titles for John include John the Forerunner in Eastern Christianity, John the Immerser in some Baptist traditions and "the prophet John (Yaḥyā)" in Islam. He is sometimes alternatively called John the Baptizer.John the Baptist is mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus and revered as a major religious figure in Christianity, Islam, the Bahá'í Faith, and Mandaeism. He is called a prophet by all of these faiths, and is honored as a saint in many Christian traditions. According to the New Testament, John anticipated a messianic figure greater than himself and Christians commonly refer to John as the precursor or forerunner of Jesus, since John announces Jesus' coming. John is also identified as the spiritual successor of the prophet Elijah. According to the New Testament John the Baptist was Jesus Christ's cousin.Some scholars maintain that John was influenced by the semi-ascetic Essenes, who expected an apocalypse and practiced rituals corresponding strongly with baptism, although no direct evidence substantiates this. John used baptism as the central symbol or sacrament of his messianic movement. Most scholars agree that John baptized Jesus and some scholars believe Jesus was a follower or disciple of John. The New Testament texts in which John is mentioned portray him as rejecting this idea. Several New Testament accounts report that some of Jesus' early followers had previously been followers of John.John was sentenced to death and subsequently beheaded by Herod Antipas sometime between 28 and 36 AD after John rebuked him for divorcing his wife, Phasaelis, and unlawfully taking Herodias, the wife of his brother Herod Philip I.More John the Baptist
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- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainZechariah was a person in the Hebrew Bible and traditionally considered the author of the Book of Zechariah, the eleventh of the Twelve Minor Prophets. He was a prophet of the Kingdom of Judah, and, like the prophet Ezekiel, was of priestly extraction.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainJacob is considered a patriarch of the Israelites. According to the Book of Genesis, Jacob was the third Hebrew progenitor with whom God made a covenant. In the Hebrew Bible, he is the son of Isaac and Rebecca, the grandson of Abraham, Sarah and of Bethuel, and the younger twin brother of Esau. Jacob had twelve sons and at least one daughter, by his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and by their handmaidens Bilhah and Zilpah. His twelve sons became the "Tribes of Israel", and were first named in Genesis as: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. He also had one daughter, Dinah. Before the birth of Benjamin, Jacob is renamed Israel by God. Etymologically, it has been suggested that the name "Israel" comes from the Hebrew words לִשְׂרות and אֵל. Popular English translations typically reference the face off with God, ranging from active "wrestles with God" to passive "God contends", but various other meanings have also been suggested. Some commentators say the name comes from the verb śārar, thereby making the name mean "God rules" or "God judges"; or "the prince of God" or "El fights/struggles".
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainMirzā Ghulām Ahmad (13 February 1835 – 26 May 1908) was an Indian religious leader and the founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam. He claimed to have been divinely appointed as the promised Messiah and Mahdi—which is the metaphorical second-coming of Jesus (mathīl-iʿIsā), in fulfillment of Islam's latter day prophecies, as well as the Mujaddid (centennial reviver) of the 14th Islamic century.Born in 1835 to a prominent family in Qadian, Ghulam Ahmad emerged as a writer and debater for Islam. When he was just over forty years of age, his father died and around that time he believed that God began to communicate with him. In 1889, he took a pledge of allegiance from forty of his supporters at Ludhiana and formed a community of followers upon what he claimed was divine instruction, stipulating ten conditions of initiation, an event that marks the establishment of the Ahmadiyya movement. The mission of the movement, according to him, was the reinstatement of the absolute oneness of God, the revival of Islam through the moral reformation of society along Islamic ideals, and the global propagation of Islam in its pristine form. As opposed to the Christian and mainstream Islamic view of Jesus (or Isa), being alive in heaven to return towards the end of time, Ghulam Ahmad asserted that he had in fact survived crucifixion and died a natural death. He traveled extensively across the Punjab preaching his religious ideas and rallied support by combining a reformist programme with his personal revelations which he claimed to receive from God, attracting thereby substantial following within his lifetime as well as considerable hostility particularly from the Muslim Ulema. He is known to have engaged in numerous public debates and dialogues with Christian missionaries, Muslim scholars and Hindu revivalists. Ghulam Ahmad was a prolific author and wrote more than ninety books on various religious, theological and moral subjects between the publication of the first volume of Barahin-i-Ahmadiyya (The Proofs of Islam, his first major work) in 1880 and his death in May 1908. Many of his writings bear a polemical and apologetic tone in favour of Islam, seeking to establish its superiority as a religion through rational argumentation, often by articulating his own interpretations of Islamic teachings. He advocated a peaceful propagation of Islam and emphatically argued against the permissibility of military Jihad under circumstances prevailing in the present age. By the time of his death, he had gathered an estimated 400,000 followers, especially within the United Provinces, the Punjab and Sindh and had built a dynamic religious organisation with an executive body and its own printing press. After his death he was succeeded by his close companion Hakīm Noor-ud-Dīn who assumed the title of Khalīfatul Masīh (successor of the Messiah). Although Ghulam Ahmad is revered by Ahmadi Muslims as the promised Messiah and Imām Mahdi, Muhammad nevertheless remains the central figure in Ahmadiyya Islam. Ghulam Ahmad's claim to be a subordinate (ummati) prophet within Islam has remained a central point of controversy between his followers and mainstream Muslims, who believe Muhammad to be the last prophet.
- Gordon Bitner Hinckley (June 23, 1910 – January 27, 2008) was an American religious leader and author who served as the 15th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from March 12, 1995, until his death. Considered a prophet, seer, and revelator by church members, Hinckley was the oldest person to preside over the church in its history.Hinckley's presidency was noted for the building of temples, with more than half of existing temples being built under his leadership. He also oversaw the reconstruction of the Nauvoo Illinois Temple and the building of the 21,000 seat Conference Center. During his tenure, "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" was issued and the Perpetual Education Fund was established. At the time of his death, approximately one-third of the church's membership had joined the church under Hinckley's leadership. Hinckley was awarded ten honorary doctorate degrees, and in 2004, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush. Hinckley also received the Boy Scouts of America's highest award, the Silver Buffalo, and served as chairman of the Church Boards of Trustees/Education. Hinckley died of natural causes on January 27, 2008. His wife, Marjorie Pay, died in 2004. He was succeeded as church president by Thomas S. Monson, who had served as his first counselor in the First Presidency, and, more importantly, was the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; therefore, according to LDS doctrine and practice, Monson was Hinckley's anticipated successor.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainMiriam (מִרְיָם Mir-yām) is described in the Hebrew Bible as the daughter of Amram and Jochebed, and the sister of Moses and Aaron. She was a prophetess and first appears in the Book of Exodus. The Torah refers to her as "Miriam the Prophetess" and the Talmud names her as one of the seven major female prophets of Israel. Scripture describes her alongside of Moses and Aaron as delivering the Jews from exile in Egypt: "For I brought you up out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam". According to the Midrash, just as Moses led the men out of Egypt and taught them Torah, so too Miriam led the women and taught them Torah.
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David
David (Hebrew: דָּוִד) is described in the Hebrew Bible as the third king of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah, after Ishbaal. In the biblical narrative, David is a young shepherd who gains fame first as a musician and later by killing the enemy champion Goliath. He becomes a favorite of King Saul and a close friend of Saul's son Jonathan. Worried that David is trying to take his throne, Saul turns on David. After Saul and Jonathan are killed in battle, David is anointed as King. David conquers Jerusalem, taking the Ark of the Covenant into the city, and establishing the kingdom founded by Saul. As king, David commits adultery with Bathsheba, leading him to arrange the death of her husband Uriah the Hittite. Because of this sin, God denies David the opportunity to build the temple, and his son Absalom tries to overthrow him. David flees Jerusalem during Absalom's rebellion, but after Absalom's death he returns to the city to rule Israel. Before his peaceful death, he chooses his son Solomon as successor. He is honored in the prophetic literature as an ideal king and the forefather of a future Messiah, and many psalms are ascribed to him. Historians of the Ancient Near East agree that David probably existed around 1000 BCE, but that there is little that can be said about him as a historical figure. It was initially thought that there were no evidence outside of the Bible concerning David, but the Tel Dan Stele, an inscribed stone erected by a king of Damascus in the late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE to commemorate his victory over two enemy kings, contains the phrase in Hebrew: ביתדוד, bytdwd, which most scholars translate as "House of David". Ancient Near East historians generally doubt that the united monarchy as described in the Bible existed. David is richly represented in post-biblical Jewish written and oral tradition, and is discussed in the New Testament. Early Christians interpreted the life of Jesus in light of the references to the Messiah and to David; Jesus is described as being descended from David. David is discussed in the Quran and figures in Islamic oral and written tradition as well. The biblical character of David has inspired many interpretations in art and literature over centuries.More David- #691 of 752 onThe Greatest Minds of All Time
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- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / CC-BYThomas Spencer Monson (August 21, 1927 – January 2, 2018) was an American religious leader, author, and the 16th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). As president, he was considered by adherents of the religion to be a "prophet, seer, and revelator." Monson's early career was as a manager at the Deseret News, a Utah newspaper owned by the LDS Church. He spent most of his life engaged in various church leadership positions and public service. Monson was ordained an LDS apostle at age 36, served in the First Presidency under three church presidents, and was the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from March 12, 1995, until he became President of the Church on February 3, 2008. He succeeded Gordon B. Hinckley as church president.Monson received four honorary doctorate degrees, as well as the Boy Scouts of America's Silver Buffalo and the World Organization of the Scout Movement's Bronze Wolf—both awards are the highest awards in each organization. He was a member of the National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America, the organization's governing body.Monson was chairman of the Boards of Trustees/Education of the Church Educational System, and Ronald Reagan appointed him to the U.S. President's Task Force for Private Sector Initiatives. He married Frances Beverly Monson (née Johnson) in the Salt Lake Temple in 1948, and together they raised their three children. Frances died on May 17, 2013.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainTemitope Balogun Joshua (born June 12, 1963), commonly referred to as T. B. Joshua, is a Nigerian pastor, televangelist and philanthropist. He is the leader and founder of The Synagogue, Church of All Nations (SCOAN), a Christian organisation that runs the Emmanuel TV television station from Lagos. Joshua is known for his popularity across Africa and Latin America and his social media presence with 3,500,000 fans on Facebook. His YouTube channel, Emmanuel TV, has over 1,000,000 YouTube subscribers and is the world’s most viewed Christian ministry on the platform. Described as the "Oprah of evangelism" and "YouTube's most popular Pastor", Emmanuel TV is among the world's largest Christian television networksHe has been awarded various accolades, notably receiving the Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) by the Nigerian government in 2008 and being voted the Yoruba man of the decade by Pan-Yoruba media outlet Irohin-Odua. He has been called one of Africa's 50 most influential people by Pan-African magazines The Africa Report and New African MagazineAs of 2011, according to Forbes, Joshua was Nigeria's third-richest pastor, although the claim was immediately denied in a statement by the church. He is known to be controversial, and was even 'blacklisted' by the government of Cameroon in 2010.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB)Jeffrey Don Lundgren (May 3, 1950 – October 24, 2006) was an American self-proclaimed prophet and mass murderer, who on April 17, 1989, killed 5 people in Kirtland, Ohio. Lundgren led a Latter Day Saint movement-based cult in Kirtland where he and several of his followers murdered the Avery family, fellow members of his cult, for which he was convicted and sentenced to death. Lundgren was executed in 2006.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainAccording to the Hebrew Bible, Phinehas or Phineas (; Hebrew: פִּנְחָס, Modern: Pinəḥas, Tiberian: Pineḥās) was a priest during the Israelites’ Exodus journey. The grandson of Aaron and son of Eleazar, the High Priests (Exodus 6:25), he distinguished himself as a youth at Shittim with his zeal against the heresy of Peor. Displeased with the immorality with which the Moabites and Midianites had successfully tempted the Israelites (Numbers 25:1–9) to inter-marry and to worship Baal-peor, Phinehas personally executed an Israelite man and a Midianite woman while they were together in the man's tent, running a javelin or spear through the man and the belly of the woman, bringing to an end the plague sent by God to punish the Israelites for sexually intermingling with the Midianites. Phinehas is commended for having stopped Israel's fall into idolatrous practices brought in by Midianite women, as well as for stopping the desecration of God's sanctuary. After the entry to the land of Israel and the death of his father, he was appointed the third High Priest of Israel, and served at the sanctuary of Bethel (Judges 20:28). The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates him as a saint on September 2.
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Daniel
Daniel is a masculine given name and a surname of Hebrew origin. It means, "God is my judge", and derives from two early biblical figures, primary among them Daniel from the Book of Daniel (see also "God is my strength" cf. Gabriel). It is a common given name for males, and is also used as a surname. It is also the basis for various derived given names and surnames. - Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainEdgar Cayce (; March 18, 1877 – January 3, 1945) was an American clairvoyant who answered questions on subjects as varied as healing, reincarnation, wars, Atlantis, and future events while allegedly asleep. A biographer gave him the nickname, The Sleeping Prophet. A nonprofit organization, the Association for Research and Enlightenment, was founded to facilitate the study of Cayce's work. Some consider him the true founder and a principal source of the most characteristic beliefs of the New Age movement.Cayce is also notable for his contributions to the notions of diet and health, particularly the issues of food combining, acid/alkaline diet, and the therapeutic use of food.
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Ezekiel
Ezekiel (; Hebrew: יְחֶזְקֵאל Y'ḥezqēl [jəħɛzˈqēl]) is the central protagonist of the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Ezekiel is acknowledged as a Hebrew prophet. In Judaism and Christianity, he is also viewed as the 6th-century BCE author of the Book of Ezekiel, which reveals prophecies regarding the destruction of Jerusalem, the restoration to the land of Israel, and what some call the Millennial Temple (or Third Temple) visions. The name Ezekiel means 'God's Strength'. - Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainBarnabas (; Greek: Βαρνάβας), born Joseph, was according to tradition an early Christian, one of the prominent Christian disciples in Jerusalem. According to Acts 4:36, Barnabas was a Cypriot Jew. Named an apostle in Acts 14:14, he and Paul the Apostle undertook missionary journeys together and defended Gentile converts against the Judaizers. They traveled together making more converts (c. 45–47), and participated in the Council of Jerusalem (c. 50). Barnabas and Paul successfully evangelized among the "God-fearing" Gentiles who attended synagogues in various Hellenized cities of Anatolia. Barnabas' story appears in the Acts of the Apostles, and Paul mentions him in some of his epistles. Tertullian named him as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, but this and other attributions are conjecture. Clement of Alexandria and some scholars have ascribed the Epistle of Barnabas to him, but his authorship is disputed. Although the date, place, and circumstances of his death are historically unverifiable, Christian tradition holds that Barnabas was martyred at Salamis, Cyprus, in 61 AD. He is traditionally identified as the founder of the Cypriot Orthodox Church. The feast day of Barnabas is celebrated on June 11. Barnabas is usually identified as the cousin of Mark the Evangelist on the basis of the term "anepsios" used in Colossians 4, which carries the connotation of "cousin." Some traditions hold that Aristobulus of Britannia, one of the Seventy Disciples, was the brother of Barnabas. Acts 11:24 describes Barnabas as "a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith".
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainIsaac is one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites, according to the biblical Book of Genesis. In the biblical narrative, he was the son of Abraham and Sarah, the father of Jacob, and grandfather of twelve tribes of Israel; his name means "he will laugh", reflecting when both Abraham and Sarah laughed in disbelief when told by God that they would have a child. He is the only patriarch whose name was not changed, and the only one who did not move out of Canaan. According to the narrative, he died when he was 180 years old, the longest-lived of the three.The story of Isaac is important in the Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Many modern scholars doubt the existence of figures from Genesis, including Isaac.Isaac (Arabic: إسحاق or إسحٰق Isḥāq) is recognized as a patriarch, prophet and messenger of God in Islam.
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Philip the Evangelist
Saint Philip the Evangelist (Greek: Φίλιππος, Philippos) appears several times in the Acts of the Apostles. He was one of the Seven chosen to care for the poor of the Christian community in Jerusalem (Acts 6). He preached and reportedly performed miracles in Samaria, and met and baptised an Ethiopian man, a eunuch, in Gaza, traditionally marking the start of the Ethiopian Church (Acts 8). Later, Philip lived in Caesarea Maritima with his four daughters who foretold, where he was visited by Paul the Apostle (Acts 21). - Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domain
Aaron
Aaron ( or ; Hebrew: אַהֲרֹן Ahärôn) was a prophet, high priest, and the brother of Moses in the Abrahamic religions. Knowledge of Aaron, along with his brother Moses, comes exclusively from religious texts, such as the Bible and Quran. The Hebrew Bible relates that, unlike Moses, who grew up in the Egyptian royal court, Aaron and his elder sister Miriam remained with their kinsmen in the eastern border-land of Egypt (Goshen). When Moses first confronted the Egyptian king about the Israelites, Aaron served as his brother's spokesman ("prophet") to the Pharaoh. Part of the Law (Torah) that Moses received from God at Sinai granted Aaron the priesthood for himself and his male descendants, and he became the first High Priest of the Israelites.Aaron died before the Israelites crossed the North Jordan river and he was buried on Mount Hor (Numbers 33:39; Deuteronomy 10:6 says he died and was buried at Moserah). Aaron is also mentioned in the New Testament of the Bible. - Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domain
Haggai
Haggai (; Hebrew: חַגַּי – Ḥaggay; Koine Greek: Ἀγγαῖος; Latin: Aggaeus) was a Hebrew prophet during the building of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and one of the twelve minor prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the author of the Book of Haggai. He is known for his prophecy in 520 BCE, commanding the Jews to rebuild the Temple. His name means "my holiday." He was the first of three post-exile prophets from the Neo-Babylonian Exile of the House of Judah (with Zechariah, his contemporary, and Malachi, who lived about one hundred years later), who belonged to the period of Jewish history which began after the return from captivity in Babylon. Scarcely anything is known of his personal history. He may have been one of the captives taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. He began God’s prophesy about sixteen years after the return of the Jews to Judah (ca. 520 BCE). The work of rebuilding the temple had been put to a stop through the intrigues of the Samaritans. After having been suspended for eighteen years, the work was resumed through the efforts of Haggai and Zechariah. They exhorted the people, which roused them from their lethargy, and induced them to take advantage of a change in the policy of the Persian government under Darius I. The name Haggai, with various vocalizations, is also found in the Book of Esther, as a eunuch servant of the Queen. - Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domain
John of Patmos
John of Patmos (also called John the Revelator, John the Divine or John the Theologian; Greek: Ἰωάννης ὁ Θεολόγος; Coptic: ⲓⲱⲁⲛⲛⲏⲥ) is the author named as John in the Book of Revelation, the apocalyptic text forming the final book of the New Testament. The text of Revelation states that John was on Patmos, a Greek island where, by most biblical historians, he is considered to be in exile as a result of anti-Christian persecution under the Roman emperor Domitian.Since the Roman era, Christians and historians have considered the Book of Revelation's writer to be John the Apostle (John the Evangelist), professed author of the Gospel of John. However, a minority of senior clerics and scholars, such as Eusebius (d. 339/340), recognise at least one further John as a companion of Jesus Christ, John the Presbyter "after an interval, placing him among others outside of the number of the apostles". Some Christian scholars since medieval times separate the disciple(s) from Revelation's writer, John the Divine. - Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domain
Joshua
Joshua () or Jehoshua (Hebrew: יְהוֹשֻׁעַ Yehoshuʿa) is the central figure in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Joshua. According to the books of Exodus, Numbers and Joshua, he was Moses' assistant and became the leader of the Israelite tribes after the death of Moses. His name was Hoshea (הוֹשֵׁעַ) the son of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim, but Moses called him Joshua (Numbers 13:16), the name by which he is commonly known. According to the Bible he was born in Egypt prior to the Exodus.According to the Hebrew Bible, Joshua was one of the twelve spies of Israel sent by Moses to explore the land of Canaan. In Numbers 13:1–16, and after the death of Moses, he led the Israelite tribes in the conquest of Canaan, and allocated the land to the tribes. According to biblical chronology, Joshua lived some time in the Bronze Age. According to Joshua 24:29, Joshua died at the age of 110. Joshua also holds a position of respect among Muslims. According to Islamic tradition, he was, along with Caleb, one of the two believing spies whom Moses had sent to spy the land of Canaan. Muslims also see Joshua as the leader of the Israelites following the death of Moses. Some Muslims also believe Joshua to be the "attendant" of Moses mentioned in the Quran before Moses meets Khidr. Joshua plays a role in Islamic literature with significant narration in the hadith. - Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domain
Jeremiah
Jeremiah, also called the "weeping prophet", was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament of Christian Bible). According to Jewish tradition, Jeremiah authored the Book of Jeremiah, the Books of Kings and the Book of Lamentations, with the assistance and under the editorship of Baruch ben Neriah, his scribe and disciple. In addition to detailing many statements attributed by Jeremiah to God, the book of Jeremiah goes into detail regarding physical actions taken by Jeremiah (e.g. the purchase of a field belonging to his uncle as a part of the right of redemption, Jer. 32:6-25) as well as actions which happen to him (e.g. imprisonment, Jer. 37:15-18, 38:6). Greater detail is known about Jeremiah's life than for that of any other prophet. In spite of such great detail, an opinion expressed is that no biography of him can be written, as there are few facts available.Judaism considers the Book of Jeremiah part of its canon, and regards Jeremiah as the second of the major prophets. Christianity and Islam also regard Jeremiah as a prophet, and he is respectively quoted in the New Testament and his narrative is given in Islamic tradition. - Photo: Voice of God Recordings
William M. Branham
William Marrion Branham (April 6, 1909 – December 24, 1965) was an American Christian minister and faith healer who initiated the post–World War II healing revival. He left a lasting impact on televangelism and the modern Charismatic movement and is recognized as the "principal architect of restorationist thought" for Charismatics by some Christian historians. At the time they were held, his inter-denominational meetings were the largest religious meetings ever held in some American cities. Branham was the first American deliverance minister to successfully campaign in Europe; his ministry reached global audiences with major campaigns held in North America, Europe, Africa, and India. Branham claimed to have received an angelic visitation on May 7, 1946, commissioning his worldwide ministry and launching his campaigning career in mid-1946. His fame spread rapidly as crowds were drawn to his stories of angelic visitations and reports of miracles happening at his meetings. His ministry spawned many emulators and set in motion the broader healing revival that later became the modern Charismatic movement. From 1955, Branham's campaigning and popularity began to decline as the Pentecostal churches began to withdraw their support from the healing campaigns for primarily financial reasons. By 1960, Branham transitioned into a teaching ministry. Unlike his contemporaries, who followed doctrinal teachings known as the Full Gospel tradition, Branham developed an alternate theology that was primarily a mixture of Calvinist and Arminian doctrines, and had a heavy focus on dispensationalism and Branham's own unique eschatological views. While widely accepting the restoration doctrine he espoused during the healing revival, his divergent post-revival teachings were deemed increasingly controversial by his Charismatic and Pentecostal contemporaries, who subsequently disavowed many of the doctrines as "revelatory madness". Many of his followers, however, accepted his sermons as oral scripture and refer to his teachings as The Message. In 1963, Branham preached a sermon in which he indicated he was a prophet with the anointing of Elijah, who had come to herald Christ's second coming. Despite Branham's objections, some followers of his teachings placed him at the center of a cult of personality during his final years. Branham claimed to have made over one million converts during his career. His teachings continue to be promoted through the William Branham Evangelistic Association, who reported in 2018 that about 2 million people receive their material. Branham died following a car accident in 1965.
