structural:summarization, stylistic:tone, structural:scholar_edition
Judaism

The Hebrew term for prophet, Navi (נבוא), literally means "spokesperson"; a prophet speaks to the people as a mouthpiece of their God, and to their god on behalf of the people. "The name prophet, from the Greek meaning "forespeaker" (πρὸ being used in the original local sense), is an equivalent of the Hebrew Navi, which signifies properly a delegate or mouthpiece of another."

Sigmund Mowinckel 's account of prophecy in ancient Israel distinguishes seers and prophets - both in their origins and in their functions:

According to Mowinckel, the early seer and the ecstatic prophet derived from two distinctly different social and institutional backgrounds. The seer belonged to the earliest stratum of Israelite society and was related to the priest who 'was not originally in the first instance a sacrificer, but as with the old Arabs, custodian of the sanctuary, oracle priest, "seer" and holder of the effective future-creating and future-interpreting word of power, the blessing and the curse.' Ecstatic prophecy - nebiism - and temple priests were indigenous to Canaanite culture and represented elements adopted by the Israelites. With the fusion of the functions of the seer-priest with the functions of the temple-sacrificial priests and ecstatic prophets, two main groups developed: the priests occupied with cult and sacrifice and the 'prophets' who 'continued the more "pneumatic" aspect of the character and work of the old "seers"' and 'were mediums of the divinely inspired "word" which was "whispered to" them, or "came to them"' The prophets retained, in guild fashion, the old seer relationship to the cult.

According to Judaism, authentic Nevuah (נבואה, "Prophecy") got withdrawn from the world after the destruction of the first Jerusalem Temple. Malachi is acknowledged to have been the last authentic prophet if one accepts the opinion that Nechemyah died in Babylon before 9th Tevet 3448 (313 BCE).

The Torah contains laws concerning the false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:2-6, 18:20-22). Prophets in Islam, like Lot, for example, are false prophets according to Jewish standards.

In the Torah, prophecy often consisted of a conditioned warning by their God of the consequences should the society, specific communities, or their leaders not adhere to the Torah's instructions in the time contemporary with the prophet's life. Prophecies sometimes included conditioned promises of blessing for obeying their god, and returning to behaviors and laws as written in the Torah. Conditioned-warning prophecies feature in all Jewish works of the Tanakh.

Notably Maimonides (1138–1204), philosophically suggested that there once were many levels of prophecy, from the highest (such as those experienced by Moses) to the lowest (where the individuals were able to apprehend the Divine Will, but not respond or even describe this experience to others, citing for example, Shem, Eber and most notably, Noah, who, in the biblical narrative, does not issue prophetic declarations).

Maimonides, in his philosophical work The Guide for the Perplexed, outlines twelve modes of prophecy from lesser to greater degree of clarity:

The Tanakh contains prophecies from various Hebrew prophets (55 in total) who communicated messages from God to the nation of Israel, and later to the population of Judea and elsewhere. Experience of prophecy in the Torah and the rest of Tanakh was not restricted to Jews. Nor was the prophetic experience restricted to the Hebrew language.