2008与2009是多灾多难的两年，从去年5月的四川地震，今年3月份“甲型H1N1”的流感爆发，到现在朝鲜的战争警告，不知不觉，“预言”2个字开始频繁登入搜索排行榜的顶端，与之相关的是关于“2012”的“世界末日学说”。本周今日阅读栏目将给大家带来关于预言，玛雅和2012的相关文章。

　　声明：本文图片内容来自与互联网络，旨在调节视觉疲劳，如有版权问题，请致电告知。本文英文阅读文本内容来自于国外英文门户以及资讯资料网站，可能有超语法类的常用正确表达，请大家仔细审阅，注意甄别。

　　Prophecy

　　Prophecy describes the disclosing of information that is not known to the prophet by any ordinary means.In general, this can mean divine inspiration, revelation, or interpretation. More specifically, it can refer to professed psychic predictions.

　　The concept is found throughout the religions of the world. The term has found popular acceptance in two of the world’s largest religious groups, Christianity and Islam, along with many others.For claims of prophecy or contents of prophecies, see belief systems and religion topics at the end of the article.

　　Definitions of Prophecy

　　Rabbinic scholar Maimonides, suggested that "prophecy is, in truth and reality, an emanation sent forth by the Divine Being through the medium of the Active Intellect, in the first instance to man’s rational faculty, and then to his imaginative faculty."This closely relates to the definition by Al-Fârâbî who developed the theory of prophecy in Islam.The Catholic Encyclopedia defines prophecy as "understood in its strict sense, it means the foreknowledge of future events, though it may sometimes apply to past events of which there is no memory, and to present hidden things which cannot be known by the natural light of reason."From a skeptical point of view, there is a Latin maxim: prophecy written after the fact (vaticinium ex eventu)

　　Etymology

　　The English word "prophecy" (noun) in the sense of "function of a prophet" appeared in Europe from about 1225, from Old French profecie (12th century), and from Late Latin prophetia, Greek prophetia "gift of interpreting the will of the gods", from Greek prophetes (see prophet). The related meaning "thing spoken or written by a prophet" is from circa 1300, while the verb "to prophesy" is recorded by 1377.

　　One of the earliest recorded uses of the term "prophecy" is nevuah, and comes from Hebrew divrei nevuah "words of prophecy", and forms the name of a major subdivision of the Tanakh, the Nevi’im [??????], and means "a prediction", from the root "Nuv" meaning to bear fruit, or make flourish.This may relate to the nature of prophecy from the Jewish perspective where, in Rabbinic traditions, Ezra is metaphorically referred to as the "flowers that appear on the earth" signifying the springtime in the national history of Judaism.

　　来源：