Sinful Prophet Acts

A Prophet is?someone who has been called by God to give guidance to humanity. Someone mostly?human, who receives revelations from God. Obviously the gift of?Prophecy?does not include the one of omniscience.

The view that Prophets?and Messengers are infallible and protected against committing major sins, as opposed to minor ones, is held by most religious scholars, while others contend that they are fallible.

From Adam to living Prophets, God follows a pattern of guidance through them, …or does He not?

Insubordination

If we assume the?knowledgeable Adam?was the first Prophet, we see the couple had committed a sin by violating the expressed First Commandment of God, eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?(Genesis 3:3).

Incest

The Curse of Canaan (Leviticus 18:6–8), occurs in the context of Noah's drunkenness and is provoked by a shameful act perpetrated by Noah's son Ham, who “saw the nakedness of his father”. Influenced by Leviticus, perhaps readers of Genesis are to imagine that Ham committed incest with Noah, or even raped him. In any case, “seeing nakedness” appears to have sexual overtones.

Moreover, in (Deuteronomy 23:2–4) incest with a father’s wife is described as “uncovering the father’s skirt”. The nakedness Ham uncovered may have been that of his mother. If so, the curse of Canaan rather than Ham becomes somewhat more logical: Canaan can be understood as Ham’s progeny via his sexual liaison with this mother.

Lying

In (Genesis 20:1–4) Abraham travelled north and sojourned in Gerar 20 km south of Gaza, and 80 km southwest of Hebron. When he got there, he told the King, his wife Sarah was his sister and not his wife. This is the same lie he told when he was in Egypt. In both cases, Sarah was taken by another man to be his wife.

According to (Genesis 22:1–19) God commands Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. After Isaac is bound to an altar, a messenger from God stops Abraham before the sacrifice finishes, saying "now I know you fear God". Abraham looks up and sees a ram and sacrifices it instead of Isaac.

In the earliest layer of the Biblical text, controversially, Bible scholar Tzemah Yoreh believes, Isaac was not rescued by an angel at the last moment, but was in fact murdered by his father Abraham, as a sacrifice for God. One eye-opening hint at what he believes is the original story lies in (Genesis 22:22), whereby, in verse 8, Abraham and Isaac had walked up the mountain together, whereas, in verse 22, only Abraham returns.

Deception & Stealing

In the dream, God promises Jacob the same covenant he previously made with Abraham and Isaac. Jacob arrives at Laban's house, where he agrees to work for his uncle in exchange for the hand of Laban's daughter, Rachel, in marriage.?

Laban deceives Jacob into marrying the "weak-eyed" Leah, Rachel's older sister, before marrying the "ewe-lamb" Rachel. Jacob tricks Laban by?producing for him an abundance of "weaker" animals?(Genesis 30:41–43).

(Genesis 27:5–7) recounts the story of Jacob with the help of his mother Rebekah, tricking his blind father Isaac into giving him the patriarchal blessing instead of bestowing it on his older-by-mere-minutes twin brother Esau, who was the rightful heir. Discovering this duplicity, Esau then?swears that he will kill his brother after their father dies.

Adultery & Murder

David and Jonathan Saul’s queer son shared a closet relationship. The passage used to advance this allegation reads: “I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; you have been very pleasant to me; your love to me was wonderful, surpassing the love of women” (2 Samuel 1:25–26).

Merab, Saul's older daughter, was to have married David, but she was given in matrimony to Adriel the Meholathite. In (1 Samuel 18:17–27) we learn that Saul devised a plan to have David killed. So, he offered Michal another of his daughters for David to marry if he would kill one hundred Philistines.

Saul had hoped that David would be killed in battle, but he was victorious and married Michal. Despite the Biblical account, some Rabbis assert that David married both of Saul's daughters. So Saul sent men to his house to watch it and to kill him in the morning. But Michal warned him and he fled taking refuge at Ahimelech the Hittite (also called AHIA) a high Priest of the Nob sanctuary (1 Samuel 26:6).

No fear of God was left in?Saul's?heart. So he said “You kill them!” On that day 85 priests who were qualified to carry the ephod were killed. Saul also ordered all the other inhabitants of Nob, the city of Priests, to be put to death: men, women, children, babies, cattle, donkeys, and sheep — they were all killed. But Abiathar, one of Ahimelech's sons, escaped, and went on with David (1 Samuel 22:6-23).

Later-on in (2 Samuel 11:1–12:9) David committed adultery with a married woman called Bathsheba. She became pregnant, and when he discovered this, he called for her husband Uriah the Hittite, one of his mighty men (2 Samuel 23:39) and murdered him by proxy through ordering all of Uriah's comrades to abandon him in the midst of battle, so that he ended up getting killed by an opposing army. Following Uriah's death, David took Bathsheba as his eighth wife (2 Samuel 11:26–27).

Apostasy

Solomon had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines (1 Kings 11:1-8). His foreign wives led him exceedingly?astray, growing old, with divided loyalties, descent into idolatry, and?a propensity to turn away from God (1 Kings 11:30–34), as the heart of David his father had been. The sin of Solomon became the sin of Israel (ver. 33).

There are about 88 prophets featured or mentioned in the Bible. Of those, 63 are in the Old Testament and 25 are in the New Testament. Although only twenty-five are mentioned by name in the Holy Quran, a hadith (no. 21257 in Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal) mentions that there was (more or less) 124,000 Prophets in total throughout history. Other traditions place the number at 224,000…

Food for thought!