The previous chapter focused on the Scriptures as a figure that speaks of the instituted practice of writing as a constitutive element of any political community. What makes sacred Scriptures an exceptional type of writing is their prophetic character. This means that Scriptures unfolds figuratively in historical time, but also contains an idea of historical time. It is to this aspect that this chapter is devoted.

Every historical narrative is written in a present time – a now – which is not only pervaded by the past, but also looks towards something in the future. In fact, the act of writing historical narratives – the usual way of interpreting history, that is, of building history as such – is at the same time a way of shaping destiny. In this sense, historians seem to be like prophets. But can the historian achieve the future he or she imagines? The future cannot be master-built from the present. Nietzsche himself once said that ‘the past always speaks as an oracle’. In fact, past, present and future are intermingled in every twist of history in an enigmatic way that is structurally analogical to the representation of time in prophecy.

Prophetic Time: Historical Time from the Future

Prophetic literature is central to divine revelations. We find it not only in Israel, but in every ancient civilisation. The prophet is not a soothsayer, who interprets exterior signs; he is not a theologian, who interprets a given revelation. The prophet is the voice of God moved by his divine spirit to interpret the ‘signs of the times’. Certainly, prophets coexisted with the soothsayers and the augurs in ancient civilisations; but unlike them they did not try to initiate a course of action or to legitimise a situation. The role of prophets was rather to make a historical interpretation.

Prophetic history and human history are uncoupled from the point of view of their factuality and of their possible interpretations. However, from the point of view of meaning, they cannot be completely separated: first, because prophetical narratives imply a definite judgement of the events of history; and, secondly, because profane history can only expect a future to come, but not assure the future as prophetic history does.