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"Halley's Bible Handbook" [with the King James Version] informs us that Elijah was one of the last of the "Oral" prophets; an "order of prophets": "...with schools..." [some refer to them as the "school of prophets, college of prophets, prophet college, etc.]

"...The priesthood had become quite degenerate, and contemporaneous with the organization of the Kingdom. Samuel, it seems, initiated these schools as a sort of moral check on both priests and kings.

"These Prophets functioned through a period of some 300 years before the time of the Prophets who wrote the closing 17 books of the Old Testament. They are called "Oral" Prophets, to distinguish them from the "Literary" Prophets who wrote the books.

"The leading "Oral" Prophets were: Samuel, organizer of the Kingdom; Nathan, adviser to David; Ahijah, adviser to Jeroboam; Elijah and Elisha, who led in the grand fight against Baalim."

(Halley's Bible Handbook: Classic Ed. - Prophets p.179)

So, while Elijah and others of the "schools of the prophets" during this period aren't credited with literary contributions to The Bible... they are written about throughout by the inspired "Literary" prophets who recounted their steps.

Yet, it was these "chroniclers" of the Old Testament who tell of "one writing of Elijah;" a letter, that appeared some 10 years AFTER a "whirlwind" whisked him away into the sky, never to be seen again. It was addressed to the son of one of the kings who was in Elijah's charge before he disappeared. The royal father and son had ruled "jointly" during Elijah's charge... and when the son [10 years later] ruled alone... quite errantly... after his father's death -- he received the "absentee" Elijah's shocking letter of rebuke and Judgment.

"...there came a writing to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of David thy father, Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah, but hast walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and hast made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring, like to the whoredoms of the house of Ahab, and also hast slain thy brethren of thy father's house, which were better than thyself: Behold, with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people, and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods: and thou shalt have great sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day." (II Chronicles 21:12-15)

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12y ago

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