Prophets of Christianity in the context of "Montanism"

Prophets in Islam (Arabic: ٱلْأَنْبِيَاء فِي ٱلْإِسْلَام, romanized: al-anbiyāʾ fī al-islām) are individuals in Islam who are believed to spread God's message on Earth and serve as models of ideal human behaviour. Some prophets are categorized as messengers (Arabic: رُسُل, romanized: rusul; sing. رَسُول, rasool), those who transmit divine revelation, most of them through the interaction of an angel. Muslims believe that many prophets existed, including many not mentioned in the Quran. The Quran states: "And for every community there is a messenger." Belief in the Islamic prophets is one of the six articles of the Islamic faith.

Muslims believe that the first prophet was also the first human being Adam, created by God. Many of the revelations delivered by the 48 prophets in Judaism and many prophets of Christianity are mentioned as such in the Quran with the Arabic versions of their names; for example, the Jewish Elisha is called Alyasa', Job is Ayyub, Jesus is 'Isa, etc. The Torah given to Moses (Musa) is called Tawrat, the Psalms given to David (Dawud) is the Zabur, the Gospel given to Jesus is Injil.

The prophetic books are a division of the Christian Bible, grouping 18 books (Catholic and Orthodox canon) or 17 books (Protestant canon, excluding Baruch) in the Old Testament. In terms of the Tanakh, it includes the Latter Prophets from the Nevi'im, with the addition of Lamentations (which in the Tanakh is one of the Five Megillot) and Daniel, both of which are included among the books of the Hebrew Ketuvim.

The prophetic books are named as such because prophets are traditionally attributed as authors. However, modern scholars think that the books as they have been handed down to the present time are the work of successive generations of writers who took their inspiration from the messages of these prophets. These authors were active between 750 BC and 450 BC. The first six of the books are known as the major prophets, while the last 12 are known as the minor prophets. These names do not imply that the major prophets are more important than the minor prophets, but refer to the major prophetic books being much longer than the minor ones. The books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel have 66, 52 and 48 chapters, respectively, while the minor prophets merely have 1 to 14 chapters per book.

Aniconism is the absence of material representations of the natural and supernatural world in various cultures. Most denominations of Christianity have not generally practiced aniconism, or the avoidance or prohibition of these types of images, even dating back to early Christian art and architecture. Those in the faith have generally had an active tradition of making artwork and Christian media; depicting God, Jesus, The Holy Spirit, religious figures including saints and prophets, and other aspects of theology like The Trinity and Manus Dei.

There have however been periods of aniconism in Christian history, notably during the controversy of the Byzantine iconoclasm of the eighth century, and following the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, when Calvinism in particular rejected all images in churches, and this practice continues today in some Reformed (Calvinist) churches, as well as some forms of fundamentalist Christianity. The Catholic Church has always defended the use of sacred images in churches, shrines, and homes, encouraging their veneration but condemning anyone who would worship them as if they were gods themselves.