Prophecy, the foretelling of future events, has been an important part of virtually every religion since the beginning of recorded time.
    The ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Romans and Greeks all had prophets.  Prophecy could deal with major events such as the outcome of a war or such ordinary events such as when to plant certain crops.  Religious scripture is full of prophecy.  I am just going to cover a small part of it in this article and save the rest for future articles.
    Babylonian prophet, Haggai, convinced the people to build a temple by telling them the drought and famine was caused by God not being among them.  Babylonian oracles are often in the form of questions to the sun god Shamash and his answers. Hammurabi attributed his famous code to the "inspiration" of Shamash.
    In ancient Israel, the school of oracles or prophets was called the Nebiim.  Elisha, Amos and other old testament prophets were Nebi.
    In Egypt, oracles were common, but prophecy rare.  Oracles gave advice about the present, not warnings or predictions about the future.  Many believe, however, that there are prophecies hidden within the great pyramid.
    There were many prophets and oracles in ancient Rome.  Probably the most famous of them is the warning to Julius Caesar: "beware the ides of March"  by the seer Spurinna Vestritius.  Roman emperors and generals often consulted oracles before doing anything major.  They also consulted oracles and prophets when a royal birth occurred to determine the life of the baby.
    The ancient Greek oracles and prophets are well known.  The Sibylline Oracles  are attributed to seeresses who lived in the Greek colonies in the 8th century BC.  Even more famous is the Oracle at Delphi. Apollo was the Greek god or oracles any prophecy (among other things).  He was also the Greek sun god.

    Many people today think the idea of predicting the future is crazy.  Then they check the weather report and call their stock broker and financial adviser.