IIARD International Institute of Academic Research and Development

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL PRACTICE (IJRCP )

E-ISSN 2579-0501
P-ISSN 2695-219X
VOL. 9 NO. 1 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.56201/ijrcp.v9.no1.2024.pg65.76

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The Symbolist and The Symbolised: God’s Prophets as Symbols in the Dramatisation of Divine Messages

Olalekan F. OLATUNJI, Olumide J. OKI,

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Abstract

Biblical prophets have served a pivotal function in the process of communicating God’s divine messages to others to whom the messages are intended using various methods. Significantly, these prophets have had to live as dramatists who spontaneously act as symbols according to the script of an ultimate symbolist to present a dramatic enactment of divine messages with their lives before the prying eyes of a spectating audience. This study engages Maurice Maeterlinck’s ‘Emotional Symbolism’ as a theoretical framework. It examines prophets in the bible and the instances where they served as symbols in the hands of God while communicating God’s messages. This study examines the symbolisation of Prophets Ezekiel, Agabus, Hosea and Zechariah; significant samples, who functioned as symbols and actors while dramatising divine messages under God’s divine direction and supervision. It identifies the supremacy of God in using his prophets as symbols, especially in ways that look dramatic to ensure effective communication of the intended message. It also highlights how the prophets understudy functioned as symbols by tracing the divine instructions they were acting which forms the basis for the script, the entire story and their symbolisation as directed by the ultimate symbolist. Therefore, this study documents the laudable acts of biblical prophets as they offered themselves as actors, who functioned as symbols under the direction of the divine symbolist in the process of conveying divine messages and announcing the need for redemption to capture the attention of the audience to generate an emotional but effective response.

keywords:

Communication; Dramatisation; Prophets; Symbol; Symbolism

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