1. The Gospels are full of passages in which the words, deeds and experiences of Jesus can be compared with those of Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha and Isaiah, and these resemblances would have been originally very obvious to Jewish readers who knew their Hebrew Bible or Greek Old Testament.

2. There are several passages in which Jesus is explicitly or by implication described as a prophet, or in which he himself implies that he is a prophet.

3. Jesus is repeatedly shown as having knowledge not obtained by ordinary means, and it is sometimes implied by the context that this is a sign of his prophethood, for example, Luke 7:4–50. In one passage, when the soldiers are mocking Jesus, he is derided as a claimant to prophethood in the words,

“Prophesy, who is it that smote thee?” (Luke 22:64)

4. He predicts future events, including the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE and the destruction of the Temple, in language reminiscent of the prophetic books of the Old Testament.

5. The Gospels and other books of the New Testament speak frequently of “the Holy Ghost”, “the Holy Spirit”, or “the Spirit”, and the Holy Spirit is clearly the mediator of divine communication to human beings. Jesus is described as being endowed with, or influenced by, the Holy Spirit, as are other sacred persons mentioned in the Gospels.

6. On certain occasions, a voice is heard by others conveying a divine communication to Jesus or to those around him.

7. Jesus himself states that his mission and message have been given him by God, for example, John 12:49–50.

8. Jesus thanks God for the fact that he reveals important truths to innocent individuals (“babes”) in preference to clever and learned ones, which can be interpreted as a reference to non–prophetic revelation to the pious. The higher status of Jesus himself suggests, by implication, a higher degree of revelation.

9. He promises revelation to his followers (Matthew 10:19–20, Luke 12:12), which implies a claim to being a recipient of revelation himself.

1. There is the episode of Jesus fasting in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights and his temptation by the devil, as reported in Matthew, chapter 4, verses 1 to 11. This shows that he needed to perform the same rigorous devotions as other prophets, and as other righteous persons, for his spiritual development. Jesus being hungry, when the devil asked him if he had the power to turn the stones around him into bread to eat, he gave his famous reply:

“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Matthew, 4:4).

This clearly shows that Jesus needed to follow revelation in order to have spiritual life. This revelation would both be the revealed law of Moses that Jesus was acting upon, and revelation received by Jesus himself.

2. When Jesus taught in the synagogue in his own country, people were astonished at the wisdom of his teachings and wondered

“where then did this man get all these things?”.

Jesus famously replied:

“A prophet is not without honour except in his own country” (Matthew, 13:57).

So he got his teachings from the same source as where a prophet gets his teachings from.

3. Regarding the Day of Judgment, Jesus said:

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only”. (Matthew, 24:36).

Even from just these words it is clear that Jesus had no knowledge of the hour of the Judgment. All he knew about it were the signs that God had revealed to him, which he mentions, but he knew no more. However, in some translations of the Bible there is also a footnote at this point to the effect that some manuscripts contain the additional words nor the Son, so that the wording is:

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but my Father only”.

The ‘English Standard Version’ translation of the Bible, published in 2001, incorporates the words nor the Son within the translation.