Book Introduction
"In the beginning," states the Holy Bible, "God created the heaven and the earth." Shortly after came plants, animals, and eventually man and woman. These latter were His pride and joy, for they were His children, and He began to teach them how He would like them to live. But mankind rebelled, and thus began the cyclical pattern of revelation and apostasy that would mark and mar God's dealings with His children throughout recorded history.
At the center of it all is the question of how one receives God's word. Although the Holy Bible contains God's revealed religion, His covenant and plan for man's redemption, and His commandments and instructions to humanity throughout the ages, convincing evidence suggests that other writings were also reliable sources. But living oracles, not writings, were the most valuable source of divine inspiration. For example, the early Christian bishop Papias wrote in approximately A.D. 140:
If ever someone who had accompanied the presbyters should come, I examined carefully the words of the presbyters, [to learn] what Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, John, Matthew, or any other of the disciples of the Lord said and what things Aristion and the presbyter John, disciples of the Lord, are saying. For I did not suppose the contents of books would profit me so much as the words and living voice. (quoted by Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 3.39.1, 3-4)
Using the Bible, selected Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha, the Dead Seas Scrolls, and the earliest Christian writings, Where Have All the Prophets Gone? is a study of man's response to prophecy in each dispensation. We witness that the righteous, typified by Abel, ultimately reject God, typified by the followers of Cain. We observe righteous Enoch gathering followers, leaving the wicked to be destroyed by the Flood when they reject Noah's final warning from God. The righteous seed of Noah eventually succumb to evil, build the Tower of Babel, and are scattered. The venerable line of Abraham through Ephraim is finally severed, because of Apostasy; Israel's consequent worship of Egypt's false gods results in its enslavement. Following Moses, Israel on numerous occasions turned its back on God, rejecting Him and His covenant, and were eventually conquered and scattered. Christ's fulfillment of the Law of Moses, the reestablishment of His Church on earth, and the apostolic ministry that followed were also rejected in time by succeeding Christian leaders and the membership at large, causing again the repetition of apostasy, as in each preceding dispensation.
The Reformation attempted to correct heretical teachings and end centuries of corruption; however, disunity and lack of authority prevented a full restoration of primitive Christianity. After the Age of Reason and the Great Awakening, the establishment of America and freedom of religion inspired another awakening and doctrinal reformation, including a proliferation of new Christian denominations and nineteenth-century restorationist movements. One such plausible claim of restoration is more fully examined as a possible answer to the promised gathering of Israel and the return of Jesus Christ to the earth.
Where Have All the Prophets Gone? documents in-depth just what the early Christians really believed about salvation and other core doctrines and then compares those findings with the teachings given through Old Testament patriarchs and with those purported to be restored through an American religion that claims ancient roots.
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