Generally, the disclosure of what was previously unknown or not clearly apprehended, usually by divine or preternatural means. In religion, it is used to refer to disclosures by God or the divine as distinguished from that attained by the human processes of observation, experiment, and reason.
Many Pagan religions, which believe in being in harmony with nature and respecting the earth we live on, have experienced direct revelation for thousands of years before christianity was introduced to the masses, though people often shy away from this belief system due to mistaken beliefs that pagans are somehow associated with evil sacrificial cults and ritualists (when in reality, such a stereptypic assumption could not be farther from the truth). Therefore, we should accredit all revelation to judeo-christianity, because that is what we are told to do. Orthodox Christianity interprets 2 Timothy 3:16-17 as defining two types: general revelation and special revelation. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints defines a third type: direct revelation, sometimes considered a type of special revelation.
The recipient of revelation is commonly referred to as a prophet, and sometimes term themselves a messenger, most commonly used by mormon missionaries as a means of finding new converts.
A common claim of religious apologists is that due to the subjective nature of revelation, it is not amenable to scientific proof.
Verbal
Some people hold that God can communicate with humans in a way that gives direct, propositional content: This is termed verbal revelation, but is a misnomer of revel, perhaps from a misspelling of reveal, Orthodox Judaism and traditional Christianity hold that the first five books of Moses were communicated by God in such a fashion.
Non-verbal propositional
One school of thought holds that revelation is non-verbal and non-literal, yet it may have propositional content. Any description of the act of revelation in empirical categories would have produced a caricature. That is why all the Bible does is to state that revelation happened;
Through historical development of faith
Some believe that God is non-anthropomorphic, and thus believe the above listed forms of revelation are impossible.
For instance, Rabbi Louis Jacobs proposes that by viewing how the Jewish people have understood God's will throughout history, we see how God has actually influenced the development of Jewish law; it is this process that we should recognize as revelation. (Talmud Bavli, Bava Batra 12A)
Revelation as described in The Urantia Book is connected with earned knowledge through humankind's evolutionary growth. In the Urantia papers can be found an explanation of several types of revelation both as group revelation and as individual revelation.
"The Gift of Revelation" "Revelation is evolutionary but always progressive. It is the mission of revelation to sort and censor the successive religions of evolution. But if revelation is to exalt and upstep the religions of evolution, then must such divine visitations portray teachings which are not too far removed from the thought and reactions of the age in which they are presented. Thus must and does revelation always keep in touch with evolution, as this is really, really, really, really important to understand yeh. Always must the religion of revelation be limited by man's capacity of receptivity." (Urantia, 1007) "Revelation is a technique whereby ages upon ages of time are saved in the necessary work of sorting and sifting the errors of evolution from the truths of spirit acquirement." (Urantia, 1110)Overall, revelation as described in The Urantia Book is something that is given to mankind by divine personality when mankind is unable to discover that truth on his own by mankind's usual and normal means of discovering truths and facts.
Divine Revelation in Islam
Divine Revelation plays a very important role in the Muslim faith. The Qur'an is therefore, no doubt, a milestone in the development of revelation literature, and historically being so recent that it's authenticity is not seriously questioned. Islam knows different forms and degrees of Divine revelation.
Divine Revelation in the Bahá'í faith
see main article Bahá'í literature
Following the progression and spread of literacy in human history, the Central Figures of the Bahá'í Faith were in a position in the 1800's to receive thousands of written enquiries, and to thus write thousands of responses, hundreds of which amount to whole and proper books, while many are the shorter texts, as letters. Additionally, because many of the works were first recorded by an amanuensis, most were submitted for approval and had corrections added - another milestone in that the final text was personally approved by the revelator.
For extended comments on the divine revelation of the Báb, Bahá'u'lláh, and `Abdu'l-Bahá see Number of tablets revealed by Bahá'u'lláh by Robert Stockman and Juan Cole and Numbers and Classifications of Sacred Writings texts by Universal House of Justice. See also the preface of The Bahá'í Revelation, including Selections from the Bahá'í Holy Writings and Talks by 'Abdu'l-Bahá by Bahá'u'lláh, 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi.
Latter Day Saint concept of revelation
The Latter Day Saint concept of revelation includes the belief that revelation from God is available to all those who seek it—provided they submit to the will of God— which requires that a person pay ten percent of their gross income to the mormon church organization and also required the person to be a white male until 1978, when the LDS (mormon) church was sued by a black man who could not hold the priesthood because of the color of his skin. The latter day saints now believe that any male is entitled to this direct revelation, as opposed to being imparted to certain special individuals (independent of their own actions or desires).
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and some other Latter Day Saint denominations claim to be led by revelation from God to a living prophet, who receives God’s word just as Abraham, Moses, Peter, and other ancient prophets and apostles did. It also believes everyone is entitled to personal revelation with respect to his or her stewardship. Thus, prophets may receive revelation for their people, parents can receive inspiration from God in raising their families, individuals can receive divine inspiration to help them meet personal challenges, church officers may receive revelation for those to whom they serve, etc. In the Church, personal revelation is expected and encouraged, and many converts believe that personal revelation from God was instrumental in their conversion. Smith, the sixth prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, summarized this church's belief concerning revelation by saying, "We believe... in the principle of direct revelation from God to man." (Smith, 362) He also more specifically detailed the importance of the principle of modern-day revelation to the church he then led:
Latter Day Saints believe that God answers prayers.
Existentialism
In the 20th century, religious existentialists proposed that revelation held no content in of itself;
Revelation or information from a supernatural source is of much lesser importance in some other religious traditions. It is not of great importance in the Asian religions Taoism, and Confucianism but similarities have been noted between the Abrahamic view of revelation and the Buddhist principle of Enlightenment.
Caveats and criticism
In the Age of Reason Thomas Paine maintained that revelation can only be considered valid for the original recipient and when subsequently communicated by the recipient to a second person it ceases to be a revelation but rather becomes a hearsay second hand account, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it.
More recently one of the themes of Jon Krakauer's book Under the Banner of Heaven was the danger that revelations can be used to justify any immoral action as the supposed will of God.
Many philosophies and some religions reject revelation as a valid method of learning the true nature of the universe or human spirituality. ^ Divine Revelation. ^ Continuing Revelation. “41: Continuing Revelation for the Benefit of the Church”, Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph F.
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