Were the Prophets of Christianity telling lies and half-truths?
I presume that some of the prophetic info said by the prophets and what is written of them, is determined by God(as in God is "forcing the hand"[and minds] of prophets and scribes etc. to actually give us accurate info from time to time.However,there were,and are times even today,when God allows the prophets and their writers of the prophecies, to tell lie and half-truths.What percentage is fact,fiction,half-truth and "faction" is hard to know.Bible quote from the prophet Jeremiah of the Old Testament :Jeremiah Chapter 8,verse 8.(Please see all these bible versions,New King James Version,NIV,Good News Bible,Youngs Literal Translation)"How can you say that you are wise and that you know my laws? Look, the laws have been changed by dishonest scribes."
There are also some concepts of this within Islam,please see Wikipedia entry called "Tahrif" and also "Criticism of Judaism" -Wikipedia entry,Islamic Criticism section..QUOTE from that entry here. Here in this quote there are criticisms of the prophet Ezra :"The character of Ezra, who was presumed to be the figure mentioned by the Qur'an (albeit with no corroborative evidence to suggest Ezra & Uzair to be the same person) became important in the works of the later Andalusian Muslim scholar Ibn Hazm who explicitly accused Ezra of being a liar and a heretic who falsified and added interpolations into the Biblical text. In his polemic against Judaism, Ibn Hazm provided a polemical list of what he considered "chronological and geographical inaccuracies and contradictions; theological impossibilities (anthropomorphic expressions, stories of fornication and whoredom, and the attributing of sins to prophets), as well as lack of reliable transmission (tawatur) of the text"'
So continuing, many Old Testament prophets were guilty of tellings lies and half-truths.But I also think the people who wrote the Gospels of the New Testament were guilty of this too. The New Testament writers themselves were guilty of "Tahrif" ,as well as many Catholic Popes, early Church Father ,and prophets of the Virgin Mary, like Sister Lucia of "Our Lady of Fatima" .I also think that Prophet Muhhamed himself (peace be upon him)was guilty of "Tahrif" .According to the Hadiths( please double check as I may have my facts wrong) ,Muhhamed was visited by the angel Gabriel or some other angelic creature.Some Christian writers and priests think this may have been a demon.It is stated that Muhhamed(peace be upon him) was choked by this angelic creature.Do God's angels choke and strangle their prophets- no.This does sound like something a demon would do though,and has been documented.There are other details I fail to remember.
However,God through Jesus has told me that the prophet Muhhamed himself (peace be upon him) was a true prophet ordained for that task by Almighty God.But he did not do what God told him to do half the time (in relation to this question).On this note,I also add ,it is also true that many Catholic Christian prophets themselves, of Muhhameds era were also guilty of not doing what God told them to do half the time.This is why God allowed Islam to become almost a competition of soughts, with Christianity.