• They held out the hope that life on earth could be
improved, that poverty and injustice need not be
accepted as part of an unalterable natural order.
• The prophets emphasized the individual’s
responsibility for his or her own actions.
• They indicated that the individual could not know God by
merely following edicts and performing rituals; the
individual must experience God.
• Precisely this I-Thou relationship could make the
individual fully conscious of self and could deepen and
enrich his or her own personality.