In the later books of the Old Testament, “dreams” frequently become synonymous with prophecy. Deuteronomy 13 speaks of those who “have dreams” as being potentially true or false prophets. Daniel 7 also speaks of the prophet of the same name having a dream of the coming of the kingdom of God (Dan 7:1).

Joel 2 describes the end times, when God’s Spirit will be poured out on all flesh. The effect of this outpouring will be that Israel’s young people will prophesy and their old men will dream dreams (Joel 2:28). In Acts 2 this same prophecy is explicated by Peter in his sermon on the first Pentecost and applied to the apostolic assembly’s public reception of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:17).

Scripture itself assumes that its message can be translated—unlike Islam, which has often taught that translation necessarily distorts the meaning of its holy book. The Greek text of the New Testament freely quotes the Old Testament text (originally in Hebrew or Aramaic) without any fear that translation from one language to another corrupts the meaning of the text. Sometimes God brings about a supernatural translation of the gospel, as in Acts 2, when Peter preaches to people of many languages on the day of Pentecost, or when believers are given the gift of tongues (1 Cor 12). These events indicate that God himself is concerned with the translation of his message into the languages of the peoples.