The play Oedipus Rex was written by the Greek playwright Sophocles, who appears, from the limited available biographical evidence, to have been a conventionally pious man of his period. Both Sophocles and his audience would have believed in divination, the possibility of certain expert seers or oracles knowing the will of the gods and being able to interpret various signs to learn of things normally outside human knowledge.
Teiresias is a seer, dedicated to the service of Apollo, the god of prophecy. The gods have granted him the gift of prophecy, including a limited ability to see both past and future. Thus Oedipus asks him about the death of Laius because of his skill at prophecy. As Tiresias does, in fact, correctly identify the murderer, Oedipus was correct in asking him but misguided in not immediately believing his answer. In all of the plays in which he appears, Tiresias' answers to questions are always correct, although sometimes difficult to interpret at first.
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