The book of Jeremiah brims with scathing denunciations of what it casts as “false prophecy.” Scholars have long sought to reconstruct the historical realities presumed to stand behind Jeremianic discourse about prophetic conflict. The study of inner-biblical interpretation provides a productive new lens through which to reassess the problem. The “false prophets” are best understood as Jeremiah’s imagined exegetical opponents—exegetical inventions and products of scribal inner-biblical interpretation. This new approach throws into sharper relief the richness and sophistication of the exegetical imagination in ancient Israel.
See also Prophetic Conflict and Scribal Culture: Ancient Exegetical Imagination in the Book of Jeremiah (De Gruyter, 2026).
By Olga Fabrikant-Burke
University of Cambridge
Ridley Hall, Cambridge
Tutor in Old Testament
August 2026
Introduction
The book of Jeremiah registers a persistent concern with the specter of false prophecy (Jeremiah 2:8, 26, 30; 4:9–10; 5:12–13, 30–31; 6:12–15 = 8:10–12; 8:1–3; 13:13; 14:10–16, 18; 20:1–6; 23:9–40; 26; 27–29; 32:32; 37:19). Although accusations against those deemed to be “false prophets” feature elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Deuteronomy 13:2–6; 18:15–22; Ezekiel 12:21–14:11; Micah 2:6–11; 3:5–8, 11), only in Jeremiah do we encounter such an intense, sustained focus on the issue.
For readers from antiquity to the present, the problem of false prophecy has been far from a niche or esoteric concern. Within the Hebrew Bible, prophets are, after all, conceptualized as mediating nothing less than divine knowledge to the human realm (Nissinen 2017). The threat of false prophecy has raised significant questions concerning the discernment of divine revelation, the nature of prophetic inspiration and authority, and the processes underlying canon formation. As a result, the identity of these prophetic figures, as well as the nature of the theological and ideological positions they represent, remains a contested issue in biblical scholarship today. Put simply: how are we to understand these “false prophets,” and what theological errors or ideological disagreements led to their designation as such?
Prophetic Conflict in Jeremiah
Many of the Jeremianic texts in question contain little more than brief references to prophets alongside other political and religious elites held responsible for the fate of the kingdom (e.g., Jeremiah 2:8, 26). On the other hand, some texts—such as Jeremiah 28 with its famous account of the duel between Jeremiah and Hananiah—provide richer, fuller portraits of Jeremiah’s opponents and their ideological and theological platforms.
Of particular interest in this connection are the speeches ascribed to some false prophets (Jeremiah 6:14; 14:13, 15; 23:17, 25; 27:9, 14, 16; 28:2–4, 10–11; 29:8, 26–28; 37:19). In other words, the Jeremianic tradition, intriguingly, goes to the trouble of detailing the words of the prophets it condemns. For example, Hananiah is portrayed as prophesying the breaking of the Babylonian yoke within two years (Jeremiah 28:2–4, 10–11; cf. Jeremiah 27). In vivid colors, we even see him launch a rival sign-act as he breaks the yoke on Jeremiah’s neck.
Older scholarship often discerned in these texts a rare window into the fraught socio-religious and political world of prophetic conflict in ancient Israel. As the Babylonian invasion drew nigh, the institution of prophecy was dissolving into chaos. These false prophets were treated as echoes of recoverable historical groups, whose ideological and theological perspectives scholars likewise attempted to reconstruct from the traces preserved in the text. According to one influential theory, Jeremiah’s opponents were associated with the cult and the pre-exilic tradition of the inviolability of Zion (e.g., Sisson 1986). By contrast, for Jeremiah, the idea of Zion’s inviolability was about to face a brutal reality check.
Thus, it is in the historical reality behind these texts that scholars have often looked for the answer to the question “Who are the false prophets?” This is not to say that Jeremianic discourse about prophetic conflict was counted as a straightforwardly reliable historical witness. Even so, there endured a widespread perception that these textual materials likely preserved reflections of real historical prophetic conflicts, albeit mediated through a fuzzy literary filter (e.g., Crenshaw 1971).
To be sure, not everyone agreed. In the judgment of Robert Carroll, the issue of the historicity of these texts was far from settled (1986). Instead, he construed at least some false prophets, including Hananiah, as literary vehicles for ideological moves in support of pro-Babylonian/pro-golah factions in the exilic and post-exilic periods. Hananiah, in other words, is a literary invention, colored by ideological concerns.
But these seemingly contrasting perspectives are, in fact, more closely aligned than they first appear. True, in Carroll’s more skeptical reading, prophetic conflict is a literary construct; yet, from his perspective, the underlying logic of these texts remains governed by extra-textual conflicts, albeit now located among partisan tradents who shaped and cultivated these traditions. Carroll thus remains situated within the dominant trajectory in scholarship that has interpreted the Jeremianic polemic against false prophecy as ultimately reflecting putative extra-textual conflicts of one hue or another.
In short, despite these and other scholarly efforts to identify the historical figures, groups, or theological movements that may have stood behind these texts, the “false prophets” have remained historically elusive.
Prophetic Conflict from an Inner-Biblical Perspective
The publication of Michael Fishbane’s landmark volume Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (1985) transformed the study of the ancient Jewish literary culture, exegetical practices, and modes of textual production, paving the way for fresh approaches to the Hebrew Bible. In his work, Fishbane showed the extent to which the development of the biblical corpus was shaped by ongoing processes of interpretation and reinterpretation—by the scribal reception and transformation of earlier literary traditions. Fishbane’s work has since generated sustained scholarly interest in what is now commonly termed inner-biblical interpretation.
In adjacent fields, renewed attention to scribal culture has shed fresh light on the activities of scribes in ancient Israel, reinforcing the recognition that they were not merely passive transmitters or stenographers of inherited literary traditions. Rather, scribes functioned as ancient scholars and active agents of interpretation who preserved, adapted, expanded, and reshaped earlier texts (e.g., Carr 2005, Van der Toorn 2007).
By these lights, the formation of the Hebrew Bible came about, at least in part, as the result of diverse scribal exegetical processes. Some of these processes were oriented toward extra-textual realities, reflecting the need to reinterpret, adapt, and extend inherited traditions in light of changing historical circumstances and communal life. In such cases, textual growth was driven by the pressures of new social, political, or religious circumstances and realities. At the same time, other forms of development were more strictly inner-textual in character. These arise from engagement with the textual realities themselves, as scribes seek to resolve ambiguities, address tensions, and clarify apparent inconsistencies within the inherited corpus. Crucially for our purposes here, the resulting expansions, revisions, and reinterpretations bear witness not only—and not primarily—to the influence of external circumstances, but to the operative role of inner-textual factors.
Michael Fishbane highlights this inner-textual orientation in some instances of ancient biblical interpretation, noting that “With the growth of exegesis, and its techniques, the context of exegesis is not only the juxtaposition of new life‐circumstances with older laws but also the scholarly study and comparison of texts (or received laws) in their own right” (1985: 153).
A striking example of this literary phenomenon may be found in 2 Chronicles 35:12–13, which describes the celebration of Passover during the reign of Josiah (Fishbane 1985: 135–36). The account states that the Passover offerings were prepared by “boiling in fire,” a description that appears to combine elements from two apparently conflicting legal traditions in Exodus 12:9 and Deuteronomy 16:7. The former stipulates that the Passover sacrifice should not be boiled but roasted in fire, whereas the latter instructs that it should be boiled. The formulation in 2 Chronicles 35:12–13 is, therefore, best understood as an exegetical attempt to negotiate and reconcile this internal tension within the inherited legal traditions. Rather than necessarily reflecting new historical circumstances, external ritual developments or the peculiarities of Israelite cuisine, the passage may represent a process of inner-textual interpretation, in which an interpreter sought to harmonize divergent scriptural instructions and preserve the coherence of the broader biblical corpus. Stated otherwise, the logic of this text is fundamentally oriented toward inner-textual rather than extra-textual realities.
In this way, the study of inner-biblical interpretation opens up new avenues for understanding Jeremianic discourse about false prophecy. It shifts the focus away from reconstructing the supposed historical realities of conflicts and disputes in ancient Israelite prophecy and instead redirects attention to scribal hermeneutics and the inner-textual dynamics at work in the formation of prophetic literature.
False Prophets as Imagined Exegetes
It is particularly the speeches attributed to the false prophets that come into sharper focus when viewed through this inner-biblical lens. These utterances emerge as strikingly rich in allusion, most notably in the case of Hananiah in Jeremiah 28. His prophetic pronouncements appear to draw directly on the language and themes of Jeremiah’s own oracles—among them, the salvation oracle in Jeremiah 30:8–9 (cf. esp. 28:10–11).
Jeremiah 30:8: “…I will break his yoke from off your neck…”
Jeremiah 28:11: “…I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, from the neck of all the nations within two years…”
Remarkably, close analysis of the literary relationship between these texts, including questions of literary dependence and directionality, suggests that Hananiah’s speech at this point is deliberately crafted on the basis of Jeremiah 30:8–9. By way of example, outside of these two texts, the combination of “break,” “yoke,” and “neck” appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. The question, therefore, is how we should account for the web of similarities that binds these texts together.
In the first instance, the presence of such textual links in the speeches attributed to Jeremiah’s opponents—Hananiah being only one example among many—raises the possibility that it is not extra-textual realities but rather processes of a distinctly inner-textual, exegetical nature that drove the creation of these texts. Recall Fishbane’s “…scholarly study and comparison of texts … in their own right” (1985: 153). This suggests a different account of prophetic conflict in Jeremiah from one that sees its origins primarily in real, historical socio-religious and ideological disputes and polemics. Rather than preserving memories of conflicts between prophets or later ideological groups, figures such as Hananiah may represent a deliberate exegetical construct. False prophets are a product of exegesis. Their prophetic voices are deliberately fashioned by their scribal authors.
Turning our attention to the details of Hananiah’s portrayal, we also find that he is, prima facie, presented as an exegete. Put simply, the false prophets are not only products of exegesis; they are themselves imagined as exegetes. Hananiah’s speeches are saturated with allusions to Jeremianic texts, and he is, accordingly, imagined as citing, reworking, and interpreting the Jeremianic tradition. Thus, within the imagined world of the book, Hananiah is portrayed as taking up a Jeremianic oracle of salvation but interpreting it falsely. The constructed figure of Hananiah thus serves as a literary embodiment of failed exegesis. His reading of the prophetic tradition is constructed only to be rejected. The book of Jeremiah stages a drama of interpretation.
Curiously, the exuberant interpretation attributed to Hananiah, though no doubt fanciful, is not entirely without basis. The very ambiguity of Jeremianic oracles creates space for competing readings and invites speculation concerning their precise interpretation. For example, the temporal expression “on that day” in Jeremiah 30:8–9 leaves open the question of when the promised restoration is to occur and could readily become the subject of divergent interpretations. Hananiah is imagined as exploiting such ambiguities to bring salvation radically forward.
What is more, the interpretation imputed to Hananiah arises not simply from the ambiguity of Jeremiah 30:8–9, but also from the unresolved contradictions Jeremiah 30:8–9 creates with other texts within the Jeremianic corpus. The promise of liberation in Jeremiah 30:8–9, where the yoke is broken and removed, sits in an uneasy relationship with the oracle of Jeremiah 27, where Jeremiah places a yoke upon the nations’ necks and commands submission to Babylon as the divinely ordained course of events. The two texts employ strikingly similar language and imagery, yet they forecast opposing outcomes. Such tensions, too, create precisely the kind of interpretive space in which competing readings could emerge.
Thus, within the narrative world of Jeremiah, Hananiah is imagined as exegetically opposing the judgment prophesied in Jeremiah 27. To defend his subversive exegetical move, he seizes upon the promise of restoration in Jeremiah 30:8–9 and offers his own accelerated interpretation of it. In so doing, he effectively sets the salvation oracle of Jeremiah 30:8–9 on a collision course with the judgment articulated in Jeremiah 27. In his interpretation, the salvation oracle abrogates the judgment. His reading is ultimately presented as erroneous, but it is not invented from nothing; it has its roots in the tensions and possibilities genuinely present within the Jeremianic tradition.
(Mis)Interpreting Jeremiah
Today, of course, readers do not necessarily perceive the tensions between Jeremiah 30:8–9 and Jeremiah 27 with the same immediacy as the literary world of Jeremiah presents them. One might reasonably observe that Jeremiah 30:8–9 concerns a distant future, whereas Jeremiah 27 addresses the immediate political reality of Babylonian domination. Yet this temporal distinction, self-evident to us, is precisely what the Hananiah episode was designed to establish. It is, in part, through the figure of Hananiah that these tensions were managed and rendered less visible to later readers. Hananiah’s false exegesis provides an exegetical foil for understanding the Jeremianic tradition.
It is instructive that the Hananiah episode, for example, appears in the immediate literary vicinity of the judgment prophecy in Jeremiah 27. In this episode, the audience is effectively presented with an example of how not to interpret the judgment in Jeremiah 27—namely, by attempting to neutralize its force by pitting it against the promise of its reversal in Jeremiah 30:8–9. The Hananiah episode lays down a hermeneutical rule: judgment is neither overridden nor nullified by promises of salvation. Rather, the two must be held together without collapsing their distinct temporal and theological force. Any anti-judgment interpretations are thereby ruled out.
The narrative further draws attention to the temporal dimension of these texts. Viewed against the backdrop of Hananiah’s misinterpretation, the temporal horizon of Jeremiah 30:8–9 appears pushed decisively into the distant future, its fulfillment deferred rather than imminent. The episode, therefore, not only critiques a faulty reading but also guides the audience toward a more disciplined and temporally attentive interpretation of the Jeremianic tradition. Judgment must run its full course.
These observations begin to illuminate the broader function of discourse about false prophecy within the book of Jeremiah. Hananiah’s interpretations—and, more broadly, the speeches ascribed to false prophets throughout the book—serve as a hermeneutical guide for reading the Jeremianic tradition itself. By presenting “false” interpretations of Jeremiah’s words, the book teaches its readers how the Jeremianic tradition should be understood, especially how promises of salvation relate to oracles of judgment. The false prophet thus becomes an exegetical device through which the book stages and resolves certain ambiguities and tensions in its own interpretation.
False prophets, then, are best understood as imagined opponents, a familiar literary device across ancient literary cultures in which authors invoke implicit or explicit adversaries (Maston 2012). These are figures whose views are represented only to be corrected, refined, or rejected. These opponents are not necessarily historical interlocutors but rhetorical constructions that enable the author to stage debate, sharpen arguments, and guide the reader toward a preferred interpretation.
In a similar way, the false prophets in Jeremiah function as imagined exegetical rivals. The figure of the false prophet serves a distinctly exegetical purpose: to dramatize competing readings of the prophetic word, exposing interpretive errors and delineating the contours of a legitimate reading of the Jeremianic tradition. The achievement of Jeremianic discourse about false prophecy lies in its exploration of the interpretive challenge involved in holding together different strands of this complex prophetic tradition: oracles of salvation alongside oracles of judgment.
So, who are, then, the “false prophets” in Jeremiah? They are not echoes of historical conflicts or disputes. Rather, they are exegetical inventions; they owe their very existence to the enormously creative literary imagination of ancient Israel’s scribes. Through the creation of these enduringly fascinating figures, the scribes negotiated the meaning, coherence, and authority of the Jeremianic tradition.
Bibliography
Carr, David M. 2005. Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature. Oxford University Press.
Carroll, Robert P. 1986. Jeremiah: A Commentary. OTL. SCM Press.
Crenshaw, James L. 1971. Prophetic Conflict: Its Effect Upon Israelite Religion. BZAW 124. De Gruyter.
Fishbane, Michael. 1985. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. Clarendon Press.
Maston, Jason. 2012. “Rethinking Ben Sira’s Opponents: An Analysis of the Debate Passages.” In Earliest Christian History: History, Literature, and Theology. Essays from the Tyndale Fellowship in Honor of Martin Hengel, ed. Michael F. Bird and Jason Maston, 273–304. WUNT 2.320. Mohr Siebeck.
Nissinen, Martti. 2017. Ancient Prophecy: Near Eastern, Biblical, and Greek Perspectives. Oxford University Press.
Sisson, Jonathan Paige. 1986. “Jeremiah and the Jerusalem Conception of Peace.” JBL 105 (3): 429–42.
Toorn, Karel van der. 2007. Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible. Harvard University Press.