The True Vs The False Prophet

Deuteronomy 18:19-22 I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. 20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.” 21 You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?” 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.
 

Jeremiah 28:1-9 In the fifth month of that same year, the fourth year, early in the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, the prophet Hananiah son of Azzur, who was from Gibeon, said to me in the house of the Lord in the presence of the priests and all the people: 2 “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon. 3 Within two years I will bring back to this place all the articles of the Lord’s house that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon removed from here and took to Babylon. 4 I will also bring back to this place Jehoiachin[a] son of Jehoiakim king of Judah and all the other exiles from Judah who went to Babylon,’ declares the Lord, ‘for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.’” 5 Then the prophet Jeremiah replied to the prophet Hananiah before the priests and all the people who were standing in the house of the Lord. 6 He said, “Amen! May the Lord do so! May the Lord fulfill the words you have prophesied by bringing the articles of the Lord’s house and all the exiles back to this place from Babylon. 7 Nevertheless, listen to what I have to say in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people: 8 From early times the prophets who preceded you and me have prophesied war, disaster and plague against many countries and great kingdoms. 9 But the prophet who prophesies peace will be recognized as one truly sent by the Lord only if his prediction comes true.”
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 These two passages deal with an important issue in some parts of the Bible: who is the true prophet? The position of prophet was an amorphous one. There is some indication that the royal court had prophets who worked for it. The role of prophet was, at least sometimes, an official one, much like that of priest. But there were other people who became prophets through less official means. They simply had a call from God, and started to speak in his name. Amos is probably the most famous example (see: Amos 1:1-2) Problems arose because sometimes prophets' contradicted one another. The Jeremiah passage quoted above may be the most famous example of this. So how do we know the true prophet from the false prophet?

 Deuteronomy gives a fairly straightforward answer: if a prophet makes a prediction and it comes true, then that prophet is really speaking for God. If it does not come true, then he is not speaking for God. In point of fact, though, many prophets spend very little time actually talking about the future. Most of the prophets comment more on what is immediately going on around them, then making predictions about what is to come. Putting that aside, though, Deuteronomy gives us a simple and easy answer to the problem of true prophecy.

Interestingly enough, when Jeremiah wrestles with this question, the answer he gives is significantly different from the one given in Deuteronomy. The context for the passage is straightforward and clear, which is rare in the Book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah has been wearing a yoke like a dumb beast, to symbolize the success of Babylon over Judah, and the need for Judah to accept the burden of subjugation. But Hananiah breaks the yoke, and proclaims that God has told HIM that the lesser exile (which has already occurred by this point) will end early, and that Judah will not long be under Babylon's thumb. Jeremiah is taken aback. He says in essence "wow, the way you talk sounds just like the God I hear all the time. I hope you are right and I am wrong." Then Jeremiah takes up the issue of false verses true prophecy. He says that there are two kinds of prophets: prophets that tell you what you don't want to hear, and prophets that tell you what you want to hear. The Deuteronomy rule, that a prophecy must come true, only applies to prophets of good news. In other words, anyone who tells you what you don't want to hear, always speaks for God. But the person who says what you like to hear must be right, or they don't speak for God at all.

So what you have here, simply put, is a Biblical contradiction. Jeremiah and the Deuteronomy passage are inconsistent with each other. They cannot both be true. In the end, there are only a few ways to get around this. One is to prejudice the discussion by denying a straightforward reading of the Jeremiah text. But the text isn't hard to understand, anyone can read it and see what is being talked about. A second position, and one that I think has merit, is to see in the Bible an evolution of this doctrine or idea. Jeremiah could in essence be saying 'the Deuteronomy passage is right, but incomplete, yes a prophecy has to come true, but only for the prophet or peace, the prophet who brings moral discomfort always speaks for God, no matter what.' On this view, our understanding of God evolves as the Bible moves along. When Moses is speaking, he is speaking only what he has gleaned from God at that time. Jeremiah, who has the advantage of living among a people who have known God a lot longer, has a clearer view of God's message on the matter.

It would be like the connection between Newtonian and Einsteinian physics. Yes, in a sense, Einstein contradicted Newton. But in another sense, he was simply another evolutionary step along a path that began with Newton. It isn't like Newtonian physics has no validity any more, it is just incomplete.

Another more radical view, is that Deuteronomy, long held to be written by Moses, is actually a later reworking of words Moses actually said, and so it contains later reflection. Many Biblical scholars date Deuteronomy around 700 BC, and hold it to be just this kind of reworking. On this view, both Deuteronomy and Jeremiah are speaking about the same time period. Jeremiah is criticizing the Deuteronomic view as incomplete. They are two different reflections upon the implications of what God has revealed to the Israelite people. On this view, Deuteronomy and Jeremiah are arguing against one another, in a process of dialogue and critique. God reveals, man writes and reflects. These reflections are different. It then becomes incumbent on us to choose which view is more likely correct.

 Either the evolutionary view or the dialectic view may be right. The first has the "advantage" of kind of imposing one particular answer on us. It makes sense to choose in the direction of the later evolution of doctrine. Either way, the Jeremiah view makes the most sense to me. The prophets main role, as I read it, is to confront mankind with a God whose goodness so transcends our own, that all human goodness are but 'filthy rags' by comparison. It is to confront us with the reality of God, a reality before which we can only respond in the words of Job's contrition "God I have uttered things too wonderful for myself, that I understood not, and wherefore I abhor myself in dust, and ashes" (42:3,6). Any word that strikes us down, that cruses our ego, that threatens us with the Truth of what is Ultimately Real and Good, is a prophetic word for us. It is truth no matter the packaging. All other truths must be subject to the test of predictive efficacy. But those truths that bring us into contact with the reality of God point beyond the mere content of their prediction. They are the very substance of truth, not merely signposts on the path.