Jeremiah between Destruction and Exile: From Biblical to Post-Biblical Traditions

This article focuses on the affinities and divergences between the processes that the traditions about Jeremiah underwent within extra-biblical literature and those that occurred within the Hebrew Bible itself. The narratival frameworks of many of the pseudepigraphical stories about Jeremiah focus on the period following the destruction of the city and the traditions regarding Jeremiah’s fate in the wake of the destruction take a fluid form in post-biblical literature. Accordingly, the article deals particularly with the fate of the prophet by the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem; the traditions about Jeremiah in chains; the historization process linking Jeremiah and Gedaliah; the different geographical traditions regarding the location of Jeremiah after the exile; the development of the traditions regarding Jeremiah and his relation to Baruch; and the portraying of prophecy as needing preparation.