There is an
early and medieval Christian witness that the prophet Jeremiah prophesied of the Messiah's
preaching to the dead and such was deliberately removed by the Jews. Justin
Martyr wrote:
. . . And from the sayings of Jeremiah they
have cut out the following: ‘I [was] like a lamb that is brought to the
slaughter: they devised a device against me, saying, Come, let us lay on wood
on His bread, and let us blot Him out from the land of the living; and His name
shall no more be remembered.' And since this passage from the sayings of
Jeremiah is still written in some copies [of the Scriptures] in the synagogues
of the Jews (for it is only a short time since they were cut out), and since
from these words it is demonstrated that the Jews deliberated about the Christ
Himself, to crucify and put Him to death, He Himself is both declared to be led
as a sheep to the slaughter, as was predicted by Isaiah, and is here
represented as a harmless lamb; but being in a difficulty about them, they give
themselves over to blasphemy. And again, from the sayings of the same Jeremiah
these have been cut out: ‘The Lord God remembered His dead people of Israel who
lay in the graves; and He descended to preach to them His own salvation/
(Against Trypho 72)
Another
second-century Christian author, Irenaeus of Lyons, wrote:
Now in the last days, when the fulness of the
time of liberty had arrived, the Word Himself did by Himself "wash away
the filth of the daughters of Zion," when He washed the disciples' feet
with His own hands. For this is the end of the human race inheriting God; that
as in the beginning, by means of our first [parents], we were all brought into
bondage, by being made subject to death; so at last, by means of the New Man,
all who from the beginning [were His] disciples, having been cleansed and
washed from things pertaining to death, should come to the life of God. For He
who washed the feet of the disciples sanctified the entire body, and rendered
it clean. For this reason, too, He administered food to them in a recumbent
posture, indicating that those who were lying in the earth were they to whom He
came to impart life. As Jeremiah declares, "The holy Lord remembered His
dead Israel, who slept in the land of sepulture; and He descended to them to
make known to them His salvation, that they might be saved." For this
reason also were the eyes of the disciples weighed down when Christ's passion
was approaching; and when, in the first instance, the Lord found them sleeping,
He let it pass,--thus indicating the patience of God in regard to the state of
slumber in which men lay; but coming the second time, He aroused them, and made
them stand up, in token that His passion is the arousing of His sleeping
disciples, on whose account "He also descended into the lower parts of the
earth," to behold with His eyes the state of those who were resting from
their labours, in reference to whom He did also declare to the disciples:
"Many prophets and righteous men have desired to see and hear what ye do
see and hear." (Against Heresies, 4.22.1)
Earlier in his Against Heresies (3.20.4), Irenaeus attributed the same
prophecy to Isaiah:
Again, that it should
not be a mere man who should save us, nor [one] without flesh--for the angels
are without flesh--[the same prophet] announced, saying: "Neither an
elder, nor angel, but the Lord Himself will save them because He loves them,
and will spare them: He will Himself set them free." And that He should
Himself become very man, visible, when He should be the Word giving salvation,
Isaiah again says: "Behold, city of Zion: thine eyes shall see our
salvation." And that it was not a mere man who died for us, Isaiah says:
"And the holy Lord remembered His dead Israel, who had slept in the land
of sepulture; and He came down to preach His salvation to them, that He might
save them." And Amos (Micah) the prophet declares the same: "He will
turn again, and will have compassion upon us: He will destroy our iniquities,
and will cast our sins into the depths of the sea." And again, specifying
the place of His advent, he says: "The Lord hath spoken from Zion, and He
has uttered His voice from Jerusalem." And that it is from that region
which is towards the south of the inheritance of Judah that the Son of God
shall come, who is God, and who was from Bethlehem, where the Lord was born
[and] will send out His praise through all the earth, thus says the prophet
Habakkuk: "God shall come from the south, and the Holy One from Mount
Effrem. His power covered the heavens over, and the earth is full of His
praise. Before His face shall go forth the Word, and His feet shall advance in
the plains." Thus he indicates in clear terms that He is God, and that His
advent was [to take place] in Bethlehem, and from Mount Effrem which is towards
the south of the inheritance, and that [He is] man. For he says, "His feet
shall advance in the plains:" and this is an indication proper to man.
The thirteenth-century Syriac text, The
Book of the Bee written by the Nestorian bishop Solomon preserves an
earlier tradition of another non-biblical prophecy of Jeremiah:
This (prophet) during
his life said to the Egyptians, 'a child shall be born--that is the Messiah--of
a virgin, and He shall be laid in a crib, and He will shake and cast down the
idols.' from that time, and until Christ was born, the Egyptians used to set a
virgin and a baby in a crib, and to worship him, because of what Jeremiah said
to them, that He should be born in a crib. (Book
of the Bee, 32)
In the pseudepigraphic Lives of
the Prophets, we have a tradition of Jeremiah explicitly prophesying of the
Messiah:
Then Jeremiah gave a
sign to the priests of Egypt, that it was decreed that their idols would be
shaken and collapse [through a savior, a child born of a virgin, in a manger].
Wherefore even to this day they reverse a virgin giving birth and placing an
infant in a manger, they worship. And when Ptolemy the king inquired about the
cause, they said, “It is an ancestral mystery delivered to our fathers by a
holy prophet, and we are to await, he says, the consummation of his mystery.”
(Lives of the Prophets 2:8-10 [Old
Testament Pseudepigrapha 2:387-88])
Another Christian text, 4 Baruch (subtitled "The Things Omitted from
Jeremiah the Prophet") is relevant. The Ethiopic version of the work
attributes authorship to Baruch, the scribe of Jeremiah. In chapter 9, the text
has Jeremiah prophesying of Jesus Christ, his selection of twelve apostles, his
death and bodily resurrection after three days, and a glorious return to the
mount of Olives. As a result, according to the text, Jeremiah was stoned for
such a declaration:
And those who were with Jeremiah continued
for nine days rejoicing and offering up sacrifices for the people. 2 But
on the tenth (day) Jeremiah alone offered up a sacrifice. 3* And
he prayed a prayer, saying, “Holy, holy, holy, incense of the living trees,
true light that enlightens me until I am taken up to you; 4* for
your mercy I plead, for the sweet voice of the two seraphim I plead, for
another fragrant odor of incense. 5 And may Michael, the
archangel of righteousness who opens the gates for the righteous, be (the
object of) my attention until he leads the righteous in. 6 I
implore you. Almighty Lord of all
creation, unbegotten and incomprehensible, in whom all judgment was hidden
before these things existed.” 7 And as Jeremiah said these
things, while standing at the altar with Baruch and Abimelech, he became as one
of those who have given up their soul. 8 And Baruch and
Abimelech remained weeping and crying in a loud voice, “Woe to us, because our
father Jeremiah has left us; the priest of God has departed.” 9 And
all the people heard their weeping, and they all ran to them and saw Jeremiah
lying on the ground as though dead. 10 And they tore their
garments and put dust on their heads and wept bitterly. 11 And
after these things, they prepared themselves to bury him. 12 And
behold, there came a voice saying, “Do not bury one still living, for his soul
is coming into his body again.” 13 And because they heard the
voice, they did not bury him but remained in a circle around his tabernacle for
three days, saying, “At what hour is he going to rise?” 14* And
after three days, his soul came into his body and he lifted up his voice in the
midst of (them) all and said, “Glorify God with one voice! All (of you) glorify
God, and the Son of God who awakens us, Jesus Christ the light of all the
aeons, the inextinguishable lamp, the life of faith! 15 And
after these times there will be another four hundred and seventy-seven years,
and (then) he is coming to the earth. 16 And the tree of life
which is planted in the middle of Paradise will cause all the uncultivated
trees to bear fruit, and they will grow and sprout. 17* And the
trees that had (already) sprouted and boasted and said, ‘We raised our top to
the air,’ he will cause them to wither together with the loftiness of their
branches. And the firmly rooted tree will cause them to be judged! 18* And
what is scarlet will become as white as wool; the snow will be made black; the
sweet waters will become salty, and the salty sweet in the great light of the
joy of God. 19 And he will bless the islands that they may bear
fruit at the word of the mouth of his anointed one. 20* For he
will come! And he will go out and choose for himself twelve apostles, that they
may preach among the nations, he whom I have seen adorned by his father and
coming into the world on the Mount of Olives; and he will fill the hungry
souls.” 21* And as Jeremiah was saying these things about the
Son of God, that he is coming into the world, the people became angry and said,
“These (once) again are the words spoken by Isaiah the son of Amos, saying, ‘I
saw God and the son of God.’ 22* Come, therefore, and let us
not kill him by that (same) death, but let’s stone him with stones.” 23 Now,
Baruch and Abimelech were extremely grieved because they wanted to hear in full
the mysteries that he had seen. 24 But Jeremiah said to them,
“Be quiet and do not weep, for they will not kill me until I have described to
you everything that I saw.” 25 And he said to them, “Bring a
stone here to me.” 26 And he set it (up) and said, “Light of
the aeons, make this stone look just like me until I have described everything
I saw to Baruch and Abimelech.” 27 Then the stone, by the
command of God, took on the likeness of Jeremiah. 28 And they
were stoning the stone, thinking that it was Jeremiah. 29 But
Jeremiah delivered all the mysteries that he had seen to Baruch and Abimelech,
and then he simply stood in the midst of the people, desiring to bring his
stewardship to an end. 30 Then the stone cried out, saying, “O
stupid children of Israel, why do you stone me, thinking that I am Jeremiah?
Behold, Jeremiah stands in your midst!” 31* And when they saw
him, they immediately ran at him with many stones, and his stewardship was
fulfilled. 32 And Baruch and Abimelech came and buried him, and
they took the stone and put (it) on his tomb after inscribing (it) thus: “This
is the stone (that was) the ally of Jeremiah.” (Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:424-25)
Such texts support the Book of Mormon’s assertion that Jeremiah explicitly
prophesied of Jesus:
And now I would that
ye should know, that even since the days of Abraham there have been many
prophets that have testified these things; yea, behold, the prophet Zenos did
testify boldly; for the which he was slain. And behold, also Zenock, and also
Ezias, and also Isaiah, and Jeremiah, (Jeremiah being that same prophet who
testified of the destruction of Jerusalem) and now we know that Jerusalem was
destroyed according to the words of Jeremiah. O then why not the Son of God
come, according to his prophecy? (Helaman 8:19-20)
