The Polemics of Exile in Jeremiah 26-45

This book examines an important collection of texts in the book of Jeremiah.

Mark Leuchter (Author)

9780521879910, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 November 2007

336 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.66 kg

Review of the hardback: 'This book is well conceived, researched in detail, and carefully argued. Leuchter is largely traditional in refining the redactional features of the 'biography of Jeremiah,' and in demonstratnig its correlation with and impact on other scribal redactional efforts in the Second Temple. This book expands our possible understanding of the redactional history of Jeremiah, complicated of course by the shorter LXX text.' Leo Perdue, Texas Christian University

Scholars typically view Jeremiah 26-45 as a collection of episodes constructed during the Babylonian exile that attempts to prove the authenticity of Jeremiah's prophetic status. But Jeremiah's prophetic legitimacy was already widely accepted during the period of the Babylonian exile. These chapters serve a different purpose, namely, to provide a response by the Deuteronomistic scribes to the rise of the Ezekiel tradition and the Zadokite priesthood that threatened their influence among the exilic population. By subsuming their work within an existing and earlier collection of Jeremianic literature, the ideology and political agenda of the Deuteronomists was fused with the literary legacy of a widely respected prophet, giving rise to a larger literary collection that left a profound and lasting impression on Israel's intellectual and social history.

1. The hermeneutics of citation: Jeremiah 26
2. The identification of legitimate Israel: Jeremiah 26-32:15
Excursus 1. The redaction of Jeremiah 1-25:13+OAN
Excursus 2. The re-engagement of the royal line in Jeremiah 33:14-26
3. The standards of faith and intermediation: Jeremiah 34-36
4. The fall of Judah, the descent into Egypt, and Baruch ben Neriah: Jeremiah 37-45
Excursus 3. The 'words of Jeremiah' and Seraiah's colophon in the MT and LXX traditions
5. The polemics of exile
6. The exilic coalition between the Shaphanides and Levites.

Subject Areas: Judaism [HRJ], Biblical studies & exegesis [HRCG]