Читать книгу Jeremiah 26-52 - Carolyn Sharp - Страница 12

Jeremiah 26–52 comprises, for the most part, Deutero-Jeremianic (Dtr-Jer) prose and later additions. In Christl Maier’s volume on Jer 1–25 in this series, the reader will find erudite discussion of theories on the provenance and redaction of the first half of the book, including poetic blocks of text such as those in Jer 2–6 and the laments of Jeremiah; she also makes important suggestions about some of the material in the second half of Jeremiah. Here I offer general remarks on the models for which scholars argue as regards the composition and redaction of Jeremiah. The poetry in the latter half of the book, viz., the Book of Consolation (chs. 30–31) and the OAN (chs. 46–51), will be given focused attention. Following is an outline of my own methodological convictions. I challenge what I see as weaknesses in overly precise hypothetical models reliant on chains of assumptions that may be plausible but cannot be definitively proved. Especially egregious is the assumption of co-temporality of a narrated practice or belief with the historical time of the scribe composing the text that reflects on that practice or belief. Praxis is fluid; different constituents within the same time period can disagree. Carol Meyers rightly points to a challenge for reading biblical texts as sources or reflections of historical periods: “Late priestly or Deuteronomic sources may sometimes encode practices that are centuries older and in other cases may prescribe new or narrowly practiced behaviors that subsequently became more widely observed.”¹⁸ Though her example is specific, her methodological caution is instructive for many kinds of diachronic argumentation regarding the growth of texts and the discursive practices and knowledge they enshrine.

Clarity about differences in methodological approaches is essential for students and other readers seeking to craft their own positions regarding the formation of Jeremiah.¹⁹ There is no doubt that the Jeremiah narratives and oracles, especially in the Masoretic tradition, underwent a lengthy process of growth. Further, it is transparently evident and a matter of scholarly consensus that when compared with Jer^LXX, as regards many (though certainly not all) variants, Jer^MT must be considered an expansionist edition. On this and related matters, the field-shaping work of Emanuel Tov is to be commended. Text criticism on Jeremiah owes an enormous debt to him, even as scholars have critiqued and nuanced his claims.²⁰ My translation has put into square brackets those terms that do not appear in Jer^LXX. I have relied in this regard on the excellent work of Karin Finsterbusch and Norbert Jacoby, MT-Jeremia und LXX-Jeremia 25–52: Synoptische Übersetzung und Analyse der Kommunikationsstruktur.²¹ Reading through their work and this translation, the novice unfamiliar with text criticism of Jeremiah will notice immediately that titles and other identifiers have been added in Jer^MT, including the identifier “the prophet” for Jeremiah. In Jer^LXX, the divine name Yhwh is often used standing alone (κύριος), though occasionally “the God of Israel” (ὁ θεὸς Ισραηλ) is present. By contrast, in the Hebrew tradition, to יהוה the scribes have regularly added “of Hosts” (צבאות), “the God of Israel” (אלהי ישראל), or most elaborately, “of Hosts, the God of Israel” (צבאות אלהי ישראל). In Jer^MT we see more occurrences of the titles “king of Judah” and “king of Babylon.” Family lineage names of individuals occur more commonly in the Hebrew textual tradition. Another type of addition found regularly in Jer^MT is the noun clause “saying of Yhwh” (נאם־יהוה). Considering supplementary MT expansions and other Jeremianic language in light of theories of dating of stages of Biblical Hebrew, Aaron Hornkohl argues that the book of Jeremiah “belongs to a transitional stratum of biblical literature that bridges the gap between the classical and late strata,” and further, that “use of late linguistic elements characterizes not only those parts of Jeremiah reflected exclusively in the Masoretic tradition, but the entire book.”²² Hornkohl concedes that “much more unites [Classical Biblical Hebrew] and [Late Biblical Hebrew] than separates them” and that distinguishing between them can be “a complicated enterprise.”²³ But affirming the value of a “clearly stated conclusion” as over against “hedged generalities,” he insists that linguistically, Jeremiah shows “admixtures of classical and post-classical tendencies that point … decisively to a shared linguistic background in the transitional period between CBH and LBH proper” and that the later MT expansions should likely be dated to “the early post-exilic period at the latest.”²⁴

Stipp argues that the MT expansions utilize postexilic linguistic elements, yet must have reached their final form before the Qumran Jeremiah texts were copied and before the redactor of Daniel 9 had used Jeremiah between 167 and 164 BCE. So the MT expansions were likely added in the fourth and third centuries.²⁵ Methodological cautions are offered by Andrew Shead, whose text-critical study of Jer 32 shows that Jer^LXX sometimes supplies its own expansions, for example adding “to Jeremiah” and Nebuchadrezzar’s title “king of Babylon” in 32:1 and reiterating the name “Shallum” (Σαλωμ) in 32:8. Jeremiah^LXX has lost text to haplography as well, though in Shead’s opinion, “never is there more than a single word added or omitted” in the LXX of Jer 32.²⁶ Shead says, “it would be rash to assume that translation policy is constant over the entire book” and, further, “what Jeremiah has to offer is a delight to the redaction critic and a frustration to the textual critic,” for “the recensional independence of M and G places the identity of their parent beyond the reach of text-critical method,” two points with which many scholars would agree.²⁷

­Qumran ­and ­beyond Six Jeremiah texts were found among the scrolls discovered in Caves 2 and 4 of the Qumran community at the Dead Sea: 2Q13, 4Q70, 4Q71 (designated 4QJer^b in earlier research), 4Q72 (known as 4QJer^c), 4Q72a (4QJer^d), and 4Q72b (4QJer^e).²⁸ Eibert Tigchelaar offers an overview of the contents as follows: 2Q13 comprises “parts of Jer 42–48”; 4Q70 comprises “parts of Jer 7–22”; 4Q71 is a fragment from Jer 9:22–10:21; 4Q72 comprises “parts of Jer 4–33”; 4Q72a is a fragment from Jer 43:2–10; and 4Q72b is a fragment from Jer 50:4–6.²⁹ Tigchelaar explains that three of these seem to represent a text type closer to Jer^LXX (4Q71, 4Q72a, and a fragment held in the private collection of Martin Schøyen), but other manuscripts “are not aligned exclusively to either the mt or the lxx text.”³⁰ Some fragmentary passages portray Jeremiah as exhorting the people to Torah observance, with the prophet located either in Tahpanhes, as in Jer 43, or in Babylon, as in Bar 1. Tigchelaar cites 4Q385a frag. 18 and 4Q389 1, known as the Apocryphon of Jeremiah C,³¹ and 4Q470, which is about Zedekiah.³² The relevant lines in 4Q385a 18 i describe Jeremiah accompanying Judean deportees to Babylon as far as “the river” and giving them instructions—presumably about covenant fidelity—as regards “what they should do in the land of [their] captivity.” The lines in 4Q385a 18 ii show Jeremiah refusing to intercede on behalf of the Judeans at Tahpanhes (cp. 7:16; 11:14; 14:11; 44:1–30) and lamenting over Jerusalem. These traditions are characterized by George Brooke as “a pluriform set of Jeremiah discourses to be set alongside those … assigned to Moses, Ezra, and David in Second Temple Judaism.”³³ Another such text is the Letter of Jeremiah, written in Greek circa 100 BCE; a fragment of this found in Qumran Cave 7 (7Q2) contains vv. 43–44.³⁴ The text is treated in the Vulgate as the sixth chapter of Baruch, an intertestamental work usually dated to the second or first century BCE that locates Baruch in Babylon among the diaspora Judeans. Baruch 1–5 has the scribe reading aloud a lengthy penitential prayer followed by wisdom poems. In the Letter of Jeremiah, the prophet addresses Judeans about to be forcibly taken to Babylon “because of the sins that [they] have committed before God” (v. 2); notably, the duration of Judeans’ time in the Babylonian diaspora is prophesied to be “seven generations,” considerably longer than the seventy years of Babylonian hegemony expected in Jer 25:11–12 and 29:10. Marie-Theres Wacker offers a feminist perspective on dimensions of this material that is relevant to my project here, both generally and as regards Jer 44:

Either women are completely missing and therefore subject to contradictory assignments of their place within the community (Bar), or they are used as shocking examples to demean the religion of the “others” (Ep Jer)…. I consider it crucial to be aware … that there might be specific failures of “fathers and rulers” (Bar 1:15–3:8)—and that fossilized structures themselves can lead to a pathology of power.³⁵

From the intertestamental period may be mentioned the other Baruch traditions: the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch), the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch), and the Paraleipomena Ieremiou (4 Baruch), regarding which, Jens Herzer dates the original Jewish text to 130 ce and Christian redaction of it to after the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–135.³⁶ In the Paraleipomena Jeremiou are fascinating extrabiblical traditions, including Jeremiah and Baruch watching the temple vessels be swallowed by the earth on the eve of the Babylonians’ capture of Jerusalem (3:8, 14); several extended narratives about Baruch and “Abimelech” the Ethiopian; Jeremiah being present with Judeans in Babylon to teach them (5:21), then returning with the people to Jerusalem (8:1–5); and the death of Jeremiah by stoning (9:1–32). Eva Mroczek notes that 4 Bar. 7:33–36 “quotes part of Ps 137 as sung by Jeremiah.”³⁷

­Rainer ­AlbertzRainer Albertz’s historical work Israel in Exile (2003) treats the formation of Jeremiah at length. Albertz summarizes developments in Jeremiah research with admirable clarity; his treatment may profitably be taken as a starting point for those needing a concise overview of the history of research.³⁸ Albertz considers the linguistic and redaction-critical work of Winfried Thiel to have proved a close relationship between the Deuteronomistic History (DtrH) and the late Jeremiah prose. Though he acknowledges that the Jeremiah traditions may have influenced the DtrH, concedes that “later redactors may have imitated the Deuteronomistic idiom,” and notes the “inflexibility of [Thiel’s] thesis” as an obstacle, he finds Thiel’s work—with some corrections—to provide a “relatively assured basis for further work.”³⁹ Albertz holds that several Deuteronomistic redactions were leveled through the Jeremiah text between 587 and 520 BCE. His JerD¹, dated to circa 550, comprises much, though not all, of Jer 1–25, presenting “the entire message of the prophet down to the fall of Jerusalem in 587.”⁴⁰ This first edition was “organized into four sections by four identical superscriptions” (7:1, 11:1, 21:1, and 25:1; the reader should be aware that other superscriptions, too, such as those at 35:1 and 40:1 attributed by Albertz to JerD², are identical); this stage included the laments of Jeremiah, and Albertz claims a major motif of JerD¹ is that “the attacks on the prophet made disaster inevitable…. They inserted question-and-answer catechisms in all four sections of their book (Jer 5:18–19; 9:11–15; [16:10–13]; 22:8–9) so as to teach even the most dense the reasons for their present misery.”⁴¹ Albertz says the JerD¹ redactors highlight opportunities to turn and repent as key to this edition, but as regards the crucial Jeremianic motif of Yhwh’s servants the prophets having been sent ceaselessly to Israel, he has to distribute the verbatim occurrences of that powerful idiom over two different editions, JerD¹ and JerD², which some may not find persuasive.

Per Albertz, JerD² should be dated to 545–540; those redactors added the call of the prophet in 1:4–10 + Jer 26; 27; 28; 29*; 35; 36; 37:1–43:7; 44; and 45. In this redaction, narratives and discourses focalize the praiseworthy interventions of Shaphanide supporters of Jeremiah and intensify the blaming of Jehoiakim, Zedekiah, officials, false prophets, and priests such as Pashhur. The JerD² scribes “were clearly taking a partisan position in the exilic conflict over who had been to blame,” a conflict that “became a struggle for legitimate leadership in the future.”⁴² That bitter and polemical dispute would have flared during the exilic period; readers should remain mindful, though, that the elaborate Dtr-Jer discourses shaped to emphasize allies and antagonists could have been crafted later than the exilic period as well.

Per Albertz, JerD³ is to be dated to 525–520; it comprises much of Jer 1–51 and “represents a large-scale revision and extension” of JerD².⁴³ This third redaction has added diverse materials, including chs. 30–31, 32, 34, and the OAN in 46–51. Albertz portrays this edition as “a mighty drama involving [Yhwh] and [Yhwh’s] people over a period of some one hundred years, including not only Israel’s neighbors but also the great powers Assyria, Egypt, and Babylonia,” the redaction constituting “an ambitious theological interpretation of history” as well as “a lesson concerning [Yhwh’s] faithful righteousness and Israel’s notorious perfidy, demonstrating how Israel repeatedly squandered the opportunities for salvation given by God,” and promising that Yhwh was ultimately a God of mercy who would “show Israel lovingkindness once more.”⁴⁴ Finally, late Dtr additions (fifth century BCE) and post-Dtr interpolations (fourth to third centuries BCE) were brought into the book, including a plethora of small groups of verses + Jer 24 and 52.

The redaction-critical approach remains regnant in wide swaths of Jeremiah scholarship, especially in Europe. Because this model is taken in some circles as the only authoritative mode of rigorous scholarship on Jeremiah, I find it imperative, as a feminist scholarly practice, to express my dissent as regards logical flaws in its ideological underpinnings. I perform this as a mode of resistance to the silencing of other approaches—especially those proposed by feminist, womanist, queer, and other contextually alert readings—and to clear space for newer ways of reading, something promoted as a major feature of this IECOT series. The following three examples should be taken as illustrative of vulnerabilities in redaction-critical analysis as a whole, not as critique of the excellent work of Albertz in any pointed way. Indeed, I applaud his erudition as exercised within the constraints of his chosen methodological approach.

– Albertz argues that “Jeremiah contains two conclusions, both bearing a clearly Deuteronomistic stamp (Jer 25:1–13abα*; 45:1–5),” and goes on to say, “This double ending argues for more than one Deuteronomistic redaction of the book.”⁴⁵ Yet the two passages cited need not be seen to function as “endings,” literarily or rhetorically, and even if they were seen to provide closure for the entire book, it is a huge leap in logic to suggest that therefore there were two entire redactions tied to those two endings.

– The “oracle against Jehoiachin and his descendants (22:29–30) probably presupposes his release from prison … in the year 562,” which yields a date for the first Dtr edition of Jeremiah “around 550.”⁴⁶ The only secure point as regards the poetic material against Jehoiachin in Jer 22 is that it was composed after he had been taken to Babylon (see 22:26–27) and likely after he had died. It could have been composed a few years later, as Albertz proposes, but it could have been composed many generations later as well. Albertz acknowledges that every redaction-critical schema is “burdened with several uncertainties.”⁴⁷ I would state that concession more robustly: such attempts, while erudite, are founded at many points—not just a few—on chains of conjecture.

– Linguistic expressions are taken by Albertz, expressly or tacitly, as markers of a redaction’s ideology or way of working with prior tradition. But those expressions also occur in other materials within Jeremiah that are attributed to different editorial hands. It is entirely reasonable to assume, as Albertz does, that there may be overlap or purposeful echoing of earlier traditions as subsequent circles of scribes continued to shape and amplify the Jeremiah traditions. Yet that very fact renders less certain the authoritative delimiting of strata, across blocks of material and down to verses and half-verses, that characterizes the redaction-critical methodology.

Many redaction-critical plans have been proposed to account for the formation of Jeremiah; scholarly debates concerning particulars of those schemata show no signs of abating. The interested reader could easily become immersed in a vast tide of scholarly works in recent years on the compositional history and organization of this biblical book.⁴⁸ Especially important in discussions of Jer 26–52 are focused studies by Hermann-Josef Stipp and Konrad Schmid. Also relevant is the position articulated by Mark Leuchter that Jeremiah was a “self-proclaimed Deuteronomist”:

We can no longer speak of the prophet Jeremiah as a thinker whose work was brought into the Deuteronomistic fold only by later redactors. Deuteronomistic thought permeates both the poetry and the prose, and formal differences should not necessarily be understood as evidence of different authorship. The prophet considered his own mission to be Deuteronomistic in the true sense of the word, developing Deuteronomy’s ideas as mandated in Deuteronomy 17–18 and following its patterns of discourse.⁴⁹

David Carr has offered astute methodological observations about the lively ferment regarding redactional and final-form readings of biblical prophetic literature. Commending historical analysis of the growth of complex biblical traditions as essential to biblical scholarship (I concur), Carr goes on to raise a query as to “whether one must always ground synchronic observations in specific diachronic theories about the growth of prophetic texts.”⁵⁰ Carr rightly confirms it is preferable for every interpreter to have considered diachronic issues than “to be unconsciously guided by implicit diachronic assumptions,” a mode operative in many circles of non-expert readers. I recall with delight the objection of a student in Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut, after a presentation I had made on the formation of Jeremiah as a complex book: “You say it was edited, but we believe the book was written entirely by the historical man Jeremiah.” The student associated faithful reading with the perspective that the book’s compositional history had to be monolithic, notwithstanding obvious signals of third-person narration about Jeremiah. The perspective of the student was understandable, though uninformed. I responded gently, seeing that much was at stake for him theologically regarding how he constructed Scriptural authority as related to authorship. This IECOT series offers the opportunity to engage readers of Jeremiah in that liminal space between compositional history and synchronic reading. The diachronic dimensions explored in this commentary are intended to enrich and deepen the understandings of all readers, including those whose primary hermeneutical commitments are theological.

Yet we ought not read everything in Jeremiah as generated by the diachronic prehistory of the text either. Suggesting “it may be time for more methodological modesty in ongoing diachronic work,” Carr underlines that readers must acknowledge multiple final forms of prophetic books such as Jeremiah, surrender the notion of “a unifying final redaction,” concede “the probable unreconstructability of significant parts of the tradition-historical process,” and claim the “heuristic value of seeing patterns in the present form of the text.”⁵¹ Precisely. Many arguments for redaction-critical schemata, including my own earlier work on Jeremiah, cite as evidence perceived patterns based on shared language and markers of shared or contested ideology. Those patterns are observable on many levels (as well as debatable, of course), and they are of value heuristically. But whether the arguments based on such perceived patterns can bear probative weight for historicist conclusions regarding precise dating of isolated texts or redactional layers, or even for relative relationships among scribal contexts over time, is a very different question. My answer there is closer to agnosticism than are the answers normatively given in circles in which the underlying logics of redaction-critical method are privileged. Synchronic studies, too, are vulnerable to weaknesses in their logics and should be probed and challenged. One reader might discern themes that they wish to frame as “organizing conceptual centers for otherwise divergent parts of a literary corpus,” as Carr notes, whereas another reader might foreground disruptive trajectories or anomalous notes as highly significant.⁵²