Jeremiah Archive
History of Modern Jeremiah Research
Twentieth century Jeremiah research went through two phases. The first was dominated by issues about the book's history of composition, and the relationship between the book and the historical figure of the prophet. The method was diachronic, focussed on the world behind the text.
Sources of the book
Mowinckel identified four sources in the book:
Later scholar debated issues about the book within the context of Mowinckel's source-critical analysis.
The Historical Jeremiah
One of the legacies of Duhm's research was the search for the historical Jeremiah. There was a wide spectrum of opinion about the historical Jeremiah, and what the book could reveal about him. At one end stands Holladay's Hermenia commentary, based on the premise that the book provides us with precise information about the prophet's life and ministry. At the other end is the OTL commentary of Carroll, who maintains we have access only to a Jeremiah constructed by the book's redactors.
A Shift in Approach
Towards the end of the twentieth century, Jeremiah research began to take different directions. There was a greater focus on the final form of the book, rather than on its redactional history. The long-dominant view that the book consisted of discreet unconnected parts lacking order was challenged by studies which put forward various proposals about its inner coherence and literary character.
Today there are neither one nor several dominant approaches to Jeremiah research, but a wide variety of differing interpretive methods.
Study Resources
Two studies which set the initial direction:
Bernhard Duhm, Das Buch Jeremia, Kurzer Hand-Commentar zum Alten Testament XI (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr 1901)
Sigmund Mowinckel, Zur Komposition des Buches Jeremia (Kristiana: Dybwad, 1914).
On a Deuteronomistic redaction:
E. W. Nicholson, Preaching to the Exiles: A Study of the Prose Tradition in the Book of Jeremiah (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967)
Winfried Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion von Jeremia 1–25, WMANT 41 (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1973).
On the historical Jeremiah and the book:
Robert P. Carroll, Jeremiah, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986)
William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah Chapters 1–25, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986)
Two examples of newer approaches:
A. R. Pete Diamond, Kathleen M. O’Connor, and Louis Stulman, eds., Troubling Jeremiah, JSOTSup 260 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999).
Diamond, A. R. Pete, and Louis Stulman, eds. Jeremiah (Dis)Placed: New Directions in Writing/Reading Jeremiah. LHBOTS 529 (London/New York: T & T Clark, 2011).
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