Jeremiah 26-52 E-Book

Carolyn Sharp

• Herausgeber: Kohlhammer Verlag
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1223

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

This commentary illumines Jer 26-52 through historical, literary, feminist, and postcolonial analysis. Ideologies of subjugation and resistance are entangled in the Jeremiah traditions. The reader is guided through narratives of extreme violence, portrayals of iconic allies and adversaries, and complex gestures of scribal resilience. Judah's cultural trauma is refracted through prose that mimics Neo-Babylonian colonizing ideology, dramatic scenes of survival, and poetry alight with the desire for vengeance against enemies. The commentary's historical and literary arguments are enriched by insights from archaeology, feminist translation theory, and queer studies.

Leseprobe

International Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament (IECOT)

Edited by:

Walter Dietrich, David M. Carr, Adele Berlin, Erhard Blum, ­Irmtraud Fischer, Shimon Gesundheit, Walter Groß, Gary Knoppers (†), Bernard M. Levinson, Ed Noort, Helmut Utzschneider and Beate Ego (Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books)

Cover:

Top: Panel from a four-part relief on the “Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III” (859–824 BCE) depicting the Israelite king Jehu (845–817 BCE; 2 Kings 9f) paying obeisance to the Assyrian “King of Kings.” The vassal has thrown himself to the ground in front of his overlord. Royal servants are standing behind the Assyrian king whereas Assyrian officers are standing behind Jehu. The remaining picture panels portray thirteen Israelite tribute bearers carrying heavy and precious gifts. Photo © Z.Radovan/BibleLandPictures.comBottom left: One of ten reliefs on the bronze doors that constitute the eastern portal (the so-called “Gates of Paradise”) of the Baptistery of St. John of Florence, created 1424–1452 by Lorenzo Ghiberti (c. 1378–1455). Detail from the picture “Adam and Eve”; in the center is the creation of Eve: “And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.” (Gen 2:22)Photograph by George ReaderBottom right: Detail of the Menorah in front of the Knesset in Jerusalem, created by Benno Elkan (1877–1960): Ezra reads the Law of Moses to the assembled nation (Neh 8). The bronze Menorah was created in London in 1956 and in the same year was given by the British as a gift to the State of Israel. A total of 29 reliefs portray scenes from the Hebrew Bible and the history of the Jewish people.

Carolyn J. Sharp

Jeremiah 26–52

Verlag W. Kohlhammer

Editorial collaboration: Jonathan M. Robker

1. Edition 2022

All rights reserved

© W. Kohlhammer GmbH, Stuttgart

Production: W. Kohlhammer GmbH, Stuttgart

Print:

ISBN 978-3-17-020083-8

E-Books:

pdf: ISBN 978-3-17-040081-8

epub: ISBN 978-3-17-040082-5

All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, microfilm/microfiche or otherwise—without prior written permission of W. Kohlhammer GmbH, Stuttgart, Germany.

Any links in this book do not constitute an endorsement or an approval of any of the services or opinions of the corporation or organization or individual. W. Kohlhammer GmbH bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of the external site or for that of subsequent links.

This commentary illumines Jer 26-52 through historical, literary, feminist, and postcolonial analysis. Ideologies of subjugation and resistance are entangled in the Jeremiah traditions. The reader is guided through narratives of extreme violence, portrayals of iconic allies and adversaries, and complex gestures of scribal resilience. Judah's cultural trauma is refracted through prose that mimics Neo-Babylonian colonizing ideology, dramatic scenes of survival, and poetry alight with the desire for vengeance against enemies. The commentary's historical and literary arguments are enriched by insights from archaeology, feminist translation theory, and queer studies.

Carolyn J. Sharp is Professor of Homiletics at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut.

Contents

Editors’ Foreword

Author’s Preface

Abbreviations

Map of the Ancient Near East

Introduction to Jeremiah 26–52

The Formation of Jeremiah 26–52

Redactional Theories

Oracles Concerning the Nations

Further Methodological Observations

Themes and Structural Foci in Jeremiah 26–52

Retributive Justice

A Community Divided

Structural Signs of Textual Resilience

Feminist Commentary

Feminist Convictions

Feminist Hermeneutics

Translation Practices

Commentary in a Postcolonial Key

Subalterns mimic their oppressors

Subaltern hope interrupts imperial domination

Jeremiah 26: Incendiary Words of Destruction

Overview

Translation

Notes on the Text and Translation

Interpretation

Diachronic Analysis

Synchronic Analysis

Integrative Reading

Jeremiah 27–29: The Yoke of Nebuchadnezzar

Overview

Translation

Notes on the Text and Translation

Interpretation

Diachronic Analysis

Synchronic Analysis

Integrative Reading

Jeremiah 30–31: Radical Words of Consolation

Overview

Translation

Notes on the Text and Translation

Interpretation

Diachronic Analysis

Synchronic Analysis

Integrative Reading

Jeremiah 32–34: Land Claimed in Hope and Abjection

Overview

Translation

Notes on the Text and Translation

Interpretation

Diachronic Analysis

Synchronic Analysis

Integrative Reading

Jeremiah 35–36: Enduring Tradition, Indelible Word

Overview

Translation

Notes on the Text and Translation

Interpretation

Diachronic Analysis

Synchronic Analysis

Integrative Reading

Jeremiah 37–39: Sedition, Siege, and Survival

Overview

Translation

Notes on the Text and Translation

Interpretation

Diachronic Analysis

Synchronic Analysis

Integrative Reading

Jeremiah 40–45: Resistance and Resilience

Overview

Translation

Notes on the Text and Translation

Interpretation

Diachronic Analysis

Synchronic Analysis

Integrative Reading

Jeremiah 46–47: Oracles about Egypt and Philistia

Overview

Translation

Notes on the Text and Translation

Interpretation

Diachronic Analysis

Synchronic Analysis

Integrative Reading

Jeremiah 48–49: Oracles about Moab and Other Adversaries

Overview

Translation

Notes on the Text and Translation

Interpretation

Diachronic Analysis

Synchronic Analysis

Integrative Reading

Jeremiah 50–51: Oracles about Babylon

Overview

Translation

Notes on the Text and Translation

Interpretation

Diachronic Analysis

Synchronic Analysis

Integrative Reading

Jeremiah 52: The Ruination of Jerusalem

Overview

Translation

Notes on the Text and Translation

Interpretation

Diachronic Analysis

Synchronic Analysis

Integrative Reading

Bibliography

Indexes

Index of Biblical Citations

Hebrew Scriptures

Genesis

Exodus

Leviticus

Numbers

Deuteronomy

Joshua

Judges

Ruth

1 Samuel

2 Samuel

1 Kings

2 Kings

1 Chronicles

2 Chronicles

Ezra

Nehemiah

Esther

Job

Psalms

Proverbs

Ecclesiastes

Song of Solomon

Isaiah

Jeremiah

Lamentations

Ezekiel

Daniel

Hosea

Joel

Amos

Obadiah

Micah

Nahum

Habakkuk

Zephaniah

Haggai

Zechariah

Malachi

Apocrypha

Pseudepigrapha

New Testament

Matthew

Mark

Luke

John

Acts of the Apostles

Romans

1 Corinthians

2 Corinthians

Galatians

Ephesians

Colossians

1 Timothy

Titus

Hebrews

1 Peter

1 John

Revelation

Index of Key Terms

Plan of volumes

Editors’ Foreword

The International Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament (IECOT) offers a multi-perspectival interpretation of the books of the Old Testament to a broad, international audience of scholars, laypeople and pastors. Biblical commentaries too often reflect the fragmented character of contemporary biblical scholarship, where different geographical or methodological sub-groups of scholars pursue specific methodologies and/or theories with little engagement of alternative approaches. This series, published in English and German editions, brings together editors and authors from North America, Europe, and Israel with multiple exegetical perspectives.

From the outset the goal has been to publish a series that was “international, ecumenical and contemporary.” The international character is reflected in the composition of an editorial board with members from six countries and commentators representing a yet broader diversity of scholarly contexts.

The ecumenical dimension is reflected in at least two ways. First, both the editorial board and the list of authors includes scholars with a variety of religious perspectives, both Christian and Jewish. Second, the commentary series not only includes volumes on books in the Jewish Tanach/Protestant Old Testament, but also other books recognized as canonical parts of the Old Testament by diverse Christian confessions (thus including the deuterocanonical Old Testament books).

When it comes to “contemporary,” one central distinguishing feature of this series is its attempt to bring together two broad families of perspectives in analysis of biblical books, perspectives often described as “synchronic” and “diachronic” and all too often understood as incompatible with each other. Historically, diachronic studies arose in Europe, while some of the better known early synchronic studies originated in North America and Israel. Nevertheless, historical studies have continued to be pursued around the world, and focused synchronic work has been done in an ever greater variety of settings. Building on these developments, we aim in this series to bring synchronic and diachronic methods into closer alignment, allowing these approaches to work in a complementary and mutually-informative rather than antagonistic manner.

Since these terms are used in varying ways within biblical studies, it makes sense to specify how they are understood in this series. Within IECOT we understand “synchronic” to embrace a variety of types of study of a biblical text in one given stage of its development, particularly its final stage(s) of development in existing manuscripts. “Synchronic” studies embrace non-historical narratological, reader-response and other approaches along with historically-informed exegesis of a particular stage of a biblical text. In contrast, we understand “diachronic” to embrace the full variety of modes of study of a biblical text over time.

This diachronic analysis may include use of manuscript evidence (where available) to identify documented pre-stages of a biblical text, judicious use of clues within the biblical text to reconstruct its formation over time, and also an examination of the ways in which a biblical text may be in dialogue with earlier biblical (and non-biblical) motifs, traditions, themes, etc. In other words, diachronic study focuses on what might be termed a “depth dimension” of a given text—how a text (and its parts) has journeyed over time up to its present form, making the text part of a broader history of traditions, motifs and/or prior compositions. Synchronic analysis focuses on a particular moment (or moments) of that journey, with a particular focus on the final, canonized form (or forms) of the text. Together they represent, in our view, complementary ways of building a textual interpretation.

Of course, each biblical book is different, and each author or team of authors has different ideas of how to incorporate these perspectives into the commentary. The authors will present their ideas in the introduction to each volume. In addition, each author or team of authors will highlight specific contemporary methodological and hermeneutical perspectives—e.g. gender-critical, liberation-theological, reception-historical, social-historical—appropriate to their own strengths and to the biblical book being interpreted. The result, we hope and expect, will be a series of volumes that display a range of ways that various methodologies and discourses can be integrated into the interpretation of the diverse books of the Old Testament.

Fall 2012 The Editors

Author’s Preface

This volume is the product of many years of feminist collaborative work with my esteemed colleague and cherished friend, Christl Maier, who has written the commentary on Jeremiah 1–25 in this series. Our thanks are due the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for a grant that enabled us to host Jeremiah consultations at the Philipps-Universität Marburg and Yale Divinity School during the early stages of our work. We learned much from scholars who shared their exper­tise in those consultations: Ulrike Bail, Gerlinde Baumann, Mark Brummitt, Mary Chilton Callaway, Steed Davidson, Irmtraud Fischer, Wilda Gafney, Michaela Geiger, Alexandra Grund, Else Holt, Judith McKinlay, and Ulrike Sals. Wise counsel was offered as well by Jens Herzer and Rainer Kessler, and the consultations were facilitated by the unflagging administrative assistance of Michaela Geiger, Alexandra Grund, and Heather Vermeulen. I was inspired by those lively intellectual exchanges, which have been catalytic for my thinking about tensions generated by the traditional authority of the commentary writer over against the feminist valorizing of collaboration and the decentering of power, as well as ways in which feminist and postcolonial interpretive strategies should deepen the research questions that have shaped my work.

The IECOT/IEKAT commentary series is not intended primarily as a reception­history series. Entire volumes have been devoted to reception of motifs and pas­sages in Jeremiah in particular historical periods. The space constraints confronting me have been acute, given the complexity of Jer 26–52 and the fact that feminist, postcolonial, and queer engagements needed articulation in these pages, something core to the purpose of this commentary. Thus I am grateful to four experts whose labors have made possible the glimpses into reception of Jeremiah texts that I could afford here: Mary Chilton Callaway, Joy Schroeder, Seth Tarrer, and J. Jeffery Tyler.

Warm thanks are due to Harold Attridge, dean of Yale Divinity School during the inception of this project, who generously supported our research. That support has been vital for nine years of transatlantic collaborative meetings in Marburg, in New Haven, and at annual meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature. I offer my gratitude as well to the current Henry L. Slack Dean of Yale Divinity School, Gregory Sterling, whose unstinting support of faculty research and gener­osity regarding a new trajectory in my professional formation have been enormously important to me.

I am grateful for the scholarship fostered by the Israelite Prophetic Literature section and the Writing/Reading Jeremiah section of the Society of Biblical Literature, two professional groups with which I first became involved early in my career. Thanks go to Jeremiah scholars who have been special mentors and friends for many years: Walter Brueggemann, Julie Claassens, Else Holt, and Louis Stulman. Other Jeremiah scholars who have inspired me include Mark Brummitt, Corrine Carvalho, Georg Fischer, Rhiannon Graybill, Amy Kalmanofsky, Mark Leuchter, Jack Lundbom, William McKane, Kathleen O’Connor, Hermann-Josef Stipp, and Robert Wilson. I honor the memory of Leo Perdue, whom I never met, for his lifegiving candor about oppressive dimensions of the book of Jeremiah. I learned much from a Jeremiah conference in Ascona, Switzerland in June 2014 and thank the colleagues who hosted that gathering, Hindy Najman and Konrad Schmid. The wisdom and patience of our excellent editors, Walter Dietrich and David Carr, have been indispensable to this commentary work. I am grateful as well for the superb technical assistance and unfailing kindness of Florian Specker, and for outstanding copy-editing by Jonathan Miles Robker.

In North American universities, land acknowledgement statements have become important to keep us mindful of indigenous peoples whose ancestors were harassed, forcibly displaced, tortured, and killed in militarized colonization pro­cesses initiated by settlers of European heritage. The persistent economic, social, and political challenges with which Native groups have contended to the present day are due in no small part to that history of injustice and cultural trauma, and to the failure of governmental and other agencies to make meaningful reparations. Yale University acknowledges that indigenous peoples and nations, including Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Niantic, Quinnipiac, and other Algonquian-speaking peoples, have stewarded through generations the lands and waterways of what is now Connecticut. My offices, the Yale libraries that support my research, and the classrooms in which I teach are located on unceded land of the Quinnipiac and Niantic peoples.

I have been emboldened in the writing of this commentary by the conviction of homiletician Frank Thomas that writing can be an act ofresistance. I heard Dr. Thomas insist on this at the biennial meeting of the Societas Homiletica in Durham, North Carolina in 2018: “Writing is resistance!” Writing unquestionably constituted resistance for some in the scribal circles of ancient Judah, as for other poets, novelists, essayists, and scholarly writers through the centuries. Writing remains a powerful mode of resistance for feminist writers, queer theorists, and others who craft insights aimed at dismantling patriarchy and white supremacy, cis-hetero violence and the erasure of queer realities, economic injustice, and other terrors. Such writing can be prophetic indeed. Among those who have helped me to understand the creative power of writing as resistance are feminist writers and artists who gather regularly at the Trinity Center in Salter Path, North Carolina under the auspices of a remarkable grassroots organization, the Resource Center for Women & Ministry in the South. I offer my warm thanks to the women of Pelican House, especially Jeanette Stokes, Cathy Hasty, Marcy Litle, Joyce Ann Mercer, Beverly Mitchell, Mary Clark Moschella, Márcia Rego, Marion Thullbery, Rebecca Wall, and Rachael Wooten.

Words cannot express my debt to Christl Maier, whose friendship means the world to me. Working collaboratively with her has been beautiful and instructive in ways I have only begun to measure. Our analytical and constructive feminist work unfolds in differing ways in our two volumes, as is entirely appropriate for feminist discourse. Our deployment of differing hermeneutical models, different ways of probing the significance of history, and different varieties of feminist analysis speaks authentically to our lived experience and to the audiences, scholarly and other, that we aim to engage. Christl’s brilliant work on this Jeremiah project and her guild leadership as a feminist scholar have provided continual inspiration and renewed energy in my intellectual life.

My family has been stalwart in supporting me, observing with amusement my spates of joyous productivity and sustaining me during difficult moments when I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the work. Our offspring, Dinah and Jake, have been loving and sardonic in just the right measure to help me maintain perspective during this arduous process. Nothing would have been possible, on this commentary or anything else, without the love and counsel of my beloved life partner, Leo Lensing. It is to Leo that I dedicate this volume.

CJSFeast of the Nativity of John the BaptistJune 2021

Abbreviations

ANEATP James B. Pritchard, ed., The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011)

ATSAT Arbeiten zu Text und Sprache im Alten Testament

BCT The Bible and Critical Theory

BigS Die Bibel in gerechter Sprache (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2006)

BMW Bible in the Modern World

CrStHB Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible

Dtr-Jer Deutero-Jeremianic

fp feminine plural

fs feminine singular

HALOTThe Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner, and Johann J. Stamm. Translated and edited under the supervision of Mervyn E. Richardson. 5 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1994–2000.

IBHS Waltke, Bruce K. and M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990)

JAJ Journal of Ancient Judaism

JerLXX the Septuagint text of Jeremiah

JerMT the Masoretic text of Jeremiah

JSJSup Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism

mp masculine plural

ms masculine singular

NEAEHLNew Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, ed. Ephraim Stern (Jerusalem: vols. 1–4, The Israel Exploration Society and Carta, 1993; vol. 5, The Israel Exploration Society, 2008)

NZB Zürcher Bibel, 2nd ed. (2007)

OEANEThe Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East,Eric M. Meyers, editor in chief (New York: Oxford, 1997), 5 vols.

PGOT Phoenix Guides to the Old Testament

RRBS Recent Research in Biblical Studies

RVR Reina-Valera Revision (1995)

SBTS Sources for Biblical and Theological Study

SSLL Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics

TCT Textual Criticism and the Translator

W/O Waltke, Bruce K. and M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990)

Map of the Ancient Near East