Authorship, attribution, and authority: Jeremiah, Baruch, and the rabbinic interpretation of Lamentations
Although that the Hebrew Bible provides no explicit basis for attributing Lamentations to Jeremiah, the view is ubiquitous in rabbinic sources. This popular rabbinic assertion has led numerous scholars to the conclusion that the early rabbis canonized Lamentations precisely because Jeremiah composed...
| Published in: | Hebrew Union College annual |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
HUC
2020
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| In: |
Hebrew Union College annual
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Jeremiah
/ Jeremiah
/ Lamentations
/ Rabbinic literature
/ Baruch Biblical character ca. 7 BC. Jh.
/ Apocrypha
/ Pseudepigrapha
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| RelBib Classification: | BH Judaism HB Old Testament |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Although that the Hebrew Bible provides no explicit basis for attributing Lamentations to Jeremiah, the view is ubiquitous in rabbinic sources. This popular rabbinic assertion has led numerous scholars to the conclusion that the early rabbis canonized Lamentations precisely because Jeremiah composed it. The argument, however, does not hold. In attributing the Book of Lamentations to Jeremiah rabbinic sources made a conscious choice to either invent or perpetuate the assumption for strategic exegetical purposes. Rabbinic sources generally rely on a deutronomic theology, and Lamentations, on its face, appeared to undermine the rabbinic understanding of theodicy. They thus strategically ascribed the book to the Prophet Jeremiah, who, in their view, would never offer so radical a challenge to the preferred rabbinic image of God as just and merciful Because the Book of Lamentations came to be associated with Jeremiah in antiquity, it also came to be associated with his scribe Baruch ben Neriah, who is described as intimately involved with the production of Jeremiah's writings. In antiquity a collection of materials attributed to Baruch, and now preserved as Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, were available, but the rabbis chose to reject the authority of these sources. They used the discussions of Jeremiah's authorship of Lamentations as an opportunity to discredit Baruch and these “outside books” along with him. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Hebrew Union College annual
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.15650/hebruniocollannu.90.2019.0027 |