Jeremiah Under the Shadow of Duhm

A Critique of the Use of Poetic Form as a Criterion of Authenticity

Joseph M. Henderson

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780567701787
• eBook ISBN: 9780567676436
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Joe Henderson offers a critique of the assumption that poetic form in the book of Jeremiah indicates authenticity. This assumption undergirds Bernhard Duhm's reconstructions (1901) of the prophet's biography and the book's composition, the basic components of the dominant paradigm for twentieth-century Jeremiah scholarship. Henderson argues that Duhm's model is best understood as an attempt to bring the book into conformity with nineteenth-century systems of aesthetics, historiography, and theology-and with the Grafian reconstruction of the history of Israel's religion. The accord between these systems and Duhm's assumption about poetic form has less to do with their common grasp of the historical reality of Hebrew prophecy than with their common roots in the Romantic theory of prophetic and poetic inspiration-a theory forged by Robert Lowth in his exposition (1752) of the poetry he found in the prophetic books. Henderson contends that continued adherence to Duhm's foundational assumption has held back recent attempts to "move beyond Duhm" and overcome the fragmentation of the book entailed by his model. Rhetorical critics, who maintain that Jeremiah 2–10 is unified by the structural devices of the historical prophet, and redaction critics, who maintain that Jeremiah 11–20 is unified by the theological agenda of Deuteronomistic editors, both rely on the assumed authenticity of the poetry. Henderson observes that although these scholars have uncovered evidence of dramatic presentation in Jeremiah 2–20, they have failed to see that the dramatic nature of these chapters undermines their use for Duhm's historical-critical projects and reveals what actually unifies them-narrative progression.

Part One

The Roots of Duhm: The Historical Origins of Duhm’s Model

1

Introduction to Duhm’s 1901 Das Buch Jeremia

Since the beginning of the last century, those intrepid souls who dare to actually read the book of Jeremiah have been warned by biblical scholars not to go out to confront this unruly giant of a book unarmed. Commentators from this modern period have been anxious to equip readers with all the gear they deem necessary for grappling with the book. In the amply stocked introductions to their commentaries, they offer readers a set of critical implements, which have remained remarkably constant throughout these years. Two elements of the critical apparatus have been almost universally urged on readers. At the minimum, readers must be provided with a genre classification system and a biography of the prophet. The classification system is offered to enable readers to recognize three types of material they will encounter: “prophetic oracles,” “biographical narratives,” and “prose sermons” (usually designated Types “A,” “B,” and “C,” respectively). The biography of the prophet is given so that when readers are faced with the barrage of various speeches and incidents they will have a historical framework for sorting them out.

It might be thought that the reason these two critical implements are so widely recommended is simply that they are demanded by the nature of the book: particularly its intermingling of various literary forms and non-chronological presentation of events. However, a closer look at the specific way scholars present these two implements reveals a unanimity that cannot be wholly explained by the common issues the book requires them to address. It must also be attributed to shared scholarly aims, or a shared approach to the book. The common approach is a historical one that prioritizes distinguishing between sources and determining their reliability as evidence for historical reconstruction. This historical approach is apparent in the classification system, particularly its central feature: training readers to distinguish between the “prophetic oracles” (Type A)—considered to be authentic (i.e., reliable as historical evidence)—and the “prose sermons” (Type C), thought to have been added later and thus less reliable as evidence about the historical prophet.¹ Thus, what the classification system supplies is not merely a guide to the literary forms but a history of the composition of the book given to enable readers to judge what contribution each type of material makes to understanding the history behind the book.

The biography of the prophet is likewise not merely a chronological presentation of events narrated in the book; it is a scholarly reconstruction of the prophet’s life based on the authentic historical evidence in the book. The focus of most of the biographies is filling in the gaps left by the historical narratives² (deemed to be fairly reliable) by discerning the historical situations that occasioned the various “authentic prophetic oracles.” The reconstruction of the history of the book’s composition (embedded in the A-B-C classification system) and the reconstructed historical biography of the prophet are the primary aims and outcomes of the historical approach to the book. They become, in turn, the recommended starting point for modern readers trying to make sense of the book: together they provide an interpretive framework within which the individual parts of Jeremiah are to be understood.

Of course, there are several varieties of the modern interpretive framework, and there are debates over individual points. The central debate about the history of composition has been over the degree to which the Type C prose speeches preserve the authentic words (or at least the authentic message) of the prophet Jeremiah. However, all sides in this debate are united in prioritizing the question of authenticity: which materials provide reliable evidence for reconstructing the historical message and ministry of the prophet (and additionally, in some scholarly studies, which materials provide evidence for determining the concerns of the later authors or editors). Likewise, debates about details of the prophet’s biography also presume an approach and an aim common to all the parties involved. The familiar debating points—such as the date of Jeremiah’s call, the extent of his involvement in the reform of Josiah, and the identity of the “foe from the north”³—share the interest of reconstructing the life of the historical Jeremiah, particularly the parts of his life the book does not directly narrate.

Taken together, the similar compositional theories and reconstructed biographies along with the underlying historical-critical aims and methods form what is a recognizable paradigm, or interpretive model, which has provided the primary guidance Jeremiah scholars have offered readers for over a hundred years. The paradigm has shown a remarkable degree of consistency and durability.⁴ It is also remarkable that virtually the whole paradigm was introduced by one man in one book. Bernhard Duhm’s 1901 commentary, Das Buch Jeremia, lays out for the first time both the three-source compositional theory and the outline of the standard modern biography of the prophet. It turns interpretation of Jeremiah to the aim of historical reconstruction based on determining which parts of the text offer reliable evidence.

The introductions to Jeremiah commentaries, where readers often first encounter the scholarly paradigm, sometimes include a passing reference to Duhm as the pioneer of the modern approach to the book. However, given Duhm’s role in establishing the paradigm, it is surprising to discover the scant consideration most of them afford to his work—what led him to the view of the book they follow. Understanding the impetus for the modern paradigm is important for readers trying to judge whether they need to make use of the recommended historical apparatus as they read the book of Jeremiah—whether, that is, they must go out to meet the giant book clothed in Duhm’s armor.

The Introduction to Duhm’s 1901 Das Buch Jeremia

To explore the origins of the modern scholarly paradigm for interpreting Jeremiah, an obvious place to begin is an investigation of Duhm’s commentary itself. Readers who have some familiarity with the paradigm will be surprised to find how fully it is enunciated in Duhm’s commentary. The modern Jeremiah appears to have sprung forth from his forehead fully armed with the standard critical apparatus. Duhm lays out all the central elements in the commentary’s introduction. Readers who turn to the introduction can discern the division of the book of Jeremiah into three types of material (the basis of the standard compositional model) in its outline:

I. General Overview of the Book of Jeremiah

II. The Prophetic Poems (Gedichte) of Jeremiah

III. The Book of Baruch

IV. The Additions (Ergänzungen) to the Writings of Jeremiah and Baruch

V. The Genesis (Enstehung) of the Book of Jeremiah

VI. Bibliography⁵

Sections II, III, and IV deal with the materials of the book as three sources, which are clearly the precursors of Types A, B, and C: The “Prophetic Poems” are what was later described as “authentic prophetic oracles”; the “Book of Baruch” is the prose narratives; and the “Additions” are mainly what came to be known as “prose sermons.” Along with the standard compositional history, the second standard element of the modern paradigm is also easy to see in Duhm’s introduction. The subsections of Section II, “The Prophetic Poems of Jeremiah,” present the biographical reconstruction in its now familiar form:

1. Concerning the life of Jeremiah

2. The prophetic poems of Jeremiah

3. Overview of Jeremiah’s poems

The first subsection presents the biography of the prophet with almost all the details that characterize the modern scholarly presentation, particularly the reconstruction of the events of Jeremiah’s early ministry not explicitly referred to in the book: his idyllic rural childhood, his alarm at the Scythian invasions (the “foe from the north”), his initial shock at the immorality of Jerusalem, and his disillusionment with the reforms of Josiah. After giving an account of the nature of “The Prophetic Poems of Jeremiah,” Duhm’s third subsection, the “Overview of Jeremiah’s Poems,” turns to the task of assigning each speech of Jeremiah that he considers authentic to a period in his reconstructed biography. In this way he completes the historical reconstruction.

Three Characteristics of Duhm’s Commentary

Although scholarly works later in the century offer more nuanced and more comprehensive presentations of the modern paradigm for understanding Jeremiah, Duhm’s 1901 commentary allows readers to be present at the moment of its birth. They have the opportunity to observe the paradigm in its raw form before it was amended and refined. Even in the introduction to the commentary, they will readily perceive characteristics that distinguish the paradigm introduced by Duhm from previous ways of interpreting Jeremiah: its thoroughgoing historical character, its oppositional stance toward the present form of the book, and its strong aesthetic and theological predilections. Consideration of these three distinctives will help readers trying to assess the value of the paradigm founded on Duhm’s approach.

Historical Approach

The first characteristic of Duhm’s work that strikes the reader has to do with its basic character, its genre. His commentary presents itself as a historical investigation. Likewise, although the title page introduces Duhm as an “Ord[inarius] Professor der Theologie in Basel,” Duhm does primarily present himself a theologian but rather a historian.⁶ From the first page, Duhm appears in the role of a historical investigator, guided by the methods and aims of historical study. He comes to the book looking for reliable evidence that will enable him to reconstruct the life of the historical Jeremiah and place his writings in their original historical contexts.

The search for historical evidence is the context of Duhm’s first introduction of his three-source theory. In the “General Overview of the Book of Jeremiah” that opens the introduction, Duhm postulates that the book is just one part of an extensive Jeremiah literature that is now mostly lost. Like most of this literature (which includes the “Letter of Jeremiah,” “The Book of Baruch,” and “Lamentations”), most of the material in the book of Jeremiah is of little historical value. The “Additions,” which make up the greatest part of the book, only appear to be the speeches of Jeremiah, but in actuality they originated long after the life of the prophet (they are “with very few exceptions post exilic”), and they were written not as historical reports but in the spirit of “morality tales and synagogue sermons.”⁷ The book’s value, which is greater than all the rest of the ancient Jeremiah literature, comes solely from the two other sources: “the authentic prophecy [die echte Prophetie] of the ancient prophet Jeremiah,” and various accounts from a “biography” (die Lebensgeschichte) that he attributes to Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch.⁸

In his initial evaluations of the three sources, the historical nature of Duhm’s project is clear from his criteria for assessing worth. His primary measure of value is “authenticity” (Echtheit). Authenticity is what chiefly distinguishes the first and second source (the prophecies and biography) from the third (the additions). Duhm’s description of certain speeches as “authentic” is not simply an attribution of authorship; it is a judgment that those speeches are valuable, and, even more, it is an indication of the nature of their value: namely, they provide evid...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Dedication Page
• Title Page
• Conntents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: The Road to Duhm
• Part One The Roots of Duhm: The Historical Origins of Duhm’s Model
• Part Two The Fruits of Duhm: The Standard Form of Duhm’s Model in the Twentieth Century
• Part Three Moving beyond Duhm: Discerning the Coherence in Jeremiah 2–20
• Epilogue: Pete Diamond and the Voice of Yahweh
• Bibliography
• Subject and Author Index
• Scripture Index
• Copyright Page