Jeremiah
About this date: Dates are broad scholarly estimates of composition or final editing, not dates of the events narrated. Traditional attributions and scholarly assessments can differ.
Jeremiah joins prophetic speech, personal lament, symbolic action, conflict, and accounts of Jerusalem's collapse. Its promise of a new covenant appears inside a larger book of judgment and restoration addressed to Israel and Judah.
Historical context
The narrative setting includes Judah's final decades and the Babylonian crisis. Hebrew Jeremiah and its shorter Greek form differ in order and extent; the catalog's date range is not a date for every layer or surviving copy.
Key points
- The temple sermon challenges confidence in a holy building without justice.
- The new covenant is promised to Israel and Judah, with forgiveness and instruction written on the heart.
- Textual order is a transmission question, not merely a modern English translation preference.
Scripture
- Jeremiah 7:1-15 — The temple sermon connects worship with justice toward the foreigner, orphan, and widow.
- Jeremiah 31:31-34 — The new-covenant promise belongs to the surrounding restoration material.
- Jeremiah 36:1-32 — The scroll's reading, destruction, and rewriting make textual mediation part of the narrative.
- Hebrews 8:6-13 — Hebrews quotes Jeremiah in an argument about Christ's ministry and covenant; compare the source passage's named recipients.
Primary sources
Origen, Letter to Africanus 4:
Origen reports differences of order and wording in Jeremiah. His report establishes ancient awareness of the issue, not a full modern reconstruction of its textual history.
In Jeremiah I noticed many instances, and indeed in that book I found much transposition and variation in the readings of the prophecies.
Passage context and translation
Origen broadens a discussion of Susanna to differences among biblical copies, including the order of Jeremiah's prophecies. This report witnesses his comparison, not a complete surviving reconstruction of the editions or a verdict about every difference.
Sources and further reading
- Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles: canonical books and Apocrypha
- Catholic Catechism §120: canon and book list
- Jeremiah: complete public-domain WEB text
- Origen, Letter to Africanus 4: Jeremiah's textual order
- Orthodox Church in America: canon of Scripture
- Orthodox Church in America: Old Testament historical books
- USCCB Bible introductions: historical and literary notes