The Prophet and the Lying Pen: Jeremiah's Poetic Challenge to the Deuteronomic School (PhD Thesis)

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

THE PROPHET AND THE LYING PEN: JEREMIAH’S POETIC CHALLENGE TO THE DEUTERONOMIC SCHOOL

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVINITY SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

BY EDWARD SILVER

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS DECEMBER 2009

UMI Number: 3387053

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Table of Contents Acknowledgments

iii

Chapter One: Jeremiah and the Reform of Josiah

1

Chapter Two: Jeremiah 36 and the Theory of the Urrolle

63

Chapter Three: Holiness and Theological Synthesis in Jeremiah 2-6

100

Chapter Four: The Augmented Double Rhetorical Question in Jeremian Poetry

151

Chapter Five: Conclusion

299

Bibliography

349

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Without the tremendous support of family, friends, teachers and sponsoring institutions, this dissertation could never have been written. Funding for this research came in the form of generous fellowships from the University of Chicago Divinity School, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion. I would also like to acknowledge the significant support of the W.F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research, where I was the recipient of an Educational and Cultural Affairs Fellowship funded by the U.S. Department of State. At the University of Chicago, I have been the beneficiary of the best instruction a young scholar could hope to receive. In particular, I would like to express my gratitude to Hans-Josef Klauck, Wendy Doniger, William Schweiker, Paul Mendes-Flohr, Tikva Frymer-Kensky, z"l, and J. David Schloen. Jeffrey Stackert, who joined my dissertation committee only lately has nevertheless given richly of his time and subtle intellect. Michael Fishbane’s wise counsel, patient mentorship and intellectual generosity have been a constant blessing throughout my studies. The excellence of his scholarship is unparalleled and I am tremendously grateful to have been his student. Early conversations with Edward Greenstein and Israel Knohl were instrumental in setting me on the right track at the outset of my research. At the Albright Institute, Seymour Gitin’s collegiality and generosity helped me to turn that advice into the work that now forms the core of this dissertation. Throughout my studies, Benjamin Sommer has been a fountain of wisdom. As it has for so many other scholars, Ben’s work has taught me how to read prophecy and, like them, his scholarship represents a standard of excellence worth aspiring to. Without the support and intellectual challenge of Yairah Amit, my skills and my career would be much diminished. I am tremendously thankful to count her as a mentor and friend. iii

My time at the University of Chicago has been spent in the company of extraordinary and extraordinarily gifted friends and classmates. In particular, I would like to thank Meira Kensky, Geoff Chaplin, Elliot Cosgrove, Jane Kanarek, Karina Martin Hogan, Debbie Green, Margot Pritzker and Laura Lieber for their companionship and support. While at the Albright Institute, I was lucky to have a group of colleagues including Tsemah Yoreh, Matthew Suriano, Jan Dušek, and Aaron Tugendhaft who read my work carefully and provided important advice for how to translate my ideas into prose. Seth Sanders, in particular, has been a marvelous colleague and friend. Much of what I know about method I have learned from Seth and this dissertation would be much diminished were it not for his generous intellect. My parents, Jim and Cathy Silver, and my parents-in-law, Wolfgang and Ingeborg Soyer, have all waited patiently to see this work come to its fruition. I am glad, at last, to be able to share it with them. I am also thankful that its completion will afford me more time to spend with my brothers Peter and Greg, and my sister Theresa. Particular thanks are owed my wife Michaela Soyer, who came into my life at the beginning of this research and who has endured both my peregrinations and its slow progress. Michi has been a goad when I needed one, and has offered comfort and reassurance when I needed those. I am fortunate beyond measure to have her as a partner, and I am proud of the scholar she is becoming. One of the great pains of academic work is the way its relentless focus can estrange one from those one loves most. Before I left for Israel to begin my doctoral research, I spent a few days with my aunt Marilyn Silver and my grandfather, Edward James Silver. Grandpa passed away last year and I miss him terribly. He was himself a great reader of Biblical text and I am honored to have his Bible, purchased the year I was born, on the shelf over the desk in my office. This dissertation is dedicated to his memory. iv

CHAPTER ONE JEREMIAH AND THE REFORM OF JOSIAH

In the years after Sigmund Mowinckel developed his influential multi-source model for the structure of the Book of Jeremiah,1 the weight of scholarly attention has fallen predominantly on his "Source C," a stratum of prose-sermonic material2 that he associated with the Deuteronomistic movement.3 Following Mowinckel, scholars have debated the literary contours of this source,4 its stylistic character,5 and the particular details of its provenance.6 It is generally 1

Sigmund Mowinckel, Zur Komposition des Buches Jeremia (Kristiana: Jacob Dybwad, 1914). The initial division of the Book of Jeremiah into poetic and prosaic strata had been carried out earlier by Bernhard Duhm (Bernhard Duhm, Das Buch Jeremia, Kurzer Hand-Commentar zum Alten Testament [Tübingen: Mohr, 1901]). To Duhm’s limited poetic and biographical strata, Mowinckel added a comprehensive third source (Source C) that coordinated much of the material that Duhm had left uncategorized, as well as a fourth source (Source D), which comprised Jer 30-31. This latter source has received a decisive challenge from Benjamin Sommer, who maintained on the basis of literary allusions to Jer 30-31 in Deutero-Isaiah that this material must have been part of the prophet’s own original poetry (Benjamin D. Sommer, “New Light on the Composition of Jeremiah,” CBQ 61 [1999]: 664-65.) 2

Jer 3.6-13; 7.1-8.3; 11.1-5, 9-14; 18.1-12; 21.1-10; 22.1-5; 25.1-11a; 27; 29.1-23; 32.1-2, 6-16, 24-44; 34.1-7, 8-22; 35.1-19; 39.15-18; 44.1-14; 45 (Mowinckel, Komposition, 31, 40). 3

Mowinckel, Komposition, 35-36.

4

Significant first steps toward clarifying the extent and impact of Dtr redaction in the Book of Jeremiah were carried out by Wilhelm Rudolph, who refined the criteria by which Source C texts were identified, clarified the relationship between C material and Jeremiah’s original prophetic work, and limited its scope to a group of texts with a much more focused thematic character (Wilhelm Rudolph, Jeremia, Handbuch zum Alten Testament. Erste Reihe [Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1947]), esp. pp. xvff. J.Philip Hyatt continued this refinement by demonstrating far more comprehensive redactional work by the Deuteronomists than either Mowinckel or Rudolph had recognized. In Hyatt’s reading, the Deuteronomistic tradent becomes not the author of a discrete source within the text, but a comprehensive redactor who sought to reframe the poetry of Jeremiah and to bring it into consonance with other Dtr traditions (J. Philip Hyatt, “The Deuteronomic Edition of Jeremiah,” Vanderbilt Studies in the Humanities 1 [1951]: 71-95). This expanded view of the Dtr influence on the Book of Jeremiah reached its fullest form in the two monographs of Winfried Thiel (Winfried Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion von Jeremia 1-25 [NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1973]. Winfried Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion von Jeremia 26-45 [Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1981].) Like Hyatt before him, Thiel considered the Dtr redactor to be a comprehensive editor of prior Jeremian materials who adapted them to the particular needs of his community. 5

Against the argument that a Jeremian Source C represents a discrete layer of editorial and compositional activity by tradents influenced by the Deuteronomic movement, scholars beginning with John Bright began to maintain the substantial ideological independence of this material from the Deuteronomistic literature (John Bright, “The Date of the Prose Sermons of Jeremiah,” JBL 70 [1951]: 15-35. William L. Holladay, “Prototypes and Copies:

1

understood that this deutero-Jeremianic material lies closer to the moment of text formation and that its particular details have something important to tell us about the formation of the Book of Jeremiah. Comparatively less sustained attention has been paid, however, to the original poetic stratum in the Book of Jeremiah—what Mowinckel termed Source A. What attention this foundational material has received has been primarily stylistic or rhetorical.7 When this material

A New Approach to the Prose-Poetry Problem in the Book of Jeremiah,” JBL 79 [1960]: 351-367.) This angle of approach reached its most extensive expression in the work of Helga Weippert, who maintained that the stylistic criteria by which Mowinckel had identified Source C and established its literary provenance in Dtr circles were, in fact, characteristic of a generalized literary style that came to prominence in the late monarchic period. Terming this style Kunstprosa, she maintained that this elevated prose style was available even to the prophet himself and hence could not be used as a criterion for diachronic argumentation on the process of text formation (Helga Weippert, Die Prosareden des Jeremiabuches, BZAW 132 [Berlin: de Gruyter, 1973].) 6

More recently, the geographical and communitarian diversity among the redactors of the Book of Jeremiah has come to the fore as a focus of analysis. In this understanding, the ideology encoded in the framing matter is less significant than the use to which these materials were put in the course of refashioning community after the destruction of 587 BCE. This analytical focus was initiated by E.W. Nicholson, whose monograph Preaching to the Exiles: A Study of the Prose Tradition in the Book of Jeremiah (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1970) attributed the prose-sermonic material to Deuteronomistic influenced preachers and teachers who sought to adapt Jeremiah’s poetry to the needs of the Babylonian golah community (134-135). Nicholson’s thesis bears a structural resemblance to William McKane’s influential “rolling corpus” theory of textual development, according to which the development of prosaic material bearing thematic and terminological resemblance to Jeremian poetry was the consequence of an ad hoc process of interpretive adaptation by later tradents (William McKane, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Jeremiah [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986], l-lxxxiii). The difference between the two approaches is that Nicholson considers this adaptation to have proceeded with clear communitarian needs and ideological aims while McKane considers it to have been guided primarily by the interpretive problems encountered through the engagement with single, limited textual units. Nicholson’s communitarian approach has recently received a more sophisticated treatment in the new study of the prose material of the Book of Jeremiah developed by Carolyn J. Sharp. Sharp maintains that much of the ideological inconsistency and expressive diversity in the prose material can be explained as a function of its origin among two opposed groups of survivors who compiled and augmented the Jeremiah tradition subsequent to the Babylonian destruction (Carolyn J. Sharp, Prophecy and Ideology in Jeremiah: Struggles for Authority in the Deutero-Jeremianic Prose, Old Testament Studies [London: T&T Clark, 2003]). Terming these the “pro-gola platform” and the “Judah-based traditionist perspective,” Sharp recovers a debate within the Jeremian prose material over the etiology of the destruction, the theological status of the land of Israel subsequent to the destruction, and the proper contours of exilic community life (157-159); see also Thomas Römer’s recent essay: “How Did Jeremiah Become a Convert to Deuteronomistic Ideology?” in Those Elusive Deuteronomists: The Phenomenon of Pan-Deuteronomism, eds. Linda S. Schearing and Steven L. McKenzie, JSOTSupp 268 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 189-199. and the earlier monograph of Christopher Seitz: Theology in Conflict: Reactions to the Exile in the Book of Jeremiah, BZAW 176 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989). 7

See William L. Holladay, “Style, Irony and Authenticity in Jeremiah,” JBL 81 (1962): 44-54 and more thoroughly Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah: A Study in Ancient Hebrew Rhetoric, 2d ed. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997). Lundbom’s rhetorical critical approach to the Jeremian poetry is carried out at length in his

2

is considered in historical terms, the A-source's value as a historical artifact has been conditioned by the narrative material that frames it.8 This is unfortunate, given the extraordinary vigor of Jeremiah's language and the critical force of his rhetoric. The presence of literary doublets within the Book of Jeremiah9 and the attestation of debates within its narrative strata over the authority and durability of prophetic speech10 make clear that the post-Jeremianic period saw controversies over the prophet's legacy. Hence, these framing materials cannot be treated as neutral witnesses to the historical prophet, nor can their influence on his tradition be assumed as benign. In particular, there are two characteristics of the Deuteronomic movement and its influence on canon-formation that ought to give us pause. First, the Deuteronomists were themselves involved at a fundamental level in the process of re-formulating scripture and encoding within prior authoritative tradition their own distinctive ideological concerns.11 Second, the Deuteronomistic tradition was itself protracted over a period of centuries and its ideological interests shaped in dynamic response to changing historical and social conditions.12

recent three volume commentary in the Anchor Bible series (Jeremiah 1-20: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible [New York: Doubleday, 1999]; Jeremiah 21-36: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible [New York: Doubleday, 2004]; Jeremiah 37-52: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible [New York: Doubleday, 2004]). 8

See the discussion below, pp. 17-57.

9

A phenomenon already observed and commented on by Mowinckel (Komposition, 39-40) and now given a thorough consideration by Geoffrey H. Parke-Taylor, The Formation of the Book of Jeremiah: Doublets and Recurring Phrases (Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000). 10

See in particular the controversy narrated in Jer 26, discussed in Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 245-247. 11

See Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) and Benjamin D. Sommer, “Revelation at Sinai in the Hebrew Bible and in Jewish Theology,” JR 79 (July 1999): 432-435. 12

Implicit already in Martin Noth’s foundational treatment of the Deuteronomistic History, Martin Noth, Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien. Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament, 3d ed. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1967) and in its two significant developments by Frank Moore

3

Taken together, these qualities of the Deuteronomistic movement as a historical phenomenon leave us in some doubt as to the original character of Jeremiah's own prophetic consciousness. He may have been influenced by the Deuteronomic movement or may have even been a partisan of the Josianic-period reformers. Alternately, this impression of his traditional debts and theopolitical consciousness may be an artifact of later tradition-formation; the prophet himself might have been quite different from the literary character represented within the Book of Jeremiah. Given this considerable doubt over the status of Jeremiah's own prophetic consciousness, his political affiliations, and his traditional influences, it is understandable that scholarly engagement with his poetry is often limited to stylistic matters. Restricting ourselves to the poetry's final form and considering it in synchronic, aesthetic terms brings forward a set of questions that are answerable on the basis of the data at hand. Yet in doing this, we abandon concern for the originator of the Jeremian poetry as a historically-situated, cultural actor. This dissertation takes as its starting point one influential treatment of Jeremiah's poetry that does, in fact, treat it in relation to its putative historical context. In work that began over sixty years ago, J. Philip Hyatt warned us that the Deuteronomistic tradents of the Jeremiah tradition may have concerned themselves with obscuring historical polemics against the Deuteronomic movement within Jeremiah's own poetry.13 In spite of this caution, the last 25

Cross, “The Structure of the Deuteronomistic History,” Perspectives in Jewish Learning 3 (1968): 9-24; and Rudolf Smend (see, for example, “The Law and the Nations: A Contribution to Deuteronomistic Tradition History,” Reconsidering Israel and Judah: Recent Studies on the Deuteronomistic History, SBTS 8 [ed. Gary N. Knoppers and J. Gordon McConville; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2000], 95-110). For a useful caution against reading the Deuteronomistic movement too broadly, see Richard Coggins, “What Does ‘Deuteronomistic’ Mean?” Those Elusive Deuteronomists: The Phenomenon of Pan-Deuteronomism, Linda S. Schearing and Steven L. McKenzie, ed., JSOTSupp 268, (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 22-35. 13

J. Philip Hyatt, “Jeremiah and Deuteronomy,” JNES 1 (1942): 156-173; J. Philip Hyatt, “The Deuteronomic Edition of Jeremiah,” Vanderbilt Studies in the Humanities 1 (1951): 71-95; J. Philip Hyatt, “The Beginning of Jeremiah's Prophecy,” ZAW 78 (1966): 204-214.

4

years have seen an increasing interest in advancing a thesis that Jeremiah was a Deuteronomic partisan intimately involved in supporting the comprehensive reform that was the cornerstone of Josiah's kingship.14 This thesis has developed through several significant and influential scholarly studies of Jeremiah's poetry in spite of the considerable problems it faces.15 In the most recent form of this reading of Jeremiah’s poetry, we are given a prophet who is intimately involved with the Josianic reform and the Davidic king's effort to reestablish an expansive kingdom whose territory included elements of the former northern landholdings.16 On this reading, Jeremiah's earliest poetry was a kind of propaganda effort that attempted to make these territorial and political claims reasonable. We are accordingly left in some considerable state of suspension where the theological and political consciousness of the prophet Jeremiah is concerned. Either we can focus on the poetry itself and thus eschew any engagement with its substantive content or political message. Or, we can allow the narrative material that frames the poetry to influence our reconstructions and see a clear political horizon come into view. In the latter case, we are (or at least, ought to be) left with the lingering doubt that this horizon is itself a mirage, a reflection within the poetry of a temporally distant landscape. In order to advance our appreciation for Jeremiah's poetry, we need better analytical tools by which to treat the substantive content of his oracles without depending upon the material that frames it. 14

Rainer Albertz, “Jer 2-6 und die Frühzeitverkündigung Jeremias,” ZAW 94 (1982): 20-47. Marvin A. Sweeney, “Structure and Redaction in Jeremiah 2-6,” in Troubling Jeremiah, ed. A.R. Pete Diamond, et al., JSOTSupp 260 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), 200-219. 15

Chief among them are the dearth of reference within the Deuteronomistic History itself to Jeremiah, and Jeremiah's own failure to mention Josiah in any sustained fashion. The poetic reference to Josiah in 22.15, while significant, is also retrospective and too ambiguous to serve as useful evidence for historiography. Other references to Josiah are editorial and likewise suspect from a historiographical perspective (e.g., Jer 1.3; 3.6; 36.2). 16

Mark Leuchter, Josiah's Reform and Jeremiah's Scroll: Historical Calamity and Prophetic Response, Hebrew Bible Monographs 6 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2006).

5

To this end, this dissertation will advance a series of arguments designed to sharpen our ability to engage with Jeremiah's poetry within its historical context. Our interest is not on the formation of the Book of Jeremiah or even (in any sustained fashion) with the Nachleben of Jeremiah's own oracles. In chapter 2, we will develop a negative argument, discussing the literary status of one significant narrative text, Jer 36, which has had a profound influence on scholarly reconstructions not only of the formation process for the Book of Jeremiah, but also on our understanding of Jeremiah's own political affiliations. Through an analysis of its structure and its intertextual linkages with other texts in the Book of Jeremiah, we will demonstrate how this text sought at the most fundamental level to rationalize and normalize a particular set of political affiliations, advocating for a particular way of reading Jeremiah's oracles. In the face of this clear compositional Tendenz, the thesis that Jer 36 is history in any reasonable or useful sense of the word will be shown to be difficult to sustain. We will set aside this influential historicist way of treating the narrative material of the Book of Jeremiah after illustrating how historicist treatment of these texts has a corrosive effect on our ability to reconstruct the prophet's original intent. Then, we will turn our attention to positive arguments that advance new ways of reading the Jeremian poetry. Chapter 3 will develop an important treatment of Jer 2-6 by Michael Fishbane in his foundational work Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel.17 Following the methodological course Fishbane laid out in his programmatic discussion of the phenomena of aggadic exegesis of legal material in the Hebrew Bible, we will demonstrate Jeremiah's thick and complex traditional influences, reconstructing his subtle strategy of negotiation between the various literary and ideological impulses of his

17

Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 300-304.

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controversy-filled historical moment. By employing the tools of Inner-Biblical Exegesis, we will come to recognize the degree to which Jeremiah was himself a synthetic thinker, mediating between the various power groups and sectors of his society and attempting to fashion new notions of political collectivity capable of being sustained in the face of cataclysmic social change. Chapter 4 will develop another way of reading Jeremiah's poetry and assessing its persuasive intent. Through a systematic discussion of rhetorical question patterns in Ugaritic and early biblical literature, we will come to recognize how an important stylistic feature of Jeremiah's expressive repertoire developed out of earlier speech forms. Given its grounding in dialogical encounters between speaker and hearer, we will demonstrate how form-critical and rhetorical-critical modes of analysis are inadequate to capture the persuasive force of rhetorical question patterns. We will focus our attention on a particular pattern attested only in the Book of Jeremiah, a sort of double rhetorical question augmented with a third member beginning with the interrogative particle maddua. Our analysis will open up new angles of approach to familiar poetic material, and like chapter 3, demonstrate how a careful literary analysis can clarify not only the prophet's influences and cultural context, but also the unique element at work in his own rhetorical intent. This discussion will culminate in an analysis of Jer 8, a text that contains several of these rhetorical question patterns. Viewed in this way, we will maintain that it is possible to recover a quite trenchant polemic of the pre-exilic Deuteronomic movement. In the process, we validate Hyatt's claim that the Book of Jeremiah has been constructed to conceal and obfuscate original critiques of the Deuteronomists by Jeremiah himself. Our concluding chapter will seek to make some synthetic statements about the methods pursued in this study. We will illustrate how a pragmatic and tradition-sensitive approach to 7

prophetic rhetoric has been consistently overlooked within the discipline. We will reframe the two methods pursued in chapters 3 and 4, positioning them in relation to a broader theory of social agency. By means of this juxtaposition, we will clarify what is at stake in this sort of historically contextualized, politically sensitive reading. We cannot overstate the importance of reading Jeremiah's poetry with adequate literary and historical sensitivity. The text is famously difficult to untangle, and the period from which it developed is one of the most complex and contested phases in the short history of the Judean monarchy. Despite this, Jeremiah clearly influenced the emergence of a durable polity during the upheavals of the sixth century BCE. As many scholars have observed, Israelite text culture was taking its distinctive shape at the same time that the Jeremiah tradition was being codified. For this reason, it is vitally important that we understand Jeremiah's own prophetic discourse with as much clarity as we are able. If we are not careful enough, we will anachronistically naturalize later ideologies within our historical reading of Jeremiah's poetry. If Hyatt is correct, this is, in fact, what the bearers of the Jeremiah tradition wanted to happen in the course of reading the book that now bears his name. Responsible historiography demands that we observe this ideological function in our source and attempt to look beyond it (as much as we are able) in the course of reconstructing the intellectual history of the late monarchy and exilic periods. In the end, our study will attempt to advance J. Philip Hyatt's claim that the Book of Jeremiah has been subjected to a heavy editorial hand that sought to systematically downplay the fact of Deuteronomic polemics within Jeremiah's original poetry. We will build upon Hyatt's impression that the date formula provided in Jer 1 is wrong, and that there is no solid evidence that Jeremiah was contemporaneous with Josiah beyond this one, clearly Deuteronomic framing text. If Jeremiah began his public career subsequent to the Josianic reform, then it is clear that 8

his prophecy advanced a quite negative attitude toward an insistence on national sovereignty and political aggrandizement as regnal policies. We will argue instead that the prophet who advocated quiet submission to Nebuchadnezzar was also the prophet who criticized the Davidic throne for its involvement in coalition building and expansion into the North. In particular, we will demonstrate how Jer 8.8-10 reflects a trenchant critique of the Josianic Deuteronomists for mixing politics with theological reform. The political agenda disclosed in 2K 22-23 is fundamentally at odds with the ideology at work in Dtr 17.14-20, suggesting that the Josianic reform proceeded on a course other than the one prescribed in the Deuteronomic code. In Jer 8, the prophet accuses those who abrogated Dtr 17.14-20 in favor of advancing a political agenda (described in the historical account of Josiah’s reign) of having made the law into a lie. We are unable to recognize unambiguously the nature of Jeremiah's polemic here, and this is a function of the Book of Jeremiah's current framing of the prophet's oracles. In contrast to this mode of reading Jeremiah as pro-Josianic, we will suggest that the prophet himself experienced his flourishing during the difficult decade between the exiles of 597 and 587 BCE. Having seen the dire consequences of a concern for political sovereignty during the period of Babylonian resurgence, we will illustrate how the prophet sought to establish ideas of political collectivity on grounds other than autochthony and common tenure in a single geographical region. This subtle theological position mediated between the political theologies implicit in the Holiness and early Deuteronomic traditions. We will demonstrate that Jeremiah was a synthetic theologian who sought to articulate himself across traditional and sociological boundaries. Ironically, the reason why this complex theological posture is so difficult to discern is because the Jeremiah text itself was subjected to Deuteronomic redaction that attempted to 9

domesticate the prophet's language to the evolving ideology of this particular political movement. Literary traces of the influence of Jeremiah's theology may be seen in the work of the anonymous author of Isaiah 40-66 as well as in the Book of Job. But the prophet's most enduring legacy is in the persistence of a national collective even in the midst of geographical upheaval, mass death and the collapse of social institutions that sustained community. The remainder of the present chapter will set the stage for this study. We will consider first the historiographical complexities of the Josianic period, and then survey a range of literary engagements with Jeremiah's poetry that seek to place it within that historical milieu. We will discuss the theses of Rainer Albertz and Marvin Sweeney in some detail and consider them in relation to the critical counterclaims of J. Philip Hyatt and Mark Biddle. This review of the treatment of Jeremiah's poetry in relation to the political environment of the late monarchic period will help to clarify important analytical issues that undergird the remainder of our study. This dissertation intends to advance a new way of reading prophetic discourse. Employing pragmatic and tradition-sensitive analytical tools, we will demonstrate that it is possible to use literary methods to recover historiographically useful data. Further, these data are not themselves subject to the same sorts of heuristic problems that attend the study of ancient historiographical sources as trustworthy witnesses to history. Reading prophetic poetry with an ear for how a critical perspective is built upon the basis of shared cultural assumption allows us to recognize how a single political thinker attempted to influence the issues of his day. The resulting image is not of a prophet who anticipates later cultural developments but of a politically engaged rhetorician whose speech impacted his troubled society with such force that the culture that rippled outward from his moment was marked forever by that passage. 10

Recent Historiographical Treatments of the Josianic Reform The literary evidence for Josiah's intentions toward the territory of the former northern kingdom is slender. 2K 23.4-14 describes the young king's initial cultic purge in the territory "from Geba to Beer-Sheva" (v8), a merism for the entire territory of the kingdom of Judah. Subsequently, 2K 23.15-20 describe some sort of extension northward into the territory of Israel. The following episode is linked with the additive particle Mgw indicating its separate status in relation to the prior purge. Additionally, it is focused on the cult at Bethel and is structured around the fulfillment of the prediction made by the anonymous prophet in 1K 13.2-3. It is notable that the account in 2K 23.15-20 is centered almost exclusively on Josiah's actions at Bethel. Only in v 19 is it specified that: Also, all the shrines of the high places which were in the cities of Samaria that the kings of Israel had made as a provocation, [these] Josiah removed. He did to them all the things he had done in Bethel.

tw%ømD;bAh y°E;tD;b_lD;k_tRa ·MÅg◊w Nw#ørVmOv yâérDoV;b —r∞RvSa sy$IoVkAhVl lEa∂rVcˆy y§EkVlAm …w%cDo r°RvSa …wh¡D¥yIvaáøy ry™IsEh :l`Ea_ty`EbV;b h™DcDo r¶RvSa My$IcSoA;m`Ah_lDkV;k M$RhDl cAo∞A¥yÅw

The prefacing of this episode with a parallel Mgw establishes the king's incursion northward as a tertiary action in a sequence that runs: Judah → Bethel → Israel. Such a sequence is remarkable, since in political terms, the last of these would have been the boldest move militarily and geopolitically. Focusing attention on the cultic and religious dimension of Josiah's activities, however, the Deuteronomistic Historian here focuses his attention on the actions at Bethel, a site only slightly beyond the northern border of Judah. In light of this circumspection in the DtrH, it is remarkable that the Chronicler's account is forthright in attributing to Josiah a maximalist expansion into the northern territory. 2Chr 11

34.6-7 specify that Josiah extended his cultic purge: …into the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim and Simeon and as far as Naphtali, with their ruins18 all about.

NwäøoVmIv◊w MˆyöårVpRa◊w hªRÚvÅnVm y°érDoVb…w by`IbDs M™RhyEtOb√rAj◊;b y¡IlD;tVpÅn_dAo◊w

The phrasing suggests that the king ranged freely throughout Israel, though his activity was confined to cultic purgation. On the basis of a comparative reading of these texts and considering the fact that the Deuteronomistic Historian prefers to frame political conflict in religious terms, scholars have in general preferred a maximalist approach to the historiographical reconstruction of the period of Josiah's reign prior to his death at Megiddo in 609 BCE. According to this understanding, the religious reform was a vehicle for the re-expression of sovereignty over the former northern kingdom, a political policy that was facilitated by domestic instability in Assyria and the former empire's declining ability to maintain sovereignty over the territories it acquired in the eighth century BCE. Where scholars currently disagree is on the extent of Josiah's territorial claims. The maximalist approach received its fullest formulation in a 1950 essay by H.L. Ginsberg entitled, "Judah and the Transjordanian States from 734-582 BCE."19 Building his argument on the oracle against Ammon in Jer 49, Ginsberg maintained that the text reflects an Ammonite repossession, subsequent the disaster at Megiddo, of Transjordanian territory previously acquired in the period of Josiah.20 Whereas Ginsberg mounts a spirited defense of the authenticity of Jer 49 and its 18

Following the qere.

19

Previous forays in this direction had been put forth by Theodor Oestreicher, Das Deuteronomische Grundgesetz, Beiträge zur Förderung christlicher Theologie 27 (Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, 1923) and Albrecht Alt "Judas Gaue unter Josia" Palästina-Jahrbuch 21 (1925): 100-116, who interpreted the town lists of the book of Joshua (13.15ff; 15.21ff; 18.21ff; 19.2-7, 10-39, 41-46) as reflecting administrative divisions in the renewed kingdom of Josiah. 20

H.L. Ginsberg, "Judah and the Transjordanian States from 734-582 BCE," in Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume, (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1950), 355-56.

12

placement in the second half of the prophet's career, he also attempted to redate another text, which he maintained reflects the period of Josiah: Is 9.1-6. Following Mowinckel, Ginsberg maintained that the dly of v 5 referred to Josiah, and that the genre of the composition was a prophetic thanksgiving psalm presented in relation to an event that already took place and not a prophetic anticipation of a coming messianic figure.21 In Ginsberg’s estimation, the phrase in 9.5aa recalls what was said of Josiah in 1K 13.2ba, and the emphasis in Is 9.1-6 on the wonderful king's youth is a reflection of the early age at which he initiated both his kingship and his reform.22 With this identification in hand, Ginsberg interprets the imagery of 9.1-6 as reflecting popular acclaim upon some reversal. Arguing that Is 8.23 presents the basis for the prophetic psalm of thanksgiving, Ginsberg interprets the references to Zebulun and Naphtali as more evidence for Josian military conquest in the trans-Jordan.23 On the basis of this evidence and the maximal expansion it entails, he reckoned these texts indicate a vigorous campaign of military expansion during the reign of Josiah.24 At roughly the same time as Ginsberg's article appeared, F.M. Cross and D.N. Freedman developed a parallel argument for a maximalist reading of the literary evidence. In a brief article entitled "Josiah's Revolt against Assyria,"25 Cross and Freedman argued for a reading of the historical evidence that established the substantial consonance between the Assyrian historical record and the Chronicler's account of an aggressive move by the young king into the north. 21

Ginsberg, “Judah,” 357-60.

22

Ginsberg, “Judah,” 360 n. 41.

23

Ginsberg, “Judah,” 358.

24

Ginsberg, “Judah,” 362. Significant for us is that Ginsberg explicitly links Jer 2-6 to the Josian program of political expansion. Specifically, he argues for the authenticity of Jer 3.6-15 and maintains that dual address to Judah and Israel here, as well as in Jer 30-33, reflect the young king's efforts to recapture the north (p. 354). 25

F.M. Cross and D.N. Freedman, "Josiah's Revolt against Assyria," JNES 12 (1953): 56-58.

13

Building their reconstruction on the account of Josiah's actions given in 2Chr 34:6-7, 33, they interpret the statement in 2Chr 34.6 as a reference to an incursion, in Josiah's twelfth regnal year (v 3), into the territory of the former kingdom of Israel. Dating this incursion to 628 BCE, Cross and Freedman interpret it as an annexation—whether de jure or de facto—of territories lost after 722 BCE. This process of annexation followed Josiah's formal rejection of Assyrian sovereignty in 632 BCE and culminated in the great national renewal of 622. In their estimation, the 628 BCE date for Josiah’s northern action correlates with the date W.H. Dubberstein proposed for the death of Assur-etel-ilani, an event that occasioned considerable domestic strife in Assyria. It led to the emergence of Nabopolassar in Babylon and culminated in the collapse of the Assyrian empire. Cross and Freedman take this coincidence in chronology between the biblical and Assyrian accounts, along with the evidence for a collapse in Assyrian power subsequent to the death of Assur-etel-ilani as grounds for valorizing Chronicler’s version. These two reconstructions have each been subjected to vigorous critique. Bruce Routledge has expressed skepticism that Jer 49 can be employed in a direct way to reconstruct an Ammonite campaign in the territory of Gad in the late Iron Age.26 Routledge's attempt to complicate the relationship between ethnic identity, textual evidence and material culture applies even more strongly to the shaky inference that Josiah campaigned in the trans-Jordan.27 More

26

Bruce Routledge, Moab in the Iron Age: Hegemony, Polity, Archaeology. Archaeology, Culture, and Society. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004) 46-47. See below, pp. 180-181. 27

Though he does not make mention of Ginsberg's provocative thesis, Holladay dates Jer 49.1abb-2 to a moment just prior to the second deportation, vv 3-4 to a moment immediately prior to the first deportation, and v 5 to the reign of Jehoiakim (William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 2: a Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, Chapters 26-52, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989], 367). We need not follow Holladay in this delicate textual surgery to recognize that none of these proposed contexts support the contention that Josiah campaigned vigorously so far from his power base.

14

fundamentally, Ginsberg's hypothesis fails for lacking an explicit basis in the textual evidence.28 The dly of Is 9 is more commonly associated with Hezekiah, an identification that requires no great textual emendation and that matches the historical and political conditions of Isaiah's period.29 The preference of Cross and Freedman for the Chronicler's account has likewise been challenged on historiographical grounds and in view of its tenuous connection with the historical record. The suggestion that Josiah engaged in a campaign that ranged throughout the northern territory stands or falls on the reliability of the Chronicler to speak for this period. It seems unwise to anchor so serious an argument on a late and debated historical source.30 Despite doubts over the historiographical reliability of the evidence upon which claims for Josianic maximalism were being put forth, similar arguments continued to be made31 until 1991, when Nadav Na'aman addressed decisively the issue of Josiah's military and political efforts in his article "The Kingdom of Judah under Josiah."32 Here, Na'aman engaged systematically with the entire set of data upon which the thesis of Josian expansion had been established. Most importantly, Na'aman read against the Tendenz of the DtrH to surmise that

28

Nadav Na'aman, "The Kingdom of Judah under Josiah," TA 18 (1991): 42.

29

Most recently,William M. Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 69. See also Paul D. Wegner, "A Re-examination of Isaiah IX 1-6" VT 42 (1992): 103-112, who tries to rehabilitate the traditional, eschatological reading of this oracle. 30

Na'aman, "The Kingdom of Judah," 43-44. See also N. Lohfink, "The Cult Reform of Josiah of Judah: 2 Kings 22-23 as a Source for the History of Israelite Religion," Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, ed. P.D. Miller and S.D. McBride (Philadelphia: Fortress: 1987), 466-67. 31

See especially Ernest W. Nicholson, Deuteronomy and Tradition: Literary and Historical Traditions in the Book of Deuteronomy (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967), 12. Also A. Malamat, "Josia's Bid for Armageddon," JANES 5 (1973): 267-79, esp. p. 271, and Bustenay Oded, "Josiah and the Deuteronomic Reformation" in Israelite and Judean History, ed. John H. Hayes and J. Maxwell Miller (Philadelphia: Trinity Press: 1977), 458-69, esp. pp. 467-468. 32

Na'aman, "The Kingdom of Judah," 3-71.

15

Josiah had been first a vassal of Assyria and then of Egypt.33 The suggestion that Josiah had removed himself from treaty obligations and formed a covenant with YHWH directly serves the Deuteronomistic Historian's general interest in establishing Josiah as an independent and decisive agent on the historical stage. The reality is more complex, and Na'aman reckoned that Josiah's death at Megiddo was the result of an abortive attempt to impose upon the Judean king an oath of vassalage. The killing of Josiah and the elevation of Jehoiakim were, in Na'aman's estimation, the actions of a suzerain exercising his lawful sovereignty over a restive vassal and not the result of a Josianic attack upon the Egyptian army.34 He accepts that Josiah's reforms in 622 were a response to civil unrest in Mesopotamia and the corresponding decline in Assyrian power in the region.35 Nevertheless, Na'aman asserted that the period in Syro-Palestine was not a genuine interregnum and that Egypt had taken over administration of the region. Josiah's actions may indeed have been motivated by fantasies of empire, but the occasions for such exercise were limited by opportunity. It is possible that the Deuteronomistic Historian's account of events in Bethel were accurate,36 but it cannot similarly be maintained that Josiah annexed the whole of Samaria, let alone the transjordanian nahalot, given the demographic difficulties involved and the clear affront this would have been to Egypt.37 Na’aman’s treatment has proven decisive for our consideration of the period of Josiah’s kingship and its geopolitical aims. Oded Lipschitz, for example, recently integrated this argument into his historical treatment of the late monarchy, The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem, 33

Na'aman, "The Kingdom of Judah," 41.

34

Na'aman, "The Kingdom of Judah," 51-55.

35

Na'aman, "The Kingdom of Judah," 38.

36

Na'aman, "The Kingdom of Judah," 44.

37

Na'aman, "The Kingdom of Judah," 57.

16

concluding that: “…the most reasonable assumption is that during Josiah’s rule the northern border of Judah was pushed northward from the Geba-Mizpah line and, at most, reached the Bethel-Ophrah line.”38 This development in the historiography of the period has recognized, with ever increasing sophistication, the care with which the Deuteronomistic History must be treated in the course of historical reconstruction. Archaeological and epigraphic evidence becomes the basis on which to build secure plausibility structures in terms of which biblical sources may be assessed. As a consequence, we are left with a largely provisional and negative portrait of the historiography of the period. The tendentious nature of the DtrH is recognized, and its claims are understood to derive from concerns other than the accurate and objective representation of historical events. With the DtrH less and less available as a source for historical reconstruction, scholars have turned to Jeremiah as a means of reconstructing more of the substantive history of the period. The thesis that Jeremiah began his public career as a prophet during the period of Josiah thus permitted this source to be used to flesh out the cultural and ideological details of what was otherwise an increasingly skeletal historical frame. Accordingly, we must now turn to a consideration of the theory that Jeremiah’s work began during this early period.

The Problem of the Early Period Jeremiah Older treatments of Jer 2-6 as integrated had led to problems in the reconciliation of its topical matter with the date implied by the call narrative of Jer 1, which specified that the

38

Oded Lipschits, The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem: Judah under Babylonian Rule (Winona Lake, IN, Eisenbrauns: 2005), 138.

17

prophet's initial experience of revelation came in the thirteenth regnal year of Josiah, i.e., 626 BCE. This implied historical situation had raised serious questions about the relationship of Jeremiah to the events of the day. Primarily, these related to the Deuteronomic reform, which 2K 22 specifies began in Josiah's eighteenth regnal year. References to Josiah are scarce in the Book, however, and the prophet's attitude toward the Deuteronomic movement has been debated. Additionally, the reference to an enemy coming out of the north in Jer 1.13-15; 4.6; and 6.1, 22, raises serious questions as to the date of the oracles. The reign of Josiah was marked by the waning power of Assyria, and it is likely that Egypt had begun to exert influence in SyroPalestine during this period. The rise of Neo-Babylonia was still some years off, so it is difficult to reconcile Jeremiah's prediction of a coming northern enemy with the political conditions of Josiah's day. Identifying this foe with neo-Assyria is difficult given the empire's decline under the pressure of Nabopolassar. Yet if this foe is to be identified with neo-Babylonia, then some moment subsequent to the Battle of Carchemish is most likely, a conclusion that challenges the traditional impression of a Josianic period Jeremiah. In the face of these difficulties, several remedies had been proposed. Perhaps the simplest approach was to revise the date of Jeremiah's career. J. Philip Hyatt laid out the basic argument in two essays written in the 1940s. Initially, Hyatt addressed a stratum of poetic material in Jeremiah that referred to a vague "foe from the North" (Jer 4.5-8, 13-22, 22-31; 5.1517; 6.1-8, 22-26; 8.14-17; 10.22).39 Correlating these oracles with the date of Jeremiah's call given in Jer 1.2 and 25.3, Hyatt observed that Jeremiah's concern for a looming threat in the North fit badly with what we know of the last decades of the 7th century. At the midpoint of

39

J.P. Hyatt, "The Peril from the North in Jeremiah," JBL 59 (1940): 499-513.

18

Josiah's reign, Assyria was in decline and the battle of Carchemish was still two decades off. Hyatt rejected the theory of scholars like Duhm and Eissfeldt, who had drawn upon Herodotus's reference to a 28-year period of Scythian domination in West Asia during the reign of Psammetichus I (History I.103-106) to suggest that Jeremiah referred to the same event. Rather than depending on the notoriously unreliable Herodotus,40 Hyatt proposed to reposition these texts subsequent to the Medean-Chaldean alliance and the fall of Nineveh, i.e., circa 614 BCE.41 Thus the "Foe from the North" referred to by Jeremiah in these oracles is the resurgent neoBabylonian monarchy of Nabopolassar. This redating inevitably challenges the traditional date of 626 BCE as the date for the beginning of Jeremiah's career. Hyatt rejects the date given in Jer 1.2, recognizing that the syntax of the MT is disordered and that the LXX matches closely the incipits of Hosea, Joel, Micah and Zephaniah, a fact suggesting that it was a late imposition upon the text. He likewise ascribed Jer 3.6, 25.3 and 36.2 to a later tradent who sought to assert Jeremiah's substantial agreement with the reforms of 622 BCE. In the face of this slender textual evidence and the clear concern Jeremiah had for the neo-Babylonian expansion in the "Foe from the North" material and elsewhere, it is best to suppose that Jeremiah's work as a prophet began in the years between 614-612, i.e., before Josiah's death at Megiddo, but subsequent to his reforms.42 The chief obstacle to this date is the traditional reading of Jer 11.1-13 as supportive of the Josianic reform. Pointing to a series of statements Jeremiah made that were critical of the Jerusalemite temple establishment (e.g., 6.20; 7.22-23; 8.8; 11.15-16, 26.4-6), Hyatt maintained that 40

Hyatt, “Peril,” 501-502; see also the discussion of Mark E. Biddle, A Redaction History of Jeremiah 2:14:2 (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1989), 18, fn. 49. 41

Hyatt, “Peril,” 509.

42

Hyatt, “Peril,” 513.

19

Jeremiah's relationship to the Deuteronomic reform was likely to have been more complicated than the simplistic advocacy implied by this reading of 11.1-13. He suggests these verses were augmented by later Deuteronomic editors who were elsewhere concerned to make Jeremiah proJosianic. In their original state, however, they could have referred to an earlier, Sinaitic convenant tradition that was being displaced by the Deuteronomists.43 Hyatt later returned to the issue of the date of Jeremiah’s prophetic work, choosing to abandon completely the idea of Jeremiah’s contemporaneity with King Josiah. The preponderance of references to Jehoiakim in the prophet's poetry makes a date subsequent to Josiah's death at Megiddo in 609 the most likely date for the initiation of Jeremiah’s career. Only Jer 22.10-12 is plausibly located in the time prior to Jehoahaz's elevation.44 At the same time, Hyatt entertains Whitley's more radical revision (although ultimately he does not subscribe to them), which dates Jeremiah's call to 605, making the Battle of Carchemish the decisive moment in the initiation of his career. Instead, Hyatt considers the formula in Jer 26.1 as representing the true initiation of Jeremiah’s prophecy, and he reckons that the temple sermon was his first sustained public oration.45 Thus the prophet's citation of his audience's mistaken cry of salvation in Jer 7.10 is ascribed to the partisans of the pro-Egyptian party who rejoiced in Necho's elevation of Jehoiakim in 609, and Jer 2.16 (díOq√d∂q JK…wäo√rˆy s´nVÚpVjAt◊w PäOn_y´nV;b_MÅ…g) is read as a reference to the death of Josiah. The reference in Jer 2.18 to Assyria is read, with Whitley, as a

43

Hyatt, “Peril,” 511-512; See also H.G. May “The Chronology of Jeremiah's Oracles,” JNES 4 (1945): 217-227, which builds upon Hyatt's redating to present an ambitious and comprehensive sequence for Jeremiah's oracles, clustering them primarily during the reign of Jehoiakim (226-227) and ascribing the traditional date to a later Deuteronomic editor who sought to create the impression of consonance between Jeremiah and the Josian period reformers (227). 44

Hyatt, “Jeremiah's Prophecy,” 207

45

Hyatt, “Jeremiah's Prophecy,” 207.

20

geographical reference rather than a historical or political one. On the basis of evidence such as Zech 10.10-11; Lam 5.6; and Ezr 6.22, the term is read as a non-specific descriptor for Mesopotamia generally, and for Chaldeans with whom some sector of the Jerusalemite population was specifically seeking alliance. This latter argument for a geographical reading of Jer 2.18 is weak, and Hyatt's invocation of a series of late texts that refer to Assyria in geographical terms is scarcely to be considered an adequate response to the problem.46 Indeed, Milgrom had earlier invoked this verse in particular to contend that Jeremiah reflects knowledge of enmity between Egypt and Assyria, a supposition lending credence to the traditional interpretation of Jer 1.2.47 Nevertheless, the remainder of Hyatt's critique (and the parallel effort of H.G. May) raises serious doubts over the integrity of the hypothesis that Jeremiah began speaking in public in 626 BCE. It is unfortunate, then, that the chief proponent of the revised date for Jeremiah's career has been W.L. Holladay, who has abandoned Hyatt's contention that Jer 1.2, 3.6, 25.3, and 36.2 are the result of editorial intrusion designed to create the impression that Jeremiah was a Deuteronomic partisan. Instead, Holladay advanced a new reading of the Book of Jeremiah that attempted to retain the accuracy of both Jer 1 and the powerful evidence against a Josianic-period Jeremiah by radically reconsidering what Jer 1 meant. Rather than referring to the moment of the prophet's call, Holladay imagined that the date "in the thirteenth year of King Josiah" referred instead to the prophet's birth, reckoning that the reference here to the prophet being known before he was 46

There is some merit, however, to Holladay's later recognition that Assyria and Egypt form a "traditional parallel" on the basis of Is 19.23-25, and his observation that dqdq Kwory (Jer 2.16) is a reference to Josiah's death at Megiddo and the subsequent removal of Ahaz is almost certainly correct. 47

Jacob Milgrom, "The Date of Jeremiah Chapter 2," JNES 14 (1955): 65-69.

21

formed in the womb suggests that Jeremiah's birth is indicated in 1.2.48 Working primarily from the oracle of Jer 16.1-9, in which the prophet is commanded not to take a wife or to father children, and recognizing Jeremiah's debt to Hosea in fashioning a symbolic action drama around the prophet's marital relations, Holladay nevertheless infers that such a statement can only make sense after December of 601 BCE.49 This is the date Holladay had earlier ascribed to the composition of Jeremiah's second scroll, as outlined in Jer 36.30-31.50 On Holladay's understanding, this was the point when the prophet determined that God had decided to destroy irrevocably the kingdom of Judah. On the basis of this identification, then, Holladay assumes that the oracle of Jer 16.1-9 can only indicate a moment subsequent to this determination of the divine will. But the traditional understanding of the date formula in Jer 1.2 would make the prophet in his late forties or early fifties at the turn of the century, an age beyond which an oracle related to marital relations would make sense. Thus, it must be the case, Holladay asserts, that the prophet was in his twenties in 601, and the date given in Jer 1.2 must refer not to the prophet's commission, but to the date of his birth.51 On this basis, it can be affirmed that Jeremiah began his prophetic pronouncements with the death of Josiah at Megiddo in 609 BCE.52 The remainder of Holladay's essay is a series of circumstantial arguments in favor of this "low chronology" for the prophet's work. It hews in substance closely to the contours laid out by 48

W.L. Holladay, “A Coherent Chronology of Jeremiah's Early Career,” Le Livre de Jérémia: Le Prophète et son milieu, les oracles et leur transmission. ed. P. Bogaert (Leuven: Peeters, 1981); see also J. Philip Hyatt, The Book of Jeremiah. The Interpreter's Bible. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1956), 796. 49

Holladay, “Chronology,” 61.

50

Holladay, “Chronology,” 60; and earlier, “The Identification of the Two Scrolls of Jeremiah,” VT 30 (1980): 452-467. 51

Holladay, “Chronology,” 62.

52

Holladay, “Chronology,” 73.

22

Hyatt forty years earlier. The essential difference between Hyatt and Holladay lies in the latter's willingness to consider Jer 1.2, et al. as reliable historical data. The careful nuance with which Hyatt had differentiated between the apparent interests of the Deuteronomic editor of the Book of Jeremiah and the prophet himself is lost in favor of a holistic literary argument that ignores the serious interpretive difficulties that attend any reading of Jer 1 and Jer 36. Indeed, Holladay's argumentative strategy may be characterized as a chain of supposition, the origin of which lies in his historicizing read of Jer 36. Given its clearly ideological character (a topic to be explored in the following chapter), it is unwise to mine this text for historical data without first asking hard questions about its motivating interests and literary shaping. The text is exceedingly polemical and cannot be used to provide unvarnished historical data of the sort that Holladay invokes. Without the diachronic argument for the early formation of the Jeremiah tradition that Holladay invokes here,53 there is no solid evidence for a decisive shift in Jeremiah's prophetic consciousness around 601 BCE. Nor is there a decisive turn, at this early point, away from the language of consolation and the appeal for genuine ethical transformation. Aside from this weakness in Holladay's argument, a more fundamental problem pertains to the situational specificity he assigns to the oracle of Jer 16.1-9. The confidence with which Holladay reconstructs the prophet's actual marital behavior is belied by the serious gaps in our knowledge of the cultural expectations surrounding this sort of prophetic performance. The generic quality of this text54 should caution us against easily assuming a reflex of historical fact here. It is possible that these sorts of performances depended not on the audience's direct

53

Holladay, “Two Scrolls of Jeremiah.”

54

cf. Hos 1-3; Jer 2-3; Ezek 16, 23. For this sort of self-abasing prophetic performance more broadly, consider, inter alia, Is 20 and Jer 13, 27-28.

23

observation of concrete action, but on a rhetorician's suggestion of a metaphorical frame that helps to give an argument plausibility. This sort of semiotic framing seems the more likely way of interpreting Jeremiah's own performances in many cases.55 In this particular instance, it's difficult to argue that there is a concrete prophetic performance here, since the divine message embodied by Jeremiah is not so much an action as a failure to act (unlike its Hosean precursor). Thus, it is also possible that Jeremiah here narrates not a prospective divine commandment, but a retrospective rationale for his action. There is simply not enough contextual or cultural information available to permit us to interpret Jer 16.19 in a decisive way. Certainly there accrues too much doubt in our reading of this oracle to draw from it the decisive sorts of historiographical conclusions Holladay advances here. Holladay's more imaginative hypothesis regarding the date for Jeremiah’s emergence on the public stage has not had much influence, and consequently, Hyatt's earlier, more measured criticism of the traditional date formula of Jer 1 has largely fallen by the wayside. This is unfortunate, given that Hyatt’s earlier argument was far less speculative, drawing sophisticated inferences into the formation process of the Book of Jeremiah from his assessment of the dating formulae in Jer 1.2, 3.6 and 36.2. In an article in the inaugural edition of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, he developed a novel argument for Jeremiah's substantial autonomy from the Deuteronomists. Building upon his previous work articulating a skeptical position toward the traditional dating of Jeremiah as contemporary with the Josianic reforms, Hyatt now began to recognize the consequences of this shift for our understanding of Jeremiah's relationship to his 55

See especially Jer 27-28 in which it is necessary for Jeremiah only to suggest in language that a yoke might be made of iron in order to refute the response of Hananiah. Also Jer 1.11ff emphasize not the performative or somatic aspect of the prophetic vision, but its translation into a verbal signifier. We simply don't know enough about how prophetic symbolic actions and vision interpretations took place to draw the specific sorts of conclusions that Holladay does here.

24

intellectual milieu. He observed that the traditional argument for Jeremian consonance with the Deuteronomic movement depends on the hypothesis of a mid-career sea change in the prophet's orientation. This would mean the supposedly early statements in Jer 11.1-8 in support of tyrbh

tazh are interpreted as pro-Deuteronomic, and the temple sermon (Jer 7 and 26) is seen as reflecting a change in attitude.56 Arguing against this ideological discontinuity in the prophet’s own thought, Hyatt suggested that whatever pro-Deuteronomic material that existed in the Book of Jeremiah was the product of Deuteronomistic redaction. The core of Jeremiah’s own work had been far more critical than this standard mode of reading is able to perceive, according to Hyatt. In a stroke of methodological sophistication sadly not replicated in the succeeding literature, Hyatt based his critical reading of the Jeremiah tradition not on an overarching redaction-critical hypothesis, or on terminological distribution, but on a synthetic reading of Jeremiah's own theology, which sought to account for the discrepancies of chronology and continuity that had already obtained in the text as it stands. In the process of advancing this argument, Hyatt recognized that the apparently anti-Deuteronomic material in the text needed to be read as an organic element of Jeremiah’s theology. Collating the abundant evidence for a critical attitude in the poetry of Jeremiah toward the Deuteronomic reforms, Hyatt hypothesized that the prophet had been in agreement with the reform insofar as it had focused on social justice and ethical reform, but that he had disagreed with the centrality of cultic reform to the detriment of justice in the course of the reform's

56

Hyatt, “Jeremiah and Deuteronomy,” 157.

25

implementation.57 This impression is built from a synthetic reading of Jeremian statements expressive of skepticism over the pretensions of the seventh century reformers. Texts like Jer 7//26 (esp 7.21-23), Jer 6.20, 11.15,58 and especially Jer 8.8-9, 13 all suggest that the prophet permitted himself to criticize the reformers especially on the issue of cultic centralization in Jerusalem.59 Such a reading, when combined with a low chronology, has the salient advantage of presenting a prophet whose theology is not subject to the sorts of sharp reversals necessitated by the traditional dating. Subsequently, Hyatt assessed the terminological overlap between the Deuteronomic corpus and Jeremiah's own prophecies, attempting to demonstrate in a systematic fashion that the shared terminology was evidence as much for Deuteronomic intrusion as Jeremian dependence. Such editorial invention served, in Hyatt's view, to give the impression that the prophet was pro-Deuteronomic, recontextualizing and reframing the prophet's originally critical language. Hyatt's thesis was necessarily incomplete. It treated a broad, complex literary and historical relationship in a very summary fashion. As a gesture in the direction of a critical reading of the Book of Jeremiah’s editorial history, however, it was an important first step.60 Hyatt presented a compelling argument in favor of reading apparently anti-Deuteronomic statements in a synthetic and programmatic fashion rather than explaining them away piecemeal. Despite his serious challenge to the traditional chronology for the career of Jeremiah and its suggestion that the prophet's relationship to the Deuteronomic movement was complex and critical, Hyatt was unable decisively to shift the scholarly fulcrum away from the dating of the 57

Hyatt, “Jeremiah and Deuteronom,” 158-59.

58

Following Hyatt's reading developed earlier in “Torah.”

59

Hyatt, “Jeremiah and Deuteronomy,” 161-163.

60

For further literature following the Hyatt line, see the works cited in Biddle, Redaction History, 17 n. 47.

26

text suggested by Jer 1.2; 3.6; 25.3 and 36.2. The claim within the Book of Jeremiah for an early period for the prophet’s work is still made quite strongly, and Hyatt’s answers to the ensuing problems of literary and ideological continuity appeared no more or less decisive than the rationalizations presented by their opponents.

Rainer Albertz and the Jeremian Early Period With the advent of Rainer Albertz's groundbreaking work, the terms of debate shifted decisively away from Hyatt’s research agenda. On the basis of his seminal 1982 article, “Jer 2-6 und die Frühzeitverkündigung Jeremias,” Jeremiah 2-6 has since been seen as evidence essential for the reconstruction of Jeremiah’s early, Josianic period activity.61 In the process, Hyatt's original suspicion of Jer 1.2, 3.6, 25.3 and 36.2 fell by the wayside, and scholars ceased to question the adequacy of these verses as historical data. As we survey Albertz's influential argument based on the addressees of Jer 2-6, it is important to keep in mind that his work is not presented as a comprehensive response to the critiques levied by Hyatt twenty years earlier. Instead, he sidesteps the particulars of Hyatt's argument. He presumes that Jer 2-6, in some modified form, can be presented as Jeremian "Frühzeitverkündigung" and then develops an analysis of this material in terms of the historical and political conditions surrounding Josiah’s reform.62 Hyatt's position is presented in brief, the 61

Albertz, "Jer 2-6."

62

Important precursors for Albertz include H.W. Herzberg, “Jeremiah und das Nordreich Israel,” Theologische Literaturzeitung 77 (1952), 595-602; Claus Rietzschel, Das Problem der Urrolle: Ein Beitrag zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Jeremiabuches (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1966), 130-131; and Peter Neumann, Hört Das Wort Jahwäs: Ein Beitrag Zur Komposition Alttestamentlicher Schriften. (Hamburg, Stiftung Europa-Kolleg Hamburg: 1975). Albertz’s presentation in 1982 has proved the most influential version of the argument, however. He claims to have developed the thesis independently of Hertzberg, Rietzschel and Neumann, only learning of their work subsequently (25, n. 21). For subsequent developments of the thesis, see Christoph Levin, Die Verheissung des neuen Bundes: in ihrem theologiegeschichtlichen Zussamenhang ausgelegt, FRLANT 137. (Göttingen:

27

serious objections to the traditional dating of Jeremiah's career are noted, and the frame of reference is shifted away from literary continuity and onto the problem of theme and address in the oracles of Jer 2-6. To bolster the hypothesis of an early period Jeremiah whose work was contemporaneous with the Deuteronomic reform, Albertz proposed reconstructing a stratum of material within Jer 2-6 whose date could be established securely in this period. Albertz's point of departure was the recognition that Jer 2-6 contained addresses both to "Israel" and "Judah." In this, he followed P.K.D. Neumann by observing that Jer 2.5ff were addressed to Israel, Jer 4.5ff to Judah and Jerusalem, and Jer 5.20ff to both interchangably.63 In order to establish this broad distribution pattern, certain references in the collection needed to be attributed to a later hand. References to Judah in Jer 2.1-4.2 were explained as later insertions within a matrix that originally addressed Israel. So Albertz maintained that Jer 2.2, which addressed Jerusalem using the phrase

Mlvwry ynzab tarqw Klh, recalled the language of Jer 36, which repeatedly employs the collocation N ynzab arq to describe the reading of the original Jeremian scroll.64 Furthermore, Albertz advocated separating 2.2-3 from 2.4ff on generic grounds; the tenor of vv 2-3 is salvation language while what follows is judgment speech. He also considered 2.28 to be a postJeremian addition to vv 26-27 because it lacks a clear metrical structure—it shifts from third person plural reference to second person singular address. Further, it changes focus from private religious activity to collective, national adherence to foreign deities.

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht: 1985); and Taro Odashima, Heilsworte im Jeremiabuch: Untersuchungen zu ihrer vordeuteronomistischen Bearbeitung, Beiträge zur Förderung christlicher Theologie 27 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1989), 139-161. 63

Neumann, Hört das Wort Jahwäs.

64

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” vv 6, 10, 13, 14, 15, 21.

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Finally, and perhaps most significantly, Jer 3.6-13, which refers to Israel and Judah synthetically, is assumed to be secondary.65 Explaining this as a rationalizing commentary designed to address the shift from judgment language to predictions of salvation for Israel in Jer 3.21-4.2, Albertz considered Jer 3.6-13 a later "commentary" on this earlier textual unit. It explains how Jeremiah could adopt such a starkly different tone towards the two polities: Israel had sinned less than Judah and thus could anticipate an eventual remittance of punishment (vv.11-12). Albertz here adapted the earlier redactional argumentation of Thiel, who had treated vv 11ab-13ba as an original Jeremian oracle addressed to the North, which had subsequently been expanded through the addition of a framing Deuteronomic commentary in vv 6-12aa and 13bb with further post-exilic additions in vv 14ff .66 The function of this Deuteronomic frame was to develop an analogical relationship between an earlier oracle oriented toward the northern kingdom and a later address to the south. As such, this approach views Jer 3.6-13 both as a conceptual and an exegetical bridge, permitting two sequential oracle complexes to coexist and mutually to co-inform. This tendency to treat Jer 3.6-13 as an editorial artifact has become a consensus opinion. Even Hyatt had considered it as such.67 Yet this need not be the only interpretation given this passage. Consideration of this text unit as secondary is necessary for those who hypothesize multiple layers of tradition in Jer 2-6 based on differing modes of address.68 Since Jer 3.6-13 treats Judah and Israel synthetically, it challenges profoundly the idea of separate oracles to the 65

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 26, fn.25; also 32-33.

66

Thiel, Jer 1-25, 83-93; see also McKane, Jeremiah, 68-69; Holladay, quite unhelpfully, terms this an "early prose midrash"(William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, Chapters 1-25, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 116. 67

Hyatt, Interpreter's Bible. 825-826.

68

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 25-31.

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North and the South underlying the received text. It is ironic to ascribe Jer 3.6 to a later redactor since the temporal reference of this verse stands as one of the few indications of any prophetic activity by Jeremiah during the time of Josiah. Indeed, vv 6-10 are thematically unified and dependent on the divorce language of 3.1. The suggestion that a later editor chose to elaborate upon the earlier imagery of the prophet is no more well grounded than the alternative suggestion: that the prophet himself has established a theme in this chapter and is now nuancing it. The thematic content of this chapter is of a piece with the imagery of the late monarchic or early exilic period; similar comparisons of Israel and Judah employing the comparative language of sisterhood are found in Ezekiel 23 (see also Ezek 16.46). Holladay's suggestion that there must be a decisive line of influence between Jeremiah and Ezekiel is ill made.69 The metaphor of sisters could easily have been a general frame of reference in terms of which Judeans were in the habit of conceptualizing the threat from Babylonia. The suggestion that Deuteronomic clichés are found in this section (e.g., vv 6, 13b) is likewise inconclusive given the observable fluidity between the phraseology of the Deuteronomists and that of Jeremiah. Despite Weinfeld's good work on the topic,70 a convincing argument for literary or conceptual dependence on the basis of terminology has yet to be sustained. In the end, the rejection of Jer 3.6-13 as a secondary addition to the prophet's original language is not a decisive argument. Instead, it depends on the prior hypothesis that two discrete strata may be isolated in this larger complex of Jer 2-6 on the basis of prophetic address. The

69

Holladay, Jeremiah 1, 116.

70

Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic School (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1972).

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relationship between vv 6-10 and 11-12 may as easily be organic as secondary, and no decisive criteria in this passage lead us to make such a determination. Having dispensed with these references to the southern kingdom, Albertz feels confident declaring that a literary unit in Jer 2.4-3.5, 19-42 exists whose reference is solely northern. The addition of a reference to Jerusalem in Jer 2.2 is, Albertz speculates, the consequence of a prophetic adaptation of an earlier oracle whose reference was northern, to the changed conditions following the battle of Carchemish in 609.71 Albertz derives a stratum of material in Jer 4.3-6.30 oriented primarily toward the Southern Kingdom of Judah that emerged sometime between 609 and 605/4, the time period when Albertz reckons that the Urrolle of Jer 36 was first codified.72 Further, these two textual units can be divided from one another on the basis of their tone. The judgment oracles that are in Jer 2.4-4.2 are brief and overshadowed by a clear preference for salvation oracle language. Where indictment is levied, its language is mitigated. By contrast, 4.3-6.30 is dominated by vividly realized and elaborate “Foe from the North” material. There are no intervening salvation oracles to leaven this threatening material. According to Albertz, we can infer from this that 4.26.30 are the product of the extreme anxiety that followed the death of Josiah at Megiddo. Address to the North in Jer 2.4-4.2, by contrast, reflects the social conditions of the mid-seventh century when there was concern to draw the inhabitants of the northern kingdom within the orbit of the House of David. Jeremiah's own hope for a religio-national renewal, then, were mirrored by the Josianic court’s aim to reclaim the legacy of the monarchy of David and Solomon.73

71

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 28.

72

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 34.

73

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 35-36.

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Finally, Albertz explains this discrepancy in terms of Jeremiah's biography. Descended from Benjaminites, he retained some bonds of kinship and culture with the inhabitants of the territory of the former kingdom of Israel. This led to a dependence upon the old, northern traditions of Exodus and Conquest and explains Jeremiah's estrangement from the Jerusalem temple and its traditions. At the same time, the prophet was an advocate of religious reform in the northern territory on the basis of the Deuteronomic reform. Not necessarily a partisan of the Jerusalem temple, Jeremiah nevertheless counted himself in a line of succession from Hosea by advocating a return to rigorous worship of YHWH and the rejection of Canaanite cult practices, according to Albertz. In practical terms, this meant the prophet was a supporter of the Deuteronomic reforms, and in particular, advocated affiliation for the northern tribes with the sanctuary at Jerusalem. Albertz hedges, however, on the degree to which Jeremiah supported Josiah's political aims in the north. In practical terms, Albertz reads the paraenetic matter of Jer 2.4-4.2 as a specific refraction of the Deuteronomic project oriented particularly toward the North.74 The remainder of the prophecies in this section reflect the prophet's changed perspective following the death of Josiah at Megiddo. Subsequent to the disaster, he abandoned his naive hope in a collective religious restoration of the North and began to ruminate darkly on the looming threat from Mesopotamia. In the immediate aftermath, he attempted to shift his calls for repentance to a southern audience, but soon abandoned this attempt and shifted his prophetic mode into unequivocal oracles of woe.75 Albertz presents this diachronic textual division as an adequate solution to the chronological problems outlined by Hyatt and others. The present textual arrangement is the 74

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 44-45.

75

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 45.

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result of a process of written codification of Jeremiah's early prophecies around 605 BCE through a process described in Jer 36. The hypothesis of two discrete phases to the prophet’s career helps to resolve the problems of multiple address, literary continuity, and the tension between the traditional dating of Jeremiah's beginning to the period of the Josianic reform and the literary problems engendered by this date: paucity of references to Josiah, seemingly antiscribal references, and the “Foe from the North” material. In the face of these problems, Albertz's approach amounts not to a decisive reply, but rather to a shift in focus. His hypothesis of dual redactional layers is meant to present important circumstantial evidence in favor of an early period Jeremian activity. Yet it is important to recognize that the significant critiques of Hyatt have not, with Albertz's work, been refuted. Rather, the focus of criticism has been shifted away from internal historiographical continuity and onto the literary integrity of Jer 2-6. The degree to which one accepts Albertz's diachronic schema is the degree to which this shift in focus is recognized as a significant contribution to the formation history of the Book of Jeremiah and our understanding of the prophet's own significance. Despite its inability to respond decisively to Hyatt’s critique of the standard position, Albertz's approach does have one thing to commend to it: he correctly recognizes the rhetorical function of Jer 2.4-4.2 as etiological. We need not agree with Albertz’s broader historiographical argument or his hypothesis as to this section's addressee to perceive that the prophet intends here to diagnose a collective ethical and political condition.76 The particulars of

76

Since Albertz’s hypothesis of a Josianic period text addressed to Israel depends on the emendation of the several references to Judah and Jerusalem in this text, the opening verses take on a special importance. If an organic thematic relationship between Jer 2.2-3 + 2.4ff is established, we may be able to recognize that this etiological diagnosis is something more complex than what Albertz supposes.

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this diagnosis depend, of course, on what we suppose of the community being addressed.77 At the same time, we ought to acknowledge that it was Albertz who saw that something other than simple critique or judgment was the prophet's aim here. Jer 2-3 is well wrought and concerned with assessing the relationship between collective ethical behavior and political fortune. He is able to recognize this broad rhetorical function because he also perceives correctly the prophet's profound debt to the earlier ethical critique of Hosea.78 This prophet's imagery and concepts pervade Jeremiah's own discourses, and it is impossible correctly to reconstruct his intent without likewise recognizing the constitutive nature of his citations. The whole composition is tradition-dependent and densely allusive. Reconstructing its rhetorical intention should depend on something more than a collation of addressees. These acts of tradition invocation are essential data, and Albertz has only taken us partway toward reconstructing this intent. We ought not suppose, with Albertz, that Jeremiah shared the same audience, message and rhetorical intent as Hosea simply because he alludes to his language. Because of the diachronic, redaction-critical schema within which Albertz himself operates, he is obliged to assume that Jeremiah replicated Hosea's specific intent toward a northern audience. It is equally likely, however, that the earlier prophet's language was, by the late 7th century, a traditional source and that Jeremiah felt warranted by the social conditions of the period to apply this language to a broad polity. Finally, we should note that unlike those who came after him, Albertz’s early work 77

The notion that this etiology is solely intended for the Northern kingdom is at odds with the manifest character of the text. Biddle, for example, allows that a mixed polity could be discussed here. He shows (133) other instances where the terms are used interchangeably. See also pp. 19-20, fn 53, which cites examples such as Am 3.1 where this language implies a broad polity. 78

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 41.

34

recognized a certain ambivalence on Jeremiah's part toward Josiah's political aspirations.79 This careful nuance introduces an important wrinkle into his analysis. If there is a distinction between Jeremiah's attitude toward the political aims of the Josian court and toward its religious agenda, to what degree may we still assert that Jeremiah was pro-Deuteronomic? The period of Josiah seems to have seen a collapse of the religious and the political into a single, mutually reinforcing ideological horizon. If the prophet downgraded one aspect of this program, then his relationship toward the Josian court and the Deuteronomists who were its political theorists must be complex indeed. Carrying this important perception into a rich exegetical engagement with Jer 2-6 is an important part of engaging critically with Albertz's contribution to the field.

Mark Biddle’s Redactional Treatment of Jer 2.1-4.2 The most sustained reply to Albertz’s theory came in the dissertation of Mark E. Biddle, published in 1989 as "A Redaction History of Jeremiah 2:1-4:2." Biddle sought to recover some of the critical purchase on the Jeremian tradition that J.P. Hyatt had achieved. He presents a sustained critique of Albertz's hypothesis of an early phase for Jeremiah's prophecy and develops a vigorous defense of the critical attitude toward an early date for the prophet's career as originally outlined by Hyatt. At the same time, Biddle's engagement was excessively redaction critical and inadequately grounded in a concern for the political and social context within which Jeremiah worked. Still, as a systematic evaluation of Albertz's position, his argument is worth exploring, especially since Marvin Sweeney's subsequent defense of Albertz addresses Biddle exclusively rather than Hyatt’s original arguments.

79

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 44.

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Biddle denied the validity of the editorial criteria that Albertz had employed to derive two separate Jeremian texts in Jer 2-6. Recognizing that Jer 1.1-3 is clearly a late superscription and that the references to Josiah in 3.6 and 22.15-17 are clearly retrospective, he saw no unambiguous text-internal evidence for a Josian edition. In this, he echoed Hyatt’s earlier skepticism toward the traditional dating of Jeremiah to the early period of Josiah. He also recognized that supposedly early units of text were addressed to Israel and Judah together, indicating redactional activity. Biddle observed that the reference to Israel in the text did not necessarily suggest a geographic or political entity.80 In the early chapters of the Book of Jeremiah, these could just as easily be genealogical and Biddle reckoned that the instances that were most clearly geo-political (e.g., Jer 3.6ff) were also the product of a redactor's intrusion.81 Biddle recognized a critical impasse in prior scholarship. Observing the discontinuity between scholars like Albertz, who argued for an early, Josianic-period prophetic work, and Hyatt, who would redate the prophet's call, Biddle proposed to chart a new course. He began with the present literary state of the text, recognized its apparent disorder and confusion, and sought to develop an adequate redaction-critical reconstruction of its formation process. As such, his approach was oriented entirely toward literary continuity and the isolation of thematically unified strata. Concerns for historical context, Sitz im Leben, and political intent were absent from his analysis. Where he did concern himself with history, it was not the historical horizon invoked by the text itself, but the putative historical context within which the redactional developments he hypothesized might have taken place. As such, Biddle's primary interlocutor was Albertz. He sought to demonstrate points of thematic discontinuity within the 80

Biddle, A Redaction History, 19-20, fn. 53.

81

In this Biddle shares in the general concern to treat Jer 3.6-12 as late and secondary.

36

text that might challenge Albertz's impression that this text has a clear and coherent temporal frame. Against that sort of historically-grounded, redactional argumentation Biddle developed a series of redactional layers based on stylistic distinctions. Indeed, the question of the prophet's original speech and his rhetorical intent finds no place in Biddle's analysis. The first stratum he treats is already a reworking of some prior prophetic discourse, so the question of Jeremiah's intent (to say nothing of his constitutive influence on tradition) does not impact upon this analysis. Consequently, his critique of Albertz is not a rehabilitation of the Hyatt approach to the material, which was concerned with original prophetic discourse. He only employs Hyatt's argumentation insofar as it illustrates weaknesses in Albertz's own explanation of the text. Biddle challenged Albertz’s choice to differentiate between Jer 2.4-4.2 and 4.3ff on the basis of references to Israel in the former stratum, recognizing that “Israel” is an ambiguous signifier. Texts such as Amos 3.1 make clear that the term can be used to refer to the total population of the northern and southern territories.82 Against this, Biddle recognized several stylistic criteria that might be better to draw upon in the course of delimiting redactional layers. He observed, for example, the structuring force of the various headings and topical formulae that introduced discrete textual units. Textual units such as Jer 2.1-2; 3.6; 4.3 and 4.5 provide valuable information on the organization and structure of the received text, and as such, need to be considered with respect to the literary units they describe.83 Primarily, however, he recognized the distribution of verbal address as a significant factor in the organization of the text.

82

Biddle, A Redaction History, 19-20, fn. 53. But see the response of Sweeney, Troubling Jeremiah, 205 n.9, who suggests that, if this were true, a distinction would not have been drawn between Israel and Judah in Jer 3.6-11, 18. This is a curious argument for Sweeney to have made, given that he (along with Biddle and every other interpreter) ascribes Jer 3.6-11 to a later redactor. Such a redactor might well have drawn careful distinctions where an earlier author had spoken in general terms. 83

Biddle, A Redaction History, 33-34.

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In particular, material employing verbs in the 2nd feminine singular was also unified thematically, indicating it formed a discrete, internally coherent textual layer.84 The remainder of the material, employing verbs in the 2nd masculine plural, 3rd masculine singular, and 3rd masculine plural, was also reasonably cohesive and could productively be treated as a redactional layer on its own.85 Thus, Biddle's approach to the text involves the initial isolation of various redactional strata on the basis of some non-thematic, stylistic element. Subsequent to this, he seeks to explain the thematic and ideational force of these various layers, recognizing that the formation process of the text was additive and progressive and that later layers of material were impressing themselves upon an earlier corpus. Biddle focused his analysis on Jer 2-6, recognizing a literary core to this material that is lamentation poetry.86 Making no positive statements about its provenance, he at times even avoids identifying this core material as "prophetic."87 In contrast to his interest in the redactors' work, the original composition that underlies this redaction is not treated at all in his analysis. Indeed, any interest in "Jeremiah," whether as a literary character or historical personage, is absent from Biddle's work. Instead, the primary focus of his engagement is the literary presentation of this core material within a stratum of material he terms the Schuldübernahme redaction. Characterized in stylistic terms by a consistent 2nd person feminine verbal address, it seeks to coordinate and

84

Biddle, A Redaction History, 38-39.

85

Biddle, A Redaction History, 122-123.

86

Biddle, A Redaction History, 61ff.

87

In particular see Biddle, A Redaction History, 74-75.

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reorient prior poetic material.88 The contours of this layer are more readily recognized in Jer 2, though Biddle also observes traces of this work in Jer 3.89 To these core blocs of material, he further connects other literary units that employ verbs in the 2nd feminine singular that share in the thematic concerns of Schuldübernahme material in Jer 2 and 3, including Jer 4.14, 18, 30; 6.23b, 25-26a; cf. 13.20-22.90 The central signature of this redaction is the repeated use of

yrmatw as a means of citing the language of the redactor's interlocutors. Jer 2.20-27, for example, demonstrates an interplay between the invoked language of the people and the author's own interpretation of their speech and response to it. The force of the Schuldübernahme redaction, then, is the imposition of a "bold interpretive framework" on prior literary material.91 Unlike Levin, who had sought to observe the impact of the Deuteronomic movement in the earliest redaction of Jeremian poetry, Biddle does not link the ideological concerns of this material with the Deuteronomic movement. Instead, he presents the stratum as an interpreting prose framework for earlier lament poetry.92 The theological function of this material is to focus on Israel's sole culpability in the recent disaster and to reaffirm the blamelessness of YHWH.93 Accordingly, its proper historical milieu is the early exilic period, and its driving impetus was the need to make sense of the disaster and provide an adequate theological response to recent

88

Biddle presents this focus on verbal address as an advance over the redactional reconstructions of S. Hermann, who had tracked the verbal root √rma as the basis for a redactional reconstruction. See especially Biddle, A Redaction History, 49. See also Levin, Verheissung. 89

Biddle, A Redaction History, 39.

90

Biddle, A Redaction History, 66-71.

91

Biddle, A Redaction History, 47.

92

Biddle, A Redaction History, 46-47. The similarities between this approach and W. McKane's "rolling corpus" theory are obvious, though Biddle's cites McKane's work only intermittently and claims no special methodological affinity here. 93

Biddle, A Redaction History, 55.

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experiences.94 What remains when this core lament poetry and its interpreting superstructure are removed is a body of material Biddle terms the "Generations Redaction."95 In Jer 2, it is chiefly observable in blocs of material at vv 4-13 and 26-32. This material has no particular stylistic signature and stands out primarily in contrast to the Schuldübernahme material on which it imposes itself. At the same time, while it has no identifiable particular stylistic element, it does attempt to reframe and re-interpret the earlier text. It disagrees with the early redactors over the theology of the destruction. Thematically, it periodizes the history of the nation, recognizing three discrete phases in Israel's history:96 an early "bridal period of election and innocence" (Jer 2.2b-3), a subsequent phase of apostasy and guilt (2.5, 30), and the contemporary moment of address (2.9, 31). Biddle terms this stratum the "Generations Redaction" on the basis of this periodizing rhetoric. Unlike the Schuldübernahme layer, the rhetorical concern of this layer is etiology and diagnosis.97 It shares common concern with Deuteronomistic literature98 and is subsequent to and dependent upon the prose-sermonic material, which has been conventionally termed the "C-Source."99 Its relative lateness may be seen, Biddle suggests, by its avoidance of the use of the terms Myklm and Myrs in Jer 2.8 in the course of indicting a range of authorities. Such an avoidance reflects a historical context in which a native dynastic ruling body would no

94

Biddle, A Redaction History, 81-82.

95

Biddle, A Redaction History, 122.

96

Biddle, A Redaction History, 131-32.

97

Biddle, A Redaction History, 36-37.

98

Biddle, A Redaction History, 135-36.

99

Biddle, A Redaction History, 143-45, 147-48.

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longer have been in place.100 Despite his attempt to develop a more adequate approach to the redactional character of Jer 2-6, Biddle nevertheless affirms one of Albertz's critical arguments. He terms Jer 2.2b-3 and 4.1f a "framework redaction" that postdates both the Schuldübernahme redaction and its "Generations" reworking. These verses form an inclusio, which functions to bracket the whole literary complex.101 This literary judgment is made in precisely the same terms used by Albertz: a shift in address is an element decisive for the perception of a hard literary break.102 Biddle's primary evidence for reading Jer 2.2b-3 and 4.1f as a redactional framework, however, is the perception here of an adaptation of the language of asham from Gen 26.103 The editorial choice to invoke the motif of the nations' guilt from the type scene of the endangered ancestress (Gn 12; 20; 26) involves an attempt by the redactor to gesture in the direction of the promise to the patriarchs. This suggests that Israel's moral excellence (in some fashion) conditions the fortune of itself and the nations of the world, a concern that presumably (though Biddle does not say so outright) reflects the changing conditions of the community in the period of the restoration. This further suggests a concern to adapt productively the theological concern of the earlier Generations redaction to the unique developments of the Achaemenid period. Biddle's analysis has serious problems, though it does help draw certain crucial elements

100

The formulaic nature of the epithet Myor notwithstanding. See the discussion in Biddle, A Redaction History, 154-55. 101

In this he opposes H. D. Neef, "Gottes Treue und Israels Untreue: Aufbau und Einheit von Jeremia 2 13." ZAW 99 (1987): 37-58, who had perceived a common stock of imagery and metaphor between these sections and who had recognized a movement from primal perfection to contemporary guilt. His primary critique of the case that Neef makes is that this argument for literary continuity fails to take into account the shift in address, or to have the explanatory depth of the redactional process that Biddle has outlined. 102

Biddle, A Redaction History, 163-64.

103

Biddle, A Redaction History, 181ff.

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into focus. Initially, we ought to observe that this discussion of the supposed reference to the guilt (asham) of the nations in Gen 26.10 is not fully coherent on its face, nor is it adequately developed in terms of the thematic evolution of the text as Biddle understands it. More fundamentally, Biddle has missed the clearer allusion to the adaptation of the asham in Lev 5 in the Holiness code's discussion of the kodesh offering and its disposition in Lev 22. Michael Fishbane's discussion of the pattern of allusions in this text is the necessary starting point for any adequate discussion of the allusive character and theological intent of this text. As such, it will form the basis for our reading of Jer 2-6 in chapter 3. More fundamentally, the mutual focus of both Biddle and Albertz on Jer 2.2b-3 and 2.4ff suggests that this is a natural starting point for any discussion of the formation process and historical reference for this text. If there is an integrated linkage between vv 2-3 and what follows (something H.D. Neef had previously maintained), then the redactional approaches of Albertz and Biddle both will have been dealt a serious blow. Both of these scholars are uniquely vulnerable to arguments based on literary continuity, rhetorical strategy and citation praxis because they have no firm external criterion to establish their reconstructions beyond a doubt. Marvin Sweeney vigorously criticized Biddle's reliance on address as a supposed objective standard because it placed unwarranted limits on what is reasonable prophetic expression. Biddle presupposes that Jeremiah could not have shifted his address in the course of a single discourse, nor could he have presented a dynamic rhetorical engagement with his audience. Imposing such a constraint on the prophet necessarily conditions what is understood as prophetic discourse. Implicit reliance on such an impoverished view of prophetic rhetoric is, perhaps, a corollary of Biddle's surprising disinterest in the prophet's own ipsissima verba and his implicit ascription of the poetic substratum for his Schuldübernahme to an anonymous collective of 42

lamenters. Thus, as is so often the case in redaction critical studies, we find here that Biddle is making analytical decisions based on stylistic criteria that are not the product of a comprehensive theory of poiesis. The suspicion lingers, then, that his work is driven not by a concern for what the prophet’s own habit of thought and expression was and how that might have been transformed by later tradents. Rather, he is concerned with reconstructing a diachronic process of text formation that confirms an external and unexpressed historiographical or theological agenda. Reading Biddle’s discussion of Jer 2.20-28,104 for example, ought to bring such a suspicion to the surface, since the case for literary continuity here is at least as compelling as the one for discontinuity, and since Biddle’s reconstruction has particular political and historical valences, which are only later made clear.105 Marvin Sweeney and the Return of the Josianic-Period Jeremiah In a subsequent essay on the redaction history of Jer 2-6, Marvin Sweeney articulated a forceful critique of Biddle's approach to Jer 2-6, in the process rehabilitating and extending Albertz's position in significant ways. Both Sweeney and Biddle approach the text from a redaction critical perspective, analyzing it in terms of its diachronic formation process. Sweeney, however, represents his approach as an advance over Biddle’s because of its initial engagement with the text in its present form. Whereas Biddle’s analysis begins with a concern to reconstruct hypothetical early text forms, Sweeney begins with the present text, recognizing 104

Biddle, A Redaction History, 46-66.

105

Biddle proposes to separate out Jer 2.8 and Jer 2.26, seeing them as elements in a late, framing “generations redaction” that sought to make sense of the disaster through a retrospective indictment of the leadership (154-157). By introducing a diachronic separation into the text, Biddle fashions a text whose ideology he finds more tractable. It is important to recognize that, unlike the Schuldübernahme stratum, which itself is delimited with reference to some stylistic features, the primary criteria by which the generations redaction is isolated are thematic.

43

patterns and inconsistencies, which then drive his specific analytical choices.106 In particular, Sweeney critiqued Biddle’s reliance on 2nd feminine singular verb forms, in particular yrmatw, as a basis for isolating his Schuldübernahme redactional layer. Such a focus is unwarranted, Sweeney maintained, since the text itself preserves a range of variously gendered references to Israel, indicating that any isolation of a single mode of address must be an imposition upon the text. The prophet appears to have shifted his mode of address freely for rhetorical purposes, indicating that such data cannot be employed with confidence for redaction critical purposes. Indeed, given that the forms of direct address that employ yrmatw often involve direct engagement with the prophet’s audience and the expression of moral critique, Biddle’s supposedly objective stylistic criterion actually has a constitutive impact on the content of the text being reconstructed. Sweeney also criticized Biddle for limiting his textual engagement to Jer 2.1-4.2. Such a narrow focus is unwarranted, given the strong indications that Jer 2-6 comprise an integrated textual unit. Jer 1 and Jer 7 differ significantly in tone and style from what they surround, and they themselves are internally coordinated by the so-called Wortereignisformel, which appears also in Jer 2.1. On the basis of the repeated phrase rmal yla 'h rbd yhyw and the related phrase

rmal 'h tam whymry_la hyh rva rbdh in 7.1, it is possible to recognize a set of major textual divisions at 1.4; 1.11 and 2.1, resulting in larger text blocs at 1.4-10; 1.11-19; and 2.1-6.30.107 Biddle’s arbitrarily narrowed focus instead provides him with a text whose primary address is Israel, consigning references to Judah and Jerusalem to what he terms a “framing” redaction. Crucially, this narrow focus on Jer 2.1-4.2 provides no coherent rationale for the interrelationship 106

Sweeney, Troubling Jeremiah, 207-08.

107

Sweeney, Troubling Jeremiah, 208.

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between these two strata. The shift in reference in Biddle’s analysis appears to be arbitrary. Such an impression is belied by what Sweeney takes to be clear indications of textual and thematic continuity between Jer 2-3 and 4-6. Chapters 4-6 are concerned with the so-called “Foe from the North” theme, which despite its connection with Judah rather than Israel, has some significant connections with the language of Jer 2-3. Biddle’s choice to put this material outside the scope of his analysis runs against the manifest rhetorical character of the text itself, which employs a consequential yk at 4.3 to indicate that there is a relationship of literary dependence here. In Sweeney’s view, these a priori editorial decisions have led Biddle to fatally precondition his engagement with the text, thus limiting his engagement with the received text in fundamental ways. For example, Biddle is obliged to discount Jer 2.1-3, 2.28, and 3.6-11 in the course of his analysis, since these reference Judah in the midst of a text that otherwise concerns itself with Israel. Had Biddle allowed himself to consider the full scope of the composition in Jer 2-6, he could have recognized an important synthetic relationship between these texts and the material addressed to Israel that he treated as a base text. This material helps to facilitate a transition from the indictment of Israel in chs 2-3 to the “Foe from the North” material in chs 46, an observation impossible to make if the scope of analysis is limited to Jer 2.1-4.2 and the base text is defined by its 2nd feminine singular address. In presenting his own analysis, Sweeney proposed to broaden considerably his engagement with the text, not only in terms of the amount of text he considered relevant to the discussion, but also in relation to the analytical criteria brought to bear on the text itself. In particular, he considered the broad distribution pattern of addressees a fundamental datum in terms of which any rhetorical or redactional engagement ought to proceed. Thus, the 45

predominance of address to Israel in chs 2-3 is a primary data point, as is the predominance of Judah in chs 4-6. Likewise, the areas of discontinuity within this structure are significant data that should guide analysis; the references to Judah and Jerusalem in Jer 2.2-3, 2.28, and 3.6-11 require adequate explanation. Furthermore, the distribution pattern of addressees matches a general thematic distinction between the two sections. In general, the material that addresses itself to Israel is concerned with advocating repentance, while the Judah material makes no such appeal, favoring instead the language of threat and impending punishment. The resulting structure is a text with three distinct phases. Jer 2.1-3.5 comprises a “Prophet’s report of YHWH’s Word concerning Israel,” which takes the form of a trial speech or divorce proceeding. Jer 3.6-11 is a prophetic “report of YHWH’s Word concerning both Israel and Judah’s unfaithfulness in the days of Josiah,” with v 11 in particular specifying that Judah’s offense is worst than Israel’s. And Jer 3.11-6.30 is a prophetic “report of YHWH’s word concerning Judah” that employs the language of the threat of a foe from the North in the course of describing the culpability of Judah and Jerusalem. Having described the present state of the text, it remains for Sweeney to develop a diachronic process that might have brought this text to its present form. Building on McKane’s prior work on Jer 3.6-11, Sweeney maintains it is possible to demonstrate that this textual unit is dependent upon its context and that it attempts to develop exegetically from the material into which it has been inserted. The author of 3.6-11 has attempted to transform a text whose primary referent is Israel into one that “announces the anticipated punishment of Judah as a basis for its subsequent repentance.”108 This transformative concern is likewise evident in the matter

108

Sweeney, Troubling Jeremiah, 212-213.

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that frames the composition oriented toward the North. Jer 2.1-2 and 4.3-4 share a common concern in developing the idea that the experience of the northern kingdom will function as a demonstrative warning for the southern kingdom. Absent this material, the core matter of Jer 2-3 is “a relatively coherent text…in which the northern kingdom of Israel is called to repentance.”109 Sweeney’s redactional process is thus a two- or three-stage process110 as opposed to Biddle’s four-stage redaction history. The core text of Jer 2-3 is an early exhortation oriented toward the territory of the former northern kingdom of Israel. Sweeney suggests that the promulgation of this material was contemporaneous with Josiah’s expansionistic incursion into the territory of Bethel and beyond, an effort Sweeney reckons demonstrated his “intention to bring the territory of the former northern kingdom of Israel under Davidic rule and thereby to strengthen the authority of the Davidic dynasty.”111 He takes as reliable the date formula in Jer 1.1-3 and reckons that Jer 22.13-17 makes clear that Jeremiah was unambiguously pro-Josianic in his sympathies. Thus the text of Jer 2-3 provides a kind of ideological justification for the pretensions of the Judean throne. This core material was joined with oracular material that reflects a profound anxiety over the waxing power of Babylon and its imperial designs on the territory of Judah (chs 4-6). Such material must date subsequent to the death of Josiah at Megiddo, and probably reflects the prophet’s dim view of Jehoiakim’s dependence on Egypt and his opposition to the Babylonian resurgence. Thus, the “Foe from the North” material must date to a period prior to Babylon’s victory at Carchemish in 605. Sweeney leaves critically open the 109

Sweeney, Troubling Jeremiah, 214-15.

110

Depending on whether the framing redaction is seen as contemporaneous with, or later than the composition of Jer 4-6, a point which Sweeney himself leaves open. 111

Sweeney, Troubling Jeremiah, 215.

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status of the redactional framing matter for Jer 2-3. It is unclear whether or not he supposes that Jer 2.1-2, 4.3-4 and 3.6-11 are contemporaneous with Jer 4-6, in which case they would be a parallel composition designed to unify a newly composed text with earlier matter upon which it depends. Or if he thinks that these text units are the product of a still later effort to construct a complex analogical relationship between two different oracles dating from two phases in Jeremiah’s career. Sweeney’s analysis leaves both options open as possible readings of the material. Sweeney’s response to Biddle was as decisive as it was productive. Where Biddle had posited a text that was overly complex in its putative formation history, Sweeney presents us with clear stages in textual development and strata strongly unified both in their stylistic character and thematic content. Further, these strata have the considerable benefit of being clearly connected to identifiable historical moments. At the same time, we ought to wonder if his criteria for redactional distinction are ultimately any better or any less tendentious than those that Biddle advocated. Simply because his redactional structure is more concise and more elegantly presented does not make it, ipso facto, more accurate. There are loose ends in his system as well, and his mode of argumentation where they present themselves is no less ad hoc than Biddle’s had been. And more fundamentally, while his chief concern is to reestablish Albertz’s hypothesis on firmer grounds after the sustained critique that Biddle had levied, in a crucial way Sweeney advances his argument beyond the carefully circumscribed historiographical implications that Albertz had allowed himself to draw from his analysis. In moving beyond Albertz into a new domain, Sweeney again introduced a subjective element into his analysis, one that has proven pernicious in our ability to engage productively with the text he analyzes. 48

His chief contribution was to argue successfully that Jer 2-3 could not be read without also considering Jer 4-6. The macrostructural argument that he adapted from Theodor Seidl provides an indispensable starting point for further analysis on the text.112 Jer 2-6 comprises a sustained and complex collection of prophetic words with a subtle rhetorical structure. Sweeney’s insistence on respecting the evident structural devices in the Masoretic Text and his concern to deal adequately with the present form of the text are both precisely the right kinds of methodological presuppositions to bring to bear. Yet, he seems to maintain that since he has built from a synchronic discussion of textual structure to a diachronic analysis, his analysis is necessarily better than that of Biddle, who built his argument outward from a hypothetical, pristine core text. The fundamental consideration, though, is not whether or not a scholar gestures in the direction of the received text in the course of dissecting it: it is the integrity of the criteria used in the course of analysis. Biddle’s criteria were clearly inadequate to the task of reading Jer 2-6. Sweeney’s rejection of the tools used by Biddle to reconstruct his Schuldübernahme redaction is decisive. But Sweeney’s own criteria are not fundamentally better. For example, his placement of Jer 3.6-11 at the center of analysis depends on the perception (taken already from McKane) that these verses are prose and exegetical and necessarily imposed upon the prior poetic matter surrounding them. This presupposition of an essential separation between poetry and prose in the prophetic works of the late monarchic period is too finely drawn. James Kugel, in particular, has maintained cogently that our understanding of verbal register in relation to biblical poetics is blunted when we insist on maintaining the distinction between poetry and prose, which Duhm

112

Theodor Seidl, “Die Worterreignisformel in Jeremia,” BZ 23 (1979): 20-47.

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did so much to advance. Particularly where Jeremiah and Ezekiel are concerned, Kugel attacked the implicit historical assumptions and unexpressed value judgments that sustained the artificial and late category of “Deuteronomic prose sermon.” Speaking of Jer 7//26, he wrote: “…[S]hould a critic claim, as some have, that these ‘prose sermons’ are not the work of the prophet himself but a reconstruction made by his disciples, let it be admitted that any Tel Aviv high school student today would be capable of turning the ‘Temple Sermon’ into strict parallelisms. It is a most incredible thesis to suggest these verses were once in a higher, more pleasing form, but in the process of being ‘remembered, understood and repeated’ fell into a prolixity utterly out of keeping with the original. On the contrary, ‘terse stylistic economy’ tends to be remembered exactly—in fact, where it is originally absent the memory, or tradition, tends to invent it. Even if Jeremiah’s exact words had been forgotten, certainly something similarly pithy would have replaced them—if that had been their form. Instead of the ‘poor style’ of these passages, it is the commentator we must fault, and the whole set of assumptions he brings to bear in this stylistic assessment.”113 If the prose/poetry distinction is not allowed to lend its weight to the distinction that Sweeney has made here, then Jer 3.6-11 does not necessarily seem so secondary in relation to its context. Indeed, the presence of references to Judah and Jerusalem throughout Jer 2-3 begins to look

113

Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and its History, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981). 80-81. Adele Berlin has amplified and clarified Kugel’s argument, recognizing that there is no inherent connection between parallelism and biblical poetry (Berlin, Adele, The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism [Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985], 4-7). In her response, it is the relative abundance of parallelism combined with a terse expressive style that is sufficient to mark a poetic register. When these become the central organizing elements for a given work, it is sufficient to claim that it has a status of poetry. Biblical poetry, then, “is characterized by a high incidence of terse, balanced parallelism.” (Berlin, 7) The implication of this refinement in our grounds for perceiving poetry and prose should be to remove either as a salient criterion by which to draw redaction critical distinctions. If parallelism and the development of a poetic register can function to ornament a prose text, then the redaction critic who introduces hard breaks on the basis of stylistic criteria may well be guilty of complicating diachronically what is actually variegated stylistically. It is my own guarded opinion that many of these so-called prose/poetry doublets may derive from differing preservation by early disciples of the prophet, and where we find texts which seem to repeat or rework the language that surrounds them in a different linguistic register, this derives from an anthological grouping together of disparate recordings from various hands of the same or similar prophetic utterances. I have no evidence for this contention (although, to be clear, such a thesis could be supported by a systematic analysis of the so called “doublets” in the Book of Jeremiah); but then again, neither do the heirs of Duhm who want to maintain that there is a sustained prose/poetry distinction in the text and that the former is exegetical and secondary while the latter derives from the unvarnished words of the prophet himself.

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more and more like a serious problem for the distribution pattern of addressees that Sweeney had maintained was a self-evident feature of the received text of Jer 2-6. Likewise, Sweeney dismisses Jer 2.28, which addresses Judah directly, as a secondary gloss based on the language of Jer 11.13.114 Most interestingly, he takes the reference to Judah and Israel in Jer 3.18 as authentic, but reflecting anticipation of “the time when the ‘house of Judah’ will walk together with the ‘house of Israel.’…[S]uch a statement is consistent with expectations that the northern kingdom of Israel would reunite with the southern kingdom of Judah under Davidic rule in Jerusalem as a result of its repentance (cf. Jer. 3.14-17).” In this extraordinary reading, Sweeney supposes that the dual reference to Israel and Judah is synthetic and reflects a clear preference on the part of the prophet to have Israel submit again to the rule of the Davidic king. The urge to read a pro-Davidic sentiment here, in a text that does not reference the Davidides by name, is an imposition upon the text as we have received it. Indeed, the reference to yblk Myor in v 15 could just as easily be read as an anti-Davidic sentiment insofar as it seems to assert the primacy of present divine choice rather than past divine grant as the essential element in future leadership. The primary interest in the text is to advocate a return to Zion as the seat of YHWH and the establishment of absolute divine sovereignty over a reunited polity. There is no clear preference here for a Davidic sovereign. This text not only challenges Sweeney’s preference to find a pro-Judean, pro-Josianic Tendenz at work in the base text of Jer 2-3, it also challenges his preference to date this text to the time of the Deuteronomic reform and the young king’s incursion against Bethel. V 18

114

Sweeney, Troubling Jeremiah, 214.

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presupposes a joint return from exile in the north and a reunification of the two nations out of their common endurance of the crucible of exile. The Nwpx Xra of v 18 is not, as Sweeney seems to presume, the territory of the former northern Kingdom, since the reunited polity are returning from some other place to the whole land of the initial divine promise. It is clearly the same Nwpx as the one indicated by the “Foe from the North” material of Jer 4-6. As such, Sweeney might have argued that this text was likewise a later insertion into a pristine text whose original reference was Israel. But he avoided doing so, suggesting either a wariness at ascribing too much to the hand of a redactor or a concern not to pollute his later stratum (which he maintained was concerned to indict Judah on the analogy of Israel) with a text whose primary function was the prediction of eventual succor for a reunited people. In any case, it seems clear that his preference to read here a pro-Davidic sentiment is driven not by the manifest character of the text itself, nor by any reasonable assessment of its redaction history, but by Sweeney’s desire to ground the early text in the period of Josiah’s reform. Thus, for all his claim of having advanced methodologically upon the task Biddle set for himself, it is clear that Sweeney has not moved appreciably in the direction of a more objective basis for rhetorical or redaction critical analysis. His analytical criteria are more defensible than Biddle’s to be sure. But the specific historical and thematic aim of his analysis is not the organic consequence of his method of approach to the material. This is a significant point, since both scholars recognize the importance of value-free criteria in the course of engaging in textual analysis. Yet both fall short of the goal they have set for themselves. It will be a central aim of this dissertation to establish more objective bases for textual analysis. Grounding oneself in a reasonable understanding of the earlier traditions within which the prophet is working (i.e., Inner 52

Biblical Exegesis) and analyzing his characteristic modes of expression in pragmatic and philological terms (i.e., sociolinguistics) can provide exactly the sort of purchase on this material that Biddle and Sweeney are searching for. Doing so obliges one to draw upon a far wider range of textual sources in analysis than either of them has done. In addition to these methodological problems, there are some severe historiographical problems in Sweeney’s approach. It is clear that he aims to defend Albertz’s thesis of an early period Jeremiah against the redactional critique raised by Biddle. In the course of his survey of scholarship,115 however, he presents a too-narrow survey of the available options. In his view, one must either advance a pro-Davidic, pro-Deuteronomic text dating to the time of the Josianic reform, or one must subscribe to a late redaction with no cohesive prophetic voice at its core.116 Unrepresented in this survey is the approach of Hyatt, who maintained a coherent prophetic voice was at work in the poetry of the book, but who dates this work later than the reign of Josiah and perceives at work in the text a complex and critical relationship to the Deuteronomists. Indeed, in the close of his essay, Sweeney presents the date formula of Jer 1.13 as an uncontroversial datum demonstrating Jeremiah’s contemporaneity with King Josiah’s early period, seemingly unaware that this is a controversial topic. It is surprising that Sweeney evinces no knowledge of the work of either J.P. Hyatt or H.G. May given the wide range of authorities he draws upon in his survey, both in the Troubling Jeremiah essay of 1999 and his later chapter on Jeremiah in King Josiah of Judah: The Lost Messiah of Israel (2001). This is an unfortunate oversight, since it formalizes in scholarship Albertz’s own choice to sidestep Hyatt’s argument against the traditional reading of Jer 1.1-3. As we saw, Albertz 115

Sweeney, Troubling Jeremiah, 201-02.

116

Sweeney, Troubling Jeremiah, see the narrow range of citations at 203, fn.6.

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determined not to answer Hyatt’s attack on the temporal frame of the Book of Jeremiah directly and rather assembles a circumstantial case built around the hypothesis that Jer 1.1-3 and the other date formulae are reliable data. With Sweeney’s choice simply to overlook Hyatt’s contribution to the field, it is fair to say that the critical argument he raised in the mid-1940s and again in the early 1960s has become an abandoned line of argument. The choice not to represent the full range of opinions is regrettable, since in one crucial way Sweeney has opted to advance substantially on Albertz’s relatively cautious claims. Albertz had demurred on the possibility of reading Jeremiah as a direct apologist for the Josianic project of national restoration: To that extent [i.e., the destruction of Bethel and the religious reunification of the north and south with Jerusalem as a cultic center], Jeremiah took up Josiah’s policy of reform and clearly supported it. The extent to which he also supported his attempt at political reunification cannot be known with absolute certainty. He did indeed demand a renunciation of the policy of dependence upon foreign powers (2.35f), yet this does not necessarily mean that he supported political annexation by Judah. Thus I prefer to assume that in this regard Jeremiah maintained some distance from the national hope of the restoration of the Davidic empire (Is 8.23-9.6)117 Sweeney, by contrast, treats Jeremiah’s unqualified support for the Josianic project in Bethel and beyond as an established fact that proceeds naturally from the hypothesis that Jer 2-3 are addressed to the northern territory and date from the period of Josiah.118 It is at least arguable that this perceived political import of Jeremiah’s speech has crept into the discussion because of 117

"Insoweit hat Jeremia die Reformpolitik Josias aufgenommen und klar unterstützt. Wieweit er auch dessen politische Wiedervereinigungsbestrebungen aufgenommen hat, ist nicht mit Sicherheit zu erkennen. Er forderte wohl eine Abkehr von der verhängnisvollen Politik einer Anlehnung an fremde politische Mächte (2.35f), doch das braucht nicht notwendig einen politischen Anschluß an Juda bedeuten. Ich möchte darum ehrer vermuten, daß sich Jeremia in dieser Hinsicht in einer gewissen Distanz zu den nationalen Hoffhungen auf ein Wiedererstehen des davidischen Großreiches befand (Jes 8.23b-9.6)." Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 44. But see his later “slight corrective” in Rainer Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox), 349, fn. 47. For more on this reversal, and the ambiguity within the Book of Jeremiah that it signals, see below, pp. 316-317. 118

Sweeney, Troubling Jeremiah, 215.

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the neglect of Hyatt’s work on the text, in particular, his arguments in favor of Jeremiah’s independence from the aims of the Josian-era Deuteronomists. This growing trend toward emphasizing the supposed political dimensions of Jeremiah’s agenda and the supposition that he was a partisan of the Josianic Deuteronomists has recently reached its acme. Mark Leuchter’s recent study, Josiah’s Reform and Jeremiah’s Scroll: Historical Calamity and Prophetic Response, builds upon Sweeney’s suggestion of a political dimension to the prophet’s agenda in order to reconstruct an imaginative hypothetical context for much of what Albertz and Sweeney had ascribed to the early period of Jeremiah. Leuchter reads Jer 30-31 as a propagandistic address to the north that builds upon and preaches a reversal of the critical language of Hos 2.119 Jeremiah is imagined as an agent of the Jerusalem throne, addressing himself to the priests of Shiloh who were resident at Anathoth and justifying Josiah’s aims at reconquest. Leuchter then presents the oracles of Jer 2-4, with their language of threat and judgment, as reflections of a subsequent political moment. Now Jeremiah is actively addressing the residents of the north via the priests of Anathoth, justifying Josiah’s aims to control the territory left undefended by the Neo-Assyrian collapse, representing political affiliation as a necessary ethical and religious act. This hypothesis is presented as a sort of skeleton key to the complex language and imagery of Jer 2-4, and Leuchter interprets the full range of poetry here through that narrow lens. The idea that Jeremiah would have put himself in the service of the Davidic throne so thoroughly (quite apart from the dependence of this hypothesis on dubious historiographical and textual decisions) is belied by a consistent tone of suspicion and criticism by the prophet toward

119

Leuchter, Josiah's Reform, 78-84.

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temporal authorities and the trappings of political autonomy. The burden of proof is on scholars like Sweeney and Leuchter to explain how, in such a brief period of time, Jeremiah could have experienced so radical a change in outlook that he began to advocate total submission to the Babylonian empire, whereas he had recently imagined Judah on the cusp of a restoration to ancient greatness. The tragedy at Megiddo and the experience of Babylonian domination are insufficient to explain so radical a change. If it is accepted that Jeremiah was a Josianic propagandist, then there is nothing continuous between the agenda of his supposed “early phase” and his flourishing in the final decade of the Judean state. It is important, in this regard, to recall that the references to Josiah in Jeremiah’s own work are rare and exclusively retrospective. Again, were this phase in his career so important, we might expect a more immediate and vigorous advocacy of Josiah to have found a place somewhere in his poetry. Instead, we find references in a date formula in Jer 3.6, a text that both Sweeney and Albertz prefer to treat as a very late imposition on the book of Jeremiah. It is also present in the evaluative statement of Jer 22.15, when Jeremiah critiques Jehoiakim by contrasting his building projects negatively with Josiah’s adherence to hqdxw fpvm. It should be clear that whatever Jeremiah intended with this obscure reference to Josiah’s alimentary habits, the point of his criticism is that he respects Josiah for not engaging in the sorts of ostentatious public works favored by his son. Thus there is little evidence in the Book of Jeremiah itself in favor of reading the prophet as advocating, at an early moment in his career, for the aims of Josiah at Bethel and beyond. And there is ample evidence in the ongoing disdain the prophet had for the political fantasies of the Jerusalem elite that suggests he would have rejected Josiah’s more overt political goals. This increasingly mistaken impression of Jeremiah’s rhetorical aims and his political sympathies is 56

the direct result of a consistent failure on the part of scholars of Jeremiah 2-6 to give an adequate account of Hyatt’s position toward the text. Critical interpretive issues were raised by Hyatt and have yet to receive a thorough critique.

The Argument to Follow The unavoidable conclusion is that the thesis of an early date for Jeremiah's work has not been established on firm, objective grounds, despite its influence and near consensus status. There remains a subjective—indeed at times circular—element to all the argumentation for the prophet's contemporaneity with and support for the Josianic reforms. The interpretation of Jer 1.1-3 is not unambiguous and allowing this text to have a constitutive impact on the interpretation of the prophet's poetry leads to serious problems of continuity and cohesion, some of which have been surveyed here. Despite the influence of Albertz's work, we have tried to show that the critique of J.P. Hyatt has never adequately been answered in the literature. Although it has not been developed in any systematic way, Hyatt demonstrated at an early moment in the discussion that critique of the traditional dating for the prophet's work went handin-hand with a suspicious attitude toward his apparently pro-Josian and pro-Deuteronomic sympathies. To recap, Hyatt had identified four texts as essential for the establishment of Jeremiah's contemporaneity with the Deuteronomic reforms. Taken in aggregate, Jer 1.2; 3.6; 25.3; and 36.2 suggest that the prophet's call came immediately prior to the reform and that the prophet's early proclamations were influenced by it. To this immediately plausible reading of the Jeremian text and its provenance, Hyatt presented three challenges. First, there are few references to 57

Josiah of any sort in the Book of Jeremiah, and the majority of those that are evident are retrospective. This suggests that the prophet's career began toward the end of Josiah's reign, if not subsequent to his death at Megiddo. Second, the stratum of material conventionally referred to as the "Foe from the North" material is difficult to reconcile with a career that began in the 620s. The threat from Assyria, so prevalent and widely felt in the prior century, was finally in decline. A Medeo-Chaldean threat would begin to predominate subsequent to the Battle of Carchemish in 609, but during the early days of Josiah's kingship and the period of the reform, it was Egypt who was asserting sovereignty, however irregularly, over Judah. Finally, there are multiple indications in the poetry of Jeremiah that the prophet himself took a dim view of the Deuteronomic reform. Texts such as Jer 7//26 and 8.8 implied that the prophet was far less sanguine in his view of the mandate to centralize the cult than has generally been recognized. In light of these problems, Hyatt proposed that we avoid elaborate argumentation intended to bring the disparate elements of Jeremiah’s poetry into line with the traditional early date. Rather, he suggested that we simply redate the call of Jeremiah, treating the date formulae in Jer 1.2; 25.3 and 36.2 as Deuteronomic in origin, hence unreliable as historiographical data. In reading past the overdetermined reconstructions of Albertz and Sweeney, then, we must go back and take seriously the interlocutor they have chosen to ignore; we need to recover some of the critical momentum behind Hyatt's work. The chapters that follow will attempt not to address the issue of Jeremiah's dating in a direct fashion. There is no new source of data upon which to draw, and as we have seen, both the historiography of the period and the literary evidence lack decisive criteria to determine the provenance for the prophet's earliest work. Instead, we will attempt to reread some of the texts that have been central in the reconstruction of a Jeremian "early period." Our interest will be less historiographic than stylistic. It is an evident 58

concern that we lack sufficient insight to make decisions as to what is authentic to Jeremiah and what is secondary, how the prophet's rhetoric functioned within its original political context, and how the prophet's speech engendered the formation of a cohesive literary corpus that bears his name. Our concern will be to build up a new approach to the material in order to move the scholarly conversation beyond the impasse that has developed. Initially, and most briefly, we will engage with Jer 36, since a historicizing reading of this text has been central in nearly all arguments for an early period Jeremiah. Reading this text as referring to the early collection and formation of a scroll of prophetic oracles—the so-called Urrolle—is central to the argument, such that by the period of Jehoiakim, Jeremiah had amassed a corpus of speeches sufficient for codification and publication in a fashion described in this prose text. We will attempt to deny a historical core for this text, suggesting instead that the text is an ideological narrative seeking to authorize and legitimate the interpretive creativity of later tradents. In particular, we will demonstrate how Jer 36 interrelates with sections of Jer 1 to advance a particular theory of revelation and inspiration that joins the prophet and his successors on a common phenomenological and epistemological continuum. In the process, we will be able to gain some clearer sense for who Jeremiah’s most immediate tradents were and what particular interests informed their presentation of his prophecy in something approaching the form in which we have received it. Subsequently, we will engage with the central text at issue in a direct fashion: Jer 2-6 has been a key text in the struggle over how to situate the prophet's language within a historical context. Again, rather than attempting yet another contextualization and exegesis of his language, we will seek to engage with his rhetoric. In particular, we will attempt to demonstrate literary continuity in Jer 2.1-4 where nearly all interpreters have perceived a redactional seam. 59

Both the Albertz school and Mark Biddle had recognized a hard break between 2.2b-3 and 2.4ff on the basis of a shift in address from "Jerusalem" to "Israel." Building upon the earlier perception of H.D. Neef that this text is unified by its thematic content, we will address the evidence for literary continuity here, suggesting that the imposition of a diachronic redaction history upon this thematically unified text is an essential element in the perception of an early address to the peoples of the north. Proper interpretation of these few verses is crucial, since it is also possible to read here a mixed address to Jerusalem and to Israel, indicating the prophet's synthetic intent and his etiological invocation of the historical experience of the northern kingdom. Only with the separation of this text into multiple strata is it possible to claim a pristine and early-period address to the residents of the north in the period prior to Josiah's death at Megiddo. If a coherent and cohesive text can be reconstructed here, the theory of a proJosianic Jeremiah will have been dealt a substantial blow. Our interest in the prophet's rhetoric is not simply negative, however. Subsequent to the establishment of a cohesive text, we will attend to a few of the literary allusions and explicit citations in the text in order to reconstruct the prophet's rhetorical intent. We will recognize that Jer 2-6 is more than something as banal as a propagandistic pamphlet. Rather, it is a profound and subtle engagement with the issue of collective identity that develops a novel theory of collective sanctification. The theological force of the text is to anticipate the coming exile and foster a notion of collectivity adequate to the changing conditions of the community. Finally, we will turn to the question of the prophet's style in earnest. Jer 8 has been another central text for the reconstruction of the prophet's historical context and ideological sympathies. The most parsimonious reading of this text is that Jer 8.8 reflects some dissatisfaction on the part of the prophet with some scribal movement. Accordingly, those like 60

Albertz who want to read Jeremiah's early period as pro-Josianic and pro-Deuteronomic are obliged to interpret this text tendentiously, either as the reflection of a later change of heart, or as a reference to some scribes other than the Deuteronomists. Reconstruction of the prophet's intent here, I will maintain, is impossible without a serious engagement with the operation of his rhetoric. Accordingly, we will treat this text not only as an important historical artifact that needs adequate interpretation in order to determine the proper provenance for the prophet's speech, but also as a source of stylistic data in its own right. Given the relative abundance of a formally unified rhetorical technique within Jer 8—the “augmented double rhetorical question"—it is possible for us to analyze the trope on its own terms and then engage in a more thorough analysis of this textual unit than has previously been possible. Treating Jer 8 as a test case provides us with the opportunity to demonstrate how better historiographical work can be done once a thorough and non-tendentious literary and rhetorical analysis has been carried out. This is not a rhetorical critical engagement with the text in the sense that this method has been developed by the Muilenberg school; it is a serious engagement with the socio-linguistic and political force of a durable verbal trope. Before we analyze the text of Jer 8 itself, we will engage in a thorough discussion of the relevant philological and methodological issues. The hope is that we will have modeled, not only a better way of engaging with the Book of Jeremiah as a literary artifact, but also a new and more readily defensible means of extracting from the book itself reliable data for the work of historiography. There are doubtless many other texts that ought to be drawn upon in the course of determining the proper historical context for and political impact of Jeremiah's work. Jer 30-31, in particular, has often been discussed in conjunction with Jer 2-6 as an early textual unit with a coherent address to the Northern Kingdom. Jer 11 also has been read as a forthright statement by 61

the prophet supporting the Deuteronomic reform. A truly thorough engagement with the historical questions underlying the initial formation of the Jeremiah tradition would discuss each of these texts in turn, paying careful attention to their rhetoric and what might be inferred from it. The present dissertation seeks rather to model the range of tools necessary for an adequate engagement with Jeremiah's poetry: to demonstrate the lack of methodological sophistication which has obtained previously; to suggest that J.P. Hyatt's analysis of the text deserves a more sustained and respectful treatment than has been the case thus far; and finally, to demonstrate just how far the current scholarly consensus is from an adequate discussion of the historiography of the late monarchic period.

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CHAPTER TWO JEREMIAH 36 AND THE THEORY OF THE URROLLE The theory that Jeremiah flourished during the period of Josiah depends upon several presuppositions. Some, like the idea of Jeremiah’s fundamental agreement with the Deuteronomic movement of the period, are complex assumptions that need to be addressed with careful argumentation. Others are more easily dispensed with. The theory of the Urrolle, common in the scholarship of the previous century, has so much against it now that it is surprising to find scholars who continue to depend upon it today. Increasingly sophisticated tools for analyzing biblical Hebrew narrative1 and a growing sensitivity to the myriad influences of ideology and authorial interest on ancient historiography2 have led to a thorough reconsideration of the value of narrative sources for historical reconstruction.3 1

The literature on this topic has become vast. Seminal works include: Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (Basic Books, 1981), esp. ch. 2 “Sacred History and the Beginnings of Prose Fiction;” Adele Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative (Sheffield, UK: Almond Press, 1983); Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987); Michael Fishbane, Biblical Text and Texture: A Literary Reading of Selected Texts (Oxford: Oneworld, 1998); Yairah Amit, Reading Biblical Narratives: : Literary Criticism and the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001); and more lately, Robert S. Kawashima, Biblical Narrative and the Death of the Rhapsode (Bloomingon, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004). 2

Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, 230-263, 441-481; Marc Z. Brettler, The Creation of History in Ancient Israel (New York: Routledge, 1995); Yairah Amit, History and Ideology: An Introduction to Historiography in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield, 1999). 3

The most extreme position holds that the fact of ideological shaping at work in Biblical narrative disqualifies it as a source for historical data of any sort. Scholars such as Thomas L. Thompson, The Early History of the Israelite People (Leiden: Brill, 1992), P.R. Davies, In Search of ‘Ancient Israel’ (New York: T&T Clark, 1992) and Niels Peter Lemche The Israelites in History and Tradition (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1998), have rejected any invocation of Hebrew Biblical text as a source for reconstructing the history of a period described in that text. To do so, they maintain, is to adopt uncritically the referential frame of the Biblical text and to import its ideological agenda into one’s scholarship. For a more judicious approach to the problem see Brettler, The Creation of History, and Baruch Halpern, “The State of Israelite History,” in Reconsidering Israel and Judah: Recent Studies on the Deuteronomistic History, ed. Gary N. Knoppers and J. Gordon McConville (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2000), 540-565.

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Jeremiah 36 has not been immune to such reconsideration,4 and the present chapter seeks to advance this effort.5 The argument developed here will attempt to remove Jer 36 from the category of useful data for the reconstruction of Jeremiah’s early career. Instead, we will present evidence that the story is a carefully constructed narrative that functioned to engender continuity between the prophet’s own creative work and the recuperative efforts of his tradents. In this, we are bringing a prior literary argument to bear on the positive historical claims of Rainer Albertz, Marvin Sweeney and Mark Leuchter. We will also add to this newly facilitated conversation with some additional statements of our own regarding the formation process of Jer 36, the political interests encoded in the narrative, and what sorts of historical data might be gleaned from it.

The Text of Jer 36 Jer 36 is a 3rd person narrative episode describing the inscription of a written scroll (rps_tlgm, vv 2, 4) by Baruch ben Neriyah at the dictation of Jeremiah. The text provides two separate motivations for writing down the prophet’s words: v 1 ascribes the act to a direct divine command, while vv 5-6 give the more practical explanation that Jeremiah has been forbidden to

4

The chief proponent of a skeptical approach toward the historiographical treatment of the Book of Jeremiah has been Robert Carroll, whose has consistently maintained that the Book of Jeremiah is useful data for the investigation of a literary character known as “Jeremiah” who functions in the text to link a particular literary corpus with a community of readers. But Carroll holds that no further conclusions regarding this figure’s historicity may be advanced on the basis of the text (Robert P. Carroll, Jeremiah: A Commentary [London: SCM Press, 1986], 56-64). 5

It should be clear, however, that I do not endorse Carroll’s more skeptical position. The approach taken in this dissertation is that historiographical data may be gleaned from the text on the basis of an adequate accounting of the political interests that have governed its shaping. To read the text in this way is not to collapse the temporal horizon of the world within the text into that of the historical period under consideration. But neither does it artificially maintain (on the basis of what evidence is never fully clear) that the text must originate from a period substantially later than the one it purports to describe. The extreme skepticism of Carroll’s approach leads inevitably to an abandonment of historiography as a viable means of approaching the text, and facile belletrism or anachronistic theological interpretation are the only avenues that remain for analysis.

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enter into the Jerusalem temple and so requires a mechanical substitute for his own bodily presence.6 Subsequent to the scroll’s production, Baruch read it aloud in the Jerusalem temple7 (v 10), the scroll’s content was reported to the Myrc in the palace (vv 11-13) and Baruch was summoned to repeat his oration there (vv 14-15). After how precisely the scroll was produced, Baruch describes in v 18 the oral delivery of the divine message by Jeremiah (t¶Ea y$AlEa aâ∂rVqˆy ‹wyIÚpIm

hR;l¡EaDh MyäîrDb√;dAh_lD;k) and his subsequent written inscription of this dictation (rRp™E;sAh_lAo b¶EtO;k y¢InSaÅw wáøy√;dA;b). The scribes instruct Baruch to go into hiding with Jeremiah and then report the message of the scroll to King Jehoiakim (v 20). The king demands that the scroll be brought to him and read aloud. In the climax of the episode (v 23) the scroll was again declaimed (√arq) while Jehoiakim cut it up (√orq) using a scribe’s razor (rpsh rot). The narrative pauses to specify that the scribes in attendance urged the king not to destroy the prophetic scroll (v 25). It then moves on to describe a second act of prophetic inspiration mandating the re-inscription of a new scroll (v 28) which was then augmented with a further oracle of doom for Jehoiakim personally (vv 29-31). The episode ends with Baruch inscribing the scroll and adding to this oracle MyñîrDb√;d

hD;m`EhD;k My™I;bår. This narrative occurs within the larger corpus of narrative material that occupies the second half of the Book of Jeremiah (chs 26-45). In the Septuagint, it is found in ch 43, a function of that text’s interposition of the Oracles against Nations (MT Jer 46-51) after Jer 25.13. 6

The actual basis for this restraint (rwxo, v 5) is not given within the Book of Jeremiah. It is commonly assumed that, given the specification of the 'h tyb in v 5 as the specific site of Jeremiah’s restriction, there must be a connection with the oration against the Temple related in chs 7 and 26. See the discussion of this explanation and proposed alternatives in Lundbom, Jeremiah 21-36, 592. 7

The manner of the scroll’s delivery is also ambiguous in the present text of Jer 36. Vv 10 specifies that the scroll was read r%EpO;sAh N°DpDv_NRb ·…whÎy√rAm◊…g t&A;kVvIlV;b, a collocation that implies a semi-private oration in an interior space (see Ezek 42.13; 44.19), but immediately subsequent to this declares the scroll’s oration rAo§Av jAt∞RÚp NwGøyVlRoDh r∞ExDjR;b M`DoDh_lD;k y™En◊zDaV;b v$∂dDj`Rh 'h_tyE;b, clearly indicating public performance in an exterior locale.

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Mowinckel had ascribed Jer 36 to his Source B—a stratum of biographical prose—on the basis of its 3rd person narrative style.8 In his early treatment of the Jeremiah tradition, Mowinckel had doubted the ascription of Source B to Baruch ben Neriyah.9 Subsequently, however, he embraced this view, seeing in Jer 36.32 the beginning of the growth of a post-Jeremian literary tradition, a tradition whose origin lay with the person of Baruch the scribe.10 The issue of the authenticity of the narrative has been hotly contested. Some, like Nicholson11 and Carroll12 have approached the text with skepticism, recognizing the literary shaping that constitutes its content and structure and appreciating the ideological element at work in its presentation of the development of the Jeremiah tradition as a scribal phenomenon. Despite this, there has been a persisting preference to read this narrative as historical fact.13 The placement of this narrative within the MT has also been debated. Rudolph had considered the text as introductory for a collection that ran from Jer 36-45, a unit he titled “die Erzählung Baruchs von den Leiden Jeremias.”14 Holladay challenged this identification,

8

Mowinckel Komposition p. 24.

9

Mowinckel, Komposition, p. 30.

10

Sigmund Mowinckel, The Spirit and the Word: Prophecy and Tradition in Ancient Israel, Fortress Classics in Biblical Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002), 55. 11

Nicholson, Preaching to the Exiles, 45.

12

Carroll, Jeremiah, 665-666.

13

Lundbom (Jeremiah 21-36, p. 584), for example, quotes approvingly Walther Zimmerli’s decision (Walther Zimmerli, “From Prophetic Word to Prophetic Book,” in The Place is Too Small for Us: The Israelite Prophets in Recent Scholarship, ed. Robert P. Gordon (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 428.) to take the narrative at face value on account of its proliferation of proper names, precise dates and narrative details (It should be noted, of course, that the article that Lundbom cites does not present argumentation for or evidence in favor of taking Jer 36 as historical fact. It asserts this status by fiat.). Such precision reflects, in his estimation, an “eyewitness” perspective on the early literary formation of the Jeremiah tradition. That this profusion of detail might indicate something other than a narrative concern for verisimilitude and accurate representation of historical fact (a scruple never seen elsewhere in Biblical historiography!) does not occur to Lundbom. 14

Rudolph, Jeremia, xvii.

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recognizing that chs 37-44 all describe events during the final siege of Jerusalem (588-587 BCE) whereas Jer 36 is dated to Jehoiakim’s fourth year (i.e., 605 BCE). Rather than viewing this narrative as introductory for what follows, Holladay recognized it as a companion to Jer 26.15 Both texts describe the prophet’s asserted hope for collective repentance (26.3; 36.3) and follow with explicit threats to the prophet (26.8; 36.26). This recognition of a literary unit running from Jer 26 through Jer 36 has generally held sway,16 though the precise development of the literary unit is contested.17 The narrative itself abounds with fascinating detail and provocative intimations. Lundbom’s contention that we have here a simple three stage composition in which vv 1-8 comprise a core narrative and vv 9-26 and 27-32 are subsequent supplements is too simplistic an account for what is going on in this text.18 Jer 36 employs structuring formulae and discourse markers in a confusing and overlapping fashion, seemingly blurring the lines between dictation, inscription and oration. At the same time, scribal figures appear prominently in the narrative. Baruch ben Neriyah is shown to be a close confidant and direct representative of the prophet (who is himself absent for most of the story), and the Shaphanid scribes who attend the King are presented as solicitous toward and protective of Jeremiah and his inscribed message. Concern 15

Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 254.

16

Even Carroll concurs on this point (Jeremiah, 662).

17

Compare Holladay, who places the poetry of Jer 30-31 at the core of this unit and who sees the other chapters accreting in a sequence of literary frames. Jer 26 and 36 are thus the extreme ends of this collection, composed by Baruch (Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 23) offering “narratives of two occasions when Jrm was in danger” that bracketed the collection of Jeremiah memoirs that had grown around the consolation scroll (Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 23). Lundbom, by contrast, sees Jer 36 as the conclusion to a “Jehoiakim cluster” comprising chs 25, 26, 35 and 36; a collection into which Jer 30-31 were inserted secondarily (Lundbom, Jeremiah 21-36, 583). 18

Lundbom, Jer 21-36, 582. His contention that the three phases are coordinated by the appearance of a leading yhyw is substantially at odds with the text itself, which, as he admits, also employs the verb in vv 16 and 23, and is at variance with the meaning of the verb itself, since the wayyiqtōl form is used to signify narrative continuity and not episodic rupture.

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for the custodianship of the prophetic scroll drives the narrative forward as well, and the scroll seems at times to be a literary character in its own right. Finally, the text is impelled forward by a clear structure in which the prophet recites (vv 2-3), the scribe inscribes (v 4), the message is orated (vv 8, 10, 15, 21), the scroll is destroyed (v 23), and the message is re-expressed (v 28 ) and re-inscribed (v 32). In broad terms, the narrative has a symmetrical, pediment structure in which the destruction of the scroll has a central place.  This clear preference for post-Jeremian scribal figures, not to mention the clear literary affinities between this episode and the discovery of the hrwth rps in 2K 2219 should warn that the text intends something other than historiography. Despite this literary evidence in favor of reading the text as serving a political or ideological purpose, the narrative of Jer 36 has been closely bound up in the effort to reconstruct the historical development of the Jeremian literary tradition.

The Theory of the Urrolle As we saw in the preceding chapter, Rainer Albertz depended heavily on the theory of the Urrolle in the course of reconstructing Jeremiah’s early period prophecies. In his understanding, the reference to the collection and inscription of Jeremiah’s oracles in Jehoiakim’s fourth year (i.e., 605/604 BCE) is an indication that the prophet’s public work substantially preceded this moment. More precisely, Albertz takes the date formula in Jer 36.2 as one of the several reliable indicators that Jeremiah began to prophesy publicly during the period of Josiah.20

19

See Charles D. Isbell, “2 Kings 22:3-23:4 and Jeremiah 36: A Stylistic Comparison,” JSOT 8 (1978): 3345, discussed below. 20

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 23.

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His argument was rather stronger than this, however. Albertz supposed that the collocation N ynzab arq, which appears multiple times in Jer 36,21 could be linked productively with the command formula of Jer 2.2: MÊ%AlDv…wr◊y y∏´n◊zDaVb ·Dta∂rá∂q◊w JK&ølDh. He speculates that Jer 2.2 may refer to “die Erinnerung an die Neuinterpretation…, die Jeremia im Jahr 605/4 nach der Schlacht von Karkemisch seiner Früzeitverkündigung für Jerusalemer gegeben hat.”22 On the basis of such evidence, Albertz suggests that the Urrolle described in Jer 36 conforms to some early version of Jer 2-6.23 Furthermore, he maintains that the reference to oracles directed “against Israel, Judah and all the nations” (M¡Iywø…gAh_lD;k_lAo◊w hä∂d…wh◊y_lAo◊w l¶Ea∂rVcˆy_lAo) in Jer 36.2 indicates that this literary complex is specifically cited, since according to Albertz, 2.4-4.2 were originally oriented toward the North and 4.3-6.3 were directed to the South. Albertz’s interpretive confidence in making this identification presumes that Jer 36 describes, with a high degree of accuracy, an actual historical event that transpired largely as the biblical text describes it.24 This claim that the rps tlgm of Jer 36 can be identified as some extant collection of Jeremiah’s prophecies is widely shared among scholars who posit a Josianic period phase in the prophet’s career. What disagreement there is adheres primarily to the particular contents of the

21

Vv 6, 10, 13, 14, 15, 21.

22

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 28.

23

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 33.

24

See especially, the final assessment of Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 46: “…nach dem Zeugnis der Prophetenerzählung Jer 36 Jeremia unter dem Eindruck der Schlacht von Karkemisch im Jahr 605, die die Vorherrschaft der Neubabylonier über Syrien und Palästina einleitete, daran ging, seine frühere Verkündigung, und d.h. seine frühere Verkündigung an das Nord- und das Südreich (v.2), aufzuschreiben, um sie den Judäern und Jerusalemern geballt als ultimative letzte Warnung zu Gehör zu bringen. Das Unheil aus dem Norden, von dem Jeremia vier Jahre lang gesprochen hatte, bahnte sich ja jetzt für jeden unübersehbar an. Da unter den zahllosen Urrollen-Hypothesen immer noch die die wahrscheinlichste ist, daß die Urrolle den Grundstock für Jer 2-6 geliefert hat, geht auch die Zusammenfügung der beiden Sammlungsteile 2.4-4.2 und 4.3-6.30 und damit die Verbindung der so verschiedenen Verkündigungsphasen auf dieses Ereignis der Neuaktualisierung der Botschaft durch Jeremia selbst zurück.”

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Urrolle. For Albertz, it was the combined text of Jer 2-6.25 A few years prior to this, W.L. Holladay had maintained that the “first scroll,” whose composition is referred to in Jer 36.4, consisted of material in Jer 1.1-7.15.26 Pursuing an inductive, rhetorical approach, Holladay’s primary criterion was thematic continuity. Guided by the impression given in Jer 36 for the substantive content of Jeremiah’s scroll, he hypothesized an early edition, and then supposed that a series of additions were made, first at the moment of the inscription of the second scroll (Jer 36.32)27 and then subsequently throughout the prophet’s career. This final augmentation extended the “second scroll” to include large portions of Jer 7.16-11.17.28 Holladay would have occasion in his later commentary on Jeremiah to revise the details of these identifications, perhaps unwittingly illustrating the dangers of relying on the interpreter’s unvarnished sense for what is plausible in the course of making source critical determinations.29 But the general framework of his analysis remained consistent: the first scroll consisted of substantial portions of Jer 1-7, and the composition of the second scroll, proceeding as described in Jer 36.32, involved the augmentation of that core. Sweeney had been relatively circumspect in his treatment of Jer 36 as a source for historical data. In the course of defending Albertz’s position against Mark Biddle’s critique, he noted in passing the argument against its authenticity.30 He made no text-historical claims on the basis of this episode in particular. In his larger study of King Josiah, however, he did draw upon 25

A position he shared with the Rietzschel (Urrolle, 136), though the two differ on their respective dates for Jer 4.5-6.30 (Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 24). 26

Viz. 1.4-10; 2.1-37; 3.1-5, 12-13, 19-25; 4.1-4, 5-8, 13-18, 29-31; 5.1-9, 20-29; 6.1-8, 16-26; 7.1-15.

27

Viz., 1.11-19; 4.9-12, 19-28; 5.10-17; 6.9-15, 27-30; 7.16-20.

28

W.L. Holladay, "Two Scrolls of Jeremiah" 464-465.

29

Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 16-20.

30

Sweeney, “Structure and Redaction,” 205, n.9.

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the text to demonstrate Jeremiah’s substantial agreement with the political position of Shaphanid scribes.31 Such relative circumspection regarding Jer 36 is absent from Mark Leuchter’s engagement with the text, however. Going beyond even the earlier credulity with which Albertz had approached the material, Leuchter treats the text as simple historical reportage. On the basis of the topical disagreement between Jeremiah’s oracle against Jehoiakim in 36.30 and the evidence that the king died in Jerusalem and was buried with his ancestors (2K 24.6), Leuchter asserts that the prophecy cannot be ex eventu and must reflect an original Jeremian prediction that did not subsequently come true. Though he observes the parallel between Jer 36.30 and 22.19, Leuchter did not consider that the former oracle might have been a narrative reference to this earlier prophecy. From this evidence, Leuchter avers that: “…while Jeremiah 36 is concerned with ideological agendas and symbolic or hermeneutic constructs, it is apparently based on actual events and personages. The report of the Urrolle’s composition, central as it is to the chapter, is in all likelihood historical as well.”32 With this, Leuchter makes a strong claim on the basis of fairly weak textual evidence. All that his evidence may safely warrant is that the oracle of Jer 36.30 predated the death of Jehoiakim. There is no further basis for supposing that because the oracle against Jehoiakim is likely authentic to Jeremiah, the entire narrative of Jer 36 is thereby true in all its details. These treatments of Jer 36, each of which considers the events described in this narrative as a reliable indicator of historical facts, runs counter to a growing scholarly consensus that the

31

Marvin Sweeney, King Josiah of Judah: The Lost Messiah of Israel. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 213-214. 32

Leuchter, Josiah’s Reform, 146-147.

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text is the direct result of ideologically informed literary shaping. Having observed strong thematic parallels with elements of the Deuteronomic corpus, many scholars now view Jer 36 not as historical material to be mined for data, but a historically situated text that employs the conventions of Hebrew narrative to advance a polemical argument. Among the first to recognize this was E.W. Nicholson who observed that this episode participated in the more general Deuteronomic theology of the destruction. In his view, the text itself is not biographical but was presented as an intentional contrast to 2K 22-23. Jehoiakim was the negative counterpart to Josiah, and his treatment of the divine Word through the prophet was the converse of Josiah’s.33 This attitude toward the authoritative status of Jeremiah’s message depends implicitly on the attitude toward prophecy laid out in Dtr 18.9-22. In addition, the theme of the nonrecognition of a prophetic message of warning echoes the key Deuteronomic text of 2K 17, the oration on the fall of the northern kingdom. As such, an implicit parallel is drawn from the fate of the North to the coming fate of the South. Nicholson concludes that “…the narrative is best classified not as part of a biography but as an ‘edifying’ story which, in common with one of the central themes of the Deuteronomistic history, sought to explain why Judah suffered Yahweh’s judgment in the tragic events of 586 B.C.”34 This critical approach to the text—emphasizing the larger thematic context for the episode and recognizing its participation in broader Deuteronomic ideological concerns—needed more than thematic and structural parallels to be fully compelling. In an important essay subsequent to Nicholson’s study, C.D. Isbell helped establish the thesis of Deuteronomic shaping 33

Nicholson, Preaching, 42, 45.

34

Nicholson, Preaching, 51-52.

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in the narrative of Jer 36 on firmer, terminological grounds. Isbell recognized the importance of the repeated messenger formula 'h rma hk (2K 22.15, 16, 18; Jer 36.29, 30) in both episodes and the common designation of both the found scroll and Jeremiah’s rps tlgm as Myrbd (2K 22.11, 13, 16; 23.2; Jer 36.4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 32).35 With both messages established as equally authoritative and deriving from the same divine source, what contrast there is between them depends on the differing deployment of verbs of action. Thus, 2K 22 employs √orq to refer to the action of Josiah’s tearing of his garments upon hearing the message of the found scroll (v 11), and 2K 23 uses √prc repeatedly to describe his violent eradication of the non-Jerusalemite cultus (vv 4, 6, 11, 15, 16, 20). By contrast, Jer 36 employs both verbs not to describe a dramatic capitulation to the divine message, but rather to relate Jehoiakim’s destruction of the material vehicle for the prophetic message.36 This contrast depends on the simultaneous deployment of the ambivalent term √omv in both narratives.37 In view of these substantial parallels as well as the coherent ideological basis beneath them, Isbell considered it reasonable to conclude that Jer 36 was composed to develop an intentional contrast between King Jehoiakim and King Josiah and that the Jeremian narrative depended upon the Deuteronomistic History’s episode for its coherence.38 More recently, Yair Hoffman has presented a nuanced approach to the material, one that adopts an agnostic perspective toward the historicity of the events it describes.39 He works from

35

Charles Isbell, “2 Kings,” 34-35.

36

Isbell, “2 Kings,” 37-38.

37

Isbell, “2 Kings,” 39.

38

Isbell, “2 Kings,” 42-43. See also Biddle, who follows Isbell’s argument to conclude that: “Jeremiah 36 is ideological literature” (Biddle, A Redaction History, 23-25). 39

Yair Hoffman, “Aetiology, Redaction and Historicity in Jeremiah XXXVI,” VT 46 (1996): 179-189.

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the ideology of the text itself as well as its structure to infer the organizational principle at work in the text. The narrative gives an indication that there circulated, at some point, a collection of oracles deriving from a period prior to Jehoiakim’s fourth year, a collection that included Jer 1, 7, and 10.1-16. Hoffmann suggests that Jer 36 indicates that this later editor collated oracles of woe (36.2) with a clear provenance prior to 605/604 BCE, along with some oracles that could not be dated securely to any particular period. This collection comprised the core of Jer 1-24. However, this editor excluded from this some oracles that were evidently early but did not conform to the stated editorial preference for predictions of disaster. Chief among these was Jer 30-31. Whether or not Hoffmann’s presuppositions as to the formation-history of Jer 1-24 are accurate, his conclusion is worth quoting for its nuance and historiographical sophistication: “…historical or not, Jer xxxvi provides us with clues to one of the most important stages in the literary history of the book of Jeremiah. The author of the story wanted to validate his scroll and to substantiate his own editorial considerations.”40 In this, Hoffman reflects clearly what has changed in the period following Nicholson’s initial work. The text retains some historiographical value, but not by virtue of what it describes. Jer 36 is no longer to be considered a source for historical data; instead, it is itself the data to be analyzed. What is important, in Hoffman’s account, is the reconstruction of the period of the text’s composition and the recognition that it may reflect the interests and concerns of authors and editors quite removed from the time of the episode it describes.

40

Hoffman “Aetiology,” 189.

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This trend toward the consideration of Jer 36 not as something from which to glean historical data, but as a datum to be analyzed in its own right, bears a surface similarity to another important use to which this text has recently been put. Scholars concerned with the origins of scribal culture in ancient Israel and the emergence of text-centered cultural forms have increasingly turned to Jer 36 for evidence. This avenue of approach was initiated by Susan Niditch, who in her Oral World and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature tracked the development of literate culture in Israel out of the matrix of a society whose chief means of expression was oral and whose primary means of transmission of information was inculcation and memorization.41 In Niditch’s discussion of Jer 36, it is unclear whether she is interpreting a theme in a literary narrative or speaking about an actual, historically situated instance of social action. Her analytical frame of reference leaves either option open, and indeed, the distinction between them—so important for those who consider the Book of Jeremiah in historical terms—is scarcely in view for her analysis.42 William Schniedewind’s later study, How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel, continued the project established by Niditch. His later treatment is more forthrightly historical, and his reading of Jer 36 is firmly in the positivist camp.43 Schniedewind interprets the statement of Jer 15.16, “Your words were found and I ate them. Your words became a joy to me and gladdened my heart,”

41

Susan Niditch, Oral World and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1996). 42

Niditch, Oral World, 104-105.

43

William Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

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(:y¡IbDbVl t∞AjVmIcVl…w NwäøcDcVl y$Il ÔKy®rDb√d y§Ih◊yÅw M$ElVkâOaÎw ‹ÔKy‹®rDb√d …wôaVxVmˆn), as a dual allusion to Jeremiah’s call (Jer 1.9) and the finding of the scroll described in 2K 22.8ff. Thus, he recognizes the thematic similarity previously noted by Nicholson and Isbell, but recasts this in sociological terms: the literary relationship between these texts has a basis in the prophet’s own cultural context. Jeremiah is not himself a scribe, but he depends on the scribal apparatus for the promulagation of his message. Thus, Jer 36 is a datum valuable for understanding how prophetic messages achieved a written form and for reconstructing the support network upon which a prophet could depend. Jeremiah 15.16 is, of course, too slender a thread on which to hang the strong claim that the prophet was actively alluding to the Deuteronomic reform. Sustaining this argument adequately would require a comprehensive engagement with the evidence for and against the thesis, something that goes beyond the methodological task Schniedewind set himself. At the same time, his novel argument illustrates the close affinity between Jer 1 and Jer 36. These two texts do indeed appear to co-inform, and they also appear to share a common worldview. What Schniedewind has not considered adequately in his brief mention of Jer 36 is the possibility that neither of these Jeremian texts are actually reliable, and that they represent not a transitional phase between prophecy and scribalism but a constitutive effort by scribes to reconceive the nature of prophetic revelation in scribal terms. More skepticism toward the literary evidence on Schiedewind’s part might have given rise to a far more interesting and politically nuanced thesis. More recently still, David Carr has also turned to Jer 36 in the course of developing a comprehensive theory of scribal culture in ancient Israel.44 Carr’s own method of approach is 44

D.M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 145-147.

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forthrightly cross-cultural. Hehas particular arguments to make about the relationship between pedagogy, memorization and the worldview of the scribal class. Thus, Jer 36 becomes a prime opportunity to discuss the values and actions of the Judean scribe through an examination of Baruch’s behavior in this episode. As with Niditch, it is difficult to determine whether Carr is interpreting Jer 36 as a narrative illustrative of some anonymous author’s values, or as a historically accurate recording of an episode that is exemplary of phenomena at work in the late monarchic period. Regardless, the importance of the episode for Carr is the apparently pedagogical relationship between prophet and amanuensis: “Nowhere is Baruch called a ‘student’ of Jeremiah, yet he performs many similar functions. He comes to Jeremiah already a ‘scribe,’ much as more advanced students would have come after receiving early education in their family or (more rarely) a school. Like an advanced student, he receives text by dictation, a text that is meant to be delivered in oral form. Moreover, this oral-written textual tradition—like others we have seen—is not fixed but is given multiple recensions by the master who dictates, in this case Jeremiah (36:27-32). Finally, as Gevaryahu observes, the data in the Jeremiah tradition resembles that included in some Mesopotamian colophons in recording not only the name of the originating master but also the name of Baruch, the scribe, and in emphasizing the fact that he received the tradition ‘by mouth’ (36:4, 17-18; 45:1). Thus Baruch escapes the anonymity of the transmitters of the Isaiah tradition. Moreover, standing at the edge of the catastrophe of exile, he serves as a crucial oral-written bridge to later periods, connecting the largely rejected prophecy of Jeremiah with later generations who would receive that word more positively.” This is a strange way of approaching the episode, and one gets the sense here that Carr’s thesis is driving his engagement with the evidence at this point. His reading is completely apolitical. One loses any sense for the agonistic interplay between prophetic and regnal authority, or for the unique constraints placed upon the prophetic body, which are the driving force behind the scroll’s inscription in the first place. In place of the dramatic tension that drives the episode and its ideological function, Carr speculates on normative encounters between pedagogues and pupils in ancient Israel. As a result, Jer 36 does not so much provoke a new understanding of scribal 77

praxis as it does confirm an already existing analytical matrix whose relevance to an adequate understanding of the text of Jeremiah is tenuous in the first place given the liberties Carr has taken with the text. In his recent monograph, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible, Karel van der Toorn also draws upon Jer 36 while describing the development of a literate scribal culture in ancient Israel and Judah.45 As with Nicholson, the narrative is treated in comparison with Deuteronomy, and van der Toorn suggests that what is described here is the creation of the Book of Jeremiah as a “scribal artifact.” Van der Toorn’s approach is broadly thematic, avoiding intensive historical argumentation. Thus, Jer 36 is treated as a late composition whose function was to authorize an early textual reflex of the book of Jeremiah. Despite this lateness and tendentious development, van der Toorn nevertheless reckons that we can know some things with certainty on the basis of the content of Jer 36. First, the narrative makes certain that a textual form for the Book of Jeremiah was in existence during the period following the destruction.46 Also, van der Toorn infers from the episode that the process by which this version of the Book of Jeremiah formed involved the written inscription by scribes within the circle of the prophet of Jeremiah’s original oral utterances. Finally, he concludes that this episode demonstrates adequately that the book as we have it has undergone a protracted period of modification and reworking.47 Van der Toorn’s approach to this narrative draws equally from the historicist and skeptical traditions. On the one hand, he shares in the growing doubt that Jer 36 conveys useful 45

K. Van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007). 46

Van der Toorn, Scribal Culture, 174-175.

47

Van der Toorn, Scribal Culture, 184-185.

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information regarding a historical episode in the life of Jeremiah. At the same time, he does infer specific information to be used in historical reconstruction. Like Sweeney, he takes note of the central position afforded the House of Shaphan in this episode, and concludes from this that we have an indication of the “support group that was receptive to Jeremiah’s message.”48 More idiosyncratically, the reference to Baruch’s inscription “from the mouth of Jeremiah” whymry ypm (v4) is taken as evidence not for Jeremiah’s dictation, but that the scribes who assembled the Jeremiah text worked from their own recollection of an earlier oral event.49 On this basis, van der Toorn posits the existence of an early collection he terms “The Acts and Oracles of Jeremiah,” an oral tradition preserved by scribes in the early exile whose existence explains the proliferation of doublets in the present text of Jeremiah.50 In this understanding, the narrative of Jer 36 is a sort of historicized allegory for the actual process by which the Jeremiah tradition developed from oral recollection to written “scribal artifact.” Abstracted from the particular political drama being described in the episode itself, van der Toorn supposes that the dynamics of the narrative can be transposed from the prophet/tradent encounter to the oral tradition/scribal inscription process. Thus, he concludes confidently “the prose sermons of Jeremiah are essentially a scribal version of prophecy.”51 Van der Toorn shares with Carr a disinterest in the political dimension of the narrative of Jer 36. On the way to deriving an overarching theory of scribal culture, the details and thematic specificity of this text are subordinated to the broader analytical concerns of the interpreter. The

48

Van der Toorn, Scribal Culture, 185.

49

Van der Toorn, Scribal Culture, 186.

50

Van der Toorn, Scribal Culture, 197.

51

Van der Toorn, Scribal Culture, 198-199.

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protagonists of van der Toorn’s allegory are strangely apolitical creatures. What is more interesting, however, and unique to his representation of this material is that his skepticism toward the historical status of Jer 36 does not translate into a more sophisticated method of engaging with this literary document. There is no more evidence for the historical context he posits for this text than there is in favor of the traditional, historicized reading of a scholar like Albertz or Leuchter. Indeed, as van der Toorn’s reading of Jeremiah proceeds, it becomes clear that he has an extremely idiosyncratic opinion of the prophecy of Jeremiah, one that threatens to occlude the prophet himself and begins to resemble even the extreme skepticism of Robert Carroll.52 Van der Toorn reads Jer 2.1-4.2 and observes its resemblance to the 8th century oracles of Hosea (e.g., Hos 7.11). Making note of the Jeremiah text’s address to Israel, he insists this must refer to the political entity that ceased to exist in 722 BCE. On this basis, he speculates that the entire core of this material could be traditional, orally transmitted oracular literature from the 8th century, and that these oracles may have been included in the book of Jeremiah based on their apparent resemblance to the oracles of the 6th century prophet.53 Yet, taken in conjunction with van der Toorn’s attack on the authenticity of the so-called “confession material” in the Book of Jeremiah, it becomes difficult to escape the impression that he is systematically diminishing the core material in the text that might be attributed to Jeremiah himself, all the while challenging the idea of the constitutive prophetic genius in the process of tradition formation. Instead, van der Toorn presents us with a growing corpus of stereotyped,

52

Carroll, Jeremiah, 662-668.

53

Van der Toorn, Scribal Culture, 202-203.

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traditional and orally transmitted material, and a group of self-authorizing, narrative-composing scribes who rework this material in a prosaic textual form. Thus, the “scribalization of prophecy,” which is the focus of van der Toorn’s analysis, is tantamount to a heuristic foreclosure upon the idea of the prophet as the originator of tradition. Pride of place is ceded to the scribes who originated the written tradition bearing the prophet’s name. Van der Toorn concludes forthrightly that by the early exilic period, “the authority of the prophets became a scriptural authority”54 and “…the transition of authority from the spoken word to the written text led to a reinterpretation of the notion of revelation. Just as prophecy had become written prophecy, so the concept of revelation would become coterminous with the book.”55 In this reading, there is no prophetic revelation worth speaking of. Instead, there is the self-authorizing literary text, itself the result of a process of scribal recollection and traditionconstituting bricolage. By implication, there is no need to study prophetic texts systematically and as the product of particular historical and political forces. Instead, the prophetic texts of the pre-exile are to be considered as windows into the concerns of the exilic and post-exilic scribes who originated them. This implication proceeds directly from van der Toorn’s unsupported decision to read Jer 36 as a foundation narrative for later scribes. It would be better not to push the prophet so resolutely to the margin, but to consider the historical interaction between his own originating poetic consciousness and the interests and

54

Van der Toorn, Scribal Culture, 203.

55

Van der Toorn, Scribal Culture, 203-204.

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concerns of later scribes.56 It is not the case that the tradition is itself as diffuse as van der Toorn implies. There is substantial cause to read the poetic core to the Book of Jeremiah as internally integrated and driven by a reasonably consistent theological and political perspective. Tentatively, we might suggest that this attack on the integrated prophetic voice is a consequence of hyper-historicizing readings of Jer 36 and the poetry of 2-6, since as we have seen, these depend on the suggestion of a radical shift in perspective by the prophet after Josiah’s death and the battle of Carchemish. The theory of an early-period Jeremiah itself mandates the hypothesis of a prophetic mid-career change in attitude, implicitly degrading the integrated consciousness of the prophet himself. Perhaps Albertz’s forceful placement of Jeremiah within the complex network of Deuteronomistic political concerns in the late 7th century has had the consequence of permitting scholars like van der Toorn to chip away at the idea of an integrated prophetic voice, to posit that what seems authentic is anonymous tradition, and to claim that what appears politically engaged in the text is the product of the concerns of later scribes. In any case, van der Toorn’s speculative hypotheses, both explicit and implicit, can adequately be challenged by demonstrating a consistent, tradition-constituting voice plausibly situated in the late monarchic period. We may continue to view the narrative of Jer 36 with skepticism when judging its value for historiography, without also rejecting the existence of a historical figure called Jeremiah who himself had a profound impact on the formation of the tradition. 56

A valuable gesture in this direction is J.A. Dearman, "My Servants the Scribes: Composition and Context in Jeremiah 36." JBL 109 (1990): 403-21. Dearman continues to depend too fundamentally on the presupposition that Jer 36 is an accurate window into history. At the same time, his literary analysis of the episode is quite sophisticated, recognizing the significant wordplays that bind the narrative together, as well as the structuring force of the leading yhyw, which introduce important subunits. Dearman rightly foregrounds the participation of scribes in the process of text production, preservation and interpretation without advancing the more tendentious claims put forward by Carr and van der Toorn. See also Carolyn J. Sharp, "Take Another Scroll and Write: A Study of the LXX and the MT of Jeremiah's Oracles against Egypt and Babylon." VT 47 (1997): 487-516.

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Thus, we have several different lines of approach to this narrative upon which to draw. An early though recurrent trend in the literature views the text as reliable historical data. Albertz and Leuchter have staked out the credulous extreme of this approach. In their analyses, it is possible simply to read the text as we have it in order to glean secure information for the early period work of Jeremiah. They are forced into this by the necessity of having some positive witness to the early period work of Jeremiah. In the face of the difficult problems faced by scholars who would argue for substantial agreement between the prophet and the Josian-period reformers—the paucity of references to Josiah in the Book of Jeremiah and the prophet’s ambiguous relationship to the Deuteronomic reform—a historicizing read of Jer 36 virtually guarantees Jeremiah’s Josianic period flourishing. The simplest reading of this narrative implies that the prophet had amassed a substantial body of work by 605/604 BCE. Without this text to lean on, an important buttress for the hypothesis of a Jeremian early phase falls away. At the same time, a consistent, milder sort of distortion is at work in recent trends that read Jer 36 through the lens of scribal culture. These scholars represent the full range of historical attitudes toward the text itself, but share a common interest in downplaying the obvious political dimension of the narrative. In the course of reconstructing scribal praxis and the emergence of textual culture among the Hebrew-speaking peoples of the late monarchic and exilic periods, these scholars tended to be impressed by the phenomenological dynamics of the exchange between prophet and scribe without also attending to the evident tensions of the narrative itself. Whatever polemical point advanced by the author of Jer 36 is lost when the text is read as an exemplar for the normative relationship between prophets and their amanuenses. Finally, we found that those scholars who approach the text with a greater degree of skepticism had not adequately advanced beyond a quite simple literary analysis that employed 83

terminological linkages to emphasize the text’s Deuteronomistic features and its positive relationship to key texts such as 2K 22 and Dtr 17. The attention of Nicholson, Isbell and Dearman to the constitutive force of the ideological shaping of the text has not been met by a corresponding sophistication in appreciation for the complexity of the narrative itself, or for its function within the received text of Jeremiah. The present study will attempt to address this last problem and provide a literary analysis of Jer 36 with a skeptical argument sufficient to respond to the influential reading of the text given by Rainer Albertz. We will discuss the ideological concerns that have governed the shaping of Jer 36, as well as suggest a proper context for its promulgation. In particular, we will build upon the prior appreciation of a repeated literary device, the so-called Wortereignisformel that appears in Jer 36 as well as in other significant contexts in the Book of Jeremiah. By comparing the various texts coordinated by this literary motif, we will advance our understanding of the particular ideological interests that have governed the formation of Jer 36 and its placement within the Jeremian text. We will suggest that this device is an artifact of the late editorial reworking of the book and that it is intended as a marker for “entextualization,” the transition of a given cultural form from one mode of expression to another. By means of this repeated device, we will maintain that a later generation of scribes rationalized their own creativity with respect to received tradition, in the process engendering continuity between the prophetic revelation that had originated the text itself and their own tradition-constituting work. More specifically, we will see that this repeated Wortereignisformel creates a significant intertextual link between Jer 1 and Jer 36. The device functions to make historical acts of mantic expression and later editorial reworkings of such acts continuous with one another in epistemological terms. The importance of such data for our understanding of Israelite scribal 84

culture should be obvious. As we begin, we ought to note that if we are to appreciate fully the worldview and driving concerns of the Hebrew- speaking scribes who first compiled the Hebrew Bible, a careful interpretive engagement with the literary texts they produced should be the focus, not the evidence’s malleability with respect to some governing hypothesis regarding the origins of writing culture.

The Wortereignisformel in the Book of Jeremiah Christoph Levin and John Lawlor have each, independently, observed a recurrent literary device in the Book of Jeremiah.57 The phrase rmal yla 'h_rbd yhyw [“the word of YHWH came to me:”] appears nine times in the poetic material that appears in Jer 1-25.58 Terming it a “Wortereignisformel” [word-event formula],59 Levin links this phrase with a distinctive and emerging theology of prophetic revelation through engagement with the divine “word,” an epistemology that he views as the product of the late exile.60 In a significant advance upon Levin, John Lawlor has recently observed that a related formula, rmal whymry_la 'h_rbd yhyw, appears twelve times in the narrative texts that occupy the second half of the book, including in Jer 36.27.61 Significantly, Lawlor contends that a basic

57

J.I. Lawlor, “Word Event in Jeremiah: A Look at the Composition's 'Introductory Formulas'. Inspired Speech: Prophecy in the Ancient Near East, ed. J. Kaltner and L. Stuhlman (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 231-243; C. Levin, The "Word of Yahweh": A Theological Concept in the Book of Jeremiah. Prophets, Prophecy, and Prophetic Texts in Second Temple Judaism, ed. M. H. Floyd and R. D. Haak (New York; London: T&T Clark, 2006), 42-62. 58

Jer 1.4, 11, 13; 2.1; 13.3, 8; 16.1; 18.5; 24.4 (Lawlor, “Word Event,” 232)

59

C. Levin, “Das Wort Jahwes an Jeremia: zur ältesten Redaktion der jeremianischen Sammlung” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 101 (2004), 257-280. The term comes originally from Theodor Seidl "Die Wortereignisformel in Jeremia" BZ 23 (2004), 20-47. See also Sweeney, "Structure and Redaction,” 208. 60

Levin, “Word of Yahweh,” 62.

61

Jer 28.12; 29.30; 32.36; 33.1, 19, 23; 34.12; 35.12; 36.27; 37.6; 42.7; 43.8 (Lawlor, “Word Event,” 232.)

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word-event phrase is consistent across the book of Jeremiah and that its indexing of a first person or third person referent is conditioned by its literary placement; when the formula appears in the first person poetic material in Jer 1- 25, it indexes a first person object, and when it appears in the largely narrative material of Jer 26-45, it indexes a third person object, employing the prophet’s personal name. But the underlying pattern, according to Lawlor, is consistent. This distribution pattern can tell us something important regarding the formula’s chronology relative to the larger Book of Jeremiah. By bridging the split between poetry and narrative in the text—what scholars have conventionally called the A and B sources in Jeremiah62 — and by presenting a stable literary figure across this divide, the phrase’s current configuration likely post-dates the moment when these two traditions were joined together into a single text. Put differently, since it matches itself to the book’s complex topography, the phrase as we have it is an artifact of the Book of Jeremiah’s late editorial process. The fact that in two cases, Jer 32.6 and 35.12, the Greek tradition preserves a first-person reading of the formula in the second half of the Book suggests that this process may have been very late indeed.63 It seems likely, then, that at some point subsequent to the final separation of these two textual families, the proto-Masoretic tradition had begun to normalize the word-event formula to the A-source/B-source split, suppressing formulations that did not match this architectural plan.64

62

Mowinckel, Komposition, 17-20.

63

Levin, “Word of Yahweh,” 58-61. See also E. Tov, “The Literary History of the Book of Jeremiah in the Light of Its Textual History.” Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism, ed. Jeffrey H. Tigay (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), 231. 64

That is to say, the suppression of a 1s formula in Jer 26-45 is an event connected with the preparation of what E. Tov terms “edition II”, the tradition whose separation from the Qumran/LXX text form eventually culminated in the present MT. (Tov, “Literary History,” 214). Tov dates this manuscript development substantially later than the preparation of edition I and suggests that it may have taken place in the post-exile, given its

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Of course, the phrase itself occurs elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, and its distribution pattern can perhaps give us a clue to its provenance. In the book of Ezekiel, it is a standard marker for prophetic revelation, occurring more than 30 times. This seems of a piece with postmonarchic prophecy, since it is used similarly in Jonah, Haggai and Zechariah. But we cannot simply conclude from this, as Levin does, that the phrase itself is late and an imposition upon the Jeremiah corpus.65 The phrase is also evident in the Deuteronomistic History,66 often in theologically significant contexts related to prophetic inspiration. It marks, for example, the curious post-script to the narrative of the anonymous “man of God who came from Judah” in which this figure’s obedient censure of the Beth-El cult ends in his death sentence for having stopped to share a meal with a fellow prophet prior to returning home (1K 13.20). Likewise, it marks Nathan’s change of heart in 2Sam 7, wherein the prophet receives a dream-vision, which leads him to revise his earlier encouragement to David that he hasten to build a temple to YHWH (v 4). One could argue, of course, that the phrase’s appearance in Jeremiah is merely by happenstance. Among the many different superscriptions, colophons and coordinating formulae that appear in the Book, this particular device shows up in certain locations. Such skepticism is belied, however, by the observation that this device appears, in many cases, to be used intentionally, motivated by thematic and intertextual concerns.67

anticipation of the fall of Babylon (236-237). On comparative grounds, Tov has independently linked the editor of Edition II with the appending of the Wortereignisformel in Jer 2.1-2 (218). 65

Levin, “Word of Yahweh,” 43.

66

1Sam 15.20; 2Sam 7.4; 1K 6.11; 13.20; 16.1; 17.2; 21.17, 28

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Sweeney himself had observed, in his discussion of Jer 2-6, that the repeated word-event formula had some structuring force relative to the early chapters of the Book of Jeremiah. Observing its repetition at 1.4, 1.11 and 2.1, he had suggested that its function there was to delimit discrete literary units (Troubling Jeremiah, 207-208), In view of his heuristic focus on the first chapters of the Book, we need not have expected Sweeney to recognize the

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The phrase at times appears in conjunction with explicit citation of Deuteronomic legal principles. The narrative of Jer 27-28, for example, shows Jeremiah invoking Dtr 18.22 in the course of engaging in a conflict with another prophet (Jer 28.9), while Jer 1.9 seems linked closely with the mechanics of revelation described in Dtr 18.18. At the same time, Jer 36 is modeled, albeit in negative terms, on the law of the King in Dtr 17, the curse laid upon the cult at Bethel in 1K 13,68 and the pivotal scene in 2K 22-23.69 This type of more or less explicit allusion, taken alongside the word-event formula’s significant attestation in the DtrH, suggests that this is an artifact of the Jeremiah text’s reworking by Deuteronomistic tradents.70 Beyond this Deuteronomistic connection, many of the contexts where this phrase appears have to do with some sort of semiotic practice. More specifically, it is a frequent coordinating device in contexts of symbolic action dramas and prophetic sign interpretations. In many of these scenes, there is a transition—forced or unforced—from a material element into language. Thus, in Jer 24.1 the text describes a visual event, the observation of two baskets of figs, whereas 24.3 narrates the passage of that somatic element into language. The prophet is asked hta hm

whymry har [“what do you see, Jeremiah?”], at which point he refigures his visual experience in

significance of the repetition of this formula elsewhere. But as we will see, its attestation in Jer 36 is significant indeed and recasts the importance of the phrase’s repetition in these opening chapters. Most simply, the fact that it appears at Jer 36.27 indicates that its function is something more complex than simply delimitation of literary subunits. Instead, its appearance seems to be related to the act of prophetic utterance and scribal (re)inscription. 68

U. Simon, “I Kings 13: A Prophetic Sign—Denial and Persistence” HUCA 47 (1976): 87, fn. 21.

69

Nicholson, Preaching, 42-43; Isbell, "2 Kings,” 33-45.

70

Tov has also recognized that the editor of edition II shares language and ideological concern with the Deuteronomic movement (Tov, “Literary History,” 220, 233). Note however, that the editor of this edition is probably not responsible for every case of the Wortereignisformel in the Book of Jeremiah. There is a tremendous rhetorical difference between, for example the use of the formula in Jer 2.1-2, on the one hand, and that found in cases such as Jer 36.27, on the other. It may well have been the case that the editor who lately suppressed the 1s formulae in Jer 34 and 35 and who added the formula in Jer 2.1-2 was the final tradent in an ongoing process of Deuteronomistic reworking of the Book of Jeremiah. In any case, such fine redaction critical distinctions are beyond the scope of our present inquiry.

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vocal terms [Mynat]. The appearance of our coordinating formula in v 4 is thus a preface for the emergent divine interpretation of that verbally reconfigured visual event. Similarly, the drama of the prophetic yoke in Jer 27-28 involves a dispute that is first material: Jeremiah makes himself a wooden yoke and employs it as a material signifier for political subjugation to Babylon. The breaking of Jeremiah’s yoke by the rival prophet Hananiah in 28.10 is thus meant to signify a subsequent liberation from Babylonian domination after a period of two years. Significant here is the degree to which both prophets accept fundamental rules regarding how their political debate is meant to be framed. Hananiah, for example, does not “undo” Jeremiah’s prior oracle; he merely augments and truncates it by means of a dependent symbolic action. It is significant, then, that the appearance of our coordinating phrase in 28.14 marks Jeremiah’s active refutation of Hananiah’s attempted subversion, through the suggestion in language of a new sort of unbreakable iron yoke [lzrb twfm].

Entextualization Minimally, then, we may say that many of the uses of this recurrent phrase in the Book of Jeremiah are joined with instances of semiotic play in relation to material objects.71 The phrase may thus be characterized as a marker for a moment of “entextualization,” a process described

71

Lawlor (“Word Event,” 232) recognizes 9 instances of the Wortereignisformel appearing with the 1st person singular pronoun and 12 instances employing the prophet’s name. Of these 21 cases, eleven appear with prophetic symbolic actions or with vision reports (1.11, 13; 13.3, 8; 16.1; 18.5; 24.4; 28.12; 32.26; 33.1; 43.8). Two others relate to the written inscription of prophetic words (29.30; 36.27). Of the remaining eight, one (2.1) appears at the head of an extended bloc of prophetic oracles (Jer 2-6) and appears concerned to correlate that collection with the preceding vision reports (1.11, 13). Another (1.4) relates to the formation of the prophet himself and is highly significant for the overall theology of the Book of Jeremiah generally and this editorial stratum particularly. Two more (34.12; 35.12) describe the prophet assigning oracular significance to performances and persons other than himself in a fashion which resembles the prophetic action narratives. The final four (33.19; 33.23; 37.6; 42.7) describe oracles related to the House of David and the siege of Jerusalem and are difficult to correlate with the rest of this corpus.

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by linguistic anthropologists as a decontextualization of some element in the ongoing stream of events that make up everyday life, and its placement within a new context that permits critical engagement with it.72 Such an act, as Michael Silverstein argues, is part and parcel of the creation of autonomous cultural artifacts.73 Crucially, and in contrast to William Schiedewind’s discussion of the “Textualization of Ancient Israel,”74 “entextualization” does not privilege orthographic encoding. Rather, entextualization may describe any process of decontextualization and critical engagement: verbal recitation from a written document; scholarly citation or poetic allusion; written refiguration of an event known previously from verbal report, photograph or schematic drawing; or acts that take place across the full range of the oral/textual, performative/documentary matrix. In “Entextualization, Replication, and Power,” an essay in a foundational collection of works on “entextualization,” Greg Urban describes fieldwork in southern Brazil where he contracted with two indigenous men to transcribe tape-recorded recitations of native mythic texts.75 One of his transcribers was a bilingual young man who excelled in his studies and looked upon Urban as a teacher figure. The other was an older man, a tribal elder who had acted as mentor and cultural informant for the anthropologist. Comparing their transcriptions to the recorded document—two parallel acts of entextualization by differently situated cultural actors— Urban found that the low-status transcriber faithfully reproduced every verbal sound on the tape, including redundancies, verbal corrections and parenthetical statements. By contrast, the high72

G. Urban, “Entextualizing, Replication, and Power,” in Natural Histories of Discourse, ed. M. Silverstein and G. Urban. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 21-22. 73

M. Silverstein. and G. Urban, eds. (1996). Natural Histories of Discourse (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 1. 74

Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book.

75

Urban, “Entextualization, Replication and Power.”

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status elder, freely synopsized, corrected and cleaned up the verbal recitation. Urban’s hypothesis that power and status are significant variables when considering phenomena of entextualization could suggest, for example, a provocative new frame of reference for viewing doublets like Jer 7 and Jer 26.76 In particular, it suggests that diachronic reworking and theological adaptation are not the only processes at work in the Hebrew Bible that might have given rise to textual doublets. Such a suggestion, if pursued adequately, might provide Karel van der Toorn’s hypothetical “Acts and Oracles of Jeremiah” with a more rigorous methodological ground, as well as suggest avenues for further investigation. Entextualization serves primarily to focus our attention on a phenomenon’s manner and means of passage through various modes of language and performance. It is less an analytical method of its own and more a way of establishing certain phenomena as significant and deserving of careful treatment. Deixis, temporal marking, second person verbal address, use of indefinite pronouns, discourse markers, and volitive constructions are all significant verbal elements whose hermeneutic potentials depend profoundly on the entextualizing relationship between a phenomenon and its context of expression. In the case of Jer 36, a focus on markers for entextualization will help us to adopt an approach to the text that focuses not on what it seems to be saying but on what it is actually doing. There are serious problems with taking this narrative as representative of historical fact. Attention to entextualization as a thematic concern helps to refocus our attention on the historically-situated function of the narrative.

76

See Mowinckel, Komposition, 6-8.

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The Wortereignisformel as a Marker for Entextualizing Discourse In the present case, given the recurrent relationship between the “word-event formula” and narratives of mantic engagement, material revision and reformation, we should consider the possibility that this phrase is functioning, at least in part, to coordinate various instances of entextualizing discourse. To be clear, this says nothing concrete at this stage about its status as a redactional device nor does it draw firm conclusions about the formation process of the book of Jeremiah.77 Rather, it is to recognize that the phrase “the word of YHWH came to me/Jeremiah” is linked closely with particular texts describing entextualization and to attempt to draw conclusions about the received text on the basis of that linkage. So, for example, we ought to consider the phenomenon of an overlapping, even disorienting, nested quotation in Jer 36.27-32 as a case of overdetermined, hyperentextualization. Here, in a significant moment of textual reformulation and in the midst of a narrative describing the fragility of an orthographically inscribed text and the persistence of its verbal pre-text, the reader of Jer 36 is led through a thick mass of citations:

‹hD;lˆgV;mAh_tRa JKRl#R;mAh PêOrVc —yâérSjAa

…wh¡DyVm√rˆy_l`Ra 'h_rAb√d y¶Ih◊yÅw v27

:ráOmaEl …wh™DyVm√rˆy y¶IÚpIm JK…wÿrD;b b¶AtD;k r°RvSa My$îrDb√;dAh_tRa◊w hD y#RlDo bâOtVk…w t®r¡RjAa h∞D;lˆgVm äÔKVl_jåq b…wñv v28 hYÎnOvaâîrDh ‹hD;lˆgV;mAh_lAo …wGyDh r∞RvSa MyYˆnOvaâîrDh ‹MyîrDb√;dAh_lD;k t§Ea :há∂d…wh◊y_JKRl`Rm MyñîqÎywøh◊y PäårDc r¶RvSa

r$Amaø;t ‹h∂d…wh◊y_JKRl`Rm MyôîqÎywøh◊y_lAo◊w v29 77

Indeed, careful distinctions will need to be drawn between the phrase’s appearance at the moment of transition from oracular experience to the discussion of its significance, on the one hand, and its use as a prefacing element for whole episodes, on the other. Such analysis would depend, however, on redaction critical argumentation, which would distract from the argument being presented here. In the present case, we are treating the entire Jeremiah corpus in synchronic terms and recognizing a reasonably stable thematic element. Diachronic text development is an evident fact, however, and the present argument will need to be developed in these terms at some future point.

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'h r∞AmDa häO;k r$OmaEl ‹taøΩzAh h§D;lˆgV;mAh_tRa D;tVp%årDc hD;tAa r#OmaEl hD y%RlDo D;tVb°AtD;k ·Ao…w;dAm taYøΩzAh X®r∞DaDh_tRa ‹tyIjVvIh◊w ‹ lRbD;b_JKRl`Rm awôøbÎy_aáø;b :h`DmEhVb…w Mñ∂dDa hÎ…n™R;mIm ty¶I;bVvIh◊w h$∂d…wh◊y JKRl∞Rm ‹MyIqÎywáøh◊y_lAo

'h r∞AmDa_háO;k NEkDl v30

d¡Iw∂d a∞E;sI;k_lAo b™Evwøy wñø;l_h‰yVh`Iy_aøl :hDl◊y`D;lA;b jårñ®;qAl◊w Mwäø¥yA;b b®rñOjAl tRk$RlVvUm h∞RyVh`I;t ‹wøtDlVbˆn◊w M¡DnOwSo_tRa wyä∂dDbSo_lAo◊w wöøo√rÅz_lAo◊w wyªDlDo y°I;t√dåqDp…w v31 MÊ%AlDv…wr◊y y°EbVvOy_lAo◊w MRhyElSo y∞ItaEbEh◊w h¢Do∂rDh_lD;k tªEa h#∂d…wh◊y vy∞Ia_lRa◊w :…wo`EmDv añøl◊w M™RhyElSa yI;t√r¶A;bî;d_rRvSa ...~t®r#RjAa h∞D;lˆgVm —jâåqDl …wh˝ÎyVm√rˆy◊w

v32

The word of YHWH came to Jeremiah after the King had burned the scroll and the words that Baruch had written at the dictation of Jeremiah saying: “Go back and take for yourself another scroll and write on it all the first words that were on the scroll that Jehoiakim, King of Judah, burned. And concerning Jehoiakim, King of Judah, say: ‘Thus says YHWH: “you have burned this scroll, saying: ‘Why have you written upon it the following: 'The King of Babylon shall surely come and destroy this land and remove from it man and beast.’” Therefore, thus says YHWH concerning Jehoiakim King of Judah: “He will not have anyone to sit on the throne of David and his corpse will be cast to the parching heat of the daytime and the frost of night. I will call him, his offspring and his servants to account for their iniquity. I will bring upon them and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem

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and to the men of Judah all the misfortune that I spoke to them but that they did not hear.”’” Jeremiah took another scroll...

It seems significant that the “word-event” formula is appearing at the head of such a confusing proliferation of overlapping citations. Taken in conjunction with the episode’s evident thematic links with the Deuteronomistic literature, its seemingly obsessive concern for the custodianship of the inscribed scroll, and its concern to present the scribal House of Shaphan as allies of Jeremiah, it seems clear that this concern for citation and repetition of speech is not a neutral event. The “word-event formula” is marking off a provocative and polemical case of entextualization in the Jeremiah tradition as it passes into the control of Deuteronomistically inclined scribes.78

Jeremiah 1 and Jeremiah 36 In light of this formula, we ought to also make note of a still further polemical deployment of this phrase, one that augments its significance considerably. It appears three times in the call narrative of Jer 1. Here, the prophet receives a commission from the divine in a fashion unique among the prophetic texts of the Hebrew Bible. Where the genre of the call leads one to expect a theophanic manifestation of God or His proxy, as for instance in Isaiah’s dramatic vision of God enthroned in Is 6 or Ezekiel’s encounter with the chariot in Ezek 1, verse 4 of our text laconically states, “The word of YHWH came to me.” Likewise, at the moment in the call when the newly deputized representative receives a confirming, miraculous sign whose

78

It seems significant, in this connection, that the editor of Edition II has sought to clarify the statement in 36.32 that “Baruch got another scroll” by rendering it as “Jeremiah got another scroll and gave it to the scribe Baruch ben Neriah and he wrote in it.” (Tov, “Literary History,” 224-225.)

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function is to reassure him,79 our text positions practices introduced by the same phrase. The fiery immolation of Gideon’s food offering in Judg 6.21, for example, is in Jer 1.11 and 13 transformed into two parallel prophetic sign visions—mundane ones, at that. In the Jeremian call, then, generic expectation of the supernatural is subverted in favor of the semiotic. “Entextualization” stands, in some sense, in place of the miraculous.80 Accordingly, this phrase is not merely a neutral marker of “entextualization,” as if this were a kind of meta-commentary on Jeremiah’s oracular practices. Instead, “entextualization” is actively displacing other understandings of the function and operation of prophecy. By replacing those elements in the prophetic call that relate specifically to visual perception of the divine and divine power, intellective practices of recontextualization are being positioned as the sine qua non of prophetic experience. Another aspect of the polemical nature of this phrase’s deployment emerges in the fact that it is selectively applied. That is to say, there are some instances of symbolic action narratives that are not coordinated by the word-event formula. Significantly, the phrase appears in Jer 18.5 before the divine expression of the oracular significance of the episode at the potter’s house, but it does not appear in Jer 19.11, a symbolic action drama where Jeremiah breaks a flask [qbqb] to symbolize collective destruction.

79

Gerhard von Rad, The Message of the Prophets (New York: Harper & Row, 1965): 38ff.

80

Apposite here is von Rad’s perception that Jeremiah’s confirming visions are presented in a different, milder key than these other classic instances: “The call of Jeremiah begins with a dialogue in which Yahweh gently but firmly breaks down the other’s shrinking resistance to his commission. Then follow the two visions of the rod of almond and the seething cauldron, which indeed fall very short of the forcefulness of the other three which have just been discussed. In other respects Jeremiah was a master of expression. Here, however, his creative power is clearly less than usual.” (von Rad, Message of the Prophets, 44) What von Rad perceives as a diminution in creative power is belied, of course, by the emphatic placement these “visions” have in the completed Book of Jeremiah. Rather than subjecting them to an aesthetic standard, we ought to ask what their particular ideological function might have been, and to weigh that against the development of the Jeremiah tradition.

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These two episodes are thematically related, but there are no markers of narrative continuity to join them together. From an editorial standpoint, there must have been a clear value to juxtaposing two episodes that focus on the separate manipulation and interpretation of the same entity—clay — in two states: unfired and fired. The image of the reformation of a spoiled pot on the potter’s wheel is used in Jer 18.6 as a signifier for absolute divine sovereignty, whereas the irrevocable smashing of the fired clay qbqb in Jer 19.11 is a sign of the gravity of the nation’s transgression and the extremity of her circumstance. By coordinating the first episode but not the second, our editor reveals a marked preference for instances of entextualization that involve revision, reformation and recuperation.

Conclusion Thus, it is apparent that this recurrent theme is considerably more focused in its editorial function than either Lawlor or Levin have recognized. It may be read as a marker that coordinates significant episodes where there is an intellective engagement with a phenomenon during its passage from materiality into language. By prefacing, in many cases, the emergence of the moment of divine interpretation, it marks a further step from language into history, or perhaps, back into more generalized material circumstance. Its appearance is meant to displace, in some fashion, expectations regarding the supernatural. Intellection and semiotic significance are standing in for the manifestation of supernatural power in time and space. Finally, the phrase is deployed in instances where the act of entextualization foregrounds the potential for revision and repair. It seems clear that this concern for language and materiality, for inspiration and revision, for creativity in the face of destruction, all reflect the unique concerns of scribal tradents. The 96

links between Jer 36 and the Deuteronomic tradition that Nicholson first observed are surely in evidence. But the text also participates in an inner-Jeremianic discourse, itself every bit as important as that intertextual connection. For the author of Jer 1 and 36, the act of scribal reformulation is being placed on a continuum with other instances of entextualization. Through the deployment of this recurrent phrase, the creation or re-creation of a text artifact is established as a particular instance of a more general process of divine revelation. The reformulation of scrolls is being placed on a common continuum of value with other instances of divine revelation through manipulation of somatic elements. When considered in relation to Jeremiah’s call narrative, we can say that in the hands of this redactor, the original manifestation of divine power is being downgraded to a mere semantic process, and the scribal act of reformulation and augmentation of prior written text is being upgraded to a status coequal with that original and originating revelation.81 Thus, whatever unrecoverable historical kernel lies behind Jer 36, this text’s placement within the present Book of Jeremiah has much to do with the later scribe’s need to authorize his creative activity in relation to a prior oracular tradition. Karel Van der Toorn is certainly right that this text is a crucial datum in our reconstruction of the worldview and practices of ancient scribes, but not in the way he imagines. Jer 36 speaks to the intellectual concerns of the late-born. It helps to mediate what Harold

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This is clearly also the function of the Wortereignisformel in its appearance in Jer 29.30. As in 36.27, it is being used to mark a case of textual reformulation. Here, it prefaces the sending of an additional, specific message against the rival prophet Shemaiah the Nehelamite. And likewise, it represents the inscription of a further specific message of doom for a figure with whom the prophet has a particular dispute.

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Bloom has called “the anxiety of influence,” the pressure exerted upon the Nachgeborenen by the weight of tradition.82 It authorizes scribal activity, but in a powerfully subjective sense. Likewise, the text has nothing at all to tell us about the Urrolle. Rather, it gives us a unique insight into the self-understanding of text producers. These figures hearkened back to oracular practices of engagement with material objects that were a component of Jeremiah’s own activity.83 By placing their own work in relation to an earlier prophet’s symbolic actions and prophetic interpretations, they legitimated their audacious interpretation and reformation of that prophet’s entextualized words and actions. The implications of this study for our larger project should be clear. If this episode is a late, scribal narrative intended to foster continuity between prophetic inspiration and scribal revision, then it cannot be employed for historical reconstruction. Further, the central place occupied by the House of Shaphan, itself so intimately involved in the Deuteronomic reform, makes clear that the scribes who were working creatively with the Jeremian traditions were themselves the Deuteronomic inner-circle. At whatever point this narrative was composed, these were the custodians of at least one major stream of Jeremian tradition. Thus, the narrative they composed to authorize themselves as creative tradents helped to foster the impression that Jeremiah himself was sympathetic to their movement.

82

Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (New York: Oxford University Press,

1973). 83

Levin clearly overstates the case when he makes the “Word of YHWH” itself a late development in the intellectual rationalization of prophecy (Levin, “Word of Yahweh,” 43, 62). Jer 20.8, for example, almost certainly original Jeremian poetry, demonstrates that the 'h rbd played a role in the prophet’s original self-understanding. The model of prophetic activity advocated here, which attempts to balance discursively realized social change with intellectual and cultural continuity, allows for the possibility that original Jeremian language and concepts were subjected, over time, to rationalizing and intellectualizing processes.

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By constructing a Deuteronomistic type-scene of conflict between the throne and the Divine Word, they implicitly normalized Jeremiah’s revelation to their own authoritative Torah. By positioning that episode early in the reign of Jehoiakim, they fostered the impression that Jeremiah had worked side-by-side with the reformers themselves. And by asserting here and elsewhere the Shaphanid support for the prophet, they left no doubt that Jeremiah had depended on them for material and political support. Any one of these things might be true in actual, historical fact. Lacking external evidence, we cannot know for certain, and thus must avoid speaking in positive terms about the life of Jeremiah on the basis of this episode. But what is possible to recognize with certainty is that the text of Jer 36 intends to present these things as incontrovertible fact. This alone should raise our suspicions. In particular, they should warrant a further, intensive investigation into the theory of Jeremiah’s substantial sympathy with the Deuteronomic movement. With the Shaphanid authors of Jer 36 braying so loudly about the prophet’s dependence upon them, ought we not question more intensely what all the fuss is about? In the following chapter, we turn to the text that has been placed at the center of this discussion, Jer 2-6, in order to determine precisely and to what degree it shares in the worldview and political concerns of the Josianicperiod Deuteronomic movement.

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CHAPTER THREE HOLINESS AND THEOLOGICAL SYNTHESIS IN JEREMIAH 2-6 Our survey of scholarship in chapter 1 made clear how dependent the theory of Jeremiah’s activity during the period of Josiah is on a reading of Jer 2-6. As the first sustained collection of oracles in the Book of Jeremiah, these chapters have a privileged position relative to the larger corpus. They present important thematic concerns and establish the tenor of the prophet’s speech. If Jer 1 establishes the authority and person of the prophet, then Jer 2-6 begin to illustrate the substance of his message and his mode of expression. In broad terms, the structure of Jer 2-6 is a loose anthology of thematically connected oracles. The majority of these are oracles of judgment, but the introductory unit (vv 1-3) differs significantly in tone. Subsequent to Jer 2.1-3 the text consists of a longer, free-form collection running from 2.4 and continuing until the end of chapter 6. These two phases stand in some generic tension with one another. Jer 2.1-3 is a non-specific salvation oracle that lacks any tone of moral indictment. It is itself internally inconsistent, marked by first person address to the nation in v 2 and third person address regarding the same in v 3. The motivation for such a shift is evidently causal. The dsj and hbha of the nation described in v 2 are presented as the grounds for the declaration of divine beneficence in v 3. Following the introductory formulae of vv 1-2a, there is an explicitly retrospective frame for v 2b. Verse 3 shifts temporal frame, employing a participle form to indicate some persisting, qualitative state dependent upon the past condition outlined in v 2b. 100

The second unit lacks a clear and coherent structure but is loosely integrated by its play on the byr genre. The keyword marking this contention form is stated explicitly in Jer 2.9. Accordingly, our text contains certain formal elements that are shared by other texts describing disputation between God and the nation. Not nearly as rhetorically focused as Mic 6.1-8, or Psalm 50, however, the Jeremian text employs the language of the byr while moving substantially beyond it, both structurally and thematically.1 The summons of witnesses found in Mic 6.1 and Ps 50.1-6 is rendered as a punning appeal to the heavens to “be desolate” in the face of the people’s apostasy (Mymv wmv) in 2.12. Jeremiah adapts the accusation section of the byr (found in Ps 50.16-20 and Mic 6.2-3) into a wide ranging set of contentions expressed in complex, metaphorical terms that can be seen inter alia in 2.7-8, 11, 13, 20-22, and 33-35. The recitation of past beneficence by the divinity, found in Mic 6.4-5 is reflected in Jer 2.5-8. The exhortation to reparation found in Mic 6.8 and Ps 50.14-15, 22-23 is postponed until the end of the Jeremian composition. Likewise postponed is a section rejecting sacrifice as a means of repairing the damage done to the covenantal relationship, such as may be observed in Ps 50.8-13 and Mic 6.6-7. It is only in Jer 3.12-14 and 21ff that we find elaborate exhortations to repentance. Finally, Jer 6.20-21 describes a rejection of sacrifice. These delays are possibly explained by a fluid transition in Jer 2 from the language of the

byr to the language and imagery of the judgment oracle. In the latter form, past beneficence and present transgression are cited as evidence for a coming disaster. The exhortation to reparation and restitution (the pragmatic function of the byr) is supplanted rhetorically by the logic of the

1

The representation of the normative structure of the byr that follows is drawn from the Anchor Bible Micah commentary of Andersen and Freedman (Frances I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Micah: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, [New York: Doubleday, 2000)], 507-11.)

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judgment oracle. Accordingly, the elements of the byr that Jeremiah delays are precisely those that prove motive for the genre. In Jeremiah’s hands, rhetorical power is achieved through foreclosure upon a temporal horizon which would admit repair of the relationship between the abrogate nation and the neglected deity. The Jeremian free movement between these forms engenders, inevitably, a sense of uncertainty in his readership. If his composition is a byr, then all these threats are empty and disaster may be delayed. If, however, the byr language is a vehicle for an oracle of judgment, then disaster is inevitable. Both forms being well established by the late 7th century BCE, either would fail to shock a literate audience. By refusing to render forth an oracle with a recognizable formal structure, then, Jeremiah echoes and responds to the political uncertainty of his time. Furthermore, he is exhibits a rhetorical strategy which acknowledges his audience’s familiarity with the compositions of prophets like Micah and Isaiah ben Amoz, yet he subverts the facile routinization of this sort of prophetic speech. In the course of doing so, he aims at a rhetorical immediacy commensurate, for example, with Amos’ achievement a century earlier, when this prophet had adapted the form of the Oracles against Nations to a judgment oracle against the nations of Israel and Judah (Amos 1-2).2

Rainer Albertz’s argument for an early period of activity for the prophet Jeremiah depended fundamentally on the argument that this collection, in some attenuated form, originated during the kingship of Josiah. His influential essay attempted to establish beyond doubt the possibility that the language and imagery in this core collection matched the conditions of 2

Shalom Paul, Amos: A Commentary on the Book of Amos, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991),

10-11.

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Josiah’s reign. Preceded in this supposition by Rudolph Smend3 and H.H. Rowley,4 Albertz now began to shift the scholarly consensus decisively away from J. Philip Hyatt’s earlier skeptical attitude toward the theory of Jeremian contemporaneity with the Josianic reform. In broad terms, Jer 2-6 had been dated on the basis of its position between Jer 1 and Jer 7. The formula in Jer 1.2 implied that Jer 1 had been composed after 627 BCE, and Jer 7 was dated to 609 BCE on the basis of the date formula in the parallel text of Jer 26.1.5 Albertz contributed a new redaction critical analysis to this traditional argument, maintaining that the form of Jer 2-6 as we have it had a Josianic core in Jer 2.1-4.2, an addendum at 4.3-6.30, and a redactional frame that facilitated the combination of these two.6 According to Albertz, the earlier of these texts was addressed to the northern kingdom during the time of Josiah’s reform, and the addendum reflected the adaptation of this early prophetic material to the changed political conditions subsequent to Josiah’s death at Megiddo in 610 BCE. In the course of this adaptation, prophecies originally addressed to Israel were augmented with new, paraenetic material addressed to the Southern kingdom of Judah. The chief problem Albertz faced in advancing this redactional argument was the presence of significant references to Judah and Jerusalem in Jer 2.1-4.2 and addresses to Israel in 4.3-6.30. In the present chapter, we will limit our discussion to the first of these problems since this bears most directly on the issue of the proper date for the initiation of Jeremiah’s work as a prophet and the ideological and political background for his activity. 3

Rudolph Smend, Entstehung des Alten Testaments (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1978), 162.

4

H.H. Rowley, The Early Prophecies of Jeremiah in their Setting (Manchester: John Rylands Library, 1962), 198-234. 5

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 21, fn. 2.

6

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 34.

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The presence of two problematic references to the Southern kingdom of Judah in what Albertz considered the Josianic-period core of Jer 2.1-4.2 threatened to cast doubt on his claim to have isolated a coherent, ideologically focused text. One reference, Jer 3.6-18, he treated as uncontroversially secondary and exegetical.7 The evidently synthetic character of these verses, which referred both to Israel and to Judah in the course of their formulation, was ground enough to suppose that a later redactor was working on the conjunction of the two blocks of tradition at 2.1-4.2 and 4.3-6.30.8 Jer 2.1-3 presented another challenge to Albertz’s redactional reconstruction since it contained a forthright address to Jerusalem. We will focus our attention on this passage in particular, since the argument for Jeremiah’s activity during the reign of Josiah requires serious exegetical revision at this point in the text. Albertz treated Jer 2.1-2.2aα as a redactional transition, facilitating the conjunction of the Deuteronomic call of Jer 1 with the collection that follows.9 The basis for this claim was the appearance of the Wortereignisformel in Jer 2.1 and the subsequent appearance in Jer 2.2 of the collocation Mlvwry ynzab tarqw. The first phrase had previously been recognized as a redactional element, and the second Albertz now linked with the idiom’s frequent appearance in Jer 36.10 Accordingly, he proposed to treat these opening phrases as a late editorial artifact and their reference to Jerusalem as the product of a period much later than the one that had given rise to the core material in 2.1-4.2. Having excised the problematic

7

Against this, see Moshe Weinfeld, "Jeremiah and the Spiritual Metamorphosis of Israel." ZAW 88 (1976):

8

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 32.

9

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 27.

17-56.

10

Specifically, vv 6, 10, 13, 14, 15 and 21.

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reference to Jerusalem in this opening passage, Albertz was now free to associate the references to Israel in this material with the period of Josiah’s reform. Albertz’s focus on the Wortereignisformel is clearly well founded. As our work in the preceding chapter demonstrated, this formula is bound up in the complex worldview and epistemic concerns of the scribes who preserved and extended the Jeremiah tradition. It is likely that with this phrase’s appearance at the beginning of Jer 2-6, these scribes sought to present large blocks of Jeremian poetry concurrent with their own narrative compositions. In the present case, Jer 2.1 seems to imply that the elaborate complex of oracles in Jer 2-6 is the product of the same sort of originating revelation as the sign visions of Jer 1.11 and 1.13. Hence, it makes an extended collection of inscribed prophetic speech the equivalent of a single divinely presented sign. As was the case in the use of the Wortereignisformel in Jer 36.27, so here the phrase is glossing the distinction between textual records of past mantic events and originating mantic experiences. Considered as a marker for entextualization, the phrase rmal yla 'h_rbd yhyw establishes the transition of a divine message into a material form, and then through the consciousness of the human interpreter in order to become oracular discourse. It does not follow from this, however, that the “messenger formula” of Jer 2.2aα is likewise a late addition. The command r#OmaEl MÊ%AlDv…wr◊y y∏´n◊zDaVb ·Dta∂rá∂q◊w JK&ølDh is not a part of the Wortereignisformel and thus must be considered on its own merits. It may be secondary, of course, but this must be demonstrated on grounds other than its placement subsequent to Jer 2.1.11

11

These sorts of address formulae are an epistolary device and not a redactional one. Their nesting is a function of the complex chain of transmission, which arises when an experience of divine audition is related verbally by a prophetic intermediary (e.g., 2K 7.1). When this verbal reexpression is likewise transmitted via a secondary intermediary, these epistolary formulae compound (e.g., Is 37.21-22). Consider that the Mari letters,

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Albertz’s criterion for elision is not decisive; there is no necessary, organic relationship between this text and Jer 36 on the basis of the formula N ynzab awrql. The phrase has an attestation outside the immediate context of the Deuteronomic adaptation of the Jeremian source material. Related to the idiom –b awrql, meaning “to recite” or “to read” (e.g., Dtr 17.19; Hab 2.2), the appearance of this fuller phrase is most frequently connected with the verbal declamation of a written source. Thus, in the E text of Exod 24.7 it appears to refer to Moses’ recitation of the tyrbh rps,12 and in 2K 23.2 and 2Chron 34.30, to describe Josiah’s oral utterance of the words on the found scroll. It appears also in Neh 13.1 to refer to the consultation of the hvm rps. This is clearly the idiom’s function in Jer 36 as well.13 Its frequency in that text is driven primarily by the topical focus on the oral performance of an authoritative written text: Baruch’s scroll. The particular details in the narrative, involving sequential recitations in a

which resemble some Biblical accounts by being written transcription of orally delivered reports of experiences of divine speech, also attest to this sort of densely nested epistolary formulae (Mari 38 [A. 15] is a prime example of the phenomenon (Martti Nissinen, et al. Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East [Atlanta: SBL, 2003], 6264), but it recurs throughout the corpus. This technological artifact of the material transmission of prophetic speech is, perhaps, the underlying motivation behind the innovation of the Wortereignisformel in the first place. Jer 36 is an exceedingly complex instance of various verbal deliveries by multiple messengers of an inscribed message that derives from a divine source. As such, it places the problem of such chains of transmission into the foreground. The appearance of the Wortereignisformel in v 27 thus functions to reassert the integrity of the divine origin for this speech, clarifying its epistemic authority even in the face of its material reformulation. In light of this, we may consider it a particularly focused ideological response to a generalized epistemological problem associated with the inscription of prophetic speech acts. 12

See also Dtr 31.11.

13

We should make note, however, of several counter examples to this general function. In Judg 7.3, it refers to Gideon’s utterance of a divinely mandated edict that those in his army who are frightened ought to return home. There, the divine agent is also reciting an authoritative divine command, but without any (explicit) orthographic reflex. Ezek 8.18 and 9.1 also share a complicated and subtle deployment of the phrase that does not immediately appear to involve a written text. Instead, 8.18 refers to a dramatic supplication of the divine by the people, who cry out a lwdg lwq in the Mynza of the divine. In return, God himself mandates their destruction in 9.1 by uttering a lwdg lwq of His own in the Mynza of the prophet. Ezekiel’s purpose here is clearly ironic and playing on the multiple meanings of arq and omv. Beyond this not much may be said, however, and it is not clear if the prophet is alluding in either verse to some written reflex of a divine statement, either supportive or mandating the destruction of the nation.

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variety of political and spatial contexts, is what motivates the extraordinary repetition of this idiomatic phrase. On the basis of this distribution, the most parsimonious interpretation of Jer 2.2 is not that there is some unique intertextual relationship between this text and the late narrative of Jer 36. Rather, the idiomatic force of the phrase suggests that we treat the verses that follow (and the prophetic action they represent) as an explicit recitative reformulation of some previously existing authoritative source.14 The specific evidence cited above suggests that this could have been a written text or texts. At minimum, Jeremiah is not functioning as a prophet here purely on the basis of some extraordinary, cognitive experience of audition from a divine source. Instead, his specification that he has been commanded to “announce in the hearing of Jerusalem” indicates that the verses that follow are the product of the oral recitation of some prior authoritative tradition.15 Scholars have long recognized that Jer 2-3 is rich with textual allusions. Jeremiah’s dependence upon Hosea at this point is well understood,16 and Michael Fishbane has enriched

14

As such, the phrase represents another, less ideologically marked, instance of entextualizing discourse. Here the phrase conveys the impression of an oral reformulation of some prior discursive form. It is likely that the presence of a neutral marker of entextualization at Jer 2.2a is what helped to attract another, more heavily marked entextualization sign. The Deuteronomistic redactors who imposed the Wortereignisformel were thereby attempting to clarify (or overcondition) what precisely was happening with the Nzab tayrq of the subsequent verse. They thus assert strongly that such a transition from written to oral performance is a manifestation of the divine rbd, with all that entails in the Deuteronomic tradition. 15

Albertz very nearly concedes this point when he suggests that Jeremiah in 2.2 is ordered to give a new interpretation of his earlier oracles subsequent to the Battle of Carchemish (Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 28). But here he overloads his argument, since the concession that the phrase implies the citation of a previously inscribed text, a general/idiomatic rendering of the phrase, damages the close intertextual link with Jer 36 that he would like to see here. 16

The classic study is that of Karl Gross, “Hoseas Einfluss auf Jeremias Anschauung," Neue kirchliche Zeitschrift 42 (1931), ably summarized by Gary H. Hall in his 1980 dissertation “The Marriage Imagery of Jeremiah 2-3: A Study of Antecedents and Innovations in a Prophetic Metaphor” (Ph.D. diss., Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, 1980), pp. 131-154. See also Barnabas Lindars, “‘Rachel Weeping for Her Children’ – Jeremiah 31:1522,” JSOT 12 (1979): 47-62, esp. 49-50.

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considerably our appreciation for the complex webs of citation and allusion that sustain the prophet’s rhetoric here. He draws particular attention to the legal background for several oracles in Jer 2-6.17 Thus, it seems reasonable to conclude that the command of Jer 2.2aα reflects an acknowledgment, either by the prophet’s immediate tradent or by a later editor, that Jeremiah was commanded by God at this point to cite verbally from a prior authoritative tradition. Further, this tradition probably already existed as a written text. If so, Jer 2.2 would be the first reference to explicitly textual exegesis in the Hebrew Bible. Even if a reference to text-based oration is not granted here, Jer 2.2aα cannot be treated simply as an allusion to the complex inscriptional and oratory acts described in Jer 36. Albertz continues by arguing that the remainder of Jer 2.2-3 is also a later addition to the core text. He lacks an explicit terminological trigger for this judgment and depends rather on a thematic argument. These verses are formulated as an oracle of salvation, whereas the early oration to Israel must have been, in his view, presented as judgment language. (He probably concludes this on the basis of Jer 36.2, though he does not say so explicitly).18 This presupposition that there must be a hard, phenomenological split between salvific and judgmental language depends on a deterministic approach to prophecy where the language of verbal succor is treated as a post-exilic development in the phenomenon’s evolution. According to this view, the role of the prophets in the monarchic period was primarily to be figures of judgment and threat. Such an attitude treats prophets not as active and dynamic political thinkers, but rather as individuals driven passively by the geopolitical events of their 17

Michael Fishbane, “Torah and Tradition,” Tradition and Theology in the Old Testament, D. Knight, ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977) 275-300, and Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 300-304, 307-317. But for a more limited view of the relationship between Jer 3.1-5 and Dtr 24.1-4 see T. Raymond Hobbs, “Jeremiah 3.1-5 and Deuteronomy 24.1-4,” ZAW 86 (1974): 23-29. 18

Albertz, “Jer 2-6,” 28.

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time. Historical determinism of this sort functions to naturalize in scholarship the Deuteronomic theory of prophecy, which transformed prophets from engaged political thinkers sensitive to the dynamic political conditions of their time into unidimensional spokesmen of the covenant. A critical approach to Deuteronomistic historiography that begins to recognize the contingency of the scribal movement’s theory of history has as its necessary corollary the appreciation that prophecy was a historical phenomenon necessarily more dynamic than texts such as Dtr 18.15-22 would allow. Albertz employed a criterion like this in the course of dividing the text of Jer 2.1-3 from 2.4ff, making his case susceptible to argument from literary and thematic unity at this point. He works from the supposition that Jeremiah was a Josianic and Deuteronomic sympathizer and that the literary core of Jer 2.1-4.2 represents a prophetic address of the Deuteronomists’ interests to the remnants of the former Northern Kingdom. Thus, a salvation oracle that addresses Jerusalem cannot be allowed to stand as an organic element of this oracular work. To do so would radically transform the rhetorical character of the composition and its likely Sitz im Leben, recasting it in a form far more complex than his narrowly political approach to the material would allow. If a case can be made for literary continuity in the larger complex, however, a much richer prophetic composition will come into view, and we may be able to recognize that Jeremiah is not functioning here as a mouthpiece for some party or interest group operating in the late 7th century. Rather, we may see that the prophet is citing authoritative tradition in a synthetic way, and that the composition in Jer 2-6—whatever the tradition may have made of it in the course of its codification and canonization—was originally a complex meditation on the relationship between religious praxis, locative theology, and collective identity. 109

The thematic structure of Jer 2-6 Several earlier analyses of the oracle collection that follows Jer 1 had been holistic.19 In his 1976 monograph, The Architecture of Jeremiah 1-20, William Holladay treated Jer 2-3 in an integrated fashion, beginning from the presupposition of literary integrity and then attempting to motivate the present shape of the collection on this basis.20 Following Jack Lundbom’s earlier reading, Holladay began from the assumption that Jer 1.4-10 and 20.14-18 described a "grand inclusio" based on the repetition of the concept of Mjrm taxl in 1.5 and 20.18.21 On this basis, both scholars suggested that the complex of chs 1-20 represents an early collection of the prophet's oracles, and as such, needs to be treated primarily in a rhetorical critical fashion to allow its structured character to emerge.22 Within this large collection, Holladay recognized seams and strata, but attempted a descriptive mode of analysis that did not presuppose any particular redactional scheme. For the chapters in question, he perceived a connection between the use of ron in Jer 1.6-7 and the reference to Israel's Kyrwon in 2.2. On the basis of this repetition, he supposed the call narrative was tightly bound to the proceeding material—if not provably in its compositional origin, then certainly in relation to its literary presentation.23 Likewise, chs 2-6 were treated as a present literary unity exhibiting topical 19

Treatments of this collection have varied as to its extent, with some considering very small sections such as Jer 2.2-13, and others treating complexes that run from chs 2-4 or 2-6. Nearly all are in agreement, however, that chs 1 and 7 are qualitatively different from the intervening material and thus mark a natural, maximal limit. Equally, all commentators recognize that the transition from 2.3 to 2.4 marks a generic and literary seam of some sort. Thus we will attempt here to avoid becoming bogged down in speculative redaction critical argumentation and focus on this latter seam as a salient point of discussion. Heuristically, we will assume the literary integrity of Jer 26, though this is not a point upon which the arguments presented here must stand or fall. 20

William L. Holladay, The Architecture of Jeremiah 1-20 (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 19976), 16-17. 21

Holladay, Architecture, 18, 20

22

see also Lundbom, Hebrew Rhetoric, 42-44.

23

Holladay, Architecture, 29

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discontinuity and conceptual development. Chs 2-3 were termed the "harlotry cycle" and chs 4-6 the "foe cycle," the term "cycle" being preferred by Holladay as purely descriptive in thematic terms and not presuming any compositional process. Holladay's early treatment of Jer 2.2-3 was likewise careful not to draw redactional conclusions. Terming this a "seed oracle," he recognized its formal and structural independence from what surrounded it. At the same time, Holladay recognized that 2.2-3 is thematically and terminologically linked with the cycles that follow. In particular, in his understanding 2.2 echoes the language of the "harlotry cycle," especially through its chiastic development of a structural parallel between 2.2 and 2.32.24 By contrast, Jer 2.3, has significant terminological links with the "foe cycle.”25 The resulting portrait is of a literary complex whose origins may or may not be diverse and reflective of a range of moments in the prophet's career, but whose present force is as a complex literary unity. This unity is not topically univocal but is coordinated in its topical shift by the "seed oracle" of Jer 2.2-3. This observation of simultaneous dependence and autonomy for the oracle in Jer 2.2-3 is important for us to keep in mind, since subsequent scholarship of a more forthrightly redactional bent will ignore or seek to downplay the apparent linkages between Jer 2.2-3 and the subsequent oracles. The relationship between this "seed oracle" and what comes after it is negative: the oracle itself establishes a covenantal ideal and the cycles that follow describe a range of violations and challenges to that primal relationship.26 Working with a much smaller textual unit, Jer 2.2-13, Heinz-Dieter Neef also argued for

24

Holladay, Architecture, 31-33.

25

Holladay, Architecture, 33, 57-59

26

Holladay, Architecture, 45

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literary continuity between Jer 2.2-3 and the subsequent oracles.27 Neef based his own argument for continuity on the perception of a coherent structure to this unit: vv 2-3 describe an ideal state of relations between YHWH and Israel; vv 4-9 describe the nation's falling away from this ideal state; vv 10-12 comprise a phase of justification for coming punishment; and v 13 assigns guilt. Neef claimed that this structure parallels the rhetorical structure of a similar indictment in Is 1.23, and that Jeremiah's development of an idealized phase of relations between God and his nation in the desert bespeaks dependence upon Hosea and a date of composition in the pre-exile. Like Holladay before him, Neef was also willing to look beyond an apparent generic shift from salvation to judgment in the move from v 3 to v 4 in the course of recognizing a complex thematic unity to the material. It is ironic, then, that even as Neef was developing his own position in favor of continuity, Holladay was abandoning his early literary argument in favor of a more classically redaction-critical approach. This shift is in line with a general turn toward redaction-critical engagement with Jer 2-6 in the scholarship of this period. Such argumentation began to look doubtfully on the conjunction of Jer 2.2-3 and 2.4ff and to ascribe it to diachronic processes of text formation rather than to the rhetorical aims of a single authoring consciousness. In Volume One of his commentary on Jeremiah for the Hermeneia series published in 1986, Holladay no longer trod the fine line that treated Jer 2.2-3 as a discrete literary unit that was nonetheless connected thematically with subsequent matter.28 He abandoned the descriptive language of "seed oracle," which suggested that whatever its origin, 2.2-3 was generative for the rest of the

27

H. D. Neef, "Gottes Treue und Israels Untreue: Aufbau und Einheit von Jeremia 2:2-13." ZAW 99 (1987): 37-58. 28

Holladay, Architecture, 32f, 58f; see also Biddle, A Redaction History, 195.

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text unit. Holladay adopted instead a complex redaction-critical schema placing Jer 2.1-3 at a moment subsequent to the first edition of the textual unit. According to this new line of argument, where the primary explanatory focus is diachronic development and not literary cohesion, Jer 2.1-3 are a later framing device that helped bracket an early edition of Jeremiah's oracles oriented toward the population of the former northern kingdom.29 The oracular material from which this early collection was built contained 2.4-9, 3.1-2, 4-5, 12, 14-15, 18bb, 19, 21a, 22-34, and the poetry of 3.24-25 and 4.12. In the course of preparing a written collection, a process Holladay reckons is adequately described by Jer 36.2, 6, expansions and framing material were added at 2.1-3, 10, 25, 29-37, 3.13, 21b, and 4.3-4. This early literary collection was then augmented further while preparing the second scroll described in Jer 36.32, a stage that saw the addition of 2.26-28; 3.3 and 20. And finally, at some point later still, 3.6-11 and 16-18bα were added. The shift in Holladay’s approach to this material reflects Rainer Albertz's impact on the field. Holladay had previously recognized an organic connection between Jer 2.2-3 and the remainder of the collection, acknowledging, for example, the persistence of marriage and childhood imagery throughout the collection. His new understanding gains a measure of historical specificity, allowing him to situate the text with more apparent precision in particular historical situations where its patterning and content could be understood as active and politically engaged. But such historical rigor was purchased at the cost of the immanent rhetorical patterning of the received text.

29

see Holladay, Architecture, 62-63, 67-68, 85.

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In his own commentary, Jack Lundbom took the alternate approach, continuing to recognize Jer 2.2-3 as prefatory for what follows it.30 But Lundbom’s accurate engagement with the patterning of the received text came at the expense of a rich historicist engagement. His discussion was purely formal. His commentary (which hews closely to the rhetorical critical project of his teacher, James Muilenberg)31 resolutely sets historical concerns on the periphery in favor of rhetorical description and analysis. Such is the profound effect of Albertz’s impact on our understanding of Jer 2-6: it would henceforth be possible either to do a holistic reading at the expense of historical argumentation, or to do historical reconstruction on the basis of a fractured, diachronically developing text. In addressing ourselves to Albertz’s argument, it is necessary to maintain an appreciation both for the literary patterning of the received text as well as the historical conditions behind its composition. The former concern must predominate if we are to deal fairly with the evidence as we have it. And yet, the issue of the historical context behind the text cannot recede too far, lest analysis slip into pure formalism. Accordingly, we ought to begin from a survey of the thematic and structural characteristics of Jer 2.1-3 and assess the impact of the significant literary citations in this section of the text.

Literary Structure As Albertz recognized, there is considerable formal tension between the salvation oracle of Jer 2.1-3 and the hybrid byr and judgment oracle of 2.4ff. The promise of unqualified divine

30

Lundbom, Jeremiah 1-20, p. 251; and see esp p. 254, which also recognizes that this oracle describes an ideal relationship between YHWH and Israel. 31

See, in particular, James Muilenberg, “Form Criticism and Beyond,” JBL 88 (1969): 1-18.

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protection in the first section stands in stark contrast to the tone of contention, evaluative judgment, and threat running throughout the second part. This tension may be ameliorated, however, by the observation that both units are linked by their employment of a common set of thematic modes. Each moves freely between five overlapping conceptual domains and uses them in a heuristic fashion to draw out different aspects of the theological relationship between the nation and her God. In brief, these themes are: parenthood, marriage, the covenant, nature, and the historical “Desert Trek.” Given its extreme concision, the presentation of these themes in the first oracle is necessarily succinct. The language of parenthood is evident in the reference to Israel’s time in the wilderness as her “childhood” (twrwon). Marriage imagery is evoked by the reference to this period as her “bridehood” (twlwlk). The language of covenant fidelity is signified by the double reference to the language of vassal’s loyalty: hbha and dsj.32 The natural sphere is evoked by referring to the wilderness where Israel wandered as howrz al Xra. The Desert Trek33 is evoked by reference to the time of the desert wanderings of the Israelites (rbdmb Ktkl). It seems evident that the oracle comprising these three verses represents an ideal state of the relationship between Israel and her God. Each of the themes evoked represents a mode of what we might call “Generative Domination,” a theological concept that associates divine protection against despoilment with a posture of obedient submission. For Jeremiah’s pre32

Dennis J. McCarthy, Treaty and Covenant: A Study in Form in the Ancient Oriental Documents and in the Old Testament (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1981), 160-161, 160 n. 6. 33

The term is S. Talmon’s (Shemaryahu Talmon, “The Desert Motif in the Bible and in Qumran Literature,” in Literary Studies in the Hebrew Bible: Form and Content (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992): 216-254. As he employs it, the term refers specifically to that portion of the Exodus narrative that is comprised by the narrative of the wandering in the wilderness. It is a distinct motif, with an attendant set of geographical and qualitative associations that is evoked by the use of the term rbdm in Biblical tradition. Talmon’s contribution is to describe the degree to which a basic narrative motif can be elaborated through assimilative fusion with other motif-complexes.

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modern, patriarchal audience, the idea of fathers, husbands, covenant overlords, agriculturalists, and the national deity all compel obedience from the entities subordinate to them while offering safety to the subjects of their domination in return. If the first oracular unit describes an ideal mode of relationship, then Jer 2.4ff should be expected to present this relationship in negative terms. And indeed, we see the imagery of

twlwlk rendered as a failed marriage in v 32. The parent-child relationship is represented negatively in 3.4, 14, and 19. Earlier language of covenantal fidelity now gives way to imagery of oscillation between overlords and the ongoing presence of the afflictions that attend upon covenantal abrogation in 2.14-19. Finally, the historical sphere is evoked through the recitation of a sort of Antiheilsgeschichte in vv 4-8. The degree to which Jeremiah can move between these levels fluidly and with consummate mastery can be seen if we examine more closely vv 20-22. There, the first three frames are merged into a consistent and coherent image of apostasy. The broken yoke (trbv

Klo34) references a dominant metaphor for the covenantal relationship drawn from the agricultural domain. The conventional Deuteronomic language of apostasy as sexual immorality is cited (…hhbg hobg_lk_lo) and elaborated upon with a characteristically Jeremian play on words (hnz hox ta). This imagery of fecund nature grounds a subsequent description of Israel herself as product of cultivation gone to seed (hyrkn Npgh).

34

Following the LXX, which reads the verbs here as second person: o¢ti aÓp∆ ai˙w◊noß sune÷triyaß to\n zugo/n sou die÷spasaß tou\ß desmou/ß sou. The theological motivation behind the MT reading should be evident: the text sidesteps the suggestion that adherence to the covenant is bondage by reading a reference to the Exodus event here instead. Such whitewashing of problematic older covenantal theology comes at the expense of the verbal continuity of the passage.

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The movement between these thematic domains functions as a representation of an abstract relationship of “Generative Domination,” which finds in this text diverse, modal expression. With this composition, the prophet pushes his audience beyond the logic of any one single thematic frame and forces them to appreciate at an aesthetic and pre-critical level a fundamental cultural norm: submission to authority is a necessary precondition for safety and fertility, and disobedience begets disorder.35 Rapid movement between these thematic modes functions rhetorically to reiterate this common conceptual core. Although this dizzying, ambiguously referential style Jeremiah uses to elaborate upon these thematic modes is unprecedented, he has inherited the core concept of “Generative Domination” from Hosea. Hos 2 develops the metaphor of Yahweh as husband within the context of a free play on the byr, which is substantially similar in thematic terms to Jeremiah’s composition. Vv 4-7, for example, is addressed to the “children” of Israel and articulates an extended threat of punishment as response to her Mynwnz. In the course of the divine complaint, the language of marriage (hvya al yknaw ytva al ayh, v 4), parenthood (hdlwh Mwyk hytgxhw, v. 5a),

35

Note that this explanation from cultural context is quite different from the tradition-historical explanations advanced by Talmon (“Desert Trek,” 240-43), that the motif of love in the desert derives either from a fusion of the desert trek motif with the imagery of the Song of Songs, or a reference back to the Baal and ‘Anat cycle. In contrast to Talmon’s approach, I am developing a method that attends to the political situational variables underlying the adaptation of the Desert Trek motif. From this perspective, the inner-biblical exegetical force of the Jeremian engagement with tradition counts for more than observed thematic continuity with disparate ancient Near Eastern lyric texts. Talmon’s basic contention: that the Desert Trek is subjected to assimilative adaptation, is certainly correct. His work permits us to see that a cultural conversation regarding the nature of theodicy and national destiny was actively maintained through poetic reconception and reorientation of the theme of the wandering of the wilderness. But his exclusive focus on the literary perspective blinds him, I think, to a genuine novelty in the Jeremian composition. The theme of Generative Domination as a means to the expansion of the Desert Trek motif may be explained in a more satisfying fashion with recourse to the cultural challenges of Jeremiah’s historical moment.

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the “Desert Trek” (rbdmk hytmvw, v 5b), and nature (…hyc Xrak htvw, ibid.) are all employed within a context of covenant loyalty (made explicit in Hos 2.20-22).36 The Hosean composition shares Jeremiah’s thematic palette, but does not express its tones with quite the same panache that the later prophet does. The whole of the Hosean oration is ordered and explicit in a way that is quite different from the semiotic indeterminacy that drives, for example, the presentation of these themes in Jer 2.20-22. In Jeremiah’s hands, the metaphorical structure that Hosea had developed takes on an added dimension. As we recognize the persistence of the multiplex theme of “Generative Domination” across the generic boundary that had been so decisive for Albertz’s hypothesis, we also are led to see that the later prophet nuances the theme in a significant fashion. A covenantal logic governs the shift from salvation to judgment; the prophet asserts that the divine posture toward the nation is fundamentally stable, but its particular mode of expression is governed by Israel’s own ethical posture. Jeremiah has subordinated Hosea’s thematic complex to the sapiential “Doctrine of Reward,” a construct in the process of being reworked by the Deuteronomists in the seventh century and transformed from an individual ethical ideal into a principle of collective political theology. Thus, diachronic textual development need not be the only—or even the best—explanation for the tonal shift at Jer 2.4. There is a powerful and historically grounded theological rationale for the text’s thematic development, one that requires no special textual surgery. 36

It is important to note that this is not a uniquely Israelite or Judean set of thematics. Consider, for instance, what Andersen and Freedman have to say about the imagery of Hos 2.5b: “The comparison of a fertile wife with a fruitful field is widespread in the ancient Near East; in complementary fashion, the penis is sometimes likened to a plow and the word ‘seed’ is used for all kinds of planting. A desolate wife could be compared with land that has reverted to a desert…” (R.I. Anderson and D.N. Freedman, Hosea: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 225-26). The strategy of adapting a notion of “Generative Domination” to a theological discussion may be uniquely biblical, but the underlying set of cultural symbols are, in all likelihood, common to patriarchal, ancient Near Eastern cultures generally.

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This “Doctrine of Reward” emerged originally among the wisdom thinkers who influenced the Deuteronomic movement as a principle of reciprocity between action and consequence.37 Evident throughout ancient Near Eastern sapiential traditions, the doctrine functioned primarily as a pedagogical device to help a student comprehend the principle that life is based upon and learn how happiness is achieved.38 Key in this regard is a proper understanding of the relationship between one’s particular will and that of the divine. 'h tary or “fear of the Lord” becomes, in this tradition, a constant meditation upon the deity as creator of the cosmos, and requires attentiveness to the statutes and laws that He established as well.39 Proper attention to the deity and scrupulous avoidance of transgression guarantee enjoyment of the benefits of long life and happiness. Inattention and neglect of the aforementioned result in disaster and death. Thus, Prov 8.35-36:

My¡I¥yAj yEaVxOm yIaVxOmœ y∞I;k 'hEm Nw#øx∂rŒ qRp¶D¥yÅw wóøvVpÅn s∞EmOj yIaVfOj`Vw t‰w`Dm w… bSh∞Da y#Aa◊nAcVmŒ_lD;k

Because the one who finds me, finds life And he obtains favor from the Lord But the one who misses me violates himself All who hate me love death.

In the Deuteronomic development, however, this individual comportment is “nationalized,” that is, transformed into a theological construct operative collectively, automatically, and at the national level. Thus, imagery substantially similar to that found in Prov 8 constitutes the oration to the people that closes the covenant on the Plains of Moab (Dtr 30.15):

MwYø¥yAh ‹ÔKy‹‰nDpVl yI;t§AtÎn h°Ea√r bwóøÚfAh_tRa◊w My™I¥yAj`Ah_tRa

See I have set before you today Life and prosperity 37

Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 307. Hereafter DDS. 38

Weinfeld, DDS, 308-311.

39

Weinfeld, DDS, 279-80.

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…oá∂rDh_tRa◊w t‰w™D;mAh_tRa◊w

Death and adversity

Rendered forth in historical terms, this ethical mandate to the nation becomes a narrative motif of oscillation between obedience attended by divine concern and transgression that begets chastisement. This is, for example, the entire function of the oration of Dtr 8, which gives an explicitly moral valence to the experience of hardship and disappointment during the Desert Trek (v 16): [Kyhla

'h_ta jkvt_la] r$D;b√dI;mA;b ‹NDm ñÔKVl°IkSaèA;mAh ÔKy¡RtObSa N…wäo√dÎy_aøl r¶RvSa ÔK$RtO;sÅn ‹NAo‹AmVl…w #ÔKVtáO…nAo NAo∞AmVl ÔK`RtyîrSjAaV;b äÔKVb`IfyEhVl

Do not forget the Lord, your God, who fed you manna in the wilderness, a thing which your fathers had not known, in order to afflict you and in order to test you to your later benefit.

While this composition owes a substantial conceptual debt to the scribal schoolroom, the “Doctrine of Reward” has in this formulation been applied at a level far transcending the individual, becoming rather a principle of historical theology. There is ample evidence that this nationalized Doctrine of Reward exerted significant influence on Jeremiah’s thought. For example, Jer 5.27-29 articulates a typical prophetic judgment against those who gain unjustly, but does so in terms of a theology that depends clearly upon the Doctrine of Reward applied at the national level. More germane for our purposes is a pointed allusion to a formula in Jer 2.16-17 describing divine beneficence during the Desert Trek, which is found in the Deuteronomic text cited immediately above: (Dtr 8.14-15) Mˆy¡Dm_Ny`Ea r∞RvSa…r∞D;b√dI;mA;b %ÔKSky°Ilwø;mAh…MˆyäårVxIm X®r¶RaEm öÔKSayIxwø;mAh 41

(Jer 2.6-7)40 …h∞D¥yIx ‹X®r‹RaV;b …r#D;b√dI;mA;b …wn%DtOa JKy°Ilwø;mAh Mˆyó∂rVxIm X®r∞RaEm …wn™DtOa h¶RlSoA;mAh 40

Weinfeld, DDS, 359

41

Although √hlo does appear in Dtr sources in reference to the Exodus event (e.g., Dtr 20.1), it is far more frequent in the Elohist source (e.g., Exod 3.17; 13.18; 17.3 and esp. Exod 32). If Jeremiah has a preference for this collocation (cf., Jer 11.7; 16.14; 23.7) when referring to the Exodus event (note that ayxwhl does appear with Myrxm

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The clearest point of contact between the Deuteronomic doctrine of reward and the oracles of Jeremiah, however, is in the prophet’s frequent adaptation and appropriation of the language of Dtr 32, the Song of Moses.42 The ironic interrogative form that the Song of Moses applies in vv 37-38 in the course of an idol polemic is adapted in Jer 2.28 and put to the same rhetorical effect. In a similar fashion, Jer 8.19 contains an aside that integrates the idiom swokl

Mylbhb ['h-ta] from Dtr 32.21. The formula ypab hjdq va yk from Dtr 32.22 is cited in Jer 15.14 and again in 17.4 to describe the divine wrath by which the nation is punished. Further, Jer 10.16 adapts the language of inheritance and apportionment that is used in Dtr 32.9 to describe the theological relationship between the people and God.43 All these instances, employed in original oracular strata of the book of Jeremiah, indicate with some certainty that the text of the Song of Moses was influential for his developing thought. Its idiom and theological constructions could be drawn upon and modified to suit his rhetorical purposes. For this reason, it is instructive to note that the Song of Moses is a key example of an

in the Book of Jeremiah, but the nearly all of these instances are in likely Dtr influenced texts (e.g., Jer 7.22) or in the narrative passages of Jer 26-45 (e.g., Jer 31.32). This may indicate that Jeremiah knows the earlier, Elohist epic but is not acquainted with the particular terminological transformation this text experienced in the hands of the Deuteronomists. 42

From the time of Budde, it has been common to ascribe Dtr 32 to a post-exilic milieu. Indeed, even D.N. Freedman (“Divine Names and Titles in Early Hebrew Poetry,” Magnalia Dei, the Mighty Acts of God: Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. Ernest Wright, ed. Frank Moore Cross, et al., [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976]) passes over Shirat ha-‘Azinu in his discussion of archaic Hebrew poetry. Given Umberto Cassuto’s exhaustive survey of terminological overlap between Hosea and Dtr 32, however (Umberto Cassuto, Biblical and Oriental Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1973-1975), 95ff), it seems more plausible to reckon influence from the latter upon the former rather than the reverse. Given the close conceptual and terminological debt owed by Jeremiah to Hosea, then, the earlier poetic text becomes a site for protracted exegetical and hermeneutic labor. Consider also the discussion of G.E. Wright, “The Lawsuit of God: A Form-Critical Study of Deuteronomy 32,” Israel's Prophetic Heritage: Essays in Honour of James Muilenburg (New York: Harper and Bros., 1962) 26-67, who employs the rîb structure evident in the work as a means of dating it to a pre-exilic context. 43

Weinfeld, DDS, 361

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expression in poetic form of the Deuteronomic Doctrine of Reward.44 Vv 13-15 in particular describe the manner in which primal beneficence engenders in the nation a mistaken impression of self-sustenance, necessitating punishment as a corrective device. A frequent motif in wisdom and Deuteronomic literature, the theme expresses the Doctrine of Reward in terms of a sort of Hebraic “Golden Mean” theology: prosperity engenders arrogance, which leads to chastisement. The Song of Moses in particular motivates the structural transition from salvation to contention and judgment in Jer 2-3; this is indicated by a telling wordplay that opens the second phase of the composition. In 2.5, a term referring to a want of fidelity or concern in the divine,

lwo, is juxtaposed with a near homonym referring to vacuity and the transitory nature of human produce, lbh. Significantly, both terms appear in Dtr 32 in a nearly identical theological context. Dtr 32.4 rejects lwo as an attribute of the divine, and v 21 presents the Mylbh of the Israelites as a cause of divine anger. Weinfeld, noting the frequency with which the latter term is employed in the Jeremian oracles, suggests that all such instances depend on the imagery of Dtr 32.21:45

l$Ea_aølVb yˆn…wâa◊nIq MEh M¡RhyElVbAhV;b yˆn…wäsSoI;k M$Do_aølV;b M∞EayˆnVqAa ‹yˆnSaÅw M`EsyIoVkAa l™DbÎn ywñøgV;b

They provoked me with a not-god, they angered me with their empty things and I will provoke them with a not-people with a nation of fools I will anger them.

Jeremiah’s innovative wordplay depends, in part, on the ambiguity inherent within the term lbh. In its common usage, it refers to a defective product of human hands, a mimetic creation that lacks the durability and life that characterizes divine produce. Thus, it frequently finds expression as a term of abusive reference to the cult objects created by human beings. This

44

Weinfeld, DDS, 280-281, 306-7

45

Weinfeld, DDS, 323-24

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is certainly its function in the Deuteronomic text cited above. But a more basic meaning of “vacuity” or “emptiness” persists behind this usage to permit wider metaphorical application.46 Expressed in terms of the Deuteronomic Doctrine of Reward, √lbh can also be used to signify an intellectual orientation of the sort seen in Dtr 8.17. Interestingly, lbhl is not used in that text, but the familiar phrase …Myrja Myhla yrja tkll is used in v 19 to describe the sort of intellectual comportment that derives from a mistaken perception of self-sufficiency. This is the precise language of the intellectual error in Dtr 32.13-15 that marked the transition in that source text from divine beneficence to chastisement. In the context of Jeremiah’s oracle, then, the use of the term lbh in a pointed wordplay at the opening of the transition from the language of salvation to that of judgment and contention is a mark that the Deuteronomic Doctrine of Reward is the conceptual and theological ground for this transition. More to the point, it is evidence that a narrative paradigm of ambivalent relations with the divine during the historical Desert Trek is being re-inscribed in the domain of contemporary politics and national fortune to become a paradigm for the moral comportment of the nation. Further, it nuances Hosea’s theme of “Generative Domination” by illustrating in culturally specific and intellectually rich terms precisely how that relationship of domination finds various modes of expression depending on the moral status of the nation at large. Such invocation of Deuteronomic language and theology would seem to support the contention of Albertz and Sweeney that Jeremiah is here a partisan of the nascent Deuteronomic movement. However, we should note in this regard that Jeremiah has recourse here to texts that are best described as proto-Deuteronomic. Both Hosea and the Song of Moses substantially 46

cf. K-B, vol. 1, 236-37.

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predated the Josianic period; they were traditions authoritative for and influential upon the Deuteronomists. Thus, Jeremiah’s invocation of these sources could equally be Deuteronomic citation or critical synthesis. It will become clear that the latter explanation is more likely as we further develop our appreciation for the prophet’s rich citations in this complex of oracles. In the case of Jer 2.5, it is remarkable that wlbhyw lbhh yrja wklyw appears also in a Deuteronomistic summary describing the causes of Israel’s downfall in 2K 17.15, suggesting that this Jeremian wordplay had some persistent rhetorical force. As has been observed in the past, it is curious that Jeremiah is not mentioned anywhere in the Deuteronomistic History,47 especially given that historiographical writing was itself an aspect of the Jeremian literary tradition. Furthermore, the Deuteronomists themselves recognized the importance of prophetic authorization in the course of advancing their new Torah (e.g., Dtr 18.15-22 and 2K 22.12-20). Despite their pointed avoidance of reference to Jeremiah in their historiographical work, it is clear that Jeremiah’s own language of ethical critique exerted some influence on the developing Deuteronomic theology of the exile. We may be certain that in the case of 2K 17.15 the citation is clearly a case of Jeremiah’s poetry having exerted influence on the Deuteronomistic History and not the reverse. The poetic technique here, a sort of modal variation on a common verbal shoresh, is a Jeremian signature. As is so often the case with Jeremiah’s poetry, the prophet has created a verbal figure whose concision and rhetorical efficacy made for easy recollection. It is most plausible that Jeremiah’s language became constitutive for the exilic community’s conceptualization of the causal forces

47

Most recently Thomas Römer “How Did Jeremiah Become a Convert to Deuteronomistic Ideology?” in Those Elusive Deuteronomists: The Phenomenon of Pan-Deuteronomism, JSOTSupp (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 191.

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behind the destruction. This language itself then became embedded in the people’s historical accounting of the now recurrent fact of collective exile. Already we may see that Jeremiah’s relationship to the Deuteronomic movement is more complex than either Sweeney or Albertz have allowed. The prophet is not simply mirroring Deuteronomic Torah or propagandizing on its basis; he is engaging in complex theological discourse and invoking proto-Deuteronomic tradition in the process. More to the point, he is attempting to comprehend how an older theology of divine beneficence might be reconciled with covenantal expectation. This was perhaps the defining intellectual controversy of the late monarchic period.48 However liberating it may have been in the political domain, the Deuteronomic application of treaty language to the divine/human relationship engendered a theological crisis among the Jerusalem intelligentsia, a controversy that was in no way solved after the destruction and exile of 586 BCE. It should come as no surprise that Jeremiah’s productive intellect participated in this debate. Furthermore, the fact that the prophet’s theological creativity helped to set him at some theological remove from the Deuteronomists of the Josianic period seems likewise clear. The citation of Jeremian language in 2K 17.15 suggests further that the Deuteronomists were loathe to reference Jeremiah as an authorized prophet even as his language and theology exerted influence on them.

Jeremiah’s Critique of the Doctrine of Reward The full scope of Jeremiah’s theological discourse begins to come into view when we recognize that there is another significant textual allusion at work in Jer 2.3. Michael Fishbane 48

See, for example, Jon D. Levenson, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible, (Minneapolis, MN: Winston Press, 1985), esp. 206-217. See also, William M. Schniedewind, Society and the Promise to David: The Reception History of 2 Samuel 7:1-17 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 96-97.

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has described the manner in which Jer 2.3 adapts, according to the logic of aggadic exegesis, an element of priestly legislation to the national political domain (Lev 22.14-16).49 A principle of reparation operative within the sacred sphere that functioned to maintain the inviolability of donations to the sanctuary (referred to categorically as vdwq, “sanctified”) is reframed as a theological statement of the relationship between God and the nation. The presence of this allusion profoundly nuances the thematic and structural transition from the language of salvation to that of judgment. In tracing the allusions to Priestly legislation in the second phase of this oracle complex, a horizon of critical engagement with both traditions comes into view. Expressing the complex interaction between these P allusions and the proto-Deuteronomic matrix within which they are expressed draws out the political implications of this critical engagement.

We have seen in the preceding discussion how Jeremiah utilizes a received Deuteronomic ideological construct, the nationalized “Doctrine of Reward,” in his composition of the hybrid oracle complex of Jer 2-3. The function of this adaptation, we maintained, is two-fold. In the first place, it provides a thematic basis for the articulation of a modal set of types of “Generative Domination.” The elaboration of this material provides thematic substance for the entire oracle complex. Secondly, the nationalized “Doctrine of Reward” as expressed in the Song of Moses (Dtr 32) facilitates the uniquely Jeremian structural shift from the language of salvation to the language of contention and judgment. In the course of this compositional development, the prophet stamps received tradition with his unique understanding of the divine-human

49

Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 301.

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relationship. Historical theology is rendered in terms drawn from a broader set of human experiences. Culturally specific theological categories are linked with general, supranational domains of human activity. Thus, by the logic of analogy, the theological tradition can be seen as functional at a more fundamental level than the Deuteronomic tradition would otherwise have permitted. Apparently this is also the pragmatic function of Jeremiah’s transposition of the Levitical law of the vdwq offering to the sphere of national political fortune. If the Deuteronomic citation in Jer 2.2 applies a principle of the “Doctrine of Reward” to national fortune, then Jer 2.3 gives the impression that a Priestly construct that we might call “Reparation for Damage Done” is likewise being applied to the question of national destiny. In its original context, this is reparation for damage done in the cultic domain. In its reapplication, it is reparation for damage done to the nation in the political and military domain. It seems clear that these two principles stand in some tension with one another. Quite apart from their divergent Sitze im Leben, they depend on very different understandings of divine intentionality. The Deuteronomic Doctrine of Reward, in its Jeremian representation, seems to suggest that the divine relates to humanity through a process of moral evaluation and that succor depends on ethical excellence through the observance of the commandments. In contrast, the priestly principle seems to promise an unequivocal and automatic sort of divine protection. This apparent divergence is actually a fault line in the intellectual and cultural life of the people. Jeremiah’s juxtaposition of these principles is not accidental. As we will see, his statement of the corporate holiness of the nation 'hAl ‹ lEa∂rVcˆy v®dûOq (2.3) brings the worldview underlying each of these principles explicitly to the fore. Yet his complex composition does not 127

attempt to trace this fissure, but rather to repair it. Before this contention can be developed, however, we need first to attend to the priestly tradition to which the prophet has recourse.

Leviticus 22 and the vdwq Offering The source tradition that Jeremiah adapts is an element of priestly legislation found in Lev 22 pertaining to the restitution incumbent upon desecration of sacred offerings. The Jeremian source is a text from the Holiness Code,50 which itself depends on and stands as a specific instantiation of a cult legislative principle given in the P source in Lev 5.14-26. The original P legislation prescribes monetary reparation for inadvertent (hggvb) “desecration” (lom) of any offering “sacred to the Lord” ('h yvdq) equal to the value of the desecrated sanctum plus a fifth of its value. Milgrom understands the concept of the sanctum in the broadest sense, as referring to any offering made in the temple.51 The offering made to expiate (rpkl) the guilt that accrues to the defiler is classed as an Mva.52 In the legislation of Lev 5.14-16, two general classes of lom are described: offenses against the sanctuary and offenses against oaths, each of which is reparable through recourse to an Mva.53

50

Hereafter, we will employ the abbreviations HC to refer to Lev 17-26, H to refer to the more expanded corpus of literature which Israel Knohl has hypothesized shares a common origin with HC in The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1995), and HS to represent the “Holiness School,” the tradents who composed HC and H (6-7). 51

Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 325-26.

52

Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 339.

53

Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 356.

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The Holiness Code’s adaptation of this legislation (Lev 22.1-16) is a more specific application of the rule of reparation for the inadvertent lom.54 It is presented as a component of a larger discourse on the scruples to be observed in relation to food offerings. It contains several elements that make its conceptual debt to the P law of Lev 5 clear: the concept of “inadvertence” (hggvb), the rule of a one-fifth increase in the value of the reparation offering, and the reference to the offense using √Mva (here in the compound expression hmva Nwo). Despite these similarities, however, the HC law expands the scope of application for this rule a great deal and provides a novel linguistic and conceptual framework for the legislation. Any discussion of reparation made for desecrated oaths is omitted.55 Instead, the HC legislation begins with a general principle surrounding the care of sacred food offerings: They shall deal respectfully with the sacred offerings of the Israelites l$Ea∂rVcˆy_y`EnVb y∞Ev√d∂;qIm ‹…wr◊z`D…nˆy◊w y¡Iv√d∂q M∞Ev_tRa …wälV;lAj◊y añøl◊w and shall not profane my sanctified name, [offerings] that they are sanctifying to me. y™Il My¢Ivî;dVqAm MªEh r°RvSa 'h y¶InSa I am the Lord. M%RkyEt°OrOdVl M#RhElSa râOmTa Say to them: ‘throughout your generations, M#RkSo√rÅz_lD;kIm bâårVqˆy_rRvSa —vy∞Ia_lD;k any man from your seed who, 'hl ‹ lEa∂rVcˆy_y`EnVb …wvyôî;dVqÅy r°RvSa ‹MyIv∂dƒ;qAh_lRa when there is uncleanness on him, should approach the sanctities wy¡DlDo wäøtDaVmUf◊w which the Israelites have sanctified to the Lord, that person shall be cut off from my presence. y™AnDpV;lIm aw¢IhAh vRpªR…nAh hDt√rVkˆn◊w I am the Lord. (Lev 22.2-3) 'h y¶InSa

54

Also consider Num 5.5-8, which develops the principle of one-fifth reparation and expands the scope of its application. Knohl considers this an HS revision of the law of Lev 5, extending a specifically temple-based legislation into the realm of interpersonal morality (The Sanctuary of Silence, 176-180). 55

In Knohl’s understanding, the P code provided an Mva for desecrated oaths specifically because of the offense against the divine name, a transgression which infringes specifically upon the cultic domain. (139-40). The function of the false oath, in the understanding of the Holiness School, is expanded to cover the entire realm of violated commandments. (Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence, 184, n. 45).

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Milgrom perceives the prologue to be a statement of general principles, which is a generalization based upon the specific legislation of vv 4ff.56 The prologue lists the restrictions placed upon those who might partake of sacred offerings (vv 4-8). This list of negative proscriptions is followed by the categorical statement of paraenesis:

y#I;t√rAmVvIm_tRa …wêrVmDv◊w wäøb …wt¶Em…w aVf$Ej ‹wyDlDo …wôaVcˆy_aáøl◊w …wh¡UlV;lAj◊y y∞I;k M`Dv√;dåqVm 'h y¶InSa

They shall observe my ordinance and not incur guilt on account of it and die thereby because they have profaned it. I, the Lord, am sanctifying them. (v 9)

The verse combines a citation of the potential punishment for transgressing the law as well as a restatement of the sanctifying principle that motivates the law first found in the prologue section. If this first list describes the varieties of bodily states that can result in temporary restriction from sacred offerings, the subsequent one describes various classes of individuals (in implicit expansion upon the officiating priesthood) who are permitted to or restricted from partaking in the sacred offerings (vv 10-13). Finally, vv 14-15 parallels v 9 in presenting the punishment for disobeying the legislation of the preceding verses and recaps the conceptual vocabulary of the prologue: If a man should consume inadvertently a sanctified offering he shall add a fifth of its value to it and give the sanctified offering back to the priest. They [i.e., the priests] shall not permit the profanation of the sacred offerings of the Israelites which they have offered to the Lord and cause them [i.e., the Israelites] to bear the penalty of guilt in having consumed their sacred offerings for I, the Lord, am sanctifying them.57 (vv 14-16)

h¡DgÎgVvI;b v®dëOq l¶Akaøy_y`I;k vy›Ia◊w wy$DlDo ‹wøtyIv`ImSj P§AsÎy◊w v®díO;qAh_tRa N™EhO;kAl N¶AtÎn◊w l¡Ea∂rVcˆy y∞EnV;b y™Ev√d∂q_tRa …w$lV;lAj◊y aâøl◊w 'hl

w… myäîrÎy_rRvSa t¶Ea h$DmVvAa NâOwSo ‹MDtwøa …way§IÚcIh◊w M¡RhyEv√d∂q_tRa M™DlVkDaV;b M`Dv√;dåqVm ‘h y¶InSa y¢I;k

56

Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 1848.

57

Following the translation of Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, 1865-1866.

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The whole of the composition is tightly woven together through the repeated affirmation 'h yna (vv 2, 3, 8), which is expanded to Mvdqm 'h yna to close the two punishment sections (vv 9, 16).58 Also binding the section is the sevenfold repetition of the topical theme of the law: vdq lkay.59 The entire HC law in Lev 22.1-16 coincides with two of the general, interrelated trends in the compositional work of the Holiness School. On the one hand, it rationalizes prior, Priestly legislation through inclusion of motive clauses,60 while it expands the category of holiness from the domain of the temple to the community at large on the other.61 In terms of the former, we find a characteristically HS concern for the profanation of the divine name in v.2 and for the profanation of the sanctity of the nation in v. 15. Both are typical HS conceptual expansions upon the P understanding of lom.62 Furthermore, in terms of the internal logic of Lev 22.1-16, these motive clauses participate in a general play on √vdq as an object that the people offer to the divinity, as well as an entity rendered to the divinity through sacred offerings and a quality the nation receives from the divinity. Finally, it is a quality the divinity possesses innately as well. At the same time, we should recognize that vv 10-13 extend the enjoyment of sacred offerings from the sphere of the temple to the dependents and relations of the priest. Further, the addition of the phrase larcy_ynb expresses an explicit concern over how the nation at large is affected by the proper or improper disposal of sacred offerings. 58

Cf. the discussion of Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, 1890-92, concerning the complex literary structure of the chapter as a whole. 59

Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, 1864.

60

Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence, 106-110.

61

Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence, 180-186.

62

Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence, 54.

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Jeremiah capitalizes upon two exegetico-transformative urges in the HC material: compositionally, to rationalize legislation through the addition of motive clauses, and theologically, to extend the purview of “holiness” from the temple sphere to that of the nation at large. The observation that it is specifically the “holiness” of the nation that provides the conceptual force behind his engagement with Lev 22 is evident from the opening statement of Jer 2.3: 'hl larcy vdq. In stark contrast to the other major prophetic texts of Isaiah and Ezekiel, the use of √vdq is not a frequent occurrence in the Jeremian text.63 The exceptional nature of the term in the Jeremian corpus along with its placement in a rhetorically emphatic position is a mark of strong allusion. To understand the nature of this allusion and its exegetical function within the current oracle complex, we need to attend more closely to these two, parallel trends in his HC source.

Motive Clauses in the Holiness Code We have already noted how the refrains 'h yna and its expansion Mvdqm 'h yna act as structuring devices in Lev 22. In that legal text, we argued that they function as statements marking the close of specific sections within the legal code. These phrases are both asyndetically expressed, simple motive clauses; the final expression of the latter in v 16 is 63

Including the present case, the root appears only 15 times in the Book of Jeremiah. Jer 1.5 uses the term to refer to the dedication of Jeremiah for his office. Based on this passage’s lateness relative to the corpus of Jeremian poetry, it ought not be considered relevant for the present discussion. Four of these cases use the term in its technical sense of sanctifying an army for war (Jer 6.4; 22.7; 51.27, 28; cf. Joel 4.9; K-B, p. 1074; BDB, 873). In Jer 11.15, the term appears in the collocation vdq_rcb and is used in the midst of a cultic critique. In three cases (Jer 23.9; 25.30; 31.23) it is used in another compound collocation to refer to some aspect of the Divine or His holy habitation. Of the remaining instances, only the three occurrences of Jer 17.22, 24, 27 merit serious consideration. Here, in the midst of a discussion of the Sabbath, Jeremiah employs the term to refer both to the Sabbath itself and to its observance. Fishbane recognizes here an exegetical adaptation of and expansion upon the Sabbath law of Dtr 5.12-14, indicating that it is D terminology that is influencing the prophet’s expression here (Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 132-134).

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formulated as a causal clause, marked by the particle yk.64 Their frequent expression and focused distribution in the priestly material has long been seen as a stylistic peculiarity of the Holiness School.65 As such, they stand alongside other motive clauses like 'h yna vwdq yk (Lev 19.2; 20.26; 21.8) and Kyhla Mv_ta lljl (Lev 18.21; 19.12; et al.) as genuine compositional artifacts of this literary corpus. Within the ideological framework of the HC, the frequent conceptual concern of these phrases is with holiness (vdq) and its defilement. As such, their inclusion in a subordinate fashion throughout this legal code links specific stipulative expressions to the global edict

Mkyhla 'h yna vwdq yk wyht Myvdq (Lev 19.2). The motive clauses that depend upon this categorical statement invoke a reciprocal relationship between the holiness of the people, who are subject to the law being expressed, and the holiness of the deity who expresses it. Each legal formulation that employs such a motive clause, then, is presented implicitly as a local instantiation of this overarching divine mandate. It is significant to note the frequency with which motive clauses parallel to 'h yna also find expression within the HC: vdq lljl and the related vdq Mv lljl and vdqm lljl. As 64

In rhetorical terms, this is a category of utterance that finds rather frequent expression in certain legal codes. Not only can motive clauses serve to demarcate sections of legislation, they function to provide a conceptual basis or justification for the dominant ordinance. Most succinctly expressed in the definition of Gemser, motive clauses are “…grammatically subordinate sentences in which the motivation for the commandment is given” (B. Gemser, “The Importance of the Motive Clause in Old Testament Law”, Congress Volume: Copenhagen 1953 (Leiden: Brill, 1953), 50). The subordination of such clauses can be explicit, through the use of a linking particle, or may be implicit, through asyndetic juxtaposition. Rifat Sonsino, Motive Clauses in Hebrew Law: Biblical Forms and Near Eastern Parallels, Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series. (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980), 74. The type of motivation may be simple conceptual expansion or clarification, or may take the form of paraenetic exhortation (66-69). All fall under the category of motive clause according to Gemser’s definition by virtue of their grammatical subordination to the legal stipulation. The distribution of motive clauses is evident throughout the corpus of biblical law. Their most frequent occurrence, however, is in the Deuteronomic law and the HC (102). Indeed, it is their predominance in the latter in contrast to the Priestly code that has provided Knohl, at least, with a salient stylistic criterion whereby the two corpora may be distinguished (Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence, 106). 65

Driver, Introduction, 48-50.

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Knohl notes, these phrases are not found in the P document proper, and their appearance in HC material is as a substitution for the P language of lom.66 It appears that the HC is attempting to transform the priestly notion of lom (“sacrilege”, lwoml “to commit sacrilege”)67 into a notion of “profanation of holiness.” In terms of the present legislation of Lev 22, the abrogation of ritual stipulations is reconceptualized as an attack on the boundaries that delimit the sanctity of the temple and its deity.68 The exegetical transformation of the P legislation of Lev 5 into the HC laws in Lev 22 is marked by an attempt to graft onto the former legislation a set of clauses that function to provide a motivational basis for the law itself. This is not merely an expression of divine ediction (yna

'h), however; such motive clauses in the HC link the specific legislation motivated to a general relational statement (Lev 19.2) and to a quality that is held in common by the deity, the officiant, the people for whom the offering is made, and (attending to the name of the sacred offering), inherently in the thing offered; √vdq is used throughout the HC to describe each of these entities. Accordingly, many have perceived that the HC concept of holiness differs from the Priestly Code by virtue of the HC’s “dynamism.”69 Knohl has specified this “dynamism” as a reciprocal

66

Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence, 54.

67

Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 320.

68

See Milgrom’s adaptation of Mary Douglas’s definition of purity as “adequate segregation,” (Milgrom, Leviticus 17-22, 1397-1400). 69

“The dynamic quality of H’s concept is highlighted by its resort to the same participial construction [vdqm] ‘sanctifying’ in describing the holiness of both the laity and the priesthood. Sanctification is an ongoing process for priests (21:8, 15, 23; 22:9, 16) as well as for all Israelites (21:8; 22:32). No different from the Israelites, the priests bear a holiness that expands or contracts in proportion to their adherence to God’s commandments.” Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 48. See more recently, Baruch J. Schwartz, “Israel’s Holiness: The Torah Traditions,” in Purity and Holiness: The Heritage of Leviticus, eds. M.J.H.M. Poorthuis and J. Schwartz (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 55.

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process whereby the people sanctify the divinity by presenting sacred offerings and observing sacred law; in response, the deity sanctifies the nation as an acknowledgement of these acts.70 When we place this development alongside the related laws of Lev 5, it seems clear that the HS has attempted to rationalize the process whereby an offense against an offering in the temple may have an effect on the fortune of the nation at large. Not merely an ad hoc taboo, the HS elucidates the ontological relationship where the proper attitude in relation to sacred offerings must be maintained. The core notion of “separateness” implied by √vdq is thereby drawn upon and used as a means for maintaining a specific theological stance. By engaging in a recognizable act of separation through their offerings and in their behaviors, the people are capable of maintaining a God-concept that justifies that separating activity. This validates the status of the people themselves as separate and is distinctive from other theological options within a broader cross-cultural milieu.71 For the HS legist, the composition of Lev 22.1-16 builds on the P law of Lev 5 by rationalizing the process through which desecration of an offering in the temple can have an effect on the broader community. The repetition of √vdq as used in Lev 19.2 and in the conceptual prologue and epilogue to the laws of Lev 22 creates a dynamic relationship in which particular ritual actions are not merely neutral obligations, but are positioned within an

70

Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence, 182-83.

71

The breakdown of this Priestly theological system may be observed in the narrative of Ezek 8. The practices of weeping for Tammuz and the worship of the Sun are presented as God-concepts that do not depend on a notion of “separation”. Their presence in the Jerusalem temple is accordingly hbowt. With this narrative, Ezekiel represents in imagistic form, the threat to the theology of God as vdq and the attraction of theomorphic doctrines that depend on the dying and rising God as symbolized by agricultural produce and the sun. The image of the departure of the Divine Presence in Ezek 11, then, is an Ezekielian, Holiness Code inspired narrative that illustrates the manner in which the “separation” of the deity could be maintained, astonishingly enough, by the passage of that Presence out of the sanctuary and into exile. The obstacle that this post-HC prophet needed to overcome, of course, is the close affinity in the HC tradition between holiness and the land.

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ideological system that sustains an idea of the self as participating in the holiness of the deity. Ritual actions are not simply demanded by fiat, they are acknowledged as crucial elements in the creation of a particular dynamic relationship between the human being and the divinity. By building upon the language of the Priestly code through the development of a conceptually integrated system of motive clauses, the HC adapts the legislation of the former and grafts onto it a theology of reciprocity between the nation and her God. Such a theology of reciprocal holiness is clearly expressed in Lev 22.31-32, a commandment that articulates a “constant process of sanctification” linked specifically with the observance of the commandments and stipulations of the HC itself.72

Thus, it is significant that a stylistic artifact of the H traditio, in contrast to its P traditum, forms the basis of Jeremiah’s own aggadic exegetical engagement in Jer 2.3. We should attend to the fact that Jeremiah has chosen Lev 22 rather than Lev 5 as an exemplar of his principle of “Reparation for Damage Done.” Despite the original force of the expression, in its prophetic adaptation something more than 120 percent recompense is being posited as a principle of national theology. Rather, the Jeremian citation of the holiness of Israel involves an aggadic exegetical transformation of this notion of reciprocal sanctification in the midst of presenting the principle of Reparation for Damage Done. In other words, Jeremiah is not merely after a satisfying doctrine of divine protection of the nation; rather, he is engaging critically with the very fundament of that nation’s identity. Jeremiah himself attempts to push his audience beyond this simpler mode of recuperating meaning; this is evidenced by the fact that there is a prima

72

Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence, 182-83.

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facia absurdity in the metaphorical representation of the nation as ['h] tawbt tyvar.73 This metaphor casts critical attention back to the preceding stich, 'hl larcy vdq, by glossing the ontic distinction between the offerant and the offering. In precisely what fashion can the nation be said to be the Lord’s vdq? Clearly the concept of reciprocal holiness evidenced by the motive clauses and their categorical basis in Lev 19.2 to motivate this statement. In Lev 22.1-16, the affinity between all parties in the ritual process is described through various forms of the root √vdq; hence, it is not necessarily illicit to describe the nation metonymically with reference to the vdq offering that motivates divine sanctification. But Jeremiah has rooted this HC doctrine within a broader structural matrix that derives from uniquely Deuteronomic doctrines and concepts. We may note, in this regard, that the phrase wmvay wylka_lk in Jer 2.3 is not followed by wylo wtyvmj wpsyw, but Mhyla abt hor, language that appears to reference the Deuteronomic Doctrine of Reward. The Deuteronomistic School also had a distinct theology of corporate holiness that differs in some crucial ways from the HC understanding of the doctrine. So, the rhetorical movement from the challenging image of the nation as offering back to its conceptual basis in the Holiness School’s notion of corporate holiness is not unproblematic in the current case. Thus, we ought to read the opening clause of Jer 2.3 as a conceptual mediator between the proto-Deuteronomic and the Holiness traditions that are the prophet’s sources. Corporate holiness, as expressed in the terse phrase 'hl larcy vdq, is a contested construct. To understand what the prophet gains by this interstitial expression of the holiness of the nation, we must look more closely at the second element of the Holiness School’s adaptation of their Priestly legacy. 73

Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 302.

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Holiness in D and HC In contrast to P, H extended the scope of holiness from the priesthood to encompass the nation at large. In its original conception, holiness had been the exclusive province of the temple, its accoutrements and its functionaries. This separated and sanctified state was the result of the divine residence in the sanctuary; YHWH’s dwbk radiated outward and transformed profane things into sancta (Myvdq) (Exod 29.43-44).74 It was possible for the laity to achieve a sanctified state through their temporary consecration as Myryzn,75 but a normal and persisting state of sanctity was the exclusive province of the Aaronide priests.76 In one instance—the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram in Num 16—is a non-priestly collective referred to as Myvdq (v 3), but the P narrative rejects this possibility.77 In H, however, this holiness extended outward from the temple to become a collective social fact. The nation was described as collectively holy in the same fashion that YHWH was holy (e.g., Lev 20.26).78 The extension took place specifically by linking holiness with the stipulations concerning social justice and an equation of sin with lom, a term that had previously referred exclusively to cultic offenses.79 The architecture of motive clauses that binds the HC together functions to relate specific legal stipulations to the process by which sanctification is achieved and maintained. Thus Schwartz observes how the language of Lev 20.7-8 is also 74

Baruch J. Schwartz, “Israel’s Holiness,” 53-54.

75

David P. Wright, “Holiness in Leviticus and Beyond: Differing Perspectives,” Interpretation 53 (1999):

76

Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence, 180.

77

Schwartz, “Israel’s Holiness,” 53.

78

Schwartz, “Israel’s Holiness,” 54.

79

See Knohl’s discussion, The Sanctuary of Silence, 175ff.

353.

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framing discourse in Lev 19.2, 37. In Lev 19, the general commands to be holy and to observe the twqj and the Myfpvm is made a frame for a specific set of legal stipulations in vv 3-36, indicating that adherence to these laws is the means by which one achieves the holiness demanded in 19.2.80 This act of extending holiness beyond the domain of the temple to the laity creates some difficulties. H prefers the participial form vdqm to describe ongoing sanctification of priests and nation alike.81 In consequence, holiness becomes an ideal toward which the nation must continually work and the nation is holy to the degree to which they are able to maintain the behavioral and ritual norms demanded by God.82 Furthermore, the H tradition leaves us in some doubt as regards the sanctified status of the Land of Israel. H specifies that the entire settlement is required to remain in a pure state (Num 5.1-4), but does this indicate that the Land itself has become sacred ground much as the temple itself was? Or does it indicate a secondary or more provisional sort of sanctity. Knohl has forthrightly maintained the former, holding that unlike P, H does not recognize the cultic sphere as geographically delimited with regard to sanctification.83 Holiness extends throughout 80

Schwartz, “Israel’s Holiness,” 56.

81

Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, 48.

82

Milgrom probably goes too far in claiming that sanctification is a constant ideal for the laity of H (Leviticus 1-16, 686-687). Olyan, by contrast, observes that the extension of Holiness in H does not culminate in a democratized temple service or unrestricted access to sacred food offerings. In consequence, he concludes that H maintains the P concern for boundaries between priesthood and laity and that it employs the language of collective sanctification in a rhetorical sense. Saul M. Olyan, Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 121-122. Schwartz’s treatment of this problem is probably the strongest. In his understanding, there are two separate and overlapping sanctifying processes in H. In one, YHWH is in Israel’s midst and emanates holiness outward (these employ the refrain M`RkVvî;dåqVm 'h y¶InSa, e.g., Lev 20.8). In the other, Israel must place itself in an ethical condition adequate to allow it to receive this sanctification (see Lev 19.2; 20.7, 26; Num 15.40). 83

He is followed by Schwartz, “Israel’s Holiness,” 54 n, 17; Wright, “Holiness in Leviticus,” 357, and presumably also Eyal Regev, “Priestly Dynamic Holiness and Deuteronomic Static Holiness,” VT 51 (2001): 250 n.25.

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the camp and its defilement is a collective fact.84 For Knohl, what is expressed in historical terms as the holiness of the camp is reapplied and imagined to be at work in the land itself (Num 35.34).85 Thus, the rg is required to observe the H stipulations that maintain holiness specifically by virtue of his residence in the land (Lev 18.26).86 Having severed the local connection between holiness and the temple, the Holiness School instead rooted its new concept of corporate holiness in the tenure upon and sanctity of the land (Lev 25.23).87 Other scholars have taken a more cautious approach. Jan Joosten, following the law of the Jubilee in Lev 25.23, attributes the elevated status of the land to its divine ownership.88 That ownership results in the same process of radiant dwbk, however, and Joosten recognizes that YHWH’s dwelling in his sanctuary has, for H, a broader, geographical impact.89 More recently, John Bergsma has suggested that the sanctity of the land for H results from the ancestors buried there and the religious requirement to venerate their memory.90 There is a broad consensus among scholars that H extended the scope of holiness beyond the sanctuary, employing it as a motive concept for ethical and ritual demands. This concept of holiness was dynamic, mandating a constant process of ethical performance whose function was to bring the nation collectively into consonance with the sanctifying deity.91 The nation’s 84

Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence, 185.

85

Knohl The Sanctuary of Silence, 186.

86

Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16, p. 48.

87

Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence, 187-89.

88

Jan Joosten, People and Land in he Holiness Code: An Exegetical Study of the Ideational Framework of the Law in Leviticus 17-26, VTSupp 67 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 173. 89

Joosten, People and Land, 176-177.

90

John Sietze Bergsma, The Jubilee from Leviticus to Qumran: A History of Interpretation (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 63-65. 91

Schwartz, “Israel’s Holiness,” See also Regev, “Priestly Dynamic Holiness,” 252-253, 255.

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sanctity was the end state of an entire comprehensive posture of ritual and legal observance. Hence, the commands to sanctify vegetable offerings provide one fairly concrete means by which the Israelite could participate in the reciprocal sanctifying process. The Deuteronomic tradition had also maintained a tradition of corporate holiness, but despite its thoroughgoing concern for moral legislation, did not link its laws to the people’s sanctity. Rather, the use of the D expression vwdq Mo was limited specifically to ritual behaviors such as avoiding forbidden foods and rejecting non-Israelite mourning practices.92 The possibility of conceiving the nation as a collective, holy entity in this way was present at least from the time when the Covenant Code of Exod 21-23 was composed. Exodus 22.30 mandates avoidance of hprf hdcb rcb with the injunction yl Nwyht vdq_yvnaw. In a similar spirit, Dtr 7.1-6 stipulates avoidance of marriage with local non-Israelites and the destruction of their cult sites because Israel is an vdwq Mo and an hmdah ynp_lo rva Mymoh lkm hlgs Mo. Dtr 14.1-2, 21, for its part, bans self-mutilation and shaving of the head as a way of expressing grief for the dead, as well as the consumption of hlbn with recourse to the same formulae. There is, of course, some overlap between the D and the H understanding of collective holiness. Both rest upon a primal act of divine separation. God’s sanctification of the nation is expressed by rwjbl in the Dtr tradition (Dtr 7.6; 14.2; 26.18-19) and with lydbhl in Lev 20.2426. Both traditions banned similar defiling acts such as forbidden foods (Dtr 14.13-19//Lev 11.41-45; 20.25-26), gashing the body and shaving the forelocks (Dtr 14.1//Lev 19.27-28).93 This consonance is far overshadowed, however, by the substantial conceptual differences between the two schools. Whereas the H tradition sanctified the community and made this state 92

Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence, 181, n. 38. See also Schwartz, “Israel’s Holiness,” 50.

93

Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence, 183, n. 43.

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a constant goal to be maintained through purification and observance of taboos, holiness in D is the result of a unique historical act of divine election.94 Accordingly, the prohibited practices described above are permanent avoidances motivated in terms of this election:95

M¡RkyEhølTa 'hl M$R;tAa My∞InD;b …w#d√dáO…gVtIt aâøl t`EmDl M™Rky´nyEo Ny¶E;b h¢Dj√r∂q …wmyªIcDt_aáøl◊w

You are children of the Lord your God. You shall not gash yourselves, You shall not put a bald spot between your eyes for the sake of the dead. For you are a people sacred to the Lord your God.

ÔKy¡RhølTa 'hl h$D;tAa ‹vwød∂q M§Ao y∞I;k …wøl twñøyVh`Il 'h r∞AjD;b ÔKVb…w

The Lord has chosen you to be his own (Dtr 14.1-2)

The distinction between these schools, then, is in the placement of “holiness” in the process of moral exhortation. In D, corporate holiness is a prior and permanent state, and compliance with the prohibitions is assumed. In H, as we have seen, the land is innately holy, and the holiness of the nation is a state that is gained and lost to the degree that the particular stipulations of the Holiness Code are maintained. In the former, holiness is a precondition; in the latter, it is an end. Weinfeld illustrates this distinction by focusing on the prohibition of hlbn. In the Priestly source, it is forbidden to the priests (Lev 22.8), but presumably it may be consumed by the people provided they purify themselves upon consuming it,96 since there is no expressed rejection of the Priestly law of Lev 11.39-40. D, however, expressly forbids hlbn to the entire nation because of its holiness (Dtr 14.1-2, 21).97 Although this assumption regarding the status of the laity in the Holiness Code has not gone unchallenged,98 it is clear that Weinfeld has

94

Schwartz, “Israel’s Holiness,” 50-51; Wright, “Holiness in Leviticus,” 353.

95

Weinfeld, DDS, 226.

96

See Lev 17.15.

97

Weinfeld, DDS, 227.

98

Milgrom has protested that the P prohibition distinguishes between the priesthood and the laity in the prohibition against hlbn, mandating purification for the later (Lev 11.39-40) and death for the former (Lev 22.9). Given that D does not use the language of penalties, Milgrom maintains, we may assume that it agrees with P’s

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recognized a crucial ideological distinction between the two schools, one that derives quite clearly from their different sociological positions.99 Given its foundation in the scribal class, a sociological placement that put it in contact with the royal court and juridical bodies, holiness in the D tradition has a markedly national rather than cultic aspect. The action of primal separation by the divinity described in Dtr 14 is an act of demarcation of an ethnic unity. Hence, the Covenant Code expression vdq_yvna is transformed into the genealogical vwdq Mo. H, by contrast, builds its notion of collective holiness out of ritual legislation based in the sanctuary. So its moral and social stipulations are lent a ritual cast, rather than the reverse.100 The Deuteronomic school, by contrast, prefers to ground holiness in the interrelated community, which is a priori distinct by virtue of its praxis.101

Synthetic Holiness in Jer 2-3 Thus, Jeremiah is not merely juxtaposing two notions of national fortune in Jer 2.1-3; he is referencing two contrasting notions of collectivity and corporate moral responsibility. The distinction (“The Alleged ‘Demythologization and Secularization’ in Deuteronomy,” IEJ 23 [1973]: 158). See Weinfeld’s objection based on the relationship of corporate holiness to the prohibition described above (“On ‘Demythologization and Secularization’ in Deuteronomy,” IEJ 23 [1973]: 232-33). 99

Weinfeld, “Theological Currents,” 122.

100

See the discussion of Weinfeld in “Theological Currents,” 131-33. Note that Knohl (The Sanctuary of Silence, 182, n. 40) does not agree with this distinction and would normalize the position on the holiness of the laity in H to that found in D in opposition to P. Knohl’s position here is dubious on two counts. First, “holiness” in the Deuteronomic code a peripheral position in relation to the overall thrust of the legislation. Had D maintained a notion of collective holiness analogous to that found in H, we might expect to see more frequent recourse to H’s conceptual vocabulary. Weinfeld’s argument on this point has more merit to it: the discussion of hlbn in D is likely a polemic against the priests, and that the language of corporate holiness is positioned expressly in relation to the ethnic and cultural separation of the nation. Secondly, the preferred language of each tradition must be rooted in its sociological and intellectual environment. Despite H’s venture into the realm of social and moral legislation, its primary milieu remains the sanctuary. It is a case of the school’s extension of such language outward, rather than a transformation of the language and its reference from within. It seems clear that holiness never loses, in H, its ritual cast, but that the life of the community itself is “sanctified”. 101

Weinfeld, DDS, 228-30.

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prophet intends with his address to call to account a broad swath of society, including both the temple and the court. The focus on holiness—itself a concept contested by both priests and scribes—engenders the impression that this calling to account is developed in terms of a synthetic theological perspective. However, while he may employ the specific language of these two social domains, he represents them in an intentionally combinatory fashion. When Jeremiah roots the priestly language of holiness in a broader allusive matrix dominated by the Deuteronomic “Doctrine of Reward,” at least part of the function of his aggadic exegetical effort must be to bind this concept more firmly to the process of ethical and social legislation. Correspondingly, when he places the language of corporate holiness in a thematic framework that develops a modal system of “Generative Domination,” that holiness must be receiving a conceptual grounding that is supra-locative. Jeremiah’s aggadic exegesis is attempting to affect a synthesis in terms between two intellectual traditions in his community in order to fashion a firmer basis for political collectivity and corporate holiness. This synthesis integrates the social legislative aspect that predominates in the Deuteronomic covenant and the concept of holiness as the goal of moral perfection that the H corpus develops. This new notion of holiness, grounded as it is in a logical and cultural system rather than a geographical space, would be capable of being maintained even in exile. The utility of such a synthetic construct in the waning days of the Judean state should be clear. This synthetic intent is evident even in the morphology of his language. Several of the terms used in Jer 2.2 to develop the theme of “Generative Domination” through their identification of the nation are qatul forms: Kyrwon, Kytlwlk, and howrz. Each form is marked by a characteristic shortened qametz in the first syllable and a shurek in the second. When the same 144

vocalic pattern is used in parallel to the “holiness of Israel” in 2.3, wtawbt tyvar, the prophet is conjoining phonically the terminology of two disparate conceptual systems.102

In light of this theological synthesis, the notion of the extension of holiness becomes central. Without mediating institutions and geographical spaces, how precisely is this synthetic construct to be grounded? Lacking an explicit and rich notion of the human subject, Jeremiah must work out the process of collective participation in this newly decentered concept of sanctity through an analogical process. We may observe an element of this analogical thought at work in a further aggadic exegetical engagement with the legislation of Lev 22. Recall that Lev 22.10-13 specifies the people who are permitted to or restricted from partaking of the sacred offerings. In this text, it is specifically members of the priestly household who are considered, by virtue of their dependence on the priest, to be licit consumers of the vdq. Thus, even in the H text, there was a notion of extensive, non-locative holiness, however circumscribed. The key individuals stipulated as acceptable partakers were slaves, purchased or houseborn (v 11), and unmarried or divorced daughters without children (vv 12-13). Jeremiah capitalized on the notion of holiness extending to the household to further specify the process whereby the nation collectively may partake of corporate holiness, most appositely, through the development of one of the modes of Generative Domination: parenthood. The H law specifies that the divorced or widowed daughter must not have borne children (hl Nya orzw) and that her state in returning to her father’s house is that of her childhood (hyrwonk). This permits Jeremiah to utilize similar language in Jer 2 to develop the themes of 102

Jeremiah’s synthetic intent is also observable in 2.7b, wherein the first stich uses the priestly language of defilement and the second uses the Deuteronomic discourse of abomination.

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parental and agricultural domination. Further, the term used in Lev 22.11 for the houseborn slave, tyb dyly, is used also in Jer 2.14 in a rhetorical interrogative setting with an implied negative answer. Israel is not a “houseborn slave” but she is a “daughter” of the divine. Thus, Jeremiah advocates a sort of familial, consubstantial co-participation in corporate holiness rather than participation by secondary association. This idea of extensive community holiness from a relational core is developed through aggadic adaptation of the language of the H law itself. It is crucial to note that Jeremiah has chosen an element of H legislation that concerns itself with reparation of the reciprocal relationship of sanctification through the offering of vegetable products. In the H tradition, this had been a function of the root concept that the land is a divine possession, and that through the sanctification and offering of its produce, the people could repair damage done to the relationship with the divinity that permits their tenure upon it.103 With the Jeremian act of delocalization of the sanctifying relationship, exclusive recourse to offered vegetable products is no longer a viable means of reparation. In Jeremiah’s political milieu, loss of the land would entail loss of the means of collective enjoyment of sanctity. Thus, the nation itself must become the grounds for the renewal of the sanctification process. Hence, we may understand the curious ontic shift in the identity of the nation in Jer 2.3. wtawbt tyvar is not just a dissonant neologism. It merges the H language of the firstfruits offering (Lev 23.914104) with the parallel D tradition (Dtr 26). Jeremiah’s language in 2.2 makes clear that it is

103

Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence, 188-89.

104

Cf. Num 15.20-21; 18.12. See Wright, “Holiness in Leviticus,” 361.

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now the nation at large that occupies the position previously held by the vegetable offering (Lev 23.10).105 The effect of Jeremiah’s synthesis of these two intellectual traditions is not merely sociological or epistemic, however. Even within the course of his own composition, we may observe several effects on his own rhetoric that depend upon this composition. Within the confines of the present oracle complex, we may now perceive a more subtle difference between Jeremiah’s own composition and the earlier Hosean text to which he alludes. The adapted H tradition of holiness itself innovated a notion of reciprocity between identity and activity. The people were made holy through their sanctification of a holy offering to the source of sanctity. This principle of identity through reciprocal manipulation of offerings described as vdq was expressed at the terminological level in the motive clauses of the H text of Lev 22. As we perceived earlier, these provided a rhetorical framework for the adaptation of the priestly law in terms of a categorical statement of reciprocal identity found in Lev 19.2. Jeremiah adapts this poetic technique of expressing identity through modal play on a single shoresh in Jer 2.5, where √lbh replaces √vdq to describe both the actions of the nation and their innate status. Not merely limited to this location, however, this poetic strategy is an abiding aspect of Jeremiah’s compositional art. It can be seen, inter alia, in 1.17, 11.18, 15.19, 17.14, and 20.7. It bears a surface similarity to the emphatic adverbial construction whereby rhetorical emphasis is achieved through the expression of an infinitive absolute form of a shoresh, which is subsequently inflected as a finite verb. The Jeremian construction, however, 105

The present study might be enriched were we to track another instance of adaptation of H language in a Jeremian oracle by considering the use of the phrase: ['h] ynplm trkhl, found in Lev 22.3 and adapted in Jer 33.18 and 44. Attention to the techniques implicit in this adaptation and reapplication of a priestly formula may give us some further purchase on the present case.

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juxtaposes two finite verbs derived from the same root, with a modification of subject and possibly binyan to express some logical, consequential affinity. The precedent for this poetic technique is found in the motive clauses of the Holiness School. What drives this poetic technique is also expressed by the prophet at the conceptual level. Thus, we find a play on identity through reciprocal action expressed as a logical shift between context and substance in, for example, Jer 2.20-22. In v 20 of that chapter, Israel herself rejects domination and bends over in a posture of sexual humiliation in a natural context. In v 21, the prophet presents us with a contrasting image: the nation established as an upright product of cultivation that has become twisted and foreign through its own actions. The first verse utilizes the natural as a milieu for the action of the nation; the second uses nature as a metaphor for the identity of the nation. This is arguably built on the reciprocal concept of identity, which Jeremiah inherits from the Holiness school. Rather than being a nation that behaves in a sanctifying fashion and thereby made sacred, here the nation behaves in a fecund fashion and thereby made into a rank and untended vine. V 22 makes this clear with brilliant and concise wordplay. The nation perceives dimly her defilement and scrubs herself with tyîrO;b, the orthographic analogue of the thing whose abrogation has led to her defilement in the first place. The irony proceeds from the nation’s misperception of the innate relationship between context and substance. Her own behavior is represented as a pathetic misconstrual of the source and status of her shame.

Thus, the prophet draws a political and even an ontological corollary from his aggadic exegetical meditation on the identity of the nation in this oracle complex. The corollary is expressed consistently in relation to the nation and the prophetic person as a recognizable poetic 148

expressive technique. The prophet’s concern to reconceptualize the foundation for national collectivity and to establish de-localized sanctifying practices reflects the theological concerns of a post-Josianic milieu. Not only are the theological problems that drive Jer 2-6 more complex than a simple act of pro-Josianic, Deuteronomic propaganda, but his audience is a polity far more threatened and far more fractured than the one hypothesized by Albertz and Sweeney. Jeremiah is, in this oracle complex, actively reimagining the identity of the nation. He does not only call to account disparate sectors of the population; he engages critically and transformatively with the intellectual movements of his day, attempting to refashion his cultural traditions in a more unified and enduring fashion. This is aggadic exegesis in the shadow of impending cataclysm. The Jeremian oracle functions to bind the intellectual traditions he has inherited into a durable, de-localized system of individual moral excellence and ontic distinction. The most likely milieu in which Jeremiah might have engaged in such theological innovation would have been in the decade between the two deportations, i.e., sometime between 597 and 586 BCE. Only in this period would the threat of exile and the collapse of an autochthonous polity have been immediately evident to the clear-eyed observer. Only during this phase would the prophet’s rhetoric have had influence enough to merit its placement at the very beginning of an early edition of the Book of Jeremiah. And only discourse this critical would have merited the extraordinary intervention of the prophet’s Deuteronomistic tradents who attempted to reorient the function of the prophet’s language through the imposition of the Wortereignisformel. The use of this formula in Jer 2.1 links the oracle complex of Jer 2-6 with the call narrative of Jer 1. In particular, it suggests that the process by which the vision oracles in 1.11 and 1.13 are interpreted by the prophet Jeremiah indicates how Jer 2-6 is meant to be read as well. The Jeremian call asserted strongly that the 149

Deuteronomic rbd was ontologically prior even to the prophet’s own body. With this, Jeremiah’s Deuteronomic tradents arrogated to themselves the interpretive flexibility necessary to re-impose Deuteronomic categories as a framing device, blunting the extraordinary and transformative force of the prophet’s original theological synthesis.

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CHAPTER FOUR THE AUGMENTED DOUBLE RHETORICAL QUESTION IN JEREMIAN POETRY Introduction In the previous chapter, we attempted to illustrate how intensive and sustained engagement with Jeremiah’s prophecy could provide new and more compelling data for historical reconstruction. Prior engagements with the book have tended to impose a heuristic framework over the prophet’s own rhetoric, seeking to interpret his enigmatic language in terms of some prior set of analytical principles. Such an approach, however prevalent it may be in the discipline, is precisely backward when it comes to the interpretation of prophetic rhetoric. Prophets were active and engaged social activists. While influenced by their immediate intellectual and political environment, they sought to influence it as well. Thus, the dominant hypothesis that Jeremiah’s oracles were intended simply to advance the Deuteronomic project actively occludes his own intellectual subtlety, The present chapter will advance this approach. Initially, rather than engaging with a single text unit, we will track the development of one particular rhetorical figure: the multiple question form that employs h, Ma and owdm in successive members to develop a complex rhetorical construct. We will attempt to discuss the development of this figure in philological and pragmatic terms and then subsequently demonstrate how close analysis of prophetic rhetoric can provide new angles of approach to interpretive issues. In the final pages of the chapter, we will turn again to the thesis of the early period Jeremiah, demonstrating how a close reading of

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this multiple rhetorical question pattern helps to resolve some persistent interpretive problems that attend the reading of Jer 8.8-9.

We focus our attention, initially, on one particular rhetorical device: the double rhetorical question form employing h and Ma to introduce its constituent members, and its transformation through the appending of a third element. We find one instance of this latter figure, the triple question using the interrogative particle owdm to introduce its third member, only in the work of the prophet Jeremiah (a fact that has been appreciated from the time of Driver's survey).1 Despite its novelty, however, its development may be described with reference to similar, more widely attested rhetorical question figures. Attention to the way Jeremiah adapted a prior speech form to a new rhetorical purpose through the strategic transformation of its structure will provide us with valuable insight into his poetic consciousness, his relationship to received literary tradition, and his rhetorical genius. Past scholarship has approached this speech form from three basic vantages. Most prevalent of these is the Gattungsforschung tradition, which attempts to situate this and other rhetorical question devices in concrete life-settings where the speech form may be understood. In particular, the scribal schoolroom and the public disputation speech have been proposed as Sitze im Leben from which the rhetorical question has arisen. These two settings are not considered mutually exclusive, and recent form critical research has allowed for the possibility that a sapiential speech form may have been adapted into a more general persuasive device.

1

S. R. Driver An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, 2d ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1931), 275.

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As we will see, these form critical discussions fail to provide real insight into Jeremiah's own poetic consciousness for two reasons. First, the link with a proposed Sitz im Leben is always hypothetical, often anachronistic and ever dependent on a correlation of the discursive content that is structured by this rhetorical device with its particular form. Thus, form critics are beholden to the limited range of topics and settings for the rhetorical question offered by the Hebrew Bible, a finite and historically determined corpus. There remains the very real possibility that Jeremiah's own particular innovation within the range of phenomena attested under this rubric owes its genesis to something other than the intellectual praxis of the wisdom movement or the development of disputation speech in ancient Israel. This leads us to a second criticism of the Gattungsforschung approach. In situating the Jeremian speech form in a generic context comprised of other instances of interrogative and rhetorical question speech, inadequate attention is paid to the semantic and pragmatic operation of the speech form itself. The form critic is ill-equipped to answer questions regarding the socio-linguistic operation of the speech form: how it engages its audience, the means by which it attempts to effect a change in their consciousness and the way it is positioned in a unique historical and cultural moment in the history of ancient Israel. In contrast to this impulse, first H.L. Ginsberg and later Moshe Held attempted to describe the operation of this speech form on a continuum reaching back to the poetic forms of the Late Bronze Age demonstrated in the literature of Ugarit. Ignoring hypothetical situations in the cultural life of ancient Israel, they suggested that the form as we see it in Jeremiah is an element in the normal literary repertoire of the West Semitic poet reaching back to the third millennium BCE. While their effort to situate Jeremiah's language in an autonomous and 153

explicitly literary context is commendable, the poverty of their descriptive range was later subjected to vigorous critique by Yitshak Avishur. In contrast to Ginsberg and Held, Avishur attempted to demonstrate the wide variety of rhetorical question figures evident in the Hebrew Bible and the poetic literature from Ugarit. His is mainly a broad survey, yet he does make several gestures in the direction of a developmental schema. Centrally, he describes the basic dual question form of the type …Ma…h as fundamental for the study of Biblical rhetorical questions. Other, similar devices are understood as adaptations and modifications of this basic form. In his hands, what he considered to be a triple rhetorical question, …owdm…Ma…h, becomes a secondary elaboration upon this earlier speech form, one that evidences a more complex rhetorical and discursive structure. Given its broad anthological approach, Avishur's generalized contribution to the study of rhetorical questions in the Hebrew Bible is more substantial than his contribution to the specific study of the prophet Jeremiah. In the former case, his survey is an invaluable resource as we attempt to make sense of the literary matrix that gave rise to the specific Jeremian form. For a specific study of the language of Jeremiah, however, much remains to be done. Finally, we will survey some recent impulses within the rhetorical critical literature that attempt to treat rhetorical question devices as free stylistic patterns. There is lately a renewed urge toward the development not only of a typology of interrogative forms, but also a comprehensive definition of the phenomena. Such studies remain provisional, however, and no new consensus approach has yet emerged. In this chapter, we will survey each of these methodological approaches in more detail, taking from them what insights we may. Following this, we will turn our attention squarely on 154

the issue of the rhetorical, persuasive character of the augmented double rhetorical question. First, we will attempt to understand the individual semantic force of each of the particles that operate in the various literary patterns as well as their modes of combination to create complex discursive structures. Second, and more importantly, we will add to our survey an engagement with the pragmatic, illocutionary aspect of the rhetorical question. We will find that the Jeremian augmented double rhetorical question does indeed find its generic precursors in the corpus of Biblical Hebrew rhetorical questions and that the basic outlines of Avishur's study are correct. In addition to this, we will emphasize that in developing the …owdm…Ma…h formula, Jeremiah consciously adapted and modified another complex rhetorical construction whose attestation goes beyond the book of Jeremiah: the …yk…Ma…h device. We will see that Jeremiah adapted this standard rhetorical figure by transforming its third member from a logical contrastive device into a direct interrogative act. As such, we will argue that Jeremiah has modified a native Israelite speech form employed for the development of aporetic argumentation and confrontation with apparent paradox. By adding an interrogative member, he transformed it into a directly persuasive speech form whose inherent function was to confront his audience directly with their own internal ideological and practical contradictions, and most crucially, to demand from them an active response. Finally, we will attempt to show how this particular Jeremian structure relates to other triple rhetorical devices and forms of poetic tricola evident in the Book of Jeremiah.

The Form Critical Approach to Rhetorical Questions

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The first comprehensive research into the structure and etiology of rhetorical question formulae was carried out during the last century by form critics. Attention to the development of this research is extremely instructive as it helps to establish the discursive status of the multiple question formula. From the broad claims of the early form critics, scholars gradually became aware of the fundamental autonomy and transposability of smaller rhetorical units. Analysis naturally turned from the structure of a proposed speech form and hypothetical life settings where they would have been employed to an investigation of its rhetorical character, its persuasive capacity, and its illocutionary function. While Walter Brueggemann was already feeling the limits of a form critical approach to the problem in 1973,2 a decisive turn away from this mode of analysis has yet to be carried through in a systematic fashion. In what follows, we survey the two major form critical discussions on the development of the rhetorical question in Biblical literature.3 The first, initiated by Gerhard von Rad and

2

Walter Brueggemann, "Jeremiah's Use of Rhetorical Questions," JBL 92 (1973): 358-74.

3

Three other approaches to rhetorical questions in prophetic texts should also be noted: Holladay, Jeremiah 1, 75-76, drew a link between the use of the triple rhetorical question in Jer 2.14 and the use of similar questions in covenantal formulations, discussing the questions in Dtr 29.22-28, 1K 9.8-9 and the annals of Ashurbanipal. Holladay cites, in this regard, the earlier study by B.O. Long, "Two Question and Answer Schemata in the Prophets," JBL 90 (1971): 129-39, though Long’s question and answer structures bear no resemblance to the rhetorical question form we are considering. See also Dennis J. McCarthy, Treaty and Covenant: A Study in Form in the Ancient Oriental Documents and in the Old Testament, 2d ed. (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1981), 201, n. 31. D.R. Hillers, similarly, had related Jer 8.22 and 14.19 to the treaty-curse of the incurable wound, though he did not treat the questions as a discrete form arising out of the covenant Delbert R. Hillers, Treaty-curses and the Old Testament Prophets, (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1964). Among these, only Holladay drew an explicit link between the triple rhetorical question and the interrogative form as it appears in covenantal literature. The move is dubious, however, since the link between rhetorical questions and the question and answer form is insufficiently clear. There are evidently two separate genres at work here and it seems careless for Holladay to link the two without the appearance of an explicit answer in Jer 2.14. In the same study, Long had also linked the interrogatives in Jer 13.12ff; 15.1-4; and 23.33 to the practice of oracle consultation (135), though again, these interrogatives have no relationship to the rhetorical questions under discussion presently. More apposite is C.J. Labuschagne’s discussion of the relationship between rhetorical questions and discourse on the divine nature in The Incomparability of Yahweh in the Old Testament (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966). Labuschagne treated the rhetorical question as one of a variety of literary devices that may be employed in the Hebrew Bible to convey the incomparability of the God of Israel. He analyzes stable question formulae such as the –k ym device in texts such as Ex 15.11 and Mic 7.18 as well as freer interrogatives, determining that their basic function is emphatic and their implied answer is negative. As such, these sorts of questions are used in a variety of settings to describe a situation of incomparability and used

156

Johannes Lindblom in the 1950s, began as an attempt to isolate the rhetorical question as a discrete Gattung and to link it with the pedagogical practices and methods of inquiry prevalent within wisdom circles. The second takes its early cues from Joachim Begrich and pays more attention to the Biblical evidence for the use of rhetorical questions in persuasive speech. It has attempted to link the device with a larger, more comprehensive Gattung: disputation speech. A third stage, growing organically from the movement toward disputation speech as a focus of inquiry, attempted to reconcile the two streams, positing the organic development of rhetorical questions from an original pedagogical practice by wisdom teachers into a more complex persuasive device whose Biblical attestations are in disputations. In his article "Job xxxviii and Ancient Egyptian Wisdom," Gerhard von Rad observed a degree of similarity in the contents of the extended lists of phenomena attested in the Egyptian Onomasticon of Amenope and several Hebrew texts, including Job 38, Sir 43 and Ps 148.4 Von Rad noted that in their reference to heavenly and meteorological phenomena, these texts preserve a similar sequence of items. He proposed that behind these lay an earlier and lost Egyptian encyclopedic work that had been variously adapted by Israelite scribes into compositions with different formal characteristics.5 Extending his discussion from content to the present form of the Speech from the Whirlwind, von Rad also noted a sequence of rhetorical questions employing similar locutions in

specifically in relation to the divine to describe the manner in which it exceeds human comprehension. Since it is related to a theological topos and not a stable Gattung, Labuschagne’s study is not properly form critical; though it certainly has implications for this sort of study, its chief contribution has been in the domain of rhetorical critical analysis of this sort of question. 4

Gerhard von Rad, "Job XXXVIII and Ancient Egyptian Wisdom," The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays. (Edinburgh; London: Oliver & Boyd, 1965), 281-91. 5

von Rad, “Job,” 285.

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Papyrus Anastasi I. Allowing that the expression of the rhetorical questions in Job 38 and Papyrus Anasasi I were an ironic literary device, von Rad nevertheless hypothesized that they were an outgrowth of the pedagogical use of rhetorical questions in ancient Egyptian scribal schools.6 He suggested that the text of Papyrus Anastasi I preserved a self-aggrandizing discourse on Palestinian geography perhaps based on an earlier onomasticon. Accordingly, even at the level of textual function, von Rad suggested that we might read Job 38 as a parallel to Papyrus Anastasi I. Thus, for von Rad, the development of the rhetorical question form in Job 38 depended upon an adaptation by a Biblical author of prior cross-cultural speech forms into the present composition.7 The topical matter of the Speech from the Whirlwind, a reference to a broad list of the elements of the created cosmos, was drawn from earlier Egyptian Listeswissenchaft. The specific literary form, a catenated sequence of rhetorical questions, was adapted from a selfaggrandizing interrogative Gattung that found expression as well in the enumeration of Palestinian geography attested in Papyrus Anastasi I. Von Rad's discussion focused narrowly on a specific intersection of a small corpus of Biblical texts with a proposed literary form. A more general treatment of the influence of Wisdom literature on the Hebrew Bible was undertaken by Johannes Lindblom in his 1955 article "Wisdom in the Old Testament Prophets."8 Following a survey in the pre-exilic prophets of references to a discrete class known as "The Wise," Lindblom turned to an inquiry into the Biblical evidence for this class's influence on 6

von Rad, “Job,” 289.

7

See N. C. Habel, The Book of Job: A Commentary (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1985), 529 for a range of proposed Gattungen for Job 38. 8

J. Lindblom, "Wisdom in the Old Testament Prophets," VTSup 3 (1955): 192-204.

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the development of prophetic discourse. Noting the differences between the worldviews of the prophets and the wisdom teachers, he nevertheless considered the degree to which Biblical prophets availed themselves of the literary idioms and ideas of other intellectual streams. "We are entitled to speak of...influences from Wisdom," Lindblom wrote, "when, in the sayings of the prophets, we meet with words and thoughts which are alien to the prophetic thought-world in general, but characteristic of the doctrines of Wisdom."9 Like von Rad, then, Lindblom employed the criterion of content as a basis for the supposition of formal influence. In particular, it is the development of a discourse of reward and punishment that marks the major point of consonance between wisdom thought and the theology of the prophets. Texts such as Is 3.10-11 and Jer 17.5-8, 9-10, 11 show a concern for individual well-being and divine evaluation in a proverbial idiom more at home in the Biblical Wisdom literature than elsewhere in the book of Jeremiah. For this reason, Lindblom ascribes these text-units to later, sapientially influenced redactors of the books.10 In contrast to these cases, however, instances of meshalim and elaborate comparisons (e.g., Is 5; 10.15; 28; Hos 7.4-5; Am 3.3-6), use of proverbial speech (e.g., Jer 31.29//Ezek 18.2; Ezek 16.44; Jer 13.12; 15.12; 23.28; Is 49.24), the development of rhetorical questions (e.g., Is 10.15; Jer 23.28; Ezek 15.2ff; Am 3.3-8; 6.12; 9.7) and the question and answer form of the visionary dialogues (e.g., Am 7.7-8; 8.2; Jer 1.11-12, 13; 24.3), and the three-and-four structure of Am 1-2 all provide Lindblom with a more secure basis for supposing a direct influence from sapiential speech-forms on the language of the prophets.11

9

Lindblom, “Wisdom,” 197.

10

Lindblom, “Wisdom,” 200.

11

Lindblom, “Wisdom,” 201-203.

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Like von Rad, Lindblom sees the rhetorical question as a speech form whose natural lifesetting is in wisdom thought. Its Biblical expression represents an extension of this original use into a new intellectual domain. Thus, for these two seminal thinkers, the rhetorical question represents a stylistic impact of wisdom thought upon the Hebrew Bible. Lindblom in particular relates this impact to the development of prophetic rhetoric. From these early impulses, later scholars developed more specific arguments in favor of the influence of wisdom literature on Biblical prophecy in the development of rhetorical questions as a stylistic device.12 In his discussion of Amos 3.3-8, Hans Walter Wolff connected the overall interrogative form of that composition with didactic discourse.13 Working from an investigation into the concatenation of multiple rhetorical questions evident in the Book of Job, Wolff perceived here a common literary development from earlier, oral discursive tradition: "Is it not logical to assume that this literature preserved and further developed what can be presumed for Amos in the characteristic oral tradition of clan instructional wisdom, with its basically simpler forms?"14 Reflexes of this may be seen in Proverbs where we see brief sayings connecting natural phenomena with human behavior (e.g., Prov 25.23; 26.20), a form Wolff sees at work in Amos 5.7; 5.19-20 and 6.12. Am 5.19-20 in particular is crucial for this identification since it combines this sort of Naturweisheit with a closing interrogative. To Wolff's mind, there was a continuous chain of oral traditional clan wisdom rooted in semi-nomadic pastoral life and

12

More recently, J. L. Crenshaw ("Impossible Questions, Sayings, and Tasks," Semeia 17 (1980): 19-34) has linked the double, …Ma…h rhetorical question form with the development of a distinctly sapiential "impossible question genre". An early attestation of this form may be seen in Am 6.12. For Crenshaw, such impossible questions drew upon the conventions of wisdom discourse to develop a uniquely skeptical mode of intellection that came to fruition in texts such as Qoheleth. 13

H. W. Wolff, Amos the Prophet: The Man and His Background (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1973).

14

Wolff, Amos the Prophet, 14-15.

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picked up by Amos in the development of his prophecy over and against the institutionalized intellectual forms of the established temples.15 T.R. Hobbs noted the legal argument that underpins the oracle in Jer 3.1-5, but related the rhetorical form in which it is expressed to the "educational dialogue between teacher and pupil in the schools of instruction."16 He observed that the legal principle underlying Jeremiah’s rhetoric was expressed most fully in Dtr 24.1-4. Following G.A. Smith’s suggestion of a preDeuteronomic background for Dtr 24.1-4, however, Hobbs also supposed Jeremiah had recourse to an earlier legal source on the subject of divorce and remarriage.17 This supposition follows G.A. Smith's suggestion of a pre-Deuteronomic background for this law. Based on its introduction of the ruling with the non-typical particle Nh rather than the usual casuistic particle

yk, Hobbs noted a generic tension between the law's expression in Dtr 24 and its citation in Jer 3. The latter, given the interrogative form that emerges in the course of the oracle, depended on a pedagogical dialogic form where a teacher poses questions and elicits responses in order to establish a common intellectual basis for instruction. In the Hebrew Bible, this form is best attested in wisdom texts such as Job 4.17ff.18 For Jeremiah, then, a sapiential speech form is employed by the prophet to achieve a common attitude toward a situation with legal overtones. From this common basis, a further analogy between the nation and the divorced wife is developed.19

15

Wolff, Amos the Prophet, 85.

16

T.R. Hobbs, "Jeremiah 3, 1-5 and Deuteronomy 24, 1-4" ZAW 86 (1974, 23-29, esp. p. 25.

17

Hobbs, “Jeremiah 3, 1-5,” 24.

18

Hobbs, “Jeremiah 3, 1-5,” 26.

19

Hobbs, “Jeremiah 3, 1-5,” 27.

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In parallel with this type of formgeschichtliche argument, another hypothesis developed relating the interrogative form evident in the monarchic prophets to a stable disputation speech form. Whereas scholars working in the tradition of von Rad and Lindblom had been required to explain the adaptation of a sapiential device to the rhetorical task of the Biblical prophet, this latter group could root the prophetic use of interrogatives in the rather firmer Sitz im Leben of the lived experience of prophets as persuasive speakers in conflict with their contemporaries.20 The two strains of thought came into direct conflict with one another in Burke O. Long's brief essay "The Stylistic Components of Jeremiah 3.1-5."21 Here, Long mounted an explicit challenge to Hobbs's suggestion that the governing form of Jer 3.1-5 was didactic speech of a type common to the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible. Long noted that the initial placement of the particle Nh, which Hobbs considered evidence decisive for the movement of the concepts underlying Jer 3.1-5 out of the domain of casuistic law and into the realm of pedagogy, does not appear in any of the parallel cases cited from Job and Proverbs.22 Further, Long observed that the parallel cases from within the book of Jeremiah that Hobbs adduced have themselves no sapiential overtones, appearing exclusively in the course of accusations. Accordingly, he argued that in all of the Jeremian cases, the function of the rhetorical question was to "lay a rhetorical basis for indictment" and the generic context within which they found expression was accordingly disputation speech.23

20

It is significant, in this regard, that Hermann Gunkel does not list the rhetorical question or the pedagogical dialogue more generally in his catalogue of stylistic influences of Wisdom literature on biblical Prophecy. Herman Gunkel and J. Begrich, Introduction to Psalms: The Genres of the Religious Lyric of Israel. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1998), 299-302. 21

B. O. Long, "The Stylistic Components of Jeremiah 3, 1-5," ZAW 88 (1976): 386-90.

22

Long, “The Stylistic Components,” 386.

23

Long, “The Stylistic Components,” 387.

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With this critique, Long aligned himself with an already extensive discussion attempting to trace an interdependent relationship between rhetorical questions and an argumentative speech form (the Disputationswort or Streitgespräch). Initiated by Gunkel's presentation of disputation speech as a specific discursive form involving the quotation of an opponent's position and the presentation of an explicit refutation,24 it was given more systematic expression in the work of his student, Joachim Begrich. In his 1938 study of Deutero-Isaiah (reprinted in 1963), Begrich considered the rhetorical question a common stylistic element within the genre of disputation speech.25 In contrast to Gunkel, Begrich treated the disputation as driven by the agreement between speaker and audience on fundamental matters, rather than by the conflict between them. In consequence, he gave little attention to his teacher’s suggestion that quotation and refutation were central elements in the disputation genre.26 Unlike Westermann, who had argued for a close relationship between disputation and legal discourse, Begrich considered this similarity irrelevant; the Disputationswort was a widely attested mode of speech whereby a speaker attempted to persuade his interlocutor both by evidentiary and argumentative means.27 Its attestation in Biblical prophecy was a particular adaptation of a general discursive strategy to the end of prophetic persuasion. As such, and in contrast to those who argued for a basis in sapiential speech, Begrich allowed for no essential 24

Herman Gunkel, “Die Propheten als Schriftsteller und Dichter,” in Die grossen Propheten (ed. by H. Schmidt, Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. 1915), xi-lxxii. Consider also the discussion of C. Westermann, Grundformen prophetischer Rede (München: C. Kaiser, 1960), 144-145, who had considered the disputation as closely related to the more general genre of prophetic-legal discourse: Die Gerictsankündigung gegen Israel. 25

Joachim Begrich, Studien zu Deuterojesaja (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1963), 48-53.

26

Adrian Graffy, A Prophet Confronts His People: The Disputation Speech in the Prophets, (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1984), 7. 27

Begrich, Studien, 49

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relationship between the topical content of a given discourse and this Gattung: "Denn über alle möglichen Gegenstände können Meinungsverschiedenheiten entstehen und im Streitgespräche ausgetragen werden." In its appearance in Deutero-Isaiah, a rhetorical question may introduce a disputation, providing either its central topical concern (e.g., Is 40.18) or working to establish consensus between speaker and audience prior to the development of a particular point of contention (e.g., Is 40.12-14, 15-16). In such cases, the specific function of the interrogative is to draw the audience into the discussion and oblige them to provide key elements of the prophet's argument by drawing upon their experience or reason.28 Alternately, Begrich observed that a rhetorical question may round out a disputation, posing a challenge to the audience following the development of an argument and demanding an answer that may resolve the controversy (e.g., Is 45.18-21).29 Accordingly, Begrich proposed a two-part structure to disputation speech involving argumentation and critique in discrete phases.30 Because of its transposable and essentially argumentative structure, the Disputationswort could integrate within itself the language of other genres, such as hymnody or psalms of thanksgiving, without being subordinated to such forms.31 In the years following the Second World War, Hans-Eberhard von Waldow continued this line of inquiry, formalizing the two-stage approach to disputation speech into a single, durable structure. This structure elaborated first a Disputationsbasis that established consensus, followed by a Schlußfolgerung elaborating the contested point, which emerged organically from

28

Begrich, Studien, 49-50.

29

Begrich, Studien, 51.

30

Begrich, Studien, 51-52

31

Begrich, Studien, 52-53.

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that consensus.32 Like Begrich, von Waldow treated the rhetorical question as a common element in the development of the Disputationsbasis. His focus was similarly on the language of Deutero-Isaiah, and von Waldow considered the disputation one of the three main genres attested in this book, along with the Heilsorakel and the Gerichtsrede.33 The life-setting for this speech form was the exilic community and the prophet's need to convince his audience of the veracity of a radically new message of salvation over and against the earlier, unequivocal destruction preached by the pre-Exilic prophets. Thus, on the subject of Sitz im Leben, von Waldow departs from Begrich, who considered the disputation to be a general speech form throughout the prophetic corpus, and indeed throughout the cultural life of the Israelite polity. Adrian Graffy has criticized Begrich and von Waldow for failing to agree upon a common corpus of disputations in Deutero-Isaiah, a fatal discrepancy that demonstrates the subjective element at work in their analyses. To his mind, the two-part structure is so general as to be useless as a heuristic. He asks: "Is there any thing more here than a vaguely definable sequence of thought?"34 Begrich's presentation in particular is criticized because of its lack of a consistent structure. The corpus of material drawn from Deutero-Isaiah is unified not by a common, structured form, but rather a consistent style. In contrast to this, he presents a formal, syntactically based survey of the genre that seeks to divorce questions of content from those relating to literary structure. Like Begrich and von Waldow, Graffy presents a two-part structural schema, but he limits the corpus of disputations to 32

H. E. von Waldow, Anlass und Hintergrund der Verkündigung des Deuterojesaja (Bonn: Rheinischen Friedrich Wilhelms-Universität, 1953), 28-32. 33

H.E. von Waldow, "The Message of Deutero-Isaiah." Interpretation 22 (1968): 259-87. esp. pp. 268-270.

34

Graffy, A Prophet Confronts, 8.

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those cases containing a “quotation of the people’s opinion and [a] refutation which corrects this opinion.” The first member has a distinct structure consisting of an introductory verb from the root √rma preceding the quotation. Such a rigorous formal structure significantly limits the corpus of disputation speeches, leading, for example, to the separation of Jer 31.35-37 and 33.1922 from the genre even though they share significant content with Jer 33.23-26, which is a disputation speech, according to Graffy’s analysis.35 This approach to the disputation is, without doubt, the first truly systematic form critical analysis of the genre presented. Essential in his study is a widening of focus beyond the confines of Deutero-Isaiah.36 Graffy understands the disputation form as taking root in the period that saw the flourishing of Biblical rhetoric in Judah, beginning with the first Isaiah and continuing through Ezekiel. An early attestation of the disputation may be seen in Is 28.14-19, but the full form of the genre is present in texts like Jer 8.8-9 and 31.29-30.37 Given its peripheral relationship to the formal structure, Graffy suggests, the rhetorical question becomes an occasional stylistic device that may be employed in the course of the disputation but is not necessarily linked to the speech form. In introducing a degree of formal rigor into the discussion of the disputation form, its severance from the rhetorical question is a necessary corollary. This focus on quotation as a necessary element of the disputation is also evident in Thomas Overholt's treatment of Jeremiah ch 2.38 Overholt noticed the predominance of quotation within this chapter and linked it with the use of the disputation form. In Jer 2, apparent

35

Graffy, A Prophet Confronts,105-106.

36

Graffy, A Prophet Confronts, 6-7.

37

Graffy, A Prophet Confronts, 23.

38

Thomas Overholt, "Jeremiah 2 and the Problem of "Audience Reaction," CBQ 41 (1979): 262-273.

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quotation of the words of the prophet's interlocutors is often tendentious and developed in an attempt to serve a particular rhetorical purpose. Following Long, Overholt understood these questions as laying the rhetorical basis for an indictment. In the course of such quotation, Jeremiah had frequent recourse to interrogatives, chiefly multiple question formulae of the …Ma…h type.39 In formal terms, he concludes that “[t]he possibility strongly suggests itself that the quotations were created or adapted by Jeremiah to fit his own polemical purpose" and that the rhetorical question was an "important tool" employed by the prophet in the course of developing such a polemic.40 More recently, a study of the Book of Amos by Karl Möller has returned to a consideration of the disputation genre, but with an important difference from earlier form critical work on the subject.41 Möller's study reflects the impact of developments in redaction critical study of Biblical Books. He attempts to rehabilitate the category of the disputation, but sees it as operative at the level of the redacted text rather than at a speculative moment of original performance. Adapting Gitay's detailed discussion of the rhetorical function of the questions in Am 3.3-6,42 Möller sees here a device that forces the audience to take "an active role in the persuasion process."43 The present form of this text, like others in Amos, presupposes a situation of debate between prophet and audience. But based on evidence such as the sequential presentation of the visions in Am 7 and 8—a series interrupted by the narrative of the dispute 39

Overholt, “Jeremiah 2,” 266-267.

40

Overholt, “Jeremiah 2,” 270.

41

K. Möller, ""Hear This Word against You": A Fresh Look at the Arrangement and the Rhetorical Strategy of the Book of Amos." VT 50 (2000): 499-518. 42

Yehoshua Gitay, "A Study of Amos's Art of Speech: A Rhetorical Analysis of Amos 3:1-15." CBQ 42 (1980): 293-309, esp. p. 300. 43

Möller, “Hear This Word,” 504. Such a process is described in detail by Shalom Paul in his commentary on Amos: Amos: A Commentary on the Book of Amos, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 105.

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with Amaziah—Möller despairs of finding a clear reflection in text of the prophet's performance.44 These debates are not conveyed as an act of temporally localized, practical disputation, even though such moments (now lost to our view) may have inspired the present text. Rather, the text presents a disputation in the mouth of the prophet with the later, reading audience. Thus the rhetorical devices of the text work their persuasive effect on the reader and are not reportage of a past moment of persuasive speech. The overall rhetorical strategy of Amos is the "presentation of the prophet in debate,"45 and such a strategy serves the particular aims of the redactors of the Book of Amos.46 Although he does not carry forward Graffy’s rigorous formal analysis, Möller’s study nevertheless shows the impact of the critique of Begrich and von Waldow: the rhetorical question is seen as an essential element in the development of persuasive rhetoric even as it is seen as occasional in relation to the overall disputation.

It is evident that the development of inquiry into the Disputationswort genre has led to a greater focus on the persuasive capacity of disputation speech. Beginning with Begrich and von Waldow, the rhetorical question was seen as an essential element in the prophet's repertoire of suasive tools. But once this formal inquiry reached a systematic status, the fact that the rhetorical question was not essential to the development of the disputation could not be ignored. As strategies of quotation and representation (whether at the discursive or redactional level) achieved pride of place in formal investigation, the specific technique of rhetorical interrogation took on a more peripheral role.

44

Möller, “Hear This Word,” 515-517.

45

Möller, “Hear This Word,” 510.

46

Möller, “Hear This Word,” 511.

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Such a critical development in the inquiry into the formal status of the rhetorical question is also evident in the criticism that developed within the Wisdom school. Whedbee, for example, attacked Lindblom's survey of stylistic devices and the fact he ascribed them to particular intellective and rhetorical techniques employed in the scribal schoolroom.47 What he says of Lindblom's discussion of similitudes is equally applicable to the topic of rhetorical questions: "The wise men had a definite predilection for all kinds of comparative speech, but to jump from here to the conclusion that figurative language in the prophets shows 'influence from the instruction of the wise' is to oversimplify the highly complex forces at work on the prophets. It would be arbitrary and artificial—not to say foolish—to put a wisdom brand on all comparison speech in the prophets."48 In a manner similar to the critique of the disputation school, Whedbee notes that the wide attestation of a device within a given social framework is not sufficient evidence to consider it an explicit formal element with a necessary relationship to that Sitz im Leben.49 Such claims are easily refuted by citing instances of the use of discursive forms from outside that life-setting. And Whedbee holds that a developmental relationship between one Sitz im Leben (viz., "wisdom") and another ("prophetic speech") can only be established on the basis of shared content.50 Ultimately, the two branches of form critical investigation into the rhetorical question failed to establish any relationship between it and a particular genre and life setting, and a

47

J. William Whedbee, Isaiah and Wisdom (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1971).

48

Whedbee, Isaiah, 24.

49

J. L. Crenshaw ("The Influence of the Wise upon Amos: The 'Doxologies of Amos' and Job 5.9-16 9.510." ZAW 79 [1967]: 42-51) is even more trenchant in his treatment of Wolff's argument for the sapiential origin of the rhetorical question. Again, the subject of wide attestation is crucial to his critique: "...[R]hetorical questions are too commonly used in the Old Testament to ascribe much weight to them." 50

Whedbee, Isaiah, 24-25.

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compromise position emerged. Brueggemann's study of rhetorical questions in Jeremiah is notable for its attempt to bridge the gap between these two approaches.51 His synthetic approach attempted to allow for a particular generic basis for the rhetorical question even as he equivocated regarding the precise identification of that generic setting. He considered Wisdom, covenantal and disputational Sitze im Leben. Brueggemann imagined that the roots of the question form are found in sapiential discourse52 even as he admitted that this form was adapted to new purposes in the Auseinandersetzungen of Jeremiah.53 He considered sympathetically Lindblom's treatment of the wisdom background for rhetorical questions, reckoning that sapiential devices were one among a variety of literary influences on the work of Jeremiah.54 As in the deployment of rhetorical question figures in Amos 3, Brueggemann suggested that Jeremiah was also concerned with tracing causal relationships. But his invocation of this stylistic device served the added purpose of demonstrating the effect of ethical failure on the practical fortune of the nation in the course of disputations. With this, he moved far from a purely form critical approach to the question, even if he was not completely aware of this fact. In his analysis, the link between Gattung and Sitz im Leben is broken. His study is diachronic in a way that classic form critical study never could be; for this reason, Brueggemann stands as a transitional figure in the development of the study of rhetorical questions from their putative generic debts to a concern

51

Brueggemann, "Rhetorical Questions," 358-74.

52

Similar in synthetic intent, yet presenting a directly opposed suggestion regarding the originating point for the genre is Roy Melugin’s suggestion that the rhetorical questions of Is 40.12-17 originate within a genre of disputational speech which was later adapted to the purposes of wisdom thought (Roy F. Melugin, "Deutero-Isaiah and Form Criticism," VT 21 [1971]: 326-337. esp. pp. 332-333). 53

Brueggemann, “Rhetorical Questions,” 358.

54

Brueggemann, “Rhetorical Questions,” 361, fn. 10; 373.

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for their semantic and pragmatic functions in the particular contexts in which they are attested. Thus it is no surprise that we find in this work a closer engagement with the specific literary and rhetorical elements at work in the double and triple question forms than are evident in other form critical studies. In what appears to be characteristic of late formal investigations, Brueggemann begins to consider the …Ma…h figure in terms of its persuasive capacity. It functions to establish consensus on a point of contention and is developed in the course of a covenantal critique. Unlike his contemporaries, however, Brueggemann also considers the so-called triple rhetorical question. He notes that with the inclusion of this third member, the total structure is radically transformed: "The mdw‘ question is also older than Jeremiah and functions consistently to counter an action or call into question a situation or assumption. In most of the uses noted, Jeremiah applies the question to a situation of misery or disaster and establishes the basis of the disaster in disloyalty to Yahweh."55 Despite this turn toward diachronic and developmental consideration of this literary device on its own terms, Brueggemann’s study attempts to link two different generic attestations of a single speech form. It is obliged to explain this form in contentbased, theological terms.

The form critical approaches failed primarily on three accounts, and the citation of these failures will provide us with essential cautions as we move forward. First is the problem of anachronism. Given the essentially synchronic approach of the Gattungsforschung method of analysis, all the Biblical evidence is equally valid for the development of a critical heuristic.

55

Brueggemann, “Rhetorical Questions,” 373-374.

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Thus, it was no stretch for Begrich and von Waldow to treat the comparatively late text of Deutero-Isaiah as a witness into the development of a speech form. Nor was it a problem for a scholar like Hobbs to give pride of place to Job in the reconstruction of the generic basis for Jer 3.1-5. Even Graffy’s more explicitly formal analysis considered a sharply delimited set of examples ranging in time from the first Isaiah through Ezekiel in an essentially synchronic fashion. If we are concerned with describing the rhetorical question in diachronic terms, however, it should be clear that this sort of argumentation is invalid. To be sure, Job and Deutero-Isaiah are carefully wrought texts that exhibit a compelling rhetorical structure. But to use their analysis as a witness into the character of the poetics of pre-exilic prophecy is methodologically unsound. Edward Greenstein, for example, has recently discussed in quite convincing terms the dependency of Job on Jeremiah.56Deutero-Isaiah's dependence on Jeremiah has been well documented by both Shalom Paul57 and Benjamin Sommer.58 To use these late texts in an analytical discussion of Jeremiah, then, is anachronistically to impose upon an early text a set of rhetorical and structural categories that were themselves the product of and reaction to this earlier text. This opens up such an analysis to the charge of circularity. Of no less importance is the problem of multiple attestation of the formal device in a variety of genres, which we have discussed above. If there is no single genre from which the rhetorical question has emerged, then its attestations are not bound to a single life setting, nor are 56

Edward L. Greenstein, "Jeremiah as an Inspiration to the Poet of Job," in Inspired Speech: Prophecy in the Ancient Near East.; Essays in Honour of Herbert B. Huffmon. ed. J. Kaltner and L. Stuhlman (New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 98-110. 57

Shalom Paul, "Literary and Ideological Echoes of Jeremiah in Deutero-Isaiah," in Proceedings of the Fifth World Congress of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1969), 109-121. 58

B.D. Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40-66 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998).

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its developments tied to a single point of origin.59 In such a situation, the device must be conceptualized as a free rhetorical element whose expression in multiple generic contexts is apparent from the Biblical evidence. As Graffy noted, the inability to establish a single and durable generic basis for a particular literary figure is a fatal shortcoming for a form critical study. Finally, form critical study has failed to provide a satisfying definition of the rhetorical question itself. Of course later studies such as Brueggemann’s did attempt to advance a specific typological discussion based on stable phrase patterns, but the interpretation of these patterns depended on an engagement with questions of content rather than an explicitly formal discussion. Form critics like Graffy, who were concerned with describing literary structure in explicit terms, necessarily turned their attention from the rhetorical question to discourse patterns that more easily permitted structural analysis. So the form critical school has led us to an impasse wherein it is possible to discuss the rhetorical question only if one considers the content of a given utterance; when content is set aside in favor of formal description, the rhetorical question necessarily slips out of view. This analytical conundrum derives in large measure from the nature of the rhetorical question itself. Differentiation between a rhetorical question and a normal interrogative act necessarily depends on attentiveness to immediate semantic context. The persuasive character of the rhetorical question is a consensus position. As early as Begrich’s 1939 study, the disputation school had attended to the rhetorical question’s immediate function to establish consensus between speaker and audience. But the way this consensus-building operates depends 59

J. Kenneth Kuntz, "The Form, Location, and Function of Rhetorical Questions in Deutero-Isaiah," Writing and Reading the Scroll of Isaiah: Studies of an Interpretive Tradition, ed. C. G. Broyles and C. A. Evans (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 125.

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necessarily on a consideration of the total discursive situation within which the rhetorical question is placed. Without an explicit definition of what constitutes a rhetorical question and a model allowing us to comprehend the contextual cues that help mark an interrogative as a rhetorical question without lapsing into theological or ideological discussion, we are unable to describe rhetorical questions in explicitly structural terms. Thus, to overcome this impasse in the formal consideration of rhetorical questions, we need to develop a method that integrates both morpho-syntactic and pragmatic analysis. It is for this reason that post-form critical investigations have increasingly turned to the tools of Speech Act theory in an attempt to relate the rhetorical question to an overarching theory of language.

From the failure of the form critical school to provide a satisfying analysis of rhetorical questions, we find two other modes of investigation emerging. The first, diachronic in its own way, attempts to understand the development of the rhetorical question in terms of the poetic apparatus evident in Northwest Semitic poetry, from the time of the Ugaritic epic through to the late Judean monarchy. Beginning with the studies of H.L. Ginsberg and Moshe Held, such an approach culminated in the elaborate typological treatment of rhetorical questions developed by Yitzhak Avishur. Independent of this analytical tradition, scholars working in the rhetorical critical tradition (such as Yehoshua Gitay and Johannes de Regt) have attempted to introduce a further degree of rigor into their treatment of the rhetorical question in descriptive and pragmatic terms. It will be necessary to survey briefly these latter two approaches before we can give an extended analysis of the particular rhetorical question figures, which is the focus here.

The Comparative Semitic Approach to Rhetorical Questions 174

In a 1971 essay in the journal Bet Mikra, Yitzhak Avishur developed a very different sort of form critical approach toward the triple …owdm…Ma…h question attested in the Book of Jeremiah.60 Building on the work of W. Baumgartner,61 he proposed to ground this speech form in the genre of communal lament (Mo tnyq). While this method is notable for its fresh approach to the form critical impasse outlined above, it should be situated in a discussion of the comparative Semitic approach to rhetorical questions because of Avishur’s later research, which took another direction. In an article subsequent this formal analysis, Avishur developed an extensive, comparative survey of rhetorical question formulae in Biblical Hebrew and Ugaritic literature and in the process addressed an argument developed by H.L Ginsberg and his student Moshe Held. Eschewing a broad engagement with interrogative structures generally, Avishur first limited his attention to the Book of Jeremiah’s eight instances of multiple questions in the form …owdm…Ma…h. In contrast to other form critical interpreters, Avishur sought not only to situate this speech pattern in a particular generic context and reconstruct its original relationship to a particular life-setting, but he also described the internal, structured semantic character of the device. In his discussion, the triple question was treated as an adaptation of an earlier, more succinct double question form in which the first member was introduced by the interrogative particle h and the second by the particle Ma. With the addition of a third member, introduced by the rhetorical particle owdm, the total character of the formulation was transformed into a complex discursive structure with the first two members subordinated to the third. The double question 60

Yitzhak Avishur, "HaDegem Ha...'im...Madu'a... beSefer Yirmiyahu." Beth Mikra 45 (1971): 152-170.

61

Walter Baumgartner, Die Klagegedichte des Jeremia (Giessen: A. Töpelmann, 1916). See also Avishur, "HaDegem Ha...'im…Madu'a,” 154, fn. 7.

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thereby constituted a "reasoning" portion (hqmnh twlav) in which a particular position was advocated through the device of rhetorical interrogation, and the third question comprises a "reasoned" portion (qmwnmh qlhh) building upon the position developed in the first section.62 In Avishur's understanding, this group of questions was bound together by this common argumentative structure as well as by its content and Sitz im Leben. His discussion of Jer 14.19, for example, treated this as a verse comprised of an introductory triple question augmented (based on terminological and formal considerations) with a free proverbial statement also attested in Jer 8.15.63 The whole complex served as an introduction for a communal lament, which ran from v 19 through v 22. This literary unit is bound together by its consistent verbal expression in the first person plural and by its paratactic survey of the four main motifs of the communal lamentation: "vs 19: The protestation against the disastrous situation. vs 20: The confession -- the admission of sin. vs 21: 'The arguments for the intervention' of God. vs 22: The praise of God..."64 Likewise, the unit is bound by a repeated structural element: the introduction in v 19 is built around the aforementioned, triple question pattern, while the closing statement employs a different triple question structure in the pattern …alh…Ma…h. Despite this tightly integrated structure, Avishur maintained that it was possible to perceive an internal tension between the elements of the text unit on the basis of content. The final verse specifies that an appeal for rain (Mybbr//Mymvg) is the proximate motivation for the

62

Avishur, " HaDegem Ha...'im…Madu'a,” 153.

63

Avishur, " HaDegem Ha...'im…Madu'a,” 154.

64

Avishur, " HaDegem Ha...'im…Madu'a,” 154.

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lamentation, a topical focus likewise specified in the heading for chapter 14 (twrcbh yrbd_lo). Yet the specific topical matter of 14.19-21 says nothing of a drought, specifying rather, some general references to disasters (i.e., being stricken [hakh] and terror [htob]). On this basis, he advocated separating v 19 from its immediate literary context, judging it as a "folk-literary deposit" (ymmo ytwrps oqvm) that stems from a popular repertoire of utterances appropriate for moments of collective disaster. This independent device was, in his estimation, brought by Jeremiah and placed at the heading of a composed communal lament, which served to introduce the direct divine discourse of 15.1-4.65 The life-setting for this sort of communal lamentation in times of distress is alluded to in Jer 9.16-20, when God summons the mourning women (twnnqm) and wise women (twmkj) and commands them to utter a lamentation and to teach it to their daughters and their neighbors (v 19). Such a popular tradition of lamentation, Avishur contended, was known to Jeremiah and provided him with the raw materials for his prophecies. As such, they have dual Sitze im Leben, originating first in a genre of popular, quasi-liturgical speech and finding a later expression in the complex rhetorical compositions of the prophet from Anathoth.66 Thus, Avishur maintained that in nearly every instance of the triple, …owdm…Ma…h question in the Book of Jeremiah, it is possible to perceive the prophet's words as stemming from an earlier, popular discursive structure. Further, his particular literary mode in the verses in question may be taken as quotation and his general motivation as self-identification with the collective suffering. This despite the fact that communal address is not as clearly marked in the other instances of this pattern's expression in the Book of Jeremiah (e.g., Jer 8.4-5, which has a 65

Avishur, " HaDegem Ha...'im…Madu'a,” 155.

66

Avishur, " HaDegem Ha...'im…Madu'a,” 169-170.

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difficult, double reading for the subject of v 5a; Avishur is only able to demonstrate the speaker as the collective only with great difficulty67). Central to Avishur's argument that this speech form precedes the days of Jeremiah is his reading of Jer 49.1, the introductory verse of the oracles against Ammon. Weighing a variety of suggestions for the historical context for this statement, Avishur determines it likely that the verse originated in the period following the exile of the Trans-Jordanian tribes by Tiglath Pileser III in 732 (see 1Chr 5.26). This event, if Radak is to be believed, was followed by the invasion of that territory by the Ammonites. Despite this hypothetical moment of origin for the statement, Avishur maintains its essential transposability and allows that it was delivered again in the time of Isaiah.68 In any case, the verse's origin in the time of Jeremiah and its original delivery by the prophet is emphatically denied. Even where an early date for a popular Mo tnyq cannot be supported, Avishur nevertheless separates the triple question from the original work of Jeremiah. The verse relating to the exile of Jehoiakin in 597 BCE (Jer 22.28), for example, is evidently from the time of Jeremiah but nevertheless judged as independent of the prophet on the basis of content. It is unreasonable to assume that the same prophet who delivered the oracle of judgment in 22.24-27 could also have delivered the lament of v 28, with its apparently positive assessment of Jehoiakin, especially given his extremely brief time on the throne. Such a lament, Avishur reckons, could only have been delivered by a popular party supportive of the king whose words were later integrated by the prophet into a diatribe against him.69 Where possible, Avishur 67

See the discussion in Avishur, " HaDegem Ha...'im…Madu'a,” 165-169.

68

Avishur, " HaDegem Ha...'im…Madu'a,” 157-158.

69

Avishur, " HaDegem Ha...'im…Madu'a,” 158-160.

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advocates a period prior to Jeremiah for the popular laments, and when forced to admit contemporaneity, he nevertheless advances an argument for the popular origin of the speech form. Although he advocates a different generic context for the triple …owdm…Ma…h question in Jeremiah, there is nevertheless a superficial similarity between Avishur's early form critical argument and that of the Disputationswort School in the way Avishur links the use of this speech pattern with the act of quoting the words of the prophet's adversaries. His corpus is considerably smaller and his structural argument correspondingly stronger, yet he advocates a very similar understanding of the way this speech form found expression in the oracles of Jeremiah. Thus it ought not surprise us to see that his analysis here falls prey to many of the same errors evident in the form critical approach described earlier. Chiefly, we are still left wondering after the status of the triple question formula. Is it a speech form in its own right, a component of a larger speech form, or a free stylistic element? Avishur's presentation would seem to suggest a compromise between the former and the latter suggestions. In its original delivery, it was an integrated and independent expression of the Mo tnyq, while in its Jeremian adaptation, it became a local stylistic device capable of being integrated into larger oracle complexes with a different generic character. Yet it is important to note that the full description of the collective lament that Avishur posits for Jer 14.19-22 extends beyond the triple question itself to encompass the following verses as well; yet this complete thematic structure cannot be maintained for other instances of the supposed quotation of the words of the collective. Thus we are left with structure alone as a basis for the integration of the corpus; in all other citations of the collective lament, we are treated to a truncated version of the supposed Gattung. 179

The strength of Avishur's argument for a popular, pre-Jeremian provenance is dubious. 1Chron 5.26 is too thin a strand upon which to hang an argument for dating Jer 49.1 to 732 BCE; Kimchi's belated interpretation of the political context for the verse from Chronicles is most plausibly motivated by Jer 49.1, making Avishur's argument here a circular one. In any case, there is no mention of an Ammonite invasion of the Trans-Jordanian nahalah in this or any other text. Bruce Routledge has more recently argued convincingly that since Jer 49.3 refers to Heshbon as an Ammonite city while elsewhere it is assigned to Moab, there is evidence that Ammon’s expansion into this region should be dated to the late Iron Age (circa 600 BCE), rather than to the period of Tiglath Pileser III,70 a suggestion supported by the archaeological record.71 Similarly, Avishur's reading of Jer 22.28 assumes too much about the limitations under which our prophet operated; it is not necessary to read the statement here as an emphatic advocacy of the rule of Jehoiakin.72 Regarding the issue of a popular provenance for the triple question, Jer 2.31 is given an extremely cursory treatment. This verse is delivered with a leading, first person singular verb, which makes clear that it is spoken in the divine voice. In the face of this, Avishur is forced into emendations that either damage the structural integrity of the pattern by claiming that the initial h question originates with the prophet while the following members proceed from the collective, or

70

Routledge, Moab in the Iron Age, 46-47.

71

P.M. Michèle Daviau, "Moab's Northern Border: Khirbet al-Mudayna on the Wadi ath-Thamad" Biblical Archaeologist 60 (1997): 222-228; Larry Herr, "Shifts in Setttlement Patterns of Late Bronze and Iron Age Ammon." Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan 4 (1992): 175-178; Larry Herr, "The Ammonites in the Late Iron Age and Persian Period," Ancient Ammon, ed. B. MacDonald and R. Younker (Leiden: Brill, 1999): 219237. 72

Holladay, for one, sees the thematic content of this verse as completely congruent with the negative language of 22.24 (Holladay, Jeremiah 1, 611).

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that transform ytyyh into a second person singular verb.73 The general argument for a folk literary provenance for the figure of speech is weakened substantially by the consideration of this verse. Given the extreme concision of the corpus of examples adduced by Avishur, the fact that this verse betrays content that does not conform to the original Sitz im Leben advocated throughout his article presents a strong challenge to his analysis. This leads to a subsidiary critique: it is troubling that the genre he posits is attested only in the Book of Jeremiah. The strength of structural arguments for genres such as the byr depends, in large measure, on their wide attestation in a variety of texts from different time periods.74 In contrast, it becomes difficult to suppose a secure, pre-Jeremian provenance for the

Mo tnyq when its only examples are drawn from the early, poetic strand of material in the Book of Jeremiah. On structural grounds, lack of concern in tracing a relationship between the …owdm…Ma…h question form and the obviously related double …Ma…h question and the triple figure …yk…Ma…h is also unfortunate. In line with form critical approaches generally, Avishur privileges a narrow and synchronic analytical focus at the expense of treating the structural complexities of the Biblical evidence. Likewise, because he focuses on the hypothesis of Jeremian quotation of a prior speech form, insufficient attention is paid to the immediate literary context within which the multiple questions find expression in the Book of Jeremiah. As we saw in the preceding discussion, claims of rhetoricity for an interrogative act depend a great deal on the subtle contextual cues that differentiate these questions from genuinely information-seeking 73

Avishur, "HaDegem Ha...'im…Madu'a,” 169.

74

See the discussion in Frances I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Micah: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 507-511, and the extensive literature cited there.

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ones. Thus the severance of these questions from their context does substantial damage to the way we understand the compositional complexity of the texts, which are our only attestations of this device. Most fundamentally, the search for a stable Sitz im Leben in the political life of the community proceeds at the expense of our awareness of the pragmatic and persuasive function of the speech form itself.

Some of these problems in Avishur's formal investigation of the triple question were rectified in a follow-up article published in the Festschrift for Zalman Shazar in 1973.75 Here, Avishur broadened his scope considerably, developing a purely typological survey of the variety of multiple question formulae evident in the Biblical literature and tracing their relationship with similar literary devices in the poetic material from Ugarit. With this study, he staked a position within a substantially different methodological approach to the rhetorical question, one using the resources of comparative Semitic philology to argue for stylistic continuity between Canaanite and Biblical poetry. This work proceeded in two discrete phases. The first, beginning with a brief statement concerning multiple questions in H.L. Ginsberg's 1946 edition of the Kirta epic from Ugarit,76 was expanded into a full stylistic analysis by Moshe Held in 1969.77 Ginsberg and Held attempted to establish a canonical pattern for particular question formulae in order that the literary evidence could be critically analyzed, and at times, emended. Avishur's response to this 75

Yitzhak Avishur, "Degamei ha-sha'elah ha-kefulah veha-meshuleshet ba-Mikra uve-Ugaritit lehist'afuyotehem," in Zer Li-gevurot: Kovets Mehkarim ba-Mikra, bi-Yedi'at ha-Arets, be-Lashon uve-Sifrut Talmudit. Mugash le-R. Zalman Shazar, Nesi ha-Medinah, be-Yom Huladeto ha-73. (Yerushalaim: Kiryat Sefer, 1973), 421-464. 76

H. L. Ginsberg, The Legend of King Keret: A Canaanite Epic of the Bronze Age (New Haven, CT: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1946). 77

Moshe Held, "Rhetorical Questions in Ugaritic and Biblical Hebrew," Eretz-Israel 9 (1969): 71-79.

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work comprised a second phase of research, one that challenged the facile attempts at reconstruction that had been advanced by these earlier scholars. At the same time, he demonstrated the essential variety of question formulae evident within the Northwest Semitic poetic tradition.

In his edition of the Kirta epic published in 1946 as The Legend of King Keret, H.L. Ginsberg proposed a novel approach to the multiple rhetorical question structure in Biblical Hebrew. In a discussion of KTU 1.14 I 38-43, he posited a structural similarity between the sequence of questions in this text, others elsewhere in the corpus of Ugaritic poetic epic, and the multiple …owdm…Ma…h question in the book of Jeremiah.78 This text was constructed around a sequence of rhetorical questions that combined to create a complex discourse: ...m’at krt . kybky ydm‘ . n‘mn . ġlm ’il mlk[ .ṯ]r ’bh y’arš hm . drk[t] k’ab . ’adm[ ? ]

..."What ails thee, Keret, that he weeps, that he cries, Naaman the Lad of El? Is it the kingship of the Bull his father that he desires, or authority like the Father of Man...?"79

For this multiple question structure, Ginsberg proposed direct parallels in KTU 1.4 IV 31-34: ik.mġyt.rbt.aṯr[t.y]m ik.atwt.qnyt.i[lm] rġb.rġbt.w tġt[r] hm. ġmu. ġmit.w ‘s[t]

How is it that the Great Lady, ’Atiratu of the Sea, has come? How is it that she has entered (here), the Progenitress of the Gods? Are you really hungry (because) you’ve been wandering? Are you really thirsty (because) [you’ve been] traveling all night?80

78

Ginsberg, The Legend of King Keret, 35.

79

Ginsberg, The Legend of King Keret, 14-15.

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as well as KTU 1.4 II 22-25: ...ik mġy.aliyn.b‘l ik.mġyt.b[t]lt ‘nt.mḫṣy.hm[.m]ḫṣ bny.hm[.mkly. ṣ]brt

How is it that Mighty Ba‘lu has come? How is it that Girl ‘Anatu has come? Have those who would smite me smitten my sons, or (have) [those who would finish me off] (smitten) the host of my kin?81

Ginsberg even proposed including KTU 1.16 I 56-57 within this corpus of multiple questions, even though its fractured state gives no indication of the leading particles that introduce its stichs: [mrṣ.m]rṣ (.)mlk [hm.dw.]krt.'adnk

"Is, [then], the king s[ick], [or] thy sire Keret [ill]?"82

Each of these compositions is distinguished by a double question, where the first member is an unmarked interrogative and the second is introduced by the conditional/interrogative particle hm.83 The first three of Ginsberg's examples exhibit a still further complicated structure, prepositioning an interrogative before the double question structure. Summarizing Ginsberg, Avishur notes the basic pattern here: two questions argue for the premise of a question that

80

Ugaritic text from Manfred Dietrich, et al. The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani and Other Places (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1995) [hereafter CAT]; English translation from D. Pardee in Hallo, W. W. and K. L. Younger, eds. Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World. The Context of Scripture (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 259. 81

Ugaritic text from CAT; English translation from Pardee 1997, p. 257.

82

Ginsberg, The Legend of King Keret, 27; Held, “Rhetorical Questions,” 72.

83

Gregorio del Olmo Lete and J. Sanmartín A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition, vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 341.

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precedes them.84 The second and third of the above examples are a still further subset where the pre-positioned question is introduced with the interrogative particle ik.85 In his presentation of these related questions, Ginsberg proposed a Canaanite parallel to Jeremiah’s multiple …owdm…Ma…h question. On etymological grounds, the particle in the second member of the double question in Ugaritic, hm, is equivalent to the Hebrew particle Ma. And, as Ugaritic lacks a dedicated interrogative morpheme corresponding to BH h, the first member is preceded by a zero-element whose presence is signified only through intonation in the act of utterance. Finally, the ik member is, to Ginsberg's mind, equivalent to the BH owdm.86 The triple question in Ugaritic placed the "why" question at the head of the sequence, while in the Book of Jeremiah it follows the double question. But beyond this, the two patterns were, for Ginsberg, identical. On such a basis, he even advocated emendation of Jer 30.6 in order to match the proposed speech pattern. Moshe Held later expanded Ginsberg's brief suggestion in his article “Rhetorical Questions in Ugaritic and Biblical Hebrew.” Held was explicit in his historical contextualization of the phenomenon: Canaanite poets had developed a literary technique attested at Ugarit later adopted by Israelite authors.87 He made explicit what was implied in Ginsberg's summary, drawing a distinction between the attestations of a double question pattern and a triple question pattern. To Ginsberg's examples, he also added KTU 1.4 IV 59-62:

84

Avishur, “Degamei,” 452.

85

del Olmo Lete and Sanmartín, Dictionary, 42-43.

86

But consider the closer etymological relationship between Ug ik and BH Kya See L. Koehler, et al. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 39 (hereafter: K-B); the latter particle appears once in a multiple rhetorical question structure, in Ob 5. 87

Held, “Rhetorical Questions,” 71.

185

p‘bd an ‘nn aṯrt ... hm amt aṯrt tlbn lbnt

Am I a slave that I should attend Asherah ... or is Asherah a handmaid that she should make bricks?88

In expanding Ginsberg's argument, Held adduced a wide variety of examples for the double question pattern from the Biblical corpus, including Gen 37.8; Is 10.15; Jer 3.5 and Job 4.17. Following Ginsberg's treatment of the supposed triple question in Jer 30.6, he also proposed to emend BH texts such as Num 13.18-2089 and Job 6.1290 based on the double question pattern. Held likewise expanded the corpus of triple questions discussed by Ginsberg to include Is 50.2, where the "canonical" Ugaritic pattern is replicated exactly.91 He likewise elaborated upon Ginsberg's brief treatment of the Jeremiah material by discussing Jer 2.14, 8.22 and 22.28 in some detail. He also clarified Ginsberg's proposed emendation for Jer 30.6 based on the triple question pattern and proposed adding to it an emendation of Job 21.4.92 Most importantly, he expanded Ginsberg's discussion by also attending to the related, triple interrogative …yk…Ma…h

88

Avishur, “Degamai,” 448, criticizes Held's treatment of this text, noting that he subordinates a more complex question pattern to the standard …Ma…h structure by omitting one, intervening clause and advancing a dubious interpretation of another. Against Held's emendation, he proposed to group this passage in a category of multiple questions exhibiting a …Maw…Ma…h pattern, to which the questions in 2Sam 24.13 also belong. 89

Avishur, “Degamai,” 436 argues against emendation here, based on the wide biblical attestation of the

…h…h structure as a coordinator for question sequences (e.g., Gen 43.7, whose parallel in Gen 44.19 has a …wa…h structure; and Ruth 1.13). In contrast to the double question pattern under discussion, Avishur holds that the semantic function here is the emphasis of two alternative choices rather than rhetorical subordination. Such a pattern is also evident in poetic texts such as Ezek 38.13. 90

Avishur, “Degamei,” 434-435, argues against emendation here as well, based on evidence from Aqhat A.1, Ob 5 and Lam 2.20, all of which show coordination of interrogatives through the sequential use of hm/Ma. 91

Held, “Rhetorical Questions,” 75; Avishur has expanded this identification, noting also instances of triple questions which are introduced by a hml question (Avishur, “Degamai,” 451). He argues that these two particles are merely dialectical variants of the same function, one which is continuous with the Ugaritic term Avishur, “Degamei,” 455-456, fn. 104. 92

But see the alternative reconstruction and critique presented by Avishur, “Degamai,” 454, fn. 102.

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pattern, arguing that this sequence, attested in Num 11.12, Jer 31.20, Job 7.12 et al., was a variant in form of the standard …owdm…Ma…h question, identical to it in meaning. Despite the novelty of the Ginsberg and Held approach and its value in situating a Biblical stylistic artifact in a broader cross-cultural poetic matrix, there remain significant problems with their treatment of the Biblical and Ugaritic material. Many of these stem from the dubious integrity of the original question pattern in Ugaritic. For instance, Ginsberg's inaugural example, KTU 1.14 I 38-43, is not actually a triple question of the pattern he suggests. Held was obliged to class it as a double question, given that the opening statements are not ik interrogatives, but employ a different interrogative idiom, m at: "what's the matter (with you)?"93 KTU 1.4 IV 31-34 likewise does not conform exactly to the pattern proposed, as it has parallel ik questions preceding the double question. Indeed, Avishur94 goes so far as to suggest that the standard form in Ugaritic is actually a double reasoned question preceding the 0-/hm//h/Ma questions, as opposed to the pattern in BH, which contains a single reasoned question. Additionally, we should note that KTU 1.4 IV 38 contains yet another hm morpheme that seems to pick up and extend the question pattern after a digression in ll 35-37. Similarly, KTU 1.4 II 22-25 does not follow the pattern, with a structure comprised of two parallel ik questions followed by two parallel hm questions. Even the pattern reconstructed by Ginsberg and Held in KTU 1.16 I 56-57 is dubious since it has no preceding reasoned question, and Driver/Gibson

93

del Olmo Lete and Sanmartin, Dictionary, 534.

94

Avishur, “Degamei,” 454.

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propose a quite different set of introductory morphemes that do not conform to the pattern under discussion.95 Apart from these difficulties in Ginsberg's treatment of the Ugaritic material, there are problems in his argument for continuity between the Ugaritic and Biblical examples. Even if we were to allow that a pattern that precisely paralleled the Biblical one exists in the fashion that Ginsberg suggests, it remains evident that this pattern does not provide us with direct structural congruence between the Ugaritic and Biblical material. As Ginsberg himself acknowledged, the ik member precedes rather than follows the double question, meaning that from a rhetorical perspective, the total argumentative function of the two formulae are different. Further, Avishur96 cites instances of a …Ma…-0 pattern in Biblical Hebrew, which demonstrates that it is not necessary, in every case, to argue that the Ugaritic 0-element must be equated with the Biblical Hebrew interrogative h. In the case of Is 50.2, the sole Biblical attestation of a pattern arguably congruent with the stylistic pattern hypothesized by Held and Ginsberg, we ought to be struck by its relative lateness in relation to the overall Biblical corpus. In light of the extraordinary variety of interrogative formulae that predominate in Deutero-Isaiah,97 it seems more plausible to suggest that the question pattern in this text is a free innovation by an author who favored both rhetorical questions and variety in their manner of expression, rather than hypothesize literary influence in one single location over such a tremendous span of time. More fundamental still is the observation that many of Ginsberg's "rhetorical questions" are not rhetorical at all, but in fact seem genuinely information seeking. This is not merely a 95

J.C.L. Gibson and G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1977), 96. Note that Avishur does accept the Ginsberg/Held reconstruction, however (Avishur, “Degamei,” 432). 96

Avishur, “Degamei,” 432-433.

97

Kuntz, "Form, Location and Function," 129.

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matter of terminology; as the earlier discussion of the form critical treatment of question formulae demonstrated, how we reconstruct a rhetorical question has tremendous implications for our understanding of both its internal semantic character and its relationship to its immediate literary context. KTU 1.14 I 38-43, for example, seems a genuine request for information expressed in a particularly idiomatic form.98 Within the frame of the narrative, 'Ilu is enquiring of Kirta the reason for his grief. Although there may be an element of hyperbole in his question in ll 41-43, the overall mode of the question as a genuine request for information is made evident by the response of Kirta to the request in II 4-5, which employs parallel verbs in the first person of the roots √qny and √m'd (D-stem).99 These verbs are, on the basis of semantics and of overall narrative thematics, evidently the response to a sincere request for information, which is articulated in ll 38-43 without regard for their position in a poetic context.100 Likewise, Held's treatment of Num 13.19-20101 as an instance of a double rhetorical question is ill-conceived; v 23 makes clear that the request was also genuinely information-seeking. Held's more elaborate developmental argument should also be considered carefully. He proposed to treat a …yk…Ma…h triple question as a secondary development from the 98

This failure to establish a satisfying definition of a rhetorical question, which differentiates it from information-seeking questions is also evident in Avishur's revision of the Ginsberg and Held approach. In his 1973 essay, he provides a simple, generic criterion: rhetorical questions tend to appear in poetry while informationseeking questions appear in prose (Avishur, “Degamei,” 422; see the discussion below). Even a cursory survey of the Biblical material demonstrates the limitations of this criterion, however. The Joseph story, unarguably prose narrative, can nevertheless provide an instance of a rhetorical question in Gen 37.8. And the questions of Elihu in Job 32-33 can provide instances of genuine information-seeking interrogation in verses such as 33.13 despite their expression in poetry. Indeed, as will become clear in our discussion of the triple question in Jeremiah, it is precisely the ability to switch from a rhetorical question to a genuine interrogative that is the core of the Jeremian novum. In the main, then, there is nothing in the nature of poetry itself that demands only rhetorical questions and that forbids information-seeking ones, no matter how common the former may be in the corpus. 99

del Olmo Lete and Sanmartin, Dictionary, 511.

100

More obvious cases of rhetorical questions are attested in the Kirta epic, for example KTU 1.16 I 3-9, 17-23, et passim. Lacking the explicit morphological marking of the cases discussed by Ginsberg and Held, however, these clearly rhetorical questions do not find a place in their discussions. 101

Held, “Rhetorical Questions,” 73.

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…owdm…Ma…h pattern.102 Such a suggestion defies a diachronic reading of the Biblical evidence given that the former pattern is attested in pre-Jeremian texts such as Amos 6.12, while the latter pattern is found only in the Jeremian A-source. Held's argument hinged on the claim that owdm and yk were functionally identical morphemes in this context, a point Avishur argued against strongly. To have made this argument convincing, it would be necessary to demonstrate that these morphemes are mutually interchangeable without any transformation in the semantic character of a text. In discussing Jer 8.22, however, Avishur shows convincingly that these two particles cannot be exchanged in this fashion. Further, he notes103 an important difference in nuance between these terms in their use in multiple question formulae. owdm seems to convey, in his understanding, a "spontaneous outcry of collective emotional pain [bak tqoz tynfnwps hjfh

tymmo tyvgr]" (see his earlier article on the Mo tnyq and the multiple question),104 while yk in its present context has the quality of marking a logical inference that proceeds from preliminary argumentation. This terminological distinction is an important one, since it is formulated in semantic and even performative terms and sits at the point of differentiation between a demonstrably pre-Jeremian stylistic phenomenon and one evidently the product of Jeremiah's own poetic consciousness. Accordingly, we will need to develop this further in the discussion that follows. More generally, the Ginsberg/Held strategy of emendation of texts—both Ugaritic and Biblical—based on these hypothetical multiple question patterns has been roundly criticized by

102

Held, “Rhetorical Questions,” 79.

103

Avishur, “Degamei,” 456-457.

A contention similar to Driver’s observation that the Jeremian …owdm…Ma…h pattern is “expressive of mingled pathos and surprise.” (Driver, Introduction to Old Testament, 275). 104

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Avishur. Indeed, it is possible to read the latter’s entire 1973 article as an attempt to complicate the variety of multiple question formulae attested in the Hebrew Bible so as to thwart the sorts of facile emendation and reconstruction advocated by those earlier scholars. Even if a pattern of the sort hypothesized by Ginsberg and Held does exist, this provides no secure basis for emendation of texts that do not fit the pattern given the presence of variants and developments in such literary patterns evident in the Hebrew Bible.105 In contrast to this approach, Avishur adopts a model suggesting (as Held had done) that there is a continuous literary tradition that runs from the Canaanite poetic texts through the Biblical literature.106 In his understanding, however, this relationship is developmental and diachronic, and it is as important to emphasize the particularities of the two corpora as it is to note their parallels.107 Accordingly, in his subsequent essay, Avishur developed an elaborate survey of the range of multiple question figures, both information seeking and rhetorical, attested in the Hebrew Bible and the Ugaritic poetic literature. The compilation of this survey speaks powerfully to the diversity of multiple interrogative constructions evident in Northwest Semitic poetry and demonstrates the difficulties inherent in any effort to establish a single, basic pattern from this literature. As stated previously, his essential effort was to combat the attempts of Ginsberg and Held to emend texts on the basis of proposed canonical speech forms.108 Central to this reconsideration of the evidence was his observation that it is possible to express a question in

105

Yitzhak Avishur, Studies in Hebrew and Ugaritic Psalms (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1994), 54.

106

Avishur, Studies in Hebrew, 34.

107

Avishur, Studies in Hebrew, 35-36.

108

Avishur, “Degamei,” 432-433, 435, 436, 438-439, 439-440 [N.B.: Avishur allows the possibility for corruption here], et al.

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Biblical Hebrew on the basis of intonation alone; one need not argue, in every case, that the Ugaritic 0-element is necessarily equivalent to the interrogative h prefix in Biblical Hebrew. In the course of his survey, Avishur adopted a three-phase, developmental process for the double question form109 followed by a subsequent stage of development for a complex triple question type. Phase one involves the presentation of parallel, unmarked questions110 as attested in 1Sam 22.7 and Is 14.10. He suggests that more instances of this pattern may have existed at an early stage in the development of Biblical Hebrew poetry, but that these unmarked questions were later normalized to the h interrogative form during the redaction process. Secondarily, scribes developed a pattern where a dedicated particle was used to mark a question in the second stich of a double question,111 as in, for example, Job 39.13. At a final stage, both members of a double question were marked by the use of an interrogative particle.112 In BH, these are primarily evident in questions that use the form …Ma…Ma (e.g., Lam 2.20) and …h…h (e.g., Ps 30.10). As was the case in the Ginsberg and Held analysis, this approach to the material is still marred by anachronism. The argument for stylistic development proceeds based on a synchronic engagement with the literary evidence by virtue of which the Ugaritic material of the Late Bronze Age is assessed in parallel with the relatively late texts of Deutero-Isaiah and Job. Despite this, Avishur succeeds admirably in detailing the diversity of interrogative figures evident in the literature and suggests (at least in nuce) a diachronic method of approach to this material.

109

Avishur, “Degamei,” 438.

110

Avishur, “Degamei,” 427ff.

111

Avishur, “Degamei,” 432ff.

112

Avishur, “Degamei,” 434ff.

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A fourth stage in the development process is the innovation of a new type of multiple question where the double question is subordinated to one or more "reasoned" questions, which are marked by a new, climactic or consequential particle.113 This type of reasoned, multiple question differs from instances of a simple expansion of a double question into a figure of three parallel interrogatives.114 The reasoned multiple question in the Hebrew Bible includes instances such as the …owdm…Ma…h pattern in Jer 2.14, et al., the …yk…Ma…h figure attested in Jer 8.22, et al., and the …alh…Ma…h device seen in Ps 85.6-7 and elsewhere. Aside from the aforementioned problem of anachronism, one major shortcoming detracts from Avishur's survey: the typological urge leads him to overlook the larger rhetorical context within which a given multiple question develops. For example, in his treatment of 2Sam 19.36,115 which is grouped in a list of questions exhibiting a …Ma…Ma…h structure, Avishur does not take note that the next stich begins with the interrogative particle hml and is clearly climactic (a tqmwnm hlav, in Avishur's terminology) in relation to the overall structure of the verse. Thus the pattern is actually a more complex …hml…Ma…Ma…h structure, which is likely an elaboration upon the more usual augmented …Ma…h pattern through the development of a parallel Ma clause. This is a problem that recurs throughout the essay and demonstrates that even within a survey as broad and dynamic as Avishur's, the urge toward typology can have a

113

Avishur, “Degamei,” see above p. 176.

114

Avishur, “Degamei,” 447-451.

115

Avishur, “Degamei,” 449.

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corrosive effect on our understanding of the multiple question as a complex rhetorical act embedded within its discursive context.116 Despite this objection, his essential point regarding the new semantic and discursive function of the double question form once a third member is added is a good one.117 Likewise, his argument for the perception of a new semantic function in the Jeremian formula is strong. What remains to be done is to model the rhetorical force of the Jeremian question pattern first as a development from earlier models in the poesis of the Northwest Semites, and second, in relation to other stylistic and poetic impulses within the authentic Jeremian material. That is to say, a satisfying approach building upon the exhaustive survey developed by Avishur will contextualize the …owdm…Ma…h formula not in relation to the variety of question formulae evident in the Biblical and Ugaritic material, but in relation to a comprehensive understanding of Jeremiah's own poetic consciousness and his authorial praxis. Once we move decisively away from the form critical approach and as we advance beyond the broad typology that is the salient contribution of Avishur's exhaustive research, the question of illocution and semantic function for the various attestations of the multiple question pattern come to the fore. Thus, the operation of the multiple interrogative in its immediate context becomes central. It is likewise necessary to specify what constitutes a "rhetorical"

See further, his discussion of Hab 3.8 [Avishur, “Degamei,” pp. 449-50, 458] in which a …Ma…Ma…h structure is followed by a yk clause which is arguably "reasoned" in relation to the earlier members; his treatment of Mic 2.7, in which his initial interrogative h is more plausibly a vocative and the …Ma…h structure is followed by a linked alh (450-51); his analysis of Mic 4.9 (455), in which has a subsequent yk clause which Avishur does not discuss and which is more likely an instance of the common …yk…Ma…h pattern which is preceded by a rhetorically independent question using hml, and which is equated with the Ugaritic material only at some cost to the integrity of the Biblical example; and also his discussion of Jer 14.22, which has a fourth yk member which is likely a part of the overall question structure (458). 116

117

Avishur, “Degamei,” 454-55.

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question per se, and how this phenomenon is related to and differentiated from other sorts of interrogative acts. It is essential, in the course of this advance, to pick up on Avishur's extremely subtle perception of a difference in semantic function between the owdm member and the yk member in triple questions. In our analysis of the Jeremian material, this will lead us to a very different sort of developmental argument, one where the double question is primary and widely attested in Canaanite and pre-Exilic Hebrew poetry and prose, while the triple yk figure is seen as a subsequent development within the ambit of Biblical Hebrew poesis generally. This serves to transform the double question into a complex discursive formation of the sort Avishur has discussed. The Jeremian triple, …owdm…Ma…h question, however, must be judged a tertiary, local adaptation of this more widely attested speech form. In the Jeremian innovation, an aspect of the original, now routinized interrogative force of the whole is recaptured. As we will see, the poetic force of the Jeremian pattern hinges on a violation of the expectations of the prophet's audience in relation to the speech form he employs; a rhetorical question structure functioning as an aporetic, logical discursive formation is transformed into a genuine, information-seeking question, and the force of the prophet's rhetoric depends on the surprise engendered by such a violation.

The Rhetorical Critical Approach to Rhetorical Questions With the collapse of the form critical project, analysis moved in the direction of stylistic and semantic analysis of multiple question formulae. What is explicit in the analysis of Brueggemann and implicit in Avishur’s two studies is a growing awareness that the limitations of formal analysis obliges a renewed attention to the manner of multiple question formulae's 195

construction, their developmental relation, and their specific rhetorical operation within an immediate literary context. In recent years, several new treatments have carried this impulse forward. The rhetorical critical approach of William Holladay’s early work is notable for its careful attention to the immediate literary context within which a multiple question formula appears as well as its manner of rhetorical operation.118 In this, Holladay worked in the tradition of James Muilenberg and developed his influential critique of the Gattungsforschung school.119 In a discussion of the literary integrity of Jer 8.18-23, Holladay counters the claims of scholars such as Paul Volz120 and J. Philip Hyatt121 and divides v 19b on the basis of speaker. Holladay notes that the triple …owdm…Ma…h question is unique to Jeremiah and a "signature" of his style.122 On the basis of the repetition of the phrase ymo_tb, the vocabulary of v 19, and the attestation of a triple question in vv 19 and 22, Holladay advocates for the fundamental unity of the entire text unit. The shift in speaker in 19b cannot, on stylistic grounds, be separated from the triple question, as it comprises the owdm phase of the triple question. In rhetorical terms, Holladay argues that the abrupt shift in speaker is intentional and ironic and of a piece with the third member of other triple question formulae.

118

W.L. Holladay, "The So-called 'Deuteronomic Gloss' in Jer. viii 19b," VT 12 (1962): 494-98.

119

James Muilenberg, "Form Criticism and Beyond," JBL 88 (1969): 1-18. Also working in the tradition of Muilenberg, Jack Lundbom's rhetorical analysis likewise concerns itself with larger structural elements and architectonic issues of specific text units in Jeremiah (Lundbom, Jeremiah: A Study in Ancient Hebrew Rhetoric). In this book, Lundbom gives brief attention to the triple question form (xxxvi-xxxvii). In his more detailed discussion of rhetorical patterning in specific passages from the Book of Jeremiah, however, this brief mention is not carried forward. Both in this book and his three volume Anchor Bible commentary on Jeremiah attend to larger structural phenomena such as inclusio and chiasmus to the detriment of local rhetorical figures such as the triple question. 120

Paul Volz, Der Prophet Jeremia (Tübingen: Mohr, 1930).

121

J.P. Hyatt, Interpreter's Bible.

122

Holladay, "Deuteronomic Gloss," 496; cf. Holladay, "Style, Irony and Authenticity," 48.

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Holladay's treatment demonstrates that the triple question is a unified stylistic device despite apparent thematic discontinuity within the text unit. His perception of an ironic reversal in Jer 8.19 tallies well with Avishur's discussion of the semantic function of the third member of the triple question. In his discussion of Jer 8.19, however, Holladay does not attempt to correlate the ironic reversal in this text with other instances of the triple question formula in Jeremiah. In a fashion similar to the insights of the Disputationswort School, Yehoshua Gitay has presented analyses of rhetorical question figures in the Hebrew Bible that foreground their persuasive intent and their function to establish consensus between speaker and hearer. For example, in a discussion of the oral versus the textual provenance of Deutero-Isaiah, Gitay breaks down this dichotomy by suggesting that artifacts of oral performance (such as rhetorical questions) were regularly encoded in written texts meant to be recited.123 Thus the rhetorical question as we have it is a textual phenomenon, but its original function was to force a hearing audience to take an active role in the persuasion process. In a more extensive discussion of Am 3.1-15, Gitay expanded his analysis of rhetorical question figures.124 Within the overall text unit, rhetorical questions appear in the course of a specific conviction stage. The author has drawn examples from common experience and adapted them into a series of analogies that function to demonstrate the central contention that a causal relationship exists between national sin and collective disaster. Gitay's discussion should be seen as developing insights that emerged within the wisdom and Disputationswort schools since he lays emphasis on the relationship between author and audience engendered in the rhetorical question, as well as its specific suasive function and dependence upon analogical reasoning and common life experience. Unlike these form 123

Yehoshua Gitay, "Deutero-Isaiah: Oral or Written?" JBL 99 (1980): 185-197.

124

Gitay, "A Study of Amos," 293-309.

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critical impulses, however, Gitay does not draw explicit links between a particular discourse unit and an overarching Gattung, nor does he ground his discussion of function in a hypothetical life setting. Rather, stylistic devices within a textual unit are correlated with the overall rhetorical intent and thematic orientation of that unit. J. Kenneth Kuntz has developed an essentially holistic reading of Is 40.12-31, which presents the rhetorical questions in that text from a pragmatic standpoint.125 Answering a persisting need within the scholarship, Kuntz presents a definition of rhetorical questions that differentiates them from genuinely information-seeking questions. In his view, rhetorical questions function as a persuasive device involving the hearer in the process of affirming some specific point, often functioning as an emphatic, negative assertion. Questions of this sort predominate in Amos, Jeremiah, Deutero-Isaiah and Job. In Deutero-Isaiah, they are found primarily toward the beginning of the text, an observation that Kuntz relates to the overall thematic development of the text: early in the text, specific arguments regarding the incomparability of the divine are presented, which are then taken as established later in the text. Thus the distribution pattern of the rhetorical question in Dtr-Is may be correlated with two different phases in the text’s argumentation. Rhetorical questions are frequent early on when persuasion is the key rhetorical concern; they become less frequent as the text moves away from persuasion and toward assertion and consolation. Kuntz's discussion encompasses a range of rhetorical question figures, including the double question form as described by Moshe Held.

125

Kuntz, "Form, Location, and Function," 121-141.

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In a series of essays on rhetorical questions in the Book of Job, Lénart de Regt has discussed their structuring impact on textual units.126 Like Kuntz, he also attempts to define the rhetorical question in a fashion that distinguishes it from information-seeking interrogatives. Apparently drawing upon the Gricean concept of conversational implicature, he describes the rhetorical question as a speech act having the form of a question and the function of an assertion.127 An adequate explanation of the phenomenon must, to his mind, encompass both this formal quality and the functional character of the utterance. In the latest of his articles, he adds the perception that a rhetorical question, through its presentation of knowledge held in common by speaker and hearer, may also encode a sort of logical argumentation by suggesting a distinct progression of thought. For de Regt, this aspect of rhetorical questions leads to their effectiveness as a persuasive device. In the course of identifying a question as rhetorical, the audience is led to provide elements of information that constitute the elements of a particular persuasive argument. Similarly, Eliezra Herzog has identified a logical progressive element at work in multiple rhetorical question figures, treating them as complex argumentative structures.128 Her broad survey of what she terms “The Triple Rhetorical Argument” attempts to reconstruct the logical progression of thought between the component members of the figure of speech. She recognizes 126

L.J. de Regt, "Implications of Rhetorical Questions in Strophes in Job 11 and 15," in Book of Job, ed. W.A.M. Beuken (Leuven: Leuven University Press: 1994): 321-28, Also L.J. d. Regt, "Functions and Implications of Rhetorical Questions in the Book of Job," Biblical Hebrew and Discourse Linguistics, ed. R. D. Bergen (Dallas, TX: Winona Lake, IN: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1994), Distributed by Eisenbrauns. L.J. d Regt, "Discourse Implications of Rhetorical Questions in Job, Deuteronomy and the Minor Prophets," in Literary Structure and Rhetorical Strategies in the Hebrew Bible, ed. L.R. de Regt, et al. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1996): 51-78. 127

de Regt, “Discourse Implications,” 52.

128

Eliezra Herzog, “The Triple Rhetorical Argument in the Latter Prophets” (Ph.D. diss., The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1991). See also Edward L. Greenstein, "Some Developments in the Study of Language and Some Implications for Interpreting Ancient Texts and Cultures." Israel Oriental Studies 20: Semitic Linguistics: The State of the Art at the Turn of the 21st Century (2002): 441-479.

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the general structure of the figure of speech as outlined by Avishur, in which there is a transition from a doubled polar question to a third member containing a wh-question.129 The majority of these figures she associates with logical syllogisms in which the component members present propositional statements, which are then related to one another to construct an argument of one sort or another.130 Her survey organizes these according to their topical focus. One subgroup of the triple rhetorical arguments she coordinates is concerned with animal behavioral norms and develops a logical structure that is not syllogistic, but qal vehomer (a fortiori).131 As in the work of de Regt, Herzog considers it possible to re-express the underlying conceptual gestures at work in rhetorical questions in an abstract fashion that permits the logical progression at work in them to come into view. However, her survey does not consider these figures of speech in relation to their persuasive, argumentative function. Rather, she treats them as logical statements without reference to a concrete Sitz im Leben. All of these post-form critical discussions of rhetorical question patterns are characterized by an increasing awareness of the contextually situated aspect of the speech figure. Many of them depend on a discussion of the intellective operations at work in a rhetorical question, and in a genuinely laudable gesture, attempt to advance a provisional definition of the phenomenon. None of them refer to the groundbreaking typological work of Yitshak Avishur, however. The impact of his essay in the Zalman Shazar Festschrift on the English-speaking academy has been limited primarily because the article is written in Hebrew.

129

Herzog, “The Triple Rhetorical,” 9-10.

130

Herzog, “The Triple Rhetorical,” 33-40.

131

Herzog, “The Triple Rhetorical,” 40-43.

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One notable exception is the work of Shalom Paul on the rhetorical question figures in Am 3.132 Paul allows that the discourse in Am 3.3-8 may have had its origins in Wisdom discourse, but as is characteristic of Amos, the speech figure is adapted to a new end. Here, rhetorical questions function to establish a persuasive discourse on the nature of causality and the divine origin of prophetic speech. The overall patterning of the question is a 7/8 numerical sequence with climactic force, attested also in Am 1-2. The double question of Am 3.6 is internally unified, Paul maintains. The Ma clause is not an intensifying particle, but a dependent particle governed by the interrogatives preceding it. The triple …yk…Ma…h pattern in Am 3.7 (and in Am 6.12) "introduces the logical conclusion of the two preceding …Ma…h questions," an analytical conclusion that is evidently dependent upon Avishur's description of the triple, arguing question. Looking at these treatments of the rhetorical questions as a group, it is clear that they seek to address some of the shortcomings that plagued the form critical treatment of the topic. Although none of them present us with a genuinely comprehensive theoretical or morphosyntactic discussion of the rhetorical question, each in some fashion helps to advance the state of the question. From this basis, it should be possible to recount some of the advantages of these studies, even as we make note of what remains to be done. First, it is evident that the problem of anachronism persists in the treatment of rhetorical questions. Kuntz's focus on the well-crafted discourse in Is 40.12-31, or de Regt's consistent focus on the Book of Job derive, no doubt, from the rhetorical and structural sophistication of those texts. But it remains invalid to consider these texts a reliable witness to the etiology and

132

Paul, Amos, 104-114.

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operation of stylistic patterns in Jeremiah, for reasons outlined above. Discussion of the Jeremian text must take care to situate stylistic developments and innovations in relation to rhetorical patterns and figures of speech from the pre-Exilic period. That said, the definitions offered in the works of de Regt and Kuntz are helpful starting points for discussion. Any successful survey of rhetorical question figures must attempt to build upon these definitions even as the specific analysis of the semantic operations of proposed rhetorical questions is modeled in greater detail. What is missing in these stylistic studies is a specific engagement with the meaning of the particular elements of the rhetorical question patterns, the semantic impact of their combination into a stable and patterned figure of speech, and the development of the particular Jeremian triple question from other, more elementary speech patterns. It should be clear that Avishur's work is fundamental to this effort. A discussion of the Jeremian triple question must provide a satisfying description of its development from the more widely and previously attested …Ma…h double question and …yk…Ma…h pattern. Finally, both Kuntz and de Regt are concerned with modeling the illocutionary function of multiple rhetorical question figures in terms drawn from the conceptual vocabulary of pragmatic linguistics. While they take care to describe the operation of a particular rhetorical question within its immediate literary context, their studies nevertheless extend to a consideration of the status of this rhetorical question as a type of speech act. Given that a rhetorical question is formally indistinguishable from a genuine, information seeking question, any serious attempt at defining the phenomenon must attend to the audience’s role in identifying a particular question as rhetorical. In other words, rhetoricity is a characteristic that emerges in 202

the interaction between speaker and audience and depends on certain discursive assumptions shared between them. By describing this in detail we will build upon the turn toward SpeechAct theory taken up by Kuntz and de Regt. In what follows, we will advance the discussion on the triple question in Jeremiah in four stages. Initially, and most fundamentally, we will engage in a close morpho-syntactic analysis of the various rhetorical question figures under discussion. Such an analysis must be genuinely comparative within the temporal constraints just outlined. Following this, we must engage in a pragmatic analysis of the speech pattern, one that relates it to a broader theory of language within which rhetorical questions are well defined and their socio-linguistic function is securely established. With this preparatory work in hand, we must next engage in a close contextual analysis describing the function of particular multiple question figures in relation to the immediate literary contexts where they appear. Questions of content must be carefully differentiated from discussions of form, a laudable distinction that emerged at a late point in the form critical discussion.133 Finally, we must attempt to ground the uniquely Jeremian …owdm…Ma…h question pattern in a broader discussion of stylistic innovations evident within this prophet's oeuvre. It is necessary not only to describe the manner in which the owdm triple question is differentiated from other instances of multiple questions in the pre-Exilic literature, but also to locate this innovation within a discussion of Jeremiah’s own poetic style. The state of inquiry into the triple question pattern in the Book of Jeremiah is presently incomplete. Scholarship has freed itself from reliance upon inadequate form critical models and turned its attention to a close engagement with the speech pattern itself, its contextual expression

133

e.g., Graffy “A Prophet Confronts.”

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and sociolinguistic impact. In what follows, we will attempt to gather these loose threads and bind them into a more secure and comprehensive description of the multiple rhetorical question phenomenon in Jeremiah, hopefully gaining some sense for his poetic consciousness at the same time.

The Double …Ma…h Question When we exclude the late texts of Deutero-Isaiah and Job from our discussion, a very interesting phenomenon comes into view. We find that even the case of the double question formula exhibits, in its Jeremian expression, significant development from its predecessors.134 In the preparatory discussion that follows, we will engage in a close morpho-syntactic and contextual analysis of the double …Ma…h question in the Hebrew Bible generally and in the Book of Jeremiah specifically. Building upon the results of Avishur's analysis, it seems clear that this rhetorical figure is in some sense a primary one, attested in both the Ugaritic literature and the Biblical corpus. It may be used as a vehicle for both rhetorical and information-seeking questions, though there are important morphological and semantic distinctions between these. Following the present discussion, we will offer an extended definition and pragmatic analysis of the rhetorical question in Biblical Hebrew; for the moment, it must suffice to distinguish the two phenomena by virtue

134

Given its rough contemporaneity with the Book of Jeremiah, Ezekiel need not be restricted from our survey. It is difficult to imagine that Ezekiel's own rhetorical praxis could have been influenced in precisely the same fashion that the language and poesis of Jeremiah was constitutive for the authors of Dtr-Is and Job. A more difficult question pertains to the use of rhetorical question figures in the Deuteronomistic literature. Given the long developmental process for these texts, it is quite possible that later strata show the impact of Jeremiah's language on their expression (e.g., 2K 17.15//Jer 2.5). In view of this uncertainty, and in lieu of an extensive source critical argument that would draw us far afield from our topic, we should cite these instances as parallels when possible but restrain ourselves from drawing any conclusion on the basis of such evidence alone.

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of a provisional criterion: it seems minimally evident that information-seeking questions are identifiable by the presence of or potential for an informative reply in reaction to the interrogative act. The rhetorical question anticipates a more complex response that depends on the mutual perception of speaker and hearer, so that the interrogative act is positioned and based upon knowledge already securely held between them. Thus, at this point in our analysis, we have a simple test: could a given interrogative be responded to with an informative statement? If so, the question ought to be interpreted as a genuine one. If not, it is likely rhetorical. From the preceding discussion, it should be clear that this criterion is rather close to the definitions of Kuntz and de Regt; yet as a comprehensive definition, this is obviously inadequate. For the moment, however, it will permit us to bring certain structural and semantic characteristics of the double question formula into view, thereby enriching the methodological discussion to follow. We find two basic patterns for the double …Ma…h question: one that expresses a contrastive alternation and another that coordinates synonymous parallelism.135 By virtue of our provisional criterion, we will find that the questions falling into the first category are uniformly information seeking, while those in the second category seem in general to be rhetorical in function. In what follows, we will provide a morphological discussion of the two particles used to mark a double question and survey several hypotheses regarding the semantic character of the double question formula. Subsequently, we will offer a precise morpho-syntactic characterization of the rhetorical formula independent of its semantic function. Afterward, we

But see our discussion of Avishur, who has argued that there is a subset of …Ma…h questions which employ a conjunctive w prior to the leading particle of the second member, the effect of which is to mark a consequential parallelism (Avishur, “Degamei,” 426). 135

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will present our own survey of the phenomena attested in the corpus of pre-exilic prose and poetic texts. Finally, we will describe important instances of the Jeremian double question, marking their dependence upon and elaboration from this cognate material.

As we have seen, the basic …Ma…h question is a widely attested literary pattern. Our preliminary investigation must focus on the semantic character of the device and the range of its uses without concern for the conceptual or theological matter for which it is a vehicle. We should build upon the approach of Avishur, who distinguished between a class of “authentic” double questions [tytymah hlavh] and “imaginary” double questions [hmwdmh hlavh].136 This separation in functions corresponds to the opinion of Gesenius, who developed a similar argument regarding the device. Gesenius observed that a simple reduplicative function could be served by the …Ma…h formula.137 Such a function was separated, however, from another that was more basically contrastive.138 Joüon and Muraoka likewise distinguish between two different functions for the formula: one signifying a disjunctive direct question and another describing synonymous parallelism.139 Thus our grammarians allow for two different classes of double …Ma…h questions: one that is essentially authentic and disjunctive in its force and a second that is “imaginary” and expresses a sort of synonymy. Such an observation must be

136

Avishur, “Degamei,” 422-425.

137

Wilhelm Gesenius, et al. Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, as edited and enlarged, by the late E. Kautzsch, 2d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, (1910). [hereafter: GKC] §150h: Gen 37.8; Is 10.5; Jer 5.29; et al. 138

GKC §150g.

139

Paul Joüon and Takamitsu Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew; translated and revised by T. Muraoka (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1991), 610-611. [hereafter: J-M].

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correlated with a more careful investigation into the internal semantic character of these expressions. This separation in functions for the double …Ma…h question corresponds to a disjunction in function for the interrogative h that comprises the first member of the figure. Even medieval grammarians observed a doubled valence for this particle. Moses Kimchi argued for a function he termed "heh of surprise" [hhymth "h], which provided a particular emotional tenor to a subsequent statement in cases such as 1S 2.27; Nu 20.10; and 1K 21.19. Radak, by contrast, saw these as a particular instance of the more general interrogative heh [hlavh "h] that served, in these cases, to introduce a statement in a fashion similar to the use of hkya in Gen 3.9, ya in Gen 4.9, or hm in Ex 4.2.140 Radak also noted, however, that the expression of interrogative h was contingent in that an interrogative could be unmarked (as in Ugaritic) and evident merely on the basis of context and intonation in utterance141 in cases such as Gen 3.31, Gen 27.24, et al.142 The presentation of K-B is more systematic: they term this a "non-obligatory interrogative particle" that can indicate simple questions of a polar or interrogative sort,143 can appear in more complex constructions such as the double question, or can mark a dependent interrogative clause (as in Ex 16.4, et al.).144 Waltke and O'Connor further classify questions of this sort as "polar" questions,

140

William Chomsky, David Kimhi's Hebrew Grammar (Mikhlol), Systematically Presented and Critically Annotated (New York: Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning; Bloch Publishing Company, 1952). §87; c.f. Brown, F., S. R. Driver, et al. The New Brown, Driver, Briggs, Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon: with an appendix containing the Biblical Aramaic (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1979), 209-210. [hereafter: BDB], J-M p. 610. 141

See also GKC §150a.

142

cf. T. Muraoka, Emphatic Words and Structures in Biblical Hebrew (Leiden: Brill, 1985), 118-119.

143

e.g., Gen 4.9, 1K 21.20 and Gen 29.15, respectively.

144

K-B, 236.

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anticipating a simple yes/no response and distinct from "wh" questions, which demand an informative response.145 The distinction between these two functions for interrogative h is a pragmatic one. The

hhymth "h function adopts an interrogative stance in relation to information already known by speaker and audience while the hlavh "h function is motivated by a genuine request for information. It is impossible to argue that one or the other of these is temporally primary on the basis of the present evidence. It should be noted, however, that the epigraphic record gives several significant attestations of the interrogative h.146 The 7th/6th century Edomite ostracon from Horvat Uza, for example, demonstrates a greeting device that employs an obvious interrogative h: hšlm. ͗t (l 2),147 a figure also found in the 9th/8th century on pithos 2 from Kuntillet 'Ajrud (KAjr 19.4)148 as well as in 2Sam 20.9. Further, ostracon 5 from Lachish contains the compound interrogative h ͗l (l 9) while ostracon 6 shows a polite form of the command using alh plus a prefixed verb: hl ͗ tktb ͗lhm (ll 8-9).149 This final case, given that it uses alh, which has been linked with the exclamatory mode by J-M,150 could be claimed as a case of hhymth "h, though the context makes clear that the overall function of the statement is a request. All the other instances are quite clearly interrogative.

145

Bruce K. Waltke and Michael Patrick O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990). [hereafter: W-O], §40. 146

J. Hoftijzer, K. Jongeling, et al. Dictionary of the North-west Semitic Inscriptions (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995), 264. [hereafter: H-J]. 147

Itzhak Beit-Arieh and Bruce Cresson, "An Edomite Ostracon from Horvat 'Uza." Tel Aviv 12 (1985): 97.

148

F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, et al. Hebrew Inscriptions: Texts from the Biblical Period of the Monarchy with Concordance (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2005), 293-294. 149

Dobbs-Allsopp, et al., Hebrew Inscriptions, 320-324

150

J-M, 610.

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On this basis, we may say that the earliest Biblical and epigraphic evidence attests to a broad, general interrogative function for the particle h, and that in certain contexts this particle may serve the purpose of expressing surprise or astonishment. A good definition should take account of both of these valences. Thus, perhaps it is best to suggest (without making claims for temporal or conceptual priority) that the interrogative h has a discourse-oriented, deictic function, casting attention on the status of the utterance that follows and provoking consideration of its pragmatic implications. Utilizing our provisional criterion for distinguishing information-seeking questions from rhetorical ones, let us suggest that in cases where the statement that follows contains information evidently not securely realized by the questioner, the total utterance is then interpreted as a polar question demanding assent or denial from the hearer. When it is evident that the speaker and hearer already hold the information in the subsequent utterance, the total statement is not taken as a request for information, but as an emphatic or astonished assertion of fact. This argument for a discourse-oriented deictic function is made on the analogy of a similar claim by K-B for the particle Ma.151 In describing the semantic range of this particle, which introduces the second member of the double …Ma…h question, they note the following uses: it may introduce the protasis of a conditional clause (e.g., Ex 22.1; Nu 22.18); it may mark a desiderative clause (Ps 81.9);152 it may be used in oath formulae to signify "conditional (self-) imprecation"153 (e.g., Nu 14.8; Is 5.9);154 in cases such as Songs 7.13, Ex 22.7b and Gen 18.21, it

151

K-B, 60-61.

152

cf. GKC §151e.

153

A functional interpretation with which we will take issue later.

154

cf. GKC §149.

209

may be used to mark an interrogative in indirect discourse, whereas in 1K 1.27 and La 2.20, it may mark an interrogative clause in direct discourse;155 finally, it may mark concessive clauses (Jer 15.1). BDB divides this range of functions into two broad classes, hypothetical and interrogative.156 W-O adds another function: the introduction of "exceptive clauses" on the basis of Am 3.4.157 In addition to the basic deictic function suggested by K-B, it is also evident that all of these usages depend on the marking of an essential dubitative or hypothetical valence for the statement that follows. It is clear that the manner in which this dubiety is substantiated depends fundamentally on the total semantic character of the utterance in question. In the present case, then, the Ma clause is marked for interrogation or for surprise in relation to the function of the leading h in the preceding clause. On the basis of this survey, we are now in a position to advance a basic morpho-syntactic accounting of the double …Ma…h question. The figure comprises a sequence of two clauses, the first marked by a prefixed h in a leading position and the second introduced by Ma. The first statement may have interrogative or emphatic force depending on what the hearer considers to be the speaker’s state of knowledge. The second statement is syntactically and semantically subordinate to the first member and marks a general state of hypothesis or dubiety, which may further be substantiated as interrogative when the initial question has been interpreted as a genuine request for information.

155

A function that J-M suggest is secondarily derived from its use as a marker of interrogatives in indirect discourse (610). 156

BDB, 49-50

157

W-O, §38.6.

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There is an essential ambiguity that attends upon the total complex in its abstract state, given the range of functions attested for h. Accordingly, we need to pay closer attention to the semantic character of the double question formula in terms of its specific expressions. Specific phrase-internal functions help to identify a given double question as genuinely interrogative as opposed to rhetorical. Our grammarians are in near complete accord on the matter of a binary valence for the double question figure. Following J-M, we have seen that the double …Ma…h question may mark a contrastive or a synonymous function. All instances of the contrastive function appear in prose, and as we will see, all are information-seeking questions. In terms of the above accounting, these represent an adaptation of a doubled polar-question form to the task of expressing contrastive alternation. The figure appears in three significant variants. First is a simple contrast where the first h polar question provides some positive statement to be affirmed or denied, and the second question expresses its opposite with the syntagm al_Ma. Such cases are normally expressed in direct discourse, as the question in Gen 27.21, for example: b$OqSoÅy_l`Ra ‹qDjVxˆy rRmaôø¥yÅ y¡InV;b äÔKVv`UmSaÅw a¶D…n_hDv◊…g :aáøl_MIa w™DcEo y¶InV;b h¢Rz h¶D;tAa`Ah

"Isaac said to Jacob: 'Approach so that I may touch you, my son. Are you my son Esau, or not?'"

and the question in Ex 16.4: "The Lord said to Moses, 'See I am raining upon you bread from the sky. The people shall go out and gather a day's worth each day, J so that I may test them. Will they walk in my Torah, or not?'"

158

cf. Gen 37.32; 42.16; Num 11.23; Dtr 8.2; Judg 2.22.

211

h$RvOm_lRa ‹hÎwh◊y rRmaôø¥yÅw Mˆy¡DmDÚvAh_NIm MRj™Rl M¢RkDl ry¶IfVmAm y∏ˆn◊nIh w$ømwøyV;b Mwâøy_rAb√;d ‹…wfVq`Dl◊w M§DoDh a°DxÎy◊w 158 :aáøl_MIa y™It∂rwøtV;b K¶El´ySh …w…n¢R;sÅnSa NAoªAmVl

The figure is also attested once in indirect discourse, however, in Gen 24.21: "The man was gazing at her, keeping silent so as to know whether or not the Lord had made his errand successful."

vy›îrSjAm ;h¡Dl h™EaD;tVvIm vy¶IaDh◊w :aáøl_MIa wäø;k√rå;d h¢Dwh◊y AjyªIlVxIhèAh tAo#ådDl

This contrastive function may also be accomplished through the presentation of alternating antonyms, verbal, nominal or numerical, in either member of the double question. This case fulfills the contrastive function not with the simple expression of a negative al, but with lexical units whose semantic valences are perfectly contrastive. An extremely elaborate case of this expression may be seen in Num 13.17-20: NAo¡DnV;k X®r∞Ra_tRa r…wätDl h$RvOm ‹MDtOa j§AlVvˆ¥yÅw b‰gY‰…nA;b ‹h‰z wñlSo M#RhElSa rRmaâø¥yÅw :r`DhDh_tRa M™RtyIlSoÅw aw¡Ih_hAm X®r™DaDh_tRa M¶RtyIa√r…w Dhy$RlDo b∞EvO¥yAh ‹MDoDh_tRa◊w h$Rp∂rSh ‹a…wh q¶DzDjRh :bá∂r_MIa a…wäh f¶AoVmAh ;h$D;b b∞EvOy ‹a…wh_rRvSa X®r#DaDh h∞Dm…w h¡Do∂r_MIa aw™Ih h¶DbwøfSh hÎ…n$EhD;b b∞Evwøy ‹a…wh_rRvSa My#îrDo`Rh h∞Dm…w :MyáîrDxVbImV;b M¶Ia My™InSj`AmV;bAh X®rDaDh h∞Dm…w hGÎz∂r_MIa aw%Ih h∏ÎnEmVÚvAh 159 Nˆy$Aa_MIa XEo ;h¶D;b_v`EySh

"Moses sent them to reconnoiter the Land of Canaan. He said to them: 'Go up this way in the Negev and ascend the mountain and see how the land is and how the people dwelling upon it are. Are they strong or weak? Are they few or many? How is the land upon which they are dwelling? Is it prosperous or poor? How are the cities in which they live? Are they in tents or in fortifications? How is the land? Is it healthy or wasted? Are there trees in it, or not?'"

The final question in this elaborated list provides us with an instance of a third subset of contrastive interrogative questions. It is also possible to accomplish this simple alternation through the appositional placement of the positive and negative existential particles in the members of the double question. Consider also Ex 17.7: h¡DbyîrVm…w h™D;sAm Mw$øqD;mAh M∞Ev ‹a∂rVqˆ¥yÅw l#Ea∂rVcˆy y∞EnV;b —byâîr_lAo hÎwh◊y_tRa M§DtO;sÅn l°Ao◊w

He named the place 'Massa uMerivah' on account of Israelites' struggle and testing of the Lord, 159

cf. Josh 5.13; Judg 9.2.

212

160

saying 'Is the Lord among us, or not?'."

:Nˆy`Da_MIa …wn™E;b√rIqV;b h¢Dwh◊y vªEySh r$OmaEl

We may also observe a distinct subgroup within the second class of contrastive double questions, one related specifically to the practice of oracle consultation before battle. This formulation employs a specific request for information preceded by h in the first member, followed by Ma and an inflected, imperfective form of the verb √ldj in the second member: MEhDh "Pinchas ben-El'azar stood before him at that time, saying: 'Shall I yet again go out to battle against the Benjaminites, my kin? Or shall I forbear?' The Lord said to him: 'Go, for tomorrow I shall put them in your hand.'" [Judg 20.28]

My∞ImÎ¥yA;b wyGÎnDpVl —d∞EmOo N%OrShAa_N`R;b r∏ÎzDoVlRa_NR;b sDj◊nyIp…w h¢DmDjVlI;mAl taªExDl dw%øo P°IswøaAh ~rOmaEl y™IjDa N¶ImÎy◊nIb_y`EnV;b_MIo ló∂;dVjRa_MIa ‹hÎwh◊y rRmaôø¥yÅw 161 :ÔKá®dÎyVb …w…n¶RnV;tRa r™DjDm y¶I;k …w$lSo

In view of the limited number of attestations for this particular speech form, it is difficult to draw any firm conclusions regarding stable oracular discourse, or to draw out implications regarding the Sitz im Leben for this sort of contrastive formula. It is better, then, to treat this as a particular, practically situated subset of a general speech form with relatively wide currency in the linguistic life of ancient Israel and Judah. The other function of the double …Ma…h question form appears both in prose and poetic contexts, but is a figure for the coordination of parallel, synonymous statements. It seems none of the cases of this class of interrogative allows for an easy, informative response.162 Thus, this

160

cf. 2Sam 17.6.

161

See also 1K 22.6, 15//2Chr 18.5, 14.

162

But consider the case of Num 11.22: "Shall sheep and cattle be slaughtered for them and this suffice for them? Shall all the fish of the sea be gathered for them and this suffice for them?"

213

M™RhDl f¶EjDÚvˆy rö∂qDb…w Na¬øxSh M¡RhDl a∞DxDm…w M™RhDl P¶EsDa´y M¢D¥yAh y¶Eg√;d_lD;k_t`Ra M∞Ia :M`RhDl a¶DxDm…w

class of multiple questions is evidently rhetorical in function. Its relationship to the poetic figure of synonymous parallelism is clear from the pattern's expression in Is 10.15, where the double question complex itself sits in parallel with another doubled statement coordinated by -k clauses: "Shall the ax glorify itself over the one who cuts with it? Shall the saw magnify itself over the one who wields it? As if the staff could wield the one who raises it. As if the stick could raise what is not wood."

wóø;b b∞ExOjAh l™Ao NY‰z√rÅ…gAh ‹rEaDÚpVtˆySh w$øpyˆnVm_lAo ‹rwøÚcA;mAh lôé;dÅ…gVtˆy_MIa wy$DmyîrVm_tRa◊w ‹fRb‹Ev Py¶InDhV;k :X`Eo_aøl h™RÚfAm MyñîrDhV;k

While parallelism is a diagnostic characteristic of Biblical poetry, we do find this sort of synonymous doubling coordinated with …Ma…h in clearly prose contexts as well. Take for example Judg 6.31: "Joash said to all those who stood against him: 'Do you contend for Ba'al? Will you save him?" He who would contend for him will be killed before it is morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself when someone has torn down his altar."

wy%DlDo …w°dVmDo_rRvSa · lOkVl v&Dawøy rRmaâø¥yÅw lAo#A;bAl N…wâbyîrV;t —M∞R;tAaAh w$øtwøa N…wâoyIvwø;t ‹MR;tAa_MIa wöøl byñîrÎy r°RvSa r®qóO;bAh_dAo t™Am…wy ‹a…wh My¶IhølTa_MIa :wáøjV;b◊zIm_t`Ra X™AtÎn y¶I;k w$øl b®r∞Dy

In this verse, we find no contrastive figures that might mark opposition, whether antonyms or expressions with al. The two phrases coordinated with …Ma…h are quite clearly parallel expressions articulating the same idea, and it is clear that we have here a different function for the double question form than the one described above. At the same time, it is also evident that these are not questions that invite a simple, informative reply and should thus be taken as rhetorical questions. We find a similar parallel expression in Gen 37.8: The context is evidently Moses' request for information from God regarding the manner of the peoples' sustenance in the desert, but the specific question may or may not be rhetorical in nature. At the same time, the two members of the double question may be an instance of contrast if the categories of land/sea are taken as oppositional, or they may be an instance of a synonymous parallel, if the overarching category of "animal foodstuffs" is in view. The similar double question in Ps 78.20 would seem to lend weight to the latter option. In light of these ambiguities, it is best to note this case and place it in an intermediate position without giving it undue analytical weight.

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wy$DjRa ‹wøl …wrVmaôø¥yÅw wny$ElDo ‹JKølVmI;t JKôølDmSh wn¡D;b läOvVmI;t lwñøvDm_MIa w$øtOa aâønVc ‹dwøo …wp§Iswø¥yÅw :wyá∂rDb√;d_lAo◊w wy™DtOmølSj_lAo

"His brothers said to him: Would you really rule over us? Would you really dominate us?' and they increased their hatred of him further on account of his dreams and his words."

In this case, the parallel verbs √klm and √lvm make clear that this is a case of synonymous parallelism; the evident negative reply makes clear that these are rhetorical questions.163 We find more examples in poetic contexts, given the ready relationship between synonymous parallelism and Biblical poetry. An exceedingly subtle and well-wrought instance of the figure occurs in Is 27.7: Has he struck him like the striking of the one who struck him? Has he been killed like the killing of those of his who were killed?

…wh¡D;kIh …wh™E;kAm t¶A;kAmV;kAh :gá∂rOh wy™DgürSh g®r¶RhV;k_MIa

Again, √hkn and √grh form a semantically close word-pair that comprises a synonymous parallel. And the overall context is unarguably rhetorical.164 MyYˆnéq◊ΩzAh ‹taøz_…woVmIv X®r¡DaDh y∞EbVvwøy läO;k …wnyYˆzSa`Ah◊w M$RkyEmy`I;b ‹taøΩz hDt◊y§DhRh :M`RkyEtáObSa y¶EmyI;b M™Ia◊w

"Hear this, elders and listen all who dwell in the land: has this happened in your days or in the days of your fathers?"

Here, in Joel 1.2, and in Gen 17.7, we find the double question pattern augmented with a w preceding the Ma clause. Avishur interprets these not as cases of synonymous parallelism, but as an intensifying sort of consequential parallelism: "In all the cases where the interrogative pattern …Maw…h appears, the intention in adding the 'w is to enhance the sharpness of the second question: the questioner wants to say that the second question is not merely a version of the first question it follows, rather it is a proof spoken by the plaintiff concerning the claim which is expressed in the first question."165 163

c.f., Gen 17.17, following the emendation suggested by BHS; 2Sam 19.43.

164

cf. Ezek 22.14; Am 6.2; Ps 77.10; Ps 78.20; Ps 88.11-13; Ps 94.9-10.

165

Avishur, “Degamei,” 426.

215

Avishur's claim that the addition of a w in the second member of the double question pattern lends an intensifying quality to the overall expression is worth considering. Still, this pattern remains a minor variant upon the more widely attested function of coordinating a particular sort of synonymous parallelism.

Turning to consider the double question pattern in Jeremiah, we find that all attestations are evidently of this second, parallelistic type. This is itself an interesting datum, given that the attestations of the contrastive double question in narrative have a relationship with oracular discourse. There is perhaps a conclusion to be drawn here regarding the poetic background for the prophetic corpus. The nearest antecedents for the material we find in the Biblical prophets seem to be found in the repertoire of belletristic literary devices and not necessarily in the speech forms closely related to explicitly oracular discourse. Accordingly, we are cautioned by this observation to treat the written prophets as literary artists first and as mantic figures second. Beyond this, all the instances of the double question pattern in Jeremiah show some significant development from the basic pattern outlined above. The essential coordinating …Ma…h structure persists, but in every case the particular Jeremian instance is developed, nuanced or elaborated in some fashion. See, for example, the device repeated in Jer 5.9, 5.29, and with a minor variation, in 9.8: "Because of these things, will I not make an accounting? An oracle of the Lord. And on a nation such as this will my spirit not take revenge?"

216

dëOqVpRa_awøl hR;l¶Ea_lAo`Ah 'h_MUa◊n hY‰zD;k_rRvSa ywâøgV;b ‹MIa◊w :y`IvVpÅn Mäé;qÅnVtIt añøl

The overall pattern here is one of intensification, in Avishur's terms. Yet the binary symmetry characteristic of the device is broken up by the intrusion of the oracular discourse marker 'h Man between the two members of the question. Furthermore, Jeremiah places the verbal objects in an emphatic, frontal position and augments the figure internally with contrasting negative verbs using awl/al. This is not an instance of slavish repetition of a poetic device; rather, the prophet teases out an additional nuance: attention is cast first upon the specific transgressions, which are the basis for divine action, and second upon the nation who committed these offenses and who will accordingly suffer punishment. The total effect is one of conceptual tension between the parallel expression of the negated verbs dqpa and Mqnth and the progressive expression of

hla_lo and hzk_rva ywgb. We find a similarly nuanced expression of the form in Jer 5.22: …wa%∂ryIt_aøl y°ItwøaAh 'h_MUa◊n wly$IjDt aâøl ‹yÅnDÚpIm M§Ia MYÎ¥yAl l…wâb◊…g ‹ lwøj yI;tVm§Ac_rRvSa …wh◊nó®rVbAoÅy aâøl◊w M™Dlwøo_qDj …wl$Dk…wy aâøl◊w ‹…wvSoÎ…gVt`I¥yÅw :…wh◊náürVbAoÅy añøl◊w wy™D;lÅg …wñmDh◊w

"Do you not fear me?" An oracle of the Lord. "Will you not writhe before me, the one who has placed the sand as a border for the sea as an eternal law that it may not transgress. They surge but they cannot prevail. Its waves roar but they will not pass over it."

Again, we find that the simple double question pattern is broken up with an oracular discourse marker. And as before, a further internal tension is accomplished through the parallel expression of the second person verbs waryt and wlyjt, while the fronted syntagmata relate to the selfexpressed divine: ytwa and ynpm. Beyond this, however, Jeremiah transforms the tight binary structure of the double question into an unbalanced, triple figure, which introduces yet another parallel statement. The entire complex is fraught with irony and doubled meanings. The double question seems, on the 217

face of it, to express divine self-aggrandizement. The two verbs waryt and wlyjt appear to form a word pair, constituting synonymous parallelism. But structurally, the double question is unbalanced through the appending of a relative clause that contains the noun lwj, a term which is both phonically and etymologically related to the second of the parallel verbs. An implicit association is established between the material creation, which is an aspect of divine sovereignty and the human who is exhorted to observe a posture of subservience. The completion of the relative clause adds the concepts Mlwo_qj and √rbo, further supporting this implicit equation. The tightly constructed parallel lines that follow complete the figure, drawing out the implications of these two terms. The thematic focus of the entire verse is the ambiguity inherent in √rbo, which may refer equally to physical passage beyond some point and the act of transgression of a rule. The analogy with the sea is presented as a concrete instantiation of the immutability of the divine edict, the futility of transgression, and created humanity’s ultimate subordination to the divine plan. Yet, in the course of this tightly woven and complex construction, it is the essential unbalancing of the double question form that provides the engine for this association. On the basis of these examples, we may see here that Jeremiah's poesis depends on an invocation of a familiar device from the scribal kit, but that in each case the familiar is stretched to accommodate a new rhetorical purpose. The balancing functions of parallel constructions are augmented with devices to express internal tension and opposition within the total speech unit, or the parallel device is subordinated to a more complex construction whose lack of formal balance engenders a particular sort of conceptual progression.

218

Even at this initial stage in the investigation into the rhetorical question pattern, it is evident that a formal approach, with its necessary emphasis on invariant patterns and stable configurations, is inadequate to provide insight into the operation of Jeremian poetics. A typological approach to figures of speech only takes us so far. The particular poetic genius here accomplishes its objectives through the simultaneous observation of the rules of stable poesis and the violation of the expectations engendered by those rules. This provisional observation of the transformative quality of Jeremian poesis must be tested against other instances of his expression of multiple question formulae before it can be securely proposed. But before we can consider these more complex devices, we need to advance beyond our provisional definition of rhetorical and information-seeking questions. Accordingly, we will take some space for a methodological digression, which will serve to sharpen our reading instincts as our study progresses.

Defining the Rhetorical Question It has become clear that previous inquiry into rhetorical questions in Biblical Hebrew was limited by an insufficiently general approach to the phenomenon and the failure to develop a comprehensive, rigorous definition. This desideratum was a fatal flaw for the comparative approach of Ginsberg and Held, leading to the typological consideration of questions that were not, properly speaking, rhetorical. Avishur's rough criterion, which correlated rhetorical questions with poetry and information-seeking questions with prose, was scarcely better given that these distribution patterns do not hold up under scrutiny (cf., Gen 37.8, et al.). We did gain some purchase through the use of the limited criterion provided by Kuntz and de Regt, but we nevertheless observed that the work of these scholars leaves much unexamined. 219

How, precisely, are we to understand the potential informative response that would help identify an information-seeking question? In some cases, it is possible to observe an explicit reply within the flow of discourse that permits us to claim a particular question as information seeking (e.g., Judg 20.28), but this does not hold in every case. More fundamentally, this provisional criterion does not allow us to see with precision the socio-linguistic operation of a question presented in relation to such commonly held knowledge. What is the linguistic mechanism by which a speaker marks his question as rhetorical? How does a hearer come to resolve the tension engendered by an interrogative act presented in relation to knowledge already held? And most importantly, what is the rhetorical functional status of such a complex speech act? Without a clear sense for how rhetorical questions operate in discourse, two sorts of methodological error may ensue, as we have witnessed. The first is a form critical problem: the rhetorical question may be severed from its immediate context and may be treated as a Gattung in its own right. In such an approach, a hypothetical Sitz im Leben must be presented as a controlling context, and the speech form is necessarily treated as a sort of self-unpacking linguistic code instead of a malleable and discursively strategic rhetorical element. Alternatively, a controlling context may be sought in the thematic and ideological matter that serves as a vehicle for a particular rhetorical question. C.J. Labuschagne's study, for example, leaves one with the impression that there is an inevitable relationship between rhetorical questions and discourse on the divine nature.166 Once again, in the absence of a rich definition of the rhetorical question in linguistic terms, an inappropriate heuristic is applied to the 166

C. J. Labuschagne, The Incomparability of Yahweh.

220

phenomenon, one which does not fit with the variety of expressions and the range of themes for which the rhetorical question may serve as vehicle. What is wanted then, is a model of the rhetorical question that allows for its situational expression in a variety of contexts while simultaneously keeping in view its operation as a general discursive pattern with a durable semantic and illocutionary effect. In this section, we will develop such a heuristic by drawing upon the concepts of Speech Act theory. We have emphasized that this is not a semantic problem. It does not reside in the particular meaning of the terms used to mark a rhetorical question or in the manner of their syntagmatic combination. Instead, this is a problem of illocution. The rhetorical question is understood, in every case, as a question that accomplishes a rather different function than a normal question. And the cues for its identification as such are not to be found in the particular semantic units from which it is composed, but in the contextual and communicative variables that condition its expression and reception. Many of these meta-semantic problems have been treated in the pragmatic theoretical discussion initiated by J.L. Austin in the lectures that make up How To Do Things with Words167 and carried forward by John R. Searle in his Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language.168 This approach to language treats it not in semantic terms, but as a particular sort of motivated human behavior. These scholars draw a distinction between the meaning of a given utterance and its use as a species of action. The value of such a theoretical distinction for our investigation into the operation of rhetorical questions cannot be underestimated. In what

167

J.L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975).

168

John R. Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969).

221

follows, we will give an accounting of rhetorical questions in terms of a phenomenon Searle terms "Indirect Speech Acts." We will give an accounting of how a speech act semantically marked as an interrogative can fail to interrogate in certain contexts, thereby taking on a different sort of illocutionary force. Our contention in this section will be that rhetorical questions are a particular class of Indirect Speech Act where there is a separation between the formal status of the utterance and its illocutionary effect. This separation is accomplished, we will maintain, through a strategic violation of one of the key principles of conversational implicature, the Maxim of Quality. The way this violation takes place is a formally expressed request for information that is presented in relation to particular informational elements already understood by both speaker and hearer to be generally true. Having violated the Maxim of Quality in this fashion, the formal request is accordingly recognized as a different class of utterance. The total effect of this violation, we maintain, is to cast attention back upon this shared information, creating in the process a state of consensus in relation to this knowledge of which a speaker may subsequently make use. Essential to this transaction, however, is the potential for its defeasibility. Given its formal marking as an interrogative, the hearer in the exchange may refuse to perceive the act of questioning as insincere and may provide an informative response. Conversely, the speaker may, in the course of certain complex utterances, re-orient his speech act in a manner that defeats his earlier illocutionary aim. Thus, we will see that the rhetorical question itself is not merely a static literary device; rather it is a linguistic phenomenon engendered in the interaction between speaker and hearer that draws fundamentally on their shared background and common assumptions for its proper operation. Our interest here is in developing a theoretical model sufficiently broad enough to 222

permit the formal and pragmatic analysis of both simple rhetorical question formulae and more complex utterances that encode rhetorical questions in the course of their expression. The advantage of Speech Act theory lies in its capacity to model discourse at a level below that of Form Critical investigation, yet more generally than a specific exegetical engagement with the particular meaning content of a given text. We are not generalizing by induction from a range of examples; rather we are seeking a general methodological approach that transcends the particular linguistic rules of Biblical Hebrew and may permit the analysis of a variety of rhetorical question figures as a class of speech. In chapter three of Speech Acts, John Searle describes how in normal language use, a particular utterance may be marked for illocutionary force. He develops a theoretical model that encodes information within a particular utterance in such way that we can understand it as a specific type of speech act.169 Through the use of Illocutionary Force Indicators, utterances can be interpreted as particular sorts of action.170 In terms of our prior discussion, any of the interrogative particles discussed previously may be described as Illocutionary Force Indicators marking a given utterance as an instance of "asking." According to what Searle terms the Principle of Expressibility,171 it is possible to preface a given statement with a more explicit reference to the speech act in question without changing the meaning of the utterance that is its vehicle. In cases that use the interrogative particle, it is in theory possible to preface the statement with "I ask you..." and still accomplish the same speech act. Through the development

169

Searle, Speech Acts, 40.

170

Searle, Speech Acts, 30.

171

Searle, Speech Acts, 19-21.

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of a pleonastic statement, the Principle of Expressibility functions to make explicit what is already implicitly encoded in a particular speech act. So, to preface a particular utterance with an interrogative particle counts as an instance of asking when the audience understands that they are being requested to provide a relevant informative response.172 We have seen two particular types of asking. One may or may not use the interrogative h particle and expresses a polar question requesting the audience to provide a simple affirmative or negative response. However, by using other particles, such as hm, owdm and the like, the speaker can express a wh-question where an informative response is requested. In developing this understanding of the Illocutionary Force Indicator, Searle further describes a series of operating conditions necessary for the successful performance of a speech act.173 The particular act accomplished through speaking is termed the Essential Condition, and the series of prior conditions are termed the Preparatory Conditions.174 In the case of the rhetorical question, another condition of these is violated: the Sincerity Condition. Under certain circumstances, the speech act can be understood as an insincere request for information, in which case the speech act is defective in some fashion. In this case, there is a split between the normal Essential Condition set up by the particular Illocutionary Force Indicator, and the actual Essential Condition.175 Such cases Searle came to designate as Indirect Speech Acts.176

172

In fact, Searle himself considers "asking" to be a subset of the more general speech act of "requesting," with the specification that what is being requested is an informative response. (Searle, Speech Acts, 69). 173

In Austin’s terms: “to have been felicitous.” See Austin, “How to Do Things,”12-15 et passim.

174

Searle, Speech Acts, 57-61.

175

Searle, Speech Acts, 70-71.

176

John Searle, "Indirect Speech Acts," Syntax and Sematics, ed. P. Cole and J. L. Morgan (New York: Academic Press, 1975), 3.

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There is a wide range of such Indirect Speech Acts in natural language, and all are characterized by a disjunction between the apparent meaning of the statement and the speaker's meaning in utterance.177 In a subsequent essay, Searle describes hints, insinuations, irony and metaphor as Indirect Speech Acts that depend upon this divergence for their operation. The major instance in this essay concerns polite directives, where a speaker marks his speech act as something other than a directive in order to soften the force of his command. In every case, the divergence between meaning and intention depends, in Searle's account, on an extra-linguistic apparatus for its operation: “The hypothesis I wish to defend is simply this: In an indirect speech act the speaker communicates to the hearer more than he actually says by way of relying on their mutually shared background of information, both linguistic and nonlinguistic, together with the general powers of rationality and inference on the part of the hearer. To be more specific, the apparatus necessary to explain the indirect part of indirect speech acts includes a theory of speech acts, certain general principles of cooperative conversation... and mutually shared factual background information of the speaker and hearer, together with an ability on the part of the hearer to make inferences.”178 Here, Searle invokes three particular extra-linguistic constituents where a speech act may be understood to be indirect: the mutual informational basis held in common by speaker and hearer, an overarching set of rules regarding conversation, and the ability to reason and infer on the part of the hearer. Although he is unsure whether rhetorical questions can properly be termed speech acts at all, let alone Indirect Speech Acts,179 Jürgen Schmidt-Radefeldt has nevertheless built on Searle's theory in a pragmatic discussion of rhetorical questions. He describes the manner in which this disjunction between meaning and intent can operate specifically in relation to requests for 177

Searle, “Indirect Speech Acts,” 59.

178

Searle, “Indirect Speech Acts,” 60-61.

179

J. Schmidt-Radefeldt, "On So-Called 'Rhetorical' Questions." Journal of Pragmatics 1 (1977), 390.

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information. He agrees with Searle that identifying a question as rhetorical depends on extralinguistic assumptions.180 To clarify this, he introduces the concept of an H-rhetorical question: "The main characteristic of such ‘questions’ is to be seen in the fact that, with reference to any given set of conditions or circumstances H, a direct answer is implied in these sentences.” In pragmatic terms, this “H” is a multivariate category including speaker's intention, the common knowledge held by speaker and hearer, and the hearer's acceptance of an utterance as rhetorical.181 Our provisional criterion had placed emphasis on the potential for an informative response as the essential quality of an information-seeking question as opposed to rhetorical question. Schmidt-Radefeldt's “H” specifies in positive terms those elements that foreclose upon the potential for an informative response in discourse. Accordingly, unlike sincere requests for information, the rhetorical question depends on contextual and semantic-pragmatic cues for its identification. Such data also differ in relation to polar and wh-questions. In the polar question, emphasis is laid on the truth or falsity of a proposition, whereas in the case of a rhetorical whquestion, the speaker foregrounds a particular constituent of their shared knowledge base.182 Schmidt-Radefeldt also provides a valuable advance upon Searle's basic theory by specifying how a rhetorical question depends on implicit assent from the hearer for its proper operation. At least in potentio, the hearer may defeat the rhetorical question by choosing to interpret it as a genuine request and provide an informative answer: “As to our analysis of certain particular types of rhetorical question, we can say

180

Schmidt-Radefeldt, “So-called Rhetorical Questions,” 376.

181

Schmidt-Radefeldt, “So-called Rhetorical Questions,” 377.

182

Schmidt-Radefeldt, “So-called Rhetorical Questions,” 379.

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that the surface form can be regarded as an interrogative which semantically and pragmatically is determined by the actual illocutionary force of an assertion. Pragmatically, the other dialogue-partner addressed by a rhetorical question…can indeed contradict the statement in the form of a response.”183 In terms of his H, we might say that such cases are characterized by a hearer's choice to reject the speaker's assumption of a shared body of knowledge. The contradicting informational response thereby specifies precisely the manner in which their informational background diverges. It follows that the acceptance of a question as rhetorical accordingly serves not only as an affirmation of shared knowledge, but also as an implicit reference to the consonance obtained between speaker and hearer. This is a crucial insight both for our understanding of the persuasive capacity of rhetorical questions as well as for the manner of their defeasibility. In both Searle's outline of Indirect Speech Acts and its significant revision by SchmidtRadefeldt in relation to rhetorical questions, we find emphasis placed on the specific, extradiscursive contextual considerations that must obtain if an act of rhetorical interrogation is to take place felicitously. One consideration pertains to the condition of the performance of the speech act; this finds further specification in the theory of conversational implicature outlined by Paul Grice. The second pertains to the content of its performance and the shared background of information, a condition further clarified by Ruth Amossy in her development of the Aristotelian concept of doxa. Thus a complete pragmatic model of the rhetorical question has to encompass also an understanding of the meta-pragmatic cues that help mark a specific question as rhetorical. A survey of these two additional contextual conditions will complete our methodological survey. In his book Studies in the Way of Words, Paul Grice specifies the extra-linguistic assumptions held in common between speaker and hearer that are the preconditions for felicitous 183

Schmidt-Radefeldt, “So-called Rhetorical Questions,” 391.

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performance of a speech act.184 These stand as an important specification of what Searle had already understood implicitly in his discussion of preparatory conditions. According to Grice, a few basic Maxims of Conversation govern dialogical discourse whose violation has an impact on the manner in which the hearer understands the intentionality of the speaker. Taken together, the Gricean maxims constitute what he terms the Co-operative Principle: "make your contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged."185 This Co-operative Principle is derived from an interrelated set of maxims.186 The Maxim of Quality specifies that one should try to make one's contribution to conversation one that is factually true. The Maxim of Quantity pertains to the informational content of one's contribution: it should be precisely as explicit as necessary for the purposes of the linguistic exchange. The Maxim of Relevance specifies that the contribution should be apropos. And the Maxim of Manner pertains to the character of the contribution: it should avoid obscurity, ambiguity, prolixity and disorder. These maxims are not universally operative; their violation does not necessarily mean that a given statement in conversation will be incomprehensible. Rather, when they are infringed upon, it will have a transforming effect on the total conversation. As Stephen Levinson puts it: "...Grice's point is not that we always adhere to these maxims on a superficial level but rather that, wherever possible, people will interpret what we say as conforming to the maxims at least on some level."187 When a maxim is violated, then, a conversation partner will draw important inferences regarding the intentions of the speaker. An 184

Paul Grice, Studies in the Way of Words (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 25.

185

Grice, Studies in the Way of Words, 26.

186

Grice, Studies in the Way of Words, 26-27.

187

Stephen C. Levinson, Pragmatics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 103.

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apparent violation of one of the maxims puts the hearer in a position of having to reframe the overall illocutionary intent of the utterance in order to maintain it as a felicitous and co-operative speech act. These strategic violations of the co-operative principle are termed "floutings"188 and they carry within them further communicative potential. Many figures of speech, including irony, metaphor, rhetorical questions, tautologies and non-sequiturs are formal cases of flouting one of the maxims of conversation. In every case, the hearer is obliged to understand something further about the intentionality of the speaker in order to maintain the co-operative principle: "...[I]f someone drastically and dramatically deviates from maxim-type behaviour, then his utterances are still read as underlyingly co-operative if this is at all possible. Thus by overtly infringing some maxim, the speaker can force the hearer to do extensive inferencing to some set of propositions, such that if the speaker can be assumed to be conveying these then at least the overarching co-operative principle would be sustained.” These instances of "flouting" correspond to the situation described by Searle when a Preparatory Condition for a speech act is violated. Thus Grice's model may permit us to specify further the conditions under which an Indirect Speech Act has taken place. Rhetorical questions in particular comprise a case of the strategic flouting of the Maxim of Quality.189 It is implied in the act of requesting information that the speaker is also asserting a genuine lack of knowledge in relation to the matter of his request. If, in certain specific cases, it is evident that this knowledge already obtains, then her utterance runs afoul of this maxim by being untrue. The hearer thus is obliged to infer the motivation behind this insincere request, and 188

Levinson, Pragmatics, 109.

189

Levinson, Pragmatics, 110.

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emphasis is cast on the apparent body of knowledge that has been invoked insincerely by the speaker. Thus, in terms of Grice's model, we may see how a simple assumption regarding the rules of conversational exchange may describe in formal terms how a hearer is able to identify a given interrogative act as rhetorical. It remains to be considered, however, the precise mechanism by which a request for information may be interpreted as insincere and thus uncooperative. On what basis can a hearer recognize that the Maxim of Quality has been flouted and a rhetorical question uttered? Schmidt-Radefeldt's H-condition also referred to an encyclopedic body of knowledge held in common by speaker and hearer. Ruth Amossy has further specified the character of this shared knowledge by invoking the Aristotelian concept of doxa. In the simplest formulation, doxa are "common knowledge and shared opinions."190 They are "all that is considered true, or at least probable, by a majority of people endowed with reason, or by a specific social group...." The construct is drawn from Aristotle's Rhetoric, which had treated ejndoxa as a class of knowledge, distinct from truth (ajlhqeia), which pertained to a class of rhetorical argumentation (ejnqumhma) subordinate to logical argumentation (logikoß sullogismoß).191 In Topica 1.1, Aristotle provided an explicit definition of ejndoxa as opinions "which commend themselves to all or to the majority or to the wise—that is, to all of the wise or to the majority or to the most famous and distinguished of them."192 When contemporary theorists adapt this rhetoric, doxa are conceptualized as explicitly related to political discourse: “…[I]ts main function is to allow, on the basis of a community of 190

Ruth Amossy, "Introduction to the Study of Doxa." Poetics Today 23 (2002): 369.

191

Aristotle, Rhetoric 1354b-1355a.

192

Aristotle, Posterior Analytics/Topica. Hugh Tredennick and E.S. Forster, trs., Loeb Classical Library 391 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1960), 273-275.

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views, for the development of a discussion between two participants seeking agreement (dialectics) or for the unfolding of an argumentation meant to persuade and audience (rhetoric). The adhesion of an addressee to a thesis…depends on the value socially conferred upon the common opinion that underlies the argument, not on its strictly logical status.”193 Within the domain of pragmatics, the study of doxa took on an additional force. They became the means whereby a speaker engaged in persuasive discourse could effect a change upon the opinions and attitudes of his audience. Doxa, in this understanding, constitute the "common knowledge and shared values" in terms of which statements are comprehensible and argumentation is effective.194 According to this model, discourse depends not only on a set of constitutive rules and common assumptions regarding language, but also on a body of knowledge held by both speaker and hearer. Accordingly, in literature, doxa are closely related to the function of comprehensibility in expression: “To guarantee cooperation, it has to rely on this model reader’s supposed encyclopedic knowledge as well as on familiar, stereotyped scripts borrowed from common life or from intertextual patterns. Whether rhetorical or semiotic, all approaches emphasizing the importance of the addressee in a dynamic communication process put doxa to the fore. It is only by relying on the audience’s opinions, beliefs, and representations that a (virtual) interaction allowing for meaning and efficacy can be built.”195 In this reformulation, doxa are not merely a neutral body of shared knowledge; they become the essential condition for intersubjectivity in discursive interaction. They serve as the primary vehicle for effective communication between social agents.196 193

Amossy, “Study of Doxa,” 372.

194

Ruth Amossy, "How to Do Things with Doxa: Toward an Analysis of Argumentation in Discourse." Poetics Today 23 (2002): 466. 195

Amossy, “How to do Things,” 468.

196

Amossy, “How to do Things,” 469.

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This extension of doxa had already been evident in the Russian Formalist and Structuralist Poetic traditions that rehabilitated the concept against Marxist literary theorists who considered doxa as intimately related to the dominant discourse of power and the fundamental basis for ideological false consciousness.197 Instead, these theorists saw doxa as the basis for vraisemblance and naturalization in literature.198 They were intimately related to the process whereby an audience was able to interpret and make sense of the information encoded within a literary work of art. Pragmatic linguists, however, had extended the function of doxa still further, relating them to the concept of topoi, which comprise the collective meta-linguistic assumptions that underlie a linked set of utterances, providing the means whereby they can be made intelligible as a coherent whole.199 Considered as topoi, doxa are not merely the artifacts of literary comprehension but are the very basis for understanding in language. They comprise a set of assumptions and a common state of knowledge that allows a flow of utterances to be reconstituted for the hearer as a coherent sequence of thought. They are the matter unspoken but necessary in argumentation, corresponding to the Searlean “mutually shared background of information.” Such topoi fall into two categories. Intrinsic topoi are linguistically determined and pertain to the root structural elements of argumentation—patterns of thought such as a fortiori reasoning. Extrinsic topoi, by contrast, are socioculturally determined and pertain to the

197

Amossy, “How to do Things,” 375.

198

Amossy, “How to do Things,” 381.

199

Amossy, “How to do Things,” 385.

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contingent attitudes, beliefs and prejudices that obtain within a given social context.200 As Amossy puts it: “…[S]ome topoi are closer to what might seem plausible to any rational being (the image of the universal audience proper to a given community), while others are more obviously culture-dependent (they are meant for specific addressees with their specific social and cultural backgrounds.) Topoi could thus be roughly divided into two major categories: those that rely on logico-discursive patterns believed to be universal and those built on social and cultural beliefs pertaining to a given ideology. The first corresponds to Aristotle’s topoi koinoi; the second, rooted in Aristotle’s specific topoi that were later called commonplaces, embrace all kinds of stereotypical phenomena designated today by such terms as commonplaces, received ideas, stereotypes, clichés…. It goes without saying that in most cases it is difficult, if not impossible, to draw a clear-cut difference between the two.”201 For our purposes, it is clear that the body of collective knowledge where an act of questioning can be understood as insincere and therefore rhetorical is described by Amossy as extrinsic topoi. Thus, we have here a mechanism whereby the particular violation of the Gricean Maxim of Quality and the Searlean Sincerity Condition may be understood. These are a violation of the normal expectations of felicitous discourse in the sense that they invoke a request in relation to previously established extrinsic topoi. When an interrogative Illocutionary Force Indicator is employed, it engenders a discursive expectation that the speaker is expressing a cognitive lack, and the hearer may be able to ameliorate that lack through the presentation of an informative reply. In the case where this interrogative is positioned in relation to an extrinsic topos, however, a different sort of speech act than normal asking is affected. The hearer, in order to maintain comprehensibility in discourse, is obliged to infer another illocutionary function. Thus the speech act draws attention to the extrinsic topos they hold in common, foregrounds it

200

Amossy, “How to do Things,” 386-87.

201

Amossy, “How to do Things,” 476.

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conceptually and engenders a state of mutual concord, which may be defeated by the hearer only at the expense of refusing to perceive the speech act of the speaker in line with his intent. The total function of this Indirect Speech Act may vary based on the discursive context within which it is manifest. Based on conversation-specific variables, the function of this foregrounded doxa may be conviction, emphasis, irony and the like. In every case, however, the transaction depends fundamentally upon this sort of insincere requesting, which is only comprehensible as such when the hearer recognizes the oblique motivation of the speaker's utterance.

From this discussion, we may accordingly develop a methodological apparatus that is more precise in its formulation than the implicit criterion drawn from the work of Kuntz and de Regt. The identification of a rhetorical question in a work of ancient literature depends fundamentally on an appreciation of the context where the interrogative act takes place. We must be attentive to the meta-linguistic rules governing the discursive event in question. Likewise, we must attend to the shared body of knowledge and the common cultural assumptions that obtain between speaker and hearer. We must, accordingly, investigate the case-specific variables that make any given rhetorical question a violation of the Searlean sincerity proposition. Let us return to a few of the examples of the rhetorical double question considered above and note the manner in which their conceptual and socio-linguistic operation comes more clearly into view when cast through this heuristic lens. Take, for example the case of Jacob's sons' indignant double interrogative to their brother Joseph in Gen 37.8. Here, the act of interrogation is insincere by virtue of its invocation of a set of assumptions regarding the proper distribution of authority in an agnatic society. It is prima facie incomprehensible that a younger son could exert 234

the sort of domination over older brothers that is referenced here. In terms of these sociocultural assumptions regarding authority, their question is immediately understood to be insincere. The rhetorical question brings these assumptions into view and the broader force of this illocutionary act is the emphatic rejection of the content of his dream. In Is 10.15, the prophet develops a double rhetorical question in relation to normal understandings of the dependent relationship of a tool upon its user. In terms of the audience's prior knowledge regarding the relationship one enjoys in relation to one's implements, the question is understood to be something other than sincerely requesting information. The total function of this act of insincere interrogation is to instantiate an uncontroversial relationship of ontic subordinance, which can then be adapted to a more particular statement on divine sovereignty. In the same way, the case of Judg 6.31 invokes cultural attitudes toward the power of divinities in relation to their worshippers. Both speaker and audience know immediately that it is the human who depends upon the divine and not the reverse. Invoking this set of cultural assumptions regarding the divine sets up a condition where the religious polemic of Joash's son may be understood, and the apparent impotence of Ba'al cast into sharp relief.

The rhetorical question must be seen as a powerful tool for establishing concord between speaker and hearer. It may be used in rhetorical settings to invoke assent or complicity. In more complex collocations, this device for the establishing intersubjectivity may be further modified through the addition of other sorts of speech acts. In what follows, we will investigate two such cases. First, we will examine the so-called "triple rhetorical questions" that employ a double question formula in the course of developing a pattern of argumentative reasoning. Here, as 235

Avishur has already outlined, the illocutionary function of the doubled rhetorical polar questions is to create a context for a new datum to be considered. This is, we will argue, a rhetorical device for developing paradox through the appositional invocation of contrasting doxa. Our presentation will differ from all previous discussions on the subject by its assertion that we do not have here a proper "triple rhetorical question" but rather a standard double rhetorical question followed by a contrastive assertive, interrogative or deictic device. The purpose here is not the development of an implicit syllogism (pace Herzog), but a paradox; it obtains not only at the level of the speech act, but through its invocation of oppositional doxa, lurks in a real and persistent cultural aporia.202 A crucial subset of these cases, however, is the class of triple rhetorical question unique to Jeremiah. In this case, the normal aporetic function of the triple formula is subverted through the transformation of the third member from a deictic or assertive device into a genuine interrogative act. The total operation remains the same, but there is a strategic shift from rhetorical interrogation to an act of pointed information seeking. In such a case, we have an auto-initiated defeat of the rhetorical question by the speaker. Particular collective expectations regarding the patterning of discourse (what Amossy terms implicit topoi) are invoked and then violated by Jeremiah to achieve a particular and powerful rhetorical effect.

The Augmented Double Rhetorical Question

202

This term is presented here in its explicit, philosophical sense as “the cognitive perplexity posed by a group of individually plausible but collectively inconsistent propositions.” T. Honderich, ed., The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005), 43. I mean not to suggest that our Biblical authors are here involved in an intellectual project like that of the Socratic dialektikh tecnh (e.g., Phaed 276E), but rather that this basic sort of argumentation finds an analogue in the argumentative style of Jeremiah.

236

In Avishur's typology, the "triple rhetorical question" was understood, in some contexts, to have taken on a new semantic force. Specifically, he understood this collocation as developing a class of argumentation that depended upon the presentation of certain argumentative premises in the double question, which were subsequently developed in the third question. Accordingly, the double question was referred to as the "reasoning" portion while the third question was called "reasoned." Such a development was presented as a subsequent elaboration upon a prior, widely attested discursive structure. It is now possible to reformulate Avishur's hypothesis in terms of the preceding methodological discussion. We have seen how the double question form in Hebrew can, in certain contexts, serve as a particular type of rhetorical question device. We have also discussed how these sorts of questions serve a dual purpose, foregrounding extrinsic topoi so that a question may be recognized as rhetorical, and calling attention to the communicative relationship between speaker and hearer. We maintained, as well, that this basic act of rhetorically established concord between speaker and hearer was malleable, permitting situation-specific adaptation to a variety of rhetorical ends. In light of this, we may now develop a discussion of the so-called "triple rhetorical question," which will argue that this figure represents one particular contextual instantiation of the double rhetorical question. These figures have a general, unified structure: in each case, the double rhetorical question is augmented through the appositional placement of a third member, which has a transformational effect on the whole. The double question takes on the function of invoking principles of mutual agreement prior to the presentation of a new datum, which complicates this agreement in some fashion. Unlike Avishur and Herzog, however, we will argue here that the relationship between the double question and the following augment is not logical consequential 237

or quasi-syllogistic. Instead, we perceive that in the majority of cases, the relationship between them is contrastive. The triple figure subtly develops and then violates the expectation of the audience through the appositional placement of contrastive doxa. Three types of figures appear in our literature. In a few cases, an author has employed a double rhetorical question and then appositionally situated a third member introduced by a deictic particle, a contrastive alh, and in one case, an interrogative particle. These cases are not numerous enough to warrant discussion as a stable figure of speech. Instead, they must be treated as independent, occasional developments of the double question for the purpose of contrastive argumentation. More frequently, however, we recognize a stable figure of speech in which the double question is augmented with a subsequent yk clause. This is a reasonably general speech form that permits presentation as a stable idiom for the development of aporetic argumentation. Finally, we find that in the Book of Jeremiah, this idiom has been further developed by the replacement of the yk, which introduces the third member with a genuinely interrogative owdm. It is inaccurate, then, to refer to this device as a "triple rhetorical question." Instead, the figure is a double rhetorical question followed by a contrastive element, either a statement or an information-seeking question. Henceforth, we shall refer to this figure of speech as the "augmented double rhetorical question." Likewise, Avishur's terminology of "reasoning" and "reasoned" must be set aside in favor of a focus upon the particular topos being invoked in each phase of the figure. And we must pay careful attention to the manner in which the appositional placement of these topoi is conditioned by the semantic force of the particle that introduces its third member. In the discussion that follows, we will present different instances of the 238

augmented double rhetorical question, in each case surveying prior analyses and attempting to demonstrate how attention to the illocutionary operation of this emerging speech form draws into focus heretofore unappreciated facets in the argumentation of our ancient authors.

The Occasional Augmented Double Rhetorical Question Will he bear a grudge forever, or preserve his anger eternally? See, I have spoken, you have done evil and it has endured.

M$DlwøoVl râOf◊nˆySh jAx¡RnDl räOmVvˆy_MIa twäøo∂rDh y¶IcSoA;tÅw yI;t√rA;bîd h¶E…nIh :l`Dk…w;tÅw

Jer 3.5 provides us with a particularly rich instance of an augmented double rhetorical question. Fishbane has cited the larger text unit where this appears (vv 1-5) as a case of aggadic exegetical adaptation of a legal scenario. The extrinsic topoi in terms of which the rhetorical questions that appear here are formulated can be correlated with specific, prior legal argumentation. For this reason, this case permits us to perceive with relative certainty both the manner in which a biblical rhetor invokes culturally situated (legal) consensus as well as the way this consensus is turned to a strategic discursive end. The larger text unit is motivated by the reapplication of a particular legal discussion to a prophetic discourse on national fortune. By focusing on the illocutionary operation of the rhetorical questions developed, we may gain a more secure insight into the particular persuasive mechanism that accomplishes this aggadic exegetical end. The structure of Jer 3.5 is uncomplicated. The first two members of the verse are appositionally presented rhetorical questions coordinated by an interrogative h in the first member and the subordinate particle Ma in the second. The third member of the construction is

239

prefaced by the deictic particle hnh.203 The first phase is subordinate to the rhetorical question begun in v 4 with the interrogative particle alh and is a prophetic quotation of the words of the people.204 We have here nested rhetorical questions. The prophet has enquired rhetorically after the speech of the people in v 4, and he poses a pair of rhetorical questions in the mouth of the people in v 5a. Thus, the shift from the first phase of the augmented double rhetorical question to the second phase (v 5b) is also marked by a shift in ostensible speaker; the second phase of the figure is the divine reply, also mediated by the prophet. The verbs in v 5a are elliptically presented, idiomatic references to divine anger. In five instances in the Tanakh, √rfn means "to bear a grudge;"205 a similar, idiomatic use of √rmv is found in Am 1.11.206 Taken together with v 4, it is clear that the rhetorical questions here invoke general cultural assumptions regarding a paternal posture of forbearance toward the transgressions of children, and perhaps even the specific ethical stipulation of Lev 19.18.207 Thus far, the formula is fairly clear in its presentation. With the second phase of the figure introduced by hnh, however, interpretive problems arise. There is a disjunction between the oral and written tradition in the case of the first verb: the qere preserves a second person, feminine singular reading of the verb rbd, while the ketiv understands this as a first person singular verb. The next verb is apparently a second person, feminine singular, while the third in the sequence appears to be a second person, masculine singular. GKC, following König,

203

See also Ezek 15.3-4 for another instance of the double rhetorical question augmented with hnh.

204

Following the qere tarq over the ketiv, which has ytarq.

205

K-B, 695; Lev 19.18; Jer 3.5, 12; Ps 103.9; Nah 1.2.

206

Holladay, Jeremiah 1, 115-16.

207

The earlier quotation of H law in Jer 2.3 as well as the specific terminology of the present verse make this a distinct possibility.

240

suggests that lkwtw is an anomalous form of the second person feminine singular lacking its suffix because this form had been adequately represented earlier,208 citing a general rule that in sequences of second person, feminine singular, imperfect verbs, only the initial verb need carry the afformative hireq yod ending, which is diagnostic for this form (e.g., Is 57.8; Ezek 22.4, 23.32).209 Most commentators accordingly read v 5b as referring to the actions of the people in sequence: "You have spoken, done evil, and prevailed." Such a reading understands this as a contrastive formulation in which the people are quoted as invoking the paternalism of the divinity and his consequent forbearance in the first phase of their speech, to which the prophet opposes the persisting hypocrisy and sinfulness of the people in the second phase of the structure. The emphatic contrast between these two is marked, in this understanding, by the deictic particle, which appears in v 5b. The trbd is thus read as a reference to the words of the people immediately preceding. When we consider v 5 in terms of the textual environment in which it appears, however, it becomes possible to read the second half of the verse differently. The basic contrastive valence of the formulation is retained. However, attention to the extrinsic topoi that underlie each of the phases of the augmented double rhetorical question permit us to perceive a different set of references here, ones that valorize the written Masoretic tradition and demand no emendation or interpretive creativity in our treatment of the verbs of v 5b. Before we can suggest a convincing alternative reading, however, we need to pay careful attention to the total

208

GKC §69r.

209

GKC §145t.

241

context within which this verse is presented and attend to the operations of the rhetorical questions that appear here. Fishbane's perception that we have here an aggadic exegetical transformation of a traditum preserved in Dtr 24.1-4 is driven by the evident casuistic force of the deictic particle Nh, which appears at the beginning of v 1. In this understanding, the prophet cites a prior legal formulation on the proper relationship of a husband toward his wayward wife. He draws inferences regarding the national relationship to the divine, which are valorized by the prior metaphorical structure conceptualizing divine sovereignty in terms of the marital authority of the husband, a referential frame that Jeremiah had evidently inherited from Hosea.210 Thus the prophet mounts a critique of the nation that suggests their apostasy is equivalent to a wife's sexual infidelity. He draws upon the Deuteronomic law as a basis for suggesting that, in such a situation, restoration of marital relations is impossible. Jeremiah's rhetorical intention is more subtle than this, however, since he evidently does not intend to foreclose completely upon the potential for reparation. The prophet's point is that reconciliation is not a foregone conclusion and has no basis in legal praxis. Rather, if it is to take place, it will be by virtue of the surpassing mercy of the divinity. In Fishbane's understanding, this complex rhetorical posture depends upon the ambiguity inherent in the rhetorical question in v 1ab: dwo hyla bwvyh. In Amossy's terms, we may suggest that the extrinsic topos being invoked here is precisely the legal situation introduced by the prophet with the casuistic Nh. The function of the rhetorical question is thus to engender a situation of mutual agreement on the legal impossibility of reparation of relations following the people's covenantal infidelity. The rhetorical question

210

Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 312.

242

and its attendant illocutionary function draws into sharp relief the nation’s difficult situation. The subsequent rhetorical question in v 1, ayhh Xrah Pnjt Pwnj alh, further strengthens this invoked legal conundrum through the presentation of another analogous referential frame where reparation is apparently impossible, this time a priestly theologoumenon relating to the impossibility of tenure upon the land while in a state of impurity (cf. Num 35.33). These two metaphorical structures and the rhetorical questions that are their vehicle are thus intended to focus attention on the people's guilt and its persisting effect on national fortune. The rhetorical questions therefore facilitate doxic concord in terms of which causal forces underlying their collective situation may become clear. Vv 2-3 further emphasize this through the specification of the people's particular guilt (v 2) in terms of sexual immorality and impurity, and the meteorological effects of apostasy (v 3). With these metaphorical frames firmly established, then, how are we to understand the illocutionary function of the rhetorical question in v 4? The language of the people's plaintive cry invokes yet another set of metaphorical associations: not those of marital relations or of the holiness of the land, but rather, of divine paternality. Evidently, the rhetorical question in v 4 is meant to evade the connotations of the heuristic frames adduced in vv 1-3, suggesting instead that God is a father to the nation and thus may be expected to treat his people with more patience than a humiliated husband or a defiled land. There is no legal prohibition for a father receiving a daughter back into his home (cf. Gen 38), and a patient father might be expected to overlook what a humiliated husband cannot. This rhetorical question is an attempt, then, at counter persuasion. To the topoi invoked in v 1, the people present a contrastive topos; through an act of metaphorical reframing, the people suggest a legal loophole that might ameliorate their situation. 243

It is this situation of conflicting referential frames that motivates the complex utterance in v 5. The situation of referential disagreement between God and nation is accordingly resolved in the prophet's use of an augmented double rhetorical question. As we have suggested, the double rhetorical question continues the people's act of redefining their relationship with God. Following their identification of the divinity as yba, they ask if his grudge against them will last

Mlwol and jxnl, focusing attention squarely on the issue of the referential frame proper to their situation. Is the proper relationship between nation and God to be marital (in terms of which the answer is undoubtedly yes), or paternal (in which case, it may be no)? The people have invoked the counter frame of paternality, so their questions are properly mounted as rhetorical, and they attempt to force a reply that would permit them to escape the legal logic of the prophet's earlier metaphors. In these terms, the hnh clause that follows is best conceptualized as a prophet-initiated defeat of their rhetorical question. His refusal to accept the extrinsic topos encoded in this question transforms it into an information-seeking question. Instead of assenting to their act of metaphorical reframing, the prophet reasserts fundamental conditions that are a barrier to the reparation of relations, an assertion marked by the deictic hnh. It is possible to read this verse, with the MT, as specifying a different subject with each verb. The first verb, specified in the ketiv as a first person singular, refers to God. The second, evidently a second person, feminine singular, refers to the people. And the third, most simply interpreted as a third person, feminine singular, refers to the situation of the people in the abstract. Thus we should translate the passage as: "I [i.e., God/Jeremiah] have spoken, you [i.e., the nation] have done evil, and it [i.e., the state of sinfulness] has endured." Either interlocutor 244

has not challenged the gendered identification of the people as feminine, and the second verb is presented accordingly. Perhaps it is even possible to read the third verb as referring not to an abstract state of sinfulness, but as a direct reference to the situation that prevented reparation of relations in terms of the marital metaphor in v 1. That is to say, the subject of lkwtw could even be interpreted as the rbd twro of Dtr 24.1. This subtle interplay between metaphorical frames of reference and their attendant logic in the disputation is drawn into focus by careful attention to the illocutionary function of each of the rhetorical questions that advance the discussion. The ability of the rhetorical question to facilitate concord between speaker and audience and the persuasive function of this speech act is made clear, and in such terms, the interplay of suasion in this dialogue emerges to our view. Thus, Fishbane's perception that this is an aggadic exegetical reformulation of a Deuteronomic legal position is lent the added force of contextualizing this act of inner-biblical exegesis in an explicitly dialogical setting. We see how the prophet employs rhetorical questions in order to draw the plight of the nation to mind, while he characterizes the people themselves as using the rhetorical question to avoid his aggadic exegetical logic. In the case of the augmented double rhetorical question, the figure itself marks the transition between two separate speakers and two diametrically opposed argumentative positions. Thus it is impossible to read the hnh clause as anything other than explicitly contrastive. “Am I a God nearby?” says the Lord, “and not a God far off? Or can a man be hidden in secret places, And I not see him?” says the Lord. “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” says the Lord.

'h_MUa◊n yˆn™Da bÿOr∂;qIm yªEhølTaAh

:qáOj∂rEm y™EhølTa añøl◊w MyöîrD;tVsI;mA;b vyªIa r°EtD;sˆy_MIa 'h_MUa◊n …w…n™Ra√rRa_aáøl y¶InSaÅw a™ElDm y¶InSa X®r¢DaDh_tRa◊w MˆyªAmDÚvAh_tRa aw°ølSh :'h_MUa◊n 245

In the midst of a collection of Jeremiah's oracles against the prophets (Jer 23.9-40), we find another adaptation of the double rhetorical question in vv 23-24, this one subtly contrastive through the appending of a third member introduced by the particle alh.211 The particular text unit where this speech figure appears is the polemic against false prophets, which runs from vv 16-30. This unit is demarcated by the oracular opening device twabx 'h rma hk, which appears in v 16, and the distinct shift in genre to a vision report in 24.1. McKane212 and Holladay213 have each separately argued for further subdivisions in this text unit, but against them we may perceive certain thematic elements that unify the entire passage. The repeated emphasis of the unit is on the divine word (rbd), its origin and effect (vv 16, 18, 22, 28, 29 and 30). The imagery of the divine counsel ('h dws) appears in v 18 and again in v 22. The emphasis on the subjective

bl of the false prophets can be found in v 16 and v 26. References to their revelation in dreams (twmwlj) are seen in vv 25, 27 and 28. More generally, the prophet breaks from a specific indictment of the epistemological status of the words of the false prophets in two places (vv 1920, 23-24) to develop images that speak to the relationship of the divinity to the cosmos. The general theme of the oracle is a criticism of prophets who express oracles on the basis of subjective perceptions and psychic events, or who lay claims to unique experiences of the proceedings of the divine counsel. This attitude toward the status of prophetic revelation is a polemic against the classical understanding of prophecy as mediation reflected in Is 6 or 1K 22. The criticism of prophecy based on its congruence with the expectation of its audience is similar to that developed in Mic 2.11. More generally, Jeremiah rejects a notion of special revelation (v 211

See also Mic 2.7, which uses the simple al in its third member.

212

McKane, Jeremiah, 587.

213

Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 639.

246

29) in terms similar to those found in Dtr 30.12-13, though there is, of course, no specific reference to an easily apprehensible Deuteronomic law here. In the course of developing this critique, an essential element in the Jeremian criticism is the expression of paradox concerning God’s simultaneous transcendence, omniscience and yet ever-presence. The vehicle for this argument is the augmented double rhetorical question of vv 23-24. Lundbom, surprisingly, treats these verses as consisting of three separate utterances, clearly on the basis of the repeated 'h_Man that recurs in these verses.214 This device need not mark the closure of an oracle, however,215 and our perception that the augmented double question is an integrated literary device militates in favor of treating this as an intermediate punctuating formula rather than a strong structuring element.216 The specific structure of this augmented double rhetorical question is contrastive, as the semantic force of the particle alh would suggest, albeit in a nuanced fashion. The first phase expresses, in the h member, the surpassing elevation of the divinity,217 and draws from this an epistemological corollary in the second Ma member. From the exceedingly distant divine perspective, all things are visible. The subsequent contrastive member is much more subtly developed than what is found in Jer 3.5. The argumentative core of the oracle is in the rich image of the divine word as a pure, materially manifested agentive force in v 29; the complicated position staked out in the augmented rhetorical question of vv 23-24 helps to establish this theology.

214

Lundbom, Jeremiah 21-36, 200.

215

See inter alia, Is 22.25; 30.1; Jer 1.15; 2.9; 5.29; 15.3; Ezek 14.16; 16.8; Am 6.8; Obad 8; Nah 2.13.

216

See also McKane, Jeremiah, 586.

217

McKane, Jeremiah, 585

247

The double rhetorical question invokes specific theological doxa pertaining to the transcendent ontological and omniscient epistemological status of the divinity, while the contrastive alh member presents a complicating image of divine immanence. Situated in the midst of a polemic against prophetic claims to have participated in the divine counsel, a theologoumenon directly related to the theology of the transcendent divine, Jeremiah’s introduction of the paradoxical expression of divine immanence in the cosmos is a powerful element in establishing his own prophetic consciousness. There is, throughout the Book of Jeremiah, a repeated insistence on access to the divine through interaction with mundane, material objects (e.g., Jer 1.11-14; Jer 18; 24; et al.). The paradoxical stance developed in Jer 23.23-24 is an important element in the establishment of this mode of revelation. I am eighty years old today, Mw˝ø¥yAh y°IkOnDa ·hÎnDv My∞InOmVv_NR;b Can I tell what is good and what is bad? o#∂rVl bwâøf_NyE;b —oâådEaAh Can your servant taste what I eat lAkOa r§RvSa_tRa ‹ÔK√;dVbAo M§AoVfˆy_MIa and what I drink? h$R;tVvRa r∞RvSa_tRa◊w Can I yet hear the voices of the singing men and women? twúørDv◊w MyâîrDv lwëøqV;b dw$øo o∞AmVvRa_MIa Why should I remain a burden: a$DÚcAmVl ‹dwøo ñÔK√;dVbAo h∏‰yVh`Iy ·hD;mDl◊w to my lord, the king? JKRl`R;mAh y™InOdSa_lRa In 2Sam 19.36, we find another strategy for the augmentation of the double rhetorical question. Here, in the context of David's invitation to Barzillai to reside with him in Jerusalem following the suppression of Absalom's rebellion, the old man attempts to formulate a polite rejection of the king's offer. This careful demurral is well crafted and explicitly persuasive. Accordingly, it invokes and develops doxa in the course of persuading David that he is in fact doing the king a favor by refusing his hospitality.

248

No doubt there is a political subtext to Barzillai's action. Although the two have previously been described as affiliated,218 David's invitation looks very much like part of an effort to consolidate power in the Transjordan despite Barzillai’s previous material support.219 The strategy of sending hostages to guarantee a relationship of vassalage or general political subjugation is attested elsewhere in the Ancient Near East,220 and the offering of Khimham as a substitute for Barzillai (v 38) looks very much like this practice. In any case, it is clear that some political subtext, implicit to our author but lost to our view, motivates Barzillai's demurral. He adapts the double rhetorical question in order to preserve the regnal fiction of hospitality while casting attention away from the political subtext for his refusal and onto his harmlessness. It is interesting to see that in this text, one of the stronger motivations for the misdirection inherent in the Searlean Indirect Speech Act—politeness—is the motivation behind Barzillai's speech act. There is here a separation between the apparent function of Barzillai's statement (the reference to his physical infirmity) and its actual illocutionary force, which is the rejection of an invitation. The old man makes a complex reference to the decline of his physical and perceptual capacities, stating that infirmity makes enjoyment of the manifold pleasures of court life impossible. The actual form of the augmented double rhetorical question is the expected …Ma…h construction followed by a third Ma clause still subordinate to the interrogative h, followed by a genuine information seeking, wh-question introduced by hml. The addition of a 218

2Sam 17.27-29; 1K 2.7.

219

This is the reading given the scene by Baruch Halpern, who recognizes David’s request as explicitly political, and the offering of Barzillai’s son as an act of regnal hostage-taking. Baruch Halpern, David's Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2001), 1. Such an interpretation contrasts with that of Ackerman, who reckons David’s offer as a genuine reward to a loyal vassal (James S. Ackerman, "Knowing Good and Evil: A Literary Analysis of the Court History in 2 Samuel 9-20 and 1 Kings 1-2" JBL 109 [1990]: 42). 220

e.g., EA 137:27ff.

249

second Ma clause is likely also motivated by the delicacy of Barzillai's response, a sort of extension of the preparatory phase of the complex speech act. The verse begins with a general statement regarding the patriarch's age. Each of the subsequent rhetorical questions will draw out another nuance of this asserted fact. The initial h question is generic and pertains to general perceptual capacity.221 The collocation bwf Nyb todl

orl is a reasonably well-attested idiom referring to the full operation of adult reason (Dtr 1.39; Is 7.15, 16) of which sexuality is a component (Gen 2.17). The generic reading is the most appropriate to our context. Barzillai refers to his perceptual infirmity in abstract terms in the initial h clause and then substantiates this with two particular specifications in the subsequent Ma clauses. The first refers to gustatory sensitivity, the second to his ability to appreciate the subtleties of musical performance. This pleonastic set of rhetorical questions thus provides the substratum for Barzillai's subsequently posed information-seeking question. It is here that the subtlety and persuasive capacity of this speech form becomes evident. Having established mutual concord on the subject of the perceptual dullness of the aged and their inability to enjoy fully the pleasures of court life, Barzillai poses a wh-question that goes to the heart of the king's invitation. In v 36b, Barzillai enquires after the sufficiency of his demurral, explicitly asking if there is another motivation behind the king's invitation, even as he raises the rhetorical stakes by referring to himself as a

acm. The rhetorical question in v 37 extends this further, and v 38 provides the king with a face-

221

McCarter is mistaken in perceiving here a specific reference to sexual potency. P. Kyle McCarter, I Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes and Commentary (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 422. We need not fall back on a sexual referent for bwf and or in the course of rejecting an overt moral valence for these terms. Consider, for example the approach taken in W. M. Clark, "A Legal Background to the Yahwist's Use of "Good and Evil" in Genesis 2-3." JBL 88 (1969): 266-278.

250

saving strategy permitting him to withdraw his invitation. Barzillai again emphasizes his infirmity, making reference to his imminent death, and offers Khimham as a substitute in the king's court. V 39 reflects the effectiveness of Barzillai's conversational strategem: the king maintains the fiction of hospitality and accepts the substitute. The rhetorical questions in vv 36 and 37 are an essential persuasive vehicle for accomplishing this diplomatic end. They simultaneously instantiate doxic concord between speaker and hearer even as they skirt dangerously close to the unspoken political subtext at work in the interaction between David and his aged vassal. These instances of the augmented double rhetorical question are rare enough to be considered local adaptations of the double rhetorical question formula. In each case, we find the persuasive illocutionary function of the double question augmented with a further, strategic speech act. The function of this third member is not consistently contrastive, but neither is it ever an extending or dependent rhetorical question. The occasional nature of these sorts of extensions speaks to their situational strategic efficacy and the discursive creativity of their speakers. There is, however, a widely attested and stable form of the augmented double rhetorical question that does preserve an explicit contrast marked by the particle yk. It is worth examining this figure in more detail, since we will argue that its frequent attestation makes it likely that this is the idiomatic basis upon which Jeremiah developed the augmented double rhetorical question employing owdm in its third member.

The Double Rhetorical Question Augmented with yk 251

In several cases, we find the …Ma…h rhetorical question augmented with a following yk clause. Although the majority of these instances are found in the Book of Jeremiah, several significant examples appear in poetry and prose composed prior to this text. The figure appears in enough independent contexts to permit its treatment as a stable idiom. As we have discussed above, its attestation before Jeremiah means that we must disagree with Moshe Held that this formula is a mere variant of the triple question form …owdm…Ma…h. Before we examine specific examples of this figure and attend to its particular operation in different contexts, we must first discuss the function of the yk particle, specifically its relationship to the Ma member of the double rhetorical question. As discussed previously, we must first explain its semantic character and then describe the illocutionary ends to which it has been put by the Biblical authors. Its status as a formal literary device means that it has some durable, sociolinguistically recognizable semantic force. In other words, it comprises what Ruth Amossy would call an implicit topos: a logical pattern that organizes thought. In his survey of the particle yk in the Hebrew Bible, James Muilenberg asserted its essentially emphatic and deictic force.222 This basic function could be augmented in a variety of contexts to accomplish particular rhetorical ends, and the bulk of his essay was devoted to surveying these particular contextual functions. Its most frequent usage, Muilenberg maintained, was for the purposes of motivation.223 In casuistic and apodictic legal contexts, this particle was characteristically used to preface motive clauses that rationalized a given legal stipulation.224

222

J. Muilenburg, "The Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages of the Particle yk in the Old Testament." HUCA 32 (1961): 137. 223

Muilenburg, "Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages,” 150.

224

Muilenburg, "Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages,” 151-152.

252

Such motive clauses also appear in blessings, curses, certain oracles and the exhortations characteristic of wisdom literature.225 Aside from its use in motive clauses, Muilenberg observed the particle's function in contexts such as oath clauses, invective, exhortation, hymns and laments, salvation oracles, and the Gerichtsrede.226 In Muilenberg’s estimation, all these contextual usages, despite their particular exigencies, preserve a basic emphatic, connective function.227 In an article published twenty years after Muilenberg's study, A. Schoors built on this approach to the particle yk. Integrating comparative linguistic data, he perceived an emphatic function for the particle that related it to the Ugaritic k- prefix. Such a function was nuanced, however, by the wide variety of other semantic functions served by the particle in other Semitic languages. Schoors maintained that in general, the particle's use in Phoenician, Moabite and Aramaic is predominantly causal, while Akkadian has no such attested function; rather, the particle was used in temporal, conditional and emphatic clauses instead.228 In Biblical Hebrew, he agreed with Muilenberg that the basic sense of yk is deictic and emphatic, as its use in Gen 18.20 would suggest.229 Further, this function can be fulfilled in a variety of contexts including oath formulae and conditional clauses. Most interesting is his perception of an occasional adversative force for yk when it follows a negative clause.230 In

225

Muilenburg, "Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages,” 152-153.

226

Muilenburg, "Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages,” 156-159.

227

Muilenburg, "Linguistic and Rhetorical Usages,” 160.

228

Anton Schoors, "The Particle yk." Remembering All the Way...: A Collection of Old Testament Studies Published on the Occasion of the Fortieth Anniversary of the Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap in Nederland, ed. A. S. Van der Woude (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 242. 229

Schoors, "The Particle

yk," 242-243.

230

Schoors, "The Particle

yk," 251-253. 253

contexts such as Gen 24.3-4, the particle can bear the force of expressing alternation, a contextspecific instantiation of its asseverative force. According to Schoors, a specific subset of such contexts is the introduction of rhetorical questions anticipating a negative response.231 Apart from this function, he demonstrated a widely attested use of yk as a subordinating conjunction marking nominal clauses, as with the Hebrew rva and the Greek oJti,232 and a use of yk in adverbial clauses: the causal clause,233 the temporal clause,234 the conditional clause,235 or the concessive clause, for example.236 W.T. Claassen noted the obscurity of this designation and challenged this broad ascription of an "emphatic" function to this particle.237 Claassen took specific issue with Muilenberg's contention that emphasis is the basic function of yk, claiming he generally attended to the effect the particle had on what followed it without paying attention to the prior context: "With ki and the immediately following context now separated from the preceding context, ki necessarily acquires the character of a strange and unexpected item which can hardly be explained in any other way than expressing emphasis."238 In opposition to both Muilenberg and Schoors, Claassen cites approvingly Muraoka's hypothesis of a basic and persisting

231

Schoors, "The Particle

yk," 252-253.

232

Schoors, "The Particle

yk," 253-254.

233

Schoors, "The Particle

yk," 264.

234

Schoors, "The Particle

yk," 267.

235

Schoors, "The Particle

yk," 269.

236

Schoors, "The Particle

yk," 271.

237

W. T. Claassen, "Speaker-Orientated Functions of kî in Biblical Hebrew," Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 11 (1983): 29-30. 238

Claassen, "Speaker-Orientated Functions of kî," 33.

254

demonstrative function for yk, which was only secondarily substantiated as emphasis,239 as well as BDB's treatment of the causal force of the particle as fundamental.240 Claassen nuances this latter treatment of the particle by drawing attention to the fact that

yk functions differently depending on the syntactic level of its expression. Within a given discourse, a speaker may employ an "evidential" yk, while at the level of narrative, a "causal" yk may be used to rationalize the total utterance of a speaker.241 This attention to the proper discursive level upon which a syntagm operates marks a real advance in the treatment of this particle. From it, he derives a set of nuanced senses for yk, which had not been appreciated previously. In addition to the basic evidentiary function, the particle may also express motivation, whether for an interrogative act, a statement, or a particular lexical item.242 Claassen determines that this approach demands the positing of a new class of "speaker-orientated (causal) functions," in terms of which yk can "...[indicate] the structure of an argument, the speaker's own position towards his hearer and towards other factors which have influenced him. Together with other particles and grammatical constructions it signals important breaks in the linear course of an argument or narrative."243 Thus scholarship on yk has increasingly emphasized the immediate contextual influences on this particle that governs its local semantic force. Both Schoors and Claasen have shown us situations when a given context can demand of yk a very different sort of meaning. When

239

Muraoka, Emphatic Words, 132.

240

BDB, 473-474.

241

Claassen, "Speaker-Orientated Functions of kî," 37.

242

Claassen, "Speaker-Orientated Functions of kî," 43.

243

Claassen, "Speaker-Orientated Functions of kî,". 44.

255

Schoors discusses the adversative yk in a context subsequent to a negative statement, he is marking out a function for this particle that is context-dependent. Likewise, the speaker-oriented function that Claassen has argued for depends on the discursive posture of the speaker in relation to his utterance and audience. Such heuristic approaches militate against a methodology that seeks an abstract semantic function for yk, given this particle's essentially protean nature. We may gain some particular purchase on the problem, then, by attending to the manner in which it operates in related contexts. In particular, given the evident alternation between yk and Ma in this augmented double rhetorical question, we should look for other instances in the Biblical corpus when these two particles alternate with one another. We find one such case in oath formulae. In contexts such as Am 4.2, we find that yk functions following the oath formula in a positive fashion. Following the inflected √obv and the witness clause marked with b, the prophet stipulates precisely what is being sworn in a yk clause. This pattern for oath-taking perfectly contrasts with a negative formula when the contracted statements are preceded with Ma. In the oath that Saul begs of David after their encounter in the cave at Ein Gedi (1Sam 24.22), for example, we find the same structure as the oath formula in Am 4.2, with the exception that Saul articulates a negative statement prefaced with Ma. This simple alternation between positive and negative valences for the two particles yk and Ma illustrates that when considered paradigmatically, they may serve a perfectly contrastive function. In each case, an essentially context-dependent, deictic function of the particle seems to be operative. These particles mark a transition from the preparatory phases of the oath formula, where the mode of speaking is specified, to the substantial content of the oath itself. Crucial for our purposes, however, is the way each of these particles marks the subsequent statement 256

positively or negatively. We need not fall back on Muilenberg's assertion that yk is in every case emphatic; rather it has here a function that perfectly opposes the essential dubiety encoded in Ma. We need only note that in normal language use, Biblical Hebrew recognizes that these two particles are positioned perfectly contrastively in semantic space. By analogy with the contrastive paradigmatic functions of yk and Ma in oath formulae, then, we may argue that these two particles serve a contrastive syntagmatic function in the double rhetorical question augmented with yk. Here, the doubled …Ma…h phase serves its usual function to draw to mind a particular doxic element and to instantiate concord between speaker and hearer. The subsequent yk clause serves to introduce a datum that contrasts with the prior statement, thereby complicating that situation of cognitive concord. The particle problematizes the invoked doxic concord and demands of the audience further intellectual effort in order to maintain communication. Put differently, the presentation of the yk clause forces a tertiary transformation upon the Secondary Speech Act of rhetorical questioning. If the double rhetorical question is, as we have argued, a device for the invocation of doxa, then the double rhetorical question augmented with

yk is a device for the development of paradox, and the illocutionary effect of this complex utterance is accordingly aporetic.244 Let us examine a few examples of the double rhetorical 244

It is important to note that this contrastive relationship between the members of a multiple question can also occur in an unmarked fashion. In Jer 2.32, for example, we find an unmarked contrast between an initial question, signified with h, and a second datum preceded by a simple connective waw: Can a girl forget her jewelry? ;hYÎy√dRo ‹hDl…wtV;b j§A;kVvItSh A bride her trousseau? Dhyó®rUÚvIq h™D;lA;k Yet my people have forgotten me yˆn…w$jEkVv y∞I;mAo◊w for days without number. :r`DÚpVsIm Ny¶Ea My™ImÎy The repetition of the verb √jkv in the first and second stich of this figure makes clear that some sort of contrastive formulation is being developed. But Jeremiah here feels no particular need to mark this contrast with a dedicated particle. Instead, the prophet develops a rhetorical question that invokes certain doxic understandings of

257

question augmented with yk to gain a sense for the way this stylistic pattern may be employed in the course of argumentation. Have I conceived this whole nation? H … ave I given birth to it? Yet, you say to me: “Bear them in your breast, as a nurse bears a suckling child, unto the land which I promised to their fathers.”

hY‰ΩzAh M∞DoDh_lD;k tEa£ yIty#îrDh y∞IkOnDaRh why¡I;t√dIl◊y y™IkOnDa_MIa ÔK#®qyEjVb …wh∞EaDc y%AlEa r°Amaøt_y`I;k qY´nO¥yAh_tRa ‹NEmOaDh a§DÚcˆy r°RvSaA;k :wy`DtObSaAl D;tVo™A;bVvˆn r¶RvSa h$Dm∂dSa`Dh lAo£

In Num 11.12, we find an instance of Moses employing the figure in the course of his dispute with God. The larger narrative context involves the people's complaints over the manna God provided them in the desert, and their desire to eat meat (Num 11.4). In the course of contending with God on their behalf, Moses expresses to the divinity his exhaustion and frustration at being forced to intermediate on behalf of an ungrateful nation. His particular speech runs from v 11 until v 15. It begins with two information-seeking wh-questions in v 11 employing parallel hml particles. These have an introductory force; with them, Moses frames his grievances and enquires after the cause of his present predicament. In v 12, he develops this interrogation through the presentation of a complex rhetorical formulation that functions to set up the more focused questions of v 13. Here, Moses refers to the nature, origin and status of his political authority. The first phase is a double rhetorical question formulated with the standard …Ma…h structure. In it, he uses the language of parenthood to conceptualize his present situation. The rhetorical questions invoke associations with the close

the relationship between a bride and her accouterments and then contrasts this through the appositional presentation of a statement regarding the status of the nation in relation to her God. The metaphorical identification of Israel with the bride is sustained through the web of similitudes that drive the larger context within which this contrastive figure appears. Consider also Ezek 22.14.

258

material kinship of parent and child, which he approaches from a heuristic perspective to symbolize the intensive mediation presently demanded of him. The third member of the figure is a contrastive yk statement that transforms these associations. The double rhetorical question anticipates negative responses in each case. Moses has neither conceived nor given birth to the nation. With the third member, he complicates that rejected uterine kinship with a reference to his present role as an Nma. The image of a nursemaid is, conceptually, a softening of the language of parentage we see in the double rhetorical question. With this, Moses appears to be affirming his role as an intermediary but rejecting his present circumstance as inappropriately intensive. The yk clause is subtly formulated as it makes reference to the secondary responsibility of Moses even as it alludes to the actual paternity of the

twba. Thus, this figure develops a nuanced contrast between degrees of intimacy between child and caretaker even as it juxtaposes two sets of cultural assumptions regarding the responsibilities proper each. The efficacy of Moses' attempt at persuasion is encoded within the narrative in the divine response of vv 17-20. Here the divinity both revises the responsibilities incumbent upon Moses (v 17) and responds to the people's grievance (vv 18-20). The engine for this act of persuasion is the contrast encoded within the augmented double rhetorical question and the doxic conflict between the normal responsibilities of a parent (upon which Moses and the divinity are in agreement), the affirmed responsibilities of a secondary caretaker, and a reference to the present obligations of Moses himself. Interestingly, we find another sort of contrast at work in this formulation as well, one that is marked for temporality. The double rhetorical question refers to past time while the following yk clause refers to present circumstance. Thus, this speech 259

figure develops a paradoxical formulation by invoking past truths and juxtaposing present circumstance. Can horses run on rock? Can one plow [there] with oxen? Yet, you have changed justice into poison and the fruits of righteousness into bitterness.

My$Is…ws ‹oAl‹R;sA;b N…wôxür◊yAh Myóîr∂qV;bA;b vwëørSjÅy_M`Ia f$DÚpVvIm ‹vaørVl M§R;tVkApSh_y`I;k :h`DnSoAlVl hä∂q∂dVx yñîrVp…w

We find a similar temporal shift in the augmented double rhetorical question of Am 6.12. Here, the prophet juxtaposes abstract truths with a commentary on present circumstance in a fashion that is explicitly aporetic. In a subtle and skillful elaboration upon the standard pattern, however, Amos embeds this augmented double rhetorical question within a larger literary unit, which develops lingering ambiguity to a powerful effect. The text unit where this figure appears comprises vv 12-14.245 According to Shalom Paul, the oracle was placed in its present context on terminological and phonic grounds. The Leitwort var appears in v 12 as well as vv 1, 6 and 7, and there is a phonic association between the Mysysr and Myoqb of v 11 and the Mysws and Myrqb of v 12.246 Although he does not treat the pattern of particles in v 12 as a discrete, formal device, Paul nevertheless recognizes that this is a double question with a subsequent contrastive element.247 Likewise, he recognizes the argumentative force of the figure in which two parallel images of impossibility drawn from the natural world are placed in apposition to a contrasting metaphorical scene from the present political circumstance of Israel. This reading contrasts with that of Andersen and Freedman, 245

Against Andersen and Freedman, who argue for a textual unit in vv 11-13 (F. I. Andersen, and D. N. Freedman, Amos: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible [New York: Doubleday, 1989], 575.) 246

Paul, “Amos,” 218

247

Paul, “Amos,” 218-219.

260

who improbably see an "enigmatic...riddle" in the paired …Ma…h questions.248 Misperceiving the function of the formula used here by Amos, they suggest a hypothetical generic context—the fable from nature—so that the imagery in the double rhetorical question might make sense.249 By classing this figure as a riddle, however, Andersen and Freedman miss its engaged, persuasive function and the specific rhetorical way this is achieved. In terms of our above discussion, we should observe that the rhetorical questions are socio-linguistically embedded phenomena, drawing upon explicit topoi to elicit agreement from their audience and employing this consensus to sustain the contrastive argumentation that follows. The first image appears straightforward: Amos invokes the impossibility of running horses on rock. The second image is more difficult. Perhaps we ought to read the phrase olsb that appears in the first clause as gapped in the second.250 Alternatively, Paul suggests emending

Myrqbb to read My rqbb, treating the plural ending of the prepositional phrase as an independent noun, which would then function as the object of the verb vwrjy.251 Neither interpretive choice substantially changes the force of the image, though there is in either case a persistent ambiguity. Minimally, we may observe that parallel to the prior impossibility, Amos seems to develop in v 12ab an image of oxen plowing fruitlessly. With these paired questions, the prophet apparently invokes commonly held knowledge regarding the proper environment for livestock and the absurdity of working them where they cannot go. This doxa then serves as pretext for the contrastive yk clause, which extends and

248

Andersen & Freedman, Amos, 577.

249

Andersen & Freedman, Amos, 578.

250

Following Radak.

251

Paul, Amos, 218.

261

develops this reversal in the natural order of things. The paired statements of agricultural impossibility are contrasted with unspecified practices, which function to transform (Kwphl), the cosmic categories of justice and righteousness,252 into unpalatable natural elements: var and

hnol. The use of the phrase hqdx yrp makes clear that it is in the domain of agriculture that the prophet intends his contrast. Yet the precise manner of this contrast is not made clear. Exactly how is Amos’s audience supposed to be transforming fpvm and hqdx into inedible stuff? The augmented double rhetorical question employed here replicates the formal structure of the device but does not clarify for its audience the domain where the aporia essential to this device is meant to be recognized. Thus the audience is left with a sense of contradiction without knowing precisely how that contradiction obtains. Only once the terms fpvm and hqdx are successfully decoded can the nature of the offense become clear. While the transition of this double rhetorical question to its augmenting yk clause is clearly enigmatic, the figure is not a riddle in the classical sense of the term. Rather, we might suggest that there is an intentional delay in the resolution of ambiguity as this device unfolds. In vv 13-14, Amos refers obliquely to the military campaigns of Jeroboam II into the Transjordan (cf. 2K 14.25), mentioning two conquests in particular: Lodvar (which Amos sarcastically renders as rbd al "nothing") and Karnaim.253 This campaign would have taken Jeroboam’s forces through the Trans-Jordanian hill country north of the Jabbok into the territory of the Arameans. With this concrete reference, the earlier image of running horses on rock takes on a

252

Am 5.24; Ps 89.15; 97.6.

253

Paul, Amos, 219.

262

valence more concrete than that of generalized horsemanship: that image resonates with the difficulty of mounting military campaigns in hilly territory.254 The prophet now seems to be using horses as a metonym for a military campaign, presenting their swift passage in rocky territory as an impossibility, a rbd al, and playing on the name of one of Jeroboam’s targets. With this association having taken root, the place-name “Karnaim” (literally “two horns”) now provides a concrete reference for the more difficult image of Myrqbb. The confusing term is now resolved as a pun on a place name, and the prepositional prefix resolves itself not as a beth of means, but as a locative device: “Could horses run in the cliffs?//Could he plough in Beqarim?” As with rbd al, the prophet sarcastically reformulates the place-name “Two Horns” as “Cattle”255 and then refers to its conquest using √vrj in an extended, metaphorical sense.256 The metaphorical association that sustains this ambiguity is similar to the one used in Hos 10.9-15. Thus, with v 13, Amos offers an unexpected military context within which his enigmatic imagery in v 12 becomes comprehensible. What had previously seemed to refer, in a confusing fashion, to agricultural commonplaces, now resonates more powerfully with recent military events. The inherent associations of impossibility in the double rhetorical question are substantiated powerfully in relation to the reconquest of Jeroboam II. Hence the contrast in the augment to this double rhetorical question is one of collective emphasis on military domination at the expense of social justice. With this unexpected shift in the domain from which the prophet draws his explicit topoi, he is able to exploit his audience’s desire to see a satisfying resolution to 254

Cf. 1K 20.23-25.

255

Cf. Am 4.1.

256

Cf. Mic 3.12//Jer 26.18

263

his rhetorical figure. In doing so, he confronts them with an uncomfortable charge: the military success of Jeroboam II is associated with agricultural impossibility. This uncomfortable conjunction is then contrasted with an equally uncomfortable charge that ethical conduct has been likewise perverted.257 Amos gestures beyond the apparent integrity of Jeroboam’s military prowess to the cosmic force that has given him success. The boldness of this gesture is finally grounded when v 14 presents an image of a divinely-inspired, perfect reversal of the Israelite armies’ territorial conquests by the God of justice and righteousness.258 Amos engages in a complex and sophisticated sort of argumentation that plays freely on the contrastive valence inherent in the double rhetorical question augmented with yk. The invocation of concord between speaker and hearer is contrastively developed by introducing an ethical frame of reference that does not succeed in clarifying the imagery in the first phase of the figure of speech. This paradoxical logic is then transposed in an extremely cunning rhetorical move into a new and more controversial political domain in the subsequent verse. The prophet exploits ambiguity with ease, suspending resolution and developing this argument in a way that illustrates his consummate facility with the augmented double rhetorical question. It is arguable that the delayed shock of his substantiation of the images of horse and oxen in contemporary political life depends on his audience's recognition of the literary technique employed in v 12. It seems possible that Amos has manipulated his audience's anticipation of a doxic contrast in the second member of the augmented rhetorical question by presenting such a contrast in general 257

The association of hqdx and fpvm with good governance has been well discussed by M. Weinfeld in his “‘Justice and Righteousness’— hqdxw fpvm —The Expression and its Meaning” in Justice and Righteousness: Biblical Themes and their Influence. ed. H.G. Reventlow and Y. Hoffman. JSOTSupp 137 (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic, 1992) 228-246, esp. 230-235. Also in his subsequent monograph: Social Justice in Ancient Israel and in the Ancient Near East (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1995). 258

Paul, Amos, 221, see also Andersen and Freedman, Amos, 582-583.

264

terms and then subsequently reframing the entire literary device in a fashion that reorients the entire stylistic figure. “Is Ephraim a darling son to me? Is he a delightful child? Yet, as long as I have been speaking with him, I am indeed recalling him still. Therefore, my innards roil for him I shall indeed feel compassion for him,” says the Lord.

Mˆy#årVpRa y%Il ry°I;qÅy ·NEbSh My$IoUvSoAv dRl∞Ry MIa£ w$ø;b ‹yîrV;båd yôé;dIm_y`I;k dwóøo …w…nä®rV;k◊zRa rñOkÎz w$øl ‹yAoEm …wômDh N#E;k_lAo :'h_MUa◊n …w…n™RmSjårà⋲a M¶Ejår

We find a similarly sophisticated development of the double rhetorical question augmented with yk in Jer 31.20.259 This oracle serves as the culmination of the literary unit that runs from v 15 through v 20. This unit begins with the opening device: 'h rma hk and concludes in v 20 with 'h_Man. The broader context is Jeremiah's so-called "Little Book of Consolation" (Jer 30-31), a literary unit presented by Mowinckel as a post-Jeremian "D-Source;" however, Benjamin Sommer has since conclusively demonstrated it is authentic to Jeremiah.260 The immediate unit within this collection is bound together by images of maternal mercy (Mjr), first with Rachel in v 15 and finally with God in v 20. The language of youth and parentage prevails throughout the passage. The specific motivation for the augmented double rhetorical question in v 20 is the statement of Ephraim in v 18-19, in which this metonym for the people of Israel claims his youth as an explanation for his transgression. The reply of the divinity presents a strong counter to this protestation. A failure to perceive the general rhetorical function of contrast between the double 259

Other usages of this literary device in prophetic contexts may be seen in Mic 4.9; Jer 18.14-15; and Jer 14.22, which presents a double contrast in the augment phase, using alh and yk in parallel clauses. Consider also Jer 48.27, which employs a double rhetorical question using …Ma…Ma followed by a contrastive yk clause. 260

Sommer, "New Light," 646-666.

265

rhetorical question and the following yk member has led some to misinterpret the subtle tension in this figure. McKane's translation is emblematic: “Is Ephraim my dear son, my darling child? For as aften [sic] as I speak against him memories of him are jogged. My feelings for him are then stirred up; I love him tenderly. This is Yahweh’s word.”261 At a loss for how to render the divine response to the preceding statement, McKane (and before him Carroll262) falls back on a debatable, rarely attested hostile valence for the b particle (K-B offers only Jer 46.20 and Ex 1.10 as instances of this function) to translate wb yrbd_ydm. Thus he misreads the nature of the contrast in this verse, thinking that it obtains at the level of the divine relationship to Ephraim.263 All these commentators miss the force of the contrast inherent in this literary figure, which is here substantiated on temporal grounds. The double rhetorical question invokes cultural associations related to the youth of Ephraim, associations sustained by the narrative representation of Joseph's younger son receiving the preeminent blessing at the deathbed of Jacob in Gen 48. This extrinsic topos of the child Ephraim is contrasted by the divine reference to the long temporal extent of their heilsgeschichtliche relationship: "As long as I have been speaking with him, I am indeed recalling him still." This invocation of the long association between Israel and God belies the claimed youth of Ephraim. The abundance of temporal figures

261

McKane, Jeremiah, 796.

262

Carroll, Jeremiah, 595.

263

Lundbom treats the phrase similarly, Jeremiah 21-36, 444.

266

in this verse (ydm, dwo and the essentially temporal connotation of √rkz) help to buttress this contrast and develop the paradoxical argument. Having invoked simultaneously the youth of Ephraim and the temporally sustained divine love, the Nk_lo figure that closes this verse asserts forcefully that divine hmjr will continue even into the future. In line with the broader consolatory theme of this section, Jeremiah here asserts the persistence of divine mercy even in the face of continued transgression. God’s graciousness toward the wayward nation will not be compelled by its naiveté; rather it is motivated by the paradoxical continuance of intense maternal love despite time’s passage.

In this section, we have surveyed different strategies for the adaptation of the double rhetorical question. In each instance, we observed the manner in which some form of contrastive argumentation was developed through the presentation of a third member subsequent to the rhetorical question. Additionally, we observed how one particular strategy of augmentation, the use of a contrastive yk clause, took on the status of a stable literary figure in its own right. The semantic force of this new stylistic device depended, we maintained, on a general semiotic contrast in Biblical Hebrew between the particles yk and Ma. The figure that resulted accomplished the contrastive presentation of opposing doxa, and it functioned as an indigenous Hebraic rhetorical structure for the development of aporetic argumentation. In many cases, the development of this aporia depended on the cultivation of consensus between speaker and hearer on the basis of past or atemporal truths and the challenging of this consensus through the citation of present circumstance.

267

It is important to note that this sort of argument remains at the level of rhetorical interrogation. The contrast that develops is verbally encoded in the utterance of the speaker and interpreted in the mind of the hearer. The contrastive yk clause demands nothing more than a conceptual recognition of the contrast between the explicit topoi invoked in the double rhetorical question and the topos upon which the subsequent clause depends. This is, in essence, a logical contrastive rhetorical formation. In the following section, we will see how the Jeremian adaptation of this logical contrastive device effects an illocutionary transformation upon the entire pattern through the substitution of the information-seeking particle owdm for yk. With this change, the aporetic logic of the device becomes a direct challenge to the hearer. The paradox invoked by the figure becomes something more than a conceptual conundrum. In Jeremiah’s hands, this literary device becomes an explicit means to demand of his audience an adequate response to incomprehensible circumstance.

The Double Rhetorical Question Augmented with owdm At this point in our discussion, it should be evident that Jeremiah has a particular affinity for the …Ma…h rhetorical question pattern. We have seen how his use of this formula is remarkable for its characteristic elaboration and sophistication, and that the majority of cases of this pattern augmented with yk are found in his book. It seems that he gave considerable thought to the expressive potential of this received stylistic figure, developing it in significant ways. Accordingly, his idiosyncratic use of the double rhetorical question augmented with owdm is an aspect of his broader poetic concern to develop and adapt rhetorical questions to the needs of his 268

expression. It remains for us to survey his use of this latter figure, to correlate its internal semantic character with our discussions of these other stylistic variants and discuss its particular illocutionary force. In the following pages, we will discuss the semantics of the owdm particle and its combination with the …Ma…h pattern and then conclude with two examples of its contextual use in the Book of Jeremiah. We have already noted that Yitzhak Avishur rejected Held’s contention that the …yk…Ma…h pattern was a subset of a more widely attested …owdm…Ma…h device, while emphasizing the semantic differences between these two particles. He noted that owdm had a particularly intensive emotive force as opposed to the logical consequential connotations of yk.264 Given that yk is nowhere else used as an interrogative particle,265 it seems clear that were it not for this particular variation in augments for the double rhetorical question, it would not have occurred to anyone to suggest that the two might be synonymous. When compared to the complex and situationally-conditioned meanings of yk, owdm is an uncontroversial, interrogative particle marking a wh-question related to purpose. BDB argues for its etymological derivation from the more elaborate phrase owdy_hm, translating it as “what being known.”266 James Barr agrees, with the caveat that √ody here does not necessarily bear its conventional sense of “to know”: “The formation of the particle may go back to an earlier meaning which is no longer normal in biblical Hebrew: in particular, it may have been closer to the Arabic wada'a 'put down', a sense which in any case has at times been identified in some particular places within the Bible. That is, the particle may derive from a 264

Avishur, “Degamei,” 456-458.

265

K-B’s contention that there is a dedicated use of ykw which introduces a rhetorical question seems illfounded, given that they cite only 1S 24.20, in which the particle appears to be functioning temporally, and Is 36.19, where its sense is conditioned by the two previous hya interrogatives. 266

BDB, 396.

269

sense more like 'what having been laid down, having been already put there?'. But in either case, whether the word-formation was based on the sense 'know' or on the sense 'lay down', [owdm] may have originated in the indication of the cause, of that which was already there as the basis upon which something else happened.”267 Alfred Jepsen had argued for a semantic distinction between owdm and hml on the basis of their respective motivations. He considered that the use of owdm was provoked by a genuine informative need, often carrying the subsidiary connotation of surprise, as seen in contexts such as Ex 3.3.268 hml, by contrast, carried a tone of accusation or reproach as in the case of Pharaoh’s objection to Abraham in Gen 12.18-19.269 Crucial for this distinction was the occurrence of both particles in Exod 2.18-20, in which Reuel signified to his daughters first a genuine request for information with owdm and then a protestation with hml.270 Jepsen argued for a similar nuance in the particles’ alternation in 1Sam 11.20-21.271 Barr argued for a distinction in meaning between hml and owdm and developed a pointed critique along these lines. He maintained that the semantic difference posited by Jepsen was illfounded and that the two particles were, in every case, almost perfectly interchangeable.272 In the two cases cited by Jepsen where the particles appear in succession, the apparent connotation of one was carried forward by the next; Job 3.11-12, which uses the two in parallel, makes this clear. Jepsen grounded his analysis in the assumption that a language rarely has two perfectly synonymous terms, but did not attend to the fact that there may be, in this case, significant 267

James Barr, ""Why" in Biblical Hebrew" Journal of Theological Studies 36 (1985): 27.

268

Alfred Jepsen, "Warum?: Eine lexikalische und theologische Studie," Das Ferne und Nahe Wort, Fs. Leonhard Rost. (F. Maas. Berlin: Alfred Töpelmann,1967), 106. 269

Jepsen, “Warum?” 107.

270

Jepsen, “Warum?” 106.

271

Jepsen, “Warum?” 107.

272

Barr “Why,” 6.

270

semantic overlap without complete correspondence. The differences that do exist between these terms could be the product of dialectical difference or stylistic considerations, and the two terms need not necessarily be distinguished on the basis of the motivation of the questioner.273 Instead, Barr suggested that these terms developed by separate means, owdm carrying a “ventive” association and finding appropriate expression in contexts regarding “coming to, being there previously, arriving at.” hml, on the other hand, bore a “telic” association and was used in situations of inquiry into motivation, intention and consequence.274 These distinctions obtain at the level of the connotations and normal contextual expressions of the terms; from a semantic standpoint, Barr considered the two almost perfectly equivalent. Differences, then, should be presented on the basis of contextual expression, rather than the speaker’s motivation. Accordingly, he observed several general facts about the distribution pattern of owdm as opposed to hml in the Hebrew Bible. owdm tends to predominate in collocations where a negative term (Nya or al) follows an interrogative275 and is also used in contexts of negative deprecation.276 Verbs of speaking, by contrast, use hml almost exclusively (the exception is Jer 2.31, which is a double rhetorical question augmented with owdm), as do the verbs √Klh and √hla (in the hiphil), and √lav. owdm is preferable following verbs related to speaking and writing as well as √awb.277 This distribution is sufficient to demonstrate particular connotation-based stylistic preferences in

273

Barr “Why,” 7-8.

274

Barr “Why,” 27-28. This explanation is far subtler and more carefully formulated than Nakarai’s suggestion that hml is used to inquire after the purpose of an action or situation, while owdm is used to interrogate regarding motive. T.W. Nakarai,"LMH and MDU' in the TANAK." Hebrew Studies 23 (1982). 275

Barr,“Why,” 23-24.

276

Barr,“Why,” 24.

277

Barr,“Why,” 25-27.

271

given contexts without making specific claims regarding hard semantic differences between the terms. More significant for us is Barr’s recognition that owdm is preferred in rhetorical question formulations.278 As with the Psalms, which only ever use hml, this could be the result of the historical development of a particular literary form. In the case of multiple rhetorical questions especially, it could be that a particular term was preferred because its associations better fit the interrogative context in which it appeared. Integrating his suggestion of the “ventive” associations for owdm, Barr suggests that the preference for this term in these contexts is perfectly reasonable based on its relationship to the preceding interrogatives. In these contexts, owdm has some consequential force: “…it being given, or known, or already laid down, that this or that is not so, then why [owdm] should this other follow?”279 Accordingly, Barr recognized that Jeremiah has a particular preference for owdm,280 and in the Book of Jeremiah, the distribution patterns for hml and owdm can be correlated with the division between prose and poetry, respectively.281 Barr’s methodological sophistication and care in argumentation are extremely helpful. If nothing else, his argument helps to further demonstrate the Jeremian preference for rhetorical question figures and the novelty of his use of owdm in such contexts. His focus on the paradigmatic interchange between hml and owdm, however, limits his ability to perceive the subtleties of the double rhetorical question augmented with owdm. His insight into this particular 278

Barr,“Why,” 22-23, following Jepsen, “Warum?” 111.

279

Barr,“Why,” 28.

280

Barr,“Why,” 10.

281

Barr,“Why,” 12.

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device would have been strengthened by considering its semantic force not in relation to hml, which is only attested once as an augment (2Sam 19.36), but in relation to yk. He is no doubt correct in treating the pattern as a historically conditioned literary artifact, but it is demonstrable that this has developed from an earlier pattern that employs yk in its third member. For that reason, we need to ask what sort of illocutionary function is served by the total figure when the third member replaces owdm for yk.

yk in that context quite obviously introduces a statement; we have labored to show that its nuance in relation to the preceding matter is explicitly contrastive, adducing an element from the shared knowledge base of speaker and hearer, which contrasts with the doxa invoked in the course of the earlier rhetorical questions’ formulation. From that perspective, it is significant that the owdm member replaces a contrastive statement with a genuine, information-seeking whquestion. Barr’s suggestion that the relation of this wh-question to the whole is consequential must be modified accordingly. The owdm clause in the third member cannot be consequential in relation to the preceding clauses because the earlier form of the augmented double rhetorical question from which the Jeremian type developed did not employ a consequential yk but a contrastive one. Barr must have perceived this on some level, since his proposed translation: “…it being given, or known, or already laid down, that this or that is not so, then why [owdm] should this other follow?” also reflects this contrastive valence. In terms of its idiomatic substitution for yk, then, the Jeremian innovation was precisely to replace a particle that marked a logical contrast with one signifying contrast through direct interrogation. Put differently, while the …yk…Ma…h formula presented the hearer with a paradoxical situation that obtained at the

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conceptual level, Jeremiah pushes this contrast into the domain of discourse. The same contrast is marked, but the hearer is actively challenged to give an adequate verbal response. In pragmatic terms, we have here a speaker-initiated defeat of an earlier rhetorical question formulation. As we argued above, rhetorical questions depend upon a violation of the Maxim of Quality for their identification, and a hearer is obliged to infer another illocutionary aim in order to maintain intelligibility in conversation. Having made this inference, the abrupt shift to direct interrogation in the subsequent, contrasting member calls into question the total encyclopedic apparatus in terms of which the prior rhetorical questions were recognized; consequently, the foregrounded relationship of concord between speaker and hearer is challenged. With this figure, Jeremiah is actively playing on the illocutionary expectations of his audience. Given the prior attestation of the …yk…Ma…h figure, it seems reasonable to assume that a literate audience would have recognized the conceptual Tendenz of Jeremiah’s argumentation and suffered a shock when they found the expected contrastive yk replaced with an active, interrogative owdm, which inquired after the purpose of the contrasting datum marked by this particle. What had been attested as a carefully wrought persuasive device was accordingly turned to the task of agonistic critique. Let us examine two examples of this figure’s operation in the Book of Jeremiah to gain a sense for the way the Jeremian development of this critical figure of speech operates.282 Is Israel a slave? Is he a houseborn servant?

l$Ea∂rVcˆy ‹dRb‹RoAh a…wóh tˆy™A;b dy¶Il◊y_MIa

282

Other examples may be seen in Jer 2.31; 8.19; 8.22 (considering the yk here to have been the secondary insertion of a scribe influenced by the …yk…Ma…h pattern); 14.19; 22.28; and 49.1.

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Why has he become plunder?

:z`AbDl h¶DyDh Ao…wë;dAm

This instance of the double rhetorical question augmented with owdm in Jer 2.14 opens a literary subunit that runs from Jer 2.14-19. The concluding element is elaborate: twabx 'h

ynda_Man. The general topic of the oracular unit concerns the autonomy of Israel and presents an argument against foreign alliances (see esp. v 18) in a manner consistent with Jeremiah’s political theology (e.g., Jer 2.36; 37.7-10). Interrogative devices, both rhetorical and genuine, predominate throughout the unit (vv 14, 17, 18) and the figure that opens the passage has a generic quality, introducing in abstract the thematic concern of the whole. According to McKane, the hypothetical tone of this verse recalls that of 2.2-3, suggesting that we may have here a general stylistic quality of opening a literary unit with abstract language that provides a frame for what follows.283 The entire section hinges on the challenge posed in the rhetorical question of v 17, suggesting that what precedes is explicitly preparatory. The double rhetorical question invokes certain cultural associations regarding the autonomous status of Israel in general and the historical narrative of liberation, which is invoked more directly in v 17b: Krdb Kkylwm tob Kyhla 'h-ta Kbzo. As we saw in the preceding chapter, the referential frame of the historical desert trek when God led the nation out of bondage and into its residence in the Land of Israel recurs throughout Jer 2 (see, e.g., 2.6-7, 31). Likewise, the particular language of houseborn servitude recalls the language of the slave attached to the priestly household for whom the qodesh offering is available for consumption (Lev 22.11), a halakhic prescription with which Jeremiah had previously worked (Jer 2.3).284 Having

283 284

McKane, Jeremiah, 36. See above pp. 141-142, and the discussion in Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 300ff.

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established Israel as the substantial equivalent of the qodesh offering in this earlier verse, 2.14 thus presents a contrastive image. The two rhetorical questions invoke the historical narrative of liberation and the reciprocal relationship of sanctification that obtains between the nation and her God in Lev 19.2 and 22.32, et al. To these paired extrinsic topoi, then, Jeremiah opposes another statement regarding the political situation of the nation in his day. The term zb is meant to invoke the economic burdens incumbent upon a vassal state, and the entire stich stands as a synecdoche for the complex relationship of political allegiance that is criticized throughout vv 14-19. As in Amos 6.12, we see here a temporal transition between particular, atemporally established truths (here specifically relating to the status of Israel) and the present moment of utterance. The relationship between the double rhetorical question and its following augment is explicitly contrastive. With this appositional placement of doxa, Jeremiah is developing an aporetic political argument: if Israel preserves these narratives and theologies of election and independence, then why has she chosen a political arrangement counter to this affirmed status? Note, however, that this paradox is not presented in the bloodless terms of the preceding examples of the …yk…Ma…h figure. The nation is not being confronted with a conceptual absurdity. Rather, they are challenged through the presentation of the directly interrogative owdm member to provide a response adequate to the prophet’s questions. Demurral or inadequacy in reply thus calls into question the doxic concord wherein dbo and tyb dyly were recognized as improper terms for the nation, such that the earlier utterances were perceived as rhetorical. Thus we note how the owdm question provokes a particular sort of conceptual crisis wherein the

276

previous questions threaten to become genuinely information-seeking and the integrity of the doxa in terms of which they were formulated become contingent. Only an adequate reply to this challenge, one demonstrating that Israel is indeed not zb, can maintain these doxa. It is precisely this act of rhetorical threat that provides this new Jeremian literary figure with its critical force. Its illocution operates not on the basis of established consensus, as in the normal operation of the rhetorical question as a persuasive device, but in the threatening of core elements of national identity and provoking a response from the people adequate to maintain the integrity of their collective narrative.

Jer 8.4-12 and the “lying pen of the scribes” You shall say to them: “Thus says the Lord Would people fall and not get up? Would someone turn and not reconsider? Why has this people285 kept thrashing around in constant apostasy? They grasp at betrayal and refuse to return.

'h r∞AmDa hO;k£ M#RhyElSa ∞D;t√rAmDa◊w

w… m…wúqÎy aâøl◊w …wälVÚpˆySh :b…wávÎy añøl◊w b…wävÎy_MIa h¢RΩzAh M¶DoDh bEbwøv Ao…w°;dAm tAj¡A…xˆn h∞DbUvVm :b…wávDl …wänSaEm ty$Im√rA;tA;b ‹…wqy‹ˆzTjRh

We have discussed Jeremiah’s augmented double rhetorical question in considerable detail so as to ground ourselves in the operation of his poesis rather than in an overarching theory of textual development or a speculative approach to his historical moment. With this analytical work in hand, we may turn now to one particularly problematic passage in the Book of Jeremiah, a text with which scholars have struggled particularly hard. Jer 8 is significant for its presentation of the prophet’s relationship to his greater intellectual and political milieu, and yet his words here defy easy interpretation. They seem to reflect political controversies and to 285

Following the LXX, which omits reference to Jerusalem. See the discussion below, p. 281.

277

function to differentiate the prophet from his interlocutors, and yet the precise nature of his polemic evades us. This is so in part because his language in this chapter is exceedingly oblique, dependent on free metaphors and dense wordplays. But the chapter seems also to have been subjected to heavy-handed editorial work, which further obscures the concrete referents underlying Jeremiah’s language. A new investigation of this material can be aided by the poetic work we have just completed. Jer 8, for all its enigmatic character, contains three augmented double rhetorical questions. Jer 8.4-5, 19 and 22 each contains an instance of this figure using owdm in its third member. For this reason, it provides us with a perfect case to test how we can advance our understanding of Jeremiah’s political theology by engaging more precisely with the operation of his rhetoric. We will discuss the theological problems in this chapter, grounding ourselves initially in an engagement with the rhetorical question figure in vv 4-5. Working outward, we will demonstrate how the ambiguities there reflect a particularly trenchant polemic by the prophet against the Deuteronomists of his day. Drawing upon Bernard Levinson’s recent work on Dtr 16.18-18.22, we will suggest that the prophet here advocates for an earlier, more theologically rigorous version of the Deuteronomic program. Furthermore, we will maintain that Jeremiah was critical of the scribal movement’s accommodation to the political exigency that had taken place during the reign of Josiah. Finally, we will suggest that Jeremiah’s language was clearly and intentionally blunted by later Deuteronomistic tradents, who sought to downplay his critique in the course of domesticating his oracular language to their political program. The ambiguity in Jer 8.4-5 depends on a variety of plays on the root √bwv. Let us survey some of the suggestions that have been made regarding the interpretation of these verses and 278

then test whether or not the perception of a thematic structure deploying a paradoxical contrast in doxa will help make sense of Jeremiah’s confusing wordplay. The opening of the present passage is uncontroversial; Jer 8.3 ends with the closing formula twabx 'h Man, and the preceding unit (Jer 8.1-3) contrasts with the present in both tone and style. Its limit, however, is less clear., Working from the Masoretic section divisions, Lundbom notes the presence of a setumah after v 9 and a petuhah in this location in the text of 4QJera. He argues accordingly for a literary unit running from v 4 through v 9.286 Such a division leaves the consequential Nkl that opens v 10 hanging, however, and must be rejected accordingly. Holladay argues for a much larger literary unit, vv 4-13, based on an imagined parallel between

'h fpvm in v 7 and 'h trwt in v 8, as well as the pairing of questions in Jer 2.23 that resemble those of 8.6 and 8.8. Against this, we note that the repetition of √bwv helps to unify vv 4-7; its specific citation, coupled with a consistent theme of motion, is not picked up in vv 8ff. Likewise, there is a distinct shift in address from vv 4-7, which describes a dialogical encounter between God and the nation, and the specific address of v 8 to the Mymkj and the Myrps. Thus it seems best to follow the majority of interpreters who read vv 4-7 as an integrated literary unit.287 Aside from this issue, four specific interpretive problems may be noted in the present passage: the subject of the verbs of v 4, the proper interpretation of the doubled bwvy in v 4b, the interpretation of hbbwv in v 5, and the issue of the correspondence between hbbwv and hzh Moh. The second and third of these are perhaps the most vexing, as they get to the heart of Jeremiah’s poetic intention in this passage. 286

Lundbom, Jeremiah 21-36, 505.

287

See Rudolph, Jeremia; Carroll, Jeremiah; Holladay, Jeremiah 2; McKane, Jeremiah, and Yair Hoffman, Yirmiyahu. 2 vols. Mikra leYisra'el (Tel Aviv; Yerushalayim: 'Am 'Oved; Magnes, 2001).

279

Regarding the first, there is an apparent shift in person from the first two verbs to the third and fourth. wlpy and wmwqy are third person plural verbs, while bwvy is a third masculine singular. Holladay follows Berridge in reading the subject of the first two as Israel and the last two as God. The entire section, to his mind, is a quotation of the optimistic words of prophets who proclaim unconditional divine support for the nation: “If Israel falls, she will rise again, will she not? And if YHWH turns away from us, he will turn back to us, will he not?”288 McKane, by contrast, reads these as impersonal statements: “If men fall, do they not get up again? If someone goes away, does he not come back?” an interpretive choice followed by Carroll and Lundbom as well. It need not be the case that the shift from a plural to singular subject is meaningful here; both may carry an impersonal sense and alternating between the two could be simply for the purposes of variation. If there is no strong text-internal justification for reading Israel and then God as the subject of these verbs, then it seems best to interpret them in this impersonal sense. Such a reading is valorized by the perception that the augmented double rhetorical question often invokes doxa in the …Ma…h section in timeless, impersonal terms. The issue of the subject of hbbwv also need not detain us overlong. There is, to be sure, an apparent contradiction in gender between hzh Moh and this term. Whether it is to be taken as an adjective or a finite verb, it doesn’t seem to correspond to the following term. For this reason, Holladay has advocated displacing hzh Moh to the introductory clause of v 4, seeing it as the subject of rma there.289 Driver had long before suggested that we have here a combination in the Masoretic text between two manuscript traditions, one which read a masculine bbwv with the

288

Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 278.

289

Holladay, Jeremiah 1, 273.

280

subject hzh Moh and the other which read the present feminine form with the subject Mlvwry.290 Neither suggestion is necessary, however, and the most plausible treatment of this discrepancy is to posit dittography of the final h of hbbwv from the initial consonant of the following word. From this perspective, then, Mlvwry, which is not represented in the LXX, would best be read as a late addition meant to ameliorate the apparent contradiction in gender here.291 The interpretation of the doubled bwvy of v 4b and the hbbwv of v 5a represents an interrelated problem. They situate the repeated √bwv, Jeremiah’s central thematic interest in this section, within a particularly intensive phase of the larger rhetorical construction (see the two other occurrences of this root in v 5 as well as v 6b). The interpretation of bwvy is complicated due to its double expression in an internally contrastive figure: bwvy alw bwvy_Ma. V 5a gives us two antonyms wlpy and wmwqy in a similar contrastive formulation, engendering the expectation that this repeated verb is also deployed in a contrastive sense. Accordingly, the LXX translates the first bwvy with ajpostre/fwn and the second with ejpistre/fei.292 But, as Holladay notes, this verb, when used for physical motion, this verb is never repeated to described motion in opposite directions.293 Most translators render the stich in this fashion,294 but recognize that there is a crucial ambiguity at work here. Its repetition is, on the surface, incomprehensible:

290

S.R. Driver, A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew and Some Other Syntactical Questions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892). See later, John Bright, Jeremiah: Introduction, Translation and Notes. Anchor Bible (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1965), 60. 291

So McKane, Jeremiah,183, following BHS.

292

The choice in the LXX to render the first verb as an attributive participle and the second as a gnomic aorist verb is also represented in the translation of v 4a. 293

W.L. Holladay, The Root Šûbh in the Old Testament: with Particular Reference to its Usages in Covenantal Contexts (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1958), 1. 294

McKane is representative: “If someone goes away, does he not come back?” McKane, Jeremiah, 182.

281

“Does someone turn and not turn?” Given the basic sense of bwv as: “having moved in a particular direction, to move thereupon in the opposite direction, the implication being (unless there is evidence to the contrary) that one will arrive again at the initial point of departure,”295 it is not impossible to interpret the verse in this fashion. Yet the hearer will have understood some special meaning at work in the present wording. It is likely that its repetition and the attendant strangeness of the phrasing would have invoked the secondary sense of √bwv as a cognitive/ethical transformation.296 Holladay considers this likely: “The verb-pair šûbh…hangs…balanced, ambiguously, between physical motion and covenantal relation. Or to put it another way, Jeremiah argues from the logical pattern of physical motion to a presumed pattern of religious relationship on the basis of the shared meanings embraced by the single verb.”297 Thus he translates the phrase as: “Does one turn (away) and not turn (back to God)?”298 This interpretive problem is only compounded by the use of hbbwv in v 5a. The term could be functioning verbally or adjectivally. The latter appears in Jer 31.22 and 49.4 in the collocation hbbwvh tbh, a phrase that gave the translators difficulty. The LXX renders the phrase in 31.22 as qu/gathr hjtimwme/nh: “an unworthy daughter,” while in 49.4, it is rendered as quga/thr ijtami/aˆ “an unashamed, precocious daughter.”299 The verb, attested as a participle in Ezek 38.8, has an unambiguously positive valence used in the phrase brjm tbbwvm Xra. Some commentators have chosen to render this as an adjective, interpreting it to mean

295

The rendering of Holladay, The Root Šûbh, 53.

296

See K-B, 1429-1430.

297

Holladay, The Root Šûbh, 2.

298

Holladay, The Root Šûbh, 130.

299

K-B, 1434-1435.

282

“fickle”300 or “backsliding.”301 Carroll and Holladay, by contrast, prefer a verbal interpretation, rendering it as “turn away”302 and “turn,”303 respectively. Avishur, by contrast, reckons that we have in hbbwv and hbwvm, attestation of another shoresh √bbv, meaning “to destroy, annihilate, lay waste, strike.”304 Holladay suggests reading this verb with those found in Is 47.10, Ezek 38.4, 39.2, et al., but these are all, as he notes, transitive, whereas the term under investigation, if verbal, must be intransitive.305 On such grounds, K-B assign these other cases to the binyan pilpel, and the present they consider with Ezek 38.8 as attestations of the polel. Consideration of the formal pattern of the augmented double rhetorical question provides us with more purchase on these interpretive problems. The question of the proper interpretation of the two instances of bwvy should be conditioned by its appearance as a subordinate member in a synonymous parallel construction, while the essentially contrastive valence of the owdm augment should govern our rendering of hbbwv. The …Ma…h phase invokes particular doxa from the domain of human experience, though in a complicated way. We have here an internal development of the double rhetorical question through contrastive verbal figures. The frontally placed verbs are presented in apposition to their negation within the phrase, a pattern that is evident in the first member. The second member has the same effect, but in a poetic masterstroke, is accomplished through the reexpression of the same verb. 300

McKane, Jeremiah, 182.

301

See Hoffman, Yirmiyahu, interpreting the present verse in line with Jer 3.14.

302

Carroll, Jeremiah, 227.

303

Holladay, Jeremiah 1, 278.

304

Avishur, “HaDegem Ha...'im…Madu'a,” So also K-B, p. 1431, following Rudolph Jeremia, p. 58.

305

Holladay, Jeremiah 1, 278-279.

283

The opposition is accomplished through a particular ambiguity inherent in the verb bwv, which may mean a simple physical reorientation in space (as in the first case, cf. Gen 8.9, et al.) or a cognitive/ethical reorientation (as in the second, cf. 1K 13.33, et al.). The h member establishes a pattern of contrastive movement in vertical space that is carried through in the first verb of the Ma member, which seems at first to refer to lateral space. When the same verb is repeated in the negative portion of the second member, incomprehension threatens. The reader is cast back upon the semantic range of the √bwv, which allows for the second potential interpretation. The second member thus resolves itself as a reference to lateral motion followed by conceptual reorientation. Such a transformation in the pattern necessarily transforms the first member as well. √Mwq now suggests a secondary association: ameliorating one’s condition after suffering a setback (cf. Josh 7.12). The double question is merely a vehicle for a far more complex and carefully extended semantic play. Thus Jeremiah presents, in the initial phase of the rhetorical figure, a transformative figure that invokes particular extrinsic topoi related to habitual movement in space, and then augments these with an additional referential frame relating to the cognitive transformation. The …Ma…h clause depends on the play of simple action implied by the repeated qal verbs. Having fallen once, people are inclined to get up. Having turned around, one may be inclined to rethink one’s position. Thus the contrast inherent in the figure obtains at the level of the connotations encoded within the particular verbal conjugation used. The conceptual development within the augmented phase obtains in the movement from the qal bwvy to the polel

bbwv. The latter binyan, derived as it is from the pi‘el when expressed with a hollow verb,

284

carries with it intensive connotations.306 Thus, we have the verb ttwm referring to “slaughter” in 1S 14.13, 17.51, and 2S 1.9; and Mmwr, meaning “exalt” or “raise up” in contexts such as 1S 2.7 and Ps 37.34. In terms of this contrast, we should render bwvy as a simple action, “turn/reconsider” and hbbwv as the intensive “thrash about.” This interpretation has the advantage of capturing, in the latter term, both the physical connotation of intensified turning and the attendant cognitive connotation of confusion. The contrast is thus between a decisive, one time movement and a single moment of reconsideration, on the one hand, and a spastic sort of confused gesturing on the other. This intensified bwv is then buttressed with further wordplay using the nominal hbwvm, a term well attested in the religio-ethical sense of “apostasy” (see, e.g., Hos 11.7) and the temporal valence is further emphasized through the use of tjxn, which contrasts implicitly with the simple (i.e., nonfrequentative) qal verbs of the preceding section. Jeremiah’s wordplay here is extremely subtle and his intention is, foremost, to exploit the semantic potentials of √bwv in the course of developing an ethical critique. The shoresh is one of his favorites,307 and he is inclined to use it in a very sophisticated manner. In the present case, the particular semantic valence of the verb is in continual flux; in a real sense, the progress of the verbal figure instantiates in its audience the very cognitive confusion that is the topical matter of this text unit. But by the time we have reached the end of v 5 with its re-expression of bwvl, it is clear that he intends something other than a simple description of motion in space. Thus, we may say that he develops a dense wordplay that correlates an extrinsic topos pertaining to

306

J-M, §52a.

307

See Holladay, The Root Šûbh, 128-139.

285

physical motion with one pertaining to cognitive orientation. To this complex, he contrasts a set of topoi relating to religious (Holladay would say “covenantal”) fidelity. The normal inclination of a person to reverse course or ameliorate an undesirable bodily orientation is contrasted with the religious vacillation of the nation. In this understanding, the covenant is presented as a stable ethical system, one that advocates a particular, decisive physical movement in a single direction. Such an understanding is similar to the Deuteronomic insistence on progress in and non-deviation from the path the Lord prescribes (Dtr 5.32-33; 10.12; 26.17; et al.). The progress of Jer 8.4-7 enhances this through the addition of further contrasts relating to motion and self-governance. V 6 presents the human turning in their path (Mtwxrmb bv) as equivalent to a horse’s headlong plunge into battle (hmjlmb Pfwv swsk), while v 7 presents the contrastive image of migratory birds, whose regular motion through space is equated with the 'h fpvm. This final contrast introduces a stable ethical term fpvm, which permits the shifting valences of bwv finally to crystallize and the element of critique to become unambiguously clear. The rhetorical questions in the …Ma…h member, though developing a careful, transformative wordplay, nevertheless depend on the recognition of the insincerity of the prophet’s request for information. No matter how ambiguous they may be, at each point in their dialectical development the questions are related to particular, stable encyclopedic associations. Not so the following owdm member. As in the case of Jer 2.14, this represents a genuine, information-seeking question. It seeks a particular informative reply even as it contrasts the present, ethical conduct of the nation with stable doxa pertaining to human behavior. And again, an inability to respond adequately to this challenge threatens incomprehension in a very real 286

sense. Through the subtle development of this wordplay, Jeremiah both disorients his audience with semantic subtlety and offers the lexical stability of the 'h fpvm as a thread by which they may traverse the labyrinthine course of his rhetoric. Through the strategic deployment of semiotic ambiguity and the stable contrastive valence inherent in the augmented double rhetorical question, he actively seeks to provoke the ethical reorientation, which is the subject of this carefully crafted discourse.

This rhetorical question thus sets the stage for Jeremiah’s subsequent indictment of the wise in vv 8-9. Although Jer 8.4-7 is rhetorically and structurally integrated, there are no strong structural markers indicating that vv 8-9 have substantially shifted focus. Rather, the emphasis on 'h fpvm in v 7 creates a fairly strong topical link with the 'h trwt in v 8.308 It is possible, of course, that two originally distinct oracles have here been associated according to their topical similarity.309 But the most parsimonious approach to the material is to assume that these subunits are intended to co-inform one another unless there is a clear indication of a topical or structural disjunction. The origin of the two oracles may or may not have been at two distinct moments in the prophet’s life, but their current association is strong, and there is no reason not to read them as continuous. Thus the enigmatic theme of instability and unnatural motion developed in vv 4-7 now becomes substantiated with a more specific critique. The prophet calls to account the Mymkj and the Myrps who have presumed to transform YHWH’s hrwt. The identification of these figures is

308

Holladay, Jeremiah 1, 275, who recognizes that fpvm and hrwt form a typical wordpair in texts such as

309

Carroll, Jeremiah, 228.

Hab 1.4.

287

controversial. For those who have attempted to advance the thesis that Jeremiah was closely allied with the Josianic Deuteronomists, vv 8-9 present an obvious difficulty. Sweeney, for example, reads the phrase wnjna Mymkj as a reference to some general group of figures adept in the Torah, a subset who differed with the prophet on a substantive point of policy. He suggests a group who supported the attempt of Jehoiakim to pursue relations with Egypt, or alternatively a group of priests from Anathoth who refused to shift their allegiance to Jerusalem at the time of Josiah’s reform. Sweeney concludes: “Jeremiah’s criticism of those who consider themselves wise in Torah [does] not indicate the prophet’s opposition to the principle of Torah per se; it indicates his opposition to the application of Torah by a specific group to which he is opposed.”310 This is a tortuous reading of the evidence, given that the most obvious associations for the terms Mymkj and Myrps would have been wisdom-influenced scribes with whom Jeremiah was in conversation. Although he maintained that Jeremiah “fully identified himself with the religious ideology of the book of Deuteronomy and also appears to have supported the Josianic reforms,” Weinfeld nevertheless recognized that the indictment here presupposes that some group of scribal wise men have fallen short of the stipulations of the Deuteronomic code itself.311 This is so because these figures are closely tied to the historical seventh-century shift in Judah toward specifically religious administration by the scribal class.312 They are specific descriptors for the scribal figures who carried out a broad-based religious reform during the period of

310

Sweeney, King Josiah, 214-215.

311

Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic School, 160.

312

See the discussion in Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1-11, Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 161-171.

288

Josiah.313 Lundbom’s suggestion that Jeremiah here refers to some other group of lawmakers during this period who were legislating rqvl, and that this is a codeword for Ba’al must be rejected as going well beyond the available evidence.314 It is clear enough then, that Jeremiah calls to account scribal figures who have their roots in the wisdom tradition. The particular motivation for the prophet’s objection is difficult to reconstruct. One common explanation has been that Jeremiah objects to the written inscription of the Deuteronomic code as opposed to its oral promulgation.315 Holladay rightly rejects this explanation as too influenced by an anachronistic and alien emphasis on the Spirit over the letter.316 But Holladay’s alternative explanation that Jeremiah is referring to the mistreatment his own Urrolle suffered at the hands of the Jerusalemite scribes (Jer 36) is too based on speculative historiography to provide a satisfying alternative.317 Based on the juxtaposition of this passage with the imagery of Jer 8.1-3 and the similar concerns of Ezek 20.11-32, Baruch Halpern recently suggested that Jeremiah is indicting his interlocutors for failing to turn decisively from the heterodox cult practices that their Torah has demanded they reject, in particular the practice of child sacrifice.318 313

Among those who have not been motivated on the basis of texts such as Jer 1 to assume that the prophet was closely allied with the Deuteronomic reform, it has been customary to read this reference in Jer 8.8-9 to the Deuteronomic reformers. Such an identification thus implies that Jeremiah objected, in some substantive fashion to the reform itself. Thus Duhm Das Buch Jeremia, 88 and H.H. Rowley, “Early Prophecies of Jeremiah in their Setting,” BJRL 45 (1962/1963) 60. 314

Lundbom, Jeremiah 21-36, 513.

315

See John Skinner, Prophecy and Religion: Studies in the Life of Jeremiah. (Cambridge, UK: The University Press, 1922), 103. 316

Holladay, Jeremiah 1, 282.

317

Holladay, Jeremiah 1, 282-283.

318

Baruch Halpern, “The False Torah of Jeremiah 8 in the Context of Seventh Century BCE Pseudepigraphy: The First Documented Rejection of Tradition,” in "Up to the Gates of Ekron": Essays on the Archaeology and History of the Eastern Mediterranean in Honor of Seymour Gitin (Israel Exploration Society, 2007), 337-343.

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If we set aside Sweeney’s argument, which is driven by his broader historiographical concern to reject the identification of Jeremiah’s Mymkj and Myrps with the Deuteronomic scribes, we find a rough consensus. Scholars agree that Jeremiah here critiques some group of Deuteronomic scribes for having failed to implement adequately their own theological project. This consensus position is likewise supported by the above reading of Jer 8.4-5, in which the continual play on √bwv was seen as an attempt to contrast decisive, forward movement in light of a reformed consciousness with the spastic, half-steps of the prophet’s audience. This consensus position does not provide us with a secure understanding of what it is in particular that Jeremiah objected to, however. Halpern gets us perhaps the closest. Yet even his explanation for the critique does not adequately explain the image of the Myrps rqv fo. Jeremiah appears to suggest here that the scribes are abrogating YHWH’s Torah in conjunction with their function as scribes. Clearly something other than simple apostasy is behind this. Let us turn, then, to the broader literary context for Jer 8.8-9 with a sharpened appreciation for Jeremiah’s rhetoric in order to make sense of the motivation behind Jeremiah’s critique here. The augmented double rhetorical question that follows may provide some more indication for the ideological and political background behind Jeremiah’s critique. Listen: the sound of my kinswoman’s scream out of a far off land: “Is YHWH not in Zion? Is her king not in her? Why have they angered me with their idols, their foreign nothings?”

y#I;mAo_tA;b t∞Ao◊w`Av lwøq_h´…nIh My$I;qAj√rAm ‹X®r‹RaEm NwYø¥yIxV;b Ny∞Ea 'hAh ;h¡D;b Ny∞Ea ;h™D;kVlAm_MIa M™RhyElIsVpI;b yˆn…wösIoVkIh Ao…w#;dAm :r`Dk´n y¶ElVbAhV;b

The framing for this rhetorical question figure is provocative. The prophet seems to be ascribing his words to a personified synechdoche for the entire nation. At the same time, the 290

owdm clause is evidently expressed in the divine first person. If this is some sort of dialogical variation on the standard rhetorical pattern we have been examining thus far, then it has interesting implications for how we conceptualize the oral performance that underlies the received text. Here, his invocation of the doxic concord is voiced with direct reference to his interlocutors. The initial phase of the argumentative figure is thus presented as a sort of rhetorical ventriloquism, where the prophet not only invokes the agreed upon principle he shares with his audience, but he expresses it in their voice. This invocation is given an added emotional tenor; the statement of agreement is rendered as an anguished “scream” howv. By this, the prophet distorts his relationship with his interlocutors. He adopts their persona and simultaneously invites them to attend to their own outcry, which he himself expresses. Thus the first phase of this rhetorical figure accomplishes a skillful trading of positions, the better to encourage the Jeremiah’s audience to adopt a critical perspective on their own behavior. The particular elements of the prophet’s invocation have to do with YHWH’s tenure in Jerusalem. The concept of divine residence on his holy mountain was a core element in the ideology of the ruling dynasty in Jerusalem. Texts such as 2Sam 7 and Ps 89 link the concept of the divine abode with the secure establishment of the Davidic monarchy in Jerusalem. This conjunction bears within it the promise of unqualified divine support for the nation in adversity; YHWH’s choice of Jerusalem as the preeminent site for his dwelling place has as its corollary that the deity will intervene on the nation’s behalf.319 This formulation is concretized using the adoption language typical of ancient Near Eastern regnal formulary (Ps 2). During the period of the siege of Sennacherib, this ideology gained a particular prominence. The deliverance of 319

See M. Weinfeld, “The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East,” JAOS 90 (1970): 184-203.

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Jerusalem from the Neo-Assyrian armies, whatever practical negotiations had been entailed (2K 18.14-18; compare COS 2.119b), was presented to the populace as a theophanic and salvific act by the deity enthroned in Jerusalem (2K 19.35; 2Chr 32.20-23). Thus, the first two stichs of this double rhetorical question invoke the two interrelated aspects of this ideological complex. The dual reference to divine residence on Mt. Zion and the residence of the king in the city is a shorthand for the stable and ongoing operation of the covenantal relationship forged between YHWH and the House of David. To this theology, Jeremiah juxtaposes a citation of the Song of Moses: the reference to Mylsp and foreign Mylbh is an invocation of the historical theological principle encoded in the reciprocal formulation of Dtr 32.21. This poem, whose influence on Jeremiah’s thought we have traced above, draws upon a principle of reciprocal obligation to suggest that apostasy and veneration of other gods will elicit from the deity a violent response. In contrast to the theological underpinnings of the grant covenant between the Davidides and YHWH described in 2Sam 7, this poem recalls a covenant of obligation where the ongoing enjoyment of divine support is contingent upon the nation’s own moral rectitude. Jeremiah had probably made critical reference to the assurances of Zion theology in the course of his famous temple speech. Jer 7.3-4 juxtaposes a naïve and uncritical faith in the salvific power of YHWH’s temple with the prescriptive ethical demands of the covenant. In the present figure, the prophet likewise exposes a theological fault line in the ideological landscape of his time. The ideas sustaining the ideology of the Davidic house are fundamentally incompatible with the expectations of the Deuteronomic covenant.320 As before, the rhetorical 320

See also J.D. Levenson, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Winston Press, 1985), 98-101.

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operation of the augmented double rhetorical question in Jer 8.19 foregrounds this aporia and demands of the prophet’s audience an adequate, synthetic response.

There is a growing awareness that the issue of Deuteronomy’s confrontation with the ideology of the House of David is a matter in need of investigation.321 In particular, there appears to be a significant ideological discrepancy within the Deuteronomic corpus on the topic of regnal sovereignty. Bernard Levinson has lately observed a crucial disjunction between the ideal formulation of the Law of the King in Dtr 17.14-20 and the characterization of Josiah in 2K 22-23. Observing that the Deuteronomic code attempted to subordinate all the traditional elements of regnal authority to the code’s own legal stipulatons, Levinson recognizes a strange paradox. The Deuteronomistic narrative account of that code’s promulgation and establishment as a principle of civic governance also aggrandizes the Davidic king: "The double denial by Deuteronomy of the conventional participation of the king in justice and cultus amounts to an extraordinary rejection of the standard Israelite and Near Eastern royal ideology. The Law of the King paradoxically denies him all the essential components of royal power and prestige: supreme judicial authority and sponsorship of the cult. Even military leadership is sharply curtailed. Recognition of Deuteronomy's radical bid for the primacy of Deuteronomic Torah over the monarch's conventional standing must anticipate a methodological difficulty: how is it that Deuteronomy, which scholarly consensus views as having been promulgated by King Josiah (2 Kings 22-23), could nonetheless be so usurping of royal power in its Law of the King (Deut. 17.1420)? Equally, how is it that Josiah, however exemplary in his piety, would so easily participate in his own forced abdication from power?"322

321

Gary Knoppers, “Rethinking the Relationship between Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History: The Case of Kings”, CBQ 63 (2001): 393-415; P. Dutcher-Walls, “The Circumscription of the King: Deuteronomy 17:16-17 in Its Ancient Social Context” JBL 121 (2002): 601-616. 322

Bernard Levinson, “The Reconceptualization of Kingship in Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History's Transformation of Torah.” VT 51 (2001): 524-525.

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Levinson points to the institution of the Passover described in 2K 23.21-23 as a particularly glaring instance of this incompatibility. The Deuteronomic law removed from the king his traditional role as sponsor and patron of the cult. Yet in the narrative of the Passover’s implementation, Josiah is presented as the sponsor of this collective festival celebration.323 This discrepancy suggests to Levinson that the Deuteronomic movement progressed through several phases in the course of developing its legal code. Its origins, he speculates, are to be found among scribes working in the years subsequent Hezekiah’s reform. They objected to the cosmopolitanism and international accommodation operative particularly during the time of Manasseh that characterized his reign. Instead, they developed an ideal legal formulation in which YHWH was the sole sovereign deity who enjoined upon the nation an exclusive covenantal relationship. Their skepticism of regnal power, codified in the law of the king of Dtr 17.14-20, was born out of the experience of having Hezekiah’s reforms reversed by regnal fiat.324 In the course of implementing their code during the time of Josiah, however, the intellectual heirs to these seminal Deuteronomists were obliged to make room for regnal authority. Thus, they attempted to shift the language of divine adoption in 2Sam 7.14, making the nation and not the king the focus of divine attention (Dtr 14.1).325 At the same time, they were obliged to accommodate the figure of Josiah. The result is a curious disconnect between the idealized theological and legal structures described in the Book of Deuteronomy and the practical politics apparently behind the narrative in 2K 22-23.

323

Levinson, “The Reconceptualization of Kingship,” 525.

324

Levinson, “The Reconceptualization of Kingship,” 527-528.

325

Levinson, “The Reconceptualization of Kingship,” 530-531.

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Levinson’s presentation of the problem has much to commend. It draws our attention to a vital theme in the Deuteronomistic History and suggests a framework for making sense of the particular political conditions of the Josianic period. This focus on the Deuteronomic movement in terms of its struggle for authority in the social domain is a welcome antidote to hypertheological engagements with the code that take its prescriptions as historical facts. It also suggests a plausible historical backdrop for the apparently critical encounter between Jeremiah and his contemporary Deuteronomists. If, as we have seen, Jeremiah was himself influenced by proto-Deuteronomic literature, and if he elsewhere saw himself as a spokesman for this covenant (Jer 11.1-8), then the idea of a Josianic period rapprochement between the Deuteronomic scribes and the House of David presents an intriguing basis for these sorts of critical statements in the prophet’s oeuvre. In particular, Jer 8 begins to look like a text that attempts to uphold the integrity of the covenant as an ideal even as it decries its abrogation in practice. If our reading of Jer 8.19 is sound, then we have further evidence in support of Levinson’s thesis, since the prophet there indicates that an ideal expression of the Deuteronomic theology (Dtr 32) is conceptually incompatible with Zion theology. We may further support this contention by observing that when Jeremiah calls a broad swath of Jerusalemite leadership to account in Jer 2.8, he apparently includes the scribes in his indictment. There, he referred to priests, “Torah handlers,” “shepherds,” and prophets. In this he draws attention to the whole range of social authorities, subordinating them co-equally to an expectation of fealty to YHWH. Contrast this litany of political leadership with the Deuteronomic code’s own reference to civic authorities in Dtr 16.18-18.22. There, reference is made to judges (16.18-17.13), the king (17.14-20), the priests (18.1-8) and the prophets (18.922). The Deuteronomic legislation bears a superficial similarity to Jeremiah’s list. Where 295

Jeremiah had made direct reference to the “Torah handlers,” however, the Deuteronomic code legislates the subordinate juridical figures whose presence was necessitated by their desacralization of the local shrines that had previously administered justice.326 In effect, the Deuteronomic legislation of civic authority places the Deuteronomic code in a position superior to any legal authority figure and then exempts the scribes, as the keepers of the Deuteronomic code, from explicit legislation. Thus, there is reason to suggest that a close reading of Jeremiah’s rhetoric in ch 8 reveals a sharp criticism of the Deuteronomists of his day. On our reading, the prophet’s rhetoric attempted to call to account the scribal legislators for making practical accommodation to the political realities of their time. Jeremiah’s rhetoric thus attempted to draw attention to the theological aporia engendered by this policy of realpolitik. Such a suggestion has the felicitious effect of helping us to understand Jeremiah’s attitude toward political sovereignty as continuous across his entire career. Scholars like Albertz and Sweeney must hypothesize that Jeremiah suffered a terrible change of heart on the topic of political sovereignty following Josiah’s death at Megiddo. In contrast, our reading of the evidence allows us to see oracles such as Jer 27.12-22 as organic elements of the prophet’s core theological principle that subordination to YHWH transcended even national sovereignty and tenure in the Land of Israel. Such a reading of the evidence also helps us to make sense of the present form of Jer 8. Vv 10-12 are a well known doublet with Jer 6.13-15.327 In contrast to the quite specific indictment of vv 8-9, however, v 10 indicts a broad swath of society:

:r®q`DÚv hRcñOo häø;lU;k N$EhO;k_dAo◊w ‹ayIbÎ…nIm oAx¡D;b Ao∞ExO;b häø;lU;k lw$ødÎ…g_dAo◊w ‹NOf∂;qIm y§I;k 326

Exod 22.7, 8, 10. See Levinson, “The Reconceptualization of Kingship,” 520.

327

The secondary status of vv 10-12 is also evident from these verses’ omission in the LXX.

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The repetition here of the key term rqv, which had been the focus of the prophet’s indictment in v 8, removes it from a specific focus on scribal figures and allows us to apply it to a general range of social authorities. The semantic effect of such a juxtaposition is to redefine the Mymkj in a fashion that now includes prophets and priests, thus blunting the force of the prophet’s original critique.

Thus we can see how a careful focus on the operation of the prophet’s rhetoric can provide some useful data for historical reconstruction in the final analysis. It is not necessary, as is so often the case with rhetorical critical investigations, to abandon history in the course of literary analysis. What is required, rather, is a secure heuristic basis from which to engage in poetic analysis. Our invocation of pragmatics functions not only to suggest novel avenues of approach to the text; it grounds analysis in something other than the historiographical and theological preferences of the interpreter. This is not to say that the above analysis is beyond critique. Indeed, it remains possible that we have overdetermined the prophet’s rhetoric or have been led astray by a later text that has been falsely attributed to Jeremiah. However, this present analysis is not circular. The argument advanced so forcefully by Rainer Albertz—that Jeremiah was a supporter of the Josianic Deuteronomic movement and that Jeremiah advocated for the seizure of territory in the north—is an inadequately critical reading of the prophet’s poetry. More to the point, it provides a modern, historiographical justification for the obfuscatory efforts of post-Jeremian scribes who sought to downplay critical elements in the prophet’s own oracular speech. Reconstructive historical work on the Book of Jeremiah and the crucial period of the late monarchy must continue. However, we can no longer mine the 297

language of Jeremiah solely to support a particular theory. As we have seen, the prophet’s theological consciousness is too subtle, his rhetoric too dynamic and his political stance too critical to be simply subordinated to a historical theory. Jeremiah was not a product of his time; he was a creator of it. It is time scholarship took account of that fact, and we begin reading him with all the care and caution his incandescent poetry demands.

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CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION This study has modeled two ways of interpreting prophetic discourse. Drawing upon separate intellectual traditions, we have advanced parallel arguments for how one can reconstruct Jeremiah’s political intent through close reading and careful analysis of his poetry. After challenging a simple, though widely influential model for the formation of the Book of Jeremiah in chapter two, chapter three presented an adaptation of Michael Fishbane’s foundational work on the aggadic exegesis of legal traditions in the Hebrew Bible. From this basis, we advanced a new reconstruction of the prophet’s rhetorical intent in Jer 2-6. We traced Jeremiah’s sophisticated invocation and critical juxtaposition of the Deuteronomic and Holiness traditions in order to construct a dynamic new way of conceptualizing subjectivity in the midst of cataclysmic social change. Chapter four traced a rhetorical technique in Jeremiah’s prophecy—the augmented double rhetorical question—modeling it in pragmatic terms and reconstructing how the figure functioned in a variety of contexts. This discussion culminated in an analysis of Jer 8 where we advanced the proposition that careful attention to the rhetorical implications of this speech figure could allow us to recover historically situated polemical argumentation, something that has largely been whitewashed in the course of the Jeremiah tradition’s codification and canonization. These analyses of rhetorical structure and specific techniques of citation, allusion and critical transformation were not advanced in a purely stylistic mode. At significant points in our 299

discussion, we attempted to situate the prophet’s rhetoric within concrete historical moments. By treating Jeremiah’s discourse as historically situated and politically engaged, we attemped to comprehend it in the context of the Judean late monarchy. This framing argument was presented in contradistinction to other historicizing engagements with this material, which were criticized for fatally preconditioning the text under analysis. The angle of approach to this material, initiated by Rainer Albertz and continued in significant recent studies by Marvin Sweeney and Mark Leuchter, was critiqued for its unsupported redaction-critical decisions and its imposition of a tendentious heuristic frame onto the text’s ambiguous oracular material. Such an approach, we suggested, lent a scholarly imprimatur to what were actually in their origin Deuteronomic intrusions upon the original poetic work of Jeremiah. In the process of advancing this argument, these scholars quite pointedly overlooked the evidence in favor of a later date for the start of Jeremiah’s prophetic work. This earlier position had been advanced by J.P. Hyatt, who laid the groundwork for this cautious engagement with the current ideological frame for the poetry. Hyatt recognized the degree to which the concerns of Deuteronomistic editors had influenced the literary shaping of the present Book of Jeremiah, and how their editorial intrusion fostered the impression that Jeremiah had begun his prophetic work prior to the Josianic reform of 622 BCE. Hyatt cautioned that the interpretation of the Book of Jeremiah needed to account most fundamentally for the constitutive ideological element at work in the presentation of Jeremiah’s oracles within their current literary configuration. However, this advice went unheeded by later scholars. Instead, they employed elements from this literary frame as evidence by which to interpret the prophet’s ambiguous oracles, glossing over and bypassing the serious issues of literary and thematic continuity that this approach engendered. 300

The present study, by contrast, has taken Hyatt’s scruple to heart. We have not employed texts like Jer 1 and Jer 36 as unproblematic sources of historical data, but rather treated them as historical artifacts whose present form reflects the needs and concerns of their ancient composers. Our general approach to Jeremiah’s poetry has been to question how this discourse functioned in its original historical context, inquiring what may be inferred about that context from this poetry’s shaping and its manner of expression. In this conclusion, we must face squarely the question of how the methods we have used differ from the historicizing approach of Albertz and Sweeney, which we have attempted to displace. If we are also advancing a historical argument through the literary analysis of Jeremiah’s poetry, what checks are built into the methods employed here? How have we proceeded in a fashion that can insulate us from the charge that we too are adopting an essentially self-confirming approach to this ambiguous prophetic corpus? Is it the case that any literary engagement with biblical poetry that is also historically inclined will necessarily engage in circular argumentation? If not, how can we be certain that the arguments advanced in chapters three and four are grounded in the prophet’s own rhetorical and political concerns and not in the historiographical agenda of the present reader? These are the questions we continue to address.

Literary versus Historical Criticism Probably no one currently working in the field has thought about these sorts of problems with the same sustained and penetrating concern as John Barton. Over the course of his career, Barton has attempted to clarify the separate methodological assumptions and common theoretical ground of the historical-critical approach to the Biblical text and the various literary modes of analysis. As a result, his methodological work can provide us with a useful frame for the deeper 301

philosophical concerns that have impelled this project. It will be helpful to recall his survey of the field in order to sharpen the contrast between the presuppostions embedded in the readings undertaken here and the interests that motivated the separate projects of Albertz and Sweeney. We have maintained continually that despite their apparent focus on historically sound reconstruction and interpretation, these scholars have fallen prey to a tendentious engagement with their literary sources. The solution was not to abandon historiography as a matter of analytical concern, as has become fashionable,1 but rather to find better tools to interpret prophetic texts as historically-situated literary artifacts. In an early programmatic essay, “Classifying Biblical Criticism,”2 Barton developed a metatheoretical categorization of approaches to Biblical interpretation that clarified the interrelationship between literary and historical approaches to biblical text. Building upon the literary critical schema developed in the 1950s by M.H. Abrams in The Mirror and the Lamp,3 Barton divided the field into interpretive approaches that focus variously on the “universe” or subject matter of the work in question; on the work itself; on the internal psychic state of the artist who composed it; and, on the expectation of the audience who interacts with it.4 Abrams had employed these foci as a structure against which to map the 19th century emergence of artist-focused, romantic criticism.5 Taken in aggregate, the approaches he

1

See, in particular, the collected essays in Troubling Jeremiah, A.R. Pete Diamond, Kathleen M. O’Connor, & Louis Stuhlman, eds., (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), and Martin Kessler, ed. Reading the Book of Jeremiah: A Search for Coherence, (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004). 2

First published in the JSOT 29 (1984), pp. 19-35. Reprinted in John Barton, The Old Testament: Canon, Literature and Theology: Collected Essays of John Barton (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2007), 95-108. 3

M.H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (London: Oxford University Press, 1953) 4

Barton, The Old Testament, 20; Abrams, Mirror, 6.

5

Abrams, Mirror, 3.

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coordinates comprise a reasonable survey of the range of methodological approaches one might take toward the interpretation of a work of art. Thus, the “universe” centered approach corresponds to a range of mimetic theories of art that treat it as an imitation of reality. Plato had disparaged poiesis as mere mimesis in Book X of the Republic, suggesting that imitation of some previously existing thing necessarily engendered a derivative entity that lacked the modal variation of its parent. Such activity, he said, was inimical to philosophy, which sought to transcend material refractions and ascertain more abstract modes of being.6 In contrast, Aristotle, who lacked this controlling philosophical apparatus, was able to treat mimesis as a technical process and describe it in mechanical terms in his Poetics.7 At the same time, Aristotle’s technical discussion inevitably took account of the emotional state of a work’s audience (e.g., the famous discussion of catharsis in Poetics VI), leading his analysis to move beyond a purely mimetic approach to art.8 The Poetics and not Republic X went on to inspire inquiry into the technical means by which art could be made to imitate reality through the 18th century.9 In time, the term “imitation” came to represent something more complex and dynamic than what Plato had originally defined with the term. In elaborating this development, Abrams describes how criticism in the West began more and more often to consider the effect of the work of art on its perceiver. Such audience-focused approaches represent an advance upon the older, purely mimetic theoretical mode. This decisive redefinition of “imitation” to focus instead on the work’s ability to provoke a response in its

6

Abrams, Mirror, 8-9.

7

Abrams, Mirror, 9-10.

8

Abrams, Mirror, 11.

9

Abrams, Mirror, 11-14.

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audience Abrams associates with Sir Philip Sidney’s fertile misreading of the Poetics.10 Here, imitation became not the process of representing “what is, hath been, or shall be,” but rather “what may be, and should be.” With Sidney, recognition of a work’s moral imperative came to the forefront of criticism. The artist became a better, more effective sort of moral philosopher, and her work was judged by its capacity to realize some effect in its audience. This new function Abrams terms “pragmatic” by virtue of its focus on what is accomplished by a work of art, rather than what the work aims to imitate.11 This new focus on the process or the impact a work had on its audience necessarily drew upon a rich tradition of rhetorical criticism, the exemplar of which was Horace’s Ars Poetica. In the tradition that emerged from Horace, art had three functions prodesse: “to teach,” delectare, “to please,” and movere, “to move.” In the Renaissance, the moral function was understood as paramount. Subsequently, until the 18th century, pleasure became a central focus of criticism.12 The apex of this style of criticism, according to Abrams, is found in the neoclassical approach to poetry found in the work of Samuel Johnson.13 In his Preface to Shakespeare, Johnson maintained that “[t]he end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing,” a dictum that illustrates clearly how he synthesized the older canons of analysis. Abrams considers this pragmatic approach to literary criticism, which melds a mimetic concern for the representation of reality with a concern for the technical means by which a work

10

Sir Philip Sidney, An Apology for Poetry, (ed. Geoffrey Shepard; Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1973), 101. Abrams, Mirror, 14-15. 11

Abrams, Mirror, 15.

12

Abrams, Mirror, 16.

13

Abrams, Mirror, 19.

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affects and edifies its audience, the “principle aesthetic attitude of the Western world.”14 Crucially, its operation depends on some concept of an address to a “universal reader.” Thus, according to Johnson, the excellence of Shakespeare is evidenced by his continuing popularity and that popularity is illustrative of the principle that “nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature.”15 For Johnson (and Abrams), the pragmatic approach views the work as addressed to a supra-historical reading subject. A shift began in literary criticism subsequent to the rise of the individual as a locus of philosophical attention in the 17th century, however. According to Abrams, the Enlightenment helped to shift attention decisively away from the edifying function of art on its audience and onto the individual creative genius for whom the work of art was a means of self-expression. This mode of Romantic criticism focused now on the unique emotional states of an artwork’s originator, and the work of art was judged according to its ability to communicate that state of mind. Thus Wordsworth wrote in 1800 that poetry was “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”16 In Abrams’s view, the 19th century saw the rise of a new kind of “Expressive” criticism that viewed artistic production as “essentially the internal made external, resulting from a creative process operating under the impulse of feeling, and embodying the combined product of the poet’s perceptions, thoughts, and feelings.”17 Analysis thus becomes the appreciation of the figures and means by which an artist conveyed those feelings to his audience.

14

Abrams, Mirror, 21.

15

Abrams, Mirror, 20.

16

Lyrical Ballads, preface, op. cit. Abrams, Mirror, 21.

17

Abrams, Mirror, 22.

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Abrams also associates the Aristotelian approach with another analytical movement of the 19th and 20th centuries: the New Critical focus on “Art for Art’s sake.”18 Here, the technical and architectural elements that operate in a work of art are the sole focus of critical attention. Concern for historical context, moral content or authorial biography recede from view. In Abrams’s view, this Objective, “work-focused” reconsideration of the more technical element of the Aristotelian project is a relatively new development in Western criticism and thus stands parallel to Romantic criticism as a major critical movement of the 20th century. Thus, Abrams developed a fourfold structural model that coordinated a range of philosophical approaches to artistic works in the western tradition. John Barton’s adaptation of this analytical structure attempted to map, as much as was possible, the range of methods employed within the discipline of Biblical Studies onto this schema.19 Recognizing the limitations of such an effort, he nevertheless maintained that a macro-structural theory of this sort could be helpful for illustrating conceptual affinities between seemingly disparate

18

Abrams, Mirror, 27.

19

Unaddressed in Barton’s treatment, however, is the essentially historicist frame within which most Biblicists operate; even Brevard Childs, whatever it was he and his students claimed to have been doing, was interpreted against a theoretical background which was resolutely historicist. Abrams, by contrast, is concerned primarily with literary critical theories for which the central criterion for explanatory adequacy is “…not the scientific verifiability of its single propositions, but the scope, precision, and coherence of the insights that it yields into the properties of single works of art and the adequacy with which it accounts for diverse kinds of art.” (Abrams, Mirror, 4-5). To be sure, Barton’s implicit contention—that much of what is claimed as historicist biblical scholarship is, in fact, literary interpretation of text—is well taken. But the presentation of historical reconstruction as the cynosure of most types of biblical criticism ought to be taken into account in the course of adapting Abrams’s survey of literary critical approaches to the task of categorizing modes of biblical criticism. Lurking within this is a more fundamental problem, again, unaddressed by Barton, pertaining to the validity of adapting a range of aesthetic theories to a corpus which does not itself stem from a culture or period that conceptualized its literature as “art” in the sense that we employ the term. Surely something has changed when we adapt a meta-analytical structure whose original domain of expression included Wordsworth’s The Excursion (Abrams, Mirror, 293), a text which began with an invocation of “—Beauty—a living presence of the earth,/Surpassing the most fair ideal Forms/Which craft of delicate Spirits has composed/from earth’s materials…”, to the analysis of a text which begins with the invocation of a divine jwr which simultaneously expresses and engenders the fundamental constituents of the cosmos. The absence of a discussion of the mutanda which attend his adaptation is a significant limitation to Barton’s use of Abrams, one, it seems clear, of which he was himself aware.

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interpretive approaches. Thus, Barton grouped together as “mimetic” the full range of precritical and fundamentalist approaches to scripture by virtue of their common assumption that the text itself is a perfect mirror for an external “universe.”20 Canon-critical approaches of the sort advanced by Brevard Childs and James Crenshaw share a common concern for the total architecture of the literary corpus in which individual texts are embedded. As such, they represent a “work-focused” approach to scripture that is objective and thus stands alongside structuralist and new critical approaches to biblical text.21 Provocatively, Barton groups the majority of traditional literary and historical approaches into the category of “expressive” or “romantic” interpretation. He does so because these analytical modes share a common concern in reconstructing the internal intentional state of a biblical author in order to derive from the text the aims of its composer. Thus, in this categorization, the diverse methods of form-, redaction-, and source-criticism are grouped together by virtue of their common analytical basis, without regard for the practical differences in their approaches to interpretation.22 But Barton’s adaptation of Abrams’s analytical categories treats uneasily the so-called pragmatic or audience-centered function. Writing in 1984, Barton dimly perceived the advent of post-structural and so-called “reader response” criticisms, but he hedged on the impact of these methods.23 He speculated that theological approaches that view scripture as the authoritative and

20

Barton, The Old Testament, 23-24.

21

Barton, The Old Testament, 26-29.

22

Barton, The Old Testament, 25-26.

23

Note Barton’s refreshing candor in assessing, over twenty years later, his skill as a disciplinary prognosticator: “…I must say…that I badly misjudged prevailing trends: reader-response criticism of course became a massive movement shortly after these words were written!” (Barton, The Old Testament, 105 n.26).

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divinely inspired Word of God could best fulfill Abrams’s pragmatic function.24 Thus in this early essay, his treatment of the “audience” is confined to the contemporary reader of ancient text, continuing Abrams’s focus on the “universal reader” as a customary focus of the pragmatic critic. In relation to the methodological concerns that would come to define his career, this early categorization of the field performed a dual function for Barton. First, his hypothesis of a common philosophical basis underlying the seemingly disparate approaches of historical- and literary-criticism allowed him to develop a subtler attitude toward each branch of the discipline’s claim to analytical integrity. This would culminate in essays such as “Historical Criticism and Literary Interpretation: Is there any Common Ground?”25 and his inaugural lecture upon taking the Oriel and Laing professorship at Oxford, entitled “The Future of Old Testament Study.”26 These programmatic essays challenged the field to recognize the interdependence of literary and historical approaches to the text and to sharpen our awareness to the inherent dangers of the subjective preconditioning that lurk in both methods. At the same time, “Classifying Biblical Criticism” effectively situated canonical and final form approaches in a position other than the genuinely critical engagement with the text. For all

24

“For much pre-critical exegesis the biblical text is a medium through which God addresses the Christian reader or hearer, and it is a book by which the church is to be built up in the faith….I am not concerned at the moment to comment on the theological adequacy of this idea, but merely to note that it is one useful way of expressing an attitude to Scripture that was characteristic of a good deal of pre-critical interpretation. It seems to me fair to describe this as a pragmatic theory of biblical study, in the sense that the term bears in Abrams’s scheme. The Bible is not so much a source of information (though it is also that) as a means of edification, a tool which God uses to ensure that Christians are nourished in the faith.” (Barton, The Old Testament, 32). 25

S.E. Porter, P. Joyce and D.E. Orton, eds., Crossing the Boundaries: Essays in Biblical Interpretation in Honour of Michael D. Goulder, (Leiden: Brill, 1995) 3-15; reprinted in Barton, The Old Testament, 127-136. 26

John Barton, The Future of Old Testament Study: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered before the University of Oxford on 12 November 1992 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993); Reprinted in Barton, The Old Testament, 157-168.

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its inherent danger, the “expressive” approach to biblical interpretation nevertheless maintained an engagement with the text itself as a historical artifact. The canonical approach to scripture, by contrast, employed a late literary configuration as a dominating heuristic, and as such bore more in common with structuralism as it developed in Continental theoretical approaches than with historical criticism. By subdividing the discipline in this way, Barton set the stage for later essays such as “Canon and Old Testament Interpretation,” which advanced the position that a canonical approach to scripture had more affinity with constructive theology and pre-critical exegesis than it did with the academic study of the Hebrew Bible.27 Barton’s approach to the field helps clarify the underlying issues at work in the present study in two ways, one positive and one negative. Positively, his claim that literary approaches to the biblical text share a common methodological core with historiographical ones adequately explains what we have seen at work in the separate approaches of Rainer Albertz and Marvin Sweeney to the text of Jeremiah. Both of these scholars have presented apparently objective redaction-critical readings of the text intended to sustain particular historical arguments. But these literary readings were not nearly as objective as had been claimed. We have seen how both scholars overlooked the serious critiques levied by J.P. Hyatt and H. G. May against the traditional date for the initiation of Jeremiah’s work as a prophet during the period of Josiah. Hyatt and May both recognized the degree to which Deuteronomistic ideology was constitutive for the literary presentation of the character of Jeremiah. Accordingly, they attempted to

27

John Barton, “Canon and Old Testament Interpretation,” In Search of True Wisdom: Essays in Old Testament Interpretation in Honour of Ronald E. Clements, JSOTSupp 300 (ed. E. Ball; Sheffied: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 37-52; reprinted in Barton, The Old Testament, 31-42.

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establish the proper chronological frame for the prophet’s work on grounds other than the Deuteronomic text of Jer 1. Yet beginning with Rainer Albertz’s work in “Jer 2-6 und die Frühzeitverkündigung Jeremias,” this methodological caution was set aside in favor of a much more forthright historicizing reading of the present form of the text of Jeremiah. The problems of literary and chronological continuity that ensued (surveyed above in chapter 1) were not answered with decisive argumentation, but were sidestepped in favor of a new form of hybrid redaction- and historical-criticism. Thus, Albertz’s tendentious engagement with Jer 2.1-4 had a profound effect on his reconstruction of that text’s thematic and rhetorical function. Barton’s argument that both historical and literary approaches to the text involve an attempt to divine the intent of an ancient author and to reconstruct history, both textual and actual, on that basis, is well taken here. Neither Albertz nor Sweeney has at their disposal a secure criterion to establish their reconstruction as valid. They are reconstructing history and Urtext simultaneously and are thus in danger of reading their larger philosophical and theological concerns back into a text whose original structure and function might have been altogether different than they imagine. In negative terms, Barton’s work in “Classifying Biblical Criticism” also illustrates a serious gap in our standard methodological repertoire. His appreciation for the so-called audience-focused, pragmatic approach to textual analysis was marred by an inability to recognize a distinction between the ancient reader and the contemporary one.28 Implicit in this early essay is the claim that to reconstruct the worldview of the former, one would need to have recourse to the very “expressive” methods that were so in need of careful treatment. His limitation of the 28

To be fair, this was also an ambiguous term in Abrams’s original treatment. His initial discussion of the pragmatic approach to criticism related it to “…the listeners, spectators, or readers to whom the work is addressed, or to whose attention, at any rate, it becomes available.” [Abrams, Mirror, 6].

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“pragmatic” approach to biblical criticism to include only post-structural, reader-response, and theological modes of reading is a serious oversight. Barton would come shortly to rectify this gap in his survey of the field, recognizing the importance of the original reader and the historically situated function of biblical text,29 but the category of “pragmatic” approaches remains under-theorized in his survey. This assessment of the field thus discloses a dual methodological gap. The issue of adequate criteria for judging the validity of historical or textual reconstruction is at least partially answered by the need to enrich our appreciation for ancient-audience-focused, pragmatic approaches to the Biblical text. The general problem is how to engage richly with prophetic rhetoric. How can we allow it to function properly as historically situated, persuasive speech without imposing upon it our interpretive biases? In approaching prophetic discourse, there must be a controlling context that is itself subject to validation and so a particular reconstruction can be checked for anachronism and historical validity. It is not possible to claim that literary analysis can proceed in the absence of such self-conscious framing. Both Rainer Albertz and Marvin Sweeney themselves developed their particular readings of the text of Jeremiah in relation to larger intellectual projects. Before we describe the philosophical implications of the present study, it would be worthwhile to

29

See, for example, John Barton, “Reading the Bible as Literature: Two Questions for Biblical Critics,” Journal of Theology and Literature 1 (1987), 135-153. Reprinted in Barton, The Old Testament, 109-125. Speaking of the positive potentials in rhetorical critical analysis, he writes: “One of the great achievements of the redactioncritical approach has been to make us see the narrative books of the Old Testament not so much as evidence for historical events—though they may also be that—but rather as the work of historiographers who had a message to convey….[But] the redactiona-critical interest in the motives and intentions of the editors has, in fact, pushed to one side a question that earlier form- and tradition-historical criticism had paid more attention to: the question of the intended use of lengthy narrative material in ancient Israel.” Statements of this sort acknowledge a distinction in our literary appreciation for the biblical text and its original rhetorical function. The problem remains unresolved, however, since Barton provides no secure method by which the intent of ancient authors and redactors might be reconstructed and by means of which criterion such reconstructions might be checked and validated.

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digress momentarily to remind ourselves of the broader heuristics controlling the development of these scholars’ separate arguments.

The Larger Contexts for the Text Work of Albertz and Sweeney Both Rainer Albertz and Marvin Sweeney presented their particular theses for an early, pro-Josian Jeremiah in the context of larger claims about the political, religious and historical development of monarchic Israel. These overarching projects diverge from one another in important ways, and especially where the issue of Jeremiah’s attitude toward national sovereignty is concerned, they rest on quite different foundations. At the same time, these intellectual projects provide a plausibility structure within which the thesis of a Jeremian early period and the prophet’s pro-Deuteronomic sentiment takes on an increased force. Our earlier survey of the critique levied against the traditional dating of Jeremiah in the period of Josiah and our challenge to the historicizing reading of Jer 36 have presented data at odds with these scholars’ framing agendas. But as we have seen, the problems encountered in approaching Jer 1 and Jer 36 historically were glossed over lightly by Albertz and Sweeney. To understand why, we need to contextualize their particular readings of Jeremiah within their larger research agendas. For Albertz, his reading of Jeremiah 2-6 developed while attempting to survey the history of ancient Israelite religion in the pre- and post-exilic periods. Albertz’s general purpose in the first volume of his A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period is to trace the development of YHWH worship from the origins of the Israelites through to the end of the monarchy. In his reconstruction, there is an essentially anti-authoritarian, decentralized core to the religion, which stands in contradistinction to the syncretistic Canaanite matrix in which it 312

was embedded.30 In the course of its cooptation by the House of David at the time of the emergence of the monarchy, the worship of YHWH was corrupted and made to support centralized authority structures.31 Yet it is also a continuously renewing force, and Albertz’s treatment of prophecy and reform in both Israel and Judah recognize these as efforts to return the worship of YHWH to its pristine and supra-political origin. In this development, it is the prophets of the 8th century BCE who took on a central role in the course of separating the religion of Israel from political institutions that had usurped it for their purposes. For the first time, YHWH was conceptualized as a deity transcending the narrow interests of any particular authority structure, representing a fundamental moral mandate and in particular, a mandate in favor of the poor and powerless.32 This crucial theological development occurred, Albertz suggests, as a result of the particular geo-political pressures of the NeoAssyrian period. Concern for the nation as a whole was a response to the new threats to national identity posed by an aggressive and expansive Mesopotamian empire.33 The Israelite prophets thus had a unique role in adapting their culture to conditions for which the cult and palace were inadequately positioned to respond effectively: “…[T]he prophets first of all submit official Yahweh religion to a comprehensive ideological criticism. They deny the powerful—the political and cultic leaders and the upper class which controls economic activity—the right to claim Yahweh for the religious legitimation of their own interests. Rather, the prophets unmistakably point out that there are criteria for any appeal made to God: Yahweh is on the side of those who are economically weak (Amos, Micah, Isaiah); he is on the side of those who, trusting in him, forgo any implementation of their interests by politics and military force (Isaiah, Hosea), and have learned that their existence depends on him alone (Hosea). So in this prophetic 30

Albertz, History, 76-79.

31

Albertz, History, 122.

32

Albertz, History, 176-180.

33

Albertz, History, 176-177.

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contradiction there is created anew, now with a theological profile, that potential for difference in the face of domination which had been so typical of early Yahweh religion.”34 In so doing, the 8th century prophets reactivated a core element in the worship of YHWH, which Albertz supposes had perdured from the time of the exodus and the desert trek. By invoking this primal theme, Hosea in particular was crucial when it came to renewing the religion of Israel on its ancient model.35 Indeed, Hosea is for Albertz a janus figure; he reactivates old modes of conceptualizing YHWH as beyond immediate temporal structures. At the same time, he anticipates and influences the development of the Deuteronomic reform, the historical moment when these principles became constitutive for the political life of the nation.36 Most immediately, Albertz supposes that Hezekiah’s reform was directly influenced by Hosea, given his supposition that it was inspired, in part, by disciples of Hosea who fled southward subsequent the destruction of 722.37 This reform, which Albertz connects with the origin of the Book of the Covenant (Exod 21-23), represented an attempt to legislate both cultic behavior and social life.38 As such, it anticipated in significant ways, the later reform of the Deuteronomic movement during the time of Josiah. Albertz treats the Deuteronomic reform of the Josianic period as the fruition of these theological trends. Set in motion by the collapse of Neo-Assyrian hegemony, it represented a broad-based social and religious renewal movement whose aim was to “reconstitute fully” the

34

Albertz, History, 168.

35

Albertz, History, 169.

36

Albertz, History, 175.

37

Albertz, History, 181.

38

Albertz, History, 186.

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Israelite state.39 The reformers positioned the covenantal relationship between Israel and YHWH as the central mediating concept in the life of the community. It represented a new phase in its self-conception as autonomous and unified, and it provided a basis for the maintenance of a collective subsequent to the collapse of the Judean state.40 In practical terms, however, the function of this reform was to establish an independent legal code and juridical body over all the operations of society. The role of the king was made subject to a higher legal principle whose adjudication was determined through the interpretation of the Deuteronomic law. By such means, the reform meant a radical reconceptualization of the relationship between the exercise of political authority and the enjoyment of a divine mandate.41 In this reconstruction, the social basis for this renewal movement ran across the spectrum of Judean society.42 The basis for the reform was set in motion by the coup d’état perpetuated by the Xrah Mo in 640 BCE, which deposed Amon and placed Josiah on the throne at a young age (2K 21.23-24). Albertz recognizes these Xrah Mo as an autonomous agrarian class with an independent power base sufficient to overrule the executive: “This was a middle class among the land-owning farmers of Judah which became politically active and, in succession to the assembly of arms-bearing men in the period before the state and the early monarchy, allied with the royal house against the destructive upper class of the capital.” This sector made common cause with scribal intellectuals who had absorbed the values of the wisdom tradition and now sought to reform civic life in line with their particular ideological program. They were joined by the priesthood in Jerusalem, who saw in the nascent reform the 39

Albertz, History, 199.

40

Albertz, History, 231.

41

Albertz, History, 203-206.

42

Albertz, History, 201-203.

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opportunity to strip their cultus of foreign influences and aggrandize their own temple at the expense of other shrines. Furthermore, the movement gained the support of nationalistic prophets who advocated territorial expansion and a renewed monarchy. In this group, Albertz counts the authors of Zeph 2.4ff and Isaiah 8.23ab-9.6. Into this mixed bag, Albertz also places the young Jeremiah. He positions the prophet at the vanguard of this movement, calling him “the most committed propagandist of the Deuteronomic reform.” Thus his origin from Anathoth, near Judah’s northern border, motivated him to address his Israelite kinsmen and renew Hosea’s message of piety and disengagement from foreign alliances (Jer 2.4-4.2). In this, he saw himself declaring to the north the promise of restoration after deportation first made by Hosea (Jer 3.22-23; 31.18-20). Jeremiah anticipated an actual restoration of the Assyrian deportees.43 Further, Albertz maintains that Jeremiah supported Josiah’s incursion against Bethel, expecting that the northerners would come to recognize Jerusalem as the site of legitimate YHWH worship and make it the focus of pilgrimage (Jer 31.4-6). And finally, in a surprising reversal from his earlier, cautious treatment of the political dimension of Jeremiah’s supposed pro-Josianic stance, Albertz now concedes that “[Jeremiah’s] programme probably also included the political annexation which Josiah pursued.”44 He supposes that this early support for the Deuteronomic program lasted Jeremiah through the death of Josiah in 609 BCE. At this point, he entered into an embittered late period, when he rejected his former enthusiasm for the

43

Jer 31.15-17; but note that Albertz does not make mention of the similar sentiment expressed in Jer 3.6-

44

Albertz, History, 203.

11.

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Deuteronomic movement and cast aspersions on his former comrades (Jer 8.8).45 Despite this reversal in his thought, Albertz maintains that he kept ties with and drew continuing support from the scribal House of Shaphan (Jer 26.25; 36.9ff; 40.7ff).46 This analysis of the sociological background for the Deuteronomic reform is reasonably grounded in the textual evidence. It is clear that the reform itself had a complex etiology and that it drew upon several sectors of Judean society, some of which had competing aims. But it should be noted that Albertz’s treatment of Jeremiah is quite different from his treatment of any other group involved in the reform. Most obviously, Jeremiah is a complex and dynamic individual whose thought evolved over time and in dynamic response to changing social conditions. The other bases of support, he recognizes, are anonymous groups of individuals represented in fairly static terms. Moreover, Albertz’s treatment of Jeremiah’s attitude toward the reform proceeds according to selective citation and application of quotations from throughout the Jeremian corpus. There is no concerted effort on his part to systematize Jeremiah’s thought in terms of core principles that might then be tested against what is known of the historical record. Thus, the thesis of Jeremiah’s early and fervent support for the Deuteronomic movement is treated here, as in his earlier article on Jer 2-6, as a premise to be assumed rather than a hypothesis to be tested. And once again, this interpretive choice proceeds without articulating a response to the earlier objections to such an assumption, which had been raised by Hyatt and May. This is an unfortunate way of approaching the problem since it is clear from his treatment of the topic that Albertz is uncomfortable with the religio-nationalist, political aspect of Josiah’s 45

Albertz, History, 236

46

Albertz, History, 202.

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reform. The core attribute of the Yahwism he hypothesizes is its supra-temporal and antiinstitutional dimension. Realized in the social domain as advocacy for the impoverished and disempowered, Yahwism’s egalitarian impulse is also clear in a persistent tendency to challenge hierarchical power structures and to favor decentralized modes of social organization with abstract rather than concrete loci of authority. With this as his analytical focus, it goes without saying that he will emphasize the pietistic rather than the political dimensions of Josiah’s reform. Indeed, he devotes very little space and no dedicated discussion at all to the politics of the reform or to the ways it served the particular interests of the Davidic throne. Take, for example, Albertz’s treatment of the movement against Bethel. To be sure, this event is represented in the Deuteronomistic History as a religious act (2K 23.15-20). But it also represented an incursion against sovereign Assyrian territory, a provocation that would not have been possible without the military decline of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. As such, Josiah’s move had politico-nationalist overtones as well. Indeed, the choice to move against Bethel could be seen as an undoing of an action, which in the case of Jeroboam I, was originally a political action wrapped up in the guise of cultus (1K 12.26-27). It is surprising, then to read Albertz analyze the action in these terms: “The destruction of Bethel and other provincial sanctuaries…pursued the aim of compelling the whole Israelite population in both South and North to come to Jerusalem several times a year and thus to strengthen the unity of the nation. However, it should be noted that these concerns did not go with a strengthening of the central political authority. Rather, the centralization of the cult is an attempt to ground the unity of the kingdom no longer in the harsh pressure of a strong royal central authority but on common worship of the one God and religious conviction.” (p. 207) In this reading, Josiah was merely realizing the mandate of the Deuteronomists, and his affront to his Assyrian overlord was motivated primarily by piety (keeping in mind he would have been 318

personally and bodily responsible, should he have been called to account). Such a narrow focus on the religious and social aspects of the reform defies plausibility. We are meant to believe that while Josiah’s incursion drew upon the military resources of the state in the midst of a massive geo-political power vacuum, it was not intended in any fashion to aggrandize the power of the Judean throne. It is far more likely that the Deuteronomists provided Josiah’s court with an ideological basis for pushing back into ancestral territory and for legitimating an attempt to defy a prior oath of vassalage. This narrow angle of approach to the Deuteronomic reform is the price Albertz must pay to hold together so many disparate sectors of Judean society and so many diverse traditional influences. If the desert trek, for example, is truly an ideal for Hosea and Jeremiah, and if these two are part of the same ongoing tradition that culminates in the reform of 626 BCE, then it is going to be difficult to reconcile the anti-locative dimension of that tradition with the specifically geographical focus of Josiah’s effort. Something will have to give, and in Albertz’s particular formulation, it is the political dimension of the reform that is downplayed. Albertz mentions the implications of Josiah’s northern action, but avoids drawing any conclusions for the status of the monarchy from this evidence. In doing so, Albertz naturalizes the inherent biases of the Deuteronomistic History itself, a literary source likely inclined to downplay the political dimensions of Josiah’s reform because they failed most spectacularly in the years after 626. Further, they culminated, perhaps, in the King’s own death at the hands of the Egyptian pharaoh. With such a bias, it is no wonder that Albertz’s treatment of Jeremiah as well as the impact of his early speech is so ambivalent. In this reading, Jeremiah experiences the same radical, mid-career reversal that any theory for his Josian period activity must posit. But in Albertz’s reading, we find a few more details. His rejection of the Deuteronomic movement 319

after Josiah’s death at Megiddo is only verbal. In practical terms, Albertz reads the narrative accounts of his career and the references to the patronage of the Shaphanids as historical fact, blunting the impact of his supposed rejection of the reform. Furthermore, Albertz leaves significant details unclear in his analysis: what is precisely at stake in Jer 8.8, how the promise of the reform has been made rqv, and the particular basis for Jeremiah’s change in heart. More fundamentally, Albertz does not provide us with a clear sense for who Jeremiah was and what theological principles informed his prophecy in the face of shifts in political fortune. His focus on a reified Yahwism that stands across the span of history as a social transformative force blinds Albertz to the complexities of Jeremiah’s traditional influences. Clearly Hosea had a constitutive influence on the later prophet’s thought. But, as we have seen, the text that is the focus of Albertz’s reconstruction, Jer 2-6, is densely allusive, and the range of sources that impacted upon the prophet’s thought is much broader than Albertz is willing to admit.47 Without an accounting for the full range of his influences, we cannot adequately make sense of Jeremiah’s unique contribution to the ideological topography of the late monarchic period. It is not enough simply to interpret his thought through the narrow window of the Deuteronomic reform, ignoring or post-dating anything that defies identification with the fevered period immediately subsequent to 622 BCE. Indeed, Albertz’s own silence on the political dimension of Josiah’s reform and his shifts in emphasis where Jeremiah’s attitude toward national sovereignty and political expansion are concerned ought to signal that this is an area in need of clarification. Our discussion of the prophet’s rhetorical intent in Jer 2-6 has demonstrated that political identity was very much in Jeremiah’s mind. His weaving together of 47

See, in particular M. Weinfeld, "Spiritual Metamorphosis,” and Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 300-304, 307-317.

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Priestly and proto-Deuteronomistic sources helped to facilitate the emergence of a new form of de-localized collective identity. Jeremiah helped to define a new way of being ydwhy even after

hdwhy had ceased to exist.

Whereas Albertz was obliged to downplay the political and nationalist dimensions of the Josianic period in light of his religion-historical project, Sweeney charted a very different course. His particular intention to read Jeremiah as a Josianic mouthpiece depends in large measure on his understanding of the politics of the late monarchy, a topic that received a thorough treatment in the book that followed on the heels of his essay in Troubling Jeremiah.48 Sweeney's treatment of the period of Josiah’s reform is remarkable for its skillful adaptation of the cautious and limited historical reconstruction of Na'aman to the consideration of the DtrH as a historically situated document. Sweeney recognizes a gap between the maximalist intentions of the Davidic House and the practical opportunities afforded by their structural position,49 and he explains the national renewal of Josiah as a failed attempt at empire building.50 As such, he accomplishes an important reframing of the discussion away from what Josiah actually accomplished (which is likely never to be fully clear in any case), to a discussion of what the textual sources were trying to legitimate.51 Arguing for an earlier, Hezekian edition of the DtrH, Sweeney presents a new line of reasoning for a Josianic edition that presents the

48

Marvin A. Sweeney, King Josiah of Judah: The Lost Messiah of Israel. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 49

Sweeney, King Josiah, 6-7

50

Sweeney, King Josiah, 317-318

51

Sweeney, King Josiah, 7-8, 19

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latter king as an ideal monarch in the mold of Moses and Joshua,52 while developing a subtle critique of the Solomonic kingship.53 This latter critique, designed to re-orient a strain in the DtrH that is pro-Davidic and centered on Hezekiah, is the basis for a later, exilic edition that points to Manasseh as the root cause for the Babylonian exile.54 Like Frank Moore Cross55 and Richard Nelson56 before him, Sweeney concludes that this Josianic edition of the Deuteronomistic History is "propagandistic" and oriented toward legitimation of claims on territory in the north. Josiah is presented both as the culmination of the divine promise to the House of David and as the fulfillment of that promise through his enjoyment of a mode of leadership characteristic of idealized non-regnal leaders. This edition, he reckons, places Dtr 17.14-20 at the center of its political theology and is oriented around an appeal to the Northern exiles to support the house of David, formulated most clearly in Dtr 30.110.57 Unlike Cross, however, Sweeney's treatment of the DtrH makes no suggestion of the actual historical status of Josiah's efforts in the north. The literary and ideological characteristics of the text are placed at the foreground of his analysis, and his literary work proceeds relatively unburdened by historiographical presupposition. Sweeney's interpretation of the evidence is laudable for drawing out an important, antiregnal strain in the DtrH, which had not received its due from the Cross school. Despite this 52

Sweeney, King Josiah, 173

53

Sweeney, King Josiah, 174-175

54

Sweeney, King Josiah, 31-32; see also Sweeney, M. "The Critique of Solomon in the Josianic Edition of the Deuteronomistic History," JBL 114 (1995): 607-622. 55

Frank M. Cross, “The Themes of the Book of Kings and the Structure of the Deuteronomistic History,” Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 274-289. 56

R.D. Nelson, The Double Redaction of the Deuteronomistic History, JSOTSup 18 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1981), 120-123. 57

Sweeney, King Josiah, 176-177.

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sensitivity, the tension between Dtr 17 and 2K 22-23 cannot so easily be reconciled in the terms he suggests. Initially, Sweeney's adoption of Cross's suggestion that the Josianic DtrH is propaganda in support of an intended military and political campaign is at odds with the History's own presentation of Josiah as a strictly religious reformer. Despite his interpretive scruples, Sweeney continues to draw an inference that goes beyond the evidence at hand. If 2K 22-23 is propagandistic, then it is of a very strange sort. Seeking to present the king's aspirations in religious terms, it blunts the political force of what Josiah was supposed to be attempting. Even this focus on the figure of Josiah, however, goes beyond the Deuteronomic law of the king, which subordinates any regnal agency to the Deuteronomic code. Thus, the promise/fulfillment schema in 1K 13, 2K 23 focuses attention on the person of the king as reformer in a way that is at odds with what Dtr 17 would lead one to expect. With this analysis, Sweeney is trying to have it both ways. If we read against the grain of the DtrH (as he does) and interpret Josiah as intending a vigorous campaign in the north, and employ the DtrH as support for that effort, then Josiah is actively abrogating the law of Dtr 17. If we read with the DtrH, on the other hand, then the propagandistic focus of the DtrH is lost, the genre becomes closer to reportage, and the king becomes a simple religious reformer. As we have seen in chapter four, when faced with the same thematic problem, Bernard Levinson employs a far more satisfying diachronic/generic approach according to which the text of Dtr 17 is an ideal expression of Dtr law, formulated prior to the accession of Josiah to the throne. Thus 2K 22-23 is a compromise document that reflects the uneasy reconciliation of Dtr ideology to the realpolitik of its implementation.58 In Levinson’s reading, the DtrH’s

58

Levinson, "Reconceptualization of Kingship.”

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presentation of Josiah as religious reformer thus preserves the core values of the Deuteronomists while simultaneously legitimating the king's political pretensions.59 Sweeney treats the historical literature with sophistication, which makes it surprising that he attributes so simplistic a propagandistic message to the poetry of Jeremiah. He considers the core of Jer 2-4 and 30-31 to be original Jeremian poetry oriented toward the Northern kingdom that seeks to justify the claims of the House of David.60 Statements concerning the return of Israel to Zion (Jer 3.14; 31.6, 10-14), those that seem to argue for a reunification of the House of Judah with the House of Israel (Jer 3.15-18), and the text claiming a new covenant with the northern and southern kingdoms (Jer 31.27-34) all militate in favor of reading these texts as supportive of the specifically political aims of the Josian court.61 With this reading of the Jeremian text, much of the careful scruple characteristic of Sweeney’s work when he differentiates between the historical record and the literary account of the DtrH collapses. His precise distinction between the ideological character of the DtrH text and the actual events of Josiah's reign is lost when one is obliged to imagine a broad-based reform movement involving the multiple sectors of Jerusalemite society. This is not to say, of course, that such an effort is impossible. Rather, it needs to be grounded on something other than a close reading of the Deuteronomistic History. Given the severe doubt cast upon Josiah's fortunes in the north and the historiographical problems that attend Sweeney's reconstruction of

59

For a similarly nuanced argument, see Nicholson Deuteronomy and Tradition, 94-102; R.E. Clements, “Deuteronomy and the Jerusalem Cult Tradition,” VT 15 (1965): 300-312; and the literature cited above. Thomas Römer, by contrast, has recently preferred to read the account in Dtr 17 not as a legal formulation but as a thematic preface to the narratives of failed kingship in Samuel and Kings (Thomas Römer, The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical and Literary Introduction (London, New York: T&T Clark, 2005.) p. 80, inter alia). 60 Sweeney, King Josiah, 317, et passim. 61

Sweeney, King Josiah, 15.

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the Josian era DtrH, there is little external evidence that militates in favor of a Josianic reading of Jer 2-6.62 Having redefined the DtrH account as propagandistic history that cannot be employed as historiographical data, Sweeney has no valid evidentiary basis to posit Jeremiah as likewise propagandistically inclined. It is clear enough that the Deuteronomic reformers were connected with the institution of the palace, and thus the hypothesis that they were supporting Josiah’s reforms with their historiography is not unwarranted. But Jeremiah’s relationship to the Davidic throne was far more equivocal. Jer 21.11-23.8 makes clear that Jeremiah had some esteem for Josiah, but on our reading, this extended only to the king’s concern for social justice. Where Josiah involved himself in the territorial expansion of his domain, Jeremiah understood him to have courted disaster. Thus, there is no external evidentiary basis to suggest that Jeremiah was a partisan of the Josian reconquista. Indeed, without 2K 22-23 to fall back on for historical evidence, the most we can safely suggest is that the king attempted a limited action against the Bethel sanctuary, retreated back to his stronghold, and was shortly afterward killed by Necho for the act. This is hardly enough to support the hypothesis of a broad-based propaganda movement that counted among its adherents the most penetrating intellect and gifted rhetorician the Judean kingdom had seen in over a century.

62

If Sweeney's approach to this material may be termed cautious for its differentiation between ideological intention behind text production and the actual historical events in which the texts only partially participated, then Mark Leuchter's recent Josiah's Reform and Jeremiah's Scroll may be said to have obliterated such interpretive caution. Here Leuchter supposes that Jeremiah undertook two propaganda missions into the territory of Israel on behalf of the Josian palace. The first mission, the message of which is encapsulated for us in chs 30-31 (pp. 78ff) was followed by a second mission, whose threat oracles were gathered into the collection we know as Jer 2-4 (ch 5). With this imaginative reconstruction, the care in historiographical reconstruction advanced by Na'aman is abandoned. Indeed, it is telling that Na'aman's 1991 TA 18 article is not listed in Leuchter's bibliography, since its insights would have counseled a much more careful reconstruction. Unfortunately, the only evidence adduced for these propaganda missions that Leuchter imagines Jeremiah undertook is Leuchter's own reading of Jer 2-4.

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It is evident that Sweeney and Albertz are both advancing—albeit for very different reasons—the same thesis of an early period Jeremiah who was pro-Deuteronomic and proJosian. For Albertz, this strong reading of the Jeremian evidence allows him to marry a clearly political and nationalist expansion to the critical prophetic tradition of Hosea. As such, it was necessary for him to downplay the political dimension and to present Jeremiah as the Deuteronomic propagandist par excellence. Sweeney, for his part, is better grounded in the complex historical and ideological problems that attend the narrative sources for the period. He is concerned less with the continuity of critical prophetic traditions and more with drawing upon some secure body of evidence that might provide a basis for the reconstruction of the events surrounding Josiah’s reform. And yet, when it comes to Jeremiah, he presupposes historical events and motivating forces when there is no evidence at all. It seems evident that Jeremiah’s own ambiguous poetic style, a style which is itself the product of tendentious Deuteronomistic editing, has given this text a central function in shoring up the crumbling hypothesis of Jeremiah’s maximalist expansion into the North. On the basis of our reading of Jer 1 and Jer 36, these redactors sought to represent Jeremiah as contemporary with and an advocate for Josiah’s reform. They did so because this framing heuristic would narrow the ideological distance between the prophet and his Deuteronomic contemporaries—their own intellectual forbears. Yet this effort to domesticate the prophet’s original critical discourse to the needs of a later period had the unfortunate effect of presenting him as advocating a bellicose sort of nationalism starkly at odds with his Babylonianperiod political theology. Thus the impact of the Deuteronomistic literary framing of Jeremiah has been to distort radically the prophet’s own theology. Albertz and Sweeney advanced very different projects on the basis of what is virtually the 326

same reading of Jer 2-6. This is something that should give us pause. Each one overdetermines Jeremiah’s poetry in the course of advancing his particular argument. Neither is concerned to discuss what is continuous in Jeremiah’s own thought or to illustrate the rhetorical and philosophical principles that informed him. Instead, they draw parallel inferences from the same tendentious redactional frame for the text. The present study has taken as its starting point the need to read this complex and subtle thinker on his own terms prior to making any positive historical claims about his context or impact. Both Albertz and Sweeney have advanced their readings of these ambiguous Jeremian oracles on the back of more complex and controversial theoretical projects. This is exactly the opposite of how one ought to approach this complex and sophisticated literature.

Inner-Biblical Exegesis and Pragmatic Linguistics This brief survey makes clear that the historical reconstructions advanced by Albertz and Sweeney were not driven primarily by a concern to do adequate justice to the prophet’s poetry or the text’s architecture. These interests were peripheral to a more fundamental concern to fit Jeremiah’s discourse into a larger, extra-textual interpretive framework. At key moments, claims were advanced regarding the state of the text that were not grounded in a rich understanding of the prophet’s characteristic mode of expression, or the text’s overall shaping. Recalling John Barton’s categorization of methodological approaches in Biblical Studies, these scholars illustrate quite clearly what Barton himself had posited: that historical-criticism and literarycriticism depended on similarly subjective processes of reconstructing an authorial consciousness. When history and text reconstruction are used to mutually reinforce one another, the impression may be that the scholar has achieved critical purchase on the text under 327

consideration. But in fact, this amounts to subjective theorizing on parallel tracks. Hence, the methodological problem that Barton diagnoses—the need for adequate literary sensitivity in historical reconstruction—was compounded by the problem he did not recognize: the need to link specific scholarly interpretations of a text to a generalized understanding of the social basis for interactions between authors and speakers, and their audiences. By considering the expressive possibilities of an ancient author’s era, we can ensure that what is being attributed is indeed plausible. Only then can we be certain that scholarly hypotheses are grounded not in the scholar’s desire to find continuity between a larger project and a given textual formation, but in a reasonable appreciation for the consciousness of an ancient speaker or author. These desiderata in Barton’s original assessment of the field are matched by an unfortunate gap in his survey. Depending as he did on Abrams’s original model, Barton’s representation of audience-focused, pragmatic approaches to Biblical literature was restricted to the confrontation between the text and the modern reader. One is left with the impression that the only means to assess the potential impact of biblical discourse on an ancient reader are the aforementioned historical- and literary-critical tools, with all the dangers of romanticizing speculation built into their interpretive fundament. Barton would have occasion to revise this assessment later in his career, but the acknowledgment that the ancient reader and her cultural frame of reference might provide a crucial heuristic never forced a modification of his initial survey. Indeed, even in the latest edition of his methodological sourcebook, Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study,63 the analytical approaches pursued in this dissertation, which have themselves an extensive scholarly history, find no mention. In the midst of an 63

John Barton, Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study, rev. ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1996).

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otherwise comprehensive survey of interpretive approaches to biblical literature, Barton devotes no attention to Inner-Biblical Exegesis or to pragmatic approaches to ancient literature. Such an omission is critical, since it reflects a blindness to creative, historically sensitive literary approaches that might bring new angles of approach to familiar interpretive problems. We have attempted to rehabilitate an earlier, more skeptical position toward the Jeremiah tradition by putting forward readings of the prophet’s oracles that were based in his own poiesis rather than the strong redactional reconstructions advocated by these later scholars. In chapters three and four, we employed a plausibility structure grounded in what we understood as the cultural and linguistic background for the prophet’s expression. We developed novel understandings of his rhetorical intent by assessing his language against shared assumptions of his audience. We developed two arguments in this vein, one assessing the rhetorical impact of Jer 2-6 by situating it in relation to the prophet’s complex and subtle Inner-Biblical allusions. The second was a more wide-ranging survey of the prophet’s rhetoric that analyzed his creative adaptation of a received figure of speech, the augmented double rhetorical question. We then measured how this rhetorical pattern provided an efficient means for invoking shared assumptions in his audience and confronting them with implicit aporiae.

Given the focus of both methodological approaches on the shared background of Jeremiah and his interlocutors, it is possible to make some preliminary statements regarding their shared methodological assumptions. Both Inner-Biblical Exegesis and the version of the sociolinguistic approach I have developed here share some concept of a rich, culturally informed subject. The two methods have developed in separate academic domains, but their presuppositions are sufficiently near to one another to permit an illuminating comparison. Such 329

a survey may suggest productive avenues for further research. As a method of reading Biblical text, Inner-Biblical Exegesis received its classic and richest typological development in Michael Fishbane’s groundbreaking Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel.64 Fishbane outlined a subtle and dynamic method for reconstructing the process of theological and interpretive innovation in ancient Israelite literary culture. An exegetical thinker drew upon a stable traditum, a received literary element that had some authoritative force but was in need of creative adaptation to fit the exigencies of his particular moment. Through a variety of intellectual engagements, the precise operations of which constitute the core of Fishbane’s survey, such an exegete fashioned a new traditio—a transformed cultural form that drew upon its precursor for authority and substance, but was nevertheless better suited to the needs of the exegete’s day. Adaptable in this fashion, the canonical traditum was both enriched and extended by its ability to be reformulated. Interpretive reworkings of this sort both revitalized and replaced prior tradition, a paradox that lies at the heart of the hermeneutic encounter with scripture. Fishbane’s treatment of process was exemplary, and it inspired several important studies that sought to extend his model in significant ways.65 In A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40-66, Benjamin Sommer employed the concept to illustrate tradition formation processes

64

Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation.

65

In addition to the major works surveyed here, Jeffery Leonard has recently published a significant article on literary allusion in Ps 78 (Jeffery M. Leonard, “Identifying Inner-Biblical Allusions: Psalm 78 as a Test Case,” JBL 127 (2008): 241-265) which seeks to formalize some of Fishbane’s criteria for positing tradition dependence and to address critiques against the approach that have been raised by Lyle Eslinger in his essay “Inner-Biblical Exegesis and Inner-Biblical Allusion: The Question of Category” VT 42 (1992): 47-58 and James Kugel’s review of Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (James L. Kugel, “The Bible’s Earliest Interpreters,” Prooftexts 7 (1987): 269-283). See also Benjamin D. Sommer’s reply in “Exegesis, Allusion and Intertextuality in the Hebrew Bible: A Response to Lyle Eslinger,” VT 46 (1996): 479-489.

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that lay at the root of the discrete literary corpus known as Deutero-Isaiah.66 Sommer’s analysis of Is 40-66 develops a portrait of this text’s anonymous author as deeply informed by received traditions who alluded to a wide range of sources: Jeremiah, Isaiah ben Amoz, Psalms and Lamentations, and Pentateuchal sources, epic, Priestly and Deuteronomic. Tracking the specific techniques of citation this author employed and the range of hermeneutic strategies he used to fashion dynamic new constructs from the matter of his received tradita, Sommer recovers important data about the literary milieu within which the author of Deutero-Isaiah operated. For example, he is able to demonstrate the relative influence of Jeremiah’s poetry during the exilic period and the existence of some formal literary crystallization of the poetry of Isaiah. At the same time, he observed that the dearth of reference to the Jeremian (and Hosean) biographical material suggests that these strata had not yet been composed at the time that Deutero-Isaiah was working.67 The resulting image is of a dynamic intellectual consciousness both dependent on and constituting tradition: Deutero-Isaiah sees himself…at once as prophet and disciple. This selfunderstanding is beautifully expressed in Is 50.4, where he proclaims that YHWH has given him a Myîd…w;mIl NwøvVl. The phrase allows for two translations, both appropriate metaphors for the language of Deutero-Isaiah. His was a ‘learned tongue,’ which called forth the words of his predecessors, invigorating them in profound and clever ways. His was also a ‘disciple’s tongue,’ for through his allusions to his forebears, he implicitly affirmed his dependence upon them. At the same time, he is no mere interpreter, collector, or scholast. According to 50.4, his learning comes directly from YHWH, not just from study and reflection. His language is both erudite and inspired; he acknowledges that he is a student of his prophetic forebears but claims also to be their peer.68 66

Benjamin D. Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40-66 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998). 67

Sommer, A Prophet Reads, 167-170.

68

Sommer, A Prophet Reads, 179-180.

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On the basis of the broad typological project that Fishbane developed in Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, Sommer constructed a historically grounded and rich biography of a single biblical author, in the process contributing substantially to our awareness for the diachronic process by which the broader canon took shape. In a monograph published the same year as Sommer’s study, Bernard Levinson developed a groundbreaking survey of the specific interpretive techniques employed by Deuteronomic legal thinkers in the process of adapting the Covenant Code to their ends.69 Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation advanced boldly upon the project outlined by Fishbane to develop a new model for the production of legal authority through the citation, transformation and ultimately abrogation of prior tradition.70 In his monograph’s central argument, Levinson traced the technical means by which the radical legal innovation encoded in Dtr 12 was developed—from practices of lemmatic citation and transformation of the command of Exod 20.24. The resulting image is of legal innovation thoroughly grounded in the language and concerns of its parent source: Through their exegetical reworking, the authors of Deuteronomy transform the Exodus altar law. They rework its key terms in such a way as finally to make it prohibit what it originally sanctioned (multiple altar sites as legitimate) and command the two innovations it could never have contemplated: cultic centralization and local, secular slaughter. Both the technique and the boldness of this hermeneutic transformation are remarkable. The lemma is viewed atomistically: legal or textual authority operates at the level of individual words that, even when recontextualized, retain their operative force. Such studied concern with textual authority, not to mention the immense meditation upon the laws that it presupposes, is astonishing in seventh-century Israel. In its reuse, the Exodus lemma is so fundamentally transformed that it commands both cultic 69

Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). 70

Levinson, Deuteronomy, 15.

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sacrifice (at a central sanctuary) and local slaughter (voided of ritual meaning). The antithetical reworking of the original text suggests and extraordinary ambivalence on the part of the authors of Deuteronomy, who retain the old altar law only to transform it and who thereby subvert the very textual authority that they invoke…. Through their lemmatic transformation of the altar law, the authors and later editors of Deuteronomy found a way to maintain its formal authority, if circumscribed to the level of discrete lexemes, and to garb their innovations in the mantle of the very text that they substantively abrogate.71 This sophisticated accounting of the process of legal innovation at work in the Deuteronomic tradition marks a significant development of the project initiated by Fishbane. In Levinson’s treatment, the process of adaptation and transformation now appeared far more agonistic. In the course of developing their distinctive traditio, later legal thinkers refashioned prior tradita so fundamentally that these sources were now understood to authorize the converse of what they had originally prescribed. The consequence of this study is a far more sophisticated appreciation for a significant intellectual movement in ancient Israel and a dramatically increased precision in our understanding for how legal discourse operated in the 7th century BCE. What both of these studies shared with Fishbane’s foundational work was a sense that one had to give an adequate consideration of the literary shaping of the text under analysis and a full treatment of the techniques of citation, allusion and adaptation that marked their intertextual relationship prior to the work of historical contextualization. In a profound methodological caution, Fishbane had written of the need to give an adequate account of the literary source that was the subject of analysis: Only rarely are we permitted to analyse or precisely to place exegetical ‘facts’ into the life-setting appropriate to them….In the main, the analytical process is quite the reverse, involving first an examination of the exegeses and then inferring downwards from them to the probable social or other occasions when and where 71

Levinson, Deuteronomy, 46.

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these interpretations might have arisen. When or why a scribe or legist or historian would say thus and so, simply clarifying his traditum or radically renovating it, remains a matter of inference so long as the text does not precisely indicate its Sitz im Leben.72 It ought to be clear that this method is quite the opposite of that pursued in the studies of Albertz and Sweeney. For all its methodological rigor, however, Fishbane’s method finds a natural limit to its ability to enrich our understanding of the intellectual practices and interpretive creativity of ancient exegetes. As he acknowledged, his method requires a stable canonical text against which to track the adaptive engagements of later exegetes. His method is adequate only to analyze the creative responses of scribes who have already inherited a textual corpus that bears some similarity to the canonical scripture we ourselves possess. Without this methodological check, the enterprise collapses on itself, and the scholar is left with the earlier tools of speculative tradition-history.73 The scholar working at tracking Inner-Biblical Exegesis requires a clear literary traditum against which to measure the innovations of the traditio. And yet, Inner-Biblical Exegesis clearly arose out of prior cultural practices. It must have had precursors, and the Hebrew Bible’s first authors were engaging in creative literary adaptation of some form of authoritative, pre-canonical tradita of their own. One need not know, for example, precisely what the author of Amos 1.3-2.11 was innovating upon to recognize that his rhetoric depends on some prior familiarity with a stable speech-form. Likewise, we need not have access to the precise Amorite mythological text to which the author of Gen 1 was responding in order to recognize the innovative contours of his magisterial

72

Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 16.

73

Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 7-8.

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cosmogony without theomachy.74 In another vein altogether, Peter Machinist’s brilliant elucidation of Isaiah ben Amoz’s creative response to Neo-Assyrian royal ideology cannot provide the precise channels by which the prophet developed his oracles.75 But it is nevertheless clear that an agonistic and troubled form of the traditum/traditio relationship obtains here as well, despite our inability to track it fully. These cases illustrate the limits of our ability to employ the sophisticated tools of Inner-Biblical Exegesis to lay bare the interpretive skill of ancient authors.76 But, like a microscope whose focal length suits a particular domain of analysis, it is nevertheless possible to augment and adapt Fishbane’s method to other, related fields of study. It is in this spirit that I have presented, in chapter four, a pragmatic linguistic argument that seeks to refine our ability to track the transformative consciousness of ancient rhetoricians. This adaptation cannot hope to have the analytical rigor enjoyed by Inner-Biblical Exegesis, grounded

74

Michael Fishbane, Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), esp. pp. 37-57. 75

Peter Machinist, “Assyria and Its Image in the First Isaiah,” JAOS 103 (1983): 719-737.

76

Other similarly rigorous treatments of biblical prophecy include the recent monographs of David Vanderhooft and Oded Lipschits, both of which stand as serious advances upon the historical treatments of prophetic text which have predominated in the past. Vanderhooft’s book The Neo-Babylonian Empire and Babylon in the Latter Prophets develops the profound methodological advance achieved by Peter Machinist in the essay cited above, developing a new approach to prophetic literature of the Neo-Babylonian period which seeks to situate this poetry within a cultural and ideological matrix whose primary evidentiary bases are the self-representation of NeoBabylonian monarchs and the historical and bureaucratic evidence for the Empire’s administration of the region. The result is a dynamic portrait of prophets as actively engaged with their political milieu, and important elements of their historically situated speech are restored to our view. Similarly, Lipschits’s book The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2005) marries careful textual analysis to judicious treatment of the archaeological evidence for the late monarchic and early exilic periods. In both cases, an integrated and textexternal body of evidence provides a strong basis by which to guide and check a particular claim made about the biblical text itself. Though neither scholar is working in a methodological tradition such as the ones employed here, they are both insulated from the criticisms we have levied against Albertz, Sweeney and Leuchter by virtue of their invocation of a text-external, controlling context which guides analysis.

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as it is, in a stable canon. But it does have checking mechanisms built into it not found in classical forms of tradition-criticism. The concept of conversational implicature forms an outline for shared assumption between speaker and hearer, fulfilling the structural function occupied in Fishbane’s method by the traditum. As we have seen, implicature is a very open, necessarily pre-semantic sort of agreement between interlocutors, yet it is capable of capturing something essential about an indirect speech act such as a rhetorical question. When developed into the semantically rich idea of doxic concord, that loose structure receives a fuller set of cultural associations. Taken together, the pragmatic approach to a speech form like the double rhetorical question and its augmented congeners allows us to recognize the intersubjective basis for communication between speaker and audience. Thus, we can reconstruct, in a pre-canonical mode, something like the relationship between traditum and traditio in Fishbane’s method. The resulting analytical structure enjoys some of the same precision that has marked Inner-Biblical Exegesis as a methodological advance. Most crucially, it also places close textual analysis against a diachronic literary background as a basis for subsequent historiographical reconstruction. The result, as in Fishbane’s method, is an appreciation for a given ideological construct as an innovation upon some prior cultural ground, both informed by its predecessor and powerful in its revision of it. We are able to track the process of interpretive innovation even though the shape of the received traditum is only barely adumbrated. If we are correct in drawing a link between what Fishbane has termed the traditum and sociolinguistic concepts like doxa, then it remains to ask what is at stake when we shift between these two domains. Fishbane’s own analytical construct developed within the discipline of Biblical Studies and was intended to address a particular class of interpretive problems that 336

attended the interpretation of a canonical sacred text.77 By contrast, the adaptation of a philosophically circumscribed concept such as Paul Grice’s conversational implicature into a semantically rich construct such as Ruth Amossy’s doxa goes beyond the narrow field pragmatic linguists had originally defined for implicature. The great achievement of a pragmatic approach to language is its very pre-semantic character. Grice’s cooperative principles were powerful by virtue of their structural position at the initial moment of communication. If conversational implicature is burdened with specifically semantic content and communication in the abstract is supposed to proceed in terms of some stable semantic basis, then a theorist begins to court determinism in the process of describing intersubjectivity. In terms of the present project, if we too easily equate implicature with traditum, then we risk making normative, culturally specific statements about what constitutes the structured basis for human speech. A more satisfying, generalized ground for comparison may be found in Pierre Bourdieu’s work on the structured basis for social action. Bourdieu’s The Logic of Practice posed the problem of finding an adequate basis for describing general processes of socialization and enculturation, which are nevertheless not deterministic with regard to human agency. Bourdieu’s solution is to posit what he terms habitus, defined as: …systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as principles of the generation and structure of practices and representations which can be objectively ‘regulated’ and ‘regular’ without in any way being the product of obedience to rules, objectively adapted to their goals without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary to attain them and, being all this, 77

For a thorough survey of the pre-history for Fishbane’s work, see Bernard M. Levinson, “The Phenomenon of Rewriting within the Hebrew Bible: A Bibliographic Essay on Inner-Biblical Exegesis in the History of Scholarship,” Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 95-181.

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collectively orchestrated without being the product of the orchestrating action of a conductor.78 In this formulation, Bourdieu aims to provide a basis for social action that is flexible enough to allow for creativity and improvisation ,yet general enough to explain the transposability and replicability of cultural forms. Thus, social action can be viewed from an external vantage point and the behaviors of social agents judged in terms of their structured character without invoking the intentionality of these agents.79 The process by which habitus is engendered for social agents is one of inculcation and education, only part of which is self-conscious. Instead, social agents are subjected to a full range of influences with the cumulative effect of establishing a set of durable dispositions that have a definite historical trajectory. These “competencies” are themselves the product of historical forces, but they also impel social collectives forward on certain stable tracks.80 What constitutes this habitus is a set of dispositions that include diverse practices ranging from alimentary behaviors and sartorial preferences to modes of linguistic expression and intellectual patterns of thought. Viewed in toto, these make up the constituents of an agent’s orientation in social space. Thus, the inwardly realized “mental structures” correspond, with greater or lesser degrees of adequacy, to the external conditions of life. In this spirit, Bourdieu presented an analysis of the Kabyle house in which cultural symbolism corresponded to domestic architecture, which was in turn seen as corresponding to particular cosmic ontologies. Human intellect enters the world already predisposed to particular

78

Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, Richard Nice, tr. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 72. 79

Bourdieu, Outline, 79.

80

Bourdieu, Outline, 81-82.

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habituated ways of being, and one’s symbolic life is realized and replicated at multiple, mutually sustaining levels of reality: The construction of the world of objects is clearly not the sovereign operation of consciousness which the neo-Kantian tradition conceives of; the mental structures which constitute the world of objects are constructed in the practice of a world of objects constructed according to the same structures. The mind born of the world of objects does not rise as a subjectivity confronting an objectivity: the objective universe is made up of objects which are the product of objectifying operations structured according to the very structures which the mind applies to it. The mind is a metaphor of the world of objects which is itself but an endless circle of mutually reflecting metaphors.81 The key component of the habitus, in this formulation, is its transposability. It may operate to structure thought and guide social action at a range of levels. For example, a social agent may recognize or replicate in domestic space a perceived or received cosmological structure. Or, more interestingly, the same agent may represent that congruence between the cosmic and domestic in language, articulating it as a dialogical event symbolized in the course of linguistic exchange. For all its care, this idea of social action as necessarily reproducing objective structures has been critiqued as deterministic in its own way. William Sewell, for example, has indicted Bourdieu’s model as having “fallen victim to an impossibly objectified and overtotalized conception of society.”82 In particular, Sewell critiques Bourdieu for inadequately explaining processes of structural change within society: …Bourdieu’s habitus retains precisely the agent-proof quality that the concept of the duality of structure [i.e., its simultaneous realization as mental schemas and material resources] is supposed to overcome. In Bourdieu’s habitus, schemas and resources so powerfully reproduce one another that even the most cunning or 81

Bourdieu, Outline, p. 91.

82

William H. Sewell, Jr., “A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency, and Transformation,” American Journal of Sociology 98 (1992): 15.

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improvisational actions undertaken by agents necessarily reproduce the structure….Although Bourdieu avoids either a traditional French structuralist ideal determinism or a traditional Marxist material determinism, he does so only by erecting a combined determinism that makes significant social transformations seem impossible.83 Indeed, in its most basic formulation, Bourdieu’s model would seem to have little flexibility when it comes to explaining critical discourse and social change. In the form given above, social action guided by the habitus seemingly cannot serve as a basis for agonistic exchanges between social actors unless that agon is itself inscribed as a structural inequality within a social domain. In his writings on language, however, Bourdieu did, in fact, theorize political critique and cultural change in terms that gave a more thorough accounting of agency than Sewell had attributed to him. In an essay composed following the publication of Outline of a Theory of Practice, Bourdieu introduced the concept of “heretical subversion.” Here, by virtue of its capacity to structure and to objectify reality, language became the basis for acts of reconception, critique, and creativity in relation to established social orders.84 In this understanding, discourse occupies a privileged role vis-à-vis other forms of structured social performances. It is simultaneously comprehensible to interlocutors by virtue of the fact that it is structured language, and it makes collectively and objectively real what is not immediately apparent to the social collective: Heretical discourse must not only help to sever the adherence to the world of common sense by publicly proclaiming a break with the ordinary order, it must also produce a new common sense and integrate within it the previously tacit or repressed practices and experiences of an entire group, investing them with the legitimacy conferred by public expression and collective recognition. Indeed, since every language that makes itself heard by an entire group is an authorized 83

Sewell, “Theory of Structure,” 15.

84

Pierre Bourdieu, “Description and Prescription: The Conditions of Possibility and the Limits of Political Effectiveness,” in Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 127-136.

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language, invested with the authority of this group, it authorizes what it designates at the same time as it expresses it, drawing its legitimacy from the group over which it exercises its authority and which it helps to produce as such by offering it a unitary expression of its experiences.85 This understanding of language’s ability to affect the shared reality of a collective represents a real advance on Bourdieu’s earlier formulations. For example, in an article published contemporaneously with Outline of a Theory of Practice, Bourdieu expressed a far more pessimistic view of authorized discourse. In “Authorized Language: The Social Conditions for the Effectiveness of Ritual Discourse,” it was a group’s prior recognition of an individual speaker’s authority to speak, symbolized in Homer by the skeptron, that made discourse the means of reproducing social hierarchies.86 In a direct challenge to Austin, Bourdieu first defined illocutionary force as the reexpression in the social domain of a prior authorization: …[T]he language of authority never governs without the collaboration of those it governs, without the help of the social mechanisms capable of producing this complicity, based on misrecognition, which is the basis of all authority. In order to gauge the magnitude of the error in Austin’s and all other strictly formalist analyses of symbolic systems, it suffices to show that the language of authority is only the limiting case of the legitimate language, whose authority does not reside, as the racism of social class would have it, in the set of prosodic and articulatory variations which define distinguished pronunciation, or in the complexity of the syntax or the richness of the vocabulary, in other words in the intrinsic properties of discourse itself, but rather in the social conditions of production and reproduction of the distribution between the classes of the knowledge and recognition of the legitimate language.87 As a critique of a certain blindness to cultural embeddedness and relations of power in the classical formulation of speech-act theory, Bourdieu is most certainly on the mark here. In the

85

Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, 129.

86

Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, 109.

87

Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, 113.

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original pragmatic treatment of speech acts, one gains the impression that they take place in a purely unstratified domain, and their accomplishment of social facts happens according to the philosophically-described implementation of a kind of self-realizing linguistic code. But in the course of reminding us that speech acts take place within a stratified social field (for example, “you have the right to remain silent” accomplishes one thing when spoken by a man with a badge and quite another when spoken by one prisoner to another), Bourdieu reduces the use of language to an epiphenomenon dependent solely upon prior authorizing structures. This is why it is significant to find him allowing for the transformative possibilities of linguistic expression in “Description and Prescription.” The new concept of “heretical subversion” allows for the possibility that language, as a structured domain that is more directly transactional and symbolically flexible than other structures such as class position or social institutions, may symbolize and make readily apparent to some social agents what has been previously concealed from them. In the process, this creates the conditions for innovative and transformative collective action. The result is a more generous appreciation for the analytical potentials in a concept like illocution: The efficacy of heretical discourse does not reside in the magic of a force immanent to language, such as Austin’s ‘illocutionary force’, or in the person of its author, such as Weber’s ‘charisma’ (two screen-like concepts which prevent one from examining the reasons for the effects which they merely designate), but rather in the dialectic between the authorizing and authorized language and the dispositions which the group which authorizes it and authorizes itself to use it. This dialectical process is accomplished, in the case of each of the agents concerned and, most of all, in the case of the person producing the heretical discourse, in and through the labour of enunciation which is necessary in order to externalize the inwardness, to name the unnamed and to give the beginnings of objectification to pre-verbal and pre-reflexive dispositions and ineffable and unobserved experienced, through words which by their nature make them common and communicable, therefore meaningful and socially sanctioned. It may also be accomplished in the labour of dramatization, particularly visible in exemplary prophecy, which alone is capable of destroying the self-evident truths 342

of the doxa, and in the transgression which is indispensable in order to name the unnameable, to break the censorships, institutionalized or internalized, which prohibit the return of the repressed; and first of all in the heresiarch himself.88 This description of language as a basis for social change provides a useful frame for our discussion of the pragmatic dimensions of the augmented double rhetorical question. Bourdieu’s formulation here has the evident power of grounding concepts such as illocution and conversational implicature in a complex social field marked by power inequalities, structures of misrecognition and repression, and the transformative potentials of persuasive discourse. Here, Bourdieu implies that an individual’s structured habitus is capable of facilitating acts of critique that demonstrate the contingency of overarching structures. This is a provocative way of conceptualizing Jeremiah’s work as a political and social critic, and it helps to clarify the persuasive operation of his rhetoric. The implication of this new attitude toward language is to open up space for human agency to a degree that Sewell was unable to appreciate. Bourdieu presents heretical discourse as a necessary prior stage to innovative acts of social change. Sewell had overlooked the power of this turn toward language in Bourdieu’s thought because in “A Theory of Structure,” he had himself taken a quite pessimistic stance toward language’s ability to effect social change. Describing it as a structure that is “deep” without being “powerful,” Sewell considered language something other than a form of social action: …[T]he power of linguistic structures is unusually slight. The enactment of phonological, morphological, syntactical, and semantic structures in speech or writing in itself has relatively modest resource effects. It confirms the speaker’s membership in a linguistic community and reinforces the schemas that make the generation of grammatical sentences possible. Assuming that an utterance is made to other competent speakers of the language, the speaking of a grammatical 88

Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, 129.

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sentence in itself creates no significant power disparities but rather establishes an equality among the conversants. Language, of course, serves as a medium for all kinds of enactments of power relations, but at the level of phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, it is as close as we are likely to get to a neutral medium of exchange.89 It is significant that in the course of outlining the levels upon which language operates, Sewell concludes with locution and does not progress to illocution and perlocution as significant aspects of structured language performance. Our discussion of rhetorical questions and their ability to invoke doxic concord and exploit this to suggest new ways of thinking and acting discloses a level of operation for language that is more effective than Sewell here permits. This is not to say that language is effective in the same fashion that, say, a factory is. But it does suggest that socially embedded linguistic performances can serve as a crucial precondition for social action, as Bourdieu himself had come to suggest. Thus, in Bourdieu’s later turn toward language, we have discovered a fruitful basis for comparing a pragmatic approach to rhetoric and the discipline-specific method of Inner-Biblical exegesis. Since change is encoded at the fundament of Fishbane’s approach to biblical interpretation, we will find this synthesis insulated from the charge of determinism that Sewell has levied against Bourdieu in important ways. Furthermore, given its rich and sophisticated treatment of a very narrow cultural field, adapting Inner-Biblical exegesis to a more generalized theory of cultural change allows us to appreciate with greater precision the process by which language performances can affect structured social reality. Tracking in socio-linguistic terms what is happening in the transformation from traditum to traditio helps to operationalize what

89

Sewell, “Theory of Structure,” 23.

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was for Bourdieu a provocative methodological suggestion. As Levinson has lately noted, there is much that Inner-Biblical exegesis has to teach the broader humanistic academy.90 At the same time, reframing the work of adaptation and transformation of canonical and pre-canonical discourse in terms that are comprehensible to those outside the discipline helps to augment Inner-Biblical exegesis in significant ways. Most directly, we have suggested that it permits the extension of Fishbane’s method into a pre-canonical milieu. More generally still, it introduces the concept of power and of materially grounded social change into a method that is, in its classical formulation, a purely intellectual exercise. Both Sommer and Levinson have taken steps in this direction by indicating the precise historical and cultural conditions under which the exegetical practices under consideration developed the way they did. The present study continues this work and attempts to suggest a general methodological apparatus adequate to frame both text-internal exegetical practices and historically situated cultural performances. In our synthesis, then, we might suggest that Bourdieu’s habitus conforms to the idea of a tradition-constituted subject implicit in Inner-Biblical exegesis. The externalized, structured doxa that form the objectified basis for a subjectively realized dispositional habitus conforms structurally to the traditum. For us, this traditum is known by virtue of its textualized, canonical reflex. But in a pre-canonical milieu, it represented to an ancient thinker some significant ideological, theological or cultural datum which might be alluded to and whose significance might be transformed through a variety of interpretive interventions.

90

Bernard Levinson, “Biblical Studies as the Meeting Point of the Humanities,” Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 1-11. Levinson’s conclusion to this programmatic essay seems particularly apropos: “…Biblical Studies must submit itself to this selfsame process of examining its own theoretical constructs and methodological assumptions. There is no priority of completed, authoritative canon to human critical engagement with the canon, either chronologically or ontologically. Properly understood, the canon is radically open: it models critique and embeds theory.” (11).

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An act of Inner-Biblical exegesis, then, stands as a particularly tradition-conscious instance of what Bourdieu terms “heretical discourse” in “Description and Prescription.” That is to say, it invokes generally held beliefs and ideological commonplaces and exposes them to critical reformulation. In Inner-Biblical exegesis, these procedures are quite formalized. Aggadic transformation of a legal traditum, for example, proceeds according to specific and recognizably legitimate intellectual gestures. That these exegetical transformations proceed in formalized and formalizeable ways indicates that it is not only tradita that have a doxic component. Even the interpretive procedures by which a transformation proceeds must be recognizable by all social actors involved in the transaction as legitimate and meaningful. Thus, these interpretive processes themselves have a doxic function. Once again, when we consider a pre-canonical milieu, we must recognize that the canonical transformations that are the focus of Inner-Biblical exegesis have arisen from prior, performative intellective and rhetorical acts. In this connection, Jeremiah stands at a particularly fruitful moment in the development of ancient Israelite text culture. He stands at an early moment in the process of text formation. The collection and codification of his book, not to mention its intensive ideological reworking by Deuteronomistic tradents, was set in motion by the cultural and political rupture of the exile. His speech performances were preserved in multiple and incompletely reconcilable versions within his own text. At the same time, he framed his own prophetic performances (whether oral or written scarcely matters) in terms of prior authoritative tradition. And those traditional precursors are at times available to us in canonized reflexes. Thus, the ways Jeremiah himself adapted tradition in the course of his rhetorical performances stand as historical precursors for the formalized intellectual practices of tradition transformation that make up the substance of Inner-Biblical exegesis. Jeremiah’s 346

intellectual practices may be less formal than what Benjamin Sommer has posited of the author of Deutero-Isaiah, but this is only because his historical position is substantially closer to the wellsprings of the canon. His rhetorical techniques may be less textually intensive than what Levinson has attributed to the Deuteronomists, but this is because his cultural field was not explicitly exegetical or legal, but rather persuasive and political. In a very real sense, the prophet Jeremiah stands as a living bridge between earlier, lost techniques of cultural transformation that characterized the intellectual life of pre-exilic Israel and Judah, and the text-focused cultural forms which would arise from the ashes of destruction and exile.

To read him in this way is to restore to Jeremiah an element of his original authorial creativity. The prophet occupies a pivotal, transitional moment in the formation of the canon. This is perhaps why his politics and his prophetic language are so hotly contested, both in the course of his book’s redaction and in contemporary scholarship. For us, he stands at times in relation to stable canonical texts in a place where we may track his rhetoric carefully and reconstruct his argumentative intent with a relative degree of accuracy. At other times, however, he responds to non-canonical or non-textual doxa and transforms traditions for which we have no stable traditum from which to work. Here, careful philological work and a judicious appreciation for the interpretive opportunities afforded by attention to the prophet’s illocutionary effect can extend slightly our sense for his rhetorical intent. It has been my contention in this dissertation that even these faint torches are sufficient to cast new light on the prophet’s political intent. With them, we are able to recognize a polemical edge to his speech and to recover criticisms of his intellectual contemporaries, which have been obscured by his later tradents. Despite the limited scope of the methods pursued here, the effect 347

of such illumination on our understanding of the Jeremiah tradition is transformative. By such means, we are able to advance the critical engagement with the canonical Jeremiah, recognizing that the form of the text as we have received it gives us a tidier picture of the prophet’s relationship to the Deuteronomists than was most likely the case. His synthetic theology and dynamic poetry provided the formative canon with a rich new stock of tradita that strengthened the life of his community. It is an irony, then, that the Book that bears this prophet’s name has been subjected to so heavy an editorial hand. Cultural agents who thought of themselves as Yehudim despite their status as exiles and who owed this identity to Jeremiah’s creativity and persuasive skill began to revise and reform the prophet’s language in the course of canonizing it. They created a literary character “Jeremiah” who was as much a reaction to the historical prophet as it was a reflection of that man. By making Jeremiah’s poetry into scriptural text, these editors domesticated and routinized the critical force of his speech. The prophet who indicted so forcefully the “lying pen of the scribes” which had made a lie of the Torah would now find his own troubling instruction made to say what he had not meant, and the critical force of his heretical discourse would pass on to the authors of Deutero-Isaiah and Job.

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