Jeremiah Through the Centuries
1st Edition
Published on 22. April 2020
Book
Hardback
400 pages
978-0-631-23151-6 (ISBN)
Description
Explores the interpretive history of the Book of Jeremiah, and highlights its influence on various cultures through the centuries
Jeremiah Through the Centuries explores the reception history of this enigmatic prophet and his words. The book offers an introduction telling the story of the surprising ways in which both voice and persona of this elusive prophet were used in critical historical moments, as well as a complete chapter-by-chapter commentary that presents the significant historical effects of selected texts. The spiritual struggles of the faithful and critiques of philosophers and scientists are often presented in their own voices. The book offers original ideas about the effects of the "slipping figure of Jeremiah" on the developing idea of the self, shown in a wide range of liturgical, political, artistic, literary, and cultural contexts.
The book guides readers through various interpretations of Jeremiah's poetry and prose, discussing the profound influence that Jeremiah and Western culture have had on each other through the centuries. Significant texts from every chapter of Jeremiah are presented in a chronological narrative as both conversation and debate - enabling readers to encounter the prophet in the text of the Bible and in previous exegeses. Throughout the text, the receptions reflect historical contexts and highlight the ways they shaped specific receptions of Jeremiah. This book:
Illustrates how the Book of Jeremiah was adapted by readers to face new challenges, both in the past and present
Includes examples of Jeremiah in social satire, Islamic tradition, political debate, and religious controversy
Provides a detailed introduction that traces Jeremiah's influence on events and traditions
Offers insights into both celebrated texts and lesser-known passages that are relevant to contemporary readers
Features numerous, previously unpublished illustrations demonstrating the influence of Jeremiah on traditions in Western art
Featuring engaging narrative and expert commentary, Jeremiah Through the Centuries is ideal for students, teachers, and general readers with interest in theology and biblical studies, Judaic studies, ancient literature, cultural criticism, reception history of the Bible, and the history of Western civilization.
Jeremiah Through the Centuries explores the reception history of this enigmatic prophet and his words. The book offers an introduction telling the story of the surprising ways in which both voice and persona of this elusive prophet were used in critical historical moments, as well as a complete chapter-by-chapter commentary that presents the significant historical effects of selected texts. The spiritual struggles of the faithful and critiques of philosophers and scientists are often presented in their own voices. The book offers original ideas about the effects of the "slipping figure of Jeremiah" on the developing idea of the self, shown in a wide range of liturgical, political, artistic, literary, and cultural contexts.
The book guides readers through various interpretations of Jeremiah's poetry and prose, discussing the profound influence that Jeremiah and Western culture have had on each other through the centuries. Significant texts from every chapter of Jeremiah are presented in a chronological narrative as both conversation and debate - enabling readers to encounter the prophet in the text of the Bible and in previous exegeses. Throughout the text, the receptions reflect historical contexts and highlight the ways they shaped specific receptions of Jeremiah. This book:
Illustrates how the Book of Jeremiah was adapted by readers to face new challenges, both in the past and present
Includes examples of Jeremiah in social satire, Islamic tradition, political debate, and religious controversy
Provides a detailed introduction that traces Jeremiah's influence on events and traditions
Offers insights into both celebrated texts and lesser-known passages that are relevant to contemporary readers
Features numerous, previously unpublished illustrations demonstrating the influence of Jeremiah on traditions in Western art
Featuring engaging narrative and expert commentary, Jeremiah Through the Centuries is ideal for students, teachers, and general readers with interest in theology and biblical studies, Judaic studies, ancient literature, cultural criticism, reception history of the Bible, and the history of Western civilization.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Hoboken
United Kingdom
Publishing group
John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 231 mm
Width: 150 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
757 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-631-23151-6 (9780631231516)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Mary Chilton Callaway
Jeremiah Through the Centuries
Book
01/2025
1st Edition
Wiley
€24.00
Shipment within 15-20 days
Mary Chilton Callaway
Jeremiah Through the Centuries
E-Book
06/2020
1st Edition
Wiley
€97.99
Available for download
Mary Chilton Callaway
Jeremiah Through the Centuries
E-Book
04/2020
1st Edition
Wiley
€97.99
Available for download
Person
Mary Chilton Callaway is Associate Professor and Department Chair in the Theology Department at Fordham University, New York. She is the author of several published essays on the reception of Jeremiah, particularly in relation to developing ideas of the self in early modern Europe.
Content
List of Illustrations xiii
Series Editors' Preface xix
Acknowledgments xxi
Testimonia xxv
Jeremiah the Man xxv
The Book xxvii
Actualizations xxix
Introduction 1
Theory and Practice of Reception History 3
Jeremiah in Three Guises 4
Jeremiah in Antiquity 5
Medieval Jeremiahs 17
Early Modernity 24
Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 47
Practical Notes for Using the Commentary 64
Jeremiah 1 67
Word of the Lord or Words of Jeremiah? (Jer 1:1) 67
Jeremiah Before Birth (1:4-5) 69
A Prophet to the Nations (1:5) 77
Resisting God (1:6) 77
Filling Jeremiah's Mouth 81
The Job Description (1:10) 82
God's Pun (1:11-12) 84
What's Cooking? (1:13-16) 88
Jeremiah 2 93
God's Lawsuit (2:1-13) 94
Leaky Cisterns or Living Water? (2:12-13) 95
A Puzzling Verb Becomes a Word of Salvation (2:20) 98
Prophetic Pornography (2:20-25) 99
Jeremiah in the Synagogue (2:4-28) 101
Jeremiah 3 103
A Rare Allusion to God the Father (3:4,19) 103
Holy Forgetting (3:15-18) 105
3:24-25 106
Jeremiah 4 107
A Subversive Translation (4:1-2) 107
The Circumcised Heart (4:4) 108
Reading Metaphor (4:7) 109
Does God Deceive? (4:9-10) 110
Body and Soul (4:19-22) 110
Apocalypse Now (4:23-28) 112
Contradiction as Problem and Opportunity (4:27) 113
Dressing Down a Gussied-Up Female (4:29-31) 113
Jeremiah 5 115
Nothing Bad Will Happen to Us (5:12) 115
Divine Fire Consuming Human Wood (5:14) 116
An Appalling and Horrible Thing (5:30-31) 118
Contents ix
Jeremiah 6 119
Two Roads Diverged (6:16) 119
Buying Salvation (6:20) 120
Jeremiah as Fortress and/or Refiner (6:27) 120
Jeremiah 7 123
A Den of Thieves (7:1-15) 123
A Troubling Contradiction (7:21-24) 124
Jeremiah 8 127
Reading Jeremiah as Science (8:7) 127
The Balm of Gilead (8:22) 130
Jeremiah 9 135
A Fountain of Tears (9,1,18) 135
Internalizing the Prophet's Cry (9:2) 140
Death Climbs in the Windows (9:21) 141
Jeremiah 10 145
Superstition and Science (10:2-5) 145
Who Will Not Fear You? (10:7) 147
Wise Fools (10:12-16) 147
Humans Are Not Masters of Themselves (10:23-24) 149
Correct Me, O Lord (10:24) 151
Pour Out Thy Wrath (10:25) 151
Jeremiah 11 153
Let Us Put Wood in his Bread (11:19) 153
Jeremiah 12 157
A Lawsuit Against God (12:1-4) 157
Shameful Revenues (12:13) 160
Jeremiah 13 161
Jeremiah's Loincloth (13:1-11) 161
Jeremiah's Tears (13:17) 164
Unsettling Images (13: 22-27) 164
Jeremiah 14 167
The Inn and the Manger (14:7-9) 167
Jeremiah 15 169
Saints Alive (15:1) 169
Woe is Me, My Mother (15:10) 170
Changing Fashions in Prayer (15:15) 171
Is Jeremiah Blasphemous? (15:18) 172
A Divine Reprimand Reconsidered (15:19) 174
Jeremiah 16 177
Prophetic Celibacy (16:1-4) 177
Hunters and Fishers (16:16-18) 179
Jeremiah 17 181
Misplaced Trust (17:5) 181
Is the Human Heart Deep, or Depraved? (17:9-10) 182
The Partridge (17:11) 185
Jeremiah 18 187
The Surprise of Divine Freedom (18:1-12) 187
Jeremiah 19 193
Jeremiah Smashes a Jug 193
Jeremiah 20-21 197
Jeremiah in the Stocks (20:1-6) 197
Divine Deception (20:7) 199
Whose Violence and Destruction? (20:8) 207
A Reproach and a Derision (20:8) 207
A Burning Fire (20:9) 208
Do Saints Curse? (20:13-18) 212
Jeremiah 22 219
The Burial of an Ass (22:18-19) 219
Jeremiah and the Lost Ark (22:29) 220
Jeremiah 23 223
The Righteous Branch (23:5-6) 223
False Prophets (23:9-40) 226
Jeremiah 24 229
Two Baskets of Figs (24:1-10) 229
Jeremiah 25 231
The Cup of the Wine of Wrath (25:15-31) 232
Jeremiah 26-28 235
Jeremiah's Yoke (Jer 27:2; 28:1-17) 235
False Prophets 237
Jeremiah 29 239
Build and Plant (29:1-6) 240
Praying for the Enemy (29:7) 240
Seventy Years (29:10) 242
God's Inscrutable Plans (29:11) 244
Jeremiah as Contemporary Prophet (Jer 29:19) 245
Jeremiah 30-31 247
Hope in the Midst of Trauma (30:1-3) 247
Rachel Weeps in Every Century (31:15-17) 248
Gender-Bending (31:22) 250
The New Covenant (31:31-34) 252
Jeremiah 32-33 257
A Strange Real Estate Deal 257
Jeremiah 34 259
Taking Back the Gift of Freedom (34:8-22) 259
Jeremiah 35 261
Jeremiah 36 267
Free Will and Divine Omniscience (36:3, 7) 268
Word, Scroll, Book (36:2, 5, 18) 268
Jehoiakim as Perennial Tyrant (36:20-26) 269
Words and the Word (36:27) 272
Jeremiah 37-38 277
Dungeon and Cistern 277
Ancient Allegories (38:1-13) 278
A Model for Political Resistance (38:1-16) 280
The Cistern as Spiritual Prison (38:1-6). 285
Ebed-Melek Rescues Jeremiah (38:7-13) 287
Jeremiah's Lie (38:24-27) 295
Jeremiah 39 299
Zedekiah Captured (39:4-7) 299
Ebed-Melech Becomes Abimelech (39:15-18) 301
Jeremiah 40-43 303
How Did the Prophet Escape the Burning City? (40:1-6) 304
The Murder of Gedaliah (40:7- 41:17) 305
How Long, O Lord? (42:7) 305
The Stones of Tahpanhes (43:8-13) 306
Jeremiah 44 309
Uppity Women (44:15-19) 310
Martyrdom of Jeremiah 312
Jeremiah 45 319
Jeremiah 46-51 323
Babylon, the Golden Cup in God's Hand (51:7) 325
Jeremiah Speaks to a War-Torn Twentieth Century (51:11) 326
Thus Far the Words of Jeremiah (51:59-64) 328
Glossary 329
Brief Biography 333
Bibliography 341
Index 357
Series Editors' Preface xix
Acknowledgments xxi
Testimonia xxv
Jeremiah the Man xxv
The Book xxvii
Actualizations xxix
Introduction 1
Theory and Practice of Reception History 3
Jeremiah in Three Guises 4
Jeremiah in Antiquity 5
Medieval Jeremiahs 17
Early Modernity 24
Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 47
Practical Notes for Using the Commentary 64
Jeremiah 1 67
Word of the Lord or Words of Jeremiah? (Jer 1:1) 67
Jeremiah Before Birth (1:4-5) 69
A Prophet to the Nations (1:5) 77
Resisting God (1:6) 77
Filling Jeremiah's Mouth 81
The Job Description (1:10) 82
God's Pun (1:11-12) 84
What's Cooking? (1:13-16) 88
Jeremiah 2 93
God's Lawsuit (2:1-13) 94
Leaky Cisterns or Living Water? (2:12-13) 95
A Puzzling Verb Becomes a Word of Salvation (2:20) 98
Prophetic Pornography (2:20-25) 99
Jeremiah in the Synagogue (2:4-28) 101
Jeremiah 3 103
A Rare Allusion to God the Father (3:4,19) 103
Holy Forgetting (3:15-18) 105
3:24-25 106
Jeremiah 4 107
A Subversive Translation (4:1-2) 107
The Circumcised Heart (4:4) 108
Reading Metaphor (4:7) 109
Does God Deceive? (4:9-10) 110
Body and Soul (4:19-22) 110
Apocalypse Now (4:23-28) 112
Contradiction as Problem and Opportunity (4:27) 113
Dressing Down a Gussied-Up Female (4:29-31) 113
Jeremiah 5 115
Nothing Bad Will Happen to Us (5:12) 115
Divine Fire Consuming Human Wood (5:14) 116
An Appalling and Horrible Thing (5:30-31) 118
Contents ix
Jeremiah 6 119
Two Roads Diverged (6:16) 119
Buying Salvation (6:20) 120
Jeremiah as Fortress and/or Refiner (6:27) 120
Jeremiah 7 123
A Den of Thieves (7:1-15) 123
A Troubling Contradiction (7:21-24) 124
Jeremiah 8 127
Reading Jeremiah as Science (8:7) 127
The Balm of Gilead (8:22) 130
Jeremiah 9 135
A Fountain of Tears (9,1,18) 135
Internalizing the Prophet's Cry (9:2) 140
Death Climbs in the Windows (9:21) 141
Jeremiah 10 145
Superstition and Science (10:2-5) 145
Who Will Not Fear You? (10:7) 147
Wise Fools (10:12-16) 147
Humans Are Not Masters of Themselves (10:23-24) 149
Correct Me, O Lord (10:24) 151
Pour Out Thy Wrath (10:25) 151
Jeremiah 11 153
Let Us Put Wood in his Bread (11:19) 153
Jeremiah 12 157
A Lawsuit Against God (12:1-4) 157
Shameful Revenues (12:13) 160
Jeremiah 13 161
Jeremiah's Loincloth (13:1-11) 161
Jeremiah's Tears (13:17) 164
Unsettling Images (13: 22-27) 164
Jeremiah 14 167
The Inn and the Manger (14:7-9) 167
Jeremiah 15 169
Saints Alive (15:1) 169
Woe is Me, My Mother (15:10) 170
Changing Fashions in Prayer (15:15) 171
Is Jeremiah Blasphemous? (15:18) 172
A Divine Reprimand Reconsidered (15:19) 174
Jeremiah 16 177
Prophetic Celibacy (16:1-4) 177
Hunters and Fishers (16:16-18) 179
Jeremiah 17 181
Misplaced Trust (17:5) 181
Is the Human Heart Deep, or Depraved? (17:9-10) 182
The Partridge (17:11) 185
Jeremiah 18 187
The Surprise of Divine Freedom (18:1-12) 187
Jeremiah 19 193
Jeremiah Smashes a Jug 193
Jeremiah 20-21 197
Jeremiah in the Stocks (20:1-6) 197
Divine Deception (20:7) 199
Whose Violence and Destruction? (20:8) 207
A Reproach and a Derision (20:8) 207
A Burning Fire (20:9) 208
Do Saints Curse? (20:13-18) 212
Jeremiah 22 219
The Burial of an Ass (22:18-19) 219
Jeremiah and the Lost Ark (22:29) 220
Jeremiah 23 223
The Righteous Branch (23:5-6) 223
False Prophets (23:9-40) 226
Jeremiah 24 229
Two Baskets of Figs (24:1-10) 229
Jeremiah 25 231
The Cup of the Wine of Wrath (25:15-31) 232
Jeremiah 26-28 235
Jeremiah's Yoke (Jer 27:2; 28:1-17) 235
False Prophets 237
Jeremiah 29 239
Build and Plant (29:1-6) 240
Praying for the Enemy (29:7) 240
Seventy Years (29:10) 242
God's Inscrutable Plans (29:11) 244
Jeremiah as Contemporary Prophet (Jer 29:19) 245
Jeremiah 30-31 247
Hope in the Midst of Trauma (30:1-3) 247
Rachel Weeps in Every Century (31:15-17) 248
Gender-Bending (31:22) 250
The New Covenant (31:31-34) 252
Jeremiah 32-33 257
A Strange Real Estate Deal 257
Jeremiah 34 259
Taking Back the Gift of Freedom (34:8-22) 259
Jeremiah 35 261
Jeremiah 36 267
Free Will and Divine Omniscience (36:3, 7) 268
Word, Scroll, Book (36:2, 5, 18) 268
Jehoiakim as Perennial Tyrant (36:20-26) 269
Words and the Word (36:27) 272
Jeremiah 37-38 277
Dungeon and Cistern 277
Ancient Allegories (38:1-13) 278
A Model for Political Resistance (38:1-16) 280
The Cistern as Spiritual Prison (38:1-6). 285
Ebed-Melek Rescues Jeremiah (38:7-13) 287
Jeremiah's Lie (38:24-27) 295
Jeremiah 39 299
Zedekiah Captured (39:4-7) 299
Ebed-Melech Becomes Abimelech (39:15-18) 301
Jeremiah 40-43 303
How Did the Prophet Escape the Burning City? (40:1-6) 304
The Murder of Gedaliah (40:7- 41:17) 305
How Long, O Lord? (42:7) 305
The Stones of Tahpanhes (43:8-13) 306
Jeremiah 44 309
Uppity Women (44:15-19) 310
Martyrdom of Jeremiah 312
Jeremiah 45 319
Jeremiah 46-51 323
Babylon, the Golden Cup in God's Hand (51:7) 325
Jeremiah Speaks to a War-Torn Twentieth Century (51:11) 326
Thus Far the Words of Jeremiah (51:59-64) 328
Glossary 329
Brief Biography 333
Bibliography 341
Index 357