Uprooting and Planting: Essays on Jeremiah for Leslie Allen

391 Pages·2007·20.64 MB·English

by  John Goldingay

LIBRARY OF HEBREW BIBLE/
OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES
459
Formerly Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series
Editors
Claudia V. Camp, Texas Christian University
Andrew Mein, Westcott House, Cambridge
Founding Editors
David J. A. Clines, Philip R. Davies and David M. Gunn
Editorial Board
Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon,
Norman K. Gottwald, Gina Hens-Piazza, John Jarick, Andrew D. H. Mayes,
Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller, Yvonne Sherwood
This page intentionally left blank
UPROOTING AND PLANTING
Essays on Jeremiah for Leslie Allen
edited by
John Goldingay
t&t clark
NEW YORK • LONDON
Copyright © 2007 by John Goldingay
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any fonn or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, T & T Clark
International.
T & T Clark International, 80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038
T & T Clark International, The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
T & T Clark International is a Continuum imprint.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Goldingay, John.
Uprooting and planting : essays on Jeremiah for Leslie Allen / edited by John
Goldingay.
p. cm. ~ (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament studies ; 459)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-567-02952-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-567-02952-2 (hardcover: alk. paper) 1. Bible. O.T. Jeremiah-Criticism,
interpretation, etc. I. Allen, Leslie C. II. Title. HI. Series.
BS1525.52.G65 2007
224'.206-dc22
2007026968
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddies Ltd., King's Lynn, Norfolk
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Abbreviations ix
List of Contributors xi
LESLIE C. ALLEN: AN EDUCATED EVANGELICAL
Ralph P. Martin 1
JEREMIAH 31:22B: AN INTENTIONALLY AMBIGUOUS,
MULTIVALENT RlDDLE-TEXT
Alice Ogden Bellis 5
Do JEREMIAH AND EZEKIEL SHARE A COMMON VIEW
OF THE EXILE?
Lawrence Boadt 14
PROPHECY INTERPRETED: INTERTEXTUALITY AND THEODICY—
A CASE STUDY OF JEREMIAH 26:16-24
Ronald E. Clements 32
JEREMIAH AND THE POOR
William R. Domeris 45
JEREMIAH AND THE SUPERPOWER
John Goldingay 59
YHWH, THE GOD OF ISRAEL. . .AND OF EDOM?
THE RELATIONSHIPS IN THE ORACLE TO EDOM
IN JEREMIAH 49:7-22
Linda Haney 78
JEREMIAH 2-10 AS A UNIFIED LITERARY COMPOSITION:
EVIDENCE OF DRAMATIC PORTRAYAL
AND NARRATIVE PROGRESSION
Joseph M. Henderson 116
vi Uprooting and Planting
THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH (MT) AND ITS
EARLY SECOND TEMPLE BACKGROUND
John Hill 153
WORD OF JEREMIAH—WORD OF GOD:
STRUCTURES OF AUTHORITY IN THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Else K. Holt 172
PROPHET AND SINGER IN THE FRAY: THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Nancy C. Lee 190
THE Mis-Pi RITUALS AND INCANTATIONS AND JEREMIAH 10:1-16
Marilyn J. Lundberg 210
THE LAMENTS IN JEREMIAH AND 1QH:
MAPPING THE METAPHORICAL TRAJECTORIES
Michael S. Moore 228
EBED-MELECH AS EXEMPLAR
Tom Parker 253
BARUCH AMONG THE SAGES
Leo G. Perdue 260
BARUCH AS FIRST READER: BARUCH'S LAMENT
IN THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Pamela J. Scalise 291
JEREMIAH'S REFLECTION ON THE ISAIAN ROYAL PROMISE:
JEREMIAH 23:1-8 IN CONTEXT
Marvin A. Sweeney 308
DISLOCATIONS IN TIME AND IDEOLOGY IN THE RECONCEPTION
OF JEREMIAH'S WORDS: THE ENCOUNTER WITH
HANANIAH IN THE SEPTUAGINT VORLAGE
AND THE MASORETIC TEXT
Roy Wells 322
LESLIE C. ALLEN—CURRICULUM VITAE 351 351
Index of References 354
Index of Authors 373
PREFACE
One bright and sunny, frosty January day in about 19811 took the train
from Nottingham to London to have lunch with David Allan Hubbard in
the Waldorf Hotel in London, to discuss the possibility of my joining the
faculty at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he was then President and
Professor of Old Testament. After the lunch and the conversation I
walked back to the elevator, and when its doors opened, there was Leslie
Allen. We looked at each other and immediately realized that we both
there for the same conversation with David Hubbard. Having no idea
what one said in such circumstances, we greeted each other and contin-
ued on our respective ways.
I never knew where I was located on Fuller's want list on that occa-
sion, but in any case I was not interested in a move at that time, while
Leslie was so interested. The results of that day were thus satisfactory on
both sides as Leslie in due course moved to take up a post at Fuller. But
it was then somehow a fulfillment of that day when fifteen or so years
later, Leslie hosted my wife Ann and me when we came to Fuller to dis-
cuss more seriously the possibility of such a move. The climax of the
process of joining the faculty at Fuller is a "Theological Examination,"
when the faculty grills a candidate on the written response he or she has
formulated to the Fuller Basis of Faith. I have a fond memory of Leslie
whispering to me the morning before this event, "I should wear a tie for
this one." He, of course, would never need telling.
It has been a delight to be his colleague over these eight years, and a
delight to celebrate his work as he comes to his seventieth birthday.
When we began to plan this volume, Jeremiah made the obvious focus,
because Leslie was just beginning work on a substantial commentary on
Jeremiah. We thought it was rather clever to produce a Festschrift he will
have no alternative but to interact with, though working through the
contributions has brought home to me another amusing implication. The
study of Jeremiah is in a ferment, illustrated by other symposia.1 This
1. A. R. Pete Diamond et al., eds., Troubling Jeremiah (JSOTSup 260; Shef-
field: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999); Martin Kessler, ed., Reading the Book of
Jeremiah: A Search for Coherence (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2004).
viii Uprooting and Planting
volume further reflects that ferment, with different contributors work-
ing confidently with starting-points that other contributors would not
countenance. There are papers that start from a traditional concern to
locate prophecies in the context of Jeremiah's life, and papers that see
the Persian period as the context for interpreting the book. There are
papers that look behind the text as we have it and papers that work with
the text as we have it. There are papers with modern assumptions and
papers with post-modern assumptions. There are papers that consider the
book's social implications, its ethical implications, its theological impli-
cations, its political implications, and its devotional implications. There
are papers from Africa, Australia, and Europe as well as the United
States, and some of the differences in the papers reflect that. They have
different understandings of what counts as uprooting and what counts as
planting.
The amusing implication is that Leslie will not be able to agree with
everything in this volume—no one could. I can imagine him shaking his
head at some of our statements. I do not think the volume will bore him.
John Goldingay
Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena
25 December 2005
(Leslie's birthday as well as that of
someone even more significant)
ABBREVIATIONS
AB Anchor Bible
ABD The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by David Noel Freedman. 6 vols. New York:
Doubleday, 1992
ABRL Anchor Bible Reference Library
ANET Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Edited by J. B.
Pritchard. 3d ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969
AOAT Alter Orient und Altes Testament
BBB Bonner Biblische BeitrSge
BDB Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English
Lexicon of the Old Testament. Oxford: Clarendon, 1907
BETL Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium
BHS Karl Elliger and Wilhelm Rudolph, Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. 5th ed.
Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1997
BIS Biblical Interpretation Series
BJRL Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester
BZ Biblische Zeitschrift
BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CBOT Coniectanea biblica: Old Testament Series
CBQMS Catholic Biblical Quarterly: Monograph Series
CC Continental Commentaries
FAT Forschungen zum Alten Testament
FOTL The Forms of the Old Testament Literature
FRL ANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments
HAT Handbuch zum alten Testament
HKAT Handkommentar zum Alten Testament
HSM Harvard Semitic Monographs
HTR Harvard Theological Review
HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual
IBHS An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. Bruce K. Waltke and Michael Patrick
O'Connor. 4th corrected printing. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1993
IEJ Israel Exploration Journal
ICC International Critical Commentary
ITC International Theological Commentary
JAAR Journal of the A merican Academy of Religion
JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies
JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the New Testament: Supplement Series
JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series