Portraying Prophecy: of Doublets,Variants and Analogies in the Narrative Representation of Jeremiah's Oracles—Reconstructing the Hermeneutics of Prophecy

Abstract

The search for consistency of theme in Jeremiah's message to the post-597 BCE community in Jerusalem has seemed almost impossible to discern. Current redaction- critical study resolves this problem by analyzing the extant narrative into discreet self- consistent editorial layers. This, however, raises the question of why the ancient editor(s) would have expected the narrative to be readable in its present form. Differences in the underlying hermeneutics of prophecy are suggested. Analyzing the narrative management of prophetic oracles in the tradition elucidates the way in which the editors' assumptions about the nature of prophecy shaped their portrayals. The existence in the tradition of inconsistent oracles is rationalized in a framework of moral contingencies. Moral contingency played out against the matrix of Deuteronomistic assumptions about prophecy enables the editor(s) to synthesize variant postures of the prophet into a coherent tableau that is subordinated to his/their rhetorical ends.