Empire and Exile: Postcolonial Readings of the Book of Jeremiah 9781472550385, 9780567437044, 9780567655264

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To the island of Tobago where I rst learned postcolonial reections

PREFACE The ideas in this book have percolated within me most of my lifetime and are still undergoing further renement. My earliest recollection of the book of Jeremiah comes from the passage 29:11. This verse captioned the working pages of a clergy member in my theological training. She used the verse for its accent on a hopeful future, but I was more intrigued by 29:5–7. These verses offer, for me, a different perspective on the exilic condition than that seen in Ps 137. I explored these verses on several occasions, reecting on their implications for the postcolonial context of the Caribbean. As yet I did not know the term “postcolonial,” although I have come to recognize that much of the analysis, reection, and action of my family upbringing, formal education, and theological development was actually postcolonial analysis. When I announce my birthplace as the island of Tobago I am often met with puzzled looks—until I say “Trinidad and Tobago.” The ofcial title of the country, Trinidad and Tobago, carries with it a torrid tale of European colonialism. The island of Tobago earned the reputation of being the most fought over and exchanged island in European colonial history, changing “hands” some thirty-one times. From as far back as 1498 until 1814, Tobago became the possession of the Spanish, British, French, and Dutch colonial powers. Its merger with Trinidad represents the British practice of yoking unprotable islands with stronger ones in order to reduce administrative expenses. Thus, after a particularly powerful hurricane devastated the sugar plantations in Tobago in 1889, the British joined it as a ward of Trinidad. Needless to say, this conjunction only served to highlight the disjunctions between the two islands and ushered in a period of unequal relationship. I grew up during the time after Trinidad and Tobago received political independence from Britain. Although the post-independence era saw the development of a national identity, my existence was still largely dened in terms of British colonial systems. School, society, church, commerce, governance, banking, and others still bore the marks, literally and otherwise, of the British colonial presence. Yet, in the background of my childhood I heard noises occasioned by a Black Power uprising that 1

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questioned the continued relevance of European hegemony and the systematic exclusion of things “local” from the forefront of the society. These background noises stayed with me and still live with me. For me, they represent the stark difference between post-colonialism and postcolonialism. While my education tried to convince me of the benets of the post-colonial period as the end of European colonization, other voices interrogated this claim and provided a context for me to begin the postcolonial analysis of moving beyond colonialism. My pairing of the book of Jeremiah and postcolonial theory happened by mere chance. While pursuing a degree at Boston University’s School of Theology, I simultaneously took a course on Jeremiah and wrote a thesis on postcolonial biblical interpretation. I stumbled upon postcolonial theory for my thesis topic. My thesis advisor, the late Simon B. Parker, turned down several proposed topics in which he and I shared an interest, and instead steered me towards working on contextual biblical interpretation. I set out to research biblical interpretation from a Caribbean perspective and in the process discovered the burgeoning conversation among biblical scholars from the so-called Two Thirds World on postcolonial theory. Needless to say, this process disturbed my thinking and inuenced my appreciation of the standard commentaries on the book of Jeremiah. I tentatively offered my initial reections on a postcolonial reading of the book of Jeremiah in the thesis, and in the process identied for myself a topic for doctoral research and writing. This book reects the outcome of my doctoral dissertation, “Finding a Place: A Postcolonial Examination of the Ideology of Place in the Book of Jeremiah.” Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York provided the ideal context for the maturing of my thought and scholarship. I owe appreciation to my dissertation adviser, David Carr, for his generosity and conversations. His contributions have enabled me to integrate various forms of scholarship, not as competing disciplines, but as complementary to illuminating both the ancient world for modern readers and understanding modern readers who read the ancient world. Without the community of learning that is Union Theological Seminary, this work would not have come into being. I beneted from peer contributions, academic reections in classes and tutorials, editorial assistance, encouragement, friendship, and continuing colleagueship with many incredible people who still stick around to help me. The nal form of the book has been made possible through the kind assistance of many colleagues in my new context of learning, Pacic Lutheran Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union. My colleague David Balch offered useful comments on the nal chapter 1

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of this book. I received generous assistance from the Faculty Assistant in the Deans Ofce, Sara Pearson, with tracking down bibliographic material. This work differs from the dissertation in several ways. The dissertation contains full translations of the selected passages with relevant philological notes. These are omitted in the interest of staying away from complex arguments, valid in themselves, that can take away the focus from the more germane point being made in this work. Nevertheless, some of these discussions still arise in the appropriate places in the present work. All biblical translations are my own. As with most revisions, this work contains a shorter text where necessary. The most notable revision occurs in Chapter 7, which reects my continued thinking on the topic of postcolonial biblical hermeneutics. The postcolonial approach to the book of Jeremiah is in its infancy. Much more will doubtless be written in the future that will both contradict and complement what lies in these pages. Indeed, I myself have engaged in the process of discussion and renement; a modied and severely truncated version of Chapter 5 appears in A. R. Pete Diamond and Louis Stulman’s recent (2011) edited volume, Jeremiah (Dis)placed, which appears in the same series as the present work.

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ABBREVIATIONS AB ABD BA BETL BibInt BZAW Chr Dtr DtrG DtrH GKC HSM IB IBS ICC JerD JerMT JSOT JSOTSup SBLDS SBLSymS SJOT Stud World Chr TDOT

ThWAT TLOT

VT ZAW

Anchor Bible Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by D. N. Freedman. 6 vols. New York, 1992 Biblical Archaeologist Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium Biblical Interpretation Beihefte zur ZAW the Chronicler the Deuteronomist see DtrH the Deuteronomistic History/Historian Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar. Edited by E. Kautzsch. Translated by A. E. Cowley. 2d. ed. Oxford, 1910 Harvard Semitic Monographs Interpreter’s Bible. Edited by G. A. Buttrick et al. 12 vols. New York, 1951–57 Irish Biblical Studies International Critical Commentary the Deuteronomistic revision of Jeremiah the Masoretic version of Jeremiah Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament Studies in World Christianity Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Edited by J. G. Botterweck and H. Ringgren. Translated by David E. Green. Grand Rapids, Mich., 1990 Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament. Edited by J. G. Botterweck and H. Ringgren. 15 vols. Stuttgart, 1993 Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament. Edited by E. Jenni and C. Westermann. Translated by M. E. Biddle. Peabody, Mass., 1997 Vetus Testamentum Zeitschrift für die alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft

Chapter 1

(DIS)LOCATING LOCATION

By the beginning of twenty-rst century, the term “globalization” functioned not only as a buzzword for technocrats but also named the reality of increasingly large sections of the world’s population. Seen as a dening characteristic of the age, globalization takes on various meanings in different contexts.1 Mixed understandings of the concept of globalization present it as either an evil system that attens cultural differences or a benecent organization of capital. While the cultural impact of globalization stands out in popular discourse, the bewildering movement of peoples across traditional boundaries, blurring identity markers in their wake, also stands as one of globalization’s deep legacies. The observation made by Doreen Massey, that “the global is in the local in the very process of the formation of the local,”2 reveals the challenges that the local faces with respect to the global. Similarly, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri point out that globalization does not so much seek to 1. Douglas Kellner points out that theorists from various disciplines have been coming to consensus on the notion that globalization is “a distinguishing trend of the present moment.” Douglas Kellner, “Theorizing Globalization,” Sociological Theory 20 (2002): 285. From a positive perspective, the benets of globalization are seen as a unication of technological and capital systems. John Tomlinson prefers to stress the issue of connectivity in his understanding of the term globalization, drawing upon several other thinkers for his position. He speaks of globalization as “the rapidly developing and ever-densening network of interconnections and interdependences that characterize modern social life.” John Tomlinson, Globalization and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 2. Kellner, however, critiques notions of globalization focused singularly on issues like culture or capital as being inadequate to theorize the full impact of globalization. He proposes an understanding of globalization that combines tensive forces of homogenization and heterogeneity among other things. He prefers to think of globalization “as a strange amalgam of both homogenizing forces of sameness and uniformity and antidemocratizing tendencies.” Kellner, “Theorizing Globalization,” 292. 2. Doreen Massey, Space, Place and Gender (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), 121.

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erase the local as to manage it in the interests of the larger global “regimes of production.”3 The blurring of the local and the global manifests itself in displaced and deterritorialized people, whether intentionally or otherwise. Displacement, therefore, emerges as an increasing phenomenon of the twenty-rst century. Displaced communities struggle to assert their identity and power in the face of dominant cultural, economic, and political movements. These movements hold the potential to eliminate indigenous culture. Judah after the sixth century B.C.E., with the apparatuses of the state destroyed, exists in a period of statelessness and landlessness.4 This experience resembles some of the issues generated by globalization that result in deterritorialization as detachment and distance from both land and culture.5 The parallels may not be exact, but the contemporary manifestations called globalization provide an entry point to read and interpret the ancient biblical experience of displacement, statelessness and landlessness. Experiences of territorial (dis)placement and (re)placement generate ambivalences. Displaced persons in major world cities display some of these ambivalences. Saskia Sassen suggests that major cities are representative of the postcolonial condition, marked as they are by the presence of immigrants and oppressed minorities, displaced by economic forces from small countries and rural areas: “Today’s global cities are in part the spaces of postcolonialism and indeed contain conditions for the formation of a postcolonial discourse.”6 The postcolonial reality confronts readers of the book of Jeremiah. Whether readers identify as displaced or not, they live within spaces characterized by the displaced. From major cities to small communities, the global confronts the local in new ways that threaten the survival of the local. These threats arise from the accumulated effects of modern 3. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), 45. 4. Jill Middlemas’ preferred term, “the templeless age,” produces a focus on the temple as a physical structure that does not fully capture the dimensions of displacement. I privilege the state and land here to foreground the experiences of loss that persist even after the purported reconstruction of the temple in 515 B.C.E. Jill Middlemas, The Templeless Age: An Introduction to the History, Literature, and Theology of the “Exile” (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 5. 5. Tomlinson offers the following understanding of deterritorialization: “the weakening or dissolution of the connection between everyday lived culture and territorial location.” Tomlinson, Globalization and Culture, 128. 6. Saskia Sassen, Globalization and Its Discontents (New York: New Press, 1998), xxx. 1

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colonialism.7 The threat to the local generates responses that lead, in part, to resistant strategies in order to preserve the local. These resistant strategies at times resemble clear objections to and refusal of dominating cultures. At other times the strategies subtly adjust to the new dominant realities, adapting and reforming local culture as survival techniques. In one way or another, the identities of the global and the local transform each other. Forcefully thrust into the world of ancient Near Eastern imperial power politics, the residents of ancient Judah faced the interplay of the local and the global. In their context this interplay manifests itself as the twin realities of empire and exile. The actions of Neo-Babylonian imperial power for most small territories on the wrong side of the power equation in the Syria-Palestine region in the sixth century B.C.E. inevitably result in destruction and/or exile. The book of Jeremiah records aspects of Judah’s fate at the hands of the Babylonian imperium. This record, in its nal form, serves later generations still dealing with the effects of destruction and displacement. As a record that grows over time, the book of Jeremiah witnesses how communities embrace the realities of empire and face their new existence inside and outside of the land. The multiple perspectives in the book, however, agree that the Babylonian Empire simply does not have the last word on dening Judean and Jerusalemite realities. The book of Jeremiah stands as a text of resistance to imperial power. As a book written, compiled, and edited in imperial contexts, it reects the reality of empire. At the same time, as a text written by the dominated, it offers avenues of resistance. These twin themes of oppression and resistance, domination and struggle, underlie the dualistic existence of empire and exile manifest in the book of Jeremiah. These two realities of empire and exile merge on the question of the land or space since the power of the empire implies a loss of control of the land. To the extent that identity and selfhood are tied to occupation of space, a loss of the 7. I am guided by Robert Young’s distinction between imperialism and colonialism. Young views imperialism as acts of domination that do not involve territorial settlement or expansion but instead exert inuence upon a territory from a distance. Colonialism, on the other hand, he regards as the settling of territory with the aim to alter its social, economic, political, and other characteristics. Robert J. C. Young, Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2001), 15. The term “imperial” will be used as the more suitable descriptor of Babylonian and other ancient practices as these are delineated from historical evidence and portrayed in the biblical text. On the other hand, the term “colonial,” and related words, will refer to various acts and manifestations of modern territorial expansions and dominance (dating from the eighteenth century to the present). 1

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land implies social death. Yet in the absence of the military power to resist the Babylonian imperium, strategies of resistance rather than fullscale revolution appear in texts like the book of Jeremiah. These discursive strategies evidence the survival mechanisms of the people to preserve and (re)shape their identity in the face of the loss of the land. In this work, I present the case that the shift from a preoccupation with space to place enables resistance to empire and adjustment to the new realities that come with exile. This discursive thread of place over space appears in a number of texts in the book of Jeremiah. A postcolonial reading reveals the idea of place as a central theme in the book of Jeremiah. The content and context of the book of Jeremiah point to the shifting realities of the nation of Judah amid the imperialist activities of the NeoAssyrian and the Neo-Babylonian empires and their aftermaths. To this extent, the book of Jeremiah captures the record of empire as it impacts Judah. With the book coming to its nal form during the exilic period,8 a period of statelessness and landlessness characterized by the ambivalence that attends the loss of vital institutions such as monarchy and temple, the features of this period affect the nal shape of the book. Essentially, I show how a postcolonial reading illumines the historical context of the book of Jeremiah and how the book itself helps modern readers come to terms with the postcolonial reality. 1. Understanding Place; Contesting Space One potential area of critical enquiry for postcolonial critics of the biblical texts is the theme of diaspora and the attendant issue of place. Fernando Segovia characterizes much of the Bible as “un-settlement; travel; re-settlement”9—essentially a series of related quests to preserve, nd, and/or redene place. I speak of place here acknowledging that people have a relationship with physical space that is more than just about the occupation of territory. What are the essential things that bind and keep people to a particular area, and what are the strategies used to maintain their hold on that area? How does physical space relate to religious and ethnic identity? What happens to national identity and 8. I rely here on those scholars who date the nal form of the book in the Persian period: Rainer Albertz, Israel in Exile: The History and Literature of the Sixth Century B.C.E. (trans. David Green; Atlanta: SBL, 2003), 321; Robert P. Carroll, Jeremiah: A Commentary (Old Testament Library; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 59–60. 9. Fernando F. Segovia, “Postcolonial and Diasporic Criticism in Biblical Studies: Focus, Parameters, Relevance,” Stud World Chr 5 (1999): 182. 1

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aspirations when the nation is no longer located in its home ground but exists in pockets of settlements in various places? How do displaced people reconstruct a sense of home away from home? These are some of the questions of place that inform the postcolonial approach to the book of Jeremiah. The loss of land/home, Yi-Fu Tuan suggests, amounts to a loss of the “center of the world” for a people. Such an experience can demoralize a people, but can also lead them to reconstruct this center. By “center of the world” Tuan does not mean “a point on the earth’s surface,” but a “concept in mythic thought” that transcends attachment to a particular locale.10 Therefore, landless and powerless people create new relationships with land/home that enable them to (re)place home in any geographic location. As such, while they lose physical hold of space they enter into new relationships with their homeland and their new home. They (re)dene their place in the world wherever they may physically settle. Place supersedes space for the displaced. The concept of place, though related to the concept of space, differs from it. Tuan remarks that “space that is stretched over a grid of cardinal points makes the idea of place vivid, but it does not make any particular geographical locality the place.”11 The concept of place transcends the limitations of geography and spatial connes to include a complex set of factors that at once give denition to an absolute space but exceed the physical. Phil Hubbard, Rob Kitchin and Gill Valentine summarize the conception of place for most geographers as “a distinctive (and more-orless bounded) type of space that is dened by (and constructed in terms of) the lived experiences of people.”12 This understanding of place is based upon the idea that the intersection of people and territory create place; an idea that does not avoid a space-centered approach.13 Hubbard, 10. Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977), 150. 11. Ibid. (italics in the original). 12. Phil Hubbard, Rob Kitchin, and Gill Valentine, eds., Key Thinkers on Space and Place (London: Sage, 2004), 5. 13. Edward Soja’s work is representative of such a space-centered approach. In attempting to move away from the physicalist dominance in the use of the term “space,” he prefers to work with the term “spatiality.” In this way he believes he can communicate the sense that space is a social construction. Edward W. Soja, Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (London: Verso, 1989), 79–80. Soja’s notion of spatiality, which argues for the importance of space over time (ibid., 1), has been critiqued for giving inadequate attention to people processes apart from economic activity. Alan Latham, “Edward Soja,” in Hubbard, Kitchin, and Valentine, eds., Key Thinkers on Space and Place, 272. 1

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et al. therefore go further to dene place, informed by the structuralist approach of Massey, as “the locus of complex intersections and outcomes of power geometries that operate across many spatial scales, from the body to the global. Places are thus constituted of multiple, intersecting social, political and economic relations.”14 In her conception of place, Massey emphasizes the human element above the factor of territory. She argues, along with Pat Jess, that “it is people themselves who make places, but not always in circumstances of their choosing.”15 In Massey’s thinking lies the view that the concept of place surpasses that of space. While she accepts space as a social construction, she sees it as an arena for social, cultural, and economic activities. On the other hand, her concept of place incorporates the larger question of positionality with “intimations of mobility and agility.”16 That is to say, place has to do with the exercise of power not so much over space but in space. This conception of place foregrounds issues of subjectivity, identity formation and retention, self-determination, among other things, and the power to assert these in relation to other proximate subjectivities. Gillian Rose offers that the notion of place needs to embrace “social power relations” since a sense of place is always dened by boundaries. Boundaries, she argues, are markers of exclusion and inclusion; an exercise of power.17 An understanding of place that combines notions of power with territory alongside the different factors that shape a people’s subjectivity, Soja’s focus reinscribes the dominance of the physical by paying attention to the functions people perform in space and therefore how the space is transformed by people. He does not shed light on the effect space has upon people or the relationship they have with space. Consequently, he neither engages the reality of contested space. 14. Hubbard, Kitchin, and Valentine, eds., Key Thinkers on Space and Place, 6. 15. Pat Jess and Doreen Massey, “The Contestation of Place,” in A Place in the World? Places, Cultures and Globalization (ed. Doreen Massey and Pat Jess; The Shape of the World 4; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 134. 16. Massey, Space, Place and Gender, 1. 17. Gillian Rose, “Place and Identity: A Sense of Place,” in Massey and Jess, eds., A Place in the World?, 98–100. Massey, even though she suggests that places are inherently open, accepts the realities of boundaries. She views them as being, among other things, an exercise of power to protect social relations. Doreen Massey, “The Conceptualization of Place,” in Massey and Jess, eds., A Place in the World?, 68. Though Soja uses Michel Foucault’s notion of space as a factor in the matrix of knowledge/power, his conception that “space is fundamental in any exercise of power” remains focused on issues of territoriality which he denes as “notions of sovereignty, property, discipline, surveillance and jurisdiction.” Soja, Postmodern Geographies, 19, 150. 1

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identity, and systems of meaning proves useful for a postcolonial approach to the biblical notion of land. It shows that these elements that constitute a sense of place are not xed and fully determined by virtue of space. A sense of place can exist outside of territorial connes. Therefore, place stands as partial, contingent, and contested. Massey sees place as variable over time.18 I apply this view of place to the book of Jeremiah in relation to the fate of Judah in the face of imperial power. Imperial action unhinges Judah from its space and makes necessary the articulation of a sense of place as a means of survival. It involves the assertion of subjectivity, cultural identity, systems of meanings, among other things, unxed by the determinant of geographic space. Both the pervasiveness of migration, displacement and the resultant diasporic communities in contemporary global experience, and the dominance of these themes in the biblical narratives suggest that place can be a productive point from which to read the Bible.19 R. S. Sugirtharajah lists issues such as “crossing borders, transgressing boundaries, exile, return, immigration and migrancy, deterritorialization, inhabiting in-between spaces”20 as being at the heart of all communities today, whether they were colonized or were and are colonizers. Modern life for many persons has become a life of transit and the search for identity in the presence of other identities in various locations. This creates what Sugirtharajah calls the “ambivalences and contradictions of being at home in many places, and among many peoples and many experiences.”21 The ongoing process of deterritorialization that characterizes the experience of contemporary postcolonials creates intersections with the biblical narratives where various cycles of land getting, land losing, and reclamation of the land 18. Massey, Space, Place and Gender, 121. 19. Daniel Smith-Christopher goes further to dene much of modern life as marked by exile. Using statistics from various sources to prove his point, he locates the reality of exile as a pressing contemporary issue: “Thus, exile is the reality, whether chosen or forced, for an unprecedented percentage of the world’s people in movement in the twentieth century, and this reality demands our attention. First and foremost, before any theological statement is made about exile, one must acknowledge that exile is the daily reality for millions of human beings at the opening of the twenty-rst century.” Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, A Biblical Theology of Exile (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), 28. 20. R. S. Sugirtharajah, Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 180. 21. Ibid., 184. Sugirtharajah goes on to point out that as a consequence, postcoloniality makes “fractured, hyphenated, double, or in some cases multiple identities.” R. S. Sugirtharajah, “Postcolonialism and Indian Christian Theology,” Stud World Chr 5 (1999): 235. 1

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are related. The search for a place remains, therefore, a concern of both contemporary communities and the ancient text. The book of Jeremiah engages the related themes of land getting, land losing, and land reclamation. In this book, I offer that more than the obvious preoccupation with the land and its acquisition and retention as space exists in the book of Jeremiah. Rather, the text deals with the notion of the land from the perspective of place and not merely within limited geographical and territorial concerns. In this regard, the notion of place is viewed from the larger scope of the formation and preservation of a vital subjectivity for the people of Judah. Place, therefore, is a means of reading the text beyond the issue of locality, though not excluding it, to include positionality, mobility, and subjectivity, among other things. I presuppose that the book of Jeremiah is shaped in a context of physical displacement from the homeland.22 The reality of displacement impacts both the view that the traditioning communities take on the issue of the land and the people’s relationship to that geographic space. While, as displaced people, the communities that give shape to the book write from a marginal position to critique the imperial center, their concerns remain the development of relevant strategies for (re)integration and (re)building of the (dis)placed community, both inside and outside of the land. Arguably, the book of Jeremiah ought to be read “from below” rather than “from above.” That is to say, it should be read from the perspective of the colonized rather than the colonizer, from the position of landlessness rather than from the position of people entrenched rmly in uncontested space. Precisely because space, both seen as divinely granted and the new space of (dis)placement, stand contested, the ideology of place emerges in the text as a means for constituting subject identities. This focus on place avoids the simplicity of binary opposites that attend much of the reading of the book that labels an action, a statement, or a position as pro- or anti-Babylonian. 22. Scholars such as Philip Hyatt and Ernest Nicholson argue that the nal form of the book is compiled in Egypt and Babylon, respectively. On the other hand, Winfried Thiel maintains a Judean location for the editorial work. J. Philip Hyatt, “The Book of Jeremiah,” in IB 5:788; Ernest W. Nicholson, The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah Chapters 26–52 (CBC; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 15; Winfried Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion von Jeremia 26–45 (Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1981), 106. For these scholars, the location is a factor in determining the editorial source of the text and the context within which these texts may be used. They do not deny that the reality of displacement forms a signicant portion of the book and inuences the shaping of the traditions in the book. In this regard, I am more interested in stressing the reality of displacement rather than arguing for a location outside of Judah. 1

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2. Locations for Reading In making the case for postcolonial theory as a method for Biblical Studies, I integrate traditional methodologies alongside newer critical theories. The heart of this book consists of exegetical analyses of three passages from the book of Jeremiah from a postcolonial perspective. Since postcolonial theory forces an historical perspective on any analysis, the approach taken here in large measure uses historical critical methodologies and other literary critical approaches suited to the eld of Biblical Studies. The challenges posed by the text of Jeremiah, namely, the difference in text manuscripts, the incoherent chronology, and the haphazard arrangement of themes and texts, necessitate text-critical engagement mainly between the Hebrew and the Old Greek text traditions. Critical theory undergirds the main thrust of this work. It engages the discursive practices employed in the text as well as the impact of these practices on reading communities. While largely a text-focused enterprise, with the use of critical theory I also engage in reection from a postcolonial perspective on the issues raised by the exploration of the text. In turn, the sociological realities of postcoloniality help shed light on aspects of the text that resonate with the experiences of real communities. I do not aim to reconstruct an actual history for the book of Jeremiah that foregrounds the Babylonian Empire. Rather, I engage the discursive strategies employed by traditioning communities that produce the book. These strategies point to their adjustments to the realities of empire and exile. Exegetical explorations of three passages from the second half of the book (chs. 26–52) form my core concern. This section of the book of Jeremiah is composed of mostly prose passages, believed to be from various tradents, in contrast to the predominantly poetic sections of chs. 1–25, widely attributed to the prophet Jeremiah. To this extent, I exhibit a bias in favor of those texts in the latter half of the book that may create the impression that that section of the book represents the entire book. Although scholars and readers tend to treat these passages in light of earlier ones, this is fraught with its own difculties that make a harmonious reading of the book both distorted and undesirable. The contested issue of authorship, and by extension the implications of dating and location of individual pericopes attend these selected texts and at times provide an undue distraction from the reading of the text. I make no attempt to provide a coherent reading of the book of Jeremiah and therefore presume that the fragmentary nature and competing ideologies of the book make this impossible. However, I do isolate a particular discourse 1

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and show how this can be read from a postcolonial perspective. Holding the historical ambiguities of the passages at a useful distance, while, at the same time, paying attention to the historicized socio-political context behind and in front of the text, remains an important task. The texts selected are connected to each other through a set of motifs central to the book of Jeremiah, namely, land, build, and plant. In the call narrative, the prophet’s vocation lists activities of building and planting ( , 1:10). These activities are to be carried out in relation to “nations and kingdoms” ( 

   , 1:10), and interestingly not singularly to Judah. The motif of building and planting connects this call narrative with four passages that handle the issue of the land and Judah’s relationship with the land. All of these passages contain references to activities of settlement that use the building of houses and the planting of vineyards or gardens as markers of settlement and land usage/ownership. In ch. 29 the phrase, “build houses…and plant gardens” ( Ö  ) appears twice (29:5, 28). Similarly, in ch. 32, the motif is repeated, though in this instance the emphasis stays on the purchase of property in the form of houses and vineyards, presumably as a precursor to settlements: “houses, and elds, and vineyards will be purchased in this land” (     ‡  , 32:15); “elds will be bought in this land” (  ‡ , 32:43); “elds will be bought with silver” (   ‡, 32:44). Chapter 40 contains two references to home and agricultural activity as markers of the nature of the short-lived experience of home rule and occupation of the land: “gather the wine, summer fruit and oil and place them in your vessels and live in the towns that you captured” ( ‡  ›   

‡ ›  ›  , 40:10); “all the Judeans returned… and they gathered wine and summer fruits in much abundance” (›     Ö   , 40:12). These three passages exemplify a discourse with respect to the land. Further indications of the signicance of these passages for the identication of a discursive thread in relation to the land appear in the commissioning of the prophet. The language of the commission to the prophet in 1:10 (“I appoint...you over nations and kingdoms”, Ö  

   ) reects divine approval for the exercise of authority over earthly dominions.23 It differs from 1:5, where the prophet is “consecrated” (›) before birth and set in relation to the nations. In the context of v. 10, the expectations of the exercise of power in relation to “nations and kingdoms” take on territorial dimensions. The text 23. The word  links with  in 40:7 in reference to the appointment of Gedaliah by the king of Babylon. 1

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lists activities for the prophet as “to uproot and to tear down, to destroy and to demolish, to build and to plant” (   ›  ). These all hold importance for the land and land use from the perspective of either agricultural activity or construction of houses. That is to say, the prophetic vocation envisages itself in this narrative as being exercised in relation to the land and its use, particularly from the perspective of “nations and kingdoms.” This widens the scope of the prophetic task and sets it in confrontation with imperial powers. Presumably, the text views part of the prophetic vocation as involving a challenge to imperial claims to the land. The rst two pairs of innitives, “to uproot and to tear down” ( ›), “to destroy and to demolish” ( ), are negative activities, while the last pair “to build and to plant” ( ) is positive. Of the three passages identied above, it is this positive pair that appears in the discourse attributed to Jeremiah in the book and is intentionally directed towards the people of Judah. In other words, a rhetorical link exists between these passages and the call narrative that suggests the development of a discourse around the issue of land at several levels in the growth of the book. The inclusion here of ch. 40 may appear somewhat doubtful since it contains no extensive dialogue or comment from the prophet. Yet the appearance and choices of the prophet in that narrative provide sufcient discursive material to determine a rhetorical position in relation to the land. The three passages, chs. 29, 32, and 40, form the core exploration of a postcolonial reading on the issue of place in the book of Jeremiah. The exegetical explorations of the three passages are not presented in either their literary or chronological order, as these can be attested in the text of the book of Jeremiah. Their order here does not suggest either an historical or a literary reconstruction of these passages. Rather, the order of their treatment reects the progression of the colonial experience, that is, conquest, occupation, and the aftermath of colonial contact. Since these are self-contained exegetical explorations, there are no assumptions that interpretations of one passage is dependent upon another beyond what the literary and theoretical models suggests. 3. Conclusion Using postcolonial theory, formed as it is out of the experience of modern-day European colonial activity, to read texts from the ancient Near East can impose insights upon the ancient context. Further, the atomizing and isolation of texts from their literary contexts, even though 1

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reective of particular ideological positions, can compromise the underlying methodological approach to the text qua text. The absence of historical data on ancient imperial practices, the conjectures surrounding the historical specicities of the selected passages, and the dearth of a coherent set of voices in the text, among other issues, combine to render my work here at best a speculative exercise. Admittedly, such is the nature of the eld of Biblical Studies and the urgency inherent in a postcolonial approach to reading biblical texts. Such an approach accepts the tentative nature of the eld as far as historical reconstructions are concerned, but it brings to the table the importance of enabling ancient texts to breathe in the new environments of contemporary reading communities. I seek to advance that aim by showing how the discourse of place in the book of Jeremiah, set within an ancient imperial context, resonates with issues of displacement in an emerging globalized environment. This book may not solve all the problems of Jeremiah studies as much as bring a number of them into sharper focus. The insights produced here may not satisfy strictly literary readings nor exclusively historicized approaches. What this book sets out to achieve are nuanced readings of parts of the book of Jeremiah for and from communities that reect current and future geo-political realities. Therefore, it seeks to start new conversations about the book of Jeremiah.

1

Chapter 2

(DIS)LOCATING INTERPRETATIONS

The book of Jeremiah provides one of the fullest character representations of a prophet in the Bible. It serves as a gathering ground for readers with divergent interests. In addition to the usual oracles and call narratives, it contains what are believed to be autobiographical accounts of the prophet’s inner turmoil, biographical depictions of the prophet’s delivery of oracles and the various responses to these, as well as narrative sections that track the development of the prophet’s career.1 The numerous details available in the book provide sufcient material for disparate interests to construct a gure of Jeremiah in their own image. At the same time, the fragmentary nature of the text serves as good ground for biblical scholars to practice their historical-critical skills. In general, as the scholarship on the book of Jeremiah attests, an expanded portrait of the prophet emerges regardless of the method used to read the book. This portrait resides either at the level of the nal form of the book, or through the several layers of the book’s expansion. In either case, the impression is given that the book is simply and solely about the prophet. Much of the interest in the book of Jeremiah has invested in a search for an illusive and enigmatic prophet. Scholars such as Bernhard Duhm and Sigmund Mowinckel recognized early the difference between the historical character and the literary persona. That the historical prophet makes any contribution at all to the book frames the debate between scholars such as Robert Carroll and William Holladay. Carroll no more believes in the existence of the historical Jeremiah than in Macbeth or Richard III.2 Holladay, on the other hand asserts the role of the historical 1. Albertz lists among the different genres in the Jeremiah corpus various poetic oracles, prophetic narratives, autobiographical prose accounts, biographical prose accounts, and reections. He comments: “Redaction history can nd these different genres relevant to the growth and development of the book, whereas tradition history can treat them simply as different embodiments of the same material.” Israel in Exile, 304. 2. Carroll maintains that proof of the existence of the historical Jeremiah does not automatically settle questions of authorship and other critical issues relating to

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Jeremiah as reconstructed from the book’s material.3 Other scholars, such as Kathleen O’Connor, who focuses on the interior life of the prophet through the so-called Confessions, cannot avoid the historical questions in preference for more relevant psychological concerns.4 And in the instances where psychological enquiry takes the center, such as in the work of John Berridge5 and Timothy Polk,6 xating on a dehistoricized portrait faces recognized limitations. For some time, Jeremiah studies centered on attaching a person to the persona, message, and textualized history that is the book of Jeremiah. Evidence of this is gleaned from Pete Diamond’s reference to a comment by Helga Weippert in an unpublished paper where she suggests that “the historical person of the prophet provides the anchor point for interpreting the disparate materials collected in the book.”7 Despite the activity to recover the historical Jeremiah, most scholarly work deals with a gure that is the product of a later historical setting, rather than a prophet that is a product of his original times. Carroll’s assertion that “the prophet is lost to the scribe,”8 is as much a comment about the initial author of the book as it is about subsequent tradents. Whatever gure of Jeremiah that can be unearthed from the text exists as much as a creation of the original authors of the text as the subsequent the book. Carroll, Jeremiah, 63. In this regard, he stands in the tradition of Duhm, whom Diamond describes as a “minimalist” when compared with the “maximalist” Holladay, “in relation to the retrievable authentic kernel in the tradition.” A. R. Pete Diamond, “Introduction,” in Troubling Jeremiah (ed. A. R. Pete Diamond, Kathleen M. O’Connor, and Louis Stulman; JSOTSup 260; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic, 1999), 17. 3. Holladay condently attributes the prose section to Jeremiah’s preaching and the narrative portions to the literary work of Baruch. He argues that the portrait of Jeremiah that is present in the book is “of a highly distinctive and innovative person…not the kind of gure that later generations would be likely to create.” William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 2: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah Chapters 26–52 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 24. 4. Kathleen M. O’Connor, The Confessions of Jeremiah: Their Interpretation and Role in Chapters 1–25 (SBLDS 94; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988). 5. John M. Berridge, Prophet, People, and the Word of Yahweh: An Examination of Form and Content in the Proclamation of the Prophet Jeremiah (Zurich: EVZVerlag, 1970). 6. Timothy Polk, The Prophetic Persona: Jeremiah and the Language of the Self (JSOTSup 32; Shefeld: JSOT, 1984). 7. Diamond, “Introduction,” 17 (italics in original). 8. Robert P. Carroll, “Something Rich and Strange: Imagining a Future for Jeremiah Studies,” in Diamond, O’Connor, and Stulman, eds., Troubling Jeremiah, 432. 1

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portrait of later tradents. While one may nd merit in the notion that with the distance of time the vision of traditioning communities, with regards to the historical prophet, grows dim, merit lies also in the notion that a kernel of historical data and value exists within the book. This historical value, however, is not exclusively tied to the gure of the historical prophet as the only gem worth discovering. Such a narrow focus would be like searching for a needle in a haystack while ignoring the hay in which the needle is lost. The historical communities that either received and/or passed on the message of the prophet remain as signicant in gaining access into the material of the book as history that can be reconstructed from the data in the book. The debate in Jeremiah studies pits the historical Jeremiah against the literary persona of various text traditions in an all or nothing game, without allowing sufcient room to articulate the interaction of the two concerns. The historical Jeremiah preaches to a particular historical community beset by the peculiar problems of imperial power. Consequently, to the extent that an original message can be discovered in the extant text, this provides material for the recovery and description of the historical community that confronts the dilemma of empire. Discovery and articulation of the literary persona, and the communal processes involved in its development and transmission of the message of the book, can provide insight into the adjustments that the different communities that create and/or handle the Jeremiah tradition make as they accommodate the reality of empire. Additionally, understanding the succeeding communities that rework the received tradition in the context of displacement occasioned by empire and in the collapse of empire also offers valuable material on how those communities negotiate their place in response to the various manifestations of imperial power. The emphasis on communities, whether historical or traditioning, remains a goal I bear in mind. This emphasis allows for the integration of issues relating to a historicized reconstruction of the prophet, the historical context of the text manuscripts, the literary production of tradents and their communities. This integration will support an analysis of communities that handle and receive the Jeremiah tradition and struggle with the issue of imperial action. A postcolonial approach probes how empire affects the Jeremiah tradition over its long history and the various hearing/reading communities that handle that tradition. To this extent, I do not arbitrate the long-standing divide in Jeremiah studies, but instead propose the focus on communities as a step forward for future work in Jeremiah studies. That is to say, Jeremiah studies need to pay more attention to the hay in which the needle is lost. 1

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This chapter maps the past and current terrain of Jeremiah studies with a view to positing an active role for the use of postcolonial theory in ongoing research on the book. The rst task will be to offer an evaluation of the dominant preoccupations of Jeremiah studies. This evaluation examines the two main contending notions relating to the historical Jeremiah that divide along historicist and non-historicist approaches. Without completely rejecting either of these two approaches in Jeremiah studies, a third way, as articulated by Rainer Albertz, will be examined. This third way informs the approach I take in this book. This approach emphasizes the historical communities that interact with the message and tradition of Jeremiah in light of the various manifestations of empire. 1. In Search of Jeremiah Jeremiah studies can best be organized around the central question of the role of the prophet Jeremiah in the production of the book. On this issue, the scholarship divides among scholars who propose Jeremianic authorship against those who assign the bulk of the work to later traditionists. This division also appears in relation to the portrait of the prophet in the book; either an original or a completely literary creation. These divisions give rise to further contentions, such as the length of time and process over which the book is formed, the place where the book is put together, the role, if any at all, of Baruch in the formation of the book the extent of the inuence of Dtr traditions and tradents in the shaping of the book, among other issues. The contested nature of the central gure in the book is appropriately summed up by Diamond as both “troubled and troubling for the professional interpretative community.”9 Scholars employ a variety of methods in search of Jeremiah. Leo Perdue provides a useful systematization of major work into the tradition-historical and psychological-biographical approaches. He aligns these two major approaches along theological lines rather than methodology. Perdue believes that the split reects the need either to produce a vita of a religious gure or to demonstrate the power of the scriptures as a text of faith. He locates the psychological-biographical approach as a product of liberal theology that regards the book as having sufcient data on which to construct the life of the prophet, while he places the tradition-historical approach as a product of Neo-Orthodox theology,10 which 9. Diamond, “Introduction,” 15. 10. Liberal theologians express openness to the use of higher criticism in biblical studies in support of the notions of an immanent God. Along these lines, they pursue studies in search of the historical Jesus as a means of articulating a portrait of Jesus 1

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views the book as a composite work, heavily redacted in its nal form such that it largely obscures the historical Jeremiah.11 David Jobling’s assessment of Jeremiah studies as akin to that of scholarship on the question of the historical Jesus provides a helpful way in which Perdue’s schema can work for the purposes of this chapter.12 Just as Jesus research turns on the question of the historicity of the portrait of Jesus presented in the Gospels, Jeremiah studies revolve around the recuperation of the historical gure. The psychological-biographical approach in Perdue’s schema equates with the Jesus of history ideas of the research, while the tradition-historical approach links with that of the Christ of faith side of the research. Although these are not neat equivalents, they provide a schematized view of several years of scholarship on the book of Jeremiah.13 The benet of Jobling’s connection of Jeremiah research and historical Jesus research is that it places the issue of historical communities handling the Jeremiah tradition in a stronger perspective. Whether viewed as an historical gure or a literary portrait, Jeremiah exists within historical communities. This focus on the community and its response to its contemporary realities forces a greater focus on the link between prose that is removed from the creedal accretions of various faith communities. In contrast, Neo-Orthodox theologians stress the acceptance of divine revelation in the scriptures as the starting point for the articulation of theology. As such, they accept the portrait of Jesus in the Bible as a sufcient basis on which to construct a historical prole of Jesus. For a review of the various theological debates of the twentieth century, see William Hordern, A Layman’s Guide to Protestant Theology (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2001), 73–149; Van A. Harvey, A Handbook of Theological Terms (New York: Touchstone, 1992), 144–46, 162–64. 11. In his characterization of the two approaches, Perdue suggests that the issue rests not so much on the historical Jeremiah but on the need to depict a particular type of individual as part of the debate between liberal and Neo-Orthodox theologies. Leo G. Perdue, “Jeremiah in Modern Research: Approaches and Issues,” in A Prophet to the Nations: Essays in Jeremiah Studies (ed. Leo G. Perdue and Brian W. Kovacs; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1984), 1. 12. David K. Jobling, “The Quest of the Historical Jeremiah: Hermeneutical Implications of Recent Literature,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 34 (1978): 6–8. Carroll synthesizes the various approaches to the book in a similar twofold system as: “the life, words and deeds of the ‘historical’ Jeremiah approach and the editorial assemblage of many discrete levels of tradition constitutive of the book reading.” Carroll, Jeremiah, 34. Carroll does agree that Jeremiah studies are akin in their level of difculty to the search for the historical Jesus. Carroll, Jeremiah, 63. 13. Jobling makes the following point: “The assumptions and methods of modern historical Jesus research are not in every case applicable to Jeremiah… Nor are they by any means to be taken over uncritically.” Jobling, “Historical Jeremiah,” 10. 1

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and poetic sections of the book, between narrative and speech in a way that privileges the message and interpretation over the event. That is to say, it avoids what Jobling describes as “Jeremialogy,”14 a problem that he believes needs to be faced by Jeremiah studies, in the same way that Jesus research had to come to terms with the issue of Christology.15 The shift of emphasis from prophet to community, from event to message, realigns the presupposition that the book either intends to or provides a coherent set of beliefs about the prophet Jeremiah. Both Perdue’s and Jobling’s schemas help to set parameters around the body of Jeremiah research. In both cases they perceive a split on the issue of the recoverability of a prophetic gure that drives the interests of scholars on the book. This divide does not always separate neatly into historicist and non-historicist, or the so-called minimalist and maximalist camps. However, for my purposes, these categories prove useful for assessing general trends in Jeremiah studies and for establishing the twin foci of historical and literary analysis that characterize postcolonial theory. a. Jeremiah as Historical Figure Approach The concern to discover the historical Jeremiah emerges not, as some would expect, as a feature of the pre-critical approach to the book of Jeremiah. Rather, a variety of critical methodological approaches characterize the search for the historical Jeremiah, chief among them being the historical-critical method. That a gure purporting to be the historical Jeremiah could be discovered through the nal form of the book ought not to be seen as the dening question of historicist approaches. Although this approach aims to deliver the historical Jeremiah, in the process it presents an individualized historicist portrayal of the prophet that owes little connection to an actual community. Further and more relevant issues would need to be dealt with, such as, the history and its signicance that accompanies such a gure, as well as the insights provided into the community in which such a historical gure functions. A starting point in reviewing the historical approach to the book of Jeremiah is studies around the interior life of the prophet. The usual prophetic material relating to vocation and message are used to corroborate the personal reections to access the prophetic mind and produce a 14. Ibid., 8. 15. On this point Jobling’s parallel proves less than adequate as it gives beliefs about Jeremiah the same theological weight as Christology. In this regard he may have mistaken the fervor of modern scholarship for the Jeremiah gure with the ancient communities’ interest in the work and prophet. 1

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veriable human character. Jeremiah, if he could be discovered, would then serve as the paradigmatic prophet and servant of God to contemporary devotees and scholars. John Berridge’s work represents a step in the psychological-biographical approach to Jeremiah. In critiquing Graf Reventlow’s work, Liturgie und prophetisches Ich bei Jeremia, Berridge notes that Jeremiah exists not only as a functionary of religion or textual traditions, but also as an individual whose differentiated personality emerges in the text.16 Therefore, he sets out to prove that “in these passages we are confronted with the ‘individual’ or ‘personal’ Jeremiah.”17 While Berridge argues for the existence “of a self-conscious individual who bore the name Jeremiah,”18 he appears more preoccupied with the manner in which the text enables the reader to make this discovery. For Berridge, Jeremiah stands both as an historical gure and the active force in the shaping of the text. If Berridge views modern readers as constructing a biography of Jeremiah, Philip Hyatt offers that the Dtr already present one in the nal form of the book of Jeremiah. Hyatt observes that the widespread editing by the Dtr compromises the historical Jeremiah, but he maintains that a historical gure exists behind the theological overlay.19 He positions the historical Jeremiah as an inuential prophet opposed to the reforms of 16. Berridge, Prophet, People, 18. Jobling regards Reventlow’s work as a challenge to the liberal project that seeks to present individualized portraits of the prophet. He, however, critiques Reventlow’s presentation of Jeremiah as a cult functionary in such a way that the prophet’s identity is completely subsumed into the community and his liturgical performances. Jobling, “Historical Jeremiah,” 4. 17. Berridge, Prophet, People, 18. 18. Ibid., 210. Berridge remains convinced that the different Gattungen both evidence Jeremiah’s personal touch and prove “the individuality of the prophet Jeremiah.” These Gattungen demonstrate Jeremiah’s contextual use of various literary forms as well as innovations of other traditional forms (ibid., 214). He concludes that these adaptations, particularly of forms that would normally be associated with the temple, indicate Jeremiah’s differentiation from the prophetic ofce or any cult function. For instance, Berridge shows that the lament forms and their link with the impending judgment of the nation conrm Jeremiah’s connection with the sufferings and fate of the community. Ibid., 220. 19. In Hyatt’s survey of the trends in Jeremiah studies, he begins with Duhm’s analysis of the proportion of the book that can be comfortably attributed to Jeremiah (viz. 280 verses in the MT) as against the quantity attributable to later additions (850 verses). Unlike Duhm and other scholars, such as Carl Cornill, Paul Volz, and A. S. Peake who regard the historical Jeremiah as unrecoverable and exerting little or no impact upon the book, Hyatt believes that a portrait of the prophet can be constructed. J. Philip Hyatt, “The Deuteronomic Edition of Jeremiah,” in Perdue and Kovacs, eds., A Prophet to the Nations, 248–51. 1

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Josiah and the larger Dtr ideology, co-opted by the Dtr of a later generation, most likely the period following the deportation ca. 550 B.C.E., to serve as a sponsor for their ideology among subsequent communities.20 Hyatt bases his arguments on the improbability that a prophet like Jeremiah would not support the work of Josiah.21 Hyatt’s Jeremiah remains a gure that is anything but Dtr. In response to questions on the date of Jeremiah’s call, his relationship to the Josianic movement, and the identication of the foe from the north,22 Hyatt posits times and positions for Jeremiah that set him in opposition to the Dtr. He develops a portrait of Jeremiah by assigning more portions of text as original to Jeremiah and attributable to Baruch.23 This consolidates his position that what counts as original Jeremiah, or in fact reliable data, is everything that does not appear to be Dtr.24 Hyatt’s concern lies in 20. John Bright follows Hyatt and other redaction critics by arguing that large portions of the book are original to Jeremiah. However, he disagrees on the extent of the Dtr inuence, crediting much of it to the coincidence of the contemporaneous development of the book of Jeremiah and the DtrH. He suggests that Hyatt’s claim of Dtr co-optation is overstated since in the book Jeremiah’s views on the reforms of Josiah are ambiguous. John Bright, Jeremiah (AB 21; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965), lxxi. See also H. Lalleman-de Winkel, Jeremiah in Prophetic Tradition: An Examination of the Book of Jeremiah in the Light of Israel’s Prophetic Traditions (Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology; Leuven: Peeters, 2000), 34. 21. Hyatt shows that Jeremiah’s work begins sometime after the reforms of Josiah and that he does not support the nationalist sentiments of Josiah. He argues that several of Jeremiah’s positions reect opposition to that of the Dtr. His temple sermon in chs. 7 and 26 represents an attack on Dtr notions of the sanctity of Jerusalem and the temple. Further, his statements in 6:20 and 11:15 appear to call into question the ritual system of the temple, while 8:8–9, 13 suggest the failure of the legal system to ensure the faithfulness of the nation. J. Philip Hyatt, “Jeremiah and Deuteronomy,” in Perdue and Kovacs, eds., A Prophet to the Nations, 118. 22. Perdue lists these as the historical questions that have preoccupied scholars along with questions on the composition of the book and the relationship between the Hebrew and Greek editions. Perdue, “Jeremiah in Modern Research,” 1. 23. Hyatt argues that the scroll of 604 B.C.E. is recoverable and reects the early preaching of Jeremiah. For Hyatt, this scroll can be identied in the following verses: 1:4–14, 17; 2; 3:1–5, 12b–14a, 19–25; 4; 5:1–17, 20–30; 6. He also lists a number of oracles, attributable to Jeremiah, that would be derived from Baruch. Not only does he credit Baruch as a reliable eye witness, but he accepts also the material that purports to be the work of Baruch. Hyatt, “Deuteronomic Edition of Jeremiah,” 265. 24. Hyatt provides comprehensive treatment on the characteristics of the Dtr’s work in the book of Jeremiah and in Deuteronomy itself. He does admit to Dtr inuences upon Jeremiah, but these are minimal, just two verses: 3:1 (cf. Deut 24:1); 28:9 (cf. Deut 18:22). Ibid., 119–20. See also his discussion on the occurrences of the word “torah” in the book of Jeremiah outside of 31:33 and Jeremiah’s view on a written torah. J. Philip Hyatt, “Torah in the Book of Jeremiah,” Journal of Biblical 1

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proving authorship for the book of Jeremiah. In the end, Hyatt offers a Jeremiah that reects the typical anti-institutional, anti-monarchical portrait of a prophet. While these may be credible insights, they limit the scope of the prophetic task to that of the outside agitator. The fascination with the Dtr’s inuence upon the book of Jeremiah operates as the touchstone for the recoverability of an historical and original Jeremiah. Scholars produce, therefore, a Jeremiah that is a negative creation in the image of the Dtr or fail to nd a Jeremiah because of Dtr editing. Winfried Thiel inverts Hyatt’s conception and instead argues for minimal original Jeremiah portions in the book. Lalleman-de Winkel characterizes Thiel’s criteria for evaluating Dtr editing in the book as follows: if there is correspondence between Jeremiah and Deuteronomy then it is D, and if there is no correspondence it is still D.25 This onedimensional view ignores other likely inuences upon the life and message of the historical Jeremiah. Lalleman-de Winkel argues for the possibility of the inuence of the prophetic tradition upon Jeremiah besides the Dtr’s editorial inuence in the book. She suggests that scholars have exaggerated the Dtr inuence in the book, and regards the prophetic tradition as a more formative inuence and key to the discovery of a fuller picture of the original prophet.26 Therefore, a wider focus upon the historical community, with its complex interactions of various inuences, can help in the recuperation of the prophet and prophetic message that is relevant to those peculiar contexts. Robert Wilson’s work on the prophetic tradition by means of social anthropology lls out Lalleman-de Winkel’s concerns. Wilson argues for the location of Jeremiah in the context of a Northern “Ephraimite tradition” after the order of Moses.27 He suggests that Jeremiah receives initial support from a Levitical group that uses Dtn language but does not support the Dtn reforms. This initial support is withdrawn on the death of Josiah, at which time Jeremiah changes his message to one of judgment and thereby alienates the establishment. Wilson hypothesizes that Jeremiah remains a “peripheral prophet”28 for the remainder of his career, being opposed by large sections of the population. Literature 60 (1941): 381–96. Siegfried Hermann points out that a limitation of the work of such scholars as Hyatt and Thiel is that they separate Jeremiah too far away from the Dtr. Siegfried Herrmann, Jeremia: der Prophet und das Buch (Erträge der Forschung 271; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1990), 66. 25. Lalleman-de Winkel, Jeremiah in Prophetic Tradition, 26. 26. Ibid., 47. 27. Robert R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 237. 28. Ibid., 248. 1

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Wilson places Jeremiah in the Ephraimite tradition on the basis of the resemblances between Jeremiah and portrayal of Moses as the ideal prophet in the text of Deuteronomy.29 Wilson, though, rules out Dtr inuences, presupposing “that Jeremiah consciously or unconsciously used the pattern because it was part of the stereotypical behavior expected by his support group.”30 The assertion of Jeremianic authorship for both the prose and poetic sections of the book remains one of the more dominant approaches to the recovery of the historical Jeremiah. This position, advanced by Helga Weippert and John Holladay, contends that a fuller picture of the historical Jeremiah is recoverable from the material in these sections since they are authentic and reliable data on the life and message of Jeremiah. In doing so, they shift the ground of Jeremiah scholarship away from the position of Duhm, who insists that the poetic passages provide the only authentic path to the historical Jeremiah.31 The shift that Weippert proposes not only places Jeremiah as the creative force behind the prose passages, but also shows him exerting inuence upon theological positions such as the Dtr. She questions the arbitrary division in the book of Jeremiah, in particular, and in the biblical tradition, in general, between poetry and prose. She contends that Jeremiah likely adopts this style from Levitical circles, given his Levitical descent.32 In what she describes as Kunstprosa (artistic prose), Weippert 29. Wilson points to several similarities between the portrait of Jeremiah and the idealized description of Moses in Deuteronomy. Among these are Jer 1:9 and Deut 18:18; Jer 1:7 and Deut 18:18. Ibid., 237. 30. Ibid., 236. Perdue regards the theory as “interesting” but lacking sufcient attention to redaction-critical and tradition-history approaches to the text. Perdue, “Jeremiah in Modern Research,” 31. 31. Duhm arrives at this theory based upon his qualitative analysis of poetry as being appropriate prophetic speech. He, however, assigns other sections of the book to the work of an Ergänzer (redactor) and Schriftgelehrten (scribe), characterizing the writing style as infantile. These sections, he believes, form the basis of preaching in the synagogues in the exilic period to teach and explain history to an intellectually challenged constituency. He views the prose section as: “Volksbibel, ein religiöses Lehr- und Erbauungsbuch” (“A people’s Bible; a religious textbook and devotional guidebook”). D. Bernhard Duhm, Das Buch Jeremia (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1901), xvi. 32. Weippert maintains that the fact that prose occurs in the books regarded as history, indicating the inuence of Levitical circles, is not sufcient evidence to suggest an inherently non-Jeremianic character. She argues that Jeremiah’s birthplace, Anathoth, is listed as a Levitical city in Josh 21:1–42, 1 Chr 6:39–66, and therefore believes that during Jeremiah’s time probably a sizeable Levite population lived there. Further, she points out that the narrative of Jeremiah’s purchase of the land in ch. 32 should not be seen as conclusive evidence that Jeremiah is not a Levite since 1

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asserts that Jeremiah’s preaching style evolves from poetry to a more elevated prose that surpasses the metrical connes of poetry in a process she calls “Entmetrisierung” (de-metricizing).33 She sketches the character of this prose as: “Das Spezikum der rednerischen Prosa—gedanklicher Parallelismus membrorum und Wortgruppenbildung—entstammt so der metrisch gehaltenen Prophetenverkündigung, wie auch die Reden selbst sich aus dieser entwickelt haben.”34 While she makes no claims that Jeremiah authors the entire prose section of the book, she does challenge the presupposition, advanced at rst by Duhm and Mowinckel, then later on by Herrmann and Thiel, that none of the prose passages are original to Jeremiah. Essentially, Weippert broadens the scope for the recuperation of an historical Jeremiah to include and focus on the prose sections of the book. However, Weippert, like Thiel, seems invested in proving little or no Dtr editing of the prose sections believing that, a priori, Jeremianic authorship is more authentic. Despite the limits of Weippert’s theory, Holladay supports her contention that the prose sections should also be seen as authentic Jeremiah material. He insists that a basis exists for the recovery of the historical Jeremiah from the material in the book bearing his name, as well in the Ezekiel and Deutero-Isaiah traditions:35 “the data for a reconstruction of the chronology of [Jeremiah’s] career, and for the establishment of fairly secure settings for his words and actions, are attainable.”36 Like Weippert, the term ‡ at times indicates that priests owned land (1 Kgs 2:26; Amos 7:17). Helga Weippert, Die Prosareden des Jeremiabuches (BZAW 132; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1973), 13–16. 33. Ibid., 78. Apart from using the prose material for historical recovery, Weippert’s challenge of the traditional theory sharpens the discussion on prophetic style. She contends that prose serves as an appropriate medium of prophetic pronouncement (p. 233), though she remains unwilling to label the prose sections as “sermons,” since she believes that “sermons” would restrict them as words of the prophet rather than words of YHWH. She prefers to view them as “exhortation,” in keeping with her insistence that the style, though having resonances with Dtn prose, is authentically Jeremiah. Ibid., 230. 34. “The specic characteristic of the oratorical prose-mental parallelismus membrorum and phrase formation originates in the metrically formed prophetic announcement, also the speeches themselves developed out of this.” Ibid., 80. 35. Holladay points to Jeremiah passages used as sources for the Ezekiel tradition: Jer 1:9 (cf. Ezek 2:8–3:3), 18 (cf. Ezek 4:3); 4:20 (cf. Ezek 7:26); 18:18 (cf. Ezek 7:26b). Those that inuence the Deutero-Isaiah traditions are: Jer 30:10– 11a (cf. Isa 11:8–10); 10:1–16 (cf. Isa 44:6–22); 48:18 (cf. Isa 47:1); 2:32 (cf. Isa 49:15); 10:18 (cf. Isa 49:19–20). Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 81–84, 86–88. 36. William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah Chapters 1–25 (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 1. 1

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he assigns historical value to all sections of the book on the basis “that most of the poetry preserved in the book exhibits a distinctive vocabulary, style, and theology that one may attribute to [Jeremiah], that the narrative portions of the book are trustworthy in the events they record.”37 Holladay places Jeremiah in continuity with the reforms of Josiah. Unlike Weippert, who argues for Dtn dependence upon Jeremiah, and Thiel, who minimizes Jeremianic activity in the book, Holladay suggests that Jeremiah “saw himself carrying on into a new historical situation the task of reminding the people of their obligations in the Sinai covenant.”38 He, therefore, aligns events in Jeremiah’s public career with septennial readings of Deuteronomy both accounting for the Dtn inuences and discounting Dtr editing of signicant material.39 Out of these data and their reconstruction, Holladay argues that “the picture of [Jeremiah] that emerges from the book is that of a highly distinctive and innovative person.”40 Holladay’s historical recovery provides a level of precision and exactness not seen in other scholars. These data are condent in their construction of the relationship of Jeremiah to Josiah and the religio-political context of the end of the fth century B.C.E. Although Holladay locates Jeremiah within an historical period, and in doing so provides a thesis on the dates of Jeremiah’s birth and prophetic call in relation to the reforms of Josiah, though these are contested, he offers no viable explanation for the absence of Jeremiah in the wider historical data of the period. His data still leave unanswered questions, such as the absence of such a striking gure in the reforms of Josiah, and the presence of Jeremiah in

37. Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 24. 38. William L. Holladay, “A Coherent Chronology of Jeremiah’s Early Career,” in Le Livre de Jérémie: Le Prophète et son Milieu. Les Oracles et leur Transmission (ed. P-M Bogaert; Louvain: Leuven University Press, 1981), 70. 39. Holladay structures Jeremiah’s career on the autumnal reading of Deuteronomy in the years 615, 608, 601, 594, and 587 B.C.E. He explains the similarity of Jeremiah’s speech with Dtn prose as due to “various counterproclamations at the recitation of the book.” Holladay, Jeremiah 1, 1. Holladay provides data to support a reconstruction of the chronology of Jeremiah’s life. Holladay, “Chronology of Jeremiah,” 63–66. Carroll regards Holladay as performing a slight of hand with the notion of the septennial readings. This notion, Carroll argues, allows him to avoid the problem of Dtr editing in the book in a meaningful way. Robert P. Carroll, “Arguing About Jeremiah: Recent Studies and the Nature of a Prophetic Book,” in Congress Volume: Leuven, 1989 (ed. J. A. Emerton; Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 43; Leiden: Brill, 1991), 225. 40. Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 24. 1

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the midst of the maelstrom of Babylonian hegemony but unmentioned in the DtrH.41 Attempting to locate the individual that exists within an historical period and who lives within an historical community would require an understanding that the individual is both a product of the community and times in which he lives and a shaper of his times and community. Perhaps it is that the historical Jeremiah may not be the larger-than-life gure that scholars such as Weippert and Holladay perceive him to be. Neither would he be as diminutive as Thiel and Herrmann suggest. More than the discovery of the man, it is the message to a community in turmoil and their response to that message which would be of signicance to contemporary communities. b. Jeremiah as Literary Figure Approach The difference that separates scholars who pursue an historical Jeremiah and those interested in the literary gure lies not in disagreement over whether a prophet named Jeremiah is a ctive creation of later writing communities. Indeed, general acceptance of the existence of a gure that gives rise to the traditions of the book that bears the name Jeremiah can be found. Differences emerge, however, on the extent to which that gure has an active role in the speaking, writing, and shaping of the message contained in the book. Believers in the historical Jeremiah, such as Holladay, Weippert, and Jack Lundblom, assign to the historical Jeremiah much involvement in the work, albeit limited to a small window of time. Other scholars, including Rudolph and Thiel, narrow the involvement of the historical Jeremiah in the text traditions, while at the same time broadening the duration of the formation of the book. In this regard, this latter group lies closer to such scholars as William McKane, Polk, and

41. Christopher Begg surveys the scholarship on the issue of Jeremiah’s exclusion from the DtrH. He then proposes that, due to his role as intercessor, the inclusion of Jeremiah in the material would not be in keeping with the belief of the Dtr that intercession would not prevent the destruction of Jerusalem. He argues that Josiah and Huldah are key persons in the DtrH who are not depicted as intercessors. Christopher Begg, “A Bible Mystery: The Absence of Jeremiah in the Deuteronomistic History,” Irish Biblical Studies 7 (1985): 139–64. Marius Terblanche also surveys the scholarship on this issue and concludes that Jeremiah is excluded from the DtrH because he is not seen “as a prophet who was essentially a preacher of the law.” Marius Terblanche, “No Need for a Prophet Like Jeremiah: The Absence of the Prophet Jeremiah in Kings,” in Past, Present, Future: The Deuteronomistic History and the Prophets (ed. Johannes C. de Moor and Harry F. Van Rooy; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 314. 1

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Carroll, all of whom concentrate more on the traditions around the literary gure of Jeremiah. McKane, Polk, and Carroll believe recovery to be largely impossible. For them, preoccupation with the historical gure should be replaced by a concentrated study of the literary Jeremiah created by subsequent tradents. The privileging of material that could be historically veried leads, in Polk’s opinion, to the neglect of other material in the text that speaks just as powerfully. Polk argues that the “historical gure” that emerges from the work of some scholars results from foregrounding the religious signicance of the prophet in order “to construct their own biographies of the prophet” (italics in the original). This gure, he argues, is distant from the “biblically depicted Jeremiah.”42 Polk believes that the overinvestment in historical data restricts the value of the book to only that which is veriable. As such, he views “an imaginative re-presentation” of the “prophetic persona”43 that speaks to the depths of Jeremiah’s life “communicate[s Jeremiah’s] signicance as an expression of the purpose and pathos of God and at the same time as an expression of the predicament and dread and hope of his people.”44 Polk constructs more than a literary gure. His work demonstrates an appreciation that the text speaks to “personal religion” and as such is infused with a theo-ethical ideology. He eschews biographical and historicist purposes. His Jeremiah remains a paradigm, “a particular instantiation of a type”45 that transcends time and space. As such, it does not arise out of a particular set of political, social, and theological circumstances. Denying any intentionality in the text, Polk prefers to read the prophet rather than the message of the prophet. Since his reading 42. Polk cites the work of Rudolf Kittel and Fleming James as representative of this charge. Polk, The Prophetic Persona, 10. John Skinner’s work is also representative in this regard. Using insights from critical scholarship, he asserts that the prophet’s “specic greatness lies in the sphere of personal religion.” Further, he outlines his purposes as tracing “the growth of personal piety in the history of Jeremiah.” John Skinner, Prophecy and Religion: Studies in the Life of Jeremiah (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955), 15–16. Carroll critiques Skinner’s work, along the lines of Polk, arguing that it at once accepts the tenuous nature of the autobiographical material, but still uses the same material to condently construct a life of the prophet. Robert P. Carroll, From Chaos to Covenant: Prophecy in the Book of Jeremiah (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 6. 43. Polk opts to use the term “persona” rather than “literary gure” so as to avoid confusion with other depictions of Jeremiah that use selective portions of the text. Polk, The Prophetic Persona, 10. 44. Ibid., 166. 45. Ibid., 170. 1

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focuses on “the self” he pays little attention to a lived context, believing that the “prophetic persona” can be universalized to t any context. The result is a gure of Jeremiah truncated from an original context, too generic to t the specic social connes of communities envisaged by a postcolonial reading. The severing of the historical situatedness of the text, a characteristic of purely literary approaches, at times heightens awareness of the historical and social forces that shape and yet also obscure the Jeremiah traditions. The work of Stuart MacWilliam and the writings of Angela Bauer proceed on the reader-centered approach and illustrate this reality. MacWilliam supports a queer reading of selected passages of the book by building on previous gender analysis of these passages.46 He provides a plausible queer reading of the marriage metaphors of chs. 2–3, and in so doing acknowledges two levels of readers: a “historical audience,” which could be located in “later exilic and early post-exilic, Jewish communities,” and a second “implied audience,” which he believes the texts suggest as a male reader. By isolating the metaphor from its sociohistorical context, MacWilliam envisages Jeremiah for a particular historical reading community, yet he does not probe the character of the traditioning community and the way it shapes the portrait of Jeremiah.47 MacWilliam appreciates the textual history of Jeremiah as the result of editorial work. Consequently, he treats Jeremiah as a symbolic gure with limited references to him as either an historical or literary gure. His conclusion—“we have a new insight on to Jeremiah’s gloom”48— admits to the difculty of eneshing Jeremiah while dehistoricizing his portrait. 46. MacWilliam advances Exum’s analysis of gender violence and the inequalities of male and female readers. J. Cheryl Exum, “The Ethics of Biblical Violence Against Women,” in The Bible in Ethics: The Second Shefeld Colloquium (ed. J. W. Rogerson et al.; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic, 1995). MacWilliam also depends upon the analysis of gender forms by Diamond and O’Connor. A. R. P. Diamond and K. M. O’Connor, “Unfaithful Passions: Coding Women Coding Men in Jeremiah 2–3 (4:2),” BibInt 4 (1996): 288–310. MacWilliam uses literary theories of metaphors and feminist perspectives to examine the marriage metaphors in chs. 2–3, showing how the uidity of gender identities forces males to identify as females since it is the unfaithful wife who represents the experience of the readers, even male readers. Stuart MacWilliam, “Queering Jeremiah,” BibInt 10 (2002): 398–99. 47. However, in establishing the notion of Jeremiah’s queer relationship, he falls back on Jeremiah as either author or a historical gure: “For me the difculty of Jeremiah’s use of the marriage metaphor lies nally in this imbalance.” Macwilliam, “Queering Jeremiah,” 401. 48. Ibid., 402. 1

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Bauer pursues a “literary-theological”49 investigation of the book and thereby pays attention to the history of the formation of the text. Using the insights from feminist theory, rhetorical criticism, and various readerresponse methods, Bauer advances work rst begun by Phyllis Trible50 to explore “how…descriptions and inscriptions of gender functioned in the book of Jeremiah and its interpretations.”51 Her concern, like that of Macwilliam, is a reading community, in this case women. In her exploration, Bauer avoids mention of Jeremiah as a historical person or even a literary gure. She simply refers to Jeremiah as “the prophet” on most occasions. Bauer’s initial questions anticipate that her work would hold signicance for living communities, both male and female.52 While she engages several areas of concern for contemporary women readers, she does not provide much cultural and social grounding out of which the troubling gendered images emerge and how these shape the texts. Despite her close attention to the tradition history of the text and its structural contours, her reader-centered approach dehistoricizes the book to the extent that a Jeremiah hardly remains in her reading. In her conclusions she lifts up various counter-readings of the text from the perspective of contemporary women. In presenting these as readings against the grain of the book, she uses the refrain, “Not so Jeremiah.”53 The Jeremiah she refers to here remains unclear, since she makes little previous reference to Jeremiah at any level.

49. Angela Bauer, Gender in the Book of Jeremiah: A Feminist-Literary Reading (Stud Bib Lit 5; New York: Lang, 1999), 5. 50. Phyllis Trible, “The Gift of a Poem: A Rhetorical Study of Jeremiah 31:15– 22,” Andover Newton Quarterly 17 (1977): 271–80, and God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), 31–59. 51. Bauer pays attention to texts such as 9:19, where women are invited to listen to the divine word. She then provides an analysis of various texts showing how gender functions within the text itself and, to a lesser extent, in its interactions with an imagined reader. Bauer, Gender in the Book of Jeremiah, 2. 52. Bauer’s list of formative questions at the outset of the study includes: “what does it mean that female images in the book of Jeremiah reduce female sexuality mostly to motherhood and sexual violence? How is such presentation related to the implied readers of the book, a male audience? And what effects have such images had on contemporary readers, female and male? Thus, whose interests are served by which reading of gendered language in Jeremiah?… Why, for example, do most (male) commentators remain silent about the implications of sexual violence in Jeremiah? What are their perspectives and interests in choosing their foci? What are mine?” (ibid., 4). 53. Ibid., 162–63. 1

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The approaches of Bauer and Macwilliam hold afnities with that pursued by Diamond and O’Connor. In their exploration of gender in Jer 2–3, Diamond and O’Connor pursue a strong focus on the structure of the text. They explain their method as concentrating on “poetics.” This approach, they believe, is not an “anti-historical posture” since reading of the prophetic text produces an engagement with the contemporary realities of the various reading communities. While their method grounds the reading of the material in the realities of the present community, their stated question of “within what network of codes did the rhetoric of female sexual indelity function?”54 limits the concern to only those of the reader. To the extent that the method pays attention to readers’ interaction with material in their social context, attention to the social and historical context of the text also proves useful. The limitations of strongly text-focused work on the book of Jeremiah are primarily seen in its ability to serve as contextual and relevant readings. Synchronic readings make ancient texts more applicable to contemporary communities; however, the peculiarities of the book of Jeremiah impose restrictions on the effectiveness of this approach. Diamond urges a move in Jeremiah studies away from the historical-critical hegemony into the innovations of literary theory. Believing that redaction studies and the processes of canonization suggest a shift towards de-historicizing the text, he posits that a similar trend of non-historicist readings can make the book of Jeremiah more serviceable for contemporary communities.55 Carroll, though, is clearer in his assessment of the complex debate, arguing that “a diachronic reading approach to Jeremiah, with an eye on synchronic reading possibilities”56 is the most judicious combination.

54. A. R. Pete Diamond and Kathleen M O’Connor, “Unfaithful Passions: Coding Women Coding Men in Jeremiah 2–3 (4.2),” in Diamond, O’Connor, and Stulman, eds., Troubling Jeremiah, 124. 55. Diamond’s contentions do have merit but raise the question of the extent to which historical insights will guide these readings. Diamond, “Introduction,” 19. On this question, Brueggemann argues, given that the polyphonies of the book emerge out of contact with real communities within an historical period, a purely synchronic approach makes it appear “as though the ‘book’ oated in the air.” He, however, makes no commitment to the dominance of synchronic approaches in this mix. Walter Brueggemann, “Next Steps in Jeremiah Studies?,” in Diamond, O’Connor, and Stulman, eds., Troubling Jeremiah, 405. 56. Robert P. Carroll, “Synchronic Deconstructions of Jeremiah: Diachrony to the Rescue? Reections on Some Reading Strategies for Understanding Certain Problems in the Book of Jeremiah,” in Synchronic or Diachronic? A Debate on 1

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McKane provides a unique balance to the questions of history and literary focus by emphasizing the history of the text alongside close textual work. He states his purpose as more focused on the history of the text than the historical prophet,57 as the growth of the text attests scribal expansions rather than editorial comments.58 While McKane repeatedly refers to a “core” of the book, he pays little attention to “whether or not it is a Jeremianic core.”59 Evidentially, he focuses on the nature of the expansions of the prose and poetry of chs. 1–25. He sets out to show how these expansions arise, identifying the period of history within which they take place, and thereby revealing the arbitrariness of their development. Unlike Thiel, who understands chs. 1–25 as largely resulting from intentional Dtr editing, and Weippert, who credits these chapters to Jeremiah, McKane believes that chs. 1–25 are “a complicated, untidy accumulation of material, extending over a long period and to which many people have contributed.”60 McKane’s theory of a “rolling corpus” accepts that an historical Jeremiah existed, this being a gure whose words give rise to the present material. Rather than attempt to recover the ipsissima verba of the prophet or even to sketch a portrait of the prophet based upon a literary study of the text, McKane locates texts in their later historical context. Since McKane believes that the corpus continues to develop into the post-exilic period, he places the text in that historical context, though not assigning any particular community or individual the responsibility for the text. His trigger theory allows for inconsistencies in the haphazard development of chs. 1–25: “Where the argument is that poetry generates prose there is an assumption that the poetry which has generated prose comment is attributable, for the most part, to the prophet Jeremiah. Where the thesis is that prose generates prose, the kernel may not be regarded as giving access to the period of the prophet Jeremiah and preserving the sense of words which he spoke.”61 Method in Old Testament Exegesis (ed. Johannes C. de Moor; Leiden: Brill, 1995), 50. 57. William McKane, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Jeremiah Volume 1 (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986), l. McKane decries the matching of text, particularly poetry, to external history as accurate a method of selection as throwing pins at a board that contained all the possible options. Ibid., lxxxix. 58. Ibid., li. 59. Ibid., liii. 60. Ibid., xlviii. While McKane presents this theory about the growth of chs. 1– 25, his willingness to admit to Baruch’s role as biographer of chs. 26–52 is by comparison anticlimactic. 61. Ibid., lxxxiii. 1

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McKane’s work results in a narrow set of texts that can condently be regarded as Jeremianic, with no single identiable author or community that continues to tradition the material, and consequently no portrait of a prophet, historical or literary, that can be attributed to a particular time, community, or ideology. Carroll critiques McKane for having his feet in both camps of the divide in Jeremiah studies.62 In this regard, the plurality of methods coupled with a bifurcated approach on the historical Jeremiah lead to ambivalence in McKane’s work. The value of McKane’s work, though, is that it assigns the growth of the book to multiple hands. Both McKane and Carroll share the presumption of the possibility of an historical Jeremiah behind the book.63 Carroll, though, remains more interested in the process of the growth of the book and the communities responsible for that growth.64 He agrees with McKane that the book is multi-authored and untidy in its presentation, though not so untidy as to be unable to identify the hands and ideologies that contribute to its development. In Carroll’s estimation, historical-critical work, particularly redaction studies, should focus on the disconnected blocks of texts in the book and the process of their collection into the nal form of the book as a means of ultimately arriving, not at a one dimensional portrait of the prophet, but at a multifaceted portrait.65 He argues that, like the notion of the Christ of faith, Jeremiah is a “refracted gure”; a product of several communities that betrays the complex factors at work in those communities.66 In Carroll’s estimation, unlike McKane, these communities can be identied and their motivations for working with the Jeremiah traditions discovered. He believes the Dtr community to be one of the dominant users of the Jeremiah tradition that infuses its ideology into the current material.67 Locating the climax of this activity within the Second Temple 62. Carroll, “Arguing About Jeremiah,” 229. 63. Discarding any value in the attempt to recover the historical Jeremiah, Carroll, for instance, believes that no historical worth exists in the claims of ch. 36, which he regards as “an aetiology (or legitimation claim).” Robert P. Carroll, “The Book of J: Intertextuality and Ideological Criticism,” in Diamond, O’Connor, and Stulman, eds., Troubling Jeremiah, 227. 64. Carroll, From Chaos to Covenant, 13. 65. Carroll, Jeremiah, 57. 66. Ibid., 64. 67. Carroll, From Chaos to Covenant, 18. Carroll suggests that the Dtr produce a version of Jeremiah as a means of consolidating their position in exilic and postexilic communities. He offers that, in its nal form, the book is concerned with issues of theodicy, providing a reasoned explanation for the destruction of Jerusalem. Carroll, Jeremiah, 27. 1

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period in Palestine, Carroll points out that a combination of social, political, and religious factors, as well as the existence of a literate elite, provides a suitable ideological mix to stir the nal production of the book of Jeremiah.68 Because of his investment in focusing on much later communities, particularly later Second Temple period ones, and on minimizing any historical claims about Jeremiah, Carroll tends to neglect historical communities closer to the purported lifetime of Jeremiah, thus excluding the periods prior to and immediately following the Babylonian destruction. As such, he views the book as largely concerned with reconstruction issues. Carroll’s emphasis on the appropriation of the Jeremiah tradition in communities shows how the text functions in these communities and the motivations behind the use of the traditions.69 He suspects that the gure of Jeremiah lives, as an editorial creation, in and beyond the pages of the book through the creative appropriation of communities from as early as the sixth century B.C.E. up to as late as the Christian era.70 A notable feature of Carroll’s work, for my purposes, lies in his notion that traditioning communities bring their “interests” (which later he would refer to as ideologies) to the shaping of the Jeremiah tradition. Since Carroll believes that these different communities can be identied, he offers that their interests are represented in the text and as a consequence can help settle historical questions relating to the text. This notion eneshes the ideas of McKane’s rolling corpus, posits the work of communities other than the Dtr as advanced by Thiel, and addresses the interests of Holladay to match text with history, but in this case not around the gure of the prophet. Carroll asserts that “the question of interests is important to the interpretation of the book of Jeremiah.”71 In this case, he proposes an ideological-critical approach to the book,

68. Carroll, “Arguing About Jeremiah,” 233. On the question of locating the origins of the nal form of Jeremiah, Carroll agrees with McKane’s diasporic locale. William McKane, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Jeremiah Volume 2 (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996), clv. Carroll believes that while the book does not reect an “ideology of diaspora as such,” it is “produced for and on behalf of those Jewish communities in Babylon.” Carroll, “The Book of J,” 239. 69. The privileging of the original words of the prophet over later additions in the book in much of Jeremiah studies presumes that a similar set of values obtain in ancient communities and that only the veriable words of the prophet are regarded with reverence. This presumption limits the use of the Jeremiah traditions in those communities to historical reverence. 70. Carroll, Jeremiah, 59–60. 71. Ibid., 71. 1

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insisting that texts are not “meaning-neutral” and that writers would have inscribed their ideologies into texts, ideologies which can be uncovered with the appropriate reading strategy.72 c. A Third Way Rainer Albertz’s work provides a mediating voice in the historicist/nonhistoricist debate of Jeremiah studies. He regards Carroll’s work as being dominated by exilic perspectives that “the person of the prophet disappears entirely.”73 And he differs with Holladay, since he accepts that the book undergoes an “extensive and thorough…Dtr editing.”74 Albertz agrees with the broad outlines of Mowinckel’s source theory and attributes passages such as those in chs. 2–6 to Jeremiah75 and others such as 37:3–10; 40:7–43:7 to Baruch.76 Nevertheless, he posits a threestage redaction process for the book based on his notions that the book has two conclusions (25:1–13ab*; 45:1–5) and three references to the term “the book” (, 25:13ba; 30:2; 45:1).77 Albertz proposes this model as a corrective to Thiel’s, work which he views as having three areas of concern: (1) the idea that the Dtr editing takes place at one time, (2) the inadequate attention to the nature and method of the Dtr redaction, and (3) the exclusion of the pre-history of sources JerA (oracles and autobiographical narratives in chs. 1–25) and JerB (biographical narratives) as part of the redaction history of the book.78 72. Carroll, “The Book of J,” 235. 73. Albertz, Israel in Exile, 309. 74. Ibid., 303. 75. Albertz argues that 2:4–4:2 (without 3:6–18) represents Jeremiah’s early preaching career, which is addressed to the northern kingdom Israel ca. 627–609 B.C.E. He also posits that 4:3–6:30 are disaster oracles against Judah from sometime after 609 B.C.E. and probably recorded in the scroll of 605–604 B.C.E. Rainer Albertz, “Jer 2–6 und die Frühverkündigung Jeremias,” ZAW 94 (1982): 24. 76. Albertz, Israel in Exile, 318. 77. Ibid., 312. Bright observes a similar pattern and suggests that there are “three separate Jeremiah ‘books,’” viz. 1:1–25:13a; 30–31 (32–33); 46–51. He views these “books” as loose collections lacking a particular arrangement, though he holds that they may have a thematic design. Bright does not offer the detailed reconstruction of the history of each of these “books” offered by Albertz. Nor does he propose a theory that accounts for their formation. Bright, Jeremiah, lvii–lix. 78. Albertz, Israel in Exile, 307. Albertz also nds models such as those proposed by Pohlmann (the golah-oriented redaction—Karl-Friedrich Pohlmann, Studien zum Jeremiabuch: Ein Beitrag sur Frage nach der Entstehung des Jeremiabuches [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978]); Hermann-Josef Stipp (the Shaphanide redaction—Hermann-Josef Stipp, Jeremia, der Tempel und die Aristokratie: Die patrizische [shafanidische] Redaktion des Jeremiabuches [Waltrop: 1

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Albertz posits for each redactional level the passages, proposed dates, and theological motivations of the various Dtr redactors. The rst level, which he calls JerD1, includes most of chs. 1–25 (minus chs. 18 and 24), with a distinct introduction and conclusion edited around 550 B.C.E. This redactional level shows that the destruction of Jerusalem occurs as a result of the failure of the people to respond positively to the repeated calls for repentance. The next redaction, JerD2, is compiled between 545–540 B.C.E. and edits the traditions in chs. 26–45 and connects these with JerD1. It continues the theme of punishment for disobedience in JerD1, but, unlike JerD1, presents the punishment as inevitable with no room for mitigation. This redactional level also takes a negative view of public ofcials such as the king, priests, and military ofcers. The third Dtr edition, JerD3, includes a revision of JerD2 and the insertion of the collection of salvation oracles in chs. 30–31 and the oracles against the nations in chs. 46–51. This third redaction may be dated between 525 and 520 B.C.E. This edition portrays YHWH as the god of international affairs, exacting justice upon aberrant nations, but at the same time extending grace and salvation to the nation of Judah.79 The approach that Albertz takes to the book of Jeremiah balances the historicist and literary approaches, even though his work appears as heavily historicist as Holladay’s or Thiel’s. He presents a portrait of the prophet as well as an understanding of the traditioning communities that work with the text. His work is useful in identifying several redactional layers of the book that can be attributed to various communities that emerge out of the shared Dtr theology but become fragmented over time and space. The avoidance of the trap of overhomogenization of the Jeremiah tradition commends Albertz’s approach to different reading communities with varied interests in the book. While he accepts that certain passages exist prior to the Dtr redactions, he places no emphasis on detailing the nature of these early texts and their social milieu, as he does for the later communities. That he provides both theological and sociological analysis of the several Dtr communities is helpful in the development of a portrait of the historical communities that shape particular passages and the factors that are at work in their development. Harmut Spenner, 2000]); McKane (the rolling corpus theory—McKane, Jeremiah 1); and Konrad Schmid (a ve stage redaction process—Konrad Schmid, Buchgestalten des Jeremiabuches: Untersuchngen zur Redaktions- und Rezeptionsgeschichte von Jer 30–33 im Kontext des Buches [Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament 72; Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1996]) to be simply modications of Thiel rather than replacements. Albertz, Israel in Exile, 307–12. 79. Albertz summarizes these proposals in tabular form. Ibid., 321. 1

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Albertz’s delineation of the issues that shape communities in the reform period of Josiah and their subsequent struggle inside and outside of the land in the face of the imperial will to power remains useful for this work. Building on the work of Norbert Lohnk, Albertz asserts the possibility of isolating different Dtr groups around the period the Jeremiah traditions are developed; for him, this is to be done on the basis of historical investigation rather than on “linguistic indications.”80 He believes the Dtr responsible for the basic text of the DtrH (whom he labels as DtrG) are associated with the Hilkiades party that supports the royal family and the religious establishment of Jerusalem. This group supports the nationalist bent of the reforms of Josiah—in particular, the centralization of worship in Jerusalem. They take an openly antagonistic position towards Babylon. On the other hand, he suggests that the Dtr responsible for the Jeremiah tradition (JerD) are associated with the “reform party” that includes the inuential Shaphanide family who are sympathetic to Jeremiah. This group hopes to advance the reforms of Josiah and advocates a supportive view towards Babylon. Prior to their emergence as two groups, Albertz posits, these parties were unied in their support of Josiah’s reforms. With the death of Josiah, however, differences emerge on the way forward, the extent of the reforms, as well as foreign relations with Babylon.81 The binary oppositions of nationalist/antinationalist and pro-Babylon/ anti-Babylon positions that Albertz uses proves unhelpful for my purposes. He identies the Hilkiade party with a “national, anti-Babylonian policy” and the Shaphanide party with an antinationalist “pro-Babylonian position.”82 These oppositions reinforce the notion that the positions advocated in the book of Jeremiah, and groups sympathetic to Jeremiah, represent an easy surrender of the national will to the imperial power. They fail to indicate that nationalist sentiments could also accommodate a pro-Babylonian policy. Equally, these oppositions do not allow for the possibility that antinationalist positions could outline a different conception of the nation without abandoning the idea of the nation. The postcolonial approach to the book of Jeremiah engages these complexities. In 80. Rainer Albertz, “In Search of the Deuteronomists: A First Solution to a Historical Riddle,” in The Future of the Deuteronomistic History (ed. Thomas C. Römer; BETL 147; Leuven: Peteers, 2000), 11. Albertz argues that “Deuteronomism” should not be seen as a homogeneous movement but as a “ ‘theological movement’ to which quite diverse groups with different interests could adhere.” Albertz, Israel in Exile, 322. 81. Albertz, “In Search of the Deuteronomists,” 10–17. 82. Ibid., 12. 1

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pursuing the question of place, as it can be read in the Jeremiah tradition, I read the struggles of the historical communities from the context of having to deal with imperial power. The work of Albertz presents opportunities for engaging the complexities of the Dtr traditions that exist around the time of the formation of the book of Jeremiah. While not fully claiming that all the sub-groups responsible for the three levels of redactional activity in the Jeremiah traditions belong to the Shaphanide party, Albertz believes that they are theologically and politically closer to the tradition than the Hilkiade party.83 His position offers that the Jeremiah traditions emerge in the context of a political and theological struggle occasioned in part and exacerbated by the Babylonian imperium. The struggle of these historical communities to respond and adjust to implications of imperial power and how these are manifested in the text of the book of Jeremiah become germane for reading the book from a postcolonial perspective. In the search for the needle in the haystack, that is, the prophet Jeremiah, Albertz provides an opportunity to search for the needle that pays attention to the hay. 2. Conclusion The focus upon the historical communities that produce and interpret the text of the book of Jeremiah, as advanced by Albertz, draws upon the two major approaches of Jeremiah studies. While tracing the precise details of particular communities’ associations with specic passages is not my focus here, the exegetical explorations balance the historicist and non-historicist approaches through the use of postcolonial theory. While not advocating for a person named Jeremiah as author along the lines of Weippert, I accept that a “kernel” of the prophet’s original words are available and can be derived through close textual reading and comparison of text traditions. What traditionists place in the mouth of Jeremiah remains not just instructive about those communities but also revelatory about the general perceptions and reality of the individual who may or may not stand behind the gure of the prophet. A study of the growth of the text as advocated by McKane and practiced by Carroll with the historicist instincts of Holladay, provides insights into how communities closer to the presumed date of the prophet appropriate the message and adapt it to their prevailing circumstances. Carroll’s emphasis on the importance of communities as well as ideology in the text indicates how the message of the text reects the struggles of real communities dealing 83. Albertz, Israel in Exile, 325. 1

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with the reality of empire. Orienting the reading of the book in the direction of the historical communities that either heard the prophet, read the message, received the tradition, or re-interpreted it, along the lines of Albertz’s model proves valuable for establishing links with a postcolonial reading of the various texts. Even more, this orientation helps the reader to confront the socio-political and religious realities consonant with the advent and onslaught of empire and the adjustments those communities make in their struggle to nd their place in the world.

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Chapter 3

THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH IN POSTCOLONIAL PERSPECTIVE

Modern academic scholarship has developed a variety of theoretical approaches, such as poststructuralism and postmodernism, that are popular in diverse elds, including philosophy, art, and literary criticism. Shared presuppositions of critical theories that blur traditional disciplinary boundaries and regard meaning as indeterminate and contingent enable this diverse usage.1 The same features characterize postcolonial theory. Regarded as a method of literary criticism that has become, what Sugirtharajah calls, one of the most “notoriously argumentative critical categories of our time,”2 postcolonial theory serves as a method of literary enquiry about geo-political power and its implications in everyday life. Its concerns are about texts, primarily but not exclusively. As such, given both the role of the Bible in modern colonialism as well as the impact of imperial powers upon the fate of the ancient nation of Israel in the narrative text, the Bible serves as an appropriate site for postcolonial enquiry. 1. Postcolonial Theory and Biblical Studies Postcolonial theory presupposes that imperial power exists by more than just force. Imperial power also relies upon principles and systems that inscribe their dominance on the minds of subject people. Edward Said observes that imperialism “is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images, and imaginings.”3 This 1. Peter Barry outlines ve ideas common to modern critical theories: (1) uidity of meaning and social categories; (2) the denial of the possibility of objective analysis; (3) the ability of language to construct reality; (4) the slippery nature of meaning; (5) suspicion of totalizing concepts. Peter Barry, Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), 34–36. 2. Sugirtharajah, Postcolonial Criticism, 1. 3. Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Knopf, 1994), 7.

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reality suggests the need for reection and analysis on the various discursive methods that support historical acts of imperialism. Denitions for postcolonial theory vary widely. This tool, used in the service of articulating a relevant critique of unequal geo-political relationships, serves as a lens to contest interpretation of texts and histories, as well as to theorize structures of power in gender, race, ethnic, and national contestations. From its inception, postcolonial theory has been marked by its diversity of concerns as much as by its varied approaches and usages. As a tool for the critical engagement of literary texts, postcolonial theory has grown out of what is known as Commonwealth Literary Studies.4 This grouping embraces novelists and thinkers of former British colonies resident and writing, for the most part, in London. Around the mid-1960s these writers discover kindred themes, concerns, and strategies in their writings. While they cluster around the shared experience of the British colonial project, they come from such diverse places as Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. Their ethnicities vary as much as their native languages. The unifying desire to shake off the burden of colonial power and to nd a medium to write and speak clusters them in a denable area of study. This early stage of anticolonial novelistic writing can be regarded as the writing mode of postcolonial theory. Other persons locate the origins of postcolonial theory in the strident anticolonial rhetoric of gures such as Aimé Cesaire, Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi, and C. L. R. James. These individuals ght modes of European colonialism in a variety of places. For example, Fanon, a Martiniquan, is involved in the struggle against the French in Algeria. James, a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago and an avowed Marxist, engages British colonialism at home and latterly in Britain as well as racism in the U.S. This group includes mostly individuals involved in the struggle against dened nation-states. Bart Moore-Gilbert argues for the expansion of this group to take in W. E. B. Du Bois and the creative resistance of the Harlem Renaissance. He insists on a diverse geographical spread that incorporates Nigerian Chinua Achebe, Senegalese Cheikh Anta Diop 4. This view is expressed by Ashcroft, Grifths and Tifn. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Grifths, and Helen Tifn, eds., The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures (London: Routledge, 1989), 2. Vijay Mishra and Bob Hodge concur and suggest that postcolonial theory is a more appropriate term than Commonwealth Literary Studies. Vijay Mishra and Bob Hodge, “What is Post (-) Colonialism?,” in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader (ed. Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman; Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1999), 276. 1

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and Ranajit Guha, an Indian resident in Australia.5 The diversity and their range of rhetorical engagement give shape and impetus to political movements in the forefront of decolonization efforts. This cluster of thinkers can be regarded as the political mode of postcolonial theory. As an academic discipline, postcolonial theory owes its genesis to the work of Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabha. While each can be legitimately regarded as a cultural critic or literary critic, their production and engagement of postcoloniality take them in diverse directions. Said’s work Orientalism discusses the formation of knowledge in the production of the orient as an object of the West. This has led him to critical engagement with the struggle in Palestine. Spivak’s seminal question, “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” represents her engagement with disempowered peoples and women as part of the Subaltern studies group. Bhabha’s attention to hybridity, mimicry, and boundary issues ushers in attention to the metropolitan center as a space for theorizing postcolonial identities. This third mode, the academic, naturally receives greatest attention in scholarly circles, but actually builds on earlier work. Any critical engagement of postcolonial theory will encounter these three complex starting points: personalities, trajectories, and engagements. By its nature postcolonial theory is multidimensional. Stephen Slemon, in acknowledging it as the successor of Commonwealth Literary Studies, nds its concerns exhaustive, covering “a remarkably heterogeneous set of subject positions, professional elds, and critical enterprises.”6 Since its concerns extend beyond the analysis of literary texts, there exists no single theoretical framework to discover; no methodologies to master; no disciplinary markers that dene an objective reality. Rather, subjectivity is foregrounded and celebrated. Robert Young points to the diversity of postcolonial theory’s concerns: “Postcolonial theory involves multiple activities with a range of different priorities and positions.”7 Essentially, postcolonial theory stands as an organizing principle that combines multiple competencies, practices and positions to theorize and create

5. Bart Moore-Gilbert, Postcolonial Theory: Contexts, Practices, Politics (London: Verso, 1997), 5. 6. Stephen Slemon, “The Scramble for Post-Colonialism,” in De-Scribing Empire: Post-Colonialism and Textuality (ed. Ian Adam and Helen Tifn; London: Routledge, 1994), 45. 7. Young, Postcolonialism, 64. As a reading strategy, Barry identies four characteristics of postcolonial analysis: (1) concern about representations of nonEuropeans by Europeans; (2) concern for the taint of language; (3) acknowledgment of identity as hybrid and unstable; (4) and a stress on cross cultural interactions. Barry, Beginning Theory, 193–95. 1

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solidarity around present and past geo-political relations.8 It serves interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary purposes.9 Given the different streams that feed into postcolonial theory, two major foci can be identied: rst, the focus on the discursive power of cultural and linguistic production by and about colonial society;10 and secondly, a concentration on the material effects of colonialism upon colonized peoples and nations.11 These two major foci interact in an analytical environment that pays attention to the history of colonialism for particular communities and how the discursive practices of that community engage that history. The analysis, however, goes beyond historical review of materials and knowledge to engage the current realities of that community in order to address the continuing effects of the legacy of colonialism upon the community. Therefore, postcolonial analysis is not simply restricted to the past, and lays no claim to the conclusion of colonial activity. Postcolonial analysis offers more than mere recuperation of knowledge and histories as artifacts.12 Postcolonial

8. Sugirtharajah includes “textual and praxiological practice” as part of his denition of postcolonialism. R. S. Sugirtharajah, The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 247. 9. Graham Huggan believes that the presence of multidisciplinary perspectives in postcolonial studies is a reection of a prior “politico-theoretical insight already central to the eld.” Graham Huggan, “Postcolonial Studies and the Anxiety of Interdisciplinarity,” Postcolonial Studies 5 (2002), 254. 10. Said’s work on “colonial discourse analysis” is representative of this trend. Young, Postcolonialism, 385. See also Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1994). 11. Fanon’s writings on the Algerian colonial experience catalog mainly the psychological and sociological impact of colonialism upon the colonized. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (trans. Constance Farrington; New York: Grove, 1963). Walter Rodney provides a treatment of the economic effects of colonial society in his inuential work. Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1981). 12. Anne McClintock raises questions on the implications and accuracy of the term “postcolonial.” She warns against the premature celebration of the end of colonialism that is suggested by the term. Anne McClintock, “The Angel of Progress: Pitfalls of the Term ‘Post-Colonial’,” in Williams and Chrisman, eds., Colonial Discourse, 293. Ato Quayson highlights two senses of the term “postcolonial” to mean “after colonialism” and “dealing with the effects of colonialism.” Ato Quayson, “Instrumental and Synoptic Dimensions of Interdisciplinarity in Postcolonial Studies,” in Postcolonial Theory and Criticism: Essays and Studies (ed. Laura Chrisman and Benita Perry; Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2000), 76. I do not use “postcolonial” as a temporal marker but rather as an indicator of the continuity of colonialism. 1

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analysis forges reection and action upon present geo-political realities and their genealogies. Tifn and Lawson underscore the need for postcolonial theory to produce broad levels of engagement beyond literary scrutiny: The rst stage of a process of de-scribing Empire is to analyze where and how our view of things is inected (or infected) by colonialism and its constituent elements of racism, over-categorization, and deferral to the center. The processes of history and of European historicizing continue to warrant attention, but they should not seduce us into believing that describing Empire is a project simply of historical recuperation.13

The Bible represents the work of different imperial forces on multiple levels. Compiled, edited, and authored amidst the background of a series of empires, the Bible deals with the fortunes of the nation of Israel/Judah in relation to these empires. As a minority group in the context of empire, Israel/Judah possesses little military power to control its destiny. As a text product of the era of colonization and domination, the Bible represents a discourse of resistance and accommodation to the realities of empires. While imperial authorship of portions of the Bible cannot be proven with certainty, evidence of imperial sponsorship of the development of texts can be seen.14 In the case of apocryphal material, for instance, imperial censorship of texts may be at work. The Bible develops in the midst of the maelstrom of empire. Postcolonial theory suggests that texts created in such close proximity to empire bear the marks of the struggle to deal with imperial power. Texts such as those in the Bible may subvert and resist imperial power. Equally, they may support such power, as authors and communities perceive such powers to be benecial. The history behind the Bible, the history of the formation and transmission of the biblical texts, and the content of the texts themselves, represent the experience of imperialism in the ancient world.15

13. Tifn and Lawson, eds., De-Scribing Empire, 9. 14. For recent treatment of the debate on Persian sponsorship of pentateuchal traditions, see James W. Watts, ed., Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch (SBLSymS 17; Atlanta: SBL, 2001). 15. Segovia suggests that the disciplinary range of postcolonial studies makes it suitable for biblical criticism. He sees both as combining reection on several levels: “the world of antiquity, the world of the Near East or of the Mediterranean Basin; the world of modernity, the world of Western hegemony and expansionism; and the world of postmodernity, the world of post/neoimperialism on the part of the West and post/neocolonialism on the part of the Two-Thirds World.” Segovia, “Postcolonial and Diasporic Criticism,” 183. 1

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The Bible plays a pivotal role in the practice and perpetuation of modern European colonialism. Its discourse of conquest and domination inspires and, in some cases, nurtures the will to empire.16 It serves as a tool of domestication of indigenous people and a means of devaluing and deligitimating indigenous culture.17 Musa Dube describes the effects of the Bible’s complicity in colonial and imperial practices as evoking “dangerous memories of slavery, colonialism, apartheid, and neo-colonialism. To read the Bible as an African is to relive the painful equation of Christianity with civilization, paganism and savagery.”18 Therefore, as Sugirtharajah proposes, the use of postcolonial theory in biblical studies “unmask[s] the link between idea and power”19 at the level of the text and the reading of texts. A postcolonial perspective engages the Bible on several levels. This can mean close reading of texts qua text to discover embedded codes of resistance or otherwise, to explore rhetorical shapes, and to examine literary constructions. It also means a study of the history of the text and its history of interpretation to analyze how the texts are used in communities in response to the experience of empire. The history of contested power behind the text that generates the material also gets highlighted.20 As a reading strategy that emerges out of the experience of the colonized, postcolonial theory views texts as avenues for resistance. It sees the Bible as subsumed within the rhetorics of resistance to colonial and hegemonic power, whether it be at the level of the text or the reading of the text. The Bible becomes a tool for anticolonial and decolonizing struggles. African American scholars show how, in the context of slave society created by colonial powers, enslaved Africans reread and rewrite the scriptural texts that their enslavers use to justify their bondage. While 16. The entries in Christopher Columbus’ diary for Friday August 3, 1492, include quotations from Isa 65:17 and Rev 21:11 alongside his note to the Spanish monarchs that his conquest of the lands also included the task of converting natives to Christianity. Michael Prior, The Bible and Colonialism: A Moral Critique (Shefeld: Shefeld Academic, 1997), 53–54. 17. Referring to the Bible as the “English Book,” Bhabha makes the point of its introduction in the colonized world as a universalizing principle similar to European cultural dominance. Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), 102–22. 18. Musa W. Dube, “Towards a Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible,” Semeia 78 (1997): 13. 19. R. S. Sugirtharajah, “A Postcolonial Exploration of Collusion and Construction in Biblical Interpretation,” in The Postcolonial Bible (ed. R. S. Sugirtharajah; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic, 1998), 93. 20. Segovia, “Postcolonial and Diasporic Criticism,” 185–86. 1

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Europeans read themselves into the exodus narrative as the new Israel, the enslaved Africans counter-read the narrative to see themselves as the oppressed and enslaved Israelites in bondage in Egypt delivered by divine acts against entrenched power.21 The prominence of resistance motifs within readings supported by postcolonial theory does not suggest that postcolonial readings create a narrative of liberation. A distinction exists between resistance and the idea of revolution. In this regard, Sugirtharajah nds Liberation Theology inadequate to theorize current “third world” realities.22 I accept the general critique of Sugirtharajah that liberation hermeneutics does not sufciently interrogate the ideologies inherent in the biblical texts. At the same time, I make no claim that postcolonial theory supersedes liberation hermeneutics as the preferred method of biblical enquiry. Postcolonial theory outlines the effects of colonialism on the lives of real communities and engages the complex issues that attend this reality. Therefore, postcolonial theory engages themes such as conquest, invasion, occupation, displacement, exile and forced migration, and cultural assimilation. These themes do not exist in a vacuum, and they interact and intersect with issues such as ethnicity, gender, class and political 21. See Raboteau’s exploration of the conicting interpretations of the Exodus narrative. Albert J. Raboteau, A Fire in the Bones: Reections on African-American Religious History (Boston: Beacon, 1999), 32. 22. This distinction raises the question of the relationship between postcolonial theory and Liberation Theology. Marcella Althaus-Reid and Jack Thompson regard both theoretical formulations as sharing the task of interrogating ideology and unmasking the links that have been constructed between ideology and other forms of knowledge. Marcella Althaus-Reid and T. Jack Thompson, “Postcolonialism and Religion,” Stud World Chr 5 (1999): ii. Similarly, John Beverly sees both Liberation Theology and Subaltern Studies, a companion of postcolonial studies, as creating the opportunities for solidarity with the people who are the objects of the academic study. John Beverly, Subalternity and Representation: Arguments in Cultural Theory (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999), 38. Sugirtharajah, on the other hand, while he recognizes the shared vocation of both theories, regards Liberation Theology as “still stuck with some of the vices of the modernistic project.” His critique of Liberation Theology takes issue with its implication of salvation in history and the “Jesus Christ saga” in its “interpretative pursuits,” its biblicist approach, its reication of the poor, and its preoccupation with binary opposites. Sugirtharajah, Postcolonial Criticism, 103–23. Sugirtharajah’s critique is more useful on the inadequacies of Liberation Theology that result in part from its Marxist moorings. His critique of liberation hermeneutics is equally harsh: “Instead of being a new agent in the ongoing work of God, liberation hermeneutics has ended up reecting upon the theme of biblical liberation rather than being a liberative hermeneutics. Sugirtharajah, The Bible and the Third World, 243. 1

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power. Postcolonial analysis is informed by the complex interactions that proceed from the contact between colonizer and colonized and the way those interactions are manifested in the text, particularly in a text like the Bible. 2. The Book of Jeremiah in Imperial Context A reconstruction of the story behind and in front of the book of Jeremiah, from material in the text and other historical sources, indicates that it contains themes and issues of relevance to postcolonial analysis. The presumed date for Jeremiah’s career places him in the midst of the period where nationalist sentiments are in ux and the threat of powerful empires becomes an increasing reality. Whether or not an actual Jeremiah stands strongly in one camp that plays an inuential role in the daily affairs of the nation is not certain. This book presumes that the subsequent traditions that develop around the prophet and the communities that shape them do not remain immune from these factors. The arc of the narrative history that lies behind the book of Jeremiah reads as the interplay between empire and exile. Scholars generally place the historical Jeremiah’s work in the post-Josiah reform period. When these reforms begin in 621 B.C.E., Assyria’s role as the dominant imperial power starts to decline with the death of Ashurbanipal in 626 B.C.E. Alongside the destruction of local shrines and other cultic changes (2 Kgs 23), Josiah effects innovations to strengthen Jerusalem as the nation’s capital through a centralization of religious functions there, and consolidating national politics through the reclamation of territory to the north (2 Kgs 23:19; cf. 2 Chr 34:6–7). These political maneuvers appeal to nationalist sentiments and are enabled by the decline of Assyria. This allows Judah a measure of political independence not experienced for centuries. Josiah’s death soon afterwards in a battle for the preservation of national independence against the Egyptians in 609 B.C.E. (2 Kgs 23:29) cuts short this independence period. His death leads to a period of Egyptian vassalage with the appointment of Jehoiakim as king (2 Kgs 23:31–35) and an uncertain future for the reforms which he initiated.23 23. Albertz argues that a reform party that supports Josiah installs the younger son Jehoahaz (2 Kgs 23:29–33) as a means of continuing the reforms initiated by Josiah. Since these reforms move in the direction of national renewal of Judah, Egypt scuttles this plan by placing Josiah’s older son Jehoiakim on the throne. Jehoiakim rewards the Egyptians with payment of tribute and in the process marginalizes the reform party that exerts inuence on the leadership. Rainer Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period. Vol. 1, From the Beginnings to the 1

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The impact of Josiah’s work upon Judah is felt beyond the connes of the cultic center in Jerusalem. Siegfried Horn argues that a resurgence of nationalist sentiment marks Josiah’s time: “In terms of national ideals, the assertion of the centrality of Jerusalem served to unify the country and strengthen the central government, and the mandate to return to perceived ancestral customs and values promoted national pride and cultural nostalgia.”24 No clarity exists as to whether or not these reforms and their nationalist goals are pursued actively after the death of Josiah. It can be inferred that this socio-political environment shapes the vocation of the prophet Jeremiah whether Jeremiah is viewed as a literary or historical gure. Whether one accepts that his career begins in 626 B.C.E.25 or 609 B.C.E.,26 the book sets itself within the historical context of Josiah’s resistance to Assyrian hegemony with its reference to the thirteenth year of Josiah (1:1). More importantly, this period reects Josiah’s reclamation of land in order to shore up national pride. The elements of empire and exile at this level result in overt resistance to imperial action. The shift in the alignment of power in Palestine holds consequences for Judah’s fortunes. After a brief hold on the Syria Palestine region, Egypt’s grasp gives way to the Babylonians who make several military campaigns into the area, incorporating territories close to Judah into their control. By 604 B.C.E., Jehoiakim softens his pro-Egyptian stance in preference for Babylonian vassalage (2 Kgs 24:1). However, with Egypt’s limited victories over Babylon in 601/600 B.C.E. (Jer 47), he climbs out from under Babylonian vassalage (2 Kgs 24:1–7). With the Egyptian resistance only a temporary setback, the Babylonian forces surround Jerusalem to demand payment of tribute in 598/597 B.C.E. leading to the deportation from Jerusalem to Babylon of King Jehoiachin who takes the throne after his father’s death, his family, and other prominent citizens (Jer 29:1–2; cf. 2 Kgs 24:8–17). The new king, Zedekiah, though contained by the Babylonian threat, harbors nationalist sentiments and hosts a summit of leaders in Jerusalem to plan a revolt against Babylon (Jer 27:3). Emboldened by the support, Zedekiah rebels against Babylon and precipitates the attack and destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E. End of the Monarchy (trans. John Bowden; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1994, 232. 24. Siegfried H. Horn, “The Divided Monarchy: The Kingdoms of Judah and Israel,” rev. P. Kyle McCarter, in Ancient Israel: From Abraham to the Roman Destruction of the Temple (ed. Hershel Shanks; Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall/Biblical Archaeology Society, 1999), 189. 25. So Hyatt, “Jeremiah and Deuteronomy,” 114. 26. So Holladay, “Chronology of Jeremiah,” 63. 1

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Zedekiah’s actions here reect those of Josiah, who offered active resistance to empire. With the destruction of the temple, the palace, the city walls, and most of the infrastructure in the city, the Babylonians kill the king’s son and humiliate the king by plucking out his eyes and deporting him to Babylon along with other citizens (Jer 52:3b–30; cf. 2 Kgs 25:1– 21). In the aftermath, the Babylonians install Gedaliah, a member of a leading Judean family, to govern the land (Jer 40:1–6; cf. 2 Kgs 25:22– 24). His rule however, is put down by local resistance elements. Fearing reprisals from the Babylonians, the group that gathers around Gedaliah retreats to Egypt, taking a reluctant Jeremiah with them (Jer 41; 43; cf. 2 Kgs 25:25–26). Ultimately, the book of Jeremiah ends with the loss of the land and the ascendance of the Babylonian Empire as the overt historical record (ch. 52). Yet, the Oracles against the Nations and other areas of the book offer pointed critiques of Babylon that suggest resistance to the empire. Even though, the book presents the historical narrative that places the empire on top, its appeal lies more in what the purported Jeremiah conveys to later communities of displaced persons. The history of empire and exile appears in the explicit text of the book but another story of empire and exile also appears at the implicit level of the book. Postcolonial theory unearths these subtle, hidden, implicit forms of resistance to empire. The career and message of the prophet Jeremiah speak to communities in the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem. Whether a historically veriable gure or a literary creation, the character of Jeremiah emerges from the unfolding events of the last days of Judah as an independent nation to help later communities respond to their fate. Consequently, the Jeremiah traditions continue to be valuable for subsequent generations who either remain in the land or are forced to live in other lands. These communities, particularly deported and diasporic communities, preserve and transform the Jeremiah tradition to t their circumstances.27 At least three communities inuence which groups preserve the Jeremiah traditions in the aftermath of the destruction, the ones in Babylon, Egypt and Jerusalem. With regards to Jerusalem, although the impression exists that Jerusalem ends as a ruined heap and is therefore uninhabitable, the biblical text goes back and forth on the issue of continued residence in the 27. Carolyn Sharp shows how the present form of the book is largely the work of two traditioning groups; a Judah-based platform and a “pro-gôlâ platform.” Carolyn J. Sharp, Prophecy and Ideology in Jeremiah: Struggles for Authority in the DeuteroJeremianic Prose (Old Testament Studies; London: T&T Clark, 2003), 157–69. 1

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city.28 Mostly unskilled persons remain in Jerusalem since the majority of the ruling elite and artisans are deported (Jer 29:1). However, a sizeable number of persons remain in the land. Peter Ackroyd believes that “only a small proportion of the population” experience deportation.29 Similarly, James Purvis surmises that about 90 percent remain in the region.30 The effect of the deportation of the ruling elite shifts the balance of power from the urban center to the villages. Albertz’s observation that the small landowners and the landless lower classes remained in the land reveals the social composition of the community that remains in Jerusalem.31 Jon Berquist regards this sociological shift as the deurbanization of the region that results in population centers, economic activity, and the leadership being concentrated in the hands of the formerly landless and disempowered rural base.32 The emergence of this leadership in the villages takes place alongside the agrarian reform that places property into the hands of peasants (39:10; 40:10). This shift to the villages creates what Ackroyd thinks of as “a considerable social revolution.”33 Despite these changes, the community remains stratied, with leaders such as Gedaliah (40:5) and military chiefs gaining their authority by hereditary rights (40:7, 8, 13). These new leaders seem to replace the ruling monarchy and continue a system of taxation, as indicated in such texts as Lam 5:12–18. Albertz notes that, with regards to the leadership structure, little changes “for the majority of small farming families.”34 A similar scenario of stability and change exist at the temple in Jerusalem. There is evidence of continued worship at the temple,35 though with the leadership coming from priests unconnected to the Jerusalem 28. In Jer 39:8–9 (cf. 2 Kgs 25:9–11) the image of complete destruction and deportation is quickly tempered by indications of continued residence in Jer 39:10 (cf. 2 Kgs 25:12). 29. Peter R. Ackroyd, Exile and Restoration (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968), 22. 30. James D. Purvis, “Exile and Return: From the Babylonian Destruction to the Reconstruction of the Jewish State,” rev. Eric M. Meyers, in Shanks, ed., Ancient Israel, 202. 31. Rainer Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period. Vol. 2, From the Exile to the Maccabees (trans. John Bowden; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 371. 32. Jon L. Berquist, Judaism in Persia’s Shadow: A Social and Historical Approach (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 17. 33. Ackroyd, Exile and Restoration, 23. 34. Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion, vol. 2, 372. 35. See Daniel L. Smith, The Religion of the Landless: The Social Context of the Babylonian Exile (Bloomington, Ind.: Meyer-Stone, 1989), 34–35. 1

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religious establishment (41:4). Priests also perform functions outside of Jerusalem, possibly at high places and shrines dedicated to the worship of YHWH.36 The community that remains in Jerusalem adapts to the changed circumstances and in the process re-establishes life in the region. Presumably, a base exists in that community that preserves and transmits religious traditions such as those of Jeremiah. Ackroyd thinks that, to the extent that this is a viable community, it holds the capacity “to produce very substantial and profound assessments of the meaning of the event and their signicance.”37 The Babylonian exilic community also proves signicant for the book of Jeremiah. Although the material evidence for the nature of this community remains scant, indications suggest that they settle in closed communities on royal land. In this setting they prosper economically and set up what Albertz believes to be a form of self-government headed by priests, prophets and elders.38 Berquist suggests, based upon the views presented by Ezekiel and Deutero Isaiah, that the deportees live in two major locales. He posits that some live in rural areas involved in agriculture and another group lives in the urban areas, serving various governmental functions by virtue of their education and experience. Berquist asserts that these differing geographic as well as social locations account, in part, for the divergent responses to the experience in Babylon.39 That the Babylonian group consists mainly of the former ruling and literate elites helps to explain in part the continued relevance of Davidic and Zion theology among the Babylonian exiles. Albertz believes that the Babylonian community, made up mostly of members of the “nationalistic party,” adopts a national and anti-Babylonian policy and includes such persons as Jehoiachin and Zedekiah, with notable support from priests such as Pashhur and prophets such as Hananiah.40 This “nationalistic party” operates on a platform “centered on Zion and kingship theology,” among other things.41 To all intents and purposes, for this community Jehoiachin serves as their recognized leader. His release in 561 B.C.E. by a new Babylonian administration may indicate hopes of the revival of the Davidic monarchy and national restoration. Purvis thinks 36. Berquist, Judaism in Persia’s Shadow, 17. 37. Ackroyd, Exile and Restoration, 29. 38. Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion, vol. 2, 373. 39. Berquist’s argument is constructed on the picture in Ezekiel (Ezek 1:1; 8:1; 14:1), which he believes points to a rural setting. He, however, does not provide any information for his arguments in relation to Deutero-Isaiah. Berquist, Judaism in Persia’s Shadow, 15–18. 40. Albertz, “In Search of the Deuteronomists,” 12. 41. Ibid., 14. 1

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that former Jerusalem priests and religious ofcials who served the establishment would be in the forefront of shaping public thought with regards to the release of Jehoiachin.42 Similarly, Albertz suggests that the former social position of the Babylonian exiles, their economic abilities and intellectual resources, coupled with an enduring connection with Jerusalem explains why this group “constantly provided important stimuli towards the renewal of Yahweh religion, during the exile and also beyond.”43 It is therefore easy to see how this group, who Purvis surmises would be involved in the editing and reshaping of the religious tradition, could pass on similar views in the Jeremiah traditions.44 The third community around which the Jeremiah traditions develop resides in Egypt. Unlike the Babylonian community, the Egyptian community consists of voluntary emigrés (ch. 42) who settle in various parts of Lower and Upper Egypt (44:1). Settlements develop in Egyptian garrison cities, indicating that the members serve as soldiers of fortune for the Egyptians.45 The connections between these early communities and the later fourth-century B.C.E. Jewish colony centered at the Elephantine military garrison remain uncertain. However, the Elephantine community provides an insight into the social context of these early communities. Elephantine is noted for its construction of a temple, with Persian resources, for YHWH worship sometime before 525 B.C.E. The worship life of this temple holds distinctive features that set it apart from the practices occurring at Jerusalem in the period following the reforms of Josiah.46 The Egyptian community seeks Persian resources for the construction of the temple and serves as mercenaries for the Persians against the Egyptians. Smith-Christopher holds the view that the Egyptian community functions as a place of refuge away from Babylonian power and in some respects from the Jerusalem ruling establishment.47 This 42. Purvis, “Exile and Return,” 208. Albertz points out that a favorable view of Jehoiachin would have emerged from DtrG, as seen in 2 Kgs 25:27–30, while the negative view of the deposed king is developed by JerD circles as evidenced in Jer 22:24–30. Albertz, “In Search of the Deuteronomists,” 6–8. 43. Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion, vol. 2, 374. 44. Purvis, “Exile and Return,” 208. 45. Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion, vol. 2, 374. 46. Citing Bezalel Porten, Purvis argues that the community is made up of priests who leave Jerusalem during the time of Manasseh with the desire for a purer strain of Yahwism. Purvis, “Exile and Return,” 215. Albertz characterizes the theological outlook of the Egyptian exiles as “conservative religious self-sufciency.” He further notes that this group does not participate in the theological renewals that take place during the exilic period. Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion, vol. 2, 374. 47. Smith-Christopher, A Biblical Theology of Exile, 70. 1

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helps to explain, in part, the virulent positions in the book of Jeremiah towards Egypt and those who seek refuge there (chs. 43–44).48 As a text set against and formed within the context of empire, the book of Jeremiah serves as a fertile ground for postcolonial explorations. The message of the prophet is directed to communities that either face or live with a history of the threat of imperial domination. These communities witness the violent occupation of their land by imperial forces, live through the destruction of state apparatuses and national symbols, face the ambiguities of statelessness and loss of land, and negotiate new identities in foreign contexts. In the arc of the story of the book of Jeremiah, whether recuperated using historical or literary data, these elements form the foci of a postcolonial analysis. The arc reects the elements of empire and exile. Underneath all this lie historical communities, both outside of and inside of the land, attempting to provide meaning for their displaced and landless status. These issues, so current within the book of Jeremiah, reect the outcomes of imperial action, a common fate of postcolonials. 3. The Question of Place The narrative of the book of Jeremiah ends with the main character, Jeremiah, being taken against his will into Egypt (43:5–7) and an ambiguous picture presented by the release of Jehoiachin from prison (52:31–34). This narrative ends in displacement but with expectations of restoration to a homeland. Further, the Hebrew version of the book places the Oracles against the Nations at the close of the book (chs. 46– 51), leaving a trail of antagonism against the foreigner in the wake of the book. The words of Jeremiah, authentic or ctive, point to various ways of dealing with the threat and reality of deportation as well as life in the land. The book wrestles with the issue of displacement. Carroll posits that “discourses about land are fundamental to the book, especially in relation to its possession, its loss and its subsequent retrieval. Behind these many textual moments may be traced aspects of land ideology which are so characteristic of the rest of the Hebrew Bible.”49 The foregrounding of the question of place in reading the biblical narrative would make the Judean exile and not the exodus out of Egypt the dominant lens for reading the Bible. Admittedly, exile and exodus are 48. Albertz believes that the negative view of the Egyptian exilic community develops in Jerusalem: “emigration to Egypt was a Judean problem; it was irrelevant to the Babylonian golah.” Albertz, Israel in Exile, 325. 49. Carroll, “The Book of J,” 238. 1

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opposite sides of the same coin. This switch to exile as the dominant mode of reading recognizes the power dynamics in the determination of place. The narrative of exile is a narrative produced by disempowered and displaced people who navigate their place amidst dominant power. While triumphalist rhetoric may be present in the narrative, this reects more of their aspirations for the inversion of power than any reality. Liberation theology has mined the motif of the exodus50 to focus attention on oppression, particularly historically oppressive acts such as the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and other forms of enslavement, bondage, and hegemony, such as patriarchy, ethnic, and gender superiority, state, and nationalist power, as well as economic and nancial concentrations. The goal for those at the wrong end of these systems is liberation by an immanent God in an act of triumphalism. The ethics of such a reading strategy pay insufcient attention to all forms of oppression within biblical texts and make the liberation of a single victim its exclusive goal. As long as a victimized group can read its victimhood within the text and locate sources of liberation, it is regarded as a viable reading even if in the process that act of liberation results in victimization for other groups.51 The overemphasis on and limited interpretation of the exodus narrative creates the impression that “liberation” as represented in the sea event with the destruction of the oppressor serves as the center-piece of divine liberation. Consequently, the more ambiguous aspects of the exodus narrative, such as the wilderness experience and the dispossession of the Canaanites, remain overlooked. Exposing the exile as a reading lens helps to overcome the neglect of the tensions and struggles encountered by subject peoples both at the level of the text and the reading of the text.52 Realigning a reading of the Bible to foreground the issue of place brings the ambivalences of displaced life in the context of empire 50. Sugirtharajah points out that Gustavo Gutiérrez redresses the misconception that liberation hermeneutics is blindly preoccupied with the exodus narrative. Sugirtharajah, The Bible and the Third World, 208. 51. Warrior points out how the act and narrative of liberation produces the specter of displacement for native populations. Robert Allen Warrior, “A Native American Perspective: Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians,” in Voices from the Margins: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World (ed. R. S. Sugirtharajah; London: Orbis/SPCK, 2000), 277. 52. The notions of exile and exodus provide a productive tension between liberation hermeneutics and postcolonial theory. The notion of liberation is not completely lost on postcolonial theory, which views liberation as a protracted process achieved by prolonged acts of resistance rather than whole-scale revolution. I return to this issue in Chapter 7. 1

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towards the center. Given current patterns of migration, the experience of Judean displacement holds afnities with the experience of those who call themselves postcolonials today. It provides a level of engagement and interrogation that does not work in a top-down or bottom-up structured reality, but rather reads across the intersections, margins, and categories of a pluriform reality. A focus on place limits the privilege of statehood and nationalism as goals, tools, and sites for resistance. The struggle to assert place focuses on the ambivalences and tensions of minoritarian existence in the midst of being overdetermined. Smith-Christopher argues for the notion of exile as a controlling image that shapes the Church’s theology. For him, statelessness is not a powerless condition but one where violent power cannot be used and therefore there is an investment in survival and creative means of survival. The power of exiles, Smith-Christopher offers, lies in their relinquishing of their condence in the nation-state to dene and guarantee their existence, and their investment in strategies to “remain rmly engaged in the world.”53 Here Smith-Christopher argues for space to be decentered so as to locate new bases for power. His arguments are particularly useful in the analysis of issues relating to those who are disempowered by the structures of global power, such as exiles, migrants, and the displaced. I present a case for the decentering of space as a determinant of identity and subjectivity, and instead for the foregrounding of a sense of place as a source of empowerment for those who exist in contested space. Using the question of place as the lens through which to read the book of Jeremiah makes possible an encounter with the struggle of a people for identity, views the negotiations that take place in the face of colonial and imperial power, listens to the voices that write back from the margins to the center, searches for the echoes of protest in imitations, imagines categories being constructed for and by peoples, and detects a distinct sound in multivocal reverberations. 4. Conclusion The fragmented and contested nature of the Jeremiah text requires an approach that combines several disciplines. An interdisciplinary approach to the text highlights its variety and complexity, while at the same time confronting the problems of textual transmission, multiple authors and editing, dating and historical challenges, among other things. As an 53. Smith-Christopher outlines what he calls “The Postcolonialist Mandate of the Church in Exile” using the texts of Tobit and Daniel. Smith-Christopher, A Biblical Theology of Exile, 189–203. 1

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interdisciplinary analytical tool, postcolonial theory provides a reading strategy that honors both historicist and literary approaches to the book of Jeremiah. The postcolonial approach views the book in the historical circumstances that generate its message and its reception in later communities. It highlights potential discursive and other connections between the texts and contemporary reading communities that share a history of colonization. History—actual, interpreted, and refracted—is a contested idea in Jeremiah studies. The present work will not resolve these thorny issues of history in Jeremiah studies. Rather, this work demonstrates how these issues can be confronted using the material available in the text and behind it to recover a history of the communities that receive the prophet’s message. It also shows how a historicist approach can benet from an analysis of the discourse in the text of Jeremiah. The use of postcolonial theory, therefore, claims that history stands as a central factor in the book and that diachronic strategies are crucial to an appropriate reading of the material. It is necessary to state these claims in this way, not to privilege historicist and diachronic approaches, but rather to demonstrate that postcolonial theory is not exclusively a literary approach. In fact, postcolonial theory dees the neat categories of “historicist” and “literary” and strives for an integrated analysis of discursive and other practices.

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Chapter 4

SAVING HOME: JEREMIAH 32:1–15

In many respects, home determines one’s identity, sense of self, and sense of place. While many persons take their names from their place of birth or their place of residence, names and identities can be formed in relation to a homeland despite the reality of physical separation. Home exists as much more than territory and the physical space to which one may stake claim. When threatened or forced to relinquish occupation of that place, strategies for saving home and redening one’s relationship with home emerge. This chapter explores how the report of Jeremiah’s purchase of property and the transmission of that symbolic action within the literary structures of the book of Jeremiah confront the reality of empire as it threatens the nation’s sense of place.1 1. I recognize that contemporary theoretical conceptions of nation do not apply to the ancient world. Therefore, I rely more upon use of terms in the Bible and other ancient Near Eastern notions to dene an understanding of nation. Duane Christensen observes that three words are used in reference to the nation in the Old Testament: (1)  is used most frequently for Israel as a people with the stress being on kinship ties; (2) , which emphasizes the political and social bonds more than kinship associations; (3)  , used in parallel with , but possibly having an original reference to a city with the ability to raise an army in time of war. Duane L. Christensen, “Nations,” ABD 4:1037. Mario Liverani notes that by the Iron Age the model of the nation is not dened on the basis of territory but on kinship ties. He, however, remarks that ties of “common language, common traditions (as revealed by genealogies and by etiological stories), and the common worship of a tribal god” adds a level of “political belonging” to the concept of the nation. Mario Liverani, “Nationality and Political Identity,” ABD 4:1033. Christensen’s concept of “nation” as people dened by their political and social bonds, as well as Liverani’s idea of political belongingness as dening the nation, inform my understanding of “nation.” Both of these conceptions do not regard territory as a dening characteristic of the nation. While the idea of the nation as a bounded space is acknowledged, it is the elements of kinship, religious ties, and shared ancestry and the like that are knit into a political unit that I wish to foreground in my usage of the term “nation” and the related term “nationality.”

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In the face of imperial threats to home, a strident nationalism that asserts its inalienable rights to land appears expected and desired. However, in order to be effective and successful such nationalist projects need to engage imperial power in strategic ways. Military, material, and economic confrontations will prove to be ineffective, while the assertion of indigenous traditions, as well as cultural and religious forms can provide an effective means for nationalist resistance to empire. Partha Chatterjee’s examination of anticolonial nationalism points to a division of society, with its institutions and practices, into material and spiritual domains. The material or outer domain centers on the elds of “the economy and of statecraft, of science and technology.” On the other hand, the spiritual or inner domain serves as the vehicle for “the essential marks of cultural identity,” and includes matters relating to religion, family, cultural practices, and traditions of the community, among other things.2 Chatterjee notes that imperial power can proceed unchallenged in the material or outer domain, given the superior material resources that empire normally possesses. He further shows that in order to provide effective resistance to empire, or to sustain a viable subjectivity, nationalism asserts its sovereignty in the spiritual domain and “refuses to allow the colonial power to intervene in that domain.”3 Chatterjee’s notion of saving a nation through resistance in the spiritual domain proves useful for exploring the notion of place as the adjustment required in the face of imperial power. Although interpreters view the narrative account of Jeremiah’s purchase of property set during the Babylonian siege of 587 B.C.E. as an antinationalist and pro-Babylonian act, I regard this narrative from a postcolonial perspective as an act of nationalist resistance to the empire. The purchase of ancestral property represents an example of the strategic choice not to engage imperial power in the material domain but rather to protect and assert national sovereignty in the spiritual domain. This reading disrupts the normative view that possession of the land signals the only viable nationalist expression in the text. 1. Interrupting Hope Jeremiah 32 occurs in what has been called the “Little Book of Consolation,” comprising chs. 30–33. These chapters provide an assortment of hopeful prophecies, along with elaborations intentionally placed together 2. Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 6. 3. Ibid. 1

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in this block of chapters to balance the messages of doom in the previous chapters.4 The designation “Little Book of Consolation” leads to a false assumption that every passage in these chapters carries a message of hope, and more particularly points to the possibility of return and restoration. This imposed understanding precludes other interpretations of these passages. This normative reading of hope suggests that the nation contents itself in the condence that sometime in the future it would reoccupy the land and exist as a nation once again. Most commentators agree that the message of hope stands as the dominant interpretation that should logically be drawn from the passage. Carroll, though skeptical about the historicity of the passage, nevertheless believes that it functions to create the vision of a hopeful future declared in chs. 30–31.5 Similarly, McKane posits that the action of the purchase of the land serves as an “afrmation” of the return to normalcy in the future, albeit an unknown future.6 Gerald Keown et al. read the passage as “a very practical word of assurance in the face of the massive dislocations resulting from conquest and exile,”7 even though the threat of exile or the length of possible exile from the land nowhere occurs in the passage. Both Norman Habel and R. E. Clements include notions of grace and sacrament in their readings. While Habel points to the public declaration from YHWH to act in grace to make the land available to the people in the future,8 Clements on the other hand points to the sacramental quality of Jeremiah’s action to apprehend in faith a future mediated through the sign of the purchase of the land.9 Hyatt remains restrained and uncommitted about calling this a sign of hope, though he sees the sign as a denite prediction about the future.10 These readings assume that the narrative detailing Jeremiah’s purchase of his relative’s land indicates what YHWH would do in the future to restore the land to the people after they are dispossessed. From a 4. R. E. Clements, Jeremiah (Int.; Atlanta: John Knox, 1988), 193; Bright, Jeremiah, 284. 5. Carroll questions the rationale for purchasing family property given the strained relations that exist between Jeremiah and his kin at Anathoth (11:21–23). He also raises questions about the source of Jeremiah’s income. Carroll, Jeremiah, 622. 6. McKane, Jeremiah 2, 841. 7. Gerald L. Keown, Pamela J. Scalise, and Thomas G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26–52 (Word Biblical Commentary 27; Waco, Tex.: Word, 1995), 155. 8. Norman C. Habel, Jeremiah, Lamentations (CC; St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia, 1968), 254. 9. Clements, Jeremiah, 194. 10. Hyatt, “The Book of Jeremiah,” 1043. 1

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postcolonial perspective, several difculties emerge in this reading of the passage and the sign. First, the understanding of the sign and its signiers are not read on their own terms, but rather through the interpretations suggested in v. 15 and to a lesser extent in v. 44. Sensing that vv. 7–15 may not be authentic material, McKane laments the possibility that the passage will be limited in its ability to provide “historical information” to help make sense of the obscure practices in vv. 11 and 14, viz. the sealed and the open deed referred to as  and .11 An intentional sociohistorical reading of the passage pays attention to how the purchase of the land operates as a signier on multiple levels, rather than just as a message of hope. The signication of the purchase of the land and the role of Jeremiah in the act bear no inherent analogous relationship to divine future activity,12 and ought not to be so easily truncated from the immediate historical context created by the text. This message of hope stands more as a product of the dominant meaning of the so-called Book of Consolation. Secondly, this interpretation of hope assumes that dispossession of the land only takes place for a stated period of time. In this regard, it represents a variant of the myth of the empty land, which assumes a vacancy in the land that entitles the rst claimants to possession.13 According to this reading, the displaced remain free to return and occupy the land, presumably because it lies empty and fallow during their absence. The evidence of the text (40:7) already testies to the problematic nature of this position. The assumption of an easy and seamless re-integration into the land plays into this imperial myth and portrays those with the prospect of return as an entering power. The idea of a temporary displacement from the land results in an ambiguous message, contrary to the condent one that traditional interpretations suggest. Assuming the audience of the message to be those

11. McKane, Jeremiah 2, 841. 12. I am thinking of Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory of the relationship between the sign and the signier that initially is arbitrary but through social conventions and other processes become xed. In a similar way I am arguing that the arbitrary relationship between the sign (the purchase of the property) and its signier is xed through redactional and interpretative dominance to be read exclusively as a message of hope. See Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Grifths, and Helen Tifn, eds., Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies (London: Routledge, 1998), 23. 13. Prior explores several historical instances of the production of the “virgin land or wilderness myth,” a myth that predicates occupation of indigenous land from the perspective that the land is either uninhabited or underpopulated. Prior, The Bible and Colonialism, 177. 1

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who were recently deported and noting that the prospect of restoration and return is envisaged to occur after “many days” (   , v. 14), then the notion of hope sounds tepid. The recently deported would not benet from such a change. Carroll’s effusive comments that the purchase reverses the “terrifying present”14 and secures a future in the land would have validity and hopeful signicance for much later generations, particularly those on the brink of re-occupying the land. Until that time a home in the land lies as a distant dream, and the idea of a nation remains illusory.15 Thirdly, the trajectory of hopeful interpretations betrays the notion that the Babylonian powers do all the acting while the Judeans powerlessly stand by. Setting the action against the backdrop of the Babylonian siege functions as a way of communicating the certainty of deportation, the certainty of destruction of the temple, and the certainty of the collapse of the Judean monarchy. All these mask the actions of the imperial power. From the perspective of a hopeful interpretation, the Judeans subject to this imperial threat remain powerless to act and make no response. The only response evident from the Judeans, according to this reading, lies in the quietist embrace of the hope for restoration in the far-off future. It assumes that the Judeans are complicit and cooperative in their own destruction by simply hoping for a better day and being content to accept the form of the nation and the terms for occupation of the land decreed for them. That such a decree had the divine imprimatur makes it even more problematic because it invests the imperial project with greater legitimacy and destructive force. Chatterjee bemoans the fact that positions like these represent how colonial power limits and prescribes “anticolonial resistance and postcolonial misery”16 and consequently serves to colonize even the national imaginations. Another difculty presented by the interpretations of hope lies in the uncritical perception of the land. The land appears to be not so much contested space, but rather land secured and held in trust until the completion of the punishment of the Judeans. Brueggemann speaks of Israel’s

14. Carroll, Jeremiah, 623. 15. Kelvin Friebel points out that the notion of hope in the context would only make sense for those who survived: “No hope was extended for a broad or general survival or deliverance of the Judahites, rather, the future participation in the purchasing of land, would be restricted only to the survivors.” Kelvin G. Friebel, Jeremiah’s and Ezekiel’s Sign-Acts: Rhetorical Nonverbal Communication (JSOTSup 283; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic, 1999), 322. 16. Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments, 5. 1

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faith as a movement in and out of the land,17 a cycle of land-getting and land-losing. While this characterization is helpful, it creates the impression of an untroubled turn over of the land, that is, of people who leave for a time and who, when sufciently cleansed, regain their hold on the land.18 Meanwhile, the land remains unclaimed even by the imperial power that overtakes it. The Jeremiah corpus attaches a moral qualication to the right to occupy the land. In ch. 32, the passage justies the displacement of the people from the land on the grounds of religious indelity (vv. 29–35). This understanding suggests that some groups deserve to be dispossessed of the land because of their inability to use the land. The ip side of that argument suggests that other groups, by virtue of their moral superiority, are legitimately entitled to dispossess others of their lands. This interpretation of displacement due to improper use of the land assigns this right to Babylonian power. It reects the notion of the imperial power’s moral duty to exert a civilizing inuence upon the subject people. That the Judeans will be restored to the land after being removed from it as punishment by Babylon reads as an ancient version of the idea of the civilizing mission of the colonial power.19 The French notion of mission civilisatrice20 stands within a genealogy that stretches as far back as Pope Innocent IV’s assertion in the thirteenth century of the natural rights of the papacy to exercise dominion over the Holy Land since the occupants of the land remain both moral and religious indels in need

17. Walter Brueggemann, The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), 13, and “Israel’s Sense of Place in Jeremiah,” in Rhetorical Criticism: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg (ed. Jared J. Jackson and Martin Kessler; Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1974), 150. 18. Keown et al. envisage a smooth reoccupation of the land that leaves no room for messy confrontations over claims, and with it a lack of nancial and other abilities to assert any claim to land. While Keown et al. recognize the difculties and dislocations of the exile, they overstate the ease with which return will take place: “Jews who returned from exile could redeem their own ancestral lands or would be able to purchase some other place to live and support their families.” Keown, Scalise, and Smothers, Jeremiah 26–52, 155. 19. Modern European (seventeenth- to nineteenth-century) colonial activity and conquest operated under the aegis of the civilizing and evangelizing burden that European modernity owed to the rest of the world. Prior includes the idea of a civilizing mission as one of the constructed colonial myths that nds its justication in biblical texts. Prior, The Bible and Colonialism, 177. 20. Young points out that more than any other European power, the French held the strongest to the notion of mission civilisatrice as part of its entitlement to spread French culture and mores throughout the world. Young, Postcolonialism, 30. 1

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of evangelism.21 Implicit, therefore, in a hopeful interpretation of this passage is the notion that the temporary loss of the land functions as a redemptive act and thereby renders the impending destruction and disaster less problematic. Given the imperial dimensions of this passage, such a reading authorizes acts of aggression insofar as they have redemptive consequences for subject peoples. The hope for the Judeans lies in being brought back to the land by YHWH after the land has been ravaged and occupied by an imperial power and after they themselves are converted to a more appropriate state of civilization. Exclusive interpretations of hope for this passage raise problematic conclusions for readers whose historical and current realities are similar to those of the text and its intended readers. Such readings foreclose issues including displacement, exile, land occupation, and so on. The passage, therefore, serves an ideology that purports a single view on the nation that emphasizes territoriality as the basis of the nation. A postcolonial reading opens up the text to show alternative ways of understanding the nation and preserving a place to call home. 2. Analysis of Chapter 32 The nal form of ch. 32 compels the reader to accept the notions of restoration and return as the normative reading of the passage, and ultimately to read signs of hope in the symbolic action. Different blocks of text make up the chapter. Together they strengthen the notion of return and restoration and act as a beacon of hope in concert with the other chapters in the vicinity. Chapter 32 shares with chs. 30 and 31 a hope in the restoration of the fortunes of Judah (30:3, 17, 18; 31:23; 32:44), the theme of gathering and return (30:10; 31:8, 21; 32:37), the use of agricultural imagery of planting, sowing, reaping of vineyards (31:5, 27, 28, 29; 32:15, 43, 44), and the new commitments from YHWH through covenants (30:17; 31:28, 31, 33; 32:39, 40, 41). The single common thread between all three chapters is the covenant commitment expressed in 30:22 as “you will be my people and I will be your God” (        ), imitated in 32:38 as “they will be my people and I will be their God” (       ), and explained in greater detail in 21. Robert Williams thinks that Innocent IV’s legal commentary on his predecessor Innocent III decretal, Quod super his, forms the basis for the Crusades to the Holy Land and also for later European theorizing of conquest in other parts of the world. Robert A. Williams, The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 14. 1

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31:33–34. Interestingly, the vision of restoration that runs through this block of texts (chs. 30–33) emphasizes the maintenance of the nation as “people” ( ), stressing the common ties of kinship and religion rather than territory.22 That the formerly estranged people of Judah can envisage once again being the recipients of YHWH’s favor stands as the dominant message of these chapters. Bright views the nomenclature of these chapters as reecting “the vast majority of Jeremiah’s sayings of a hopeful future.”23 He suggests that their contents are controlled by the superscription (30:1–3), in which case it anticipates the restoration of the fortunes of Judah in the form of possession of the land. More particularly, the theme of land tenure contained in the word “possession” (›) nds expression in the exercise of the “privilege of possession” (› › , 32:8) through the purchase of the land. Although these links appear between the chapters, a seamless integration forming a coherent unity among all three chapters cannot be found. Chapter 30 begins with formulaic language, Wortgeschehensformel (a divine word-event formula)24 that introduces divine speech in the book, followed here by a command to record oracular material in a book. It appears that ch. 31 continues the thought and directions begun in ch. 30. However, ch. 32 begins with a slightly modied version of the Wortgeschehensformel. Rather than the anticipated divine speech,25 a royal chronology appears. The quoted statements of Zedekiah contains hints of a divine speech. They quote Jeremiah reporting YHWH’s speech (v. 3).26 An actual report of a divine speech only takes place at v. 6, after being 22. References to “people” ( ) are consistently used in relation to YHWH and Judah (30:3, 22; 31:1, 2, 7, 14, 33; 32:21, 38, 42; 33:24). No other grouping is referred to as “people” ( ). Other groups are referred to “nations” ( ), as in 30:11; 31:7, 10, 36; 33:9, 24. There are two instances in Jeremiah where Israel/Judah is referred to as nation (31:36; 33:24). 23. Bright, Jeremiah, 284. 24. The phrase is attributed to the work of Peter Neumann. Peter Neumann, “Das Wort, das geschehen ist... Zum Problem der Wortempfangsterminologie in Jer i– xxv,” VT 23 (1973): 169–217. 25. Brueggemann observes the oddity here that the voice of the king takes the place of the divine voice anticipated through the opening formula. Walter Brueggemann, To Build, to Plant: A Commentary on Jeremiah 26–52 (International Theological Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans & Handsel, 1991), 79. 26. Christof Hardmeier pursues the innovative approach of viewing the chapter as an example of discursive imbeddedness that delays the actual words of YHWH until v. 26. Christof Hardmeier, “Jer 29,24–32—‘eine geradezu unüberbietbare Konfusion’?,” in Die Hebräische Bibel und ihre zweifache Nachgeschichte (ed. Erhard Blum, Christian Macholz, and Ekkehard W. Stegemann; Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1990), 196. 1

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introduced by another standard Jeremianic formula, a Wortereignisformel (divine word-happening formula, usually introduced with    , “the word of Yhwh happened to…”). While the narrative in ch. 30 follows logically from the superscription, ch. 32 demonstrates evidence of fragmentation and redactional activity and appears to be a later addition to the section. Andrew Shead points out that the Wortgeschehensformel functions as a “major section marker.”27 In this case it appears to have been used as a seam to tie ch. 32 to the rest of the so-called Book of Consolation. Conceivably, the narrative account of the purchase of the property exists as either a pre-existing text, or else on deliberately crafted to match the message of consolation. In either case, it becomes clear that the passage serves the larger purposes of the Book of Consolation. While the immediate context of the passage in ch. 32 remains the siege of Jerusalem, ch. 30 offers no specic historical context. A critical reading of the passage requires the necessary distancing of the passage from the imposed literary and historical context. a. Textual Units Most scholars consider vv. 6–15 to be the original core of the chapter,28 with the rest being regarded as later additions. Further, scholars believe that the additional units outside of vv. 6–15 contain a strong Dtr character. Thiel suggests that a post-Dtr author imitates the style of the DtrH, particularly in the introduction (vv. 1–5).29 He regards the major section, 27. Shead notes that the Wortgeschehensformel occurs ten times in the book: 7:1; 11:1; 18:1; 21:1; 30:1, 32:1, 34:1, 8; 35:1; 40:1. Unlike 32:1 and two other instances (21:1 and 40:1), 30:1 and the other cases end with  . Andrew G. Shead, The Open Book and the Sealed Book: Jeremiah 32 in Its Hebrew and Greek Recensions (JSOTSup 347; The Hebrew Bible and Its Versions 3; London: Shefeld Academic, 2002), 31. 28. Some exceptions are Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 203; Gunther Wanke, “Jeremias Ackerkauf: Heil im Gericht?,” in Prophet und Prophetenbuch (ed. Volkmar Fritz, Karl-Friedrich Pohlmann, and Hans-Christoph Schmitt; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989), 268 (Wanke believes that v. 15 should be excluded); and Carroll, Jeremiah, 622 (Carroll regards the entire work as a “paradigmatic account” about the nature of the future). 29. Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion, 29; Christof Hardmeier, “Jeremia 32,2–15* als Eröffnug der Erzählung von der Gefangenschaft und Befreiun Jeremias in Jer 34,7: 37,3–40,6*,” in Jeremia und die deuteronomistische Bewegung (ed. Walter Gross; Weinheim: Beltz Athenäum, 1995), 189. Herbert Migsch takes the opposite view and maintains that vv. 1–5 and in particular vv. 2–5 are a displaced introduction that should be connected with 37:3–38:28a. Consequently, he views the narrative of the purchase of the eld as secondary to the larger narrative of 1

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vv. 16–44, as a Dtr addition. Thiel does, however, leave room for the possibility of original Jeremiah text in these verses: vv. 16–17, 24, 26– 29a, 42–43 (44?). Thiel also raises the possibility of a fairly late completion of the nal form of the book that takes it into the early post-exilic period. The implications of such a date hold signicance for the dominance of the concerns of return and restoration and the appeal of the message of hope in the passage. While modifying Thiel’s post-Dtr notion somewhat, Albertz attributes the chapter to the work of the third deuteronomistic editor (JerD3).30 He believes that an expanded narrative on Jeremiah’s purchase of the land functions as part of a salvation oracle–narrative discourse schema. This editor, therefore, adds the extensive reection in vv. 15–44 to the preceding narrative in order to incorporate it into the Book of Consolation, and consolidates it alongside the already existing salvation discourse in ch. 29.31 Albertz proposes that the expansion by the JerD3 of the symbolic action in vv. 16–44 sets up a dialogue between Jeremiah and YHWH to explain the obvious dissonance between judgment and salvation. The implicit answer the text offers is that only through YHWH’s mercy could this take place. He goes further to point out that this proposes a different answer than that already offered by the DtrH, namely that temple and monarchy provide the basis for restoration and salvation.32 Albertz’s contention implies intentional reshaping of the original core of the chapter by a subsequent editor in order to garner exclusive hopeful interpretations to suit the ideological, theological, and political needs of the community during the early Persian period. Arguably, therefore, ch. 32 should be regarded as a subsequent addition to the Book of Consolation, albeit an internally fragmentary one. The movement from rst person to third person speech (vv. 1–3 is a third person narrative; vv. 3–5 is direct address; vv. 6–14 is rst person autobiographical narrative; v. 15 is a statement), from oracles of judgment (vv. 27–36) to oracles of salvation (vv. 42–44), from prophetic action (vv. 6–15) to liturgical prayer language (vv. 17–25), from words of uncompromising doom (v. 36) to commitments of restoration (vv. 37– 41) shapes this conclusion. Jeremiah’s imprisonment. Herbert Migsch, Gottes Wort über das Ende Jerusalems: Eine literar-, stil- und gattungskritische Untersuchung des Berichtes Jeremia 34, 1– 7; 32, 2–5; 37,3–38,28 (Klosterneuberg: Österreichisches Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1981), 43. 30. Albertz, Israel in Exile, 340. 31. Albertz argues that the link is created in part with the phrase › › in 32:44 and 30:3. Ibid. 32. Ibid., 343. 1

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The chapter, therefore, consists of blocks of text representing divergent voices, audiences, time frames and ideologies. The rst block of text, vv. 1–5, functions as the introduction to the chapter. It provides historical, geographical, and narrative context for the action. This block, a third person account, claries the circumstances of Jeremiah’s connement. The historical synchronism between the Judean and Babylonian kings recalls the style of the DtrH’s reporting of parallel Judean and Israelite history.33 The text, therefore, creates resonances with national historiographies, king lists, and the idea of the nation as a political entity. It makes the point, as Thompson asserts, that “far from being of secondary importance [nationalistic considerations] were of prime importance.”34 An autobiographical account of the vision prediction and its fulllment regarding the purchase of the land (vv. 6–15) follows as the next block of text. This pericope contains a detailed description of the legal transaction and closes with an interpretation of the action in v. 15. As a rst person report, this section differs from the previous one. The beginning of v. 6 presumes a response to the question posed by Zedekiah in v. 3b. While Zedekiah questions Jeremiah’s continued prediction of doom for both himself and the city, Jeremiah’s statement deals with a different issue.35 The omission of the phrase “Then Jeremiah said” (   , 32:6) in the Greek edition suggests a deliberate attempt to stitch these sections together in order to create a dialogue between Jeremiah and Zedekiah. The Wortereignisformel of “The word of the LORD came to me” (     , v. 6aa) appears at the outset of the divine prediction of Hanamel’s advent. However, the pericope concludes with the only divine directive introduced with the Botenformel (messenger formula), “Thus says the LORD” (    , 32:14). Interestingly, this formula is repeated in v. 15, though this time preceded by the particle  , which introduces the divine interpretation of the action undertaken by Jeremiah. While the divine command in v. 14 mediated by Jeremiah is directed to Baruch, the divine speech of v. 15 assumes a general 33. Though Thiel accepts that v. 1, and in particular v. 1a, reects well the Dtr style, he believes that the character of the pericope is mostly post-Dtr. Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion, 30. 34. J. A. Thompson, The Book of Jeremiah (New International Commentary on the Old Testament; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1980), 93. 35. Keown et al. point out that the absence of any reference to Zedekiah in the narrative beyond v. 6, the different foci of the question and its supposed answer, as well as the example of 25:9, where a similar accusatory question was raised, place the original unity of these two sections in doubt. Keown, Scalise, and Smothers, Jeremiah 26–52, 146. 1

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audience. The divine epithet “YHWH of armies, the god of Israel” ( ‡  ) introduces both speeches and suggests a single authorship. However, the Old Greek witnesses variations in the style of the epithets of these two verses, hinting at different stages of their growth.36 Further, the Greek text switches the order of the list of items in v. 15 from “houses, and elds and vineyards” (    ‡ ) to “elds and houses and vineyards” (BHSPJ=LBJ=PJLJBJLBJ=BNQFMX_OFK). Curiously, the symbolic action that focuses only on the purchase of land expands in the interpretation to include houses and vineyards. These ripples in the text lead to the conclusion that Wanke shares, namely, that v. 15 is a subsequent addition.37 The repetition of the messenger formula in the space of two verses,38 the inclusion of the particle 36. The Old Greek text lacks “the God of Israel” in v. 14 and in v. 15 “of armies, the God Israel” is missing. Herman-Josef Stipp argues that the combination of the divine epithet “YHWH of armies, the god Israel” is typical of JerMT where it is used 32 times in association with the messenger formula. While some of these instances are mirrored in the Old Greek, he believes that these epithets were mostly later additions. Hermann-Josef Stipp, “Linguistic Peculiarities of the Masoretic Edition of the Book of Jeremiah: An Updated Index,” Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 32 (1997): 183. It is likely that the uniformity of the divine epithets in both verses represents a later editorial activity at the level of JerMT. 37. Though Wanke advises caution in dealing with the Greek text’s presupposition of the messenger formula in v. 14, he still maintains that the fractious nature of the text is better explained as a stitching seam rather than editorial carelessness: “Die Tatsache, dass auch die Old Greek die Botenformel in v. 14 voraussetzt, sollte hier zur Zurückhaltung im Umgang mit dem Text mahnen. Die als störend empfundene Wiederholung der Botenformel weist eher auf eine Naht zwischen V. 14 und V. 15 als auf Gedankenlosigkeit von Abschreibern hin” (“The fact that the Old Greek takes for granted the messenger formula in v. 14 should urge restraint here in dealing with the text. The intruding feeling of the repetition of the messenger formula points rather to a seam between v. 14 and v. 15 than to thoughtlessness from copyists”). Wanke, “Jeremias Ackerkauf,” 268. 38. Hardmeier rejects Wanke’s argument that the doubled messenger formula between vv. 14 and 15 means that v. 15 is secondary. He argues that this is both acceptable and necessary in the context, since the rst formula in v. 14 directed to Baruch should be read as the same level of communication as that directed to Hanamel to approach Jeremiah with the purchase option. The second formula, introduced by  , closes the section and functions as a higher level of communication directed to a wider audience. Hardmeier, “Jeremia 32,2–15,” 206. While a plausible argument from the perspective of the structure of the narrative, Hardmeier’s view ignores the fact that already a wider audience, one that includes the attesters of the deed and the residents in the court of the guard, are part of the communication–hearing–viewing process. As such, this verse need not be seen as the critical communication point for a wider audience. 1

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 , and the inconsistencies with regards to the divine epithets serve as other indicators of v. 15 being a later addition. Add to this the fact that v. 15 attempts to explain the symbolic action but changes its focus from the specic property, then a case for viewing this verse as an intentional inclusion aimed at an interpretative trajectory of return can be made. Essentially, v. 15 creates temporal and geographic space between the notion of the nation represented in v. 1 and a presumptive return in the future. It effectively undermines the import of the narrative account in the intervening verses by suggesting that the symbolic action points to a mere interruption in the normal life of the nation. This interruption appears to be harmless, since return and restoration of normal life is guaranteed by the divine oracle. In these subtle ways the framing of the text decenters and devalues the critical notions raised by the symbolic action. The remainder of the chapter reveals a mixture of units loosely linked to the core passage of the purchase of the eld.39 These verses function in a similar fashion to v. 15 by co-opting the authority of divine words, images, and concepts to bolster the notion that return to the land remains a possibility. In this way, the verses dispute the perplexity expressed in Jeremiah’s questions in v. 25, both to take account of the purchase narrative and as a means of turning the interpretation of that narrative in the direction of restoration and return. The text of vv. 16–44 elaborates the prophetic action, while also providing an interpretive environment for the notion of a hopeful return and restoration to the land. The prayer by Jeremiah (vv. 16–25) asserts the power of YHWH to do what appears to be impossible and incomprehensible. In this regard it uses typical liturgical and psalmic material and recounts aspects of salvation history to prove the point.40 This wide-ranging prayer delays its real objective, namely, the need to understand the purpose for the purchase of the land, until the end (v. 25). This concern suggests that doubts about the purchase of the property under the stated circumstances remain. Additionally, the question also suggests that the interpretations proffered in vv. 14–15 feel either inadequate or unsatisfactory. The immediate concern of the prayer 39. The extent of the prayer itself is questioned by Bright, who suggests that the initial prayer is vv. 17a, 24–25. Although he accepts that the entire prayer material is in keeping with Jeremianic thought, he views the rest of the prayer as an intrusion on the thought of the immediate concern of the siege of the city. Bright, Jeremiah, 298. 40. The prayer focuses on praise (vv. 18–19), a recounting of the history of the exodus (vv. 20–21), the conquest and occupation of the land (vv. 22–23a), national disobedience and its consequence (v. 23b), and nally a focus on the contemporary event of the siege and the perplexing directive to purchase the land (vv. 24–25). 1

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itself does not offer an explanation or interpretation of the action, but rather leads the reader in the direction of the dominant notion of hope as expressed in the evidence of YHWH’s actions. A closer reading of the chapter reveals the disjuncture between the setting against which the purchase is said to take place and the circumstances articulated by the prayer. The prayer, in v. 24, builds a scene of disaster that includes elements of siege ramps (), the actual collapse of the city ( ‡    ), and the typical triad of disasters: sword, famine and pestilence (  ). All these elements are not mentioned in the introductory scene (v. 2). These elements indicate that the prayer comes either from a time later than the purchase narrative or from a different hand. Further, as some commentators point out, a direct divine command to purchase the land only appears in v. 25.41 However, in this instance, a dual directive of purchase and attestation not assumed in either the prediction vision to Jeremiah (v. 7) or in Hanamel’s actual request (v. 8) surfaces. Being more than just an indication of stylistic and thematic discontinuities with vv. 6–15, these evidences point to a deliberate shaping of the prayer to inuence the reading of the purchase passage. This takes place through a heightening of the sense of disaster, which serves to contrast the oddity of the action and consequently to underscore the power of this action as a sign of hope. The divine response to Jeremiah’s prayer occurs in vv. 26–44. Like other units in this section of the chapter, the symbolic action itself appears as a secondary concern. This unit divides into two sections, one that does not have a direct bearing upon the earlier passage (vv. 28–35) and one that resumes the focus on the purchase of the property (vv. 36– 44). In the rst section, the introductory Wortereignisformel in v. 26 precedes a question in v. 27. Presumably, what follows in vv. 28–35 ought to answer the question of v. 27. However, vv. 28–35 offer no support to the point of the symbolic action nor a response to the question. They instead repeat the threats of judgment seen in other parts of the book.42 This section, like the prayer by Jeremiah, heightens the disaster 41. Hardmeier, “Jeremia 32,2–15,” 196. Holladay points out that similar texts (13:1; 19:1) contain a specic divine directive, “buy.” Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 214. 42. This section extends from vv. 28–35, book-ended by speeches introduced with the Botenformel and by the preposition   in v. 28 and v. 36. The threat language of vv. 28–35 forms a discrete block of text easily inserted between the opening verse of YHWH’s response. The forceful nature of the language, which leaves no room for mitigation of punishment, “I will remove from before my face” (   , 32:31), sets this section off from the promises contained in the section vv. 36–44. Bright views vv. 28–35 as an interruption of the prayer. Bright, Jeremiah, 298. 1

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of the destruction of the city and in the process presses the issue of hope. While this judgment oracle deals with the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, not much connects it with the passage on the purchase of the property or explains the signicance of the action. The second section of the divine response seems more germane to the interpretation of the prophetic action. The Botenformel in v. 36 resumes the focus on the city initiated by the petition in Jeremiah’s prayer (v. 25). In that prayer, Jeremiah pleads for the city that “has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are ghting against it with sword, famine and pestilence” (      ‡    , v. 24). The divine promise in v. 36 resumes with almost the identical words, “has been given into the hand of the king of Babylon through sword, famine, and pestilence” (      ), linking the salvation oracle (vv. 36–44) to the prayer petition (v. 24). This not only creates a sense of coherence between the actions, thoughts, and concerns of the prophet and the commitments of YHWH, but also provides a compelling explanation for the prophetic action and the basis of hope. The text reinforces this notion through a series of commitments, expressed in participial and perfect verb forms, where YHWH promises a restoration of the people to the land and a commitment to uphold a covenant. The commitment in 32:40 is peculiar for its onesidedness. It places the responsibility for the creation and maintenance of the covenant on YHWH without at the same time enjoining commensurate responsibilities or consequences upon the people.43 This interpretation of the action as a sign of hope is based on divine commitments rather than the signiers of the symbolic action. A second interpretation of the symbolic action appears in vv. 42–44. Like the rst in v. 15, the messenger formula preceded by  introduces the verse. Also, like the rst in v. 15, it functions as a linchpin for the interpretation of hope and shows later editorial activity.44 As the interpretation of v. 15 expands the action from a singular focus on land to include houses and vineyards, vv. 42–44 restrict it to the narrow focus on land transactions with a view to repopulating the area. However, these 43. The covenant in 31:31–34 assumes a responsibility for the people to “know YHWH” (  ). 44. Both v. 15 and v. 42 are introduced by the messenger formula preceded by the  particle. The divine epithet is more elaborate in v. 15 than it is in v. 42, an indication that the divine epithet in v. 15 in all likelihood is an expansion. Structurally they both follow the same pattern of particle + messenger formula + verb in Niphal form + focus on the land. Arguably, the phrase › …  (v. 42) is an interruption of this pattern and can be viewed as an insertion made to reinforce the notion of hope prevalent in the nal form of the chapter. 1

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verses envisage another type of expansion from the Benjaminite tribal concerns to include Jerusalem and several others areas and cities. Starting with the specics of the symbolic action, “the land of Benjamin” (  , 32:44), the implications of the sign act extend to “the environs of Jerusalem and in the cities of Judah, and in the hill country, and in the cities of the Shephelah, and in the cities of the Negeb” ( ›    ›     ). While this interpretation invokes geographical expansion, it stays closer to the symbolic action with its reference to the method and process of land transactions than the interpretation offered in v. 15: “elds will be bought with silver and deeds will be written and sealed and witnessed” (   ‡

     , 32:44). This interpretation appears to be more plausible than that offered in v. 15. This verse widens the focus beyond the land of Benjamin, drops the divine epithets in the messenger formula (v. 42), includes the presumption of deportation and removal from land (“it is a desolation without human beings and animals,”       

›  , v. 43]), as well as allows for divine culpability for the disaster upon the land (v. 42). All these elements point to concerns other than those raised by the action itself and its immediate narrative, and therefore, like v. 15, should be regarded as a subsequent explanation for the narrative of the symbolic action. Primarily, the exclusive reading of the symbolic action as a sign of hope rests on vv. 15 and 42 and not on the action itself or its immediate context. In his reading of the chapter, Douglas Jones propounds that “the whole prophecy is contained in v. 15” and regards the remaining portions of the text, including the symbolic action, as “circumstance.”45 Together with the addition of v. 15 and v. 42 the later units (vv. 16–25) added to the core passage shift the focus of the passage and its interpretation away from the symbolic action and its earlier historical context, to the extent that this could be determined. Carroll argues that redactional activity within the chapter makes a “simple” land deal into “a statement about the siege, the future, Jeremiah as a great gure of prayer, a history of Jerusalem as the object of divine wrath since its foundation, and the restoration of the land.”46 Consequently, the land deal itself, as it proceeds amidst the specter of empire, receives short shrift and the complex 45. Douglas Rowlinson Jones, Jeremiah (New Century Bible Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1992), 409. So too Brueggemann believes that v. 15 lls out the theological focus of the land deal. Brueggemann, To Build, to Plant, 81. 46. Robert P. Carroll, “Textual Strategies and Ideology in the Second Temple Period,” in Second Temple Studies. Vol. 1, Persian Period (ed. Philip R. Davies; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic, 1991), 110. 1

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strategies for dealing with empire embedded in the text overlooked. Foregrounding the symbolic action and the implications for reading this from a postcolonial perspective shows how the action functions as a means of saving the nation, albeit in its spiritual domain. 3. Reading Symbolic Action Symbolic action functions as a communication resource in the book of Jeremiah. Reading and interpreting symbolic actions in the Bible in general prove challenging. According to John Pilch, the narrative form of symbolic actions contains three main elements: the divine command, the execution of the command and the explanation of the event.47 Following this scheme, v. 6 represents the divine command, while the execution of the command which begins in v. 8 serves also as a conrmation of the divine word. The execution narrative details more than the actual purchase of the property; it also includes the transaction and attestation of the deeds in vv. 9–12. The explanation of the event then occurs in two sections in both v. 14 and v. 15. Essentially, this narrative contains the sign and its signier in the form of the dual explanation in vv. 14–15. The practice of land redemption shapes the notion of hope for return and restoration in several interpretations of this passage. This hopeful interpretation constructs an analogous relationship between the actions of Jeremiah “redeeming” family property for himself and YHWH as the redeemer of the people and the land. Accordingly, the sign of the purchase of the property signies the action of YHWH as redeemer. The term “redemption” in its theological application within this passage stands as a contested term.48 Friebel adjusts the points of comparison in his reading of this passage to view Jeremiah as a stand-in for the people in order to recognize their “empathetic” participation in the action. He asserts that notions of divine redemption are difcult to maintain in the book of Jeremiah since no mention of YHWH as redeemer appears.49 The Jeremiah corpus does not make widespread use of  and its closest synonym  47. Pilch develops this schema based on the narrative accounts of chs. 16 and 19. John J. Pilch, “Jeremiah and Symbolism: A Social Science Approach,” The Bible Today 19 (1981): 106. 48. Rudolph argues that Jeremiah purchases the property before it is alienated rather than buying it back after it is alienated. See TLOT, 290. This is a more plausible case than that put forward by Carroll, who suggests that Jeremiah redeems land that he had previously owned, land which his uncle holds in care but which is now surrendered by Hanamel. Carroll, “Textual Strategies,” 111. 49. Friebel, Jeremiah’s and Ezekiel’s Sign-Acts, 325. 1

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as signiers of divine redemption.50 The word  occurs only four times in the entire book of Jeremiah (31:11; 32:7, 8; 50:34).51 Similarly,  turns up only two times in the book (15:21; 31:11). The assertion that the redemption of the land in this narrative serves as a down payment of a later divine redemption of the people remains difcult to sustain.52 The foregoing textual analysis highlights the contested nature of the dominant interpretation of hope provided by v. 15, as well as its original connection with the enactment of the sign itself. The relationship between the sign and the signier is inherently unstable. As a result, interpretation should proceed from the perspective of the sign rather than an assigned signier. Pilch argues that, from a social-science perspective, no prior relationship between the reality and the symbol exists, but that in the 50. Another related term, , has a contested meaning in this particular passage. In v. 5 Jeremiah indicates that Zedekiah’s fate in Babylon will be determined when YHWH “redeems” () him. Christopher Begg illustrates the ambiguous nature of the term in the Old Testament as well as in various interpretations of the verse. He argues, with the support of numerous references, that  used with  with YHWH as the subject and a person as the object can be construed as punishment. In this case, he maintains that a positive construal has to be allowed as the verb enters a clause subsequent to one that deals with punishment. Therefore, the use here hints at a more favorable circumstance for Zedekiah. Christopher Begg, “Yahweh’s ‘Visitation’ of Zedekiah (Jer 32,5),” Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses 63 (1987): 114. 51. While the usage in 31:11 and 50:34 reects the sense of divine redemption of people, this redemption is not tied to the land. 52. Eryl Davies uses Diepold to argue that the land and people are inextricably linked, and that the end of exile could only happen in the restoration of the relationship between land and people. Eryl W. Davies, “Land: Its Rights and Privileges,” in The World of Ancient Israel: Sociological, Anthropological and Political Perspectives. Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study (ed. R. E. Clements; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 354. I contend that the notion of the inextricable link between land and people is representative of an earlier Dtr argument that is not consistently held throughout the book of Jeremiah. Gunther Wittenberg, also inuenced by Peter Diepold, maintains that “there is no future for Israel apart from the land.” Gunther H. Wittenberg, “The Vision of Land in Jeremiah 32,” in The Earth Story in the Psalms and the Prophets (ed. Norman C. Habel; Cleveland: Pilgrim, 2001), 136. Brueggemann holds similar views: “Israel without land is no people. King without throne is no king. Land without Israel is no place. And now Israel, king and land, have come to parting and that is death.” Brueggemann, The Land, 111. So too Grosby: “a people has its land and a land has its people.” Steven Grosby, Biblical Ideas of Nationality—Ancient and Modern (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 24. The problematic aspect of these formulations is that possession of the land is not only the sine qua non of people’s identity but of their existence. The text does not support such notions since people continue to live outside of the land and nd ways to create new relationships with the land. 1

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course of the narrative the performer establishes one, in this case with YHWH.53 While he asserts that in terms of the narrative both elements must be together, Pilch contends that the action requires the explanation in order to work. In this formulation, the message determines the action and precedes the event itself, consequently undervaluing the symbol. In a complete turn around from this position, Pilch notes that prophetic symbols serve as more than purely literary devices. They are “rituals of power” aimed at instituting action and change in the audience. Accepting this notion, the sign transcends the textual explanation proffered in v. 15 and should be released from the normative interpretation of hope. Friebel approaches the interpretation of the symbolic actions with the understanding that they intend to effect change in the audience, but more specically theological change.54 Like Pilch, he insists that the interpretation validates the sign, in which case he privileges the verbal over the performative, though regarding the event as “an intrinsically coded, performative act.”55 Consequently, Friebel reads the action as having future implications, even though the act itself makes no gestures towards the future. His notion that the performance of the act appears in “simileform”56 leads him to nd relevant analogies for the actions of the prophet. This approach assumes an analogy between the action of the prophet and either a corresponding divine act or future act in the community. It therefore loses sight of the specicities of the performative nature of this sign and consequently the available multiple levels of interpretation. I nd the work of postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha a suitable framework for reading the symbolic action. Incorporating the work of Bhabha and building on the performative aspects of the symbolic action as articulated by Friebel, as well as the arbitrary relations between the sign and the signier as pointed out by Pilch, I offer that the sign can also be read as a marker of resistance to imperial action. Bhabha argues that signs transform the “conditions of enunciation”57 that take place between the colonizer and the colonized. Rather than constructing new images 53. Pilch, “Jeremiah and Symbolism,” 107. One would question to what extent YHWH should be seen as the performer in this case, since Jeremiah is not carrying out the command in the way it is delivered to him, and there is strong evidence of innovation. Elouise Fraser argues for the divine explanation as a crucial element of prophetic symbolic action, on the grounds that the actions are not speculative or private events but divinely directed. Elouise Renich Fraser, “Symbolic Acts of the Prophets,” Studia Biblica et Theologica 4 (1974): 48. 54. Friebel, Jeremiah’s and Ezekiel’s Sign-Acts, 30. 55. Ibid., 320. 56. Ibid. 57. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 247. 1

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that ll out preconceived identities, the colonized use signs as a means of disrupting current communication. By “redening the signifying relation,” a sign acts as a symbol of the past: “myth, memory, history, the ancestral,”58 and at the same time functions in the present in a completely different way. In the present, the sign invokes an ossied past and interrogates contemporary power relations. Bhabha maintains that this is possible because the colonized community redenes itself, and therefore each enactment or reading of the sign becomes specic to the particular context of enunciation. Bhabha’s theory unsettles the idea that the sign can possess a universal signier that holds good in all circumstances. Just as the symbolic action itself remains a performative act, so the textualizing of the action and its subsequent reading renders each iteration of the symbol inherently unstable and arbitrary. Bhabha’s notion also constructs a relationship between the past and the present. In the context of colonialism, he views signs that invoke the past as posing questions to modernity as represented by the colonial power and to the identity of the colonized. Symbols of the ancestral, as used here in Jer 32, provide a performative link with the past through a reinscription of the history behind that symbolic past. In the performative process, the sign poses new questions, new challenges, and modes of resistance to the contemporary audience through the invocation of former subjectivities. The sign stands neither as a neutral event nor a harmless and hapless act. It holds a deliberate appeal for a specic audience. This requires an understanding of the historical context of the past to which the sign points, and the historical and cultural conditions of the enunciation of the sign. The performance of the historicized past of the people through the purchase of the property falls within the spiritual domain, as Chatterjee denes it. Bhabha’s insight also offers an understanding of the sign act as a performative process that is subsequently textualized. The sign act proceeds from a visual eld to the realm of writing. Interpreting the sign therefore not only takes this movement into account, but also follows the movement. The sign’s origins begin in the actions of the prophet, performed before a gathered audience in the court of the guard. The prophet rst acts so as to be seen, then acts so as to be read by subsequent communities. The logic of the text intends the record of the purchase rather than the narrative of the action to be immediately read. Interpretation of the sign act requires focus on the correct action, and it also requires awareness of the performative nature of the text. Therefore, reading of

58. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 247. 1

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the passage not only includes focus on the visual activity, but also on the process of creating a text product in the form of the deed. The text product functions as a sign and record of the visual and shares the same menacing properties of exclusion in the spiritual domain of the nation as the sign-act itself. In this regard, Bhabha provides a way of reading this passage that points in the direction of the spiritual realm as represented in Chatterjee’s formulation. The invocation of the ancestral, the operations of customary law, and the reinscriptions of the past all fall within the spiritual realm from which the colonized effectively excludes the encroachment of the empire. Therefore, the symbolic action of the prophet, from a postcolonial perspective, appears as an intentional strategy to redene the nation in the face of territorial encroachment. The nationalist resistance offers more than defense of the land from inevitable occupation. It secures a discursive, psycho-social, and religio-political place. 4. Staging the Past: The Application of Ancestral Law The narrative report of the purchase of the property under the auspices of ancient Levitical law, in the face Babylonian imperial aggression, provides a peculiar combination of circumstances in which to read this text. Guided by Bhabha’s notion that the staging of the past through signs and symbols interrogates the present, and by Chatterjee’s understanding of the effective resistance offered in the spiritual domain, the application of Levitical law in this case provides the opportunity for the past to interrogate the contemporary reality. Through the assertion of the inalienable nature of the land enshrined in the law, the symbolic action serves as resistance to alternative claims to the land on two fronts. In the immediate context created by the text, it resists the imperial designs of Babylon. On another level, the action offers a comment about realities in the land in the restoration period. The narrative account of the purchase of the property looks at the application of ancient customary law with respect to land transactions. This detail gives the actions of the purchase legitimacy and, at the same time, frames the action within the performative categories of the ancestral past. In the text, Hanamel requests his cousin Jeremiah to purchase the land in his ancestral homeland of Anathoth. The book reports a strained relationship between Jeremiah and his ancestral homeland, to the point of his life being threatened by his kinsmen (11:21). It reports that his tribal colleagues arrest him and turn him over to the palace guard, presumably for deserting to the Babylonians during a break in the 1

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siege (37:11–16).59 The text minimizes any dissonance created by these passages by making YHWH the originator of the action and not Hanamel. The text overstresses kinship ties between Jeremiah and Hanamel such that Hanamel never appears as a person in his own right. He is mentioned four times in the passage and always as a relative of Jeremiah (“Hanamel the son of Shallum, your uncle,”  ›   , v. 7; “Hanamel, son of my uncle,”    , vv. 8, 9; “Hanamel, my cousin,”60   , v. 12). This repetition emphasizes the kinship ties between Jeremiah and Hanamel in order to apply the family law statutes that form the basis of the symbolic practice. In addition, alongside Hanamel’s designation as kin to Jeremiah, the text identies the location of the property in the ancestral homeland. The property is referred to on two separate occasions with the specicity of “the eld which was in Anathoth” ( › ‡ , vv. 7, 9) and with the further detail of “which is in the land of Benjamin” (   ›, v. 8). This attention to both the kinship ties and the ancestral linkages sets the foundation in the narrative for the assertion of tribal and family loyalties. These details make the family and not the nation the operative social unit in the passage. As Ania Loomba points out, families in colonial contexts tend to be “cast as the antithesis of the nation” by the colonized, and their “dehistoricised…timeless and unchanging” properties are used as powerful symbols of resistance.61 In the passage, the invocation of two separate legal terms that hold currency in family law encourages Jeremiah to purchase the property. Even though the passage implies two synonymous terms, they should not be seen as such. In the prediction portion of the passage, Jeremiah hears 59. As a means of solving chronological and other literary critical problems, Migsch suggests that the following passages ought to be read in succession: 34:1–7; 32:2–5; 37:3–38:28a. Migsch, Gottes Wort über das Ende Jerusalems, 91. 60. Manuscripts such as the Old Greek, Syriac, and Targum add “son of” () before “my uncle” () in order to correct what appears as a scribal omission and to harmonize with vv. 7, 8. In this regard the Hebrew text represents an older tradition that relies on the paternal relations between Jeremiah and Hanamel as the basis of the descriptor and may not reect an omission. The proposed translation by the Critique Textuelle of “my cousin” in this case breaks with that notion by creating a direct connect between the two men and thus disregarding the scribal error. See Dominique Barthélemy, ed., Critique textuelle de l’Ancien Testament 2. Isaïe, Jérémie, Lamentations (Rapport nal du Comité pour l’analyse textuelle de l’Ancien Testament hébreu institué par l’Alliance Biblique Universelle; Fribourg, Suisse: Editions Universitaires, 1986), 696; Shead, The Open and the Sealed Book, 72. 61. Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism (London: Routledge, 1998), 217. Similarly, Chatterjee: “The assertion here [i.e. of the family] of autonomy and difference was perhaps the most dramatic.” Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments, 9. 1

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that he holds the “privilege of redemption” ( › , v. 7). In the fulllment portion, however, through the speech of Hanamel, Jeremiah receives both the “privilege of possession” (‡ › ) and “redemption” (, v. 8). Peniamina Leota points out that these two assertions are not the same thing, since the privilege of redemption presumes the work of a nancial rescuer, and the privilege of possession assumes prior ownership.62 Levitical law (Lev 25:25–28) denes the notion of the privilege of redemption ( › ), which makes provision for family property to be bought in order to save someone from nancial ruin. The practice prevents land from being sold in perpetuity since YHWH owns the land (Lev 25:23). In this narrative, Hanamel needs to dispose of his property. The text offers no reasons. From the context of Lev 25:25, one assumes an economic problem (“if one of your kindred is impoverished,”    ) since this condition triggers the legal provisions. Jeremiah plays the role of nancial rescuer to save the property from falling out of its ancestral heritage. The application of this legal provision of redemption would be determined by the economic strength of the nancial rescuer as well as the willingness of the person to undertake the task.63 In any event, this law restrains social and economic forces with the potential to threaten a family’s enjoyment of property, particularly vulnerable families. In this passage the symbolic action captures this sense of resistance but displays it at the level of the nation in relation to imperial power. To heighten the necessity of Jeremiah’s action in this case, the text employs the rhetorical force of the notion of the privilege of possession ( › ) as an addition to the already invoked notion of the privilege of redemption (‡ › ). While the law of redemption () appeals to kinship loyalties and tribal solidarity to ensure the survival of the community,64 the right of possession (›) invokes notions of land 62. Peniamina Leota, “ ‘For the Right of Possession and Redemption is Yours; Buy It for Yourself’: Who is the Implied Reader of Jeremiah 32:8?,” Pacic Journal of Theology 22 (1999): 60. 63. Davies raises doubts about the enforceability of the legislation and its capacity ultimately to prevent what it set out to do. If no family member redeems the property, then the provision to repurchase later on (Lev 25:26) would kick in. However, this provision assumes an improvement in the person’s economic fortunes, something that would hardly happen. Davies also questions whether the provisions for the Jubilee year would have the unintended consequence of disastrous nancial dislocations with massive change over of property. Eryl W. Davies, “Land,” 360. 64. Ringgren argues that the usage of  makes explicit “that every disruption of this unity [tribal unity] is regarded as intolerable and as something which must be restored or repaired.” TDOT 2:351. 1

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rights through conquest and inheritance. In its usage  refers to inheritance of private property65 and territory held through conquest from another country. The Old Greek version of the text makes explicit the dual notion of holding property through succession and conquest. Both the Greek and the Hebrew use the language of a judicial context. In the prediction portion of the narrative (v. 7), the Greek text renders the designation “right to redemption” ( › ) as “the decree of possession” (LSJNBQBSBMRCFJO), emphasizing the privilege that Jeremiah holds to the property, but not as a result of any ancestral or ancient claims. In the fulllment portion of the narrative (v. 8), however, the designation of “the privilege of redemption” (‡ › ) translates as “the decree of acquisition” (TPJ=LSJNBLUITBTRBJ, v. 8a), again stressing the notion of possession. Further, in this portion of the narrative, the Old Greek renders the designation of “privilege of redemption” ( › , v. 8b) as “you are the eldest” (TV=QSFTCVUFSPK), pointing to the notion of the succession of the property to its rightful claimant. In this way, it suggests that the property cannot pass into any hand other than that of Jeremiah. The narrative contains a double-edged appeal of rallying family loyalties and enforcing of land acquisition rights through conquest. It invokes the demands of ancestral laws and at the same time asserts ancient kinship claims to the property. Read from this perspective, Jeremiah’s implementation of the appeal contained both in the divine word and in Hanamel’s entreaty enacts in symbolic fashion the claims of the pre-imperial past of the people in the face of the impending imperial enterprise. As Bhabha opines, through the staging of the past the colonized interrogates the contemporary ventures of empire. The symbolic action points to the historicized past of the nation, a past devoid of imperial presence, as a means of asserting that form of the nation in the contemporary context. The narrative account of the purchase pays attention to the fulllment of legal requirements. The text details in short phrases each action, including the offer to purchase, the decision to purchase, the weighing of the money and its amount, the writing of the deeds, and the attestation of those deeds up to their nal disposition. The overemphasis on the legal requirements that surround the symbolic action serves as another means of discursively asserting the subjectivity of the nation. In this case,

65. TDOT, 369. Holladay gives the meaning of › as “come into possession” through the taking over of property from others either by conquest or inheritance. Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 214. In its verbal forms, it is “generally rendered as ‘to expel, force out of possession.” TLOT, 579. 1

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ancient Israelite customary law and not imperial law applies. This suggests that even if certain national institutions no longer exist, the nation maintains its independence through the application of customary law in the spiritual domain. The text implies the presence of legal institutions to effect these laws. The peculiar constructions of the terms “privilege of redemption” (›

) and “privilege of possession” (‡ › ) in the Hebrew invoke a technical legal term that points to the presence of a judicatory body that oversees the purchase. The forms of  › and ‡ › appear only in Jeremiah ch. 32 in the Hebrew Bible. In other instances, when the legal terminology of land redemption appears, as in, for example, Lev 25, forms such as  (25:29, 32) and  (25:48) are used. This peculiar expression that includes › suggests a deliberate use of legal terminology to call attention to the action of the purchase of the property as an expression of ancient family law. This notion becomes more pronounced in the Old Greek which renders the Hebrew › as LSJNB and conveys the sense of a “judicial verdict” or “judgment.”66 This understanding presumes a judicial pronouncement on the matter of the disposal of the property, favoring any claims of Jeremiah at the exclusion of other claimants. The operation of a juridical body convened for the purposes of discharging responsibilities in relation to family and property rights—as operative in the book of Ruth where Boaz’s intent to acquire property is adjudicated in relation to another relative’s priority over the property (Ruth 4:1–12)—resonates with this passage. The act of the purchasing the property in part inscribes in the text a legal body, governed by legal codes created in the pre-imperial past of the people. Legal institutions, particularly native and local, fall within the spiritual domain and their existence can function as markers of nationalism. Modern forms of colonialism demonstrate the importance of the practice of law indigenous to the colonized. Brinkley Messick shows how Zaidi opposition to Ottoman rule in Yemen deals with the ability of imams to wield both spiritual and temporal power through the implementation of Shari’a law.67 Essentially, being able to implement even a portion of the Shari’a indicates the presence of a legitimate form of local governance and consequently attests to a measure of independence from the colonial power.68 Martin Chanock, similarly, traces the move by

66. BDAG, 450. › does function as legal technical term. TLOT, 1396. 67. Roughly dened as Islamic law. 68. Brinkley Messick, The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996), 51. 1

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African lawyers in the 1950s and 1960s to create legal systems that differ from those of the colonial powers. In order to do this, the lawyers created the ction of a continuity of customary and ancestral laws so that the new laws being drafted would be seen as “native and not as an exotic.”69 Both these instances raise the issue of difference. Indigenous laws, particularly those that pre-date the colonial era, assert difference and the construction of a new subjectivity. As Chatterjee points out, within the spiritual domain native law operates “to resist the sway of modern institutions of disciplinary power.”70 Similarly, in reading this symbolic purchase of property under the aegis of local law, the operations of a nationalist aspiration appears. This aspiration does not guard geographic space but preserves place. a. The City and the Village On another level, this passage deals with the issue of internal tensions between urban and rural populations. The text attests to a division between the urban center, inuenced by monarchical claims, and that of the village culture that relies more on ancestral loyalties. Albertz points to the presence of a pro-Babylonian party that morphs into a reform movement along the lines of the Josianic reform in the immediate aftermath of the Babylonian invasion.71 The ill-fated Babylonian-appointed governor, Gedaliah, seems to play a leading role in this grouping and during his tenure advances agrarian reforms and the distribution of property owned by upper class deportees. The prophet Ezekiel condemns this action (Ezek 11:14–21; 33:23–29), echoing the sentiments of the former land owners.72 The social divisions that exist prior to the Babylonian invasion continue into the deportation era. According to the text, Babylonian policy results in the deportation of the social elite (29:2) leaving behind the poorest people (40:7). As Ranajit Guha notes, colonial contexts are riddled with divisions beyond those of colonized–colonizer binary, but also include that of the elite and subaltern distinctions.73 These particular

69. Martin Chanock, Law, Custom and Social Order: The Colonial Experience in Malawi and Zambia (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1998), 55. 70. Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments, 75. 71. Albertz, Israel in Exile, 92. 72. Albertz offers a treatment of land use issues from the perspective of the landless peasants who benet from the reforms and of those who are dispossessed of their property. Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion, vol. 2, 99. 73. See Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 199. Loomba’s denition of the term “subaltern” follows Antonio Gramsci’s conception of the term that expands its 1

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“colonial dichotomies” nd their expression in this text in the divide between the city and village. Dispossession of land and claims to share adequately in the land create a divide between the city and the village. The land acquisition practices of the upper classes that hold oppressive consequences for village-based dwellers, condemned by earlier prophets such as Micah (Mic 2:2), Amos (5:11), and Isaiah (Isa 5:8), continue during the presumed time of the book of Jeremiah. The book of Jeremiah excoriates the sons of Josiah for their opulent lifestyle and grand dwellings which they erect at the expense of the poor (Jer 22:13–23). The wealthy seem to turn to the villages in order to acquire property for houses or additional vineyards, as the example of Ahab implies (1 Kgs 21:1–22). This would set them on a collision course with the tribal and ancestral loyalties of the village culture. Gedaliah’s settling of refugees on property vacated by the deportees (40:9–11) appears to redress this imbalance. In different ways, the text of ch. 32 displays the tensions between the urban elite dwellers and their counterparts in the villages. At one level, it presents this through the discursive antagonism between Zedekiah and Jeremiah. According to the passage, Jeremiah’s preaching threatens Zedekiah and Zedekiah in turn silences Jeremiah. He nds Jeremiah’s direct pronouncement on the fate of the city and his own fate particularly offensive (vv. 3–5). As mediated through the various levels of communication, Jeremiah hones in specically on the city in his judgment oracle (v. 3b), as well as on the fate of Zedekiah (vv. 4–5). These negative portrayals of the city and its king are counterbalanced by the symbolic action of saving the property located in Anathoth. The particular location of the property in Anathoth holds signicance. The text shows property in an economically and vulnerable village location being saved while the city comes under threat of military destruction. The location of the property in Anathoth holds further signicance, for its location is in the tribal heartland of Benjamin where Gedaliah establishes his capital (40:6, 8) and is presumably the location of the reform party. According to the historical record, the land of Benjamin escapes relatively unscathed from the depredations of the Babylonians when compared to Jerusalem.74 Presumably, for this and other reasons, land in Benjamin would be attractive land, meaning that later returnees would semantic range beyond the notion “the lowliest of the low.” She asserts that the term can be used to refer to non-elites and those who are “positioned simultaneously within several different discourses of power and of resistance.” Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 239. 74. Albertz, Israel in Exile, 92. 1

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press either legal claims to property there or assert a divine right to the land on the basis of the puricatory experience of exile. In the purchase of tribal lands, particularly that of Benjamin, the symbolic action functions discursively as a form of resistance to the internal colonizing impulse from the urban center or later returnees. This tension between monarchical city center/village and tribal concerns also appears in the subsequent interpretations of the symbolic action that turns the message into one of hope for the city and its interests. While v. 15 uses the generic term “land” () in its interpretation, v. 44 deliberately widens the message of hope from “land” to “cities” ( …  ). A giddying embrace of city culture through the repeated references to “cities” (Jerusalem and four city areas) appears. More particularly, the purposes of land function quite differently between the sections of the text that support a tribal culture and those that promote city culture. In the narrative of the redemption of the land, land plays the role of ancestral property, as a part of the inheritance that cements tribal solidarity. However, from the vantage point of the city culture, land is a commodity to be traded in a stimulated market economy. The references to land sales in vv. 43–44 privilege land as a singular commodity, unlike v. 15, which has the tripartite elements (land, houses, and vineyards) of settled existence.75 Wittenberg points out that the provisions of land law in Israel act against capitalist greed in order to protect the rights of small landowners. Consequently, no land sale is the same, since a distinction exists between “buying and selling for the sake of restitution [and]…buying and selling for the sake of the accumulation of land.”76 This distinction shows up in the manner in which the symbolic action occurs: it is a land sale with the intent of restitution that trumps other intentions subtly betrayed in the language associated with the city culture. The symbolic act of purchasing the property exercises the right to possess land occupied through ancient and ancestral inheritances in the face of threats to the loss of that property. The provision of information about the kinship ties between Jeremiah and Hanamel, the detailing of the tribal links to the property, and the location of the property indicate the assertion of ancestral practices to preserve the homeland, whether it be from incursions by empire or from elite circles within the nation.

75. Adele Berlin offers that the activities of building, planting, and marrying represent the marks of “establishing a settlement” in Deuteronomy. Adele Berlin, “Jeremiah 29:5–7: A Deuteronomic Allusion,” Hebrew Annual Review 8 (1984): 3. 76. Wittenberg, “The Vision of Land,” 137. 1

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b. The Sign and Beyond Signs point both to themselves and beyond themselves. As a pointer to itself, the symbolic action of the prophet produces a visual focus upon him as the performing subject and by extension the fate of the nation. As a nation threatened by the will to empire and subject to removal, the discursive focus on the spiritual domain of the nation interrogates imperial power. Liverani suggests that the will to empire represented by the Babylonians, and before them the Assyrians, and later on the Persians, destroys nationalities as dened by common ancestry, common traditions, common worship, and so on. He believes that the end result of the territorial challenge posed by empire produces “a homogeneous texture throughout the territory of the empire.”77 Therefore, acts of resistance aimed at the maintenance of the characteristics that dene the nation as a people make sense in light of imperial power. The emphasis upon seeing and the visual eld communicate this sense of resistance in the passage. Jeremiah’s prison in the “court of the guard” (  , v. 2) serves as a site of observation and seeing. The Hebrew word   presumes a target and something that the eye focuses upon. The prophet becomes the site of surveillance for the forces of Zedekiah and the royal house. Additionally, the forces of the Babylonian army besieging Jerusalem make the city itself an intentional focus of the imperial gaze. The Hebrew word describing the siege ( ) creates the sense of the city encircled by a targeted and focused gaze from the Babylonian forces. The imperial army’s eyes spotlight the city wherein the prophet is imprisoned under the watch of the palace guard. The text, therefore, creates these different levels of surveillance that place the prophet, as a metonym of the nation, at the center. As a subject, Jeremiah operates as the immediate focus of both the local governing authorities and the imperial power. This doubled gaze emphasizes the ambiguous nature of the position of the prophet. This doubleness exposes the complexity of the colonial context since the prophet’s potentially conicting and dual loyalties rhetorically engage in the same activity. All this visual activity takes place against the background of the Babylonian will to punish Jerusalem and its inhabitants, as well as Zedekiah’s attempt to silence Jeremiah’s criticism. Therefore, both monarchical speech and prophetic speech are being silenced by the doubled imprisonment of the city and prophet. In the absence of the ability to speak freely, the symbolic action sufces to give voice to marginal positionalities. Performing this visual activity while being watched by these two contending parties not only makes the prophet and his 77. Liverani, “Nationality and Political Identity,” 1033. 1

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actions sites of arbitrariness and ambivalence, but represents a signicant demand to be seen. This demand to be seen creates what Bhabha calls a “space of representation.” Colonial subjects, in rhetorical and other ways, assert their subjectivity and the strength of their identity under conditions that render them invisible. The missing term creates a “transitive demand” within a context of representation that understands identity and self-hood as being “a totalizing, plenitudinous object of vision.”78 Therefore, rather than being rendered invisible in texts, or constructed according to colonialist stereotypes, the colonized returns a counter-gaze that interrupts the hegemonic intents of empire. It is this counter-gaze that appears in the face off between Zedekiah and the king of Babylon, as seen in the prophet’s prediction of his doom: “speak face-to-face and see eye-toeye” (       , v. 4).79 The witnesses in the court of the guard who assume a viewing/surveillance position similar to that of the colonial power also participate in a counter-gaze. The performance of the legal rituals required for the purchase of the property in this text functions as the prophet’s space of representation through which the subjectivity of the nation is asserted in the face of imperial and monarchical aggression. As a visible subject, his ambiguous acts of purchasing a eld unsettles the dominant power’s attempt to render him silent and invisible. While the symbolic act of purchasing property looks like a simple and innocuous gesture, read within the connes of imperial domination this act poses a menace to the imperial power. Bhabha calls the ability to camouage one’s activity in order to produce a mixed message “mimicry,” a particular tool used by the colonized to threaten the myth of complete power articulated by the empire. Through mimicry the colonized appears to be the same or to resemble that which the colonialist stereotype expects. A crucial aspect of mimicry, as stated by Bhabha, is “the representation of identity and meaning…along the axis of metonymy.”80 Only a part of the meaning or identity is displayed, a large portion remains hidden, “spatially split…or temporally deferred.”81 The threat to 78. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 46. 79. Thompson proposes the translation of Bright—“confronted by him face to face, will be made to answer to him personally”—as more appropriate since it captures the seditious ring of the Hebrew idiom. He argues that the idiom is more “eyeball to eyeball” than the English notion of “eye to eye.” Thompson, Book of Jeremiah, 585. 80. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 90. 81. Ibid., 51. 1

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colonial authority comes from this partial production of meaning and identity, since the colonized produce strategically conicting and arbitrary knowledge. The symbolic action, while it resembles other land purchases, relies on that resemblance to threaten imperial power. The absence of a direct quote or reading of the Levitical laws established to prevent alienation of the land from its indigenous owners introduces an element of menace to the project of urban expansion in this text. In the absence of clearly articulated historical beginnings of the people as a nation, the salvaging of this property questions the authority of the empire to impose punitive sanctions upon the land. The prophet as a single individual engaging in this subversive activity of purchase creates the slippage of Babylonian hegemony, since he functions as a metonym of the nation. The text creates another site of representation by recording and reporting the deeds arising from the purchase of the property. The text lists the witnesses as “in the presence of Hanamel my cousin, and in the presence of the witnesses signing the deed of purchase, in the presence of all the Judeans who were living in the court of the guard” (   

 ›            , v. 12). The repetition of “in the presence of” () renders this

action a visual one and focuses attention on the production of the deeds in a similar way to the surveillance carried out on the prophet. In fact, the pervasive gaze continues in this section of the narrative. The text reminds the reader that this level of visual activity takes place in the same site of surveillance, “the court of the guard” (  ). Further, the narration of the deed-preparation provides for more than the attestation of the deeds but the securing of living witness to the act. The text in v. 10 describes the actions of the prophet in four short and deliberate phrases, among them being the intentional acquisition of witnesses, “then I got witnesses” (  ). These witnesses are then delineated in v. 12 as the same ones referred to in v. 13, “in their presence” ( ). The witnesses function in more than a legal capacity as attesters of the preparation of the documents. From preparation to disposal of the documents they participate in viewing the activity of the prophet. Friebel points to the three classes of witnesses present: Hanamel, the legal signatories to the deed, and the non-legal witnesses. He argues for the necessity of the non-legal witnesses since the action of the prophet stands as “a communication event.”82 The demand to be seen points to the inclusion of the wider audience that gathers in the site of surveillance, the court of the guard. 82. Friebel, Jeremiah’s and Ezekiel’s Sign-Acts, 318. 1

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The visual eld in the text, though, shifts from the person of the prophet to the text of the deeds. From v. 10 onwards, all the prophet’s actions lead toward the production of the text document, a process that climaxes in v. 14 with the divine directive for the preservation of the deeds. The crucial detail in that verse is not the narrative of the symbolic action, but the deeds themselves. This privileging of the deeds of purchase over the narrative of the event, alongside the evolution of the symbolic action from visual act to written text, destabilizes facile relationships between the signied and the signier. This calls into question the import of v. 15. Should the production of written deeds be interpreted as an indicator of the reclamation of land for commercial purposes, as suggested by v. 15? The text product, based upon the visual symbolic action, serves as a pointer of the protection of the spiritual domain of the nation rather than the physical space. Drawing on Roland Barthes, Bhabha asserts that “shifting the frame of identity from the eld of vision to the space of writing” results in the articulation of identity that stands outside of “the act of signication.”83 In essence, the signiers of the symbolic action lie beyond the “analogical relation”84 created by the immediate literary context. At the end of the passage, the written text of the deeds of purchase acts as the visual sign of the message of the action of the prophet. Presumably the deeds’ survival as written texts beyond the immediate circumstances of the siege provides tangible evidence of the acts of resistance posed at that time and, therefore, functions in analogous historical contexts. The texts that pose this threat to various ideations of colonialism are not articulated histories but deeds and records. The scripting of resistance relies less on historiographies of epic battles, stories of conquest, or even on a manifest destiny to occupy the land. The emphasis lies on legal documents that enact transactions for the transfer and preservation of property according to ancestral tradition. In this way, the deeds of purchase function not merely as claims to turf, but as the assertion of subjectivity, identity, and the right to self-determination. 5. Conclusion Ania Loomba raises the question of the content of resistance. In response to her query she pays attention to the fact that the form of resistance depends upon the force resisted. Using Frederick Cooper, she acknowledges the danger of dening the entire existence of the colonized as 83. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 48. 84. Ibid., 49. 1

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merely resistant living. Additionally, Stuart Hall provides Loomba with the notion that even in their supposed passivity, subalterns serve as a disruptive presence to the forces that silence them.85 The type of resistance offered to the imperial project in the symbolic action of the prophet appears passive. Yet, the articulation of the subjectivity of a nation poses resistance to the will to empire. Saving home requires more than military strategy to protect geo-political space. Given the resources available, protecting psycho-social and religio-political place serves as a viable option. In the outer realm, the nation destabilizes the imperial will that leads to the destruction of the nation. In the face of imperial aggression that threatens the dispossession of the land, this text employs a form of resistance that preserves the subjectivity of the people and keeps a place for them in the world.

85. Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 244. 1

Chapter 5

THE WORLD IN THE HOME: JEREMIAH 40:1–12

Imperial occupation of a country results in a reordering of the power structure in that territory. In addition to loss of sovereignty and control over territory, the occupants of that country shift from their former positions of power and inuence in the social structure to being several rungs lower in a new structure that privileges imperial authority and its adherents. Dislocation, as a result of imperial occupation, manifests itself in more than physical inconveniences and the creation of refugees who ee physical space for protection. Dislocation also occurs at the level of psycho-social place, where individual access and relation to power structures are displaced as new power centers and new structures emerge. The refugee created from this experience possesses limited access to space, but negotiates a place in the world, that is, social relations, power structures, culture retention, and so on. Just as important as the loss of land in this context, the potential loss of agency and subjectivity require intentional adjustment. The contact between the colonial power and colonized results in an asymmetrical relationship. The colonial relationship imposes culture, value, histories, knowledge, and power, among other things, upon the colonized. In this relationship, the colonial power and its production of knowledge, history, ideas, and culture assume the center of reality while at the same time relegating the culture, history, and traditions of the colonized to the margins.1 This marginalization of the colonized occurs 1. Though the notions of the binary oppositions of colonized/colonizer, and consequently center/margin, appear problematic for some persons, it is my contention that, on one level, it is the creation and perpetuation of the binary oppositions that undergirds the colonial project. Ashcroft et al. offer: “Colonialism could only exist at all by postulating that there existed a binary opposition into which the world was divided.” Ashcroft, Grifths, and Tifn, eds., Key Concepts, 36. Similarly Guha: “We recognize of course that subordination cannot be understood except as one of the constitutive terms in a binary relationship of which the other is dominance.” Ranajit Guha, “Preface,” in Selected Subaltern Studies (ed. Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak; New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 35.

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both as a natural consequence of the differences in power between the colonizer and the colonized as well as the deliberate and systematic mode of rule. By subjecting the colonized to domination, the colonizer imposes upon the colonized a place at the margins of empire. African American theorist bell hooks2 points to the difference between imposed marginality and chosen marginality. She views imposed marginality as one of the hallmarks of the colonial project. Using Spivak, hooks describes chosen marginality as a site of resistance and a place from which African Americans have staged counter-hegemonic responses. In this space of chosen marginality “radical black subjectivity is seen, not overseen by any authoritative Other.”3 hooks’ conceptualization of chosen marginality as a means of resistance provides a lens for reading the narratives that describe survival in the land in the aftermath of the Babylonian conquest. Marginality serves as a mechanism for the establishment of place. The biblical text gives the impression that either no survivors or no survivors worth mentioning remain in the land after the Babylonian conquest. The Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the occupation of the Judean territory create several classes of displaced persons: those 2. I am using bell hooks as a postcolonial theorist, even though she self-identies as a feminist cultural critic. Several understandings of postcolonial theory include African American authors, literature and theorists. Ashcroft et al. add the United States in their list of countries that share the common experience of invasion and settlement by European powers; characteristics of the postcolonial experience. They further point out that, though now a world power, the historical and current social realities within the United States require that Native American and African American communities, among others, be considered as sharing the postcolonial experience. Ashcroft, Grifths, and Tifn, eds., Key Concepts, 26. Moore-Gilbert argues that postcolonial practice actually predates the use of the term “postcolonial” and therefore maintains space for the inclusion of African American experiences such as the Harlem Renaissance in the theoretical scope of postcolonialism. MooreGilbert, Postcolonial Theory, 5. Equally, Barry’s conceptualization of postcolonialism extends as far back as Fanon. Barry, Beginning Theory, 192. Hubbard et al. include hooks among postcolonial theorists in their evaluation of spatial theories. Hubbard, Kitchin, and Valentine, eds., Key Thinkers, 349. Deborah Maden observes that multi-ethnic literature from the United States tends to be omitted from consideration among postcolonial literatures. She notes that this view traces as far back as the original colonies of New England. Deborah L. Maden, “Beyond the Commonwealth: Post-Colonialism and American Literature,” in Post-Colonial Literatures: Expanding the Canon (ed. Deborah L. Maden; London: Pluto, 1999), 1–3. 3. bell hooks, Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics (Boston: South End, 1990), 22. 1

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deported to Babylon, those who ee temporarily to neighboring areas, and those who leave in the aftermath of ghting and destruction. The concerns of the group deported to Babylon dominate the book and its reading.4 Consequently, the group of those who live within the land of Judah under Babylonian sovereignty are either ignored or presented as being of no account.5 Their experience of living in the midst of the imperial presence in a place that they call home and formerly controlled provides opportunities for reading the text from the perspective of a neglected or silenced group. The narrative text of chs. 39–42 witnesses to the nature of life, the governing structure, and the response of those in the land under Babylonian rule. These responses adjust to the new situation where a foreign power has invaded the land and restructures its governance and reorders its social arrangements. These responses offer more than simple acquiescence to colonial power, but form part of resistance aimed at maintaining agency and subjectivity. 1. From Release to Survival The narrative of 40:1–6 is an easily neglected portion of the book of Jeremiah. It details another account of the connement and then release of the prophet. This scenario plays out previously in 37:17–21; 38:7–13, and 39:13–14 and therefore makes the release of Jeremiah from connement, albeit with the prospect of deportation this time, of little interest for the development of the story. Habel’s comment in relation to chs. 39–44 is representative of other interpreters with regards to 40:1–6: “Little comment is called for in the following chapters.”6 Interpreters overlook this narrative, having commented on the companion story in 39:11–14, in preference for the Gedaliah narratives which follow in 40:7–41:18.7 While the passage’s redactional position accounts for this 4. Pohlmann argues that a nal form of the book receives a “golah-oriented” redaction. Pohlmann, Studien zum Jeremiabuch, 183–97. So too Sharp who credits the Deutero-Jeremianic prose to a “pro-gôlâ platform.” Sharp, Prophecy and Ideology in Jeremiah, 159. 5. Carroll explores this narrative presentation from the perspective of the myth of the “empty land” that creates the impression of the “emptied land” as a means of justifying the “promised land” for those returning from deportation. Robert P. Carroll, “The Myth of the Empty Land,” in Ideological Criticism of Biblical Texts (ed. D. Jobling and T. Pippin; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 81–84. 6. Habel, Jeremiah, 291. 7. Brueggemann has two pages of comment on the Jeremiah narrative (pp. 161– 63), in comparison to nine on the Gedaliah narrative (pp. 163–72). Brueggemann, To Build, to Plant, 161–63, 163–72. Jones provides two pages on the Jeremiah story 1

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treatment, its position also suggests a different way to read the text. The passage follows the companion text of 39:11–14, which also describes a similar release, as well as the text of promise to Ebed-melech for his generosity towards Jer 39:15–18. It precedes the Gedaliah narrative, which focuses on Gedaliah’s rule in the land. These passages deal with the survival of the central characters in the aftermath of the Babylonian invasion: Ebed-melech’s promise of his freedom and his life in the midst of war (39:17–18), and Gedaliah’s reconstruction of the society and economy to make the territory livable (40:9–12). The asymmetrical relationships represented in the text render the issue of survival in the aftermath of colonial invasion an overlooked theme. The passage presents the prophet as dependent upon the Babylonian resources for his freedom, his livelihood and his living space. A postcolonial reading privileges a narrative of survival over a narrative of release as a means of interrupting the notion that the colonized loses all agency so as to be completely dependent upon the colonial power for freedom, autonomy, and agency. Reading this passage as the strategy for survival in the aftermath of the Babylonian conquest foregrounds the prophet as the active agent in the narrative, exposes the limitations of imperial power as represented in the passage, and explains how the colonized navigate their way amidst dominant power. In reading the passage commentators characterize it as a story of release; they thereby privilege Babylonian agency. Nicholson and Thompson view it as the story of Jeremiah’s release from connement,8 while Robert Davidson titles this section “Freedom for Jeremiah.”9 Holladay reads the narrative within the larger scheme of the fate of the constantly imprisoned and beaten Jeremiah who in this narrative appears as a shadow of his former self. He, therefore, approaches it as a passion narrative: “The paradox of [Jeremiah], a victim yet curiously free, is the same paradox manifest in the narrative of Jesus’ passion.”10 Habel offers no description of the narrative, though he points out that the choice given to Jeremiah by Nebuzaradan would secure his social position: “In exile the prophet would have been esteemed highly; in Judah life would be (pp. 467–68), compared to ve pages and two lines for Gedaliah (pp. 469–74). Jones, Jeremiah, 467–68. Keown et al. treat 40:1–12 as one block of text but dedicate one single paragraph of the section titled “Explanation” on the Jeremiah portion of the pericope. Keown, Scalise, and Smothers, Jeremiah 26–52, 237. 8. Nicholson, The Prophet Jeremiah, 131; Thompson, Book of Jeremiah, 651. 9. Robert Davidson, Jeremiah and Lamentations (DSBOT; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985), 132. 10. Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 305. 1

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one of great hardship.”11 These interpretations, in opting to read the passage as a story of release, privilege Babylon as an imperial power, the sole guarantor of security, prosperity, and freedom, while minimizing any role for the prophet. Postcolonial theory accepts that the colonizer–colonized relationship skews in favor of the colonizer. Postcolonial perspectives on reading texts identify the gaps in the dominant colonial power. Reframing the reading of this passage from a focus on the prophet’s release at the hands of the Babylonians to a focus on the choices for survival in the land adjusts how agency is viewed in the text. Jeremiah’s release from the ranks of the deportees cannot simply be regarded as a release in the same way as his release from connement in the court of the guard. In those instances Jeremiah would have been released to continue his activity as a prophet under the same socio-political conditions. Adjusting the reading of the text to the issue of survival gives attention to the colonized context of Jeremiah’s connement and release. The story of the release of Jeremiah occurs against the backdrop of a favorable disposition towards the prophet by the Babylonians. His release comes as a reward for advocating submission to Babylon (21:9; 27:11) and therefore, as Habel puts it, the text presents Jeremiah as “an unexpected ally [who] deserved special consideration.”12 To focus on the release as the central aspect of the passage accepts that the prophet serves as a biased advocate for the Babylonian cause without paying regard to the complexities posed by the Babylonian threat. The stance the text assigns to Jeremiah with regards Babylon appears at best as ambiguous, representing the advice of one who recognizes the ambivalences created by the threat of imperial power and the strategies necessary for those on the receiving end of that power to survive. In the passage the political leadership, as well as the people, receive advice to adopt strategies that appear to capitulate to Babylon but potentially preserve their agency and subjectivity (21:3–10; 25:9–14; 27:4–7). Reading the pericope as a narrative of survival rather than release disrupts the Gedaliah-centered passages that follow. As a story of release it continues seamlessly to the Gedaliah section as another representation of the benets of colonial rule, with both Jeremiah and Gedaliah owing their fate to the benevolence of the Babylonians. Placing Jeremiah and Gedaliah as equivalent creations of imperial power masks the differences between them and their choices and actions. Additionally, the presentation of the joint appearance secures credibility for Gedaliah through 11. Habel, Jeremiah, 295. 12. Ibid., 294. 1

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association with Jeremiah and at the same time presents the imperially constructed mode of rule that Gedaliah administers as unproblematic. A postcolonial reading of this passage looks at the issue of those who survive in the land. Centering the text as a strategy of survival sheds light on the reality of those left in the land who navigate new relationships with imperial power. While those who remain in the land have access to the land, their access to power, control, and agency in the land, that is, their place, is diminished. The text’s depiction of Jeremiah’s deliberate choice of a location among those who were left behind, under the conditions of rule established by Babylon, can be read as a choice for marginality. As hooks argues, the choice for marginality is one of the strategies of survival employed by those who have to navigate postcolonial contexts in the midst of dominant power. 2. Analysis of 40:1–6 Chapter 40 falls within a block of texts (chs. 37–45) set within and after the reign of Zedekiah on the eve and the aftermath of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. The narrative from ch. 37 onwards focuses on the fate of both Jerusalem and Jeremiah, who are respectively under siege (39:1–10) and imprisoned (37:11–40:4). This section closes, though, with a word of assurance to Baruch, similar to that given to Ebed-melech (39:15–18) on his survival despite the experiences of dislocation (45:5). This closing section, however, offers no promise of release for the city of Jerusalem. The narratives focus on the survival of Jeremiah from connement (38:7–28; 39:11–14; 40:1–6), the promise of survival given to both Ebed-melech (39:15–18) and Baruch (ch. 45), the survivors who remain in the land in the post-conquest period, and the survivors of the collapse of the governing structure under Gedaliah (chs. 40–41) and their decision to nd refuge in Egypt (chs. 42–43). Within this section of texts (chs. 37–45), three accounts of Jeremiah’s release from captivity occur (38:7–13; 39:11–15; 40:1–6). The rst account relates Jeremiah’s release at the hand of Ebed-melech from connement in the cistern, but offers no conclusion about his release from arrest in the court of the guard. The second account of his release at the insistence of the Babylonian ofcials depicts his freedom from the court of the guard (39:14). The third account describes what appears to be a second release by the Babylonians, from among a group of deportees already bound and in fetters on their way to Babylon. The two accounts of the release of Jeremiah by the Babylonians seem to be two independent stories brought together in close narrative sequence. The rst account (39:11–14) is short and involves only the 1

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order from the Babylonian king and the execution of that order by a number of ofcials. The second account (40:1–6) details the prophet’s removal from a group of deportees, the release of his fetters, and then the granting of options relating to how to exercise his freedom. Both accounts end with him living among Gedaliah and the people in the land (39:14 and 40:6). The oracle to Ebed-melech intrudes between the two accounts and distorts the chronological sequence by placing Jeremiah back at the court of the guard (39:15). Attempts to harmonize these accounts result in reconstructions that assume a single and consistent pattern of imprisonment and deportation.13 These inconsistencies provide an opportunity for a comparative view of the accounts and their respective portrayals of both Jeremiah and the Babylonian imperial presence.14 Consequently, the strategies of survival that are to be read in 40:1–6 become clearer and more pointed when read alongside 39:11–14. The narrative of 40:1–6, and indeed all of ch. 40, features a silent title character, since Jeremiah does not speak.15 Much of the narrative focus in the chapter lies on characters and issues other than those related to Jeremiah. Jeremiah appears only in vv. 1–6 and thereafter plays no role in the rest of the chapter or even the narrative until 42:2. Like several other passages in the book, ch. 40 begins with an introductory formula, “The word from the LORD which came to Jeremiah” ( ›      ), that leads one to expect a divine oracle.16 However, 13. Clements and Thompson are among those interpreters who see no inconsistencies in the accounts. Thompson reconstructs the scenario of Jeremiah undergoing a trial prior to his initial release and then being rearrested and placed among deportees at Ramah, thus necessitating his second release. Thompson, Book of Jeremiah, 649. Clements agrees. Clements, Jeremiah, 229. Bright argues that harmonizing the accounts is not necessary since there are no contradictions between them. Bright, Jeremiah, 240. 14. Scholars such as Carroll, Pohlmann, Thiel, Stipp, Wanke, and Eissfeldt agree that the two accounts are derived from different authors at different times. They further suggest that 40:1–6 is a later account of the event. Carroll, Jeremiah, 699; Pohlmann, Studien zum Jeremiabuch, 95 and 105; Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion, 55 and 57; Stipp, Jeremia, der Tempel und die Aristokratie, 38; Gunther Wanke, Untersuchungen zur sogenannten Baruchschrift (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971), 108; Otto Eissfeldt, “Baruchs Anteil an Jeremia 38,28b–40,6,” Oriens antiquus 4 (1965): 31; Wilhelm Rudolph, Jeremia (Handbuch zum Alten Testament 12; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1958), 247; Hyatt, “The Book of Jeremiah,” 1083. 15. In addition to the silence of Jeremiah in the passage and continuing chapters, Stulman explores the silence and absence of YHWH. Louis Stulman, Jeremiah (Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries; Nashville: Abingdon, 2005), 322–29. 16. The following passages all use a similar formula and include the marker of direct speech  : 11:1; 18:1; 30:1. These other passages omit the marker of direct 1

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this chapter contains no divine oracle and, unlike other instances, no indication of the prophetic ofce appears throughout the passage.17 Rather than lead to a divine oracle, the narrative relates the events of Jeremiah’s release at the hand of the captain of the Babylonian guard, Nebuzaradan. The use of the introductory formula here represents an awkward, though failed, attempt to give voice to the prophet, who does not otherwise speak in the chapter. The formula also connects this chapter into the larger narrative and creates the impression of coherence.18 This textual rupture also adds theological content to the narrative action that follows. Although the prophet utters no oracle, the text encourages the reader to accept his actions and decisions in this pericope as divinely inspired. In the following sections of the chapter (vv. 7–16) the prophet remains missing from the narrative. The next two blocks of text feature two distinct meetings between Gedaliah and military leaders and refugees. In vv. 7–10 Gedaliah holds a meeting with several named military leaders in which he enlists their support for Babylonian rule and encourages their settlement in the land. The next section (vv. 11–12) details the decision of temporarily displaced refugees to return to the land and the economic fortunes that attend their return. Both these accounts follow a simple narrative structure. The leaders hear of Gedaliah’s appointment by the Babylonians (40:7; cf. 11), they come to Gedaliah at Mizpah (40:8; cf. 12), then a notice of economic prosperity (40:10; cf. 12) follows. The rst narrative includes a plea from Gedaliah to the commanders of the troops to submit to the Babylonians, as well as his commitment to them (“he swore to them,”  ›, 40:9) to act as the interlocutor with the imperial power. The second narrative encounter (40:11–12) does not contain this element but presumes that this holds good for this group as well since the plea to stay in the land results in the reaping of the harvest (40:12).

speech but employ an identical formula: 21:1; 32:1; 34:1; 35:1. Similar to 40:1, 34:8 uses the introductory formula as well as  to indicate a particular event and delays the divine speech up to 34:12, where another introductory formula is used. 17. The designation of Jeremiah as “the prophet” () alongside an introductory formula for a divine oracle only occurs at 37:6; 46:1, 13, and 49:34. 18. Rudolph argues that the use of the introductory formula here indicates redaction, similar to that at 30:1; 32:1; 34:1. Rudolph, Jeremia, 247. Pohlmann regards the use of the word-event formula as inappropriate and suggests that the verse ought to have read   › . Pohlmann, Studien zum Jeremiabuch, 104. Keown et al. propose to resolve the difculty by deleting the words …. Keown, Scalise, and Smothers, Jeremiah 26–52, 233. 1

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These two narratives, with their indications of unity, civil order, and economic prosperity, serve as the conrmation of both the good choice to remain in the land and the benets that accrue to Judah under the Babylonian imperial power. The text emphasizes the successful and viable nature of self-rule under Gedaliah through the omission of both Jeremiah as the prophet and Nebuzaradan as the imperial ofcial as characters for this aspect of the narrative. In these two sections the strategies of survival in the face of imperial power as used by Gedaliah differ from the actions the text portrays Jeremiah employing in the previous section of text (vv. 1–6). The nal section of the chapter (vv. 13–16) introduces the threat to Gedaliah’s life and with it the collapse of the governing arrangements. Gedaliah refuses to listen to the counsel of Johanan and describes his words as a “lie” (›).19 In the absence of the performance of an obvious prophetic role by Jeremiah in the narrative, Gedaliah occupies narrative space by assuming aspects of the prophetic ofce, characterizing Johanan’s word as falsehood. This usurpation of the prophetic space, together with the absence of the prophet from the narrative, provides the means by which the text sets up the downfall of the rule of Gedaliah. His use of the word “lie” (‡) to Johanan anticipates Johanan’s own use of the same word later to Jeremiah in response to Jeremiah’s counsel to remain in the land (43:2). Arguably both Gedaliah and Johanan use strategies for survival that lead to murder in one instance and condemnation in the other. Their actions and choices for survival contrast with those of the gure of the silent and/or absent Jeremiah. The narrative of 40:1–6 places Nebuzaradan in the narrative space normally held by the prophet. Instead of the divine oracle anticipated by the introductory formula, an extended speech directed to Jeremiah from Nebuzaradan (vv. 2–5) reecting aspects of the preaching and theology of the prophet occurs. In the speech, Nebuzaradan attributes the destruction of Jerusalem to YHWH as a consequence of the sin of the people (v. 2; cf. 36:31; 32:23; 44:23; 50:7). He also names the disaster as previously threatened (v. 3; cf. 23:12; 25:9, 13; 51:62). Though some interpreters suggest that the speech by Nebuzaradan represents the misplaced divine oracle in the text,20 the narrative more likely constructs a distinct 19. The use of the word “lie” (‡) invokes the speech of Jeremiah who uses the same word to denounce false dealings in the society as well as unauthorized prophecies (3:10, 23; 7:4, 8, 9; 14:4; 20:6; 29:9, 21, 23). 20. Carroll believes that misplacement in the text turns the Dtr language of the speech normally attributed to the prophet into “a pious outburst” by Nebuzaradan. Carroll, Jeremiah, 699. 1

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role for Nebuzaradan by enabling him to speak authoritatively about the divine will regarding Jerusalem and Judah.21 The text presents the normally rabid prophet as silent and permits the foreigner to articulate Judean theology with ease. As such, the text highlights the captive state of the prophet but also the reality of his being rendered silent by the apparatus of state power. On the other hand, the text portrays the Babylonian ofcial as being at home in the Judean political and religious landscape. The constructed gure of the Babylonian ofcial in the text appears as the benevolent imperial ofcial, rather than a member of the belligerents involved in a war of occupation. The release of Jeremiah from among the deportees demonstrates this benevolence. Nebuzaradan’s speech offers no logical reason for Jeremiah’s release. Presumably, Nebuzaradan is operating on the instructions from the king of Babylon recorded in 39:12, except that in this case there appears no request from Jeremiah for special privileges. Nonetheless, Nebuzaradan provides Jeremiah with options denied other deportees. In what would appear to be an indication of the expansive nature of the Babylonian Empire, Nebuzaradan invites Jeremiah to view the entire land and to select where he wishes to go. Choosing Babylon would result in his being a guest of the state with all the necessary protections. Alternatively, he could remain in the land alongside Gedaliah, also a beneciary of Babylonian imperial benecence. In any event, Jeremiah’s choice would result in benets from the empire since the rewards given in v. 5, “meal allowance and a gift” (‡  ), are presented before the exercise of the nal choice. The pericope ends with the prophet choosing to return to Gedaliah and live among the people. The concentration on the two main characters of Jeremiah and Nebuzaradan sets this pericope (40:1–6) off from the rest of the chapter. Unlike the rst account, which provides minimal contact with no dialogue between Jeremiah and the Babylonian ofcials, this pericope allows for more interaction between Jeremiah and Nebuzaradan. Whereas in the second account only Nebuzaradan executes the royal command, in the rst account a retinue of Babylonian ofcials goes in search of, releases, and hands over Jeremiah to Gedaliah (39:13). In the rst account the Babylonian king directly orders Jeremiah’s release and care (39:12), whereas in the second the impression is given that Nebuzaradan exercises his individual discretion to release Jeremiah and to promise him 21. Thiel provides careful evidence of the links between the speech and the Dtr redactions of the book and suggests that it is a later insertion aimed at bolstering the image of the foreigner. Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion, 58–60. Hyatt regards the speech as “most improbable.” Hyatt, “The Book of Jeremiah,” 1082. 1

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protections that came with his ofce (40:4). Although the king’s command includes an order to do whatever Jeremiah requests, no indication of a request from Jeremiah surfaces, and neither is there a sign that his fate is self-determined in the rst account. The rst account portrays a docile Jeremiah overdetermined by the dominance of imperial power represented by the three named ofcials, along with the weight of their titles and the parenthetical notice, “all the chiefs of the king of Babylon” (    , 39:13). This differs from the portrayal of Jeremiah in the second account, where his nal destination comes as a result of interaction between himself and Nebuzaradan. Over and against this gure of the benevolent imperial ofcial lies the seemingly compliant Jeremiah constructed in order to endorse the rightness of the Babylonian imperial action in the passage. The passage compels readers to regard the silence of Jeremiah and his apparent cooperation with Nebuzaradan as an indication of the stability that exists in Judah under Babylonian rule. As Clements remarks about the passage: “Throughout there is an implied, though not overtly declared, assumption that Judah’s social and economic revival under the hand of the king of Babylon was an effective political and religious possibility.”22 Further, by placing alongside the survival narrative that includes Jeremiah two related narratives which feature Gedaliah (vv. 7–12), the picture of socioeconomic and political stability is lled out. In these two sections Gedaliah appears to have successfully manufactured consent for his rule and, by extension, support for Babylonian hegemony in the land. While in vv. 7–10 he appears to be speaking directly to military leaders, in vv. 11–12 no speech occurs. Presumably, the success in convincing the rst group to stay in the land under the governing arrangements provides sufcient evidence to secure the consent of the second group. By leaving Jeremiah silent in the rst section and then absent in the Gedaliah narratives, the text conscripts Jeremiah’s support for Gedaliah’s rule under Babylonian hegemony. In all of these three sections of the chapter the narrative focus stays on the acceptance of Babylon as the imperial center. Jeremiah receives encouragement to migrate to Babylon and live there. Gedaliah appears to accept the trappings of power and inuence that come with his royal appointment. In turn, Gedaliah attempts to convince the military leaders to accept the Babylonian hegemony with the direct appeal to them, “Do not be afraid to serve the Chaldeans. Live in the land, serve the king of Babylon and it will be good for you” (› ‡    

       , v. 9). The displaced refugees are 22. Clements, Jeremiah, 231. 1

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emboldened to return when they hear of the two signicant actions by the king of Babylon, namely, leaving a remainder in the land and the appointment of Gedaliah (v. 11). These serve as inducements to return to the land and ultimately to embrace Babylon as the imperial center and guarantor of stability, peace, and prosperity in the land. The apparent success of this compulsion towards Babylon as the center is seen in the defense of Gedaliah’s rule by Johanan both in his actions and his words. Johanan argues for the protection of Gedaliah and his administration on the grounds that to do so would be to protect the stability of the territory through a policy of appeasement towards the Babylonians (v. 15). A critical reading of the passage demonstrates that Jeremiah resists the impulse towards the center created by Babylon. The text’s presentation of Jeremiah’s silence on the matter of the gifts offered by Nebuzaradan, his rejection of life in Babylon, his absence and silence on the issue of Gedaliah’s rule, as well as his solidarity with the people left behind in the land can be read as strategic choices in deance of the hegemony exerted by the imperial center. As the tenuous position of Gedaliah indicates, as well as Johanan’s perception of the need to appease the Babylonians also reveals, acceptance of Babylon as the imperial center does not result in incorporation into the center but rather submission to an imposed marginality. Jeremiah’s choices and actions in the text represent the choice of a location on the social margins where voice, subjectivity, and agency could emerge for the people, that is, place. The postcolonial reading of the text privileges the narrative of survival and foregrounds the actions of Jeremiah in the use of adaptive strategies. 3. Reading Marginality The narratives of survival in the land after the Babylonian conquest provide a link with the postcolonial condition. This condition marks those whose indigenous territory has been conquered as being on the peripheries of an empire. Empire incorporates land, resources, and people for its economic and social development, as well as for its strategic benets. Whatever the reason, the peripheries of the empire are created and maintained so as to ensure the continuance of the exercise of dominant power by the center. In this text of survival, identifying the margins and the ways these are created and sustained becomes important for reading the passage. Jeremiah appears in the passage as a marginal character. He sits on the periphery of the narrative action. He neither speaks, dialogues, responds, nor engages other characters. His dependence upon other characters to come to voice and presence in the narrative heightens the relative 1

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narrative silence of the otherwise central character. From the outset of 40:1–6, powerful forces control Jeremiah as he is presented as the object of Nebuzaradan’s directive and imperial actions. Nebuzaradan as a function of his imperial ofce determines his movement from Ramah. In the notice, “after Nebuzaradan, the chief of the guard sent him from Ramah” (       › , 40:1b), the mention of Nebuzaradan’s imperial position as well as the intentionality inherent in the word “sent” (›) emphasize the force and power of Nebuzaradan’s action. The use of the object pronoun “him” () underscores Jeremiah’s objectication, both in the sense of being on the receiving end of action and the diminishing of his humanity through this action. The repetition of the object pronoun with the next nite verb, “when he took him” ( ), maintains this sense of objectication in the rest of the verse. The passage communicates Jeremiah’s prisoner status. The full description of his connement accentuates his captive status. The Hebrew text’s addition of the phrase “he was bound” ( , v. 1), which is missing in the Old Greek text, while it may appear to be superuous, heightens the already visual and emotive impact of “in fetters” ( ). Jeremiah’s connement exists on three different levels: “he was bound in fetters among all the deportees” (     , v. 1). His own hands bound, he is also bound to others in a line and conned to the group of deportees. The text marks Jeremiah as being “among” () the deportees (  ) and therefore places him in a particular socio-political category. As one being deported, he represents the consequences of the political maelstrom that overtakes a nation occupied by a foreign power. This detention notice, when read against other connement narratives, portrays Jeremiah in more dire circumstances, with not only restricted freedom of movement, but with compromised individuality and autonomy. In ch. 32, though Jeremiah is reported as “conned in the court of the guard” (    , 32:2), the remainder of that narrative implies a state of house arrest with limitations placed on his physical movements. During his imprisonment for supposedly deserting to the Babylonians, a makeshift prison in the house of the secretary Jonathan serves as the jail. In this instance, Jeremiah’s physical circumstances pale in comparison to the physical abuse from the enraged ofcials prior to his connement, “the ofcials were furious with Jeremiah and they struck him” (      ‡ , 37:15). In ch. 38, placed in the pit by Malchiah, Zedekiah’s son, the dominant use of nite verbs such as “took” (), “threw” ( ›), and “sent” (›, 38:6) conveys the sense of restricted movements. The place of his connement, a pit, points to the punitive nature of this action, “But there was no water 1

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in the pit, only mud, and Jeremiah sank into the mud” (         , 38:6). These texts describe the connement of Jeremiah, his restricted movements and adverse physical conditions. These circumstances, though, do not point to his actual body as a site of connement, as in 40:1, where he is manacled. The narrative of ch. 40 pushes the issue of Jeremiah’s connement to another level, one where his bodily connement represents both the loss of independent movement and the loss of autonomy. Chapter 40 differs from the other texts, where connement by Babylonian imperial authority magnies the scale of his connement. Jeremiah’s physical connement in this chapter is set amidst the deportation from Jerusalem to Babylon. The text not only portrays him as bound but also in the middle of the entire group of deportees from Jerusalem and Judah, “in the midst of all the deportees from Jerusalem and Judah who were being deported to Babylon” ( ›       , 40:1). Jeremiah’s location among the deportees marks a number of historical and political realities of the residents of Jerusalem and Judah. The prophet’s portrayal in this text as a member of the group of “all the deportees” (  ) places Jeremiah in a position determined by Babylonian power. The presence and activity of imperial action aborts his freedom of movement and compromises his ability for self-determination. In this position, Jeremiah sits on the receiving end of the narrative action directed by Nebuzaradan. For most of the pericope Jeremiah is spoken to by Nebuzaradan, after having been taken away from the deportees. The notice of the action of Jeremiah’s removal reads as “The chief of the guard took Jeremiah and said to him” (        , 40:2). The title of the Babylon ofcial underscores the agency of the empire as well as Jeremiah’s dependence upon it. Except as allowed by the empire, no room for agency on the part of Jeremiah exists in this speech of Nebuzaradan (vv. 2b–5c). The narrative position of Jeremiah illustrates hooks’ conception of imposed marginality. To read the assigned place of marginality as xed and dened by the colonial center would be to view dominant power as a totalizing force. hooks posits that chosen marginality acts as one way in which this resistance is offered. In hooks’ understanding of marginality, she acknowledges the dominance of multiple sites of power and oppression that render any number of groups of people marginal, whether it be by virtue of their race, gender or social status. hooks refuses to accept the margins as being intrinsically a site of despair and “deep nihilism.”23 Rather, she sees it as 23. hooks, Yearning, 149. 1

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a site of resistance that enables those set outside of the whole body and placed in the margins to be able still to belong to the whole.24 It is in the power to produce knowledge of both the margin and the center that those who exist on the periphery develop “oppositional world views.” Speaking of the experience of living in the segregated south of the United States, hooks articulates the importance of knowing where the lines were drawn but also the understanding that, even though marginalized, African Americans played a critical role in the economic, social, and political survival of the center.25 From this perspective, hooks does not exoticize the margins or regard it as a “pure” space.26 In her formulation, marginality stands as more than a condition of deprivation or place of silence assigned by hegemonic power; the margins are “both sites of repression and sites of resistance.”27 An intentional embrace of marginality embodies an exercise of power that confronts repression. The choice of marginality, therefore, serves not as an acquiescence to oppression but the staging of resistance to dominant power. In hooks’ critical representation of marginality, location appears to be pivotal but not determinative. In her conception of “homeplace,” she describes a crucial space of power and resistance for African American women. Although African American women were largely relegated to domestic work by the gendered and racialized power of the society, they took the assigned role but expanded it to develop environments for the care, nurture, development, teaching, and impartation of resistant strategies within the community.28 hooks argues that rather than seeing a woman’s performance of domestic roles as either natural or societally assigned, this ought to be viewed as a choice “invested with political power.”29 Though a marginal role, African American women create out of domestic work a location called “homeplace” that functioned as a social space within which oppositional strategies could have been developed and employed, that is to say, where they recovered a sense of place. hooks remains intentional in her use of the notion of “homeplace” since for her it stands for more than just a shelter and community of comfort. “Homeplace” functions as the location from which new knowledge is constructed, new perspectives are gained, and new strategies for negotiating 24. bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (Boston: South End, 1984), Preface. 25. Ibid. 26. hooks, Yearning, 151. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., 44. 29. Ibid., 45. 1

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the ambiguities of power are developed. Such a location remains constantly under the threat of violation by dominant power,30 but also at the same time the place of resistance, or what McKittrick refers to as “a subversive and feminist space.”31 Therefore, marginality functions not only as a site for resistance, but also exercises the capacity to produce agency and subjectivity. In her development of the notion of resistance through the choice of marginality, hooks remains aware of the difculties of articulation from the position of marginality. Articulation from marginality appears essentially as “talking back” to dominant power and directly challenging that power. In the presence of colonial power, one’s speech gets censored, co-opted, contorted, and corrupted, because for the most part the language of colonial power is the only available language. Therefore, hooks insists that “language is also a place of struggle.”32 In that struggle, speech at times feels difcult and the need exists to confront silence and inarticulateness, not as signs of weakness, but as a deliberate engagement in the struggle of resistance with dominant power. Silence represents resistance to the request made to those on the margins to speak as “native informants.” Such silence interrupts the colonizer’s wish to capture that speech and use it to re-inscribe categories of difference. In her response to those who from their locations in the center wish to frame the articulation of those on the margins, hooks is clear that the center cannot speak to the margins as the center. The center needs to move to the margins in order to (re)position its location of articulation, to avoid dening the margins and thus enabling those who sit on the margins to develop new denitions of themselves. In hooks’ words, “I want to know your story. And then I will tell it back to you in a new way. Tell it back to you in such a way that it has become mine, my own. Re-writing you, I write myself anew. I am still author, authority. I am still the colonizer, the speaking subject, and you are now at the center of my talk.”33 In the exercise of the choice of marginality, “homeplace” serves as a location from which the colonized can confront silence and inarticulateness. In that social space of radical “Otherness” the distinction between being silenced and withholding speech is learnt and the ability to say no to the colonizer is rehearsed. “Homeplace” becomes the social context created within the interstices of power, a space protected and 30. Ibid., 47. 31. Katherine McKittrick, “bell hooks,” in Hubbard, Kitchin, and Valentine, eds., Key Thinkers on Space and Place, 191. 32. hooks, Yearning, 145. 33. Ibid., 152. 1

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created for survival and resistance. In that context the colonized develops “a counter-language,” based upon that of the colonizer. This counterlanguage serves as a language of resistance, a language of refusal, the speech of the margins.34 The deliberate choice of marginality exists as a “critical response to domination”35 that enables the re-creation and maintenance of the subjectivity of the colonized in ways that permit new possibilities for shaping and encountering reality. The value of hooks’ work for the reading of this particular text with a silent title character lies in the distinction between imposed and chosen marginality. This distinction exposes the complexities of oppression and the varying responses that follow as a consequence. While on the one hand marginality is the product of oppressive power, to view it as only being imposed and dened by the colonizer invests dominant power with totalizing agency. The notion of forms of marginality, particularly those that can be chosen and embraced, disrupts the dominant power. Additionally, the distinction reveals the variety and complexity of the responses of oppressed people. The inability to view these complexities renders Jeremiah’s narrative silence, albeit his absence from signicant portions of the narrative, as a sign of capitulation or even support for the various positions advocated by the narrative. The binary opposition of center and margins surfaces in hooks’ representation of power. Her mapping of this relationship separates the two into distinct and oppositional categories. While one may hold that imperial/colonial contexts diffuse power through a complex network of collaborations, power still derives from a central source. Even more, while the exercise of power may be mediated through different agencies, the dominance of central power remains correspondingly undiminished. In this context, the exercise of power by Gedaliah under the authority of Babylon seduces readers into thinking of a diminished imperial role and presence in the narrative. Further, it allows for a critical look at Gedaliah, who on one level stands in the ambiguities of power, but still on another level negotiates his way around imposed marginality. The oppositional categories of center and margin establish the framework around which the exercise of power can be read in the text. Rather than provide a neat and simplistic division, hooks’ articulation of marginality, with its particular focus on the experience of African American women, offers insight into the complex overlay of race, gender, class, and culture privileges. hooks buys into the bind of binary oppositions because she refuses to erase the margins as a means of appeasing those uncomfortable with 34. Ibid., 150. 35. Ibid., 153. 1

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difference. Such an erasure effects further violence for those already marginalized; it further silences the already voiceless and the unheard. By reproducing the margins in an intentional way, hooks’ theory provides an opportunity for marginality to pose an oppositional challenge to the center, since in the call for the devaluing of difference those at the center are not challenged to relinquish their privileges or positions. To this end, hooks’ work provides opportunities for reading how those on the margins reproduce their locations in essentializing ways. Marginality as a location of resistance carries with it certain essentialist notions that strategically produce acts of deance and transgression against dominant power.36 A further value of hooks’ work for the reading of these texts lies in the connection between location and articulation. hooks connects resistant location with oppositional articulation in ways that delink social and spatial location from the determinations of power through means that afford subjectivity. Imposed marginality as a location offers no space for articulation. As an ideological construct, its intent lies in the suppression of multiple voices, positionalities, and knowledge. Its purpose remains the multiplication of the margins as a means of entrenching the power of the center. The intentional embrace of marginality as a mechanism of resistance interrupts this hegemon and creates opportunities for articulation of resistance, subjectivity and new positionalities in the world, that is, place. McKittrick summarizes hooks’ combination of location and articulation as: “Together, location and articulation—how one verbally and non-verbally negotiates one’s political self—produce a space of radical openness.”37 hooks provides an appropriate lens for reading Jeremiah’s choice of marginality as a discursive strategy of resistance. It provides the opportunity to expose the dominant positions within the text and how they coerce consent for their rule. Both the construction of the marginal position for Jeremiah and its capacity as a site of resistance occur in relation to the dominance of Babylonian rule and power in the text. An adequate reading of marginality therefore requires that attention be paid 36. Dube, while recognizing the dangers of essentialist discourse, argues that when it is seen as the power of the smaller group against the larger it can serve as a means of liberation. Musa W. Dube, “Searching for the Lost Needle: Double Colonization and Postcolonial African Feminisms,” Stud World Chr 5 (1999): 215– 20. Spivak advocates a “strategic use of essentialism” by oppressed groups as a mechanism of resistance. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Outside in the Teaching Machine (New York: Routledge, 1993), 3–7. 37. McKittrick, “bell hooks,” 191. 1

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to the construction of the center in the narrative and how chosen marginality serves as a location from which to articulate resistance. Essentially the reading of the passage from the perspective of marginality requires, as hooks regards it, a knowledge of both the center and the margin as a means of viewing “the existence of a whole universe, a main body made up of both margin and center.”38 4. Constructing the Center In order to foreground marginality in the passage adequately, a twin focus upon the margin and the center, as hooks suggests, needs to be pursued. This doubled vision recognizes the margin as a product of the center, created through the processes of advancing unchallenged claims to supremacy and dominance and the imposition of these claims upon the margins, while at the same time depleting the margins of agency. Since the claims to dominance must always be exercised in relation to an “Other,” the center ensures its perpetuation through the production and reproduction of the margins. The oppositional positions of margin and center as they exist in various colonial contexts point to a relationship of antagonistic correspondence more than that of mutual exclusion. Both the colonized and the colonizer enter into a space in which they navigate the oppositional forces of a skewed relationship. Mary Pratt refers to the space where these relationships are negotiated as the “contact zone.”39 By using the term “contact,” with its origins in language studies, Pratt exposes the fact that in imperial contexts, the colonized and the colonizer exist in relationship with each other, rather than in “separateness or apartheid.” She shows that “copresence, interaction, interlocking understandings and practices”40 characterize these asymmetrical encounters, though skewed in favor of the colonizer. Pratt points out that these contact zones tend to be misrepresented as spaces of complete domination by colonial power. Viewed from this perspective, the relationship between the colonizer and colonized stands actually as one constantly navigated by both colonizer and colonized as they are “constituted in and by their relations to each other.”41 Pratt’s notions of the contact zone demonstrate how the actions of the center continually replicate and thicken the margins. 38. hooks, Feminist Theory, preface. 39. Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992), 7. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid. 1

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The narrative story of Jeremiah’s survival in the land depicts a “contact zone” in which the Babylonian colonial center engages the colonized Judean periphery. In that engagement, effected through the encounter between Nebuzaradan and Jeremiah, the portrayal of Nebuzaradan as a benevolent character constitutes the marginality of Jeremiah. That is to say, through the representation of the center as a site of benecence the margin is suggested and produced. By bolstering the image of the imperial presence through assigning strong moral, theological and political qualities, the distance between the center and the margin widens. As a result of this gap, the superior qualities of the center make the margins appear diminished, bereft, and in need of the rehabilitation from the center. In addition to the strategy of dispossession of the individuality and autonomy of Jeremiah that renders him a marginal gure, the narrative text also constructs the center in such a positive light so as to emphasize the periphery as a site of despair. The construction of the center in this passage obscures the negative aspects of the colonial encounter. The positive portrayal of Nebuzaradan as the face of imperial power accomplishes this. Nebuzaradan and Jeremiah stand together in the “contact zone” as he implements the imperial policy of deportation. Nebuzaradan exercises an exception by removing Jeremiah from the ranks of the deportees and offering him privileges unavailable to other deportees. The passage presents Nebuzaradan as the executor of imperial policy, without any direct reference to that policy or indication of consulting the imperial center for deviations from that policy. For all intents and purposes, Nebuzaradan exists as the face of the empire in the passage and in the historical context and his actions represent the disposition of the empire towards Jeremiah. His exercise of a policy of exception towards Jeremiah, the absence of motivation notwithstanding, represents an undercutting of a completely negative portrayal of the Babylonian presence. Additionally, these acts reverse the expectations built up by Nebuzaradan’s ofcial title, given the associations of the word  with “slaughter.”42 The representation of Nebuzaradan in the text undercuts the expectations of a combative encounter, executed by an imperial ofcer whose function includes the quelling of resistance to the will of empire.43 42. Alternatively, David Vanderhooft suggests that word   could, based on the Akkadian “loan translation” of rab nuhtimmu, meaning “ofcial in charge of the kitchen,” be translated as “chief cook.” David Stephen Vanderhooft, The Neo-Babylonian Empire and Babylon in the Latter Prophets (HSM 59; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), 150. 43. According to 2 Kgs 25:8–9, Nebuzaradan is sent to Jerusalem to oversee the destruction of the city. 1

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A comparison with the companion text in 39:11–14 affords another look at the construction of the imperial center in the passage. In several respects it can be argued that the second account is constructed in light of the rst to provide an alternative view of Jeremiah’s release and the conditions that exist under Babylonian occupation.44 Although the structural features of both accounts seem remarkably similar, the second release account (40:1–6) is a later narrative placed alongside the earlier account. They both begin with introductory formulas for the speech of authority gures: in the case of the rst account, the notice “Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, commanded” (    , 39:11a) introduces the ofcial order of the king of Babylon, while the second account uses a standard formula for divine speech, “The word from the LORD which came to Jeremiah” (      › , 40:1a). In both cases the speeches require a medium for their implementation—Nebuzaradan as the agent of the Babylonian king and Jeremiah as the prophet of YHWH. The speeches from the authority gures follow next: in the rst account the king of Babylon speaks concerning Jeremiah (39:11– 12),45 while in the second account divine speech is suggested although not actually delivered (40:1). Both narratives next move to Jeremiah in connement: the rst account implies that he is under arrest in the “court of the guard” (   , 39:14), while the second explicitly states that he is “bound in fetters among all the deportees” (      , 40:1). Jeremiah’s release from captivity at the hand of Babylonian ofcials follows next in both narratives: in the rst account, three named ofcials and others persons (39:13) effect the release, while in the second account Nebuzaradan, the lone Babylonian, releases 44. Arguably, 39:11–14 also reads like an attempt to rehabilitate the Babylonian imperial image. Unlike Zedekiah, who when the Babylonian army “took him” (  , 39:5) is subsequently put to death, Jeremiah, when the large number of Babylonian ofcials “took” him (), is given his freedom. In the case of Zedekiah, the king of Babylon “put out the eyes of Zedekiah” (   , 39:7); however, with regards to Jeremiah, he orders Nebuzaradan to “set your eyes upon him” ( ‡  , 39:12). Similarly, while the “Chaldeans burned the house of the king and the houses of the people” ( ‡       

‡ , 39:8), Jeremiah is taken to freedom in a house (  , 39:14). In these areas the account of the release of Jeremiah reads as a counter narrative to the destructive actions of the Babylonians in 39:4–10 to present them in a more positive light. 45. These verses present a favorable disposition of the king of Babylon towards Jeremiah in vv. 11–12, which are also missing in the Old Greek text and are regarded by some scholars as later insertions. Wanke, Untersuchungen, 110; Eissfeldt, “Baruchs Anteil,” 32; Pohlmann, Studien zum Jeremiabuch, 96. 1

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Jeremiah 40:4. In both accounts he is brought to Gedaliah (39:14a, 40:6a). And both accounts end with the notice of him living among the people (39:14c; 40:6b). Essentially, 40:1–6 appears as a reshaping of the earlier release account to provide a positive representation of the imperial center and, in the process, to construct the margin as a place of lack that suggests the need for the center. A critical difference between the two accounts appears in the face of Babylonian imperial presence in 40:1–6 with Nebuzaradan as the only Babylonian ofcial present and 39:11–14 where a number of persons perform functions. The multiplication of the number of Babylonian ofcials in 39:11–14 foregrounds the presence of imperial power. The listing of the names and titles of the ofcials, an expression of the awesome presence of the military might of Babylon, overwhelms the narrative. The series of plural verbs in v. 14 (“they sent,” ›; “they took,” ; “they gave,” ) reinforces the notion that every action done to Jeremiah is performed by this large collective group representing the Babylonian Empire. Jeremiah, though, stands as the object of their action and functions like a commodity that they “gave” () to Gedaliah.46 The second account provides the reader with the critical distinction of having a single representative of the imperial center in the narrative. In this case, the center appears based not upon numbers or military titles, but upon the personality of Nebuzaradan. Having been given more narrative space than Jeremiah, Nebuzaradan’s character and personality develop in ways that would relegate Jeremiah to the peripheries of the narrative. The second account more successfully presents a comfortable face of empire in the person of Nebuzaradan. While the rst account humanizes the Babylonian ofcials by providing their names alongside their ofces to demonstrate them as more than functionaries, the second account constructs a single Babylonian ofcial who is both named and titled. Although his name appears only once in the passage (40:1b), with his ofcial title given twice (40:1b, 2a), Nebuzaradan’s familiarity with Israelite theology (40:3), his solicitations towards Jeremiah (40:4), his honor of Jeremiah’s autonomy (40:4c), as well as his benevolence in providing an allowance for him (40:5) attract readers’ attention. Not only 46. Although the details of Gedaliah’s relationship to the Babylonian authorities are not provided in this account, his inclusion in the verse as an active recipient of the actions of the dominant characters establishes him on the same level with them. As Rudolph argues,  ought to be translated as “allowed” in order to remove the notion that Jeremiah is merely transferred to the custody of Gedaliah. Rudolph, Jeremia, 245. 1

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are these attributes absent in the rst account, but there is obvious personal interaction between the ofcial and Jeremiah. The image of benevolence could be more pointedly delivered in this account through the person of a single imperial ofcer whose character is not diffused among the generic names and ofcial titles, as in the rst account. More than just constructing Nebuzaradan as a homely gure, the text asserts Babylonian overlordship as benevolent and non-threatening and therefore something that should be embraced willingly. Filling Nebuzaradan’s speech with theological signicance,47 unlike the rst account, secures divine sanction for the imperial project, and the sting normally associated with imperial conquest consequently diminishes. The attempt to engage Jeremiah in dialogue and the granting of choices to him surface as the other distinctive features to emerge in this second account. Unlike the previous account where no dialogue occurs between Jeremiah and the retinue of Babylonian ofcials, Nebuzaradan engages in dialogue with Jeremiah in the narrative. The attempt at dialogue in the passage makes Nebuzaradan a more engaging character, one concerned about the welfare of Jeremiah. In his attempt at dialogue with Jeremiah he presents three options to him, viz. journey to Babylon under his auspices, return to Gedaliah, the appointee of the king of Babylon, or go anywhere he wishes. While all three of these options may seem benecial to Jeremiah, the fact that they all signify the consequences of the will to empire masks the autonomy assumed in the presentation. The benevolent portrayal of imperial presence in the passage forces the focus onto the positive aspects of the imperial center and uses the text to advocate the necessity of the colonial presence towards the margin. With the center so positively constructed, the margins appear as the site of despair in need of the rehabilitating presence of the center. By concentrating on such a positive construction of the center, the text replicates the margin and by so doing justies the center’s benevolence. Pratt refers to this inversion of the colonizer–colonized script in the text as “anti-conquest.” By this she means texts that describe the colonizer’s claim to innocence, while at the same time asserting their hegemony.48 Given the generosity on the part of the Babylonians, the text blinds the reader to the realities of the conquest and focuses instead on the constructive engagements of Babylonian ofcials and agents in the narrative. The imperial practices represented in the passage offer a further indication of the positive construction of the center to suggest and entrench 47. Thiel argues that the speech was deliberately reworked by the Dtr. Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion, 57. 48. Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 7. 1

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the margin. In this “anti-conquest” text, the hand of Babylonian power remains hidden by its native representative Gedaliah. As a local leader, Gedaliah functions in the text to create the impression of national autonomy and self-rule. Yet at the same time Gedaliah is not mentioned in the passage without an indication of the fact that he is appointed by the king of Babylon (40:5, 7). In the case of Jeremiah (v. 5), the military leaders (v. 7), and the refugees (v. 11), whose fates are determined in relation to the land, the text states that Gedaliah is appointed “over the cities of Judah” ( , v. 5), “in the land” (, v. 7), or “over them” ( , v. 11) by the king of Babylon. This indicates the level of the determination of the imperial center towards these several characters, particularly Jeremiah and Gedaliah, and the territory. Gedaliah functions in this passage as the face of imperial rule that pursues a policy of indirect rule. In the narrative he becomes one of the alternative choices to Nebuzaradan in the options outlined to Jeremiah. For the rest of the chapter, he essentially replaces Nebuzaradan in the narrative and therefore functions in the narrative as the chief agent of the colonizing power.49 His appointment by the king of Babylon presumes a particular form of political governance in territory incorporated into the empire.50 That Gedaliah, a native noble man, is appointed, and not a Babylonian ofcial, represents the use of indirect rule as the preferred mode of governance.51

49. Though I agree with Vanderhooft in his conclusion that “Gedaliah was not a Babylonian imperial ofcer, but rather a local noble appointed by the Babylonians,” from time to time I will include him among the ofcial Babylonian representatives when it is necessary to underscore his participation in the project of empire. Vanderhooft, The Neo-Babylonian Empire, 105. 50. Vanderhooft is cautious about regarding Judah as a new province of the NeoBabylonian Empire in the same way the Assyrians created a provincial system of bureaucratic administration. The available evidence does not suggest that this is the case, at least not in the western region of the empire where Judah is located. Vanderhooft, The Neo-Babylonian Empire, 99. 51. Vanderhooft expresses doubt as to whether the appointment of Gedaliah as represented in this text is in keeping with actual Babylonian practice. He notes that in the Neo-Assyrian system “there are few precedents for a local nobleman such as Gedaliah serving as a district governor.” Vanderhooft, The Neo-Babylonian Empire, 105. Cogan and Tadmor are of the same view, believing it to be “unprecedented” according to standard Assyrian practice. At the same time, they compare it with the local Delta princes in Egypt during the reigns of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal and that of Zerubbabel and Nehemiah during the period of the Achaemenids. Mordechai Cogan and Hayim Tadmor, II Kings: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 11; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1988), 327. 1

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While it can be regarded as a more tolerable form of rule than direct rule, where colonial ofcials, traditions, customs, and laws are imposed upon the colonized, indirect rule still represents a form of colonial power that Mahmood Mamdani calls “decentralized despotism.”52 Mamdani unapologetically regards colonialism as a form of despotism that determines the best mechanism for control of captured territory and its indigenous population. He sees both direct and indirect rule as differing responses that have been used based upon the peculiar socio-historical and political realities of the regions. For him, direct rule “signied an unmediated—centralized—despotism,” while on the other hand, indirect rule “signied a mediated—decentralized—despotism.”53 The central difference between the two modes of rule being that under indirect rule the colonial power conscripts native authority, customs, and laws to serve its interests. Its agents in the colonial context are native; its power is mediated through native institutions; and its will to empire perpetuated by native advocacy and rule. Indirect rule, therefore, privileges local and native leadership as the de facto power, while the colonial power functions as the real power behind the scenes. Mamdani speaks of the nature of authority under indirect rule as “autonomous but not independent.”54 Following Mamdani’s understanding, characterizing indirect rule as an iron st that uses a velvet glove would be appropriate. Indirect rule relies upon the diffusion of centralized power through the use of native agents and institutions. This sharing of power does not weaken the central power but works only as a mechanism to ensure its continuity. Gedaliah’s appointment by the king of Babylon to exercise authority in the land can be seen from this perspective. Having applied the heavy hand of its military power in the siege and destruction of Jerusalem, the Babylonians then withdraw into the background by promoting the local leadership in the person of Gedaliah. Gedaliah’s selection from among a leading Judean family favorably disposed to Jeremiah’s message of submission to Babylon represents a careful move to incorporate elements of leading and inuential families left behind in the land. That the Shaphanides exert both inuence and power within the society appears in the way the text portrays their direct contact with the Judean monarchy (29:3; 36:1–19) 52. Mamdani describes direct rule as a feature of early European colonialism in Africa that denies the existence of anything native while at the same time denying natives access to the institutions and benets of European civil society. Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 16. 53. Ibid., 17. 54. Ibid., 61. 1

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and their access to resources to help Jeremiah when his criticism of the monarchy leads him into difculty (26:24). Gedaliah provides the imperial center’s presence in the land and thereby enables the entrenching of its power in relation to the margins. Mamdani notes that Lord Lugard, the pioneer of British indirect rule in colonial Uganda and Nigeria, underscores the importance of the careful selection of a native leader as the key to the success of indirect rule: “The rst step…is to endeavor to nd a man of inuence as chief, and to group under him as many villages or districts as possible, to teach him to delegate powers, and to take an interest in his ‘Native Treasury.’ ”55 The appointment of Gedaliah by the Babylonians renders him in this text an ambivalent gure that possesses the authority of the imperial center, yet one not completely incorporated into that center. The exact nature of Gedaliah’s position remains uncertain since the biblical text repeatedly refers to him simply as “Gedaliah, son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon appointed” (›        ›, 40:5, 7, 11; cf. 2 Kgs 25:22).56 Although no 55. Ibid., 53 (italics in original). Fanon makes a similar point that colonialism uses two types of “natives to gain its ends.” One he identies as “traditional collaborators,” such as chiefs. The other is the Lumpenproletariat, or the general mass of people. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 136. 56. Maxwell Miller and John Hayes acknowledge that translations that refer to Gedaliah as “governor” do so without adequate textual support. However, they contend that Gedaliah is actually appointed king by the Babylonians in replacement of Zedekiah. They argue that the obvious omission of Gedaliah’s title particularly in the DtrH is an indication of the intentional suppression of the fact that a non-Davidic person is appointed king. Secondly, they offer that the “king” in 41:1 and 41:10 appear to refer to Gedaliah and that he functions as king. They also speculate that a seal impression from Tell ed-Duweir in Lachish that reading “Belonging to Gedaliah who is over the household” is a possible reference to Gedaliah, who had previously held a high position. J. Maxwell Miller and John H. Hayes, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 420–23. Vanderhooft believes that the text is intentional in using  to refer to Gedaliah, instead of  , which is used in the case of Zedekiah (2 Kgs 24:12, 17). Vanderhooft, The Neo-Babylonian Empire, 105. Similarly, J. N. Graham posits that the Lachish seal serves as an indicator that Gedaliah is someone with previous experience in “royal estate management.” J. N. Graham, “ ‘Vinedressers and Plowmen’: 2 Kgs 25:12 and Jeremiah 52:16,” BA 47 (1984): 57. Bob Becking does not support the view that the Lachish seal could be a reference to Gedaliah, but rather another person with the same name who holds a high position in the royal house. He argues further that it would be unlikely that having held such a position Gedaliah would be suitable for leadership in the conquered territory. Bob Becking, “Inscribed Seals as Evidence for Biblical Israel? Jeremiah 40.7–41.15 par exemple,” in Can a “History of Israel” Be Written? 1

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indication of an ofce is given, Gedaliah is positioned in the text as the ideal leader who is intent on promoting Babylonians interests in the land. He is portrayed as successfully manufacturing support for the new governing arrangements (40:8–10, 12) from a broad cross-section of military leaders and other dispersed groups. He also works to defuse anxieties around the Babylonian power and presence in the land (40:9). At the same time, the text indicates improvements in the economic fortunes of the region (40:12). In his speech to the military leaders, Gedaliah claims for himself political control of governing affairs through contact with the Babylonians (40:10a), presumably as the interlocutor and agent of imperial policy in the land. Within the text itself, Gedaliah functions as an advocate for the benets of Babylonian rule and thereby assists in constructing a positive image of the imperial center. The economic development that takes place57 serves as the other area of Gedaliah’s rule represented in the text. In the speech to the military leaders encouraging their submission to Babylonian rule, Gedaliah makes room for them to participate in the economic development of the territory (40:10b). The text remains unclear as to whether the revived economy produces benets that directly accrue to those residents in the land or whether it serves an existing Babylonian extractive economic plan for the territory.58 The uncertainty may simply be a function of the nature of capital and economic production under a system of indirect (ed. Lester L. Grabbe; JSOTSup 245; European Seminar in Historical Methodology 1; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic, 1997), 75. 57. Brueggemann speaks of the list of crops as “money crops” that point to the revival and independence of the economy, perhaps centrally organized, but certainly not a “self-supporting peasant economy.” Brueggemann, To Build, To Plant, 166 n. 54. Carroll raises speculations that the swift economic recovery may perhaps belie the extent of the Babylonian devastation but then accepts that the crops listed may not require intensive care and could easily survive in the immediate aftermath of the military action. Carroll, Jeremiah, 704. 58. Graham contends that, based on the descriptions of the labor force that remain in the land given in 52:16 and 2 Kgs 25:12, namely “vinedressers and plowmen” (    ), that these are not independent landowners and workers but an imperially managed work force. Hence, the agricultural activity in the land is directed towards serving the Babylonian economic exploitation of the territory. Graham, “‘Vinedressers and Plowmen,” 56. Vanderhooft takes the opposite view and posits that the material evidence available points to a suppression of economic activity under the Babylonians. He concludes that the Babylonians have no “rational economic policy for exploiting a provincialized Judah.” Vanderhooft, The NeoBabylonian Empire, 106. Albertz advances a more moderate position that assigns exploitative acts to the Babylonians, such as the exaction of tribute, corvée, and socage. Albertz, Israel in Exile, 94. 1

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rule. Mamdani’s distinction between land use and capitalism under direct and indirect rule seems instructive in this regard. He posits that under direct rule, capital and the factors of production are appropriated and owned by the colonial power in a way that renders the indigenous population “semiservile and semicapitalist agrarian relations.”59 On the other hand, indirect rule allows greater autonomy over the land and the products of labor in a free peasantry with markets and access to markets being regulated by a centralized source. The notice of economic prosperity, “And they gathered wine and summer fruits in much abundance” (    , 40:12), together with Gedaliah’s encouragement of the appropriation of available land, “live in the towns that you have captured” ( ‡ ›  ›, 40:10), create the impression of a free peasantry with autonomous control of capital and other factors of production. The actual beneciaries of the economic windfall remain in doubt in the text. The uncertainty about the direct beneciaries of the economic revival in the land stays intentionally vague so as not to overshadow the success of the stimulated economy itself. These economic notices serve as suitable propaganda for the promotion of the territory as a viable place in which to live. As Carroll points out, these texts destroy the myth that life for those who remain in the land was miserable and instead create a picture of “stability and plenty.”60 Apart from the propaganda effect, the notices of economic prosperity indicate the utility of Gedaliah’s work for the imperial center. The promotion of economic autonomy and self-sufciency would benet the Babylonians since in so doing it creates a viable and stable territory uninterested in shaking off the yoke of imperial power. While it would seem that this territory holds more strategic than economic signicance for the Babylonians, it would hardly be the case that the Babylonians remain indifferent to any economic activity that would ensure the payment of tribute as a means of keeping the territory out of a client relationship with another power.61 59. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, 17. 60. Carroll, Jeremiah, 705. Similarly Keown et al. believe the “bright picture may be intentionally misleading.” Keown, Scalise, and Smothers, Jeremiah 26– 52, 237. 61. Vanderhooft allows for minimal involvement of the Babylonians in Judah at this time. He suggests that they are mainly concerned to blunt Egyptian power and therefore prevent states like Judah from falling into client relationships with Egypt. This policy would be carried out by intermittent military appearances and the collection of tribute. Vanderhooft, The Neo-Babylonian Empire, 109. So too Cogan and Tadmor identify the Egyptian presence as the major determinant inuencing Babylonian imperial policy towards Judah. Cogan and Tadmor, II Kings, 322–24. 1

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In the text, Gedaliah functions as the agent of the imperial center and the purveyor of the imperial policy towards Judah. As a conscript from the margins, invested with imperial authority, he takes the place of the monarchy, deemed both troublesome and unsuitable by the Babylonians in their vicious execution and torture of the royal family (39:6–7).62 The single public pronouncement he makes in this narrative openly supports the Babylonians and their rule and directs others to follow suit (40:9). In other words, he serves as the center’s agent to acquire the assent of the margins for its own domination and perpetuation. Lacking the powers of a king, elevated to an administrative level beyond that of a local elder, entrusted with power from the imperial center, but directly unaccountable to an indigenous population, Gedaliah exists as the perfect creation to advance the cause of indirect rule and the imperial policy. In the balancing of these loyalties, Brueggemann characterizes Gedaliah as “a creature of the empire.”63 This construction of Gedaliah as the agent of the Babylonian Empire who represents the face of the center in the text demonstrates the ability of the center to diffuse its power in multiple ways without at the same time losing its dominance. Despite his association and cooptation by the center, Gedaliah still belongs to the margins. In fact, given his fate in the text, he is ultimately marginalized. That Babylonian imperial power cannot protect him from the machinations of nationalist aspirations indicates the limitations of his own afliation with the center and the center’s ability to transfer to him the privileges that accrue to those who rightly belong to the center. The narrative story of survival in the land shows how the center determines the mechanics for the creation and maintenance of the margins. Survival, then, becomes a product of the empire on its own terms since it is imposed through the agency of Nebuzaradan as well as the native leadership of Gedaliah. Incorporating elements of the margins into the center serves neither to dislocate nor to dislodge the center. Equally, these actions do not erase the margins. This move only entrenches the center by using agents from the margins that perpetuate the values and 62. The mention in the text of Ishmael’s royal connections is another means of implicating the monarchy in any difculties associated with rule in the land and thereby justies the imperial center as its suitable replacement: “from the royal family, a leader of the king” (       , 41:1). Brueggemann points out that Gedaliah would prove acceptable to the Babylonians since he holds no connections to the monarchy and would therefore be “loyal, trustworthy, and committed to Babylon.” Brueggemann, To Build, to Plant, 161. 63. Ibid., 164. 1

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norms of the center but still have no authentic voice or viable sense of place. The counter move, as read in the actions of Jeremiah, subverts this process of imposed marginality by accepting marginality on his own terms. In this way, Jeremiah stands as the opposite of Gedaliah, who accepts, cooperates, and perpetuates the center’s move to impose marginality. Jeremiah in the text chooses marginality as an act of resistance and mechanism for the maintenance of subjectivity. 5. Marginality as Resistance The postcolonial move to reframe Jer 40:1–12 as a narrative of survival presents the opportunity to search for resistant codes and responses within the text, while at the same time expanding the conceptual range of what constitutes effective resistance to dominant power. Young posits that recuperating localized and small-scale acts of resistance alongside national and “larger forms of emancipation and liberation” serves as one of the ways postcolonial theory challenges historiography and the writing of the history of the anti-colonial movement.64 This challenge extends to the reading of texts and requires appropriate lenses for reading acts, such as those of Jeremiah in this text, as acts of resistance. As hooks points out, even in the embrace of the marginalizing force of dominant power, the colonized can frame contexts of resistance on the margins to colonial power. The challenge presented in reading Jeremiah’s choice of marginality in this passage lies in the ambiguity of the hidden transcripts of resistant action in the colonial context. Resistant actions such as the choice of marginality defy analysis from the outside observer precisely because they intend to be hidden from the scrutiny of dominant power. Young, in describing the struggles of women in colonial contexts, identies how women conduct their struggle from “positions of extreme marginality” and the dilemma this presents for appropriately reading their struggle using “conventional anti-imperialism…archival techniques.”65 When compared with the other two characters, Nebuzaradan and Gedaliah, it appears that Jeremiah, though assigned a peripheral role in the narrative, remains the single character that retains agency and the ability to offer resistance to the imperial project. Both Nebuzaradan and Gedaliah are shaped and determined in the text by Babylonian imperial policy and function as the dispensers of that policy. Jeremiah, on the other hand, neither serves as an advocate for Babylonian policy nor 64. Young, Postcolonialism, 357. 65. Ibid., 361. 1

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cooperates in constructing or legitimating the imperial center. Jeremiah employs a different response to the dislocating presence of foreign power in the land. His strategy of survival in the face of dominant power embraces marginality as a means of locating himself in an oppositional context so as to retain his agency. The act of choosing marginality stands as a subversive move that challenges dominant power. In this narrative, silence serves as a means of shaping marginality. Throughout the passage Jeremiah is silent. Even when the narrative suggests that Jeremiah ought to come to voice in the use of the introductory formula (v. 1a), no speech surfaces from the prophet. Arguably, while it may be offered that the speech of Nebuzaradan containing elements of the normal oracles and pronouncements of the prophet66 effectively silences Jeremiah, Nebuzaradan’s speech consists of a pastiche of various pronouncements by Jeremiah over the course of his ministry. As such, Jeremiah controls the Babylonian’s speech.67 The prophetic imitation speech of Nebuzaradan cannot silence Jeremiah, but rather places his speech in the mouth of the Babylonian. On a signicant level, the speech does allow Nebuzaradan to acknowledge that the unfolding of the events leading to the destruction and conquest of Jerusalem and Judah the result of divine, rather than imperial plans. Nebuzaradan’s speech attributes the destruction to the disobedience of the Judean people and YHWH’s intolerance of their continued deance. In this regard, he offers no imperial propaganda that advocates the right and might of Babylon to conquer the territory, such as that seen in the speech of the Rabshakeh (2 Kgs 18:28– 35).68 Rather, his speaking, occasioned by Jeremiah’s silence in the narrative, subjects the Babylonian imperium to the dominant divine will and, in the process, questions the totalizing claims of imperial discourse. 66. Carroll points out that Nebuzaradan’s speech is “in impeccable Deuteronomistic language” and reects the tendency of placing speeches of this nature in the mouths of foreigners like Rahab (Josh 2:8–14). Carroll, Jeremiah, 698. 67. Thiel outlines how the speech is a careful product of Dtr terminology. The phrase “The LORD threatened this place with disaster” is particularly Dtr, as in 26:19 (cf. 11:17; 16:10; 19:15; 26:13; 35:17; 36:31). The fulllment portion of the speech in v. 3a recalls other verses, such as 11:8b; 27:13; 34:24. The justication for the destruction given in v. 3b, as well as the phrase  , are regarded as Dtr phrases, as reected in 16:10; 44:23. Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion, 58. 68. The Rabshakeh’s speech is portrayed as being delivered during the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem, which is widely regarded as having taken place in 701 B.C.E., historical aspects of this seige are attested in 2 Kgs 18. While the Rabshakeh’s speech may well have been a theological reconstruction, it appears to be a faithful representation of the use of the Assyrian imperial propaganda employed during the conquest of subject cities. Antti Laato, “Hezekiah and the Assyrian Crisis in 701 B.C.,” SJOT 2 (1987): 49–68. 1

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Jeremiah’s discursive silence in the passage enables the exercise of knowledge/power to shift to his advantage. The theological discourse of Jeremiah shapes Nebuzaradan’s discourse in large measure. This reects Foucault’s understanding of the discourse as a form of violence upon the Babylonian. Young indicates how Foucault argues that a discourse involves in some way a form of violent imposition of its knowledge and “linguistic order” upon the world.69 This narrative silence of Jeremiah appears in the text even in areas where he should engage in dialogue. When directly addressed with concerns that require his response, at that point Jeremiah’s silence bursts out as an act of deance. According to the narrative, Nebuzaradan turns directly to Jeremiah to address him. The use of the Aramaic object marker  demonstrates the imperial nature of the encounter: “The chief of the guard took Jeremiah” (    , v. 2a).70 However, the rst part of the speech deals with general and theological details of the fall of Jerusalem and Judah. At v. 4 Nebuzaradan addresses Jeremiah in a direct and personal way on the issue of his release. At this point one would expect a verbal response from Jeremiah. Nebuzaradan outlines two options for Jeremiah on his release: either accompany him to Babylon or take his choice of the open land before him. The acceptance and afrmation of Babylonian imperial supremacy underline both these choices. The journey to the imperial center validates the power of the imperium, while the selection of an option in the open land legitimates Babylonian hegemony over “all the land” (  , v. 4).71 The alternative choice of the open land appears as an addition in the Hebrew text. It provides further clarity to the rst option laid out by Nebuzaradan. In the process, however, this insertion thickens the discourse of the imperial ofcial with the added suggestion that Babylon controls a vast expanse of land. The addition also inserts into the narrative a second call from Nebuzaradan for Jeremiah to make a choice. This addition can be read as 69. Young, Postcolonialism, 386. 70. Carroll, Jeremiah, 698; Thompson, Book of Jeremiah, 650; GKC, 384. The Critique Textuelle does not regard the use of the  as an Aramaic feature but rather as the sign of a dislocated text that is appropriately corrected by the Old Greek. The fact that the  is present in other manuscripts is also noted. Barthélemy, ed., Critique textuelle, 736. 71. The Old Greek contains no sense of the option to choose a location from the open land, but rather poses a choice between going to Babylon and remaining in the land. The phrase  …  is a minus in the Old Greek and reects a superuity that comes with the expansionist trend of the Hebrew text. Additionally, the use of    › as well as  suggests a distancing of the Babylonian destination from Nebuzaradan unlike that implied in the earlier portion of the speech by  and . 1

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a repetition of the initial offer in the face of narrative silence on the part of Jeremiah. When called upon to reply, the text portrays Jeremiah deliberately withholding his speech in the face of the inducements by the Babylonian ofcer to participate in the life of the imperial center and to enjoy its benets. The narrative refusal of Jeremiah to accept the initial choices of Nebuzaradan represents a refusal to be subject to the imperial eyes and therefore to engage in an oppositional gaze. Nebuzaradan’s speech focuses the gaze of Jeremiah in the direction of the imperial center, perhaps with intentions to control it. Jeremiah receives encouragement to determine “if it seems good to you” (  , v. 4), or “if it seems evil to you” (  , v. 4), or “[if it is] right in your eyes” ( ›  , v. 5). Though appearing to allow for agency on the part of Jeremiah, these proddings to judge the rightness of the action through viewing assume the acceptance of the imperial vision for the land as presented by Nebuzaradan. Further, Nebuzaradan indicates to Jeremiah that in Babylon he would be subject to the imperial gaze: “I will keep my eyes upon you” (   ‡, v. 4). He is also invited to view the expanse of the territory controlled by Babylon: “see the entire land is before you” (   , v. 5). The refusal of the invitation to go to the places and to accept the reality as delineated by Nebuzaradan can be read as Jeremiah’s rejection of the determination of his gaze by the imperial center. The choice of residing in the land manifests what hooks calls an “oppositional gaze” that at the same time claims the right to view but also to change one’s reality as well. In the exercise of the “oppositional gaze,” hooks asserts that those dispossessed of power are empowered to recover and retain their agency: “Even in the worse circumstances of domination, the ability to manipulate one’s gaze in the face of structures of domination that would contain it, opens up the possibility of agency.”72 The problematic phrase at the beginning of v. 5 indicates another instance of intentional silence.73 Reading  as the equivalent of  72. bell hooks, Black Looks: Race and Representation (Boston: South End, 1992), 116. 73. The Critique Textuelle is cautious about the liberties taken by scholars who assume the rst two words of v. 5 are part of the speech of Nebuzaradan. It views the words as a narrative comment that suggests that Nebuzaradan had to make the offer more than once since Jeremiah expresses no position on the matter. Barthélemy, Critique Textuelle, 738. Pohlmann explores a contradiction in v. 4, which declares that Jeremiah was released but still had his freedom circumscribed by the options of Nebuzaradan. He proposes to resolve this through the reconstruction of the text based upon v. 4 to read, ›   . He argues that the phrase should be 1

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in Classical Hebrew, the phrase ›   can be properly translated as, “but he still did not return.”74 This narrative comment, assuming that it should be read as such, suggests a silence on the part of Jeremiah to the offer made by Nebuzaradan. It is instructive to note that up to this point in the narrative, Nebuzaradan places no option to return to Gedaliah in a clear and specic way. It is in v. 5 that the rst reference to Gedaliah and his appointment in the land appears as a viable option for Jeremiah. The specics of remaining in the land are not made available until after clear signs of resistance, which are demonstrated through Jeremiah’s use of silence. Nebuzaradan outlines the options again in v. 5. The choice exists not between Babylon and an open land, presumably under Babylonian control, but between remaining in Judah or going wherever Jeremiah feels it appropriate to go. The refusal to speak in this passage can be read both as the choice of Jeremiah to adopt the silenced position of the marginalized, as well as the resistant move to prevent his voice from being appropriated. As the narrative shows, those on the margins are disempowered from speaking; even when they maintain the capacity to speak, they are spoken for. By enabling Nebuzaradan to articulate Judean theology, the text endorses the inability of Jeremiah to speak like a prophet in this passage, and thereby empowers Nebuzaradan to speak for Jeremiah. By remaining silent when invited to come to voice, Jeremiah is presented in the text as adopting what hooks calls the “right speech of womanhood.”75 She argues that

attributed to Nebuzaradan and not to Jeremiah so that it reads as an inducement from Nebuzaradan to Jeremiah to accompany him to the more desirable option of Babylon. Pohlmann, Studien zum Jeremiabuch, 100. 74. BDB 728b. Jan de Waard, A Handbook on Jeremiah (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 158. Thus the emendations suggested by Rudolph and the transfer of text offered by the BHS and supported by Thompson are too elaborate in this case. The Old Greek rendering of “if not” (FJEF=NI) reects a simpler way of clarifying what in the Old Greek Vorlage would be a confusing text and completing the sense of the proposition begun in v. 4. Rudolph, Jeremia, 246; Thompson, Book of Jeremiah, 651. Similarly, Holladay’s suggestion of emending  to  in order to match the Old Greek, an emendation based on the easy confusion of the Hebrew letters, is not justied by his rst conclusion that the Old Greek Vorlage presents an “untranslatable text.” Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 270. So too Stulman who suggests that the Old Greek Vorlage reects the present Hebrew text. Louis Stulman, The Other Text of Jeremiah: A Reconstruction of the Hebrew Text Underlying the Greek Version of the Prose Sections of Jeremiah with English Translation (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1985), 142. 75. bell hooks, Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black (Boston: South End, 1989), 6. 1

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this serves as the normative and required position for African American women who never really remained silent but who were simply not listened to by dominant power. By selectively remaining silent, African American women embraced their marginal position as a means of subverting dominant power and directing their speech in other ways. Jeremiah’s silence in this passage, characterized as the use of silence as the right speech of the marginalized, coincides with the silenced position assigned to those on the periphery. Yet at the same time, this use of silence subverts the exercise of the colonial power by forcing Nebuzaradan in the narrative to consider Judah as a possible option for Jeremiah. The other angle from which the text’s depiction of Jeremiah’s deliberate silence can be viewed lies in the prevention of further appropriation of Jeremiah’s speech. Having already had his speech appropriated by Nebuzaradan in the passage, the silence of Jeremiah deprives the Babylonian of further prophetic words or endorsement of the Babylonian imperial project. Interestingly, Jeremiah remains silent on the issue of Babylon as a place of residence as well as the Babylonian control of the open land. Jeremiah seems only interested in engaging the Babylonian on Judah as a suitable location rather than the adventures and achievements of the empire’s conquests. The silence here should be read as the choice by the prophet not to provide any words that could be appropriated by the imperial power in support of its cause against the conquered people. hooks provides a useful distinction between “absolute silence,” the result of the violent silencing of the voice of the marginalized by the center, and a “talk that was in itself a silence”76 that represents a careful choice to speak by the marginalized. hooks sees the move to self-silencing as a deliberate choice of the marginalized to prevent their speech from being appropriated and in the process of themselves being robbed further of their agency: “Appropriation of the marginal voice threatens the core of self-determination and free self-expression for exploited and oppressed peoples.”77 The selection of the land of Judah over Babylon stands out as one of the important things of Jeremiah’s choice of marginality in this passage. In the political scheme, Babylon is the center and Judah sits on the periphery of the empire. In fact, Judah lies on the furthest west end of the periphery of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. While Jeremiah’s choice may signal the choice of the homeland, politically Judah no longer holds the same geo-political signicance. It no longer exists as a state with its own

76. Ibid., 7. 77. Ibid., 14. 1

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monarchy, but through the effects of the Babylonian ruination contains a struggling economy.78 The strategic importance of Judah for the Babylonians lay in ensuring that it stays out of the orbit and inuence of Egypt. The Babylonians appear uninterested in founding a colony in Judah, since they establish no administrative center from which to entrench their presence in the territory.79 The biblical text suggests a minimal role for the Babylonians in the land, since in the portraits of life in the land under Gedaliah few indications of Babylonian ofcials overseeing his administration80 or a squadron of the army protecting his rule from insurgents appear. Historically and biblically, therefore, Judah exists in the text as marginalized territory at this time. 78. Barstad appears to overstate the case when he describes the fall of Jerusalem as merely an event of limited physical destruction and the deportation of the royal family, artisans, and other engines of the state machinery as not being unduly disruptive. In effect, he maintains that life in Judah “fairly soon would have ‘returned to normal.’ ” Hans M. Barstad, The Myth of the Empty Land: A Study in the History and Archaeology of Judah During the “Exilic” Period (Symbolae Osloenses, Fasciculum suppletorium 28; Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1996), 68. Ackroyd also posits that only a small proportion of the population is deported and therefore massive dislocations are not created. Ackroyd, Exile and Restoration, 22. Given that the governing class experienced the deportations most sharply, it is easy to understand how their experience gets generalized into the national experience. Nonetheless, the loss of this class from the community effectively erodes the leadership and state institutions, an impact that cannot be minimized in a small community. 79. Thompson assesses that even though loss of sovereignty occurred as a result of the Babylonian invasion, Judah could have exercised a measure of independence and retention of identity, given the minimal Babylonian involvement in the affairs of the territory. He notes that this was unlike that which obtained in the case of Israel after the Assyrian invasion of 721 B.C.E. Thompson, Book of Jeremiah, 655. Vanderhooft claims that both the lack of mention by biblical historiographers of the formation of Judah into a province of Babylon and the sparse material evidence of their presence in Judah for most of the sixth century B.C.E. are compelling evidence that Judah is a peripheral territory in the larger Neo-Babylonian Empire. Vanderhooft, The Neo-Babylonian Empire, 105, 109. Graham’s suggestion that Judah is of strategic economic importance to the Babylonian Empire is doubtful. Graham, “Vinedressers and Plowmen,” 56. This notion assumes that economic extraction of resources from the margins to serve the center is the single dening character of imperial expansion. The deportation policy practiced by the Babylonians, which would weaken the elite productive capacity of the territory, indicates that its interests in Judah lay in more than the economic value of the region. 80. Vanderhooft focuses on the indications in 41:3 and 2 Kgs 25:25 to include the possibility that some measure of Babylonian ofcial presence exists alongside Gedaliah, although it is not clear whether this continues after his murder. Vanderhooft, The Neo-Babylonian Empire, 105. 1

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In exercising the choice for residence in Judah over Babylon, the biblical text assigns both deliberateness to the choice of Jeremiah as well as agency. The only sentence in the passage in which Jeremiah is the subject of the verb is v. 6, where Jeremiah goes to Gedaliah at Mizpah, “so Jeremiah came to Gedaliah” (    ). This exercising of his own volition contrasts with previous indications where Jeremiah stands on the receiving end of the action: “when he took him” ( , v. 1), “the chief of the guard took Jeremiah” (    , v. 2). By choosing to remain in the marginalized territory, it can be read that Jeremiah exercises his own agency and articulates his own sense of place in contradistinction to the imperial center. The choice of a location on the margins provides the location from which Jeremiah could come to voice. While within this passage Jeremiah does not speak, the text anticipates that the location on the margins will act as the site from which Jeremiah will speak. The choice of social location represents the single movement within the text of Jeremiah as subject rather than object. hooks asserts, “Only as subjects can we speak. As objects, we remain voiceless—our beings dened and interpreted by others.”81 The discursive movement from object to subject anticipates Jeremiah coming to voice, and represents in its articulation of a sense of place on the margins, the site from which that voice could nd articulation. Similarly, Fanon argues that marginality itself has the capacity to recover subjectivity: “Because it is a systematic negation of the other person and a furious determination to deny the other person all attributes of humanity, colonialism forces the people it dominates to ask themselves the question constantly: ‘In reality, who am I?’ ”82 On the margins, speech is not controlled or determined by the center, neither is the speech of the center the only speech act or language form present. The margins provide the space where a counter-language can be spoken that can effectively challenge dominant power. The movement to the margins, when given the choice to accept the center, in itself rejects the values of the center; it is an act of resistance. hooks regards the power to speak as integral to resistance to dominant power: “The struggle to end domination, the individual struggle to resist colonization, to move from object to subject, is expressed in the effort to establish the liberatory voice—that way of speaking that is no longer determined by one’s status as object—as oppressed being. That way of speaking is characterized by opposition, by resistance.”83 81. hooks, Talking Back, 12. 82. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 250. 83. hooks, Talking Back, 15. 1

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The text identies Mizpah as Jeremiah’s destination. As the narrative proceeds into the subsequent sections, it claries that Mizpah serves as Gedaliah’s administrative center. From the historical record it appears that Mizpah emerges as the obvious choice for settlement in Judah in the aftermath of the Babylonian invasion, given that its location in the remote north of Judah places it outside of the path of Babylonian destruction. Its symbolic value as the location within which Jeremiah expresses his choice of marginality lies in the fact that Mizpah functions within wider biblical texts as the locus of tribal gatherings. Begg outlines some of the pan-Israelite assemblies that occur at Mizpah and surmises that its value in this narrative leads to the expectation of an epochal event in the history of the people.84 Although the historicity of several of the events may be in doubt,85 what appears clear is that Mizpah functions as a cultic center in the postexilic period.86 As the location for Jeremiah’s expression of his choice of marginality, Mizpah’s association with the political, military, and cultic legacy of the land of Judah provides a suitable discursive context for staging acts of deance and resistance to dominant power. The place of Mizpah in the theo-historical imagination of the people who occupy the land after the Babylonian conquest helps to clarify the relationship between territory and subjectivity and ultimately its role in the understanding of place. The ability to live in what is arguably home territory could provide the community a site to construct what hooks calls “homeplace.”87 The site, despite not being the capital Jerusalem or the imperial center, despite its lack of prestige, effectively serves as home for those who occupy the land. hooks, in her articulation of “homeplace,” points out that the physical attributes of the location pale in signicance when compared to its ability to function as a marker of subjectivity and ultimately resistance to dominant and oppressive power.88 “Homeplace” 84. Christopher Begg identies the appointment of Jephtah (Judg 11:11), the tribal assembly in response to the outrage at Gibeah (Judg 20:1), the elimination of the Philistine threat (1 Sam 7:5–14), and the selection of Saul as king (1 Sam 10:21– 27) as signicant epochal events. Christopher Begg, “The Interpretation of the Gedaliah Episode (2 Kgs 25,22–26) in Context,” Antonianum 62 (1985): 5. 85. Patrick Arnold suggests that the association of Mizpah with the premonarchical events may be the work of late editors who retrogress the postexilic cultic value of the site onto these times. Patrick M. Arnold, “Mizpah” in ABD 4:879. 86. Arnold does acknowledge that Mizpah’s real prominence emerges in this narrative, where it functions as the fortress for the surviving community in Judah. Ibid., 4:880. 87. hooks, Yearning, 44. 88. Ibid., 42. 1

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acts as a site for both residence and resistance and the means to maintain and/or recover subjectivity. Laura Chrisman, in her analysis of Spivak’s adaptation of Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative into the “hypothetical imperative,” observes that territory and subjectivity are ip-sides of the same coin on which imperial power intrudes: “The spatialised conception of subjectivity as occupying a distinct, xed and rightful domain, is marked here; imperialism becomes the—by denition expansionist and dominatory—movement across these delineated territories.”89 The exact nature of Jeremiah’s support for Gedaliah remains unclear in these passages. Despite conclusions from commentators, hardly any indication exists that Jeremiah actively supports Gedaliah. Brueggemann suggests that Jeremiah aligns himself with Gedaliah and that they “embod[ied] together a middle way for Jews.”90 However, no indication surfaces of united action from Gedaliah and Jeremiah. Both names appear together in v. 6 and the narrative offers no evidence that they come together. In the following sections of the chapter, when Gedaliah exercises leadership in the land, Jeremiah is missing from these sections. Stipp points out that the narrative never really brings Jeremiah and Gedaliah together: “Narratologisch betrachtet, geht Jeremia zwar su Gedalja, kommt aber nie wirklich an.”91 The narrative distance of Jeremiah from Gedaliah throughout the exercise of his rule under Babylonian toleration can be read as part of the choice of marginality exercised by Jeremiah. In this choice, as demonstrated in the passage, Jeremiah distances himself from both the imperial center and its agents as represented by Gedaliah. Additionally, it would appear that apart from the elite Shaphanide family who are not deported to Babylonian, the military leaders themselves (as listed at 40:8) appear as men of rank and inuence in the community, such as Ishmael. This group contrasts with the group of returning refugees (vv. 11–12) who neither possess a named leader nor have lineages assigned to them. They simply go by the generic title “all the Judeans” (   ). It would appear that the preferences of power are being distributed to an elite group among which Jeremiah, presumably, is invited to participate. That a distance in the narrative exists between Jeremiah and Gedaliah suggests that Jeremiah either rejects the elite group headed by Gedaliah or at least adopts a cautious approach about the project of Gedaliah. 89. Laura Chrisman, “Imperial Space, Imperial Place: Theories of Empire and Culture in Fredic Jameson, Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak,” New Formations 34 (1998): 59. 90. Brueggemann, To Build, to Plant, 160. 91. “Narratively considered, though Jeremiah went to Gedaliah, he never actually arrived.” Stipp, Jeremia, der Tempel und die Aristokratie, 39. 1

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The narrative indicates that Jeremiah positions himself among the people. Jeremiah moves from the imposed marginality of being “among all the deportees” (  , v. 1) to the chosen marginality of Mizpah, living “among the people, the ones remaining in the land” (  › , v. 6). The exact social and class composition of the group of persons who remain in the land is somewhat unclear in various parts of the text. This group, though, can rightly be regarded as those doubly marginalized by the center who experienced both the imposed life on the periphery of the empire and domination by the local elite. While it may not be condently asserted that the Babylonian deportation policy specically targets a certain class group,92 they deport those of productive and economic value to the imperial center.93 Though deported against their will to the imperial center, the act of their selection marks them as preferred to those left behind. Consequently, those left behind would be left to live in the margins of the empire and to be marked as the marginalized within the scheme of reality constructed by the empire. The nature of the community among which Jeremiah lives in the land represents the intentional choice of being with the marginalized community over and against that of an elite community. The passage simply regards the community as “the people” ( ), invoking the sense of a group bonded together by kinship and other ties. Further, the theologically loaded term, “the ones remaining in the land” ( ›, v. 6)94 amplies this group. Other references in the chapter to the community use the cognate “a remnant” (›, v. 11). The notice in v. 7 to “men, and women, and orphans and the poor of the land” ( › ›    ) provides a more detailed picture of the composition of the community. This community represents a more diverse group than those indicated in other passages, such as 39:9–10; 52:15–16; 2 Kgs 25:11–12.95 The inclusion of the military leaders in 40:7–10, as well as those only described as “all the Judeans” (   , 40:11) living in various places, adds to the diversity of the group. The Hebrew term ›, which refers to the residue of a community after a disaster has occurred, denes the nature of the group with whom Jeremiah lives. Though its usage carries negative connotations, the term 92. Contra Thompson, Book of Jeremiah, 133. 93. Barstad, The Myth of the Empty Land, 68. 94. Unlike the other two references to the community remaining in the land in the chapter (vv. 7, 11), this reference is vague on the source of the creation of the community. In v. 7 the diverse community listed is “entrusted” () to Gedaliah by the king of Babylon. And in v. 11 those remaining in the land are “left” (  ) by the king of Babylon. 95. Carroll, Jeremiah, 704. 1

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points to the possibility of renewal of the community through the remnant group.96 As such, as Clements shows, the term indicates the vulnerable nature of the community as one that sits on the edge, since within it lies the possibility for the reconstitution of the people group whose existence has been threatened: “Diese konkrete Bedeutung ndet sich dann im Zusammenhang von Unglücksereignissen, z.B. Überschwemmung, Hungersnot oder Kreig, in denen eine Familie oder eine grösere Menschengruppe an den Rand ihrer Existenz gebracht wird.”97 This community of the remnant among whom Jeremiah lives, as portrayed in the passage, exhibits the characteristics of subaltern groups in postcolonial contexts. Young posits that “in postcolonial studies generally, the subaltern has become a synonym for any marginalized or disempowered minority group.”98 Guha denes the subaltern in terms of its “general attribute of subordination.”99 Being acted upon, overdetermined, and robbed of agency, recovering both voice and consciousness for subalterns is a nihilistic project. Yet, as Beverly points out, to surrender to despair accepts the subaltern as an ontological category. He argues, alongside Guha, for an “egalitarian imaginary” as a critical aspect of subaltern identity. The ability to imagine the subversion of socially constructed categories enables the subaltern to recognize that these are “‘roles’ and not ontological destinies.” In this way, reading the text with Beverly’s notion, hints that the remnant group can emerge from under Babylonian control. For Beverly, to claim subaltern identity challenges the dominant power: “What makes it possible for them to enter into this general relation of equivalence, instead of seeing their afrmation of their own identity claims as necessarily autonomous and differential, is that qua subaltern, these identity claims contain necessarily a moment of negation that is subversive of any claim to hierarchical authority.”100 6. Conclusion The movement of Jeremiah from “among all the deportees” (    , v. 1) to residence “among the people the ones remaining in the land” ( ›  , v. 6) represents the connection of resistant location and oppositional articulation in hooks’ thought. That the 96. Lester V. Meyer, “Remnant,” ABD 5:670. 97. “This concrete meaning is found in the context of misfortune, e.g. ood, famine or war in which a family or larger human group was brought to the brink of their existence.” R. E. Clements, “ › š’ar,” ThWAT 7:935. 98. Young, Postcolonialism, 354. 99. Guha, “Preface,” 35. See also n. 73 in Chapter 4. 100. Beverly, Subalternity and Representation, 147. 1

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passage frames these two critical locations for Jeremiah proves signicant for mapping both the spatial and social locations of Jeremiah. The nal location represents the peculiar positionality that enables articulation and recovery of subjectivity. The location of the margins, as distinct from the center and its elite clients, affords the oppositional context to engage imperial power in ways that secure a sense of place. The experience of dislocation, both spatial and social, within colonial contexts throws up the need for strategies of survival. These strategies are neither intended nor, for the most part, do they result in revolutionary change in the circumstances of the colonized. They are adaptive strategies through which the colonized negotiate their way amidst the presence of colonial power. They provide, however, the opportunity to resist colonial power in ways that retain subjectivity and agency for the colonized. The colonized who have had their land occupied by foreign power nd the need for new positionalities in relation to that foreign presence. It is positionalities such as those afforded by the intentional embrace of marginality that enable the emergence of articulation in resistance to empire and the challenge to its dominant power. Young’s analysis of Ghandi’s deliberate identication and community with those that could be described as subaltern, which placed him at “an eccentric subject position at the outer limits of marginalization and social exclusion, a radical declaration against elitism,”101 proves instructive for reading Jeremiah’s location among the marginalized group in the land. Ghandi’s work among the marginalized, prior to the end of the Raj, can be regarded as playing a critical role in the undermining of British rule in India.

101. 1

Young, Postcolonialism, 321.

Chapter 6

(A)WAY FROM HOME: JEREMIAH 29:5–7

The world’s population migrates so much that living away from home stands as one of the distinguishing characteristics of the modern age.1 Population movements, whether voluntary or forced, occasioned by political consequences or natural occurrences, create challenges for both the host country as well as those who move into new situations. Living in the new context requires negotiating new relationships with the host and home communities, articulating relevant and suitable identities in the new contexts, as well as adapting and adopting life skills that ensure economic and political survival. Migration, forced or voluntary, consists of more than physical movement from one place to another but also involves psycho-social and political events that remake the respective parties involved. Despite the pivotal role given to the exile in biblical scholarship, only a few biblical texts directly address the experience of deportation and exile. The DtrH moves from the arrangements for governance in the land under Gedaliah after the fall of Jerusalem to the notice of the release of Jehoiachin (2 Kgs 25:27–30) as a marker of the end of exile. Similarly, the Chr steps from its discussion of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians to the notice of the edict of Cyrus (2 Chr 26:22–23) as a signal of the return to the land. The lack of concentrated focus on the experience of deportation in the Bible suggests an inability to deal with this period or an intentional suppression of the experiences of deportation and exile.

1. Bammer regards the experience of displacement, that is, “separation of people from their native culture either through physical dislocation…or the colonizing imposition of a foreign culture,” as a dening characteristic of life in the twentieth century. Angelika Bammer, “Introduction,” in Displacements: Cultural Identities in Question (ed. Angelika Bammer; Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1994), xii.

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A cursory reading of the biblical narrative gives the impression of the deportation from Jerusalem to Babylon and other places as an untroubled interlude in an otherwise harmonious historical narrative. This impression facilitates the idea that the deportees return to the land in a smooth transition that picks up from where things leave off. Consequently, the period of reconstruction during the Persian period and the attendant disruptions of the experience of deportation receive little attention. These disruptions, for the deported community, center on the areas of identity, culture, and religious practices, among other things. The physical separation from the land mirrors, in a pale way, the new congurations of home that occur as a result of the experience of deportation. While a yearning for the authentic homeland, in terms of physical space, characterizes those forced out of their own home, the term “home” itself functions in different ways. In raising the question “Where is home?” from the perspective of the displaced, Avtar Brah asserts: “On the one hand ‘home’ is a mythic place of desire in the diasporic imagination. In this sense it is a place of no return, even if it is possible to visit the geographic territory that is seen as the place of ‘origin.’ On the other hand, home is also the lived experience of a locality.”2 The dislocation of people from their home creates the diasporan.3 The diasporan is homeless, a state of living without home, or away from home—what Homi Bhabha calls the “unhomely.” He speaks of the experience of the “unhomely” as those for whom the boundaries between the world and home collapse, where the divisions between the private and the public no longer exist. Bhabha characterizes it as a condition of “extra-territorial and cross-cultural initiations.”4 For him the concern centers not on lack of shelter, but on new positionalities that require new strategies for identity retention and (re)formation, both individual and communal. Hybridity, a cultural product that emerges through the

2. Avtar Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities (London: Routledge, 1996), 192. Similarly, Robin Cohen posits that for diasporic communities the notion of “the old country [is]…often buried deep in language, religion, custom or folklore.” Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), ix. 3. Jana Braziel and Anita Mannur dene the diasporan as “people who have been dislocated from their native homeland through the movements of migration, immigration, or exile.” Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur, “Nation, Migration, Globalization: Points of Contention in Diaspora Studies,” in Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader (ed. Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur; Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2003), 1. 4. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 9. 1

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adaptations to the new environment, results from these new negotiations and articulations of identity. Bhabha’s notions of hybridity and diaspora provide a useful framework in which to read one of Jeremiah’s letters to the deported community in Babylon from a postcolonial perspective. The letter advises adapting to the new circumstances of diaspora. The letter maps out for this community the required strategies for constructing home away from the homeland. Bhabha’s theory offers a theoretical framework for reading the chapter and more particularly the letter. 1. Contesting Exile The dominant approach to biblical history views the exile as a discrete period marked by the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians on one end and on the other by the nancing of the reconstruction of Jerusalem by the Persians. This reading of biblical history ignores the continued existence of Judean communities outside of Jerusalem, the contested nature of the ethnic, religious, and cultural continuities between the original inhabitants of the land and the subsequent returnees, as well as the continuous migrations into the land during the period. The dominant view of biblical history overlooks the experience of diasporic life and how deported communities adjust to their new homes while at the same time maintaining physical, spiritual, and cultural links with the native land.5 It perpetuates the idea that the fortunes of the deportees change with the waning of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and the arrival of a more benecent rule that allows a resettlement of the land. Moreover, this view also presupposes that the deportees’ relationship to territory remains the same and that they themselves remain the same in order to exert previous claims to territory. The word “exile” itself stands as a “gloriously slippery term,”6 for as Philip Davies points out, to speak of exile “already [supplies] an interpretation.”7 He asserts that the term “exile” masquerades as an historical

5. Smith-Christopher points out that because exile has been largely viewed as a theological reality, it has only been evaluated from the perspective of the theological and literary evidence available in the text. The shift in the 1990s to focus on the geopolitical maelstrom out of which the biblical “mythology” of exile arises forces consideration on the experience itself. Smith-Christopher, A Biblical Theology of Exile, 33. 6. Philip R. Davies, “Exile? What Exile? Whose Exile?,” in Leading Captivity Captive—‘The Exile’ as History and Ideology (ed. Lester L. Grabbe; JSOTSup 278; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic, 1998), 128. 7. Ibid., 133. 1

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marker, but functions more as an ideological claim. Similarly, Carroll remains uncertain about the extent to which interpreters can claim historicity around the event of the exile, but recognizes exile as “a biblical trope” that functions as “a root metaphor.”8 Ackroyd points out that the difculty in dealing with the exile lies not with an issue of “historical reconstruction,” but with “a matter of attempting to understand an attitude, or more properly a variety of attitudes, taken up towards that historic fact.”9 As a signier of land claims, exile acts as an interpretation about the land and those who have a claim to it. Therefore, as Davies offers, “ ‘exile’ is constructed as a contested political claim.”10 The prevailing view of the exile structures biblical history into exilic and post-exilic periods. The presumed date of Cyrus’ edict authorizing return to the land (538 B.C.E.) serves as the turning point. This date purports that the exile “ends.” Smith-Christopher points out that in reality the date simply marks the end of Neo-Babylonian hegemony and its replacement by Persian hegemony.11 The effect of this periodization predisposes readers of texts such as Jer 29 to think of “exile” as a temporary phenomenon. Further, because the notion of exile already announces how the story ends, meaningful engagement of the diaspora in biblical texts such as the letter of Jeremiah to the deported community hardly takes place. Viewing the experience of exile as a temporary event in biblical history dilutes the impact and severity of the event itself. It regards the period as a brief interregnum or sabbath for the land, a view that Carroll blames upon the Chr,12 and opens a space for concepts of redemption and regeneration to enter that makes the experience into a desirable spiritual 8. Robert P. Carroll, “Exile! What Exile? Deportation and the Discourses of Diaspora,” in Grabbe, ed., Leading Captivity Captive, 64. 9. Ackroyd, Exile and Restoration, 237. 10. Philip R. Davies, “Exile? What Exile?,” 134. 11. Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, “Reassessing the Historical and Sociological Impact of the Babylonian Exile (597/587–539 B.C.E.),” in Exile: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Conceptions (ed. James M. Scott; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 23. Knud Jeppesen’s distinctions between the “completed exile” and the “not-completed exile” make sense in light of continued Judean residence in communities outside of Jerusalem in places such as Egypt and Babylon. Knud Jeppesen, “Exile a Period— Exile a Myth,” in Grabbe, ed., Leading Captivity Captive, 142. So too Middlemas, who points out that “the exile in certain respects never ceased.” Middlemas, The Templeless Age, 5. 12. Carroll argues that the Chr’s interpretation of a xed term of exile that comes to an end with Cyrus’ edict, as well as the view that the seventy-year period serves as a sabbath for the land (2 Chr 36:20–21), is responsible for a “sabbathization” of the deportation that turns it into an exile. Carroll, “Exile! What Exile?,” 65. 1

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“make-over.”13 This benign view14 allows positions that assert that the deportees lead “as normal a life as possible” to surface.15 SmithChristopher reacts viscerally to the harmless portraits of the exile such as this one from Ralph Klein: “To think of either group as prisoners of war or to compare their situations with the concentration camps of our century would be misleading if not wrong.”16 Smith-Christopher urges reection on both the “human (that is, psychological and physical) and theological impact on the Hebrew people of the sixth and fth centuries B.C.E.”17 as a means of challenging views of the exile as an easy experience. Though the term exile remains a contested one, I use it here to reect its slippery nature. I make no claims by my use of the term “exile” to any notion of “end of exile.” In fact, to regard “exile” as a xed and closed 13. Davies regards the “romanticism” that lies beneath views of the exile as punishment that leads to a regeneration of a new people as a Western Christian overlay of the “mythical topoi” of the redeemed repentant sinner. Philip R. Davies, “Exile? What Exile?,” 132. 14. The exact nature of the exile is difcult to reconstruct with any precision. Ackroyd sees it, in the initial phases, as an easy experience that later turns harsh with the rise of Nabodonidus to power. Ackroyd, Exile and Restoration, 36. SmithChristopher argues that evidence such as the cuneiform inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar II, which reads “I forced them to work on the building of Etemenaki—I imposed on them the brick-basket,” attests to the harsh conditions of the exile. Drawing from other Neo-Babylonian texts, he deduces the experience as demanding. He also points to the use of such words as “bonds” and “fetters” in post-exilic texts such as Ps 137 and Neh 9:36, as well as the actions of Ezekiel. These act as a window on the trauma. Smith-Christopher, “The Impact of the Babylonian Exile,” 25– 35. Carroll similarly views the biblical text as betraying the “utter miseries of existence” in exile. Robert P. Carroll, “Deportation and Diasporic Discourses in the Prophetic Literature,” in Scott, ed., Exile, 64. 15. Along similar lines, Nicholson is of the view that 29:5–6, “together with information provided by the book of Ezekiel, indicate[s] that the Judean exiles in Babylon, though forced to live there, remain free and unmolested to settle down.” Nicholson, The Prophet Jeremiah, 45. 16. Ralph W. Klein, Israel in Exile: A Theological Interpretation (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 3. 17. Smith-Christopher, “The Impact of the Babylonian Exile,” 10. In a later work, Smith-Christopher traces various assessments of the “exile” from C. C. Torrey’s early twentieth-century view of the event as “a small and relatively insignicant affair,” to Hans Barstad’s late twentieth-century work, which asserts continued and viable occupation of the land (contra the Chr) during the deportation period. He argues in this work for a sharper assessment of the experience that allows the negative impacts to come to the surface. Smith-Christopher, A Biblical Theology of Exile, 30–49. 1

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period obscures the issues that I wish to illuminate. My use of “exile” approximates more to the concept of “diaspora,” an open-ended experience of absence from “home.” Yet “exile” remains my preferred term here because “diaspora” unfortunately does not convey sufciently the deep involvement of empire in the circumstances that necessitate the absence from “home.” By using “exile” I draw attention to dislocation and movement, events and experiences that cannot take place without the intervention of empire. Coupling the term “exile” with empire in the book’s title also demonstrates that exile stands as more than a passive historical reality, but one freighted with the trauma of the loss of home. While the term “diaspora” captures the open-ended nature of the experience and removes much ambiguity, the contested term “exile” evokes the visceral experiences of the inequities of geo-political power and the responses and resistance to dominant power. 2. Analysis of Chapter 29 Chapter 29 of the book of Jeremiah represents another stage of the dispute over the question of the duration of the absence from the land among prophetic groups. The clash between Jeremiah and Hananiah in ch. 28 reects this conict. The chapter falls within a literary context (chs. 27–29) preoccupied with unauthorized prophecy.18 Chapters 27 and 28 report an open confrontation between Jeremiah and the prophet Hananiah on the nature and severity of the punishment of the people for their sins. While Hananiah contends that the yoke of Babylonian overlordship would be brief and bearable (28:11), Jeremiah encourages the people to prepare for a rm and durable stay in Babylon (28:13–14) without mentioning the prospect of return. The showdown between the two dueling prophets ends with the death of Hananiah, presumably in fulllment of the Dtn penalty of death for speaking a prophecy unauthorized by YHWH (Deut 18:20). Further disputations with other prophets on the same issue play out in ch. 29. The shape of the chapter highlights the differences between Jeremiah and other prophets. The text compels the reader to view Jeremiah’s 18. Jones states that false prophecy is the “pervasive theme” of chs. 26–29. Jones, Jeremiah, 360. Similarly, Thiel sees the issue of false prophecy as the controlling theme of chs. 27–29. Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion, 14. So too McKane argues that falsehood and truth in prophecy serve as the issues around which submission and resistance revolves. McKane, Jeremiah 2, cxxxviii. Following JerMT, I speak either of unauthorized prophets or prophetic opponents since their messages are characterized in this way. 1

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words as representing the divinely authoritative will in contrast to other prophetic voices. The repeated messenger formula, “Thus says the LORD” (    ), depicts Jeremiah as bearing the divine will to the community. By repetition of the formula (vv. 4, 8, 10, 15, 16, 17, 21, 31), the voice of God, through Jeremiah, dominates the chapter to the exclusion of other voices. Furthermore, Jeremiah’s words receive greater authentication in the text through the use of additional divine epithets that convey power and dominance. Alongside the traditional messenger formula the Hebrew text expands the divine epithet to read regularly as “the LORD of armies, the God of Israel” (‡   , vv. 4, 8, 17, 21, 25).19 This elaborate title forms part of the messenger formula at key points in the chapter. At v. 4 it introduces the oracle to be contained in the letter to the deported community and again at v. 25 it introduces the oracle to be delivered to Shemaiah. Other times its use sets up denunciations against prophetic opponents, as at vv. 8 and 21. In these instances, where the text requires Jeremiah to deliver the oracle to the community and to combat the counter-messages of his opponents, the weight of divine authority supports his words. Nationalist echoes surround divine authority and power as a means of advancing what could be discerned as the divine will for the national community. The chapter opens with an elaborate introduction to the letter that combines a list of addressees (“the remainder of the deported elders and to the priests and prophets and all the people,”    

       , v. 1b), historical details on the deportations of a given list (“after the departure of king Jeconiah,”      , v. 2a), and the method of the delivery for the letter (“by the hand,” , v. 3a). The details not only provide historical context for the sending and receiving of the letter, but by referencing the involvement of royal and imperial resources add legitimacy to the contents of the letter. Though purporting to be the written version of a divine oracle, the introduction to the chapter omits the typical word-event formula (“the word which came to Jeremiah,”     › ) that alerts the reader to the divine word. Instead, the introduction points to the words of the letter (“these are the words of the letter,”   , v. 1) without providing details of the context in which the prophet receives them or whether or not the prophet actually receives them. This initial fracture between the introductory verses provides evidence of the compositional character of the chapter. A different address for the community occurs between v. 1 and v. 4. Verse 1 designates the 19. Verses 10 and 16 departs from this stylized title by using “the LORD” () and omitting the national reference in v. 17. 1

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community that receives the letter as “to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar deported” (   ›   ), while v. 4 addresses the divine word “to all the deportees whom I have deported” ( ›   ). In one case the community stands simply as “all the people” (   , v. 1), while in the other the theo-political designation of “all the deportees” (  , v. 4) denes them; at one time Nebuchadnezzar receives credit for the deportation and at another YHWH. This inconsistency between the introduction to the chapter and what effectively is the introductory formula to the divine speech (v. 4), represents the different stages of development in the chapter.20 The introduction to the divine oracle, which should indicate the content of the letter to the community in Babylon at v. 4, identies what could be the start of the letter. However, the letter lacks similar markers that would designate its conclusion. The letter purports to continue up to v. 23, with the new designation of a message to Shemaiah at v. 24. While it appears that vv. 4–23 contains the entire letter, the wide-ranging nature of the issues in these verses, as well as the textual difculties, makes this improbable. The oft-occurring messenger formula, as well as other markers, enables identication of distinct blocks of text within the chapter. These markers include a number of observations. First, the repeated use of imperatives marks vv. 5–7 out as a separate section. Second, at vv. 8– 9 the messenger formula introduces the distinctive issue of unauthorized prophecy and a warning not to be seduced by dreams. Third, the messenger formula at v. 10 switches the focus of the chapter to the notion of a seventy-year stay in Babylon and the possibility of return upon its completion. Fourth, the particle  at v. 11 sets up the divine oracle of promise of well-being for the people and continues up to v. 14 with the assurance of divine presence in response to sincere solicitations. Fifth, the placement of the single statement at v. 15 appears to be an enigma, but, like v. 11, the use of the particle  sets it off from the rest of the chapter. Sixth, verses 14–20, marked off by the messenger formula, offer an invective against the Jerusalem community. Seventh, similarly, vv. 21–23 focus divine wrath upon the prophets Ahab and Zedekiah, presumably for misleading messages (v. 21), but notably as well for their moral lapses (v. 23).21 20. Thiel lists the divine speech formulas as occurring at vv. 4, 8, 10, 16, 17, 21, 25, and 31. Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion, 11. Holladay similarly uses these formulae as markers of units in the text. Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 137. 21. McKane comments that the odd shift from the issue of authentic prophecy to adultery adds “inconsequentially to the charge of false prophecy.” Further, he observes that “it is as if everything that could discredit Ahab and Zedekiah were being raked up.” McKane, Jeremiah 2, 740. 1

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These blocks of text suggest both the composite nature of the chapter, and at the same time build a case for unauthorized prophecy. The warning in vv. 8–9 about the seduction of prophets and diviners appears early in the chapter. Since v. 15 is truncated from its original literary context it raises the claim that YHWH commissioned prophets in Babylon in an ambiguous way without indicating whether the Jerusalem community or the Babylonian deportees hold this view. Evidence of unauthorized prophecy surfaces in vv. 21–23, where examples of the fate of those who speak without divine authorization appear. When placed together, these various pericopes denounce prophets other than Jeremiah and delegitimize their statements. Therefore, Shemaiah’s introduction in v. 24, neither as a prophet nor an unauthorized prophet, lays the ground that the oracle being introduced would be negative. Quoting his words and setting the stage for his denunciation, which follows in vv. 30–32, establishes the charge against Shemaiah in vv. 25–28. In this regard, these two sections mirror that of vv. 21–23, the case of Ahab and Zedekiah. Verse 21 references their unauthorized words while vv. 21b–23 detail their fate. In both cases the clause “because” (› ) in v. 23 (cf. v. 31c) introduces their fates. The chapter easily divides into two sections revolving around an initial letter from Jeremiah, located somewhere in vv. 1–23, and responses to that letter in vv. 24–32. Assuming that vv. 1–23 contain the entire rst letter of Jeremiah, that letter outlines a promise of a temporary sojourn in Babylon in vv. 5–7, 10, backed up by assurances of divine favor in vv. 11–14, together with a warning against unauthorized prophets in vv. 8–9, 15, alongside concrete examples of wrath meted out to unauthorized prophets in vv. 21–23, as well as denunciation against the Jerusalem community in vv. 16–20.22 These elements promote the view of prolonged absence from the land by marshalling pericopes that point to judgment and the exercise of destructive divine power. The section (vv. 1–23), therefore, creates a chilling effect upon those who would resist that view of deportation. That Shemaiah raises questions about the authenticity of this prophetic position provides, then, a live example of the way resistance to the idea of a prolonged absence from the land would be treated. The chapter gives a central place to Jeremiah and the voice of Jeremiah as the legitimate channel for any acceptable prophecy. Correspondingly, it also centers Jerusalem as the site from which authentic prophecy

22. Rudolph proposes the arrangement of the chapter as vv. 1–7, 10–14, 8–9, 15, 21–23, with vv. 16–20 being a later interpolation. Rudolph, Jeremia, 184. 1

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emerges and in the process marginalizes Babylon. In the chapter, letters are sent from Jerusalem (vv. 1, 3, 28, 31), while people are also sent (vv. 4, 7, 14, 20) to Babylon. This sets up Jerusalem as the site of production of knowledge/power about the deportation. In this chapter, YHWH, Jeremiah, and Shemaiah occur as the subjects of the verb “send” (›), with letters and proclamation about the “exile” as its objects. Jeremiah’s sending of a letter (v. 1) contains the same echoes of YHWH’s sending of prophets in v. 19. The conation of prophet and prophetic letter characterized as “you sent in your own name” ( › ›23) shapes the denunciation of Shemaiah in v. 25. This exposes his letter as a gross attempt to imitate the authorizing and sending pattern used by Jeremiah. Within the text, prophecy takes on problematic dimensions outside of Jerusalem. All the prophets who operate outside of Jerusalem, and arguably the orbit of Jerusalem, receive condemnation. This includes those referred to in vv. 8–9, Ahab and Zedekiah (vv. 21–23) and Shemaiah (vv. 24–32). At the center of the chapter stands v. 15, which introduces the ambivalence about authentic prophecy outside of Jerusalem. The verse seems disconnected from its literary context. It creates ambiguity as to whether the Babylonian community is denounced for trusting in the prophets there (hence it acts either as a conclusion to vv. 8–14 or an introduction to vv. 8–9),24 or the Jerusalem community for thinking that Babylon has emerged as the preferred site of prophetic activity (in which case it acts as the introduction of the denunciation in vv. 16–20), or Ahab and Zedekiah for their attempt to act as prophets in Babylon (consequently transposing it before v. 21 would be required).25 23. McKane points out that this wording assumes “a claim to prophetic authority” on the part of Shemaiah which in the establishment of the text is denied him. McKane, Jeremiah 2, 733. 24. Thiel posits that v. 15 should be relocated between vv. 7 and 8. He argues that the verse is omitted and subsequently reinserted as a marginal note but then placed in the wrong position in the text. Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion, 14. Rudolph offers the counter proposal that vv. 8–14 should be placed after v. 15. Rudolph, Jeremia, 184. McKane observes that both these proposals would result in consecutive verses beginning with  , weakening the claim that they are originally continuous. McKane, Jeremiah 2, 739. 25. Holladay and Janzen are open to the option of transposing v. 15 between vv. 20 and 21 since it appears to be an introduction to the judgment oracle against Ahab and Zedekiah. Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 139; J. Gerald Janzen, Studies in the Text of Jeremiah (HSM; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), 118. Other scholars support this position and hold the view that v. 20 is subsequently crafted as a “bridge verse” between vv. 16–19 and v. 21 to compensate for the dislocation of v. 15. Bright, Jeremiah, 209; Nicholson, The Prophet Jeremiah, 99. 1

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The verse on its own problematizes any claims that YHWH raised up prophets in Babylon. In effect, prophetic activity could only be legitimized through direct contact with the national center in Jerusalem. The content and placement of v. 15 functions as an axis around which the notion of unauthorized prophecy revolves in the chapter. It divides the chapter into two parts, with the rst half centering on Jeremiah’s prophetic activity in Jerusalem and communication with the deported community in Babylon. The second half focuses on the prophetic activity in Babylon, except vv. 16–20, dealing with the failure of prophetic work in Jerusalem that leads to its destruction and deportation of its population. In the rst section, the oracles delivered by Jeremiah concentrates on well-being (v. 7), rewards (v. 11), restoration (v. 14), and the divine presence (vv. 10, 12–14)—all oracles of well being. The second section, on the other hand, contains oracles of judgment that speak to punishment of the Jerusalem community (vv. 17–18), judgment and wrath against unauthorized prophets (vv. 21–23), and the cutting off of the family of Shemaiah (v. 32). In the rst section, Nebuchadnezzar’s portrayal as the only named individual reads ambiguously as neither positive nor negative. However, in the second section the three named persons (Ahab, Zedekiah, and Shemaiah) all receive negative assessments. While in the rst section only one mention of unauthorized prophecy appears in v. 8 (which in effect warns against accepting its claims), the second section deals exclusively with unauthorized prophecy. The claim that legitimate prophets exist in Babylon, as contained in v. 15, is undermined by the content of the verses that follow it. By following the contours of the text, the reader makes unauthorized prophecy the central issue of the chapter, and more particularly the ght to suppress unauthorized prophets who oppose the message of Jeremiah. The delegitimation of Babylon, and by extension prophets who operate there, as a site for prophetic activity functions as one way in which the chapter impels the reader to accept any prophecy attached to the name of Jeremiah. Another way appears through the delegitimation of the Jerusalem community and consequently the delegitimation of prophecy which views remaining in the land as a viable option. The invective against the Jerusalem community in vv. 16–19 represents the move towards setting up an ascendancy of the Babylonian deportees over against the in-the-land group. In that pericope the king and the people receive the promise of a triad and quartet of disasters, the usual triad of “sword, famine, and pestilence” (  , vv. 17, 18), in addition to becoming “an object of terror…an object of horror, hissing and reproach” ( ›  ›…) in 1

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v. 18.26 These horrors are addressed to both the political leadership and the general population. The text describes the targets, with the ancestral lineages for the king noted (“the king who sits on the throne of David,”    ›  ) in v. 16a, the coverage area of the city limits specied (“all the people living in that city,”   ›   ) in v. 16b, and the kinship ties with the deportees duly noted (“your kindred,” ) in v. 16c. Further, the description for the Jerusalem community observes that they do not share in the experience of deportation, “who did not go out with you to exile” (    ›) in v. 16c, a marker of their disqualication from having any legitimate claim either to the land or to divine favor. In fact, the text prescribes their punishment as banishment from the land—“I will have banished them” ( )—in v. 18, as compared to “departure” () in v. 2 for Jeconiah and the named ofcials, or even “deported” () for the list of religious professionals in v. 1. While the use of the word “banish” ( ) in v. 18 connects the Jerusalem community with the deported community (, v. 14), the use in both cases evokes different senses. In the case of the Jerusalem community the reference evokes banishment, displacement, and punishment, while the relating to the deported community appears within the context of the promise of restoration to the land. The polemics against the Jerusalem community in this chapter mirror those of ch. 24 which assert the ascendancy of the deported community over the in-the-land group.27 The similarities between this chapter and ch. 24 suggest a dependent relationship in which ch. 29 in its nal form draws upon ch. 24 to craft the polemics against the Jerusalem community to undercut claims of remaining in the land as a legitimate option. At the outset, both these texts reference the same historical period and the same identied group of deportees, as a comparative analysis shows:28 26. Christopher Seitz contends that though the triad of disasters and catalog of horrors are common to the language of the book of Jeremiah (14:11–16; 15:1–4; 21:6–14; 25:9; 32:24; 38:2), they “emerge in an editorial layer of Jeremiah under the inuence of the Ezekiel traditions.” He allows that Ezekiel may draw the language from Jeremiah only for it to be redacted back into the Jeremiah corpus, via Ezekiel, as the preferred deprecatory language for use with regards to the Jerusalem community. Christopher R. Seitz, Theology in Conict: Reactions to the Exile in the Book of Jeremiah (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989), 212. 27. Hyatt posits that vv. 16–20 are a Dtr creation that imitates ch. 24 “probably written by the Deuteronomic editor—or by some later editor who knew ch. 24 well—and does not represent Jeremiah’s attitude.” Hyatt, “The Book of Jeremiah,” 1019. 28. Holladay shows that the essential difference between 29:2 and 24:1 is the inclusion of two more items in the list, namely, “the queen mother” () and 1

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               ›    ›   ›  This was after King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon had taken into exile from Jerusalem King Jeconiah, son of Jehoiakim of Judah, together with the ofcials of Judah, the artisans, and the smiths, and had brought them to Babylon. (24:1)

› ›  ‡        

›   This was after the departure of King Jeconiah and the queen mother, and the court ofcials and the ofcials of Judah and Jerusalem, and the engravers and locksmiths from Jerusalem. (29:2)

In both texts, remaining in the land stands as the qualication for punishment, and the punishments in both cases include the usual Jeremianic triad of disasters:  › ›     

          › : ›  ›     

   ›        I will make them a horror, an evil thing, to all the kingdoms of the earth; a disgrace, a byword, a taunt, and a curse in all the places where I shall drive them. And I will send sword, famine, and pestilence upon them, until they are utterly destroyed from the land that I gave to them and their ancestors. (24:9–10)

          ›           › ›  ›  ›    

   

›  ›    Look, I am sending them sword, famine, and pestilence and I will make them like disgusting gs so bad that they cannot be eaten. And I will pursue them with sword, famine, and pestilence and I will make them an object of terror for all the kings of the earth, to become an object of horror, hissing, and reproach in all the nations where I will have banished them. (29:17–18)

“the court ofcials” ( ) in 29:2. Further, he points out that 29:2, like 24:1, draws from 2 Kgs 24:14–16. Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 132. Thiel posits a similar view, but suggests that this represents the work of the Dtr. Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion, 11. 1

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The punishments meted out in both texts share a common vilication of the Jerusalem community, described as “like rotten gs so bad that cannot be eaten” (    › ›  , 24:8; cf. 29:17). However, ch. 29 uses even more strident tones to describe the community, employing the hapax legomenon “disgusting” ( ›, v. 17).29 The connections between this chapter and the positions advanced in ch. 24 indicate how this chapter intentionally forms around the issues of unauthorized prophecy and the occupation of the land. The incorporation of the polemics against the Jerusalem community not only delegitimizes that community as a source of prophecy or a determinant of the fate of the land, but also creates the myth of the “emptied land” in order to justify their removal from any inheritance in the land. Thiel attributes the nal product of the ch. 29 to the redactional work of the Dtr. He argues that the chapter grows out of the original letter of Jeremiah (vv. 4a, 5–7) and the subsequent history in vv. 25–32. The redactor appends an introduction (vv. 1–3), inserts the promise of salvation to the deportees (vv. 10–14), includes the negative aspects of the polemics against the Jerusalem community (vv. 16–20), and the story of Ahab and Zedekiah (vv. 21–23) to reshape the intent of the letter from Jeremiah to the deportees to reect the promise of return and the life in the land.30 Thiel believes that intentional reshaping takes place since what he regards as the letter does not discard the possibility of a return to the land, leaving room for the notion of an extension to be placed in v. 10: “Die Rückkehrerwartung wird nicht mehr grundsätlich abgelehnt wie von Jeremia in 5–7, sondern prolongiert.”31 Pohlmann advances a similar position that maintains an intentional crafting of the chapter to suit a particular position. He attributes the work to a “golaorientierten Redaktion” (“golah-oriented redaction”).32 He locates this redaction of the wider book of Jeremiah in the fourth century B.C.E., a time that reects the context and condence of a community in the restoration of the deportees to the land.33 For him, an earlier version 29. Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 135. 30. Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion, 19. 31. “The issue of returning home was no longer fundamentally rejected by Jeremiah in 5–7, but rather it was prolonged.” Ibid., 16. 32. Karl-Friedrich Pohlmann, “Das ‘Heil’ des Landes—Erwägungen zu Jer 29,5– 7,” in Mythos im Alten Testament und seiner Umwelt: Festschrift für Hans-Peter Müller zum 65. Gerburtstag (ed. Armin Lange, Hermann Lichtenberger, and Diethard Römheld; BZAW 278; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999), 148. Seitz supports this view. Seitz, Theology in Conict, 91. 33. Seitz nds Pohlmann’s thesis attractive but disagrees on his dating for the redaction. He argues that the redaction more likely occurs during the actual 1

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of the chapter exists that includes the introduction (vv. 1–3), a letter from Jeremiah to the deportees (vv. 4a, 5–7), and a critique of the opponents of Jeremiah (vv. 15, 21–32aB).34 The promises to the deportees in vv. 8– 14, as well as the polemics against the Jerusalem community (vv. 16– 20), alongside minor redactional details, Pohlmann attributes to the golah-oriented redactor. He argues that the position advanced in ch. 24 remains key to understanding the goal of this redaction, namely that the deportees to Babylon during the reign of Jehoiachin are the rightful claimants to the land of Judah: “die babylonische Gola (unter Jojakin) als legitime Nachfolgerin des alten “Israel” in Jahwes Heilsplan vorzustellen.”35 These two positions provide a useful way of reading against the dominant grain of the chapter, which advances the notion of deportation of a limited duration alongside the prospect of return. The redactional activity that includes the promise of salvation in vv. 10–14, the denunciation of prophets in vv. 8–9, 15, as well as the judgment oracles against the Jerusalem community and those that inveigh against Ahab, Zedekiah, and Shemaiah, protects this position on the issue of the deportation. That the redactor employs texts that invoke the weight of divine power backed up by threats of destruction for those who propound contrary views, suggests that the issue of the nature of the deportation from the land stands as a controversial issue at the time.36 In ch. 29 the controversy essentially appears to turn on the notion that the absence from the land will come to an end and the question of who occupies the land at the end of the deportation. The text offers, through the voice of Jeremiah, a different position in chs. 27–28. In the conict with Hananiah, Jeremiah discredits the false notion of a quick return “within two years” (

  ›, 28:3,11) given by Hananiah, and counsels the acceptance of Babylonian overlordship as a durable experience, with no foreseeable end to Babylonian hegemony. The inclusion in ch. 29 of a seventy-year prophetic ministry of Jeremiah. Christopher R. Seitz, “The Crisis of Interpretation Over the Meaning and Purpose of the Exile,” VT 35 (1985): 80. 34. Pohlmann, “Das ‘Heil’ des Landes,” 151. 35. “The Babylonian golah (under Johoiachin) are represented as the legitimate successors of old ‘Israel’ in Yahweh’s plan of salvation.” Ibid., 146. 36. Thomas Overholt believes that an ongoing debate on the length of the absence from the land in Jerusalem reaches Babylon and this in part necessitates the letter from Jeremiah to articulate his views on the matter. It appears that for Overholt the debate on duration hinges on how soon it would end; this contrasts with my own position, which is that the real debate is about whether it ends or not. Thomas W. Overholt, “Jeremiah 27–29: The Question of False Prophecy,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 35 (1967): 242. 1

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absence from the land (v. 10) conicts with this position and introduces a new notion to the debate.37 The relationship between ch. 29 and the other two chapters in this block of texts (chs. 27–28) forms a useful way of viewing the shape of the nal form of the chapter. Overholt maps the relationship between the chapters as mirroring the relationship between the at-home community and those away from home. The text addresses both communities with a general message relating to the experience of deportation that includes specic examples of prophetic opposition to that message. In the case of the at-home community, ch. 27 summarizes that message, with the Hananiah encounter serving as the example of prophetic opposition in ch. 28. For the away-from-home community, Overholt posits that 29:1– 14 and 29:15–32 directs the message and constitutes the examples of prophetic opposition.38 In both sections, the term “lie” (›) describes the message of the prophetic opponents of Jeremiah (28:15; 29:23, 31). Additionally, they all receive condemnation as either not having been sent by YHWH or speaking a message not commanded: in the case of Hananiah—“the LORD did not send you” ( › , 28:15); in that of Ahab and Zedekiah—“I did not command them” (  , 29:23); and Shemaiah—“I certainly did not send him” (›  , 29:31). Although these patterns exist, the essential oppositional message of the prophets in ch. 29 lacks the clarity of the specic two-year position advanced by Hananiah in ch. 28. This ambiguity in the text uses the oppositional categories of chs. 27–28 in the Hananiah case, namely a debate on duration with a specic two-year period, to impose an interpretational layer upon ch. 29 that focuses attention on the notion of the end of the absence from the land and the possibility of return. Consequently, this distracts attention from Jeremiah’s consistent message of an open-ended absence from the land and the contradiction that 29:10 poses to that message. The twin issues of “end of exile” and return to the land appear only in vv. 10–14 in the chapter. These verses, marked off from the rest of the chapter by the promises that they propose, as well as the messenger formula that suggests the stitching of an independent oracle, book-end the use of the word “return” (›). The  clause that begins v. 11 37. Carroll points out that the notion of a seventy-year absence also appears specically in 25:11–12 in relation to the collapse of Babylonian power and as an allusion in 27:7 using the generations of the Babylonian ruling family to predict the end of that empire. He believes that 25:11–12 is “a post-exilic creation” that reconciles the historical realities with that of the Jeremiah text. Carroll, Jeremiah, 557. 38. Overholt, “Jeremiah 27–29,” 242. 1

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produces a resumptive effect, with the start of v. 10 suggesting the use of a joining mechanism between the verses. While v. 10 remains clear about the duration of the stay in Babylon and the destination of the return, v. 14 uses nebulous terms that indicate multiple sites of deportations (“from all the nations and from all the places where I will have banished you,”

›   ›        ) and lacks the specicity that Jerusalem is the destination of return (“to the place from where I deported you,” ›  ›   ). These ripples suggest the collection of two independent promises in v. 10 and vv. 11–14 into one passage to be set against the contents of the letter in vv. 5–7. Carroll builds on Rudolph’s reconstruction of the text to transpose vv. 8–9 after v. 15, which would mean that vv. 10–14 will immediately follow vv. 5– 7. He notes that this move allows vv. 10–14 to act as a “counterbalance” to that section. He maintains that while the two sections “do not necessarily contradict each other,” the contents of vv. 10–14 appear as a modied version of Jeremiah’s opponents’ message, which argues for a seventy-year duration instead of two years.39 Equally, Thiel holds the view that the Dtr deliberately imposes vv. 10–14 upon vv. 5–7.40 As McKane suggests, the contents of vv. 10–14 weaken the argument against a quick return by the insertion of the possibility of return in the distant future.41 The canonical shape of ch. 29 overlays a number of issues on the presumptive intent of the text. These issues compete for the reader’s attention, shape the interpretation of the letter (though not included as part of the letter), and redirect the essential message of the prophetic commission. The nal shape of the chapter purports that Jeremiah sends a letter to the Babylonian deportees assuring them of their privileged place in the divine economy, counseling them about the temporary strategies required to adjust to the Babylonian context given a deportation of a long but specic duration. It goes further to promise them the hope of return to the land, a land emptied of the elements of sin and disobedience that occasioned their punishment in the rst place. Alongside these concerns, the chapter creates the impression that the letter proclaims this as an absolute and clear divine oracle and prescribes death 39. Carroll, Jeremiah, 557. 40. Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion, 16. 41. McKane, Jeremiah 2, 737. Similarly, Smith-Christopher (in a study published under his pre-marriage name) believes that the original letter would hardly contain the seventy-year motif since this dilutes the advice given to the deportees. Daniel L. Smith, “Jeremiah as Prophet of Nonviolent Resistance,” JSOT 43 (1989): 96. 1

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and destruction for the lineage of prophets who contradict this message. That this represents the shape of the nal form of the chapter suggests the distortion of an earlier message (vv. 5–7) that holds the view of an open-ended absence from the land. 3. Prophecy by Letter The deportation of the community’s leadership to Babylon forces the prophet to adjust to the changed circumstances in order to communicate with his target audience.42 Letter-writing needs to be viewed as a consequence of the dislocating effects of imperial activity. Textuality introduces a new dimension to prophecy, with the prophet’s words mediated through letters and therefore ltered. The prophet and the source of the prophecy exist one step removed from the hearing/reading community. Another level of authority and authorship stands between the prophet and the receiving community, a level overlaid by the colonial reality. To read/hear the letters exchanged by the prophet is therefore to read/hear a text within a text, and essentially a text produced within the ambivalences of an imperial context. This letter from Jeremiah provides the only instance within the biblical narrative of the use of the epistolary form to communicate a prophetic message.43 The large corpus of the Mari letters where the king receives second-hand accounts of prophetic messages attests to the practice of writing prophecy in the ancient world.44 While, in this instance, Jeremiah’s letter is not addressed to the king, it receives the ofcial 42. Rudolph is partially correct in asserting that the ability to correspond with the deportees by letter indicates that life in Babylon is not akin to that of prison or Konzentrationslager (“concentration camp”). However, the apparent freedom of movement and communication ought not to distract from the imperial action of deportation that necessitates the letter and to which the letter is addressed. Rudolph, Jeremia, 182. 43. Donald Verseput places Jer 29 in a genre of letters he regards as “covenantal letter(s) to the Diaspora.” He includes the Epistle of Jeremiah; 2 Macc 1:1–9; 1:10– 2:18; 2 Bar 76–78. These letters are characterized by their origin from an “authoritative centre” as well as their tone of consolation and exhortation to covenant faithfulness in anticipation of restoration. Donald J. Verseput, “Genre and Story: The Community Setting of the Epistle of James,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 62 (2000): 100–101. 44. Aaron Schart suggests that this mechanism presents the most effective means of communicating with a distant or inaccessible audience and provides an open avenue for the king to receive reports on prophetic activity. Aaron Schart, “Combining Oracles in Mari Letters and Jeremiah 36,” Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 23 (1995): 89. 1

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endorsement of the king, using royal resources (v. 3).45 The practice that obtains at Mari of recording prophetic messages for the king, in addition to the open access that prophets in Israel had to kings, as well the responses occasioned by the prophetic letters at Lachish as argued by Simon Parker,46 all suggest an ease of access and communication between the prophet and royal ofcials. In this case, the intended audience appears as the deported community. Essentially, the letter assumes two audiences and arguably contains two messages: one for the consumption of the imperial power of Babylon, and the other for the benet of the displaced community. The absence of key markers found in contemporary correspondence in this particular letter presents challenges in dening what constituted the letter to the earliest readers. The nal form of the chapter creates a letter form through the list of addressees, the historical circumstances, and the introduction of the prophetic formula in vv. 1–4. While containing elements of a letter form, these verses offer a detached third-person report that provides the historical background against which the letter is written and sent, rather than being the actual introduction to this particular letter.47 The letter contains no traditional greeting and closing sections, nor any other element common to letters from that time period.48 Smelik 45. McKane debunks the view that the letter is smuggled to Babylon by the couriers and therefore unknown to both Zedekiah and the king of Babylon. McKane, Jeremiah 2, cxxxix. 46. Parker posits, based on a study of the prophetic letters from Lachish, that these letters produce ofcial responses to prophecies whether or not they support the rule of the ofcial. Simon B. Parker, “The Lachish Letters and Ofcial Reactions to Prophecies,” in Uncovering Ancient Stones: Essays in Memory of H. Neil Richardson (ed. Lewis M. Hopfe; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1994), 77. 47. Schart points out that the Mari letters contain ve form-elements that include the title of the letter that mentions the addressees and the sender and the relationship between them; opening remarks as necessary; an introduction to the prophet indicating the title, name, and status of the prophet; to be followed by the prophetic message itself in the rst person; and a nal statement authenticating the message. Schart, “Combining Oracles,” 76. 48. Klass Smelik contends, based upon comparative analysis with the Lachish letters, that ch. 29 does not compare favorably with “the structure of a common letter from [the] period.” Klass A. D. Smelik, “Letters to the Exiles: Jeremiah 29 in Context,” SJOT 10 (1996): 284. Smith similarly agrees that only the word “well being” ( ›, v. 7), “suggests a letter form.” Smith, “Jeremiah as Prophet of Nonviolent Resistance,” 97. Holladay’s arguments that the presence of the word “well being” ( ›) in v. 7 indicates a misplaced greeting and that “witness” () in v. 23 serves as a divine “countersignatory” of a legal charge are not convincing. William L. Holladay, “God Writes a Rude Letter (Jeremiah 29:1–23),” BA 46 (1983): 145. 1

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holds the view that at best ch. 29 contains a fragment of an early form of the letter.49 Delineating the letter requires a combination of text-critical approaches and a knowledge of epistolary practices of the time. Such as approach would view vv. 1–3 as a secondary layer that forms the introduction to the chapter and not to the letter, and regards v. 4 as a formula “typical of written prophecy.”50 Verse 23–32 deal with another addressee; at the same, time they quote the contents of the earlier letter at v. 28 (cf. v. 5), thereby suggesting that this section does not appear in the earlier letter. Some scholars propose to read the letter as vv. 4–23, which serves to preserve an essential unity in the text. Holladay maintains that while vv. 4–9 contain the basic theme of the letter, namely, to settle down and ignore the prophecies of a quick return, the later verses (vv. 10–23) amplify these initial issues.51 Similarly, Rudolph, even though he relocates verses within the chapter, asserts that vv. 1–23 reect the original letter proper.52 Bright, though, excises vv. 16–20 as an interpolation from a secondary context, and maintains that vv. 4–14, 15, 21–23 constitute the letter.53 Brueggemann, from another perspective, pays attention to the structural frame formed by vv. 5 and 28, with the repetition of the imperatives of v. 5.54 The extension of the letter to include what is the rst major section of the chapter (vv. 1–23) indicates the imposition of the structure of the nal form of the chapter upon the letter, rather than allowing the letter form to emerge from within the constructed chapter. These positions ignore the contradictory message the letter contains if the core of the early form of the letter includes all of vv. 4–23. Holladay’s notion assumes that contemporary epistolary styles require a statement of the themes/issues to be dealt with in the letter at the outset to be followed by Keown et al. raise the question as to whether these should properly be called “letters” since they evidence no letter form. They propose that “booklet” may be a more appropriate term, in keeping with the sense of 30:2; 36 and 51:59–64. Keown, Scalise, and Smothers, Jeremiah 26–52, 65. 49. Smelik, “Letters to the Exiles,” 284. 50. Ibid. 51. Holladay, Jeremiah 2, 137. 52. Rudolph, Jeremia, 181. 53. Bright, Jeremiah, 211. Thompson and Clements hold positions close to that of Bright in that they remove vv. 16–20 from the original letter on the grounds that they are absent in the Old Greek text. They further propose to omit vv. 21–23, which appear to have been the subject of a subsequent correspondence. Thompson, Book of Jeremiah, 544; Clements, Jeremiah, 170. 54. Brueggemann, To Build, to Plant, 31. 1

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subsequent elaboration of these themes. Rudolph’s attempts to compensate for the lack of textual and semantic coherence in the chapter by reorganizing the verses, and thereby to derive a harmonious letter form, imposes his own notions of unity upon the letter. Bright’s omission of vv. 16–20 on the grounds that they are a minus in the Old Greek does not apply the same principles of text criticism to their fullest extent, since it excludes other ripples from the early text of the letter. Equally, Brueggemann’s wish to locate a frame structure ignores the function of the repetition in v. 28. A single letter would hardly include the related but distinct issues found in this section of the chapter (vv. 1–23). The switch from the concerns of the imperatives that lay out strategies for life in Babylon (vv. 5–7) to the peripheral issues in all the other verses would make for a complex and confusing letter.55 Accepting that vv. 5–7 is the closest to an early form of the letter attested in the chapter provides for a clear, concise, and still complex message.56 Apart from the initial letter from Jeremiah to the community in Babylon, the chapter references at least three other letters. The second half of the chapter (vv. 24–32) provides the response that the original letter generates among the deportees and Jeremiah’s reaction to their communication with Jerusalem. Shemaiah directs a letter to Jerusalem, purportedly to the addressees included in v. 25, and subsequently read by the priest Zephanaiah to Jeremiah (v. 29). The contents of the letter appear attested in vv. 26–28 and form part of the letter to Shemaiah that Jeremiah sends as a response (vv. 24–29). This letter from Jeremiah to Shemaiah attested by the chapter contains only the quotation of the contents of Shemaiah’s letter and appears to have been truncated at v. 28. The fourth letter in the chapter consists of Jeremiah’s further communication with the entire community on the fate of Shemaiah and his heritage as punishment for his apostasy (vv. 30–32).57 55. The proposal of Hyatt and Jones that vv. 4–9 is the original letter suffers from a similar weakness of including the warning against unauthorized prophets when there is no indication up to that point in the chapter or even in the initial verses of the letter that this is an issue of contention. Hyatt, “The Book of Jeremiah,” 1017; Jones, Jeremiah, 362. 56. Carroll posits that limiting the letter to vv. 5–7 results in a “brief and straightforward” message that is consistent with the view expressed in v. 28. Carroll, Jeremiah, 555. Thiel maintains a similar position that vv. 5–7 is the best representation of an early letter: “Wir stehen hier offenbar den authentischen Worten des Propheten nahe” (“Obviously here, we are close to the authentic words of the prophet”). Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion, 12. 57. Clements believes that vv. 21–23 is part of Shemaiah’s letter to Jerusalem and that Jeremiah sends two further pieces of correspondences—the truncated letter 1

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Paying attention to epistolary conventions of the period helps to identify an early form of the letter, as well as the subsequent transmissions between the two communities. Meindert Dijkstra points to the use of the ancient Near Eastern “custom of quoting” employed in the letter of Jeremiah to Shemaiah in vv. 24–28.58 He offers that Jeremiah’s letter quotes directly from Shemaiah’s letter (vv. 25b–28) and then continues in vv. 30–32 with the response from Jeremiah. Essentially, he shows that letters contain letters and provide a clue to the contents of previous correspondence, similar to email replies that include the text of previous transmissions. Apart from the clear oracle communicated in vv. 31–32, the three other pieces of correspondence all appear in one letter (vv. 24–28). In light of this, v. 28 has to be considered as a quote from the original letter of Jeremiah as attested in v. 5. However, v. 5 need not be considered as the only extant portion of that early letter, since, as Thiel argues, only the start of the letter is referred to.59 Additionally, the structured series of imperatives in v. 5 consistently continue up to v. 7, implying a semantic and structural connection to this initial verse and thereby making a strong case for vv. 5–7 to be regarded as the available letter fragment. The reaction or non-reaction of Shemaiah to issues that would likely be raised in that letter offers another clue to the contents of the rst correspondence. Neither the matter of return nor the notion of a seventyyear duration of absence from the land elicits any discernible response on the part of Shemaiah. While Shemaiah objects to Jeremiah’s notion of a long period of deportation, he makes no specic reference to the stated period. Placing the issue of return on the table, in this instance, signals a changed position for Jeremiah. Such a shift in position would hardly earn him the reputation of being a “mad man” (› ›, v. 26) in the eyes of Shemaiah. Arguably, the lack of reference to the prospect of return in Shemaiah’s correspondence shows that Jeremiah’s rst correspondence does not deal with that matter.60 At this point vv. 5–7 represent the text of an early letter fragment from the prophet. Other verses in the chapter provide either a narrative framework for the introduction of the letter (vv. 1–4) or frame a rhetorical begun at v. 24 and the one containing the oracle of judgment in vv. 31–32. Clements, Jeremiah, 170. 58. Meindert Dijkstra, “Prophecy By Letter (Jeremiah XXIX 24–32),” VT 3 (1983): 320. 59. Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion, 12. 60. McKane contends that the combination of the imperatives in vv. 4–7 and the prospect of return are “inherently improbable” and therefore the verse that makes such references should be viewed as later attempts to soften the prophet’s words. McKane, Jeremiah 2, cxxxix. 1

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context of the issue of unauthorized prophecy and the punishment for unauthorized prophecy and failure to heed authentic prophecy (vv. 8– 23). Establishing the letter in vv. 5–7 offers unique possibilities for viewing this particular prophetic message on exile. The scope of these imperatives ranges beyond the immediate present and forces attention on the distant future, to a life in diaspora and the strategies required to live outside of the land. 4. Reading Diaspora The letter to the deported community targets a group that makes adjustments to the new situations brought upon them by an imperial power. This new situation of displacement from home results from being forced to create home in a new and foreign situation. The letter maps out for this community the required strategies for constructing home away from the homeland. The prophet writes to a community displaced by imperial action while at the same time using the resources of the empire to transmit the message. This places the writer of the message, and arguably the message itself, within the ambivalences of the imperial context, making unclear whose interests the message promotes. Being aware of this ambiguity, a postcolonial perspective reads the text “from below.” To read the letter from the perspective of the empire, that is, “from above,” it appears as the harmless advice of a pragmatic social leader working to entrench the power of the empire within the deported community.61 However, to read the letter from the perspective of the deported, that is, “from below,” issues of displacement, migration, and negotiating space for home in a hostile and foreign context then emerge into the foreground. Read from below, or what Smith-Christopher calls a “presumption of resistance,”62 the letter provides the mechanisms needed by the deportees to maintain their unique identity and subjectivity in the context 61. Clements sees it as pragmatic advice to the deportees to submit to the imperial reality. He reads the advice as “quietistic acceptance of the sovereign demands of the king of Babylon.” Clements, Jeremiah, 172. Bright accepts it as encouragement to become “peaceable subjects of Babylon” given the fact that the absence from the land would be lengthy and open-ended. Bright, Jeremiah, 37. Similarly, Brueggemann reads it as reecting “political realism, urging the exiles to accommodate their imperial overlord.” He believes that as deportees “the Jews have no option to Babylon.” Brueggemann, To Build, to Plant, 32. 62. Smith-Christopher articulates this position based upon James C. Scott’s analysis of the hidden transcripts used by dominated people. See James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990); Smith-Christopher, A Biblical Theology of Exile, 24. 1

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of diaspora. The maintenance and shaping of a sense of place that includes elements of identity, the renegotiating of cultural symbols, and meaning, as well as the articulation of new bases for engagement with persons outside of the group, function as mechanisms of resistance that dominated peoples use to prevent themselves from being crafted in the image of their oppressors.63 a. Theorizing Diaspora Theoretical engagement of the notion of diaspora starts with the Babylonian experience of the Judeans in the sixth century B.C.E. Approaches to the question of the “Jewish Diaspora” in this period rely heavily upon texts such as the one under examination, written and constructed so tendentiously as to obscure the impact of the experience and event. In order to examine texts such as these from this period, in the absence of clear directions from the ancient authors/writing communities, theoretical frameworks from much later periods and distant experiences need to be used as entry points for reading. The limitations of such a move are obvious, but recognizing that diaspora in general involves an adjustment and adaptation to new realities enables a useful organizing principle around which to read this text. The theories of both Bhabha and Stuart Hall afford insights for this chapter. Bhabha’s notion of the unhomely, alongside his seminal contributions on hybridity, creates an appropriate frame within which the wider question of the articulation of identity is addressed in the text of the letter. Hall’s views on diaspora, hybridity, and identity complement those of Bhabha and lead to a wider appreciation of how displaced people engage issues of place and identity. The notion of home and the necessity of navigating new relationships between the world and the home preoccupy the diasporan. Bhabha’s understanding of diaspora revolves around his description of the condition as “unhomeliness.”64 In this descriptor he captures both the sense of 63. R. Radhakrishnan outlines three phases of what he calls the “narrative of ethnicity” as it is played out in the United States among immigrants. These are, rst, an initial phase of the suppression of ethnicity “in the name of pragmatism and opportunism”; secondly, a strident assertion of ethnic identity as a means of improving access to economic benets; and thirdly, a hyphenated phase that integrates ethnic identity with the national identity while privileging the “ethnic” over the “national.” He views the context of being an ethnic minority in the United States as being both hostile and oppressive. These three phases represent stages and mechanisms employed by immigrants to preserve their ethnic identity and adapt to the new social context. R. Radhakrishnan, “Ethnicity in an Age of Diaspora,” in Braziel and Mannur, eds., Theorizing Diaspora, 121. 64. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 9. 1

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displacement as well as the collapse of the boundaries between the world and the home. For Bhabha, these boundaries become so ambiguous that the diasporan needs to negotiate the reality of “the world-in-the-home, the home-in-the-world.”65 Bhabha draws upon Freud’s articulation of the unheimlich (unhomely) as the exposure of the secret and hidden66 and therefore presses the point of the unhomely as the “paradigmatic colonial and post-colonial condition.”67 From this perspective he pays attention, not only to the psychological crises that follow the experience of displacement, but also to the invasions of the world in the home, and the vulnerable exposures of the home to the world. In this condition, the distinctions between the public and private, and one can add the sacred and secular, insiders and outsiders, as well as pure and impure, collapse and blur requiring new articulations. For Bhabha, boundaries serve more as markers of beginnings rather than of endings. Building on Martin Heidegger’s theory, he describes how in the narratives of diaspora the boundary becomes that from which “something begins its presencing.”68 Consequently, for the unhomely, being thrust into the world forces new articulations of identity, culture, and systems of meaning as these relate to strange and hostile counterparts. The notion of home lies at the center of Hall’s view on diaspora. Unlike Bhabha, who characterizes the condition as being without a home, Hall sees it as having several different homes. This means that the diasporan possesses multiple ways of “being at home”69 and learns how to make homes in the world, to use Bhabha’s categories. Hall’s theory points out how (dis)placed and (un)placed the diaspora condition can be. In this condition identity is de-linked from an original homeland but establishes systems of meaning in several places “at one and the same time—but [identity] is not tied to one, particular place.”70 This spectral existence that Hall articulates points to the multiple linkages in the concept of diaspora that cross boundaries of ethnicity, geography, nation, culture, and identity. Hall sees the ability to inhabit multiple homes as enabling the diasporan “to live with, and indeed to speak from, difference.”71 This speaking from the “in-between” of different places disrupts 65. Homi Bhabha, “The World and the Home,” Social Text 31/32 (1992): 141. 66. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 10. 67. Ibid., 9. 68. Ibid., 5. 69. Stuart Hall, “New Cultures for Old,” in Massey and Jess, eds., A Place in the World?, 207. 70. Ibid. 71. Ibid., 206 (italics in the original). 1

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assumptions about the diasporans who exist “both the same as and at the same time different from the others amongst whom they live”;72 or, as Bhabha puts it, “a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite.”73 The nebulous entity that both Hall and Bhabha describe results from the cultural transfers Bhabha terms hybridity. Hall’s notion of the diasporan as an “in-between” resonates with Bhabha’s understanding of hybridity as an essential condition of the postcolonial. While Bhabha sees hybridity as a product of colonial domination and control, he also looks at it as a strategic disruption of dominant power that turns power back on itself through the appropriation of forms, expressions, and structures of that power.74 He remains more concerned to describe hybridity as representative of the limitations of colonial power than as a tool of subversion in the hands of the colonized. In articulating what he calls the “third space of enunciation,”75 Bhabha shakes the foundations of claims to cultural purity and attendant notions of superiority on which colonial power rests. In the desire to control the colonized through the production of an identity that is comfortable for the colonizer, a third space that mediates between the two cultures surfaces. This “split-space of enunciation” he describes as ambivalent and contradictory precisely because the articulation of this identity creates an “international culture,” for the colonized, essentially hybridity.76 For Bhabha, hybridity exists as something other than a resolution of competing dialectics and tensions of two cultures into a “third term.”77 In fact, in his thinking hybridity remains ambivalent, contradictory, and unpredictable. It stands in the gaps in dominant culture’s attempt to write the narrative of the oppressed using its own forms and systems of meaning that the oppressed eventually turns on it to weaken its power. Hall and Bhabha differ in their conceptualization of hybridity, though intersections appear in their approaches. Unlike Bhabha, Hall’s concerns about hybridity deal with representation of the condition of the colonized. In his formulation, hybridity stands as the transformation and translation of the culture and identity of the colonized that destroys the myth of purity and any claims to an “original.”78 While for Bhabha the dominant 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 1

Ibid. (italics in the original). Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 86. Ibid., 112. Ibid., 37. Ibid. (italics in the original). Ibid., 113. Hall, “New Cultures,” 193.

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power’s claim to purity is exposed, for Hall the culture and identity of the colonized impacts and changes in the new circumstances. Whereas Bhabha views hybridity as an intentional product of colonial power and a subsequent tool of the colonized, Hall views it as the inevitable result of the mixing of cultures forced together. They both see hybridity as an ambivalent and unstable condition that poses threats to dominant power. Hall’s resultant hybrid, which arises from the translation of the two cultures, is “never-completed” and can be understood as the combination of “different cultural repertoires to form ‘new’ cultures which are related to but which are not exactly like any of the originals.”79 To the extent that he sees hybridity as a complex process that occurs in the ambivalent context of colonization and diaspora, Hall’s views resonate with those of Bhabha. Additionally, both he and Bhabha agree that hybridity destabilizes the “originals,” though they may not focus on the same originals. However, the idea that the hybrid becomes a “new” culture or identity differs with Bhabha. For Bhabha, hybridity may or may not be a permanent marker of colonized or diasporic identity, but rather a strategic choice to adapt to the context of colonialism. In extending Fanon’s point of view that the colonized face the inevitable choice of “turn white or disappear,” Bhabha asserts that “There is the more ambivalent, third choice: camouage, mimicry, black skins/white masks.”80 Bhabha and Hall demonstrate in their views on hybridity how cultures and identities (re)form and (re)negotiate amidst the dislocating experiences of colonialism and diaspora. Although accused of representing the encounter of the cultures within the contexts of colonialism and diaspora as innocuous,81 they both illuminate the fact that dislocation from home, 79. Ibid. 80. Bhabha sees mimicry as one of the expressions of hybridity. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 120. 81. Both of these approaches (Bhabha’s more than Hall’s) have come under criticism. For one thing, they obscure the oppositional character of the encounter between colonized and colonizer culture. Bhabha prefers to see the relationship as agonistic rather than antagonistic. Ibid., 108. Similarly, Hall places emphasis on the “co-presence” of both cultures and the notion of transculturation. Hall, “New Cultures,” 193. Ashcroft et al., and also Loomba, note that critics regard the accent on mutuality in approaches to hybridity as “replicating assimilationist policies.” Ashcroft, Grifths, and Tifn, eds., Key Concepts, 119; Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 181. Further, Ashcroft et al. note Young’s discomfort with Bhabha’s use of a term “rooted in a previous set of racist assumptions.” They point out that Young argues that hybridity serves a policy of disruption of homogeneity and “original stock” of native people as a means of social control in colonial contexts based upon the notion that, if left “native,” they revert to “primitivism.” Ashcroft et al. indicate that although Young appreciates the deconstruction of the term in 1

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whether spatially or psychically, transforms notions of home. Bhabha’s understanding of hybridity, when placed alongside his thinking on the unhomely, shares similar concerns. Hybridity and unhomeliness both exist as sites of ambivalence in Bhabha’s thought. Just as the hybrid disrupts notions of purity and originality, so too for the unhomely the boundaries between the world and the home become displaced and confused, resulting in “a vision that is as divided as it is disorienting.”82 This resembles the split-space of enunciation, according to his view of hybridity. Equally, just as Bhabha sees hybridity as an “international culture,” so too he views the unhomely as “bridging the home and the world” through an “ ‘in-between’ temporality.”83 Both hybridity and the unhomely speak to the liminality that destabilizes normative assumptions, while also challenging dominant powers through their operations in the gaps. Consequently, the hybrid and the unhomely, as representative of the search for place rather than space, negotiate their identities outside of dominant power and use those articulations to subvert that power. Dominant power coerces either assimilated or hybridized identities as a means of both control and the reinscription of ideas of cultural purity and superiority. On the other side, the oppressed attempt to resist these compulsions by either subverting assumptions of identity or hardening the boundaries around particular ethnic markers. In the ambivalent context of diaspora, identities remain unstable. They form as mechanisms of power and survival in new contexts that are not always hospitable. Hall asserts that “identities are never completed, never nished; that they are always…in process.”84 In this context Iain Chambers speaks of identity as “formed on the move.”85 He characterizes the experience of Bhabha’s formulation of hybridity, he still warns that this may lead to a reinscription of racist concepts. Ashcroft, Grifths, and Tifn, eds., Key Concepts, 120. Rey Chow is adamant that Bhabha’s notions of hybridity are really dominant culture’s production of itself: “What Bhabha’s word ‘hybridity’ revives, in the masquerade of deconstruction, anti-imperialism, and ‘difcult’ theory, is an old functionalist notion of what a dominant culture permits in the interest of maintaining its own equilibrium.” Rey Chow, “Where Have All the Natives Gone?,” in Bammer, ed., Displacements. 131. 82. Bhabha, “The World and the Home,” 141. 83. Ibid., 148. 84. Stuart Hall, “Old and New Identities, Old and New Ethnicities,” in Culture, Globalization and the World-System: Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity (ed. Anthony D. King; Binghamton. N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1991), 47. 85. Iain Chambers, Migrancy, Culture, Identity (London: Routledge, 1994), 25. 1

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migrancy as one that “calls for a dwelling in language, in histories, in identities that are constantly subject to mutation”86 as representative of the diasporan and postcolonial condition. The reading of the early letter to the deported and displaced community foregrounds this condition. The letter articulates the life necessary to survive in a deterritorialized context. b. Living Diaspora Establishing vv. 5–7 as the earliest form of the letter to the deported community reveals that three sets of imperatives form the core of the letter. These imperatives represent three aspects of life in diaspora, namely, economic, demographic, and religious concerns. The rst two imperatives assume a level of freedom for the deportees in Babylon, at least in their economic and productive life. The directive to “Build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat the fruits” (       › , v. 5) implies both possession of territory and deance. That the deportees would build their own houses rather than live in existing structures and so be subject to the architectural designs of Babylon, and that they would plant their own food rather than depend upon Babylonian food sources, reects independence of the economic structures of the empire. The historical evidence suggests that the deported communities in Babylon live in distinct settlements. According to Smith-Christopher’s reading of cuneiform documents, “Judean villages” of deported peoples exist in Babylon. He asserts that communities of persons cluster based upon their places of origin, thus enabling the assertion of ethnic identity, as well as the implementation of mechanisms for the preservation and reformation of identity.87 Similarly, Laurie Pearce observes that the NeoBabylonian Empire settled deportees in “communities dened by the large majority of the population composition,” a practice that continued to the Persian period.88 She holds that one could speak of “Judean ¨amru,” a unique nancial district in the Achaemenid Empire.89 Despite these distinct geographic settlements, Pearce shows that gentilic references to the Judean settlement l-Yhdu, in use from as early as 572 B.C.E., no longer appear some forty years later. Pearce concludes that this and other evidence demonstrate the “integration of Judeans into Babylonian 86. Ibid., 5. 87. Smith-Christopher, A Biblical Theology of Exile, 68. See also Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion, vol. 2, 373. 88. Laurie E. Pearce, “New Evidence for Judeans in Babylon,” in Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period (ed. Oded Lipschits and Manfred Oeming; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 408. 89. Ibid., 405. 1

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economic life.”90 Of course, participation in economic activities offers little evidence of the full integration of Judeans as citizens of the Babylonian Empire. Pearce’s analysis of the TAYN91 corpus reveals a notable proportion of Yahwistic theophoric names, suggesting at least the maintenance of Judean religious identity.92 To what extent deportees become subjects of the empire rather than citizens remains unclear. Nonetheless, settlement practices indicate a level of autonomy for deportees that places them in a position to control and articulate their own identity. The language of the letter itself resonates with other texts that envisage permanent settlement, marked by housing construction and marriage. In Deut 20:5–8, men who build a house without dedicating it or plant vineyards without enjoying the fruit, as well as the newly married, are exempt from military duty. John Hill points out that these exemptions emphasize that “these activities signify the blessings associated with the nation’s life in the land given to them by Yhwh.”93 Similarly, Isa 65:21– 23 pictures the life in the post-restoration period through the use of identical markers: “They will build houses and live in them. They will plant vineyards and they will eat the fruits” (    ›  

  , Isa 65:21). In Ezek 11:3, with settlement in the city forbidden because of unfavorable conditions, the construction of houses serves as the marker for settlement: “They are the ones saying, ‘it is not time to build houses; this is the city and we are the meat’ ” (    ‡     ). However, with the future blessings for the nation in a restored land prophesied, the building of houses and the planting of vineyards serve as the signs of new settlement: “They will live in it in safety and they will build houses and plant vineyards” (›

      , Ezek 28:26). Along these same lines, the Rechabites explain their rejection of permanent settlement to Jeremiah by eschewing habitation in houses or to plant vineyards: “You shall not build a house, nor sow a seed, nor plant a vineyard” (         , 35:7).94 90. Ibid., 402. 91. An acronym for Texts from l-Yhdu and Našar. 92. Pearce surmises that out of 600 names listed in the TAYN corpus as many as 120 can be regarded as having Yahwistic elements, a statistically signicant difference when compared with 2.8 percent as revealed by the records from Nippur. Pearce, “New Evidence for Judeans in Babylon,” 404. 93. John Hill, Friend or Foe? The Figure of Babylon in the Book of Jeremiah MT (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 138. 94. Hill shows the connection between the advice to build houses and the symbol of settled existence in the case of Jacob in Gen 33:17. He also points out that the directive to marry and reproduce is similar to the divine promises given to the patriarchs in Gen 22:17. Ibid., 150. 1

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The letter, read within the context of the wider biblical narrative, points in the direction of permanent settlement in Babylon. Berlin believes that “Jeremiah’s message seems to be couched in words commonly and naturally associated with establishing a settlement.”95 In effect, Babylon would become home given the erasure of the boundaries between the world and the home of which Bhabha speaks. Hill contends that the markers of settled existence the prophet’s letter evokes represent divine blessings to be realized in the land. That they would be manifest in Babylon shows the new relationship that exists between the world and home. He asserts that the “relationship between Babylon and Judah is one of identity. Babylon is Judah!”96 For Bhabha, using Heidegger, this would be the beginning of “presencing” in the world and the “relocation of the home and the world.”97 The advice to construct houses, as distinct from living in tents like the Rechabites (35:7), would result in a permanent settlement. Brah points out that permanence characterizes the nature of diasporic settlement, the diasporans “are essentially about settling down, about putting roots ‘elsewhere’.”98 In effect, the letter envisages the experience of diaspora to be open-ended without offering hopes of return at a prescribed date in the future. The settlement of the deported community in the Babylonian Empire represents a form of colonization. Young provides an understanding of early European practice of colonization that does not mean “rule over indigenous peoples, or the extraction of their wealth, but primarily the transfer of communities who sought to maintain their allegiance to their own original culture, while seeking a better life in economic, religious or political terms.”99 Viewed from this perspective, the letter encourages the creation of a colony in Babylon, and with that all the attendant destabilizing effects this would have. This move represents a colonization in reverse100 whereby those who would come under the dominance of imperial power migrate and move into the imperial center and pose potentially destabilizing threats to it. The initial set of imperatives in the text of the letter calls for the occupation and claiming of territory for housing and agriculture, that is, 95. Berlin, “Jeremiah 29:5–7,” 3. 96. Hill, Friend or Foe? 152. 97. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 9. 98. Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora, 182. 99. Young, Postcolonialism, 20. 100. The notion of colonization in reverse is suggested by the Jamaican poet Louise Bennett, who in the poem “Colonization in Reverse” characterizes the movement of persons from the English-speaking Caribbean to Britain in the postwar period as a reversal of the earlier imperial transatlantic crossings. 1

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as space in which the deportees could establish home in the sense that Hall uses it, as a site from which and in which a new system of meaning can be established. To be grounded in that new territory would require movement and translation of identity formed in the homeland but expressed in another place. Such a place becomes, in Hall’s categories, one of the multiple places of “being at home”—it is therefore home and at the same time one of many homes. These imperatives encourage use of territory to x a social and cultural space for the deportees from which to articulate and assert their identity and overturn the movement of empire. This occupation of physical space parallels Bhabha’s formulation of the occupation of “the place of otherness” in the process of identity, which he sees as a crucial turn in threatening colonial power. The place of otherness stands as social and psychic place, and at times physical space, created for the colonized by the colonizer as the negation of the colonial Self. The relationship between these binaries is antagonistic, for even though colonial power assigns that place, colonial desire is directed to the place of the colonized Other. Bhabha accounts for this by opining that the colonized Other’s acts of resistance threaten and covet the place of the colonizer. That desire to displace the colonizer feeds the desire of the colonizer to reverse places with the colonized. It moves into the “third space of enunciation,” the appeal to hybridity by the colonizer, the attempt to remake the colonized weakens dominant power. He feels that otherness is a “phantasmic space,” one denying occupation by more than one group permanently, and so consequently allowing for the systematic destruction of the colonial power. Therefore, to exist in the place of otherness overthrows and dismantles the will to empire.101 Additionally, the advice in the letter to construct what could be read as distinct villages in Babylon, sets the stage for cultural reconstruction to take place. While the evidence of the deportees living in clustered communities may suggest a closed response to life in diaspora, an isolationist response stands as only one of many responses the deportees can adopt.102 These living patterns, among other indicators, enforce the deportees’ identity as a minority group.103 Consequently, the community would be 101. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 44. 102. Using Edward Spicer’s models of contact based upon studies of Native Americans, Smith-Christopher outlines ve social responses common among minority groups, namely, incorporation, assimilation, fusion, isolation, and biculturalism. Smith, The Religion of the Landless, 61. 103. Smith-Christopher makes the point that the deported community is “a conquered minority, under domination.” Ibid., 60 (italics in the original). 1

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forced to come to terms with this new status and position, a readjustment requiring cultural reconstruction. Whatever the strategies employed, cultural reconstruction in the context of oppression and domination functions as resistance, “and ultimately leads to the means by which the colonizers are defeated in their attempts to dominate totally.”104 The second set of imperatives in the text of the letter deals with family activities of marriage and birth and warns against population decrease. This advice, framed in a set of positive terms—“Take wives and have sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters as wives… But increase there” (    › 

› ... ›    › )—precedes a single negative term, “and do not decrease” (  , v. 6). The negative imperative is the only one in the letter and draws attention to itself by cautioning against population decline. The imperatives remain curiously ambiguous about the nature of marriages, whether endogamous or exogamous. However, given the negative stance taken regarding marriages to “outsiders” in Ezra–Nehemiah (Ezra 9–10; Neh 13:23–31), it makes sense to conclude that endogamous marriages are intended here, especially since this would ensure population increases.105 Demographic increase in the context of a minority community in a situation of domination holds potential beyond concerns for mere survival. This counsel contains overtures of resistance as well. In the same way, the Israelites increased in number in Egypt and raised frightening prospects of an ethnic imbalance in the mind of the pharaoh (Exod 1:9–10), so too an increase, or at least an intentional policy that halts decline, poses unsettling concerns for imperial power. The contemporary dispute between Israel and Palestine demonstrates the use of demographics by minority groups as a form of resistance and threat to dominant culture. Youssef Courbage and Philippe Fargues assert that demographics serves as a tool that shapes group identity as well as entrenches ideologies of nationalism with the intent of destabilizing majoritarian groups. They show how Zionism of the late nineteenth century accounted for the perceptible increase in birth rates among Jewish populations in Jerusalem, Acre, and Nablus.106 In addition, they 104. Ibid., 62. 105. The striking similarity between the injunction “do not ever give your daughters to their sons nor take from among their daughters for your sons or for yourselves” (    ‡     , Neh 13:25c) and 29:6 raises the possibility that the ambiguity of the Jeremiah text sanctions the practices that Nehemiah condemns, thus requiring a direct inversion of that text. 106. Ottoman and British census data indicate that population growth rates among Jews in Palestine increase from 7.4 per thousand in 1860 to 21.2 per 1

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indicate that from the time of the British mandate, the birth rate among Palestinians rose higher than neighboring Arab nations.107 Courbage and Fargues posit that at different times both Jews and Palestinians use large families as a “political weapon.” They make the case that nationalism expresses itself in demographics and that minority immigrant groups create a new state around themselves within the connes of an existing state.108 Through population increase the deportees hold the potential to preserve and reshape their identity and at the same time replicate in the new environment. In effect, the deportees can create an ethnic enclave within the empire. Such ethnic enclaves Robin Cohen sees as viable alternatives to the idea of a nation-state for communities in diaspora. By entrenching them in settlements and communities, and at the same time expanding their numbers, diasporic groups use the host nation as a “vehicle…to be in, but not necessarily to become of, the societies in which they settled.”109 More often than not, Cohen offers, ethnic settlements such as these become self-contained units cut off from the rest of the society by both internal and external policies. Their participation and affective loyalty to their new societies remain ambiguous at their best, and antagonistic at their worst. A growing diasporic community in a host society can overtake the host nation. Such a community takes on a cultural character, serves an economic function, provides alternative forms of social organization, and constructs systems of meaning, among other things, that can make it independent of the host nation. Cohen highlights the capacity for numerical increase and the potential this holds

thousand in 1882. Youssef Courbage and Philippe Fargues, Christians and Jews Under Islam (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998), 167. 107. The Palestinian birth rate stood at its lowest level in 1942, with 45 births per thousand. At its highest level in 1926 it reached 60 per thousand. In comparison Egypt, posted rates of 44 per thousand in 1944–48 and Syria reported 40 per thousand around the same time. Ibid., 157. 108. Courbage and Fargues argue: “From Hernan Cortes who burnt his ships in order to settle his men for eternity, to the Boers who buried in the Transvaal their past as Dutch outcasts by inventing a language, history is full of examples of a small group of immigrants who created a state.” Ibid., 156. 109. Robin Cohen, “Diasporas and the Nation-State: From Victims to Challengers,” International Affairs 72 (1996): 518. Cohen particularly mentions the Chinese immigrants to Europe, North America and Australia who construct the “unique institutional vehicle” of Chinatown. In New York, Chinatown began with one shop; by the mid-1960s it extended over six blocks, with 15,000 people; in 1988 it comprised 300,000 residents, with 450 restaurants employing 15,000 people, and 500 garment factories employing 20,000 women. 1

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for the stability of a host nation: “Seen as a form of social organization, diasporas have predated the nation-state, lived uneasily within it and now may, in signicant respects, transcend and succeed it.”110 The reality of diaspora questions the notion of the nation-state on two levels. While it poses a direct challenge to the host nation-state and contains the capacity to destabilize it, it also renders the home nationstate ambivalent. As extra-territorial and cross-territorial representations of the nation-state, diasporas represent patterns of statelessness. The condition of statelessness at once interrogates the viability of the nationstate and accepts the reality of the nation-state itself. In the context of statelessness, the institution of the family plays a role in lling the void created by the structures of nationhood. The text emphasizes the urgency of protecting the community by means of the institution of the family, emphasizing the multiplication of the imperatives in v. 6 (ve in this verse as compared to four in v. 5 and two in v. 7). Additionally, the imperatives are aimed at being as comprehensive as possible by including the roles of both sons and daughters in the reproduction of the family. The terse concluding imperative of the verse, “But increase there and do not decrease” (   › ), repeats in summary form the directions of the previous four imperatives. This imperative stands at the end of the verse that expresses the dire consequences of failure to protect the family. The heightened concern around the issue of the family evidenced in the letter reects the ruptures that occur at the level of the nation. These ruptures require adaptive strategies for survival for the diasporic community as a stateless entity. Bammer uses Eric Hobsbawm’s analysis of the emergence of ethnicity in the “post-” period111 in order to assert a correspondence between the decline of the nation and the emergence of the importance of family.112 She argues that when the nation, viewed in 110. Ibid., 520. 111. The “post-” period refers to several analytical categories that use the “post-” prex, such as postcolonial, post-communist, post-Cold War, and so on. 112. Bammer engages an alternative view, presented by Simone Weil, which maintains that the nation as community supersedes the family. Weil argues that in the midst of crisis the family declines and the nation is left as the functional community. Bammer disagrees with this view and points out that Weil’s “family no longer exists” mantra reects mid-twentieth-century Western approaches to family. Angelika Bammer, “Mother Tongues and Other Strangers: Writing ‘Family’ Across Cultural Divides,” in Bammer, ed., Displacements, 94. Rosemary George presents a view similar to Weil using Said’s concepts of liation and afliation. She argues that diasporic communities relinquish, albeit slowly and not easily, “ties of biology and geography,” that is liative ties, for “links with institutions, associations, 1

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the sense of a community with ethnic, historical, and other affective linkages, becomes dysfunctional, it imperils national culture. This results in the family emerging to protect the breach. The family in the context of diaspora, Bammer posits, enables the community to “reorient and reground” and to recapture, preserve, and reform ethnic heritages, histories, and identities.113 This grounding is what Hall regards as “nding roots,” an aspect of the “counter-politics” necessary for resistance.114 The accent on marriage, birth, and other family-related activities provides the ground for the deported community to maintain and build new markers of identity. The family becomes the ground for engaging and resisting the imperial/colonial techniques of displacement. The shift to the family as the locus of anti-imperial resistance holds implications for the role of women. The reproduction of the family falls directly to women and yet reinforces their own oppression within the hierarchy of colonial society. Women function as derivative actors of the imperatives geared towards marital transactions and the continuation of the functions of patriarchal dominance over female bodies.115 In order to participate in the maintenance and transformation of national identity, females would need to acquiesce to bearing children. Essentially, in bearing children for the family, women take on the burden of reproducing the nation.116 Reading the letter as suggesting the use of the family as a symbol of resistance in the context of diaspora/colonialism, takes the notion of the nation as a family and turns that language on its head. The family stands in for the nation in microcosm, enabling the assertion of authority of the communities and other social creations,” that is afliative ties. George focuses on individuals rather than whole communities in diaspora, where the move from liation to afliation is typical. This would be the case of individuals who are distant from liative ties and only have afliative ties to ground in the world. Rosemary Marangoly George, The Politics of Home: Postcolonial Relocations and TwentiethCentury Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 16. 113. Bammer, “Mother Tongues,” 95. 114. Hall, “Old and New Identities,” 53. 115. Andrew Mein shows how language of female purity and related restrictions in the book of Ezekiel xes the place of women in service of the protection of the community’s identity. Andrew Mein, Ezekiel and the Ethics of Exile (Oxford Theological Monographs; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 174. 116. Loomba shows how the rhetoric of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic movement encourages women to bear sons who would die for the national cause. The obvious distinction between that rhetoric and the one of this letter lies in the letter’s encouragement of the birth of both sons and daughters. Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 216. 1

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  (“father’s house”), as distinct from other social authorities.117 The letter, essentially, enjoins the exercising of authority within the connes of the family, as distinct from an appeal to other social structures and authority. Since the condition of “unhomeliness” erases the boundaries between the public and the private, the assertion of the authority of the   implies more than mere domestic arrangements. Loomba argues that in colonial situations the borders of private and public have already been erased for the family, thus enabling the family to function as a mechanism of resistance.118 This public function of the family thrusts women into the forefront of resistance in an ambivalent position. Fanon’s conation of the unveiling of Algerian women with the imperial dominance of the nation represents the plight of women in anticolonial resistance movements. Fanon argues for the continuation of the markers of women’s traditional role in the society as a means of resisting colonial incursion and the cooptation of the “emancipated” Algerian woman as a colonialist trophy.119 The women operate as victims of the twin systems of colonialism and patriarchy. They help in the overthrow one system, while leaving the other entrenched.120 In prescribing the traditional role of childbearing for the women, the letter asserts both the authority of the   and the system of patriarchy as a way of resisting the identity that dominant power imposes upon the deportees. Bhabha views identication within the context of diaspora/ colonialism as “never the afrmation of a pre-given identity, never a selffullling prophecy.”121 The family enables the deportees to multiply and in the process to consolidate their ethnic identity and to deploy this identity in different directions. Even more than this, by placing women in 117. J. H. Wright places the   at a third level of social organization in ancient Israel. He views institutions such as ›/

(“tribe”) and › (“clan”) as rst- and second-level units of “social and territorial organization” respectively. The  , however, he regards as the social organization that conveys to “the individual Israelite…the strongest sense of inclusion, identity, protection, and responsibility.” Wright describes the   as an “extended family” made up of the descendents of a common ancestor. C. J. H. Wright, “Family,” ABD 2:762. Following Wright’s analysis, I offer that the loss of territory displaces the authority of the rst two levels of social organization and brings the   to greater prominence as the unit that characterizes the nation. 118. Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 217. 119. Frantz Fanon, “Algeria Unveiled,” in New Left Reader (ed. Carl Oglesby; New York: Grove, 1969), 167–68. 120. Dube identies the double oppression of African women as “colonized by imperial and patriarchal forces.” Dube, “Searching for the Lost Needle,” 215. 121. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 45 (italics in the original). 1

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their traditional roles as child-bearers at the forefront of resistance, the community represents their control of the family and rejection of Babylonian power to frame an identity for them. Women function as a boundary of ethnic identity and subjectivity, as well as a marker of national resistance.122 The relationship between diaspora and the host nation rests uneasily. The third set of imperatives enjoins Babylon as a focus of the prayers for the community and thereby evokes the uneasy life of the deported community in Babylon. Rather than advise an adversarial relationship to the city, the letter counsels instrumental prayer practices that ensure prosperity and stability for the city that leads to prosperity and stability for the deportees: “So seek the well-being of the city where I have deported you and pray on its behalf to the LORD for in its well being will be your well-being” ( ›   ›  ›  ›

›    ›     , v. 7). While this advice encourages an affective relationship with the new society, in effect this relationship remains limited to the areas that would benet the deportees. The relationship with regards to the city would be only a partial attachment. In this negotiated attachment to the new society, a carved-out space exists for religious practices that reinforce the extent to which the city becomes a part of the system of meaning for the community. The imperative to prayer makes the imperial city an object of the prayers of the community, something placed under the control of religious practices. The empire, therefore, becomes subject to the religious consciousness of the people as an agent of divine will. The ambivalent engagement with the empire, through praying for its well-being and at the same time interrogating its claims to power, functions as an act of destabilization. This ambivalence, inherent in the religious practices advised in the letter, reects what Bhabha calls the “space of splitting.”123 Seeming attachment and acceptance of the values of the dominant culture, alongside the assertion of native culture in ways that undermine the dominant culture, reect the destabilizing effects of hybridity. The colonial/diasporan moves in a “disturbing distance in-between”124 two identities, in-between two loyalties, and in-between 122. Chatterjee explores the ambivalent nature of Indian nationalism’s response to the women’s question. He shows how Indian nationalism asserts control over women as a marker of resistance to modernizing tendencies, as well as the exclusion of colonial authority from family matters as a form of national struggle. These tendencies lead to a new patriarchy, but not empowerment for women. Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments, 116–34. 123. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 44. 124. Ibid., 45. 1

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two systems of meaning.125 Therefore, the advice to include Babylon as a concern in prayers lends ambiguity to the religious practices of the deportees. The imperative on religious activity appeals to religion as one of the bearers of identity rather than nationalism. That Babylon becomes the central geographical locale of religious concerns demonstrates the displacement of the people from Jerusalem and the displacement of Jerusalem as a national center. While Babylon replaces Jerusalem as a center, the imperatives do not enjoin devotion to Babylon in the same way that Zion theology would do for Jerusalem. The religious practices encouraged in the letter do not permit a merger of religious systems. YHWH still serves as the deity to whom prayers should be directed, and even in the new context and in the interest of Babylon prayers to YHWH would be effective. This adjustment represents Hall’s idea of identity as a mutual product that remains in the midst of diaspora. He refuses to see identity in the context of diaspora as a completely linear product because movement and dislocation produce ruptures even as they reinforce continuity. Hall therefore posits a view of cultural identity that lies along the dual axes or vectors of “similarity and continuity; and the vector of difference and rupture.”126 The inclusion of Babylon in the prayers of the people acknowledges the disruption caused by deportation, but at the same time places Babylon in an antagonistic relationship with the enduring tradition of YHWH worship. In the interaction of these two vectors, the continuity of the worship practices frames the disruption of deportation and the agency of Babylon. Such practices that include Babylon as a focus of prayers reect Hall’s ideas of the in-between power of the diasporan to unsettle dominant culture. The religious identity that results from this imperative to prayer differs from the exclusivist notions of other forms of YHWH worship. Contrary to Rudolph’s anticipation that this imperative signals the start of the evangelization of the Gentiles,127 it asserts the distinctive quality of Judean religion, which is characterized by the worship of a single 125. Dube advocates hybridity as one strategy Two-Thirds women can use to create “decolonized feminist spaces.” She explains this as the pursuit of both “resistance and liberation” that rejects binary opposites, like those created by nationalist discourse that results in the invisibility of women. Musa W. Dube, “Postcoloniality, Feminist Spaces, and Religion,” in Postcolonialism, Feminism, and Religious Discourse (ed. Laura E. Donaldson and Kwok Pui-lan; New York: Routledge, 2002), 117. 126. Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” in Braziel and Mannur, eds., Theorizing Diaspora, 237. 127. Rudolph, Jeremia, 182. 1

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national deity with transterritorial concerns and power. In the process of advocating religious practices in the new society, the letter encourages a practice of identity whose base is stronger than that of the appeal to a nation-state, or in this case the empire. Cohen argues that nation-states nd it difcult to secure the devotion of migrants and therefore compete with religion and ethnic loyalties “to be the object of intimate affection.”128 Chapter 29 reveals the challenges that diaspora poses to the nationstate given the absence of the ancient and contemporary markers of the nation in the text of the letter. No calls to reconstitute the nation and to re-establish the vital signs of nationhood of monarchy, temple, and city wall appear. Instead, the letter evokes religion, ethnicity, and family as alternative sites for the construction of community in diaspora in response to the reality of statelessness. Benedict Anderson’s notion of a nation as an “imagined community…both inherently limited and sovereign,”129 denes contemporary approaches to the nation. His three characteristics of limitation, sovereignty, and community, when applied to the prescriptions of the letter, demonstrate that community as the single characteristic that remains in the aftermath of the collapse of the apparatuses of the state and the single one to which the letter appeals. Anderson’s denition of the nation as persons who bind themselves along “deep, horizontal comradeship”130 affords a reading of the letter as a proposal to the deportees to form themselves in what can be viewed as a nation but one marked by ties of religion, family, and ethnicity. The advice to the community acknowledges both the collapse of the nation and more particularly the loss of sovereignty over territory. As a diasporic community that emerges out of this situation, the deportees hold themselves together without geographical space and sovereignty over that limited space by means of a common bond that denes them as a people. Turning to markers such as ethnicity, family, and religion, as prescribed by the letter, articulates a relevant identity and asserts subjectivity.131

128. Cohen, “Diasporas and the Nation-State,” 518 (italics in the original). 129. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1991), 6. 130. Ibid., 7. 131. Fanon argues in the case of nations emerging out of colonialism that nationalism that only appeals to symbols such as ag and palace soon becomes “sterile formalism.” He advocates a concentration on “country” as distinct from “nation” where the essential difference is the focus on people and the development of social institutions. Through this means, he suggests, the nation emerges in the “moving consciousness of the whole people.” Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 204. 1

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The letter encourages the formation of a community that delinks land from identity. Traditional assertions of ethnic identity claim the unbreakable connection of what Hall calls “blood and soil.”132 Daniel Boyarin and Jonathon Boyarin also examine this combination and assert that “race and space together form a deadly discourse.”133 Admittedly, they respond to virulent forms of Zionism with the contention that Jewish identity forms in diaspora, a context of statelessness, rather than in the land. They show how the borders around Jewish identity consolidate by resolving the tension between what they see as the problematic relationship of “genealogy and territorialism.”134 This resolution happens through the shift from loyalty to land, and to the land as memory.135 By separating out the confusion between indigenous and autochthonous claims, Jews articulate a “narrative of the Land…without myths of autochthony [that]…have repressed memories of coming from somewhere else.”136 Boyarin and Boyarin suggest that this re-placement of the land as a symbolic homeland forms Jews in the diaspora as a distinctive people with a clear identity, an identity delinked from territorial space. In effect, this separation permits the emergence of a relevant ethnic identity necessary for survival in the world. The letter encourages a separation from notions that tie the identity of the deportees to the land through the omission of any claims to territory or signs of nationhood. The letter delinks land and identity and in so doing foregrounds identity as a marker for existence in diaspora. This delinking moves identity away from being dened by turf and space to being dened by relationships, community, family, and religion. Without the land as the ground of dening identity, the deported community relies upon the institutions of family and religion as the means by which it can perpetuate its existence and identity in the new context. In this way, the community employs adaptive strategies for the establishment of home in the world not dened solely by geographic space. George points out that rather than being an open space, home exists as a closed space with “closed doors, closed borders and screening apparatuses.”137 The letter advocates

132. Hall, “New Cultures,” 180. 133. Daniel Boyarin and Jonathan Boyarin, “Diaspora: Generation and the Ground of Jewish Identity,” in Braziel and Mannur, eds., Theorizing Diaspora, 103. 134. Ibid. (italics in the original). 135. Boyarin and Boyarin agree with Philip Davies’ assertion that Pharisaism comes to terms with the loss of the land by relinquishing loyalty to “place” but at the same time keeping “place” alive as a cultural memory. Ibid., 107. 136. Ibid., 104. 137. George, The Politics of Home, 18. 1

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neither assimilation nor acceptance of Babylonian cultural hegemony but rather the maintenance and assertion of subjectivity that secures a place in the world. 5. Conclusion The experience of deportation and subsequent living in diaspora represents the “worlding”138 of the story of Israel, not as hegemonic power, but as a movement to nd its unique voice with which to speak in a context of competing voices. The displacement from the land relocates the people along with their identities, histories, and stories in the world. This relocation results in a uidity of place, but also a deep grounding in identity that secures for the people a specic and xed place. The letter calls for the fashioning of a new place in the world.

138. Ashcroft et al. point out that Spivak coins the term “worlding” “to describe the way in which colonized space is brought into the ‘world’, that is made to exist as part of a world essentially constructed by Euro-centricism.” Ashcroft, Grifths, and Tifn, eds., Key Concepts, 241. 1

Chapter 7

CONCLUSION: READING BETWEEN EXODUS AND EXILE

The book of Jeremiah ends on a note of nality in Babylon.1 The Babylonian king Evil-merodach releases the exiled king Jehoiachin and gives him a place at his table. The reigns of the last two surviving kings of Judah, Zedekiah and Jehoiachin, end in Babylon—Zedekiah in captivity (52:11) and Jehoiachin under some form of house arrest (52:31–34). Contrary to readings that wish to see Jehoiachin’s release as a sign of hope,2 the monarchy dies in Babylon. By adopting the closing notes of the DtrH (2 Kgs 25:27–30), the nal form of the book of Jeremiah shares not only the recognition of the end of the monarchy but also the experience of dislocation outside of the land. Life, and in this case dying, now exists in diaspora. Similarly, Jeremiah’s life peters out in Egypt. The book situates his last oracles against Egypt delivered in Egypt (ch. 44). JerMT arranges the oracles against the nation starting with Egypt (ch. 46) and ending with Babylon (chs. 50–51). These two sites, Egypt and Babylon, occupy the imagination of the book of Jeremiah and indeed much of the Bible. They represent the formative experiences of exodus

1. Carroll prefers to read this as “an ambiguous note,” offering that the release and solicitations towards Jehoiachin merely indicate that he enjoys “some degree of comfort in his declining years.” He, therefore, advises “cautious optimism” since Jehoiachin’s release does raise the question of the future of the royal house. Carroll, Jeremiah, 873–74. However, I maintain that the narrative pronounces on the future of the royal house when it indicates the death of Jehoiachin. The conditions described in 52:34 last “until the day of his death, all the days of his life” (        ). No records of events in the life of Jehoiachin from the day of his release to the day of his death appear in the text that would suggest any hope for the future of the monarchy. 2. Clements states the book “comes to close on a theme of hope.” Clements, Jeremiah, 272. Keown et al. locate a glimmer of hope in the text, a “hope still associated with monarchy.” Keown, Scalise, and Smothers. Jeremiah 26–52, 383.

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and exile. They both invoke the specter of empire. The movement between Egypt and Babylon signies more than geographic travel and the transit between warring empires. The Egypt-Babylon dialectic denes diaspora and frames the theopolitical3 context for reading the book of Jeremiah. In between the poles of Egypt–Babylon lies the land. In the present work I have variously presented the land as something worth defending (Chapter 4), worth living in (Chapter 5) as well as spatially relocated (Chapter 6). The Bible offers no single approach to the conception of land. As Brueggemann shows, the Bible portrays the people of Israel as sojourners, wanderers, and exiles, and these different subject positions are constructed around diverse relationships with the land.4 While land lies at the center of Israel’s story, the reality of deportation occasioned by the presence of empire shifts the function of land away from possession of turf as the sine qua non of the people’s story. Brueggemann offers a useful corrective to a view of the Bible “as a historical movement indifferent to place,”5 and instead he emphasizes the land as the ultimate goal wherein both the story and the relation with YHWH can take place.6 Rather than the binary of being either in or out of the land, owning or losing the land, I offer that both experiences shape the story and dene the identity of the people. Abraham functions equally as a symbol of landlessness and as an owner of vast estates. Jacob’s cunning as a mechanism for survival and advancement becomes necessary while in the land, out of the land, and at the edge of returning to the land. Deuteronomy infuses its communal ethic for life in the land with remembrances of Egyptian slavery. The story of the people both unfolded and unfolds within these two centers of exodus and exile. This nal chapter offers the opportunity to explore further the notion of place within the context of empire and exile. A broader look at how the themes of exodus and exile play out in the Bible more generally and other parts of the book of Jeremiah more particularly allows for an examination of the tropes of exodus and exile as a postcolonial reading

3. This term is inuenced by Sharp. Her use indicates the inseparability of theological positions and political motivations. Sharp, Prophecy and Ideology in Jeremiah, xiv. 4. Brueggemann, The Land, 5–13. 5. Ibid., 189. 6. Brueggemann writes: “The central problem is not emancipation but rootage, not meaning but belonging, not separation from community but location within it, not isolation from others but placement deliberately between the generations of promise and fullment.” Ibid., 199 (italics in the original). 1

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lens. The insights from the three exegetical explorations provide space for me to restate the maneuvers necessary for a postcolonial reading of the book of Jeremiah. Finally, this chapter advances a number of concerns for the future of biblical postcolonial engagements. 1. Exodus and Exile as a Continuum for Reading The events of exodus and exile occur as ip sides of a vinyl record in Deutero-Isaiah. The motifs and images of the exodus repeat themselves in the exuberance and hope occasioned by the end of exile (Isa 40:3; 43:16, 18–20). John Van Seters believes the exile serves as the most appropriate historical context for the shaping of the exodus story. He maintains that the Yahwist (J) “is a contemporary of Second Isaiah.” Similar themes, however, appear in these two stories, in Deutero-Isaiah’s presentation of the exile as a “second exodus,” the second outstrips the rst as a greater event.7 Equally, the nal form of the book of Deuteronomy holds together exodus and exile in the warnings of Moses (Deut 4:26–29; 30:1–5). Placing the possibility of exile with its full descriptions in the mouth of Moses, as the book does, serves to draw these two events together into a tensive experience. Deuteronomy presents itself as looking both backwards and forwards to exodus and exile respectively by using remembrances of the Egyptian sojourn as motivational clauses (Deut 5:15; 15:5; 16:12; 23:7; 24:18–22) as well as the threat of exile as punishment for failure to obey the covenant (Deut 28:64; 30:3; 32:26). Exodus and exile denes the nature of the people’s relationship to the land and to the redeeming deity. The theological interpretation given to these two biblical events, though, tends to set them apart as opposite actions of empire and relationships with empire. On the one hand, exodus appears as victory over actions of slavery, dehumanization, and oppression. In this thinking, exodus represents divine triumphalism at its best. As such, it offers hope and power to numerous oppressed and marginalized groups, building on the exodus story as the cornerstone of the biblical narrative.8 But on the 7. Van Seters compares themes such as the hasty ight from Egypt with the controlled movement from Babylon (Isa 52:12; cf. Exod 12:31–34); and the pillar of cloud with the divine presence as light for the journey (Isa 52:12b; cf. Exod 13:21– 22; 14:19–20). John Van Seters, The Pentateuch: A Social-Science Commentary (Shefeld: Shefeld Academic, 1999), 153. 8. Anthony R. Ceresko, Introduction to the Old Testament: A Liberation Perspective (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 2002), 344. J. Severino Croatto speaks of the exodus as the “liberative plan of God for all peoples.” J. Severino Croatto, Exodus: A Hermeneutics of Freedom (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1981), 15. 1

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other hand, exile carries with it no spectacular events of divine deliverance. The resounding “no” against oppression hardly sounds here. Instead, deliverance from Babylonian oppression through the benecence of the Persian Empire takes center stage. Setting the polarity of exodus–exile this way results in an unhealthy differentiation between empires as evil and good. This move also privileges the human experience of enslavement to the detriment of other lived experiences, such as territorial dislocation. The postcolonial engagement with these two events and their theological freight situates them both as the consequences of empire, with all that empire entails. This engagement also notes that the differences between these two biblical entities lie in the responses required to survive empire. In the case of exodus, survival comes through escape and withdrawal, though not without its ambiguities and defeats. For exile, survival comes through adjustment and adaptation. Recasting the popular conception of the exodus as triumphalism proves necessary both theologically and politically. Jon Levenson shows how separating the exodus narrative from its particularities blurs issues of covenant, belonging, and even slavery itself. He offers that liberation in the exodus narrative needs to be seen in the context of “subjugation to YHWH.”9 Levenson’s main argument lies with the use of the exodus narrative by some liberation theologians.10 Similarly, John Howard Yoder points out that neglect of the purpose of exodus distorts the narrative: “Liberation is from bondage and for covenant, and what for matters more than what from.”11 Like Levenson, Yoder responds to the use of the exodus narrative by liberation and revolutionary movements. He views the emphasis in the narrative to be on the specicity of the people,12 and the task that lies in their future.13 For Yoder, exodus signals 9. Jon D. Levenson, “Liberation Theology and the Exodus,” in Jews, Christians, and the Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures (ed. Alice Ogden Bellis and Joel S. Kaminsky; Atlanta: SBL, 2000), 227. 10. Levenson’s critiques lie not simply with Liberation Theology per se, but the use of “the poor” to displace the historical group for whom the exodus is intended. He notes that Liberation Theology avoids the restricting equivalence of “Israel in Egypt equals the poor and exploited in contemporary society.” Levenson, “Liberation Theology and the Exodus,” 216. Other Liberation Theology thinkers avoid the pitfalls that Levenson’s cites. For instance, Gustavo Gutiérrez points out that exodus and covenant is “a single unity.” Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation (London: SCM, 1988), 246 n. 25. 11. John Howard Yoder, “Exodus and Exile: The Two Faces of Liberation,” Cross Currents 23 (1973), 304 (italics in the original). 12. Yoder states: “Peoplehood is the presupposition, not the product of Exodus.” Ibid., 301. 1

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a “countercommunity” rather than “a seizure of power in the existing society.”14 This “countercommunity” withdraws from the existing society and in the process forces the Egyptian Empire to overextend itself, a move that consequently leads to its self-destruction. Yoder uses the exodus–exile continuum, but rather than seeing them as separate events, he melds the exodus into the exile. He limits the exodus to a single historical event while pointing to several examples, of what he refers to as “the Joseph paradigm” and the “Jeremianic turn,” events which he sees as representative of exile and diaspora.15 Yoder rightly reframes exodus in relationship to revolutionary use, but he uses exile to trump exodus and thereby diminishes the import of exodus in the biblical narrative. Despite its limitations, I nd aspects of Yoder’s thought useful in lling out the conception of the exodus–exile continuum. Yoder’s notion of the exodus as a “countercommunity” provides opportunity to articulate the values and character of early Israelite communities along the lines of Norman Gottwald’s thesis of the social revolution model of Israel’s emergence into Canaan. To the extent that early Israel’s selfunderstanding forms in part from an experience of deliverance labeled “exodus,” this model offers a way to articulate the values of that community. In rening the model, Gottwald links the emergence of Israel to longstanding discontent in the Canaanite city-states going as far back as the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries, when agitated groups found common cause and the means to “[expel] the tributary mode of production from the highlands and [substitute] a system of free peasant agriculture within a loose tribal design.” Gottwald believes this to be a long process aided in part by the presence of the exodus group. The process ends somewhere in the early reign of David, by which time hierarchical tendencies begin to take over.16 The social organization inherent in this model, with its emphasis on egalitarian, participatory, subsistence, and communal living, reects Yoder’s conception of the “countercommunity” that results from the

13. Yoder offers: “The content of liberation in the biblical witness is not the ‘nation-state’ brotherhood engineered after the take-over but the covenantpeoplehood already existing because God has given it, and sure of its future because of the Name (‘identity’) of God, not because of a coming campaign.” Ibid., 308. 14. Ibid., 300. 15. John Howard Yoder, The Jewish–Christian Schism Revisited (ed. Michael G. Cartwright and Peter Ochs; London: SCM, 2003), 186–87. 16. Norman K. Gottwald, The Hebrew Bible: A Brief Socio-Literary Introduction (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), 154–55. 1

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exodus. Gottwald’s early Israel opposes the values of Canaanite citystates and creates an alternative society. This “countercommunity” helps frame exodus as anti-imperialistic without invoking the use of similar imperial models and forms of power. The use of the exodus narrative for revolutionary purposes that Yoder critiques merely replaces one form of empire with another, merely defeats empire with the tools of imperial power. At one end of the exodus–exile continuum lies exodus, with its ideal of creating a new community formed around covenant and an expression of communal solidarity over and against the social organization of city-states and empire. The resistant move that I described in Chapter 4 in relation to the symbolic action of the purchase of the property as a countermove to empire, represents this construction of “countercommunity” based upon ancient and ancestral ideals. Also, my analysis in Chapter 5 of marginality as a site of resistance demonstrates this notion of “countercommunity” to the power of empire. The story of exodus, however, serves as the platform for the emergence of the nation of Israel and the monarchies of Israel and Judah. Inevitably, exodus leads to monarchy. While not conating the monarchy into the ideals of exodus, it remains important to locate this as part of the evolution of the narrative of exodus. Monarchy stands some steps away from the withdrawal of the “countercommunity.” Yet, as Yoder offers, “exodus is a particular form of withdrawal into insecurity,”17 particularly the insecurities of Sinai and the wilderness. Monarchy, essentially, attempts to recover from that “insecurity.” Abimelech’s plea to the lords of Schechem for a single king in preference for the broadbased rule of seventy brothers speaks to this insecurity (Judg 9:2). So too the call to Samuel for a monarchy in imitation of other powers reects a discomfort with alternative forms of social organization (1 Sam 8:20). While narratively and otherwise exodus and monarchy are separated, they do nd similar connections when exodus appears in the revolutionary garb of empire. Then, exodus and monarchy mimic empire in their pretensions of power and neither serves any anti-imperialistic purposes. The conception of exodus operative here deals with it as a signier of resistance to empire. In Chapter 6 I presented the case for moving beyond exile as an historical event and instead to see it as an ideological construct in the Bible. The chapter problematizes the notion of the end of exile and moves towards the experience of diaspora as more denitive of the historical and current realities. Exile describes more a state of being than an event.

17. Yoder, “Exodus and Exile,” 301. 1

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It expresses the experiences of statelessness and homelessness not as a condition of lack, but as a predisposition towards the state and home. Exile denes new relationships with state powers and places called “home” from the perspective of being at home in the land with all covenant obligations implied. Yoder speaks of the time away in Babylon as “a beginning…or a new phase of the Mosaic project.”18 The traditional diasporic tales of Joseph, Daniel, Esther, and Tobit situate the title characters in foreign lands. In every instance their presence in diaspora occurs as the result of imperial action. In the case of Daniel and Esther their relocations happen as a result of the Babylonian deportations (Dan 1:1–4; Esth 2:5–7). The Assyrian deportations effect Tobit’s location (Tob 1:1–2). However, in the case of Joseph, while his brothers’ jealousy appears as the proximate cause, economic disparities better explain his presence in Egypt (Gen 37:25–28). The experience of exile occurs primarily, though not exclusively, as a result of imperial deportation. Yet the presence of empire creates inequities on several levels that require the relocation of persons. Reframing exile calls attention to the conditions of empire that force both voluntary and involuntary migrations. Therefore, the paradigms that feed the conception of exile come from several narratives. Yoder speaks of the “Joseph paradigm” and includes here the stories of Esther and Daniel. His accent, though, lies on them being “involuntarily at the heart of the idolatrous empire.”19 However, the issues of exile revolve around more than the struggle to maintain religious delity and the conversion of foreign leaders, as is the case in the Joseph, Daniel, and Esther stories. The issues lie closer to the ground such as in relationships of all sorts to foreigners, the construction of the foreigner as an “other,” proximity to foreign culture, assimilation, as well as international arrangements of power. Therefore, the migratory movements of Abraham and Jacob must be considered as part of the experience of exile. In addition, the issues of cultural assimilation and contact raised by the books of Ruth and Jonah also shape exile. The oracles against the nations in prophetic books, their imagination of new world futures, as well as prophetic visions that place Zion at the center of the world, such as in Isaiah (Isa 2:1–4; 62:1–12; 66:5–24) and Zechariah (Zech 8:20–23; 14:16–21), expand the range and focus of exile.20 18. Yoder, The Jewish–Christian Schism, 186. 19. Ibid. 20. Mark Brett’s observation that these elements of prophetic literature are infected by “the hubris of empire” holds true and supports my contention that these texts need to be seen as part of the experience of exile. Mark G. Brett, Decolonizing God: The Bible in the Tides of Empire (Shefeld: Shefeld Phoenix, 2008), 109. 1

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Exile creates a new context for being a part of a state while retaining the memory, experience, and reality of the land as part of one’s identity. Hopes for the resurgence of a state and the restoration of the monarchy may occur in texts that purport the end of exile. However, as Raymond Person thinks, these positions soon come to terms with the prevailing reality and at best evolve into eschatological thought.21 To whatever extent the expectations of monarchal revival exist—and to be sure they occur in the book of Jeremiah (17:25; 22:4; 23:5–6; 30:9; 33:14–26)— the prevailing biblical view appears to be restoration to the land without kingship. In Ezra–Nehemiah no moves towards statehood or kingship materialize, a reality that Yoder explains as “desirable for the honour of God or the dignity of the people.”22 The nal form of the DtrH includes several anti-monarchal sentiments, such as the parable of the trees (Judg 9:7–21), Samuel’s diatribe on the ways of a king (1 Sam 8), the relentless refrain of sin among all Israelite kings and all but two Judean kings, that make Person’s notion of the Dtn school’s initial predisposition to the restoration of the monarchy a tenuous suggestion. The limitations upon kingship in the book of Deuteronomy (Deut 17:14–20) seem highly restrictive to the effective functioning of a monarchy, whether Deuteronomy is seen as an early Northern Israelite document, a Josiah-era product, or an early restoration-period text. To the extent that hopes of monarchal revival occur in the biblical texts, they are dwarfed by texts that imply a stateless existence and future. Even with return to the land, exile surfaces as existence without king and state. As I indicated in Chapter 6, statelessness creates a new 21. Raymond Person posits that the Dtn school (his preferred title, instead of Dtr) takes a strong position in the restoration period by framing the theology of exile as punishment that should end in the restoration of the monarchy and return to the land. As such, the Dtn school offers full support to Zerubbabel as a Davidic heir while also collaborating with the Persians over his appointment. However, the Dtn school cuts off contact with the Persians due to their disillusionment over the restoration of not only the temple, but more importantly “political autonomy of Judah and the restoration of the Davidic king” (p. 59). When the Persians endorse Ezra’s mission, the Dtn school shifts its theology to emphasize faith in God rather than human gures. Person states, “the Deuteronomic school placed its hope on the Lord’s promise and the divine initiative to restore Israel, a hope that led to the development of Deuteronomic eschatology.” Raymond F. Person, The Deuteronomic School: History, Social Setting and Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 105. Person shows how the Dtn eschatology appears in Second Zechariah as a lessening of the prospect for the restoration of the monarchy takes hold. Raymond F. Person, Second Zechariah and the Deuteronomic School (JSOTSup 167; Shefeld: JSOT, 1993), 176–81. 22. Yoder, The Jewish–Christian Schism, 187. 1

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emphasis on social organizations like that of the family as bearers of national identity. Just as hierarchical tendencies assert themselves as the “countercommunity” of exodus gets established, so too evidences of monarchal leanings surface as the exilic model of statelessness takes hold. Similarly, as exodus critiques city-state and imperial organizations, so too exile subverts monarchal power. Exile suggests adaptive strategies for working within the structures of monarchies while also undermining them, as seen in Daniel and Esther. Life in exile essentially means living within a foreign state power. Therefore, existence and survival requires adaptation to these new realities. The exodus response of withdrawal to “countercommunity” gives way to subversive engagement with foreign power to ensure survival. While not denying the existence of state power, the signier exile recognizes its power and potentialities both for good and for harm and seeks to gain access to state power as a prerequisite for survival in a foreign land.23 Both ends of the exodus–exile continuum offer alternatives to state power and different ways of dealing with state power. In exile, in the vacuum created by lack of institutions such as the state, the monarchy, prophets, and for a period the temple, texts emerge as representative of divine speech to perform critical functions. The development of textuality during this time not only serves as a survival mechanism for a dislocated and scattered people, but it provides a focal point around which identity could be built. Jean-Louis Ska reads the narrative of the discovery of the scroll in 2 Kgs 22–23 as foreshadowing the period when only “the book” survives and monarchy, kingdom, and temple are destroyed. As such, he sees textuality as developing in response to the exilic experience to ll the void created by the absence of the monarchy. Therefore, “written torah” emerges as “the solid cornerstone on which Israel could build.”24 Ska observes, though, in the texts produced during the post-exilic period, an allergy to dealing with recent history,25 but at the same time an afnity for narrating the history that 23. I explore this issue of access to power in diaspora in relation to the book of Esther in “Diversity, Difference, and Access to Power in Diaspora: The Case of the Book of Esther,” Word and World 29 (2009): 280–87. 24. Jean-Louis Ska, “From History Writing to Library Building: The End of History and the Birth of the Book,” in The Pentateuch as Torah: New Models for Understanding Its Promulgation and Acceptance (ed. Gary N. Knoppers and Bernard M. Levinson; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2007), 154–56. So too Yoder sees texts and canon as crucial to shaping Jewish identity and selfhood during this period. Yoder, The Jewish–Christian Schism, 187. 25. Ska explains that Ezra–Nehemiah should be seen as historiography and therefore proves his point about the uneasy relationship with history. He thinks that 1

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deals with an ancient and more glorious past. He explains this aversion as due in part to trauma but shows it to be the cause for the emergence of Torah; a unication of “history and law” as well as the DtrH. David Carr accounts for the absence of recent history in the emergent texts by the absence of the state. Carr notes that the dearth of history from the end of the monarchy to the restoration results not from a lack of scribal activity but from a lack of purpose for history. Maintaining that in the ancient Near East history serves “institutions and their leaders for education and enculturation of leaders in a monarchal state,” he thinks that the “no state equals no history” equation obtains here.26 Texts therefore indicate not only the absence of a state but also point to the practice of redirecting identity to pre-state gures and life. As I advocate in this book, an understanding of the consolidation of text traditions as part of the exile helps to reframe notions of exile. While texts will not replace the functions of a state or even assuage the loss of home, the development of texts and their subject matter illustrate the discursive and life strategies required for living in exile. Carr indicates that in the development of these texts, traditions that highlight claims to the land undergo revisions so as to read as stories of ancient landless ancestors: “Before, stories such as the Jacob narrative told of ancestors gaining a claim to the land directly. But once these stories were placed in a sequence that led to wilderness wandering, these ancestral traditions were transformed into a broader story of Israel’s pre-land beginnings, with the ancestors living as strangers in the land that will become their children’s only later, after the Egyptian oppression, Exodus, and wilderness wanderings.”27 In coming to terms with their landless conditions, the exiles reach back into the past and recreate an ancestor such as Abraham as a proto-exile. Abraham’s story of promise constantly deferred but not cancelled reects their story. Narratively, exile reaches back into the preexodus period and reshapes those traditions. As used here, exile signies life without a state and at times life within a foreign state. In the context of diaspora, exile speaks of subversion as a means of survival. In the context of the land, exile builds upon ancient promises to ancestors and their survival without the trappings of state and state power. Exodus and exile are more than historical events and much writing from this time does not qualify as history. Therefore, he views the Chr’s work as “midrashic retelling,” Ben Sirach as preoccupied with personalities rather than events, and Jubilees as midrash. Ska, “From History Writing to Library Building,” 148–49. 26. David Carr, “The Rise of Torah,” in Knoppers and Levinson, eds., The Pentateuch as Torah, 48. 27. Ibid., 49. 1

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theological constructs. These serve as a lens for shaping and reading biblical traditions. Rather than being opposite poles, they interact continuously in a continuum and plot a trajectory for reading forms of power in texts. This reading trajectory at times requires reading backwards and forwards with the historical and theological data of exodus and exile and yet backwards and forwards with the lived experiences of how exodus and exile interact with state and imperial powers as well as their retainers. Exodus offers alternative communities to imperial power while exile presents opportunities to subvert power and to (re)locate power to alternative sites. 2. Exegesis Summary The exegetical exploration of the selected passages reects the movement of imperial/colonial power from conquest to occupation, and then to the aftermath of colonial contact. This movement requires adjusting the literary order of the passages to view the issues embedded in these texts. Left within the current shape of the book, these passages contribute to a view of the book as merely a biography of the prophet Jeremiah. By extracting them from their literary context, these passages provide what Bhabha regards as a “narration of the nation”28 of Judah. The task of narrating the nation, as Bhabha describes it, lies more with “temporality than [with] historicity.” As such, the postcolonial readings pay as much attention to the future as to the past. The postcolonial perspective requires attention be paid as much to the geo-political history behind the text as much as it does to the traditioning and subsequent reading communities. From the perspective of the exodus–exile continuum, this requires resituating readings enabling a reading both backwards and forwards as well as from below. The narrative of the purchase of the property in Jer 32 read forward from the perspective of a nation threatened by conquest looks differently than when read backwards by a group on the cusp of the return to the land from which they had been driven. The insistence on reading forward breaks deliberately from the nal form of the book and the chapter that shapes a skewed reection on the past for the consumption of contemporary groups. This reection communicates a message of hope and consequently blurs the context of the reading community by obfuscating the literary context. By simply appealing to the notion of return this text hides resistance from communities that live within the land and those in

28. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 140–44. 1

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other places that do not entertain the possibility of return. The shift in reading centers the symbolic action and its slippery interpretation. To privilege the voice of hope, as the nal shape of the book does, excludes other voices and experiences germane to the reality of empire as reected in the text. The importance of customary law, as it informs the actions described in the text of ch. 32, gets easily neglected if one only reads backwards. The legal requirements that the purchase of the property fulll appear with intentionality. On the one hand, the intention would be to provide documentation to defend against future claims to property from those that return to the land under the belief that they are the rightful beneciaries of the land. The theological dogma that the deportees, appropriately chastened and restored, rightfully occupy the land strengthens such claims. On the other hand, the intention would also be to dene a clear area of sovereignty and control as a form of resistance to conquest. The postcolonial reading of this passage lifts up the fate of the powerless to halt the march of conquering forces by physical means. Those on the receiving end of dominant power, however, circumscribe aspects of their culture, history, law, and family practices with protections to prevent external conquest in these areas. The relinquishing of control over the land does not indicate the unimportance of the land. Rather, this shift reects a different relationship with regards to the land, and a reorientation from the preoccupation with territory and turf to the articulation of place as a means of survival and subjectivity. Jeremiah 40 describes the release of Jeremiah from Babylonian control. A postcolonial perspective shifts the focus of the narrative to a text of survival. The narrative occurs in the book as a text of release and as such it represents the benecence of Babylonian power. The narration of the experience of occupation favors the occupying power. The postcolonial reading position shifts the focus of the passage so that it reads from below, from the experience of the occupied and deported. As in the narrative, Jeremiah rejects the inducements of the empire and chooses instead to remain in Judah, the text reads as a tract advocating the rejection of the seeming benets that come with imperial presence. The option, therefore, to live in marginalized land functions as a call to survival and autonomy. The strategies of reading forward and from below used in the other two passages coalesce in the reading of ch. 29. This letter portion, read forward, advises the deportees to construct lives outside of the land in the absence of a clear end of that experience. Reading the letter from below reveals a statement relating to the maintenance of boundaries to prevent being subsumed by the culture of the imperial center. In the aftermath of 1

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colonial contact, migration, and dispersion, forced and otherwise, adaptation becomes the norm. The postcolonial reading of this passage pays attention to the experience of diaspora and the communication in the narrative between the prophet and the diasporic community. The strategies outlined in the letter assume a long-term stay away from the land. In so advocating the adjustments in life, the letter reads as a tract to a landless community articulating a different conception of power, sovereignty, and relationship with the land. In this conception, survival is not inextricably tied to the land, neither is the ground of identity inseparable from the land. The new bases of power and identity that the letter advocates encourage an emphasis on nding a place in the world from which to assert subjectivity. The postcolonial reading of these passages shows how the reading of texts in the book of Jeremiah centers issues pertinent to the experience of empire and colonialism. Since the book emerges against the background of the growing presence of imperial power, to downplay the book’s historical and social contexts in preference for a preoccupation with the institution of prophecy ignores the environment that shapes the nature and purpose of the prophetic career the book purports to describe. Even if one allows that these contexts fade into the background, geo-political and other forms of power represented in the text necessitate a postcolonial approach. The fate of the prophet Jeremiah, his message, and that attributed to him by subsequent communities, take a different turn when inverted by a postcolonial reading. To read the book forward, as postcolonial reading advocates, rather than backwards, pays attention to the struggles of the literary and historical Jeremiahs. These struggles are more than just theological or the issues of an unfortunate prophet. These struggles represent the fate of a nation and people in the grip of dominant power. To read the book from below, rather than from above, centers these struggles in the context of the message of a prophet who seeks to guide the adjustments needed to live in those times. 3. Movements in Postcolonial Readings of the Book of Jeremiah The book of Jeremiah is a microcosm of the Bible.29 In many ways the issues and nature of the book prove illustrative for reading several other areas of the Bible. Its Dtr character unmistakably places it in conversation with the book of Deuteronomy and the DtrH. Its place among the prophets gives it several afnities with prophetic books, not to mention 29. This notion develops out of personal conversations with Gareth Galvin, OFM, of the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, California. 1

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textual connections. Its presuppositions on gender, its references to legal precepts such as Sabbath (17:21–24), release of slaves (ch. 34), divorce and marriage (3:1–5), and redemption of family property (ch. 32) make the reading of Pentateuchal legal texts a requirement for understanding this book. Its straddling of the historical and theological spectrum of preand post-exile expands its reach into other parts of the canon, such as ancestral narratives in Genesis and the historiography of Ezra–Nehemiah. The book of Jeremiah exemplies the transition from orality to textuality, not only in the events of ch. 36, but precisely in the numerous instructions to Baruch to write the oracles of the prophet in a book. Both direct citations as well as allusions to the book provide sources for the Gospel writers.30 It may seem that the book of Jeremiah dees easy categorization. Its slippery nature makes it well suited to postcolonial analysis given the multiple sites where it can be easily located. The variegated character of the book, as biblical text with all the attendant imperial imbrications, means that it foregrounds several issues pertinent to postcolonial engagements. Renita Weems articulates what I advance in this book, namely, that the book of Jeremiah is “survival” or “protest literature.”31 She believes that the book functions as an explanation of the individual and corporate catastrophes of the period and documents how to survive these crises. Survival and protest need not stand as mutually exclusive notions since in many respects survival requires resistance. Viewing the book in this way expands the understanding of the role and scope of the Jeremiah traditions in particular, and prophecy in general. This raises the issue of power, the central concern of the exodus–exile reading continuum. The postcolonial engagement with Jeremiah as literature pursues the complexities of power within the text. Unlike the narrative stories of other prophets, such as Amos or Isaiah, Jeremiah encounters conict on many fronts in the biography presented about him in the book. In the biblical text, he stands at odds with the monarchy, the religious leadership, the general population, and at times with YHWH. The text portrays him as having at best an ambiguous 30. Several aspects of the biography of Jeremiah shape the presentation of Jesus in the Gospels. For instance, Jeremiah’s temple sermon (ch. 7) forms the basis of Jesus’ prophetic action in the temple. Jeremiah’s reputation as the weeping prophet weeping over Jerusalem inuences the presentation of Jesus weeping over the city. The conception of Jeremiah as a “man of sorrows” beaten and mistreated, even though innocent, feeds into a similar characterization of Jesus. 31. Renita J. Weems, “Jeremiah,” in Global Bible Commentary (gen. ed. Daniel Patte; Nashville: Abingdon, 2004), 213. 1

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relationship with imperial power. Given the ambivalent position of the prophet, set between local state power and imperial power, between divine power and earthly power, between a local elite and mass support, unique spaces for the exploration of the prophetic ofce from a postcolonial perspective present themselves for study. Further, the unique portrayal of Jeremiah’s performance of the prophetic role, the complex relationship with Babylonian power and monarchal power, as well as the presentation of Jeremiah’s relationship with such institutions as the priesthood, wisdom schools, patriarchy, and so on, provides ample ground for a postcolonial examination of power. The complex interaction of prophet–people–divine power–local power–foreign power matrix presents a fruitful site for understanding this text. A broadening of the understanding of the role of the prophet in ancient Israel/Judah can illuminate the messages, actions, and texts produced by and in the name of the prophets. Carr’s notion that prophets function as teachers in an “educational-enculturation” process suggests a way for understanding the presentation of the relationship between Jeremiah and Baruch, who, while not called a student, performs “many similar functions.”32 But more than this, Carr helps to locate possible venues for the use of prophetic texts beyond the lifetime of the prophet. He proposes that written prophetic texts exist beyond archival material but enter “a stream of educational-enculturational oral-written literature used in the formation of (elite) Israelites.”33 To function in such a venue implies an authorial voice for the prophet or for the processes and institutions that ensure the preservation of the prophetic word. Whichever source accounts for this use, it suggests an historical investment of power in that source. Tracing the evolution and sources of that power outlines another aspect of a postcolonial agenda for the book of Jeremiah. The prophetic critique of imperial power also calls for reection and interrogation. In this work, I locate the prophetic message in the hidden transcript, as customary in imperial/colonial contexts. The analysis of this hidden transcript, while an interesting project, also requires enquiry into the techniques of speaking and writing in an imperial context. Unlike a pseudepigraphic document or the book of Daniel, the book of Jeremiah represents a mixture of speech and written text over a long stretch of history. An investigation of what impact, if any, the imperial context has on the oral and written codes of prophetic critique can be productive. Additionally, the nature of later anonymous prophetic critique of imperial 32. David M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 147. 33. Ibid., 150. 1

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power that uses the names of prophets for its legitimation can prove illuminating for this material. Was the critique of imperial power more strident if voiced through a known prophet like Jeremiah? One indication of the evolution of prophetic critique in the Jeremiah tradition lies in the naming of imperial power. Brevard Childs shows that in “the genuine Jeremiah passages” the generic term “the enemy-fromthe-north” appears in reference to imperial power.34 He points out that though the text uses this indeterminate term, specic characteristics of the enemy appear in the passages, namely, origins in the north (1:14; 4:6; 6:1, 22), origins from a distant land (4:16; 5:15; 6:22), origins from a distant time (5:15), its foreign origins (5:15), and so on.35 He makes the point that “genuine Jeremiah passages” present a “plastic picture [of the enemy, with]…no direct evidence by which to identify it with an historical nation.”36 Other sections of the Jeremiah tradition, such as that attested by the Old Greek, do not provide the name for Babylon nor its king Nebuchadnezzar as the contemporary imperial power.37 The Hebrew text, on the other hand, maintains a tradition that names Babylon as the site of deportation and its king, Nebuchadnezzar, as the instrument of deportation of sections of the Jerusalem populace. This evolves into the development of Babylon as a cipher for “the evil empire,” a trend that continues to the end of the Christian canon in the book of Revelation. Sorting out what “Babylon” means historically in every text may be a daunting if revealing project. However, more illustrative will be the tracing of the evolution of the Jeremiah traditions alongside the historical development of the use of the trope “Babylon” in the entire Jeremiah traditions.38 A postcolonial perspective can also focus on the historical communities that tradition the book of Jeremiah. This attention steps away from 34. Childs includes the following relevant passages as “genuine Jeremiah”: 1:13–15; 4:5b–8, 11b–17a, 19–21, 29–31; 5:15–17; 6:1–5, 22–26. Brevard S. Childs, “The Enemy from the North and the Chaos Tradition,” in Perdue and Kovacs, eds., A Prophet to the Nations, 154. 35. Childs observes that this indeterminate reference is not peculiar to Jeremiah, but can also be seen in Isaiah, Habakkuk, and possibly Nahum. Ibid., 155–56. 36. Ibid., 154. 37. Jer 29:1, 21; 32:1 are passages I treat in this work where the Hebrew text inserts a direct reference to the empire and names the king when the Old Greek does not. Bright shows that in three out of the six occurrences, the phrase “Nebuchadnezzar, my servant” (    ) does not appear in the Old Greek text, namely, 25:9; 27:6; 43:10. John Bright, “The Date of the Prose Sermons in Jeremiah,” in Perdue and Kovacs, eds., A Prophet to the Nations, 210. 38. John Hill offers a solid treatment of this, but only with regards JerMT, in his Friend or Foe? 1

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the impasse between historicized and literary portraits of the prophets. Since communities preserve the Jeremiah tradition, even though their work does not impact the shape of the book of Jeremiah, an exploration of the complete Jeremiah traditions as well as the history of interpretation surrounding this tradition from a postcolonial perspective can yield interesting results. Texts such as the Epistle of Jeremiah and the book of Baruch can provide insight into the continued formation and development of the Jeremiah traditions. These works indicate that the Jeremiah traditions continue beyond the nal form of the book of Jeremiah. Therefore, contrary to Weems’ assertion that the editors of the nal form of the book pronounce a denitive statement on the struggle of the people,39 material like this attests to the continued growth of the traditions. This material read from a postcolonial perspective will provide comparative analysis for the growth of the traditions, as well as reection on the continued adjustments of communities in the context of a deepened experience of empire and exile. Attention to these Deuterocanonical texts marks for Sugirtharajah another advance in postcolonial biblical interpretation. Doing so, for him, makes clear the diversity of the communities involved in the development of the Bible as well as diversity of insights.40 Postcolonial engagements with the book of Jeremiah can also pursue representations of the gure Jeremiah in literature and other popular venues. The word jeremiad enters into English language usage in the eighteenth century from the French Jérémiade, referring to the complaints and woes of the prophet Jeremiah.41 This conception forms the basis of a European literary genre, the jeremiad, “a lament over the ways of the world.”42 Sacvan Bercovitch describes this as reective of preaching across broad sections of European Christianity that disparages the sins of the people, their stubborn refusal to heed God’s multiple attempts at amelioration to walk in righteousness, and the inevitability of judgment. He contrasts this with what he regards as the American jeremiad, which was developed through Puritan preaching and which recovers the term from its usual pejorative meanings. While the Puritans employed the 39. Weems states: “Our job is then to trust the judgment of the nal editors who saw the convergence between Jeremiah’s distant words and God’s perennially new efforts to persuade creation to trust God whole-heartedly.” Weems, “Jeremiah,” 215. 40. R. S. Sugirtharajah, Troublesome Texts: The Bible in Colonial and Contemporary Culture (Shefeld: Shefeld Phoenix, 2008), 54. 41. “Jeremiad,” in The Concise Oxford Dictionary (ed. Judy Pearsall; 10th ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 42. Sacvan Bercovitch, The American Jeremiad (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), 7. 1

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same literary genre as their European counterparts, they went beyond the standard doctrines of reprisal in their preaching to deal with promise and hope as part of their divine mission in the new land. Bercovitch sees the emergence of a new jeremiad, one that is “unshakably optimistic,”43 and which begins a genealogy that continues with the writings of David Henry Thoreau, the poetry of Walt Whitman, and the preaching of Martin Luther King, Jr. He accounts for this as the “lament and celebration… [of] America’s mission.”44 Essentially, Bercovitch offers a reading of Jeremiah in his role as public exhorter where he joins “social criticism to spiritual renewal, public to private identity.”45 In this role Jeremiah stands not simply as the complainer but also as the herald of a new day. This model of Jeremiah exists in the African American tradition particularly in the life and work of Fredrick Douglass. David HowardPitney shows how Douglass embraces the rhetorical style of the jeremiad introduced by the Puritans and along with this “the social metaphors of the Exodus, the Promised Land, and the Second Coming”46 in his speaking and writing. Postcolonial engagements with the book of Jeremiah can nd a productive source in the liberative use of the gure of Jeremiah by Douglass and others in the struggle for justice. This area of enquiry offers not only a different arena for the history of reception for the book, but models of praxis that redene the role of the prophet in his literary context. The other benet lies in the opportunity to engage in broadbased analysis of suffering that surfaces in the book. More than simple categories of redemptive suffering or innocent suffering, the book of Jeremiah presents complex varieties of sufferings. If the genealogy of suffering that one encounters in the book of Jeremiah leads to those as represented by such gures of African American history as Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and so on, rather than the heavily spiritualized sufferings of the Christian tradition, then postcolonial analysis contributes to an expanded and developing understanding of the Jeremiah traditions. At rst glance, the book of Jeremiah seems an unlikely candidate for a postcolonial reading of a biblical text. Books such as Ezra–Nehemiah, Daniel, and Esther, where signs of imperial presence dominate look like preferred choices. The tendency in traditional biblical scholarship to overlook the imperial composition of the book of Jeremiah and its 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid., 11. 45. Ibid., xi. 46. David Howard-Pitney, The Afro-American Jeremiad: Appeals for Justice in America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990), 17. 1

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continued development, urges the necessity for a postcolonial approach to the book. The approach advocated here, a balanced look at historicized and literary presentations of prophet and community, holds promise for further work on the book. The value of postcolonial theory lies not so much in its ability to settle categorically ongoing disputes around the book of Jeremiah; rather, its potential materializes in its illustrations of historical and textual realities of empire and adjustments to empire. Nevertheless, whether written on the walls of Jerusalem or against the rivers of Babylon, the book of Jeremiah captures for the modern reader the reality that both empire and exile inexorably shape the fortunes and fate of ancient Judah. 4. On the Road with Postcolonial Biblical Interpretation Skeptics sometimes raise the seemingly innocent question, “Why bother with postcolonial biblical interpretation?” Quite often this question is neither innocent nor disinterested with regards the issue of biblical methodology. Such questioners stand already convinced not only of the utility and adequacy of traditional methods, but of their fairness as well. Despite the clarication of the value of “post” in the term “postcolonial,”47 many still see postcolonial theory as something that should get beyond historical wrongs and help those with the “chip” on their shoulders to move on. The movement implied in the title of the present section, though, offers no such help. This nal section provides no answers to justify the need for postcolonial biblical interpretation; rather, it maps out directions for the future and functions as an invitation to the journey towards that future. To talk about the pervasive nature of European colonialism at the start of the nineteenth century represents both an historical reection and a description of present and future realities. Said outlines the geographical extent of colonization with the following statistics: “In 1800 the Western powers claimed 55% but actually held 35% of the earth’s surface, and that by 1878 the proportion was 67%, a rate of increase of 83,000 square miles per year. By 1914, the annual rate had risen to…240,000 square miles, and Europe held…roughly 85% of the earth as colonies, protectorates, dependencies, dominions and commonwealths.”48 Despite the 47. Mishra and Hodge, “What is Post (-) Colonialism?,” 276. Quayson, “Interdisciplinarity in Postcolonial Studies,” 76. Leela Gandhi, Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 3. See also n. 12 in Chapter 3. 48. Said, Culture and Imperialism, 8. 1

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anti-colonial movements of the mid-twentieth century, movements which brought into being a growing number of independent states, this level of European colonization suggests a persistent layer of imperial presence.49 For Sugirtharajah, postcolonial theory secures a future for itself since empires “rarely disappear completely.”50 The key role the Bible plays in the development of modern European colonization reects the intricate connection of empire and method. In reecting on the historical-critical method in the context of European cultural dominance, Caroline Vander Stichele and Todd Penner remark that “the ‘master’s house’ has as its cornerstone the Bible, which provides its sure foundation.”51 Method remains a part of the legacy of missionary Christianity, as much as the Westminster form of government remains unchanged in most countries of the British Commonwealth. This legacy of method persists to the extent that colonialist and imperialist ideologies continue in other forms. The use of the historical-critical method represents one of the places that postcolonial theorists need to make a decision on how to handle aspects of the colonial legacy that have shaped the postcolonial condition. Tat-siong Benny Liew, advocating for the continued use of the historical-critical method, offers several reasons for doing so. Among those he suggests is the pragmatism to use whatever works for liberative purposes, even if it means making decisions based on something other than “roots and purity.”52 Of course, he insists that such use should always be critical of the disparities in methodologies. Heikki Räisänen’s categorical statement that the historical-critical method is not an “enemy” of liberationist approaches53 strikes a discordant chord with Elisabeth 49. Hardt and Negri point out that anti-colonial movements that work within the paradigm that “nationalism equals political and economic modernization” soon realize this to be “a perverse trick.” They maintain that “the nationalism of anticolonial and anti-imperialist struggles effectively functions in reverse, and the liberated countries nd themselves subordinated in the international economic order.” Hardt and Negri, Empire, 133. 50. Sugirtharajah, Troublesome Texts, 53. 51. Caroline Vander Stichele and Todd Penner, “Mastering the Tools or Retooling the Masters? The Legacy of Historical-Critical Discourse,” in Her Master’s Tools? Feminist and Postcolonial Engagements of Historical-Critical Discourse (ed. Caroline Vander Stichele and Todd Penner; Atlanta: SBL, 2005), 29. 52. Tat-siong Benny Liew, Politics of Parousia: Reading Mark Inter(con)textually (London: Brill, 1999), 23. 53. Räisänen uses this term to refer to methods such as “feminist, liberationtheologist, postmodern, ideological-critical, and post-colonial concerns.” Heikki Räisänen, “Biblical Critics in the Global Village,” in Reading the Bible in the Global Village: Helsinki (Atlanta: SBL, 2000), 10–11. 1

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Schüssler Fiorenza, who speaks of the “antiquarian mindset”54 of the method, and Sugirtharajah, who indicts the practitioners of the method for using it in awed ways.55 Schüssler Fiorenza articulates that reading strategies such as postcolonial theory nd it difcult “to unseat the positivist scientic, supposedly disinterested, ethos of the discipline.”56 Without diminishing the reality of her observations, Schüssler Fiorenza offers four main paradigms within which biblical interpretation has historically taken place. She sees these four paradigms, which encompass different methodological approaches, as “a republic of many voices.” These paradigms do not cancel each other out but instead contribute to an enhanced understanding of the Bible. Schüssler Fiorenza remains clear, though, that critical evaluation of “the ideological elements” of a method that silences other voices needs to take place.57 In the present work I situate the postcolonial perspective within the context of the historical-critical method. In some ways, I lean heavily in that direction to make the point of the compatibility of the two approaches. However, the postcolonial perspective, once it performs its stated goals, critically indicts the historical-critical method for its scientistic, positivistic, and universalistic biases. To replicate these unexamined assumptions undermines the postcolonial project even more than the use of the historical-critical method; it also afrms what Sugirtharajah refers to as the colonialist disposition of historical criticism, which insists that “historical-critical tools alone” provide a correct reading of the text.58 Diversity of approaches not only represents the postcolonial perspective that eschews methodological captivity, but also releases postcolonial work from what Stephen Moore calls “an esoteric discourse herme(neu)tically 54. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Defending the Center, Trivializing the Margins,” in Reading the Bible in the Global Village: Helsinki, 34. 55. R. S. Sugirtharajah, “Critics, Tools, and the Global Arena,” in Reading the Bible in the Global Village: Helsinki, 50. 56. Schüssler Fiorenza, “Defending the Center,” 31. 57. Schüssler Fiorenza outlines four main paradigms for biblical interpretation: (1) the “religious–the*logical–scriptural paradigm” reecting dominant Jewish and Christian confessional readings of the Bible, (2) the critical-scientic paradigm at home in the academy that includes the historical-critical method, (3) the cultural– hermeneutic–postmodern paradigm at home in modern academies but with a focus on marginalized subjects, (4) the emancipatory-radical democratic paradigm that emphasizes social change and justice along the lines of feminist and postcolonial analyses. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Democratizing Biblical Studies: Towards an Emancipatory Educational Space (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009), 67– 81. 58. Sugirtharajah, “Critics, Tools, and the Global Arena,” 52. 1

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sealed off from the extra-academic world,”59 thereby enabling Schüssler Fiorenza’s envisioned “‘public intellectual sphere’ where ‘citizen interpreters’ come together to debate and discuss the Bible in terms of their own theoretical frameworks, approaches, and interests.”60 As a method that reconstructs the historical record, the historicalcritical method proves useful for postcolonial enquiry since it deals with the material practices of imperialism both past and present.61 Yet the postcolonial approach to history goes beyond the notions of history held by the historical-critical method, imbricated as they are with class, race, and gender assumptions. Making the case for history to remain in the forefront of postcolonial theory, Mishra and Hodge insist on using Marxist historiography in postcolonial theory to enable a “radical consciousness” of the past as the means to redeeming history. They believe that the loss of attention to history not only results in the loss of memory of past acts of anti-imperialism, but also leads to the reception of history with critical parts of it “systematically excised.”62 Crucial to Mishra and Hodge’s concerns for postcolonial biblical interpretation are issues of the modes of production of biblical texts.63 The historical-critical method serves as a starting point for the probing of these issues and provides a way of mapping some of the terrain for exploration. 59. Stephen D. Moore, Empire and Apocalypse: Postcolonialism and the New Testament (Shefeld: Shefeld Phoenix, 2006), 22. 60. Schüssler Fiorenza, Democratizing Biblical Studies, 87. 61. Moore-Gilbert believes that postcolonial theory would require practitioners to develop the requisite competencies in history. Bart Moore-Gilbert, “Postcolonial Cultural Studies and Imperial Historiography,” Interventions 1 (1999): 408. Leela Gandhi, similarly, argues that, like feminism, postcolonial theory needs to pay attention to “the culturally and historically variegated forms” of colonialism. Gandhi, Postcolonial Theory, 168. Moore predicts that much of the future postcolonial biblical engagements will follow the “X and Empire” form since this allows easier use of narrative criticism, a methodology more compatible to the guild. Moore, Empire and Apocalypse, 22. 62. Vijay Mishra and Bob Hodge, “What Was Postcolonialism?,” New Literary History 36 (2005): 391. Roland Boer makes a similar call for the inclusion of Marx in biblical postcolonial criticism: “For in the Bible it is hard enough for a subversive voice to be heard, particularly in a document that is itself the product of a scribal elite working in a profoundly patriarchal society and culture.” Roland Boer, Last Stop Before Antarctica: The Bible and Postcolonialism in Australia (2d ed.; Atlanta: SBL, 2008), 35. 63. See my work on the exploration of the modes of production of prophetic literature as a start for a postcolonial reading of prophetic literature. “Prophets Postcolonially: Initial Insights for a Postcolonial Reading of Prophetic Literature,” Bible and Critical Theory 6 (2010): 24.1–24.13. 1

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The consideration of companion methods for postcolonial biblical interpretation of necessity pays attention to perspectives, methods, and insights that prove compatible with the hermeneutical goals of postcolonial analysis. The description of postcolonial interpretation I presented in ch. 3 shapes it as having more than simply discursive intentions but locates it within the social sphere.64 If this stands as the end product of postcolonial enquiry, then it enables more intentional reection not simply on the relationship with the historical-critical method but also on the relationship with the Bible itself. Vander Stichele and Penner, working with the Audre Lord-inspired metaphor of the “master’s house,” raise the probing question of what constitutes the “master’s house” in relation to Biblical Studies. Among the options they offer are Western discourse, “academic and/or political institutions,” and factors that support late capitalism.65 Interestingly, they do not present the Bible as one of the options. Athalya Brenner goes further with her questioning by interrogating the intention of feminist and postcolonial scholarship in relation to the “master’s house”: “Is the Master’s House still the house you long to possess, only that you would like to become its legitimate(d) masters and mistresses instead of marginal(ized) lodgers?… What is meant by decentering? Will an act of exchanging places within the accepted power paradigms be the object of desire?”66 These questions shine light on postcolonial theory’s relationship with the Bible. When Brenner asks “whose Bible is it anyway?,” she gets at one area for postcolonial biblical interpretation, that of the mode of production of the Bible. The starting point for postcolonial engagement with the Bible needs to be more than just the Bible as constituted. Postcolonial theory needs to interrogate the placeholder “Bible,” its signiers, as well as biblical canons since these all hold different assumptions. Implicit and explicit in all these assumptions associated with the placeholder “Bible” are collusions with power, and imperial power at that. The Bible’s proximity to power signals to postcolonial theory the goal and preoccupation of dismantling the “master’s house” and turning it into a communal shelter. That is to say, postcolonial biblical engagement works for equal access to the resources of our common life to create a space where all human ourishing is possible for all people. To the extent that the placeholder “Bible” cannot perform this, then it should be seen as the “master’s house” that requires dismantling. 64. See n. 13 in Chapter 3. 65. Vander Stichele and Penner, “Mastering the Tools or Retooling the Masters,” 29. 66. Athalya Brenner, “Epilogue: Babies and Bathwater on the Road,” in Vander Stichele and Penner, eds., Her Master’s Tools?, 338. 1

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The place of the Bible in the colonial enterprise indicates the power that lies in texts. Postcolonial biblical engagement approaches the issue of power in the Bible with all its complexities. Implied in much of this discussion lies the assumption that postcolonial readings produce ethically just and restorative power distributions. The expectation that a postcolonial perspective will produce such readings presupposes that both postcolonial enquiry and the “right” texts, discovered after peeling away ideological agendas, stand neutral on the question of power. The tendency to view the earliest forms of text as “pure” can lead postcolonial practitioners to avoid interrogating the presumptions of power in those texts. Carr points out that educational systems in empires such as Mesopotamia and Egypt, as well as small nations such as Israel, enforce “a way of maintaining and extending power over subjects.”67 In other words, textuality facilitates a mechanism of control and domination. Texts, therefore, are not power-neutral. Further, postcolonial theory presupposes an ideology of power. While its bias appears, it remains uncritical about its own assumptions and use of power.68 Equally, the content of the notion “justice,” as John Caputo offers, holds no preexisting or metaphysical status but rather stands as socially constructed: “Justice in itself does not exist; but it is something we demand and something that is demanded of us. Justice is what we call for and something that calls on us.”69 Postcolonial theory and theorists need to critically evaluate assumptions about justice, equality and fairness to avoid (re)inscribing similar asymmetries of power as those enjoyed by empire. Critical self-evaluation requires postcolonial biblical interpretation to cross beyond the boundaries, disciplinary and confessional, set by the term “Bible.” This multiplicity is required as much in contemporary matters as it is in the historical work. For instance, Sugirtharajah’s proposal to expand the range of texts to include the Deutero-canonical books entails an expansion of the eld of study from the JewishHellenistic context to include the Jewish-Aramaic context. This expansion, he believes, offers a better opportunity to understand Christianity’s Jewish context as well as African and Asian Christianity.70 Additionally, 67. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart, 9. 68. Emily Bauman speaks of the contradiction inherent in postcolonial theory that at rst appears blind to its own epistemological practices. Emily Bauman, “Re-dressing Colonial Discourse: Postcolonial Theory and the Humanist Project,” Critical Quarterly 40 (1998): 79. 69. John D. Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct? (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2007), 64. I am thankful to my colleague Dr. Ted Peters for directing me to this quotation. 70. Sugirtharajah, Troublesome Texts, 54. 1

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Brett uses the Pauline concept of kenosis to describe a “ ‘Eucharistic’ catholicity” that blurs the distinction between sacred and secular when it comes to suffering. He sees postcolonial theology as transcending time and space in order to stand with the victims of “oppressive power and coercive economic conditions.”71 Even more, Daniel Patte urges the case for contextual readings of the Bible, but at the same time recognizes that the value of contextual readings remains relevant for more than the reader’s context. The ability to read with another’s context enlarges “ethical and scriptural sensibility” of those extracontextual readers and provides insights into how interpretations functions in certain contexts.72 Contemporary readers of the Bible require multivocal skills because diversity marks their contexts, whether it be social, religious, or political. Postcolonial readings of the Bible need to be more than merely contextual or even multicultural, but multicontextual,73 positioning the postcolonial readers in multiple locations, bearing multiple loyalties, with sensitivity to multiple forms of pain and oppression. In addition, this helps avoid what Liew describes as the “intellectual tourist site where one may visit and ‘sightsee’ now and then.”74 The exodus–exile reading paradigm situates power as a crucial postcolonial concern. This concern shapes discursive explorations to describe textual situations of unequal power and the consequences of these inequities in the lives of esh and blood readers. But the concern also suggests social action and the range of agencies needed to support those who fall victim to oppressive use of power in society. The two venues suggest a broad-based agenda for postcolonial theory given the trajectory of “Empire” as theorized by Hardt and Negri. They believe that “Empire” will not look like its ancient and modern counterparts, which establish a “territorial center of power and…xed boundaries or barriers.” Their model of “Empire” exists as supranational, without territory and global in its scope.75 Should their prediction prove prescient, and current trends seem to suggest it will, the postcolonial task in relation to 71. Brett, Decolonizing God, 197. 72. Daniel Patte, “Introduction,” in Patte, ed., Global Bible Commentary, xxiv. 73. This notion is suggested by Cornel West: “So I like to be multi-contextual, which is much more important than being multicultural. You have to be able to move from one context to the next. I want to learn something from my atheistic brothers and sisters, even though I’m a Christian.” NPR Interview August 2, 2010, “Cornel West Reconsiders President Obama.” Online: www.npr.org (cited 2 August 2010). 74. Tat-siong Benny Liew, What is Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics? Reading the New Testament (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008), 23. 75. Hardt and Negri, Empire, xii. 1

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the Bible needs to be even more diverse and multicontextual. These multiple venues afford the ability to describe and engage the multiple forms of “Empire” and their easily hidden victims. Sassen refers to disempowered groups in major urban cities as lacking power but having presence. She argues that these groups exert a “politics of presence” that “enables them to gain presence, to emerge as subjects, even when they do not gain direct power.”76 Ambivalences of power such as described by Sassen, as well as the consequences of oppressive and dominant power, shape the current world reality, from the issues of immigration to terrorism. The immigrant without paperwork and terrorist both challenge the notion of the nationstate by engaging in daring border crossings.77 These two subject positions represent different forms of power much in the way that the exodus-exile reading continuum describes. They both challenge dominant power with varying degrees of success and discomfort, even though both represent the different degrees of powerlessness felt by large sections of the world’s population. Sugirtharajah’s suggestion that the postcolonial xation with migration ought to focus attention more on asylum seekers than on its current preoccupation with middle-class migrants and their issues78 can be expanded to include these two groups as representative of the subject positions implied in the book of Jeremiah. In the end postcolonial biblical interpretation is a liberation project. Its viability lies with its relevance for esh-and-blood readers and the lives of ordinary people. Postcolonial theory exists as a discourse of the margins, decentering interpretations, hearing the voice whispered stage side. To occupy any other location implies a move towards the center and the co-optation by the dominant powers that postcolonial theory critiques. Ambivalence provides opportunities for postcolonial biblical interpretation to keep its tasks and craft honest. As long as this approach remains a voice for the excluded and silenced, and for as long as dominant power excludes and silences others, postcolonial theory nds a place in Biblical Studies. Postcolonial theory’s concerns revolve around geo-political relations, primarily but not exclusively. Since its concerns also embrace issues such as ethnicity, gender, culture, place of origin, and their related intersections, the application and relevance of such a 76. Sassen, Globalization and Its Discontents, xxi. 77. Sassen points out how modern immigration has led to the “denationalizing of urban space” (p. xx). She also describes the growing phenomenon of transterritoriality, that is, connected sites that are not geographically proximate yet connected through numerous other links. Ibid., xxxii. 78. Sugirtharajah, Troublesome Texts, 62. 1

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reading strategy extend beyond societies with a history of colonialism. In fact, one would be hard pressed to locate a society that lacks such a history, of being either on the receiving end or acting end of imperial/ colonial power. To the extent that the Bible contributed and continues to contribute to the shaping of those discourses of power, then the need for postcolonial reading of biblical texts exists.

1

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INDEXES INDEX OF REFERENCES HEBREW BIBLE/ OLD TESTAMENT Genesis 22:17 159 33:17 159 37:25–28 178

30:3 32:26 52:12

174 174 174

Joshua 2:8–14 21:1–42

118 22

Exodus 1:9–10 12:31–34 13:21–22 14:19–20

162 174 174 174

Judges 9:2 9:7–21 11:11 20:1

177 179 125 125

Leviticus 25 25:23 25:25–28 25:25 25:26 25:29 25:32 25:48

79 77 77 77 77 79 79 79

Ruth 4:1–12

79

1 Samuel 7:5–14 8 8:20 10:21–27

125 179 177 125

Deuteronomy 4:26–29 5:15 15:5 16:12 17:14–20 18:18 18:20 18:22 20:5–8 23:7 24:1 24:18–22 28:64 30:1–5

174 174 174 174 179 22 135 20 159 174 20 174 174 174

1 Kings 2:26 21:1–22

23 81

2 Kings 18 18:28–35 22–23 22:24–30 23 23:19 23:29–33 23:29 23:31–35 24:1–7

118 118 180 50 45 45 45 45 45 46

24:1 24:8–17 24:12 24:14–16 24:17 25:1–21 25:8–9 25:9–11 25:11–12 25:12

41:4

46 46 113 142 113 47 107 48 127 48, 113, 114 47 113 47 123 50, 130, 172 49

1 Chronicles 6:39–66

22

2 Chronicles 26:22–23 34:6–7 36:20–21

130 45 133

Ezra 9–10

162

Nehemiah 9:36 13:23–31 13:25

134 162 162

Esther 2:5–7

178

25:22–24 25:22 25:25–26 25:25 25:27–30

Index of References

212 Psalms 137

134

Isaiah 2:1–4 5:8 11:8–10 40:3 43:16 43:18–20 44:6–22 47:1 49:15 49:19–20 62:1–12 65:17 65:21–23 65:21 66:5–24

178 81 23 174 174 174 23 23 23 23 178 43 159 159 178

Jeremiah 1–25 1:1–25:13 1:1 1:4–14 1:5 1:7 1:9 1:10 1:13–15 1:14 1:17 1:18 2–6 2–3 2 2:4–4:2 2:32 3:1–5 3:1 3:6–18 3:10 3:12–14 3:19–25 3:23 4 4:3–6:30

9, 30, 33, 34 33 46 20 10 22 22, 23 10 187 187 20 23 33 27, 29 20 33 23 20, 185 20 33 96 20 20 96 20 33

4:5–8 4:6 4:11–17 4:16 4:19–21 4:20 4:29–31 5:1–17 5:15–17 5:15 5:20–30 6 6:1–5 6:1 6:20 6:22–26 6:22 7 7:1 7:4 7:8 7:9 8:8–9 8:13 10:1–16 10:18 11:1 11:8 11:15 11:17 11:21–23 11:21 14:4 14:11–16 15:1–4 15:21 16 16:10 17:21–24 17:25 18 18:1 18:18 19 19:15 20:6 21:1 21:3–10

187 187 187 187 187 23 187 20 187 187 20 20 187 187 20 187 187 20, 185 63 96 96 96 20 20 23 23 63, 94 118 20 118 57 75 96 141 141 72 71 118 185 179 34 63, 94 23 71 118 96 63, 95 92

21:6–14 21:9 22:4 22:13–23 23:5–6 23:12 24 24:1 24:8 24:9–10 25:1–13 25:9–14 25:9 25:11–12 25:13 26–52 26–45 26–29 26 26:13 26:19 26:24 27–29 27–28 27:3 27:4–7 27:6 27:7 27:11 27:13 28 28:3 28:9 28:11 28:13–14 28:15 29

29:1–23 29:1–14 29:1–7 29:1–4

141 92 179 81 179 96 34, 141, 143, 144 141, 142 143 142 33 92 65, 96, 141, 187 145 33, 96 9, 30 34 135 20 118 118 113 135 144, 145 46 92 187 145 92 118 135, 145 144 20 135, 144 135 145 10, 11, 64, 133, 135, 141, 143– 49, 169, 183 138, 149, 150 145 138 148, 151

Index of References 29:1–3 29:1–2 29:1

29:2 29:3 29:4–23 29:4–14 29:4–9 29:4

29:5–7

29:5–6 29:5

29:6 29:7

29:8–23 29:8–14 29:8–9 29:8 29:9 29:10–23 29:10–14 29:10

29:11–14 29:11 29:12–14 29:14–20

143, 144, 149 46 48, 136, 137, 139, 141, 187 80, 136, 141, 142 112, 136, 139, 148 137, 149 149 149 136, 137, 143, 144, 149 130, 137, 138, 143, 144, 146, 147, 150, 152, 158 134 10, 149, 151, 158, 164 162, 164 139, 140, 148, 151, 164, 167 152 139, 144 137–39, 144, 146 136, 137, 139, 140 96 149 138, 143– 46 136–38, 140, 143, 145, 146 138, 146 137, 140, 145 140 137

29:14 29:15–32 29:15

29:16–20

29:16–19 29:16 29:17–18 29:17 29:18 29:19 29:20 29:21–32 29:21–23

29:21 29:23–32 29:23 29:24–32 29:24–29 29:24–28 29:24 29:25–32 29:25–28 29:25 29:26–28 29:26 29:28 29:29 29:30–32 29:31–32 29:31 29:32

139–41, 146 145 136–40, 144, 146, 149 138–41, 143, 144, 149, 150 139, 140 136, 137, 141 140, 142 136, 137, 140, 143 140, 141 139 139 144 137–40, 143, 149, 150 96, 136– 39, 187 149 96, 137, 138, 145 138, 139, 150 150 151 137, 138, 151 143 138, 151 136, 137, 139, 150 150 151 10, 139, 149–51 150 138, 150, 151 151 136–39, 145 140

213 30–33 30–31 30 30:1–3 30:1 30:2 30:3 30:9 30:10–11 30:10 30:11 30:17 30:18 30:22 31 31:1 31:2 31:5 31:7 31:8 31:10 31:11 31:14 31:15 31:21 31:23 31:27 31:28 31:29 31:31–34 31:31 31:33–34 31:33 31:36 31:42 32–33 32

32:1–15 32:1–5 32:1–3 32:1 32:2–5

56, 62 33, 34, 57 61–63 62 63, 94 33, 149 61, 62, 64 179 23 61 62 61 61 61, 62 61, 62 62 62 61 62 61 62 72 62 69 61 61 61 61 61 69 61 62 20, 61, 62 62 69 33 10, 11, 22, 56, 60–64, 74, 79, 81, 100, 182, 183, 185 55 63, 65 64 63, 65, 95, 187 63, 76

214 Jeremiah (cont.) 32:2 68, 83, 100 32:3–5 64, 81 32:3 62, 65, 81 32:4–5 81 32:4 84 32:5 72 32:6–15 63–65, 68 32:6–14 64 32:6 62, 65, 71 32:7–15 58 32:7 68, 72, 76–78 32:8 62, 68, 71, 72, 76–78 32:9–12 71 32:9 76 32:10 85, 86 32:11 58 32:12 76, 85 32:13 85 32:14–15 67, 71 32:14 58, 59, 65, 66, 71, 86 32:15–44 64 32:15 10, 58, 61, 63–67, 69–73, 82, 86 32:16–44 64, 67 32:16–25 67, 70 32:16–17 64 32:17–25 64 32:17 67 32:18–19 67 32:20–21 67 32:21 62 32:22–23 67 32:23 67, 96 32:24–25 67 32:24 64, 68, 69, 141 32:25 67–69 32:26–44 68 32:26–29 64 32:26 62 32:27–36 64

Index of References 32:27 32:28–35 32:28 32:29–35 32:31 32:36–44 32:36 32:37–41 32:37 32:38 32:39 32:40 32:41 32:42–44 32:42–43 32:42 32:43–44 32:43 32:44 33:9 33:14–26 33:24 34 34:1–7 34:1 34:8 34:12 34:24 35:1 35:7 35:17 36 36:1–19 36:31 37–45 37 37:3–38:28 37:3–10 37:6 37:11–40:4 37:11–16 37:15 37:17–21 38 38:2 38:6

68 68 68 60 68 68, 69 68, 69 64 61 61, 62 61 61, 69 61 64, 69 64 62, 70 82 10, 61, 70 10, 58, 61, 64, 70, 82 62 179 62 185 76 63, 95 63, 95 95 118 63, 95 160 118 31, 149, 185 112 96, 118 93 93 63, 76 33 95 93 76 100 90 100 141 100, 101

38:7–28 38:7–13 39–42 39:1–10 39:4–10 39:5 39:6–7 39:8–9 39:8 39:9–10 39:10 39:11–15 39:11–14

39:11–12 39:11 39:12 39:13–14 39:13 39:14 39:15–18 39:15 39:17–18 40–41 40 40:1–12 40:1–6

40:1

40:2–5 40:2

40:3 40:4

93 90, 93 90 93 108 108 116 48 108 127 48 93 90, 91, 93, 94, 108, 109 108 108 97, 108 90 97, 98, 108 93, 94, 108, 109 91, 93 94 91 93 10, 11, 93, 94, 183 88, 91, 117 47, 93, 94, 96, 97, 100, 108, 109 63, 95, 100, 101, 108, 109, 124, 127, 128 96, 101 96, 101, 109, 119, 124 96, 109, 118 98, 109, 119–21

Index of References 40:5

40:6

40:7–43:7 40:7–41:18 40:7–16 40:7–12 40:7–10 40:7

40:8–10 40:8 40:9–12 40:9–11 40:9 40:10 40:11–12 40:11

40:12 40:13 40:15 41 41:1 41:3 41:10 42–43 42 42:1–6

48, 97, 109, 111, 113, 120, 121 81, 94, 109, 124, 126–28 33 90 95 98 95, 98, 127 10, 48, 58, 80, 95, 111, 113, 127 114 48, 81, 126 91 81 95, 98, 114, 116 10, 48, 95, 114, 115 95, 98, 126 95, 99, 111, 113, 127 10, 95, 114, 115 48 99 47 113, 116 123 113 93 50 96

42:2 42:13–16 43–44 43 43:2 43:5–7 43:10 44 44:1 44:23 45 45:1–5 45:1 45:5 46–51 46 46:1 46:13 47 48:18 49:34 50–51 50:7 50:34 51:59–64 51:62 52 52:3–30 52:11 52:15–16 52:16 52:31–34 52:34

94 96 51 47 96 51 187 172 50 96, 118 93 33 33 93 33, 34, 51 172 95 95 46 23 95 172 96 72 149 96 47 47 172 127 114 51, 172 172

Lamentations 5:12–18 48 Ezekiel 1:1 2:8–3:3 4:3 7:26

49 23 23 23

215 8:1 11:3 11:14–21 14:1 28:26 33:23–29 35:7

49 159 80 49 159 80 159

Daniel 1:1–4

178

Amos 5:11 7:17

81 23

Micah 2:2

81

Zechariah 8:20–23 14:16–21

178 178

Tobit 1:1–2

178

2 Maccabees 1:1–9 1:10–2:8

147 147

Revelation 21:11

43

PSEUDEPIGRAPHA 2 Baruch 76–78 147

INDEX OF AUTHORS Ackroyd, P. R. 48, 49, 123, 133, 134 Albertz, R. 4, 13, 33–36, 45, 48–51, 64, 80, 81, 114 Althaus-Reid, M. 44 Anderson, B. 169 Arnold, P. M. 125 Ashcroft, B. 39, 58, 88, 89, 156, 157, 171 Bammer, A. 130, 164, 165 Barry, P. 38, 40, 89 Barstad, H. M. 123, 127 Barthélemy, D. 76, 119, 120 Bauer, A. 28 Bauman, E. 195 Becking, B. 113 Begg, C. 25, 72, 125 Bercovitch, S. 188, 189 Berlin, A. 82, 160 Berquist, J. L. 48, 49 Berridge, J. M. 14, 19 Beverly, J. 44, 128 Bhabha, H. 43, 73, 84, 86, 131, 153–57, 160, 161, 166, 167, 182 Boer, R. 193 Boyarin, D. 170 Boyarin, J. 170 Brah, A. 131, 160 Braziel, J. E. 131 Brenner, A. 194 Brett, M. G. 178, 196 Bright, J. 20, 33, 62, 67, 68, 94, 139, 149, 152, 187 Brueggemann, W. 29, 60, 62, 70, 72, 90, 114, 116, 126, 149, 152, 173 Caputo, J. D. 195 Carr, D. M. 181, 186, 195 Carroll, R. P. 14, 17, 24, 26, 29, 31–33, 51, 57, 59, 63, 70, 71, 90, 94, 96, 114, 115, 118, 119, 127, 133, 134, 145, 146, 150, 172 Ceresko, A. R. 174 Chambers, I. 157, 158

Chanock, M. 80 Chatterjee, P. 56, 59, 76, 80, 167 Childs, B. S. 187 Chow, R. 157 Chrisman, L. 126 Christensen, D. L. 55 Clements, R. E. 57, 94, 98, 128, 149, 151, 152, 172 Cogan, M. 111, 115 Cohen, R. 131, 163, 164, 169 Courbage, Y. 163 Croatto, J. S. 174 Davidson, R. 91 Davidson, S. V. 180, 193 Davies, E. W. 72, 77, 134 Davies, P. R. 132, 133 Diamond, A. R. P. 14, 16, 27, 29 Dijkstra, M. 151 Dube, M. W. 43, 105, 166, 168 Duhm, D. B. 22 Eissfeldt, O. 94, 108 Exum, J. C. 27 Fanon, F. 41, 113, 124, 166, 169 Fargues, P. 163 Fraser, E. R. 73 Friebel, K. G. 59, 71, 73, 85 Gandhi, L. 190, 193 George, R. M. 165, 170 Gottwald, N. K. 176 Graham, J. N. 113, 114, 123 Grifths, G. 39, 58, 88, 89, 156, 157, 171 Grosby, S. 72 Guha, R. 88, 128 Gutiérrez, G. 175 Habel, N. C. 57, 90, 92 Hall, S. 154–57, 165, 168, 170 Hardmeier, C. 62, 63, 66, 68 Hardt, M. 2, 191, 196

Index of Authors Harvey, V. A. 17 Hayes, J. H. 113 Herrmann, S. 21 Hill, J. 159, 160, 187 Hodge, B. 39, 190, 193 Holladay, W. L. 14, 23, 24, 46, 63, 68, 78, 91, 121, 137, 139, 142, 143, 148, 149 hooks, b. 89, 101–104, 106, 120–22, 124, 125 Hordern, W. 17 Horn, S. H. 46 Howard-Pitney, D. 189 Hubbard, P. 5, 6, 89 Huggan, G. 41 Hyatt, J. P. 8, 19, 20, 46, 57, 94, 97, 141, 150 Janzen, J. G. 139 Jeppesen, K. 133 Jess, P. 6 Jobling, D. K. 17–19 Jones, D. R. 70, 91, 135, 150 Kellner, D. 1 Keown, G. L. 57, 60, 65, 91, 95, 115, 149, 172 Kitchin, R. 5, 6, 89 Klein, R. W. 134

217

Meyer, L. V. 128 Middlemas, J. 2, 133 Migsch, H. 64, 76 Miller, J. M. 113 Mishra, V. 39, 190, 193 Moore, S. D. 193 Moore-Gilbert, B. 40, 89, 193 Negri, A. 2, 191, 196 Neumann, P. 62 Nicholson, E. W. 8, 91, 134, 139 O’Connor, K. M. 14, 27, 29 Overholt, T. W. 144, 145 Parker, S. B. 148 Patte, D. 196 Pearce, L. E. 158, 159 Penner, T. 191, 194 Perdue, L. G. 17, 20, 22 Person, R. F. 179 Pilch, J. J. 71, 73 Pohlmann, K.-F. 33, 90, 94, 95, 108, 143, 144 Polk, T. 14, 26 Pratt, M. L. 106, 110 Prior, M. 43, 58, 60 Purvis, J. D. 48, 50

Laato, A. 118 Lalleman-de Winkel, H. 20, 21 Latham, A. 5 Lawson, A. 42 Leota, P. 77 Levenson, J. D. 175 Liew, T. B. 191, 196 Liverani, M. 55, 83 Loomba, A. 76, 80, 81, 87, 156, 165, 166

Quayson, A. 41

Macwilliam, S. 27 Maden, D. L. 89 Mamdani, M. 112, 113, 115 Mannur, A. 131 Massey, D. 1, 6, 7 McClintock, A. 41 McKane, W. 30, 32, 34, 57, 58, 135, 137, 139, 146, 148, 151 McKittrick, K. 103, 105 Mein, A. 165 Messick, B. 79

Said, E. 38, 41, 190 Sassen, S. 2, 197 Scalise, P. J. 57, 60, 65, 91, 95, 115, 149, 172 Schart, A. 147, 148 Schmid, K. 34 Schüssler Fiorenza, E. 192, 193 Scott, J. C. 152 Segovia, F. F. 4, 42, 43 Seitz, C. R. 141, 143, 144 Sharp, C. J. 47, 90, 173

Raboteau, A. J. 44 Radhakrishnan, R. 153 Räisänen, H. 191 Rodney, W. 41 Rose, G. 6 Rudolph, W. 71, 95, 109, 121, 138, 147, 149, 168

218

Index of Authors

Shead, A. G. 63, 76 Ska, J.-L. 180, 181 Skinner, J. 26 Slemon, S. 40 Smelik, K. A. D. 148, 149 Smith, D. L. 48, 146, 148, 161, 162 Smith-Christopher, D. L. 7, 50, 53, 132–34, 152, 158 Smothers, T. G. 57, 60, 65, 91, 95, 115, 149, 172 Soja, E. W. 5, 6 Spivak, G. C. 105 Stipp, H.-J. 33, 66, 94, 126 Stulman, L. 94, 121 Sugirtharajah, R. S. 7, 38, 41, 43, 44, 52, 188, 191, 192, 195, 197 Tadmor, H. 111, 115 Terblanche, M. 25 Thiel, W. 8, 63, 65, 94, 97, 110, 118, 135, 137, 139, 142, 143, 146, 150, 151 Thompson, J. A. 65 Thompson, T. J. 44, 84, 91, 94, 119, 121, 123, 127, 149 Tifn, C. 42 Tifn, H. 39, 58, 88, 89, 156, 157, 171

Tomlinson, J. 1, 2 Trible, P. 28 Tuan, Y.-F. 5 Valentine, G. 5, 6, 89 Van Seters, J. 174 Vander Stichele, C. 191, 194 Vanderhooft, D. S. 107, 111, 113–15, 123 Verseput, D. J. 147 Waard, J. de 121 Wanke, G. 63, 66, 94, 108 Warrior, R. A. 52 Watts, J. W. 42 Weems, R. J. 185, 188 Weippert, H. 23 West, C. 196 Williams, R. A. 61 Wilson, R. R. 21, 22 Wittenberg, G. H. 72, 82 Wright, C. J. H. 166 Yoder, J. H. 175–80 Young, R. J. C. 3, 40, 41, 60, 117, 119, 129, 160