Jeremiah

-Rev Melissa Fain-

Last week I spent the time talking about Isaiah, and this week I want to touch on a different prophet: Jeremiah. 

• Born in Anathoth: Located within the tribe of Benjamin, this town is less than three miles from Jerusalem. It exists today under a new name, Anata. The ruins can be found about 1/2 a mile from the modern city. When reading the book of Jeremiah, this is important information because it puts Jeremiah close to the temple before the exile. It's a bigger deal for him than someone who maybe had to take a few days to journey to Jerusalem.
• A Priest Outside the Priesthood: This one lives within scholarly speculation. (Which, speculation has to exist all over the bible. The moment we start reading the bible we are adding our own speculation.) Because of where Jeremiah is from, it is believed he is part of a priestly line that has been "declassed." That means, his line was no longer considered legitimate by the monarchy. 
• An Auditory Call: Jeremiah wasn't called in a vision or a dream. His call was heard. That's not as important as how his call is similar to someone else's call: Moses. Jeremiah was called to be a prophet in exile, and Moses was called to be a prophet in the wilderness. There are some similarities between those two places. Namely, neither are home. Secondly, there is a need for comfort in both of these locations.

There is something else interesting about the text; something worthy of being mentioned here:

There are basically two versions of the Book of Jeremiah. You might initially be thinking I'm talking about the biblical text and an extra-biblical text. No. I'm talking about two texts that predate our English translation of the bible. 

The "original" Hebrew bible can be found in two languages: Hebrew and Greek. Here's what's interesting about these two translations. 

• The older translation is actually the Greek: The Dead Sea scrolls, which predates both the Greek and Hebrew translations showed us that the Greek was probably translated from an even older Hebrew text, than the Hebrew translation we have. (You might want to read that a couple of times. It's a mouthful.) It's true that a good amount of a Christian Bible is pulled from this Greek translation. There was a time the Hebrew people also pulled more from this Greek text. Then us silly Christians started using it, and they jumped ship to the Hebrew translation.
• There are places these texts diverge greatly: This isn't like our million English translations where we are arguing over whether a Greek word means "selfish" or"self-centered." This is where entire chapters are different, omitted or added. Possibly the place where this is seen the most clearly is the book of Jeremiah. 

Finally, the above picture. This is an image of Jeremiah, as painted by Michelangelo from the Sistine Chapel ceiling. 

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