Prophetic Conflict and Scribal Culture: Ancient Exegetical Imagination in the Book of Jeremiah - Hardcover

by Olga Fabrikant-Burke (Author)

Prophetic conflict, or true and false prophecy, is a classic centerpiece in biblical scholarship. The dominant historicist approach has long regarded biblical discourse about prophetic conflict as a reflex of socio-religious or ideological disputes in ancient Israel. Taking its cue from major developments in the study of the Hebrew Bible-inner-biblical interpretation, scribal culture-this book argues that prophetic conflict in the book of Jeremiah is a scribal literary invention.Jeremiah's prophetic opponents, whose speeches are suffused with inner-biblical allusions, are best understood as exegetical inventions that owe their very existence to ancient exegetical imagination. Meticulously designed, these characters fulfil a strategic exegetical function within the Jeremianic tradition. Prophetic conflict, reassessed through the lens of scribal culture, emerges as a literary vehicle for articulating a scribal grammar, a set of exegetical rules, for interpreting salvation and judgement in the Jeremianic tradition.The scribal invention of prophetic conflict opens a window onto ancient Israelite literary culture, scribal hermeneutics, harmonization, incipient notions of scriptural coherence, and the formation of the book of Jeremiah.

Author Biography

Olga Fabrikant-Burke, Ridley Hall, Cambridge, United Kingdom.