500 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTSThe chapter also has the following section markings, some of which set off
divine oracles. Markings in MA for a portion of 32:3-25 are unavailable be-
cause the text is not extant.1) after v 5: MA, ML, and MP have a petubah
2) after v 6: MP only has a setumah
3) after v 14: ML has a setumah; MP a petubah; MA has no section
4) after v 15: ML and MP have a petubah; MA has no section
5) after v 25: MA and MP have a setumah; ML has no section; two MSS in
the Cambridge Genizah Collection (NS 58.32; AS 2.208) have a section
6) after v 27: MP only has a setumah
7) after v 35: MA and ML have a setumah; MP has no section
8) after v 41: MA and ML have a setumah; MP has a petubah
9) after v 42: MP only has a petubah.Variations between the MT and LXX, which include here a large number of
LXX omissions, are treated by commentators much the same as elsewhere.
Giesebrecht is more evenhanded, noting versional support for MT even when
an LXX reading is preferred. Duhm and Comill consistently prefer the shorter
LXX text, a Tendenz that becomes almost mechanical with Holladay (following
Janzen) and McKane. In my judgment, the MT is much the better text, there
being 18 arguable cases of LXX loss by haplography in the chapter. A recent
work by Shead ( 1999) concludes also that the present chapter contains more
LXX loss by haplography than is generally recognized. For this reason, and also
for others, I vvould judge the LXX a very poor text from which to try and recon-
struct original readings.
Critical scholars (except Carroll and McKane) accept this report of Jere-
miah's buying the field at Anathoth (vv 6-15) as historical. However, some or
all of the remaining material in the chapter is considered secondary by a ma-
jority of scholars. Views vary considerably, and nothing approaching a consen-
sus exists on questions relating to the material's authenticity or provenance.
Stade (1883: 15; 1885: 175) questioned the authenticity of vv 17-23 just in pass-
ing, a judgment cited with approval by Giesebrecht. Jeremiah's prayer was thus
reduced to vv 16, 24-25. Duhm believed that vv 1-15 were definitely from
Baruch's book but had been moved from chaps. 37-38 to their present posi-
tion, where they underwent expansion by a later editor. In his view, all of vv 16-
44 derived from a later editor. Comill agreed, placing vv 16-44 with material
in chap. 33 that was judged to be later. The issues here were the same as else-
where: stereotyped prose and salvation oracles judged to be postexilic, and
here in the present case a Jeremiah prayer that looked suspiciously like the
prayer of Ezra in Neh 9:6-37, where Israel's redemption history is prefaced by
Creation history. It was also argued that such a liturgical-sounding prayer was
inappropriate in the context. Weiser, however, found it difficult to believe that
Jeremiah, the son of a priest, would not know the liturgical tradition, and so he
concluded that the secondary nature of vv 17-23 had not been proved to his