Learn where there is Insight: A Hermeneutical and Theological Reading of Baruch 3:9–4:4

Abstract

This dissertation tests the hypothesis that the Septuagint book of Baruch is a rich repository of wisdom. Funded by the wisdom of preceding Jewish Scripture, the new whole created from its distinct parts warrants fresh examination with full imaginative and theological seriousness. Critical yet open exploration of readings both modern and premodern reveals that for a variety of reasons the search for wisdom in 3:9–4:4 is either virtually reduced to 3:38 by early Christian readers as a prophecy of the Incarnation, or more recently truncated to 3:9–4:4 without 3:38, a later Christian interpolation. I do not directly argue for “original” integrity of this controversial verse. However, I seek to show how the so-called “identification” of wisdom with Torah for which this passage has become well-known is rendered more contextually intelligible with it rather than without it. Since Baruch was preserved as enduring wisdom by Christian communities rather than the Jewish one/s which created it, my study also seeks to articulate a contemporary Christian reading called for in recent scholarship. Working in some continuity with the framework of early receptions but also moving beyond them with the help of recent analysis, I argue that the chief concerns internal to the text can in fact be reinvigorated by this fresh interpretation which draws out a theology of revelation in miniature. Baruch as a whole aims at the overcoming of the ongoing exile experienced by its addressees, and even when read with hermeneutical seriousness through changing contexts, a cooperative return to the Book enshrining the Creator’s Instruction plays a vital role in a finite transcendence of exile and a form of resurrection from death to life.