CHAPTER 1
Here it is: the seventh and last Bible book in the Catholic
Bible but not in the Protestant or Jewish Bible. We only have record of it in ancient Greek, not Hebrew or
Aramaic, and that’s why it’s not in the other Bibles.
Fun fact: Baruch is one of the only (maybe the only)
Biblical characters we have an actual autograph for. When digging through ancient ruins, someone unearthed a cuneiform
scroll (which people used to affix their names to documents) to Baruch. I forget what exactly what it was – “Baruch,
son of Neriah, son of Mahsieh” or something like that which indicates that this
Baruch is the Bible’s Baruch.
It’s neat because not only does he have his own Bible book,
but he’s arguably the guy who wrote much of the Bible. Biblical scholar Richard Elliot Friedman
advanced the argument that Jeremiah wrote Deuteronomy and the entire cycle of
history books from the Deuteronomic point of view (Joshua, Judges, the Samuels
and the Kings). Since Jeremiah appears
to have used Baruch as a scribe (in the Book of Jeremiah) that means Baruch was
the guy who wrote it down for him.
Maybe. Jeremiah as
the author is just a theory.
I thought I’d note that here, but it has nothing to do with
this book. In fact, Baruch has nothing
to do with the Book of Baruch. This is
a strange and utterly inessential Bible book.
Though only six chapters long, it’s a compilation of four different
things, none of which seem to have anything to do with each other. Most mention Baruch or are supposedly by
Baruch, but that could easily be utter fiction.
The first document is a letter from Baruch in Babylon to
Jerusalem. The only thing interesting
is that Baruch is supposedly in Babylon, when we know that Jeremiah fled to
Egypt.
This is just the same theology we’ve already read in
Jeremiah and Lamentations and much of Psalms.
Except it was better put in all of those places. Short version: God punished the Jews because
they deserved to be punished.
CHAPTER 2
Remember that letter I was just talking about? It keeps going. Oh, and just like we were told in Lamentations, this part insists
that the baby-eating by new moms foretold in Deuteronomy actually
happened. This particular reference to
cannibalism doesn’t hold much weight, as it may have been written so very long
after the fact. Perhaps the book was
originally written in ancient Hebrew, but I don’t see much evidence for it. The
grab bag nature of the Book of Baruch makes me think that this is just a
collection of stuff not good enough to make it into other Bible books.
CHAPTER 3
Among other annoying parts of this book, the chapter breaks
really suck. The letter we began Baruch
with ends at verse 8 here. What – it
would’ve killed you to let Chapter 2 go eight verses longer and then give us a
nice, clean, sensible chapter break?
With the end of the letter, we get our second random
source. It’s a poem praising
wisdom. Well, that’s nice, but we’ve
already had tons of commentary about how wonderful wisdom is earlier in the
Bible. This adds nothing to it.
One random thing: the underworld is referred to as Hades,
not Sheol. Remember folks – our only
sources for this book are in ancient Greek, not Hebrew.
CHAPTER 4
Naturally, the poem about wisdom doesn’t end with the
conclusion of Chapter 3. It has to end
weirdly in the middle of Chapter 4.
Look, there are plenty of times in the Bible that chapter breaks are
weird, bizarre, and clearly sub-optimally placed. But I don’t complain about them too much usually because there is
usually something of note in the material.
Not in Baruch. The material is
utterly flaccid.
Oh, our third document begins, and it’s a weird poem. It’s called Baruch’s Poem of
Consolation.” Baruch addresses the
scattered Jews. Then Jerusalem
addresses – yes, the city itself speaks – to its neighbors. Then our gabby Jerusalem talks to the
scattered Jews. Then Baruch addresses
the city.
Uh, OK. Sure, why
not?
CHAPTER 5
This is the rest of the poem. It’s just nine verses long.
Apparently, you couldn’t add the last nine verses to the previous
chapter, for no apparent reason.
CHAPTER 6
And now, in a massive change of pace to everything that’s
previously happened in Baruch – we get a well-timed chapter break! The fourth document begins with the start of
a new chapter. Why couldn’t they do
that with the other documents? I have
no idea, but they didn’t. Also, it’s 72
verses, so the longest document of all, yet it’s the one that is contained in
just one chapter. Again – why bother
having that nine-verse Chapter 9?
As for the material, it’s a letter from Jeremiah. Well, it’s supposed to be Jeremiah, but it
seems like a clear forgery. Put the
words in the name of the now-respected prophet in order to give them more
weights – that’s an old trick of forgers.
This seems to be a forgery not only because Jeremiah never
once insults the Hebrew. (He’s
Jeremiah! Insulting the Hebrew is what
he does!) No, it’s more than that. Jeremiah spends virtually the entire letter
insulting the Babylonians. Problem:
he’s not in Babylon. This is written by
someone with enough experience to really get sick of them due to long-term
proximity. So, not Jeremiah.
It’s almost all an attack on idolatry. Again, this is another Baruch chapter with a
theme we’ve seen tons of before.
It has one nice line.
“Jeremiah” insults the priests of Babylon, saying: “Their tongues are
smoothed by woodworkers, they are covered with gold and silver.” The notion of a silver-tongued orator I’ve
heard before, but not “smoothed by woodworkers.” I like that.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Blah. This might be
the least essential book in the Bible so far.
At least Chronicles tries to tell a history (though one already told in
the Bible).
This is a grab bag of themes we’ve already seen tons of
before, and all better done that as expressed in Baruch. I don’t believe any of them come from Baruch
of Jeremiah. It’s just an utterly
useful Bible book. It’s in the Catholic
Bible only, a point that is a clear advantage of Protestants and Jews.
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