Does Jeremiah dispel diaspora demons? How Septuagint Jeremiah and 4Q71 (4QJerb) rewrote their text structures around an Aramaic war taunt which mocks Zion’s idolatry

Abstract

MT Jer. 10:1-18’s structure demonstrates a more original contextual treatment of 10:11’s Aramaic gibe (cf. 4Q70 [4QJera]) than that of LXX, or of 4Q71 (4QJerb). The Aramaic initially functioned as a foreign war taunt pronounced upon Zion’s idolatry within the intricate framework of 10:2-16’s victorious battle hymn. In contrast, LXX 10:1-18 and 4Q71 emphasize 10:11 in their structural placements of 10:9 within 10:5, along with necessary deletions (e.g. 10:6-8 and 10:10). Thereby, LXX 10:11 represents a demonic adjuration against idols (i.e. idolatry’s evil spirits). Modern scholarship has usually sought to explain 10:11 as a later scribal interpolation along with other pre-MT redactional expansions. However, we propose that LXX Jeremiah and 4Q71 represent rewritten scriptural compositions in contrast to the official proto-MT edition, especially in 10:1-18’s case. Thus, the original tone and sophisticated antithetical parallelism of Jer. 10:12-16’s ancient hymn is reflected in MT’s earlier text form.