Following important discoveries made in Qumran (and in the Judaean
desert) of numerous biblical manuscripts and their progressive
publication, many scholars have resumed afresh the study of the LXX and
endeavored to reaffirm its importance for the exegesis and its place for
the understanding of the most ancient history of the biblical text.
Bambi Kilumgas study of Jeremiah’s confessions (it is usually admitted
that they are 5 in number: Jr. 11:18-12:6; 15:10-21; 17:12-18; 18:18-23;
and 20:7-18) is set within the framework of this scientific enterprise
which attempts to determine the relationship between the LXX and the MT
of the book of Jeremiah. The retrospection of the research history and
the subsequent discussion about the dating of the long form of the book
of Jeremiah (chap. 1) aims at clarifying the different major trends in
the works that are concerned with the study of the book of Jeremiah. The
central part of the book (chap. 2) deals with a detailed comparative and
critical study of the Hebrew textual form in the MT and the textual form
of the LXX in order to verify whether the text of Jeremiah’s confessions
is close or distant in the two textual forms. Also, by means of a deep
analysis of some textual choices operated by each one of the two textual
forms, we wish to bring to light (chap. 3) the particular manner in
which each one of the two forms presents or characterizes Jeremiah. In
the last chapter (chap. 4), we enquire whether the study of the
confessions can clarify the chronological relationship between the two
textual forms and can help to establish a relationship of priority of
one textual form to another, and can eventually suggest a dating for
these forms.
It turns out of this meticulous and critical synoptic study done on the
confessions that the two textual forms generally represent a common
text. The book of Jeremiah seems to have kept in the MT as well as in
the LXX traces and important passages of a book that was initially
conceived to be one and the same single book. Nevertheless, some
differences (be they of textual or of literary type), noted between the
two textual forms (MT and LXX) in the confessions, have enabled us to
enlighten the process through which the Hebrew LXX model evolved towards
the Hebrew Masoretic text.
As for knowing when and by whom these redactional changes were made, the
observations presented in this study speak in favour of the period that
immediately followed the end of the Babylonian exile, that is, the end
of 6th century and the beginning of 5th century B.C., as being the most
propitious time for a literary activity of such a scale.
