Baruch

Summary:

A two- to four-part book alleging to be the work of Jeremiah's scribe Baruch, writing from Babylon to the Judeans living in Jerusalem during the Exile. A prose "historical" introduction provides the fictional setting. A prose prayer confesses the sins of the Babylonian captives. A poetic eulogy of wisdom equates it with the Torah. A concluding psalm offers encouragement to the captives of their eventual return to Zion. The book is dominated by the themes of sin, exile, and return.

Alternate Title: 1 Baruch

Canonical Status:

• Among the Deuterocanonical books of Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Russian Orthodox Churches

• Among the Old Testament Apocrypha of Protestants

• Not included in the Hebrew Scriptures - Tanak

• Included in the Septuagint and Vulgate (but not in their oldest manuscripts)

• Includes a sixth chapter in the Vulgate and King James Version, which is the Epistle of Jeremiah in the Septuagint

Author:anonymous Jewish author, probably of the diaspora

Date:

• A composite work originating between the 6^th century BC and 1^st century AD

• Probably 2^nd and mid-1^st century BC
  

Original Language:

• Although no Hebrew text survives, the Greek versions presume a semitic (Hebrew or Aramaic) Vorlage.

• Other early versions (Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic) are translations of the Greek.

Notes prepared by George Lyons
(Professor of Biblical Literature)

for the
Wesley Center for Applied Theology
at Northwest Nazarene University

© Copyright 2000 by the Wesley Center for Applied Theology

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