The Double Text of Jeremiah Revisited

Abstract

From the time of the Church Fathers, it has been recognized that the Greek translation (LXX) of the book of Jeremiah is shorter than the received Hebrew text (MT). Modern assessments of this textual situation have viewed the LXX as between one-eighth and one-sixth shorter than the corresponding Masoretic text of the book of Jeremiah. Since manuscripts have been found at Qumran that seem to confirm the antiquity of the shorter LXX recension, many explanations for this editorial discrepancy have focused on the phenomenon of editorial expansion within the Masoretic tradition. This chapter presents a range of counter-evidence demonstrating that the LXX has been subjected to a sustained process of editorial concision.