The Book of Baruch

The Book of Baruch (Ancient Greek: Βαροὺχ, Biblical Hebrew: בָּרוּךְ‎ 'blessed') is a deuterocanonical book of the Bible, used in many Christian traditions, such as Catholic and Orthodox churches. In Judaism and Protestant Christianity, it is considered not to be part of the canon, with the Protestant Bibles categorizing it as part of the Biblical apocrypha.[1] The book is named after Baruch ben Neriah, the prophet Jeremiah's scribe who is mentioned at Baruch 1:1, and has been presumed to be the author of the whole work.[2] The book is a reflection of a late Jewish writer on the circumstances of Jewish exiles from Babylon, with meditations on the theology and history of Israel, discussions of wisdom, and a direct address to residents of Jerusalem and the Diaspora. Some scholars propose that it was written during or shortly after the period of the Maccabees.[3]

The Book of Baruch is sometimes referred to as 1 Baruch[4] to distinguish it from 2 Baruch, 3 Baruch and 4 Baruch.

Although the earliest known manuscripts of Baruch are in Greek, linguistic features of the first parts of Baruch (1:1–3:8) have been proposed as indicating a translation from a Semitic language.[5]

Although not in the Hebrew Bible, it is found in the Septuagint, and also in Theodotion's Greek version.[6] It is considered to be a canonical book of the Old Testament by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. In 80-book Protestant Bibles, the Book of Baruch is a part of the Biblical apocrypha.[1] Jerome, despite his misgivings about the deuterocanonical books, included Baruch into his Vulgate translation. In the Vulgate it is grouped with the books of the prophets alongside Jeremiah and Lamentations. In the Vulgate, the King James Bible Apocrypha, and many other versions, the Letter of Jeremiah is appended to the Book of Baruch as a sixth chapter; in the Septuagint and Orthodox Bibles chapter 6 is usually counted as a separate book, called the Letter or Epistle of Jeremiah.

Authorship and date

Baruch 1:1–14 gives a narrative account of an occasion when Baruch ben Neriah reads the book of "these words" before the Israelites in Babylon, and then sends that book (together with collected funds) to be read in Jerusalem. Where the Book of Baruch is considered to be a distinct work of scripture, it is commonly identified as the book that Baruch reads; and hence Baruch himself has traditionally been credited as the author of the whole work. However, the syntactical form of Baruch 1 has been held rather to imply that "these words" correspond to a preceding text—which might then be identified with Lamentations or with the Book of Jeremiah; in which case, comparison may be made with a corresponding episode in Jeremiah 36, wherein Baruch records and reads from the prophecies of Jeremiah, at the latter's instruction.[7] These considerations underlie an alternative tradition (found, for instance, in Augustine) in which all four works (Book of Jeremiah, Baruch, Lamentations, Letter of Jeremiah) are credited to Jeremiah himself as author.

Critical scholarship is, however, united in rejecting either Baruch or Jeremiah as author of the Book of Baruch, or in dating the work in the period of its purported context (the Babylonian Exile). Rather, they have seen clear thematic and linguistic parallels with later works: namely, with the Book of Daniel and the Book of Sirach. Many scholars have noted that the restoration of worship in the Jerusalem Temple following its pollution by Antiochus Epiphanes could provide a counterpart historical context in which the narrative of Baruch may equally be considered to apply; and, consequently, a date in the period 200–100 BC has been proposed.[8]

Basic structure

The basic outline of the book of Baruch:

• 1:1–14 Introduction: "And these are the words...which Baruch...wrote in Babylonia.... And when they heard it they wept, and fasted, and prayed before the Lord."
• 1:15–2:10 Confession of sins: "[T]he Lord hath watched over us for evil, and hath brought it upon us: for the Lord is just in all his works.... And we have not hearkened to his voice"....
• 2:11–3:8 Prayer for mercy: "[F]or the dead that are in hell, whose spirit is taken away from their bowels, shall not give glory and justice to the Lord..." (cf. Psalms 6:6/5)
• 3:9–4:14 A paean for Wisdom: "Where are the princes of the nations,... that hoard up silver and gold, wherein men trust? ... They are cut off, and are gone down to hell,..."
• 4:5–5:9 Baruch's Poem of Consolation:[9] messages for those in captivity, for the "neighbours of Zion", and for Jerusalem: "You have been sold to the Gentiles, not for your destruction: but because you provoked God to wrath.... [F]or the sins of my children, he [the Eternal] hath brought a nation upon them from afar...who have neither reverenced the ancient, nor pitied children..." "Let no one gloat over me [Jerusalem], a widow, bereft of many, for the sins of my children I am left desolate, for they turned from the law of God". "Look toward the east, O Jerusalem, and see the joy that is coming to you from God".[10]
• Chapter 6: see Letter of Jeremiah

Early evidence of use

No reference to the Book of Baruch is found in Rabbinic literature, nor is its text cited.[5][11] A fragment of the Letter of Jeremiah in Greek has been excavated amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls, but no counterpart fragments survive of the Book of Baruch.[12] It is generally argued that there are no references to, quotations from, or allusions to the Book of Baruch in the New Testament,[5][13] although Adams proposes a general similarity between themes in the later parts of the book and some in the Pauline Epistles, particularly Galatians and 1 Corinthians.[14] The earliest evidence for the text of the Book of Baruch is in quotations in the works of early Christian Church Fathers; the earliest citation being in the Legatio pro Christianis: 9 of Athenagoras of Athens, dated 177.[5] Much the most extensive use of the Book of Baruch in patristic literature is in the Adversus Haereses: 5.35.1 (c. 180) of Irenaeus of Lyons, which draws extensively on Baruch 4:36 to 5:9.[14] Both Athenagorus and Irenaeus cite these readings as being from the Book of Jeremiah. A brief quotation appears also in the Paedagogus by Clement of Alexandria.[15] Increasingly from the 4th century onwards, however, Greek Fathers tend to cite such readings as from a 'Book of Baruch', although Latin Fathers consistently maintain the former practice of citing these texts as from Jeremiah, and where they do refer to a 'Book of Baruch' are to be understood as denoting the apocalyptic work, 2 Baruch.[16]

Manuscripts

Both the Book of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah are separate books in the great pandect Greek Bibles, Codex Vaticanus (4th century) and Codex Alexandrinus (5th century), where they are found in the order Jeremiah, Baruch, Lamentations, Letter of Jeremiah.[17] In the Codex Sinaiticus (4th century) Lamentations follows directly after Jeremiah and Baruch is not found; but a lacuna after Lamentations prevents a definitive assessment of whether Baruch may have been included elsewhere in this manuscript. Neither of the two surviving early Latin pandect Bibles (Codex Amiatinus (7th century) and Leon palimpsest (7th century) includes either the Book of Baruch or the Letter of Jeremiah;[16] the earliest Latin witnesses to the text being the Codex Cavensis (9th century) and the Theodulfian Bibles (9th century). Baruch is also witnessed in some early Coptic (Bohairic and Sahidic) and Syriac manuscripts, but is not found in Coptic or Syriac lectionaries.[18]

Canonicity

In the Greek East, Cyril of Jerusalem (c. AD 350),[28] Athanasius (367),[29] and Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 385)[30] listed the Book of Baruch as canonical. Athanasius credits "Jeremiah with Baruch, Lamentations, and the Epistle" with canonicity; the other Fathers offer similar formulations.

Baruch is mentioned by the Synod of Laodicea (c. AD 364); appended to Canon 59 is a list of canonical books, in which Jeremiah, and Baruch, the Lamentations, and the Epistle are stated as canonical.[31] This list is found in compendiums of the decrees of Laodicea circulating in the Ethiopic church, and in all later Greek compendiums; but is absent from counterpart compendiums of Laodicea circulating in the Latin, Coptic and Syriac churches, as too from some earlier Greek compendiums. In the decrees of the Council of Florence (1442)[32] and the Council of Trent (1546),[33] "Jeremias with Baruch" is stated as canonical.

The Council of Rome (AD 382),[34] the Synod of Hippo (393),[35] and Pope Innocent I (405),[36] followed by the Council of Carthage (397) and the Council of Carthage (419),[37] all mention Jeremiah as a canonical book without mentioning Baruch; however, it is commonly accepted that the absence of specific mention of Baruch, in canon-lists then circulating in the West, cannot be interpreted as intended to assert that the Book of Baruch was non-canonical—only that it was being subsumed within Jeremiah. Most of the Church Fathers considered Jeremiah, along with Baruch, Lamentations, and the Epistle, to be a single book.

Augustine of Hippo (c. AD 397), in his The City of God 18:33, discusses the text of Baruch 3: 36–38, noting that this is variously cited to Baruch and to Jeremiah; his preference was for the latter attribution.[38] Jerome did not consider the Book of Baruch to be a canonical book, but he included it in his Vulgate.[5]

There was also an extensive body of pseudepigraphal Baruch apocalyptic literature (2 Baruch, 3 Baruch, 4 Baruch), which are frequently classed in Latin lists as apocryphal.

Book of Baruch and Book of Jeremiah

The evident variation among early Christian divines as to whether a particular reading is to be cited from "Baruch" or "Jeremiah" is generally regarded as relating to the very different texts of the Book of Jeremiah that are found respectively in manuscripts of the Greek and Hebrew Bibles.[5] The version of Jeremiah in the Greek Septuagint texts (Vaticanus, Alexandrinus) is a seventh shorter than that in the Hebrew Masoretic Text or the Latin Vulgate; and the ordering of the chapters is very different, with sections from the middle of the book in the Septuagint version (the Oracles against the Nations) found at the end of the book in the Masoretic text and Vulgate. As Hebrew fragments have been found in the Dead Sea Scrolls corresponding to both the Septuagint and Masoretic orders, it is commonly accepted that the two versions derive from two distinct Hebrew traditions, and that the Septuagint form of the text is likely the older.[5]

Benedictine scholar Pierre-Maurice Bogaert suggests that, if the Book of Baruch is appended to the Septuagint version of Jeremiah, it follows on as a plausible continuation of the Septuagint narrative (Chapter 51: 31–35 in the Septuagint, corresponding to the truncated Chapter 45 in the Masoretic text).[16] A similar conclusion is proposed by Emanuel Tov, who notes characteristics of a consistent redactional revision of the Septuagint text of Jeremiah from Chapter 29 onwards (correcting readings towards the Hebrew), a revision that is then carried over into the Greek text of Baruch 1:1 to 3:8, suggesting that these once formed a continuous text.[39] Bogaert consequently proposes that the gathering of sections from the end of Septuagint Jeremiah into a distinct "Book of Baruch" was an innovation of Christian biblical practice in the Greek church from around the 3rd century onwards; but that the version of Jeremiah in the Old Latin Bible preceded this practice, and hence did not designate the Book of Baruch as a distinct work of scripture, but included its text within the Book of Jeremiah.[16] The text of Old Latin Jeremiah nowhere survives in sufficient form for this speculation to be confirmed, but Bogaert proposes that its characteristics may be recognized in the texts of Baruch in the early Theodulfian Vulgate Bibles—noting that Baruch in these manuscripts is continuous with Jeremiah, and that the end at Chapter 5:9 is marked by an explicit, in Old Latin form, stating "Explicit Hieremiae Prophetae" ("Here ends [the book] of Jeremiah the Prophet").[16]

References

1. Apocrypha-KJV-Reader's. Hendrickson Publishers. 2009. ISBN 978-1-59856-464-8.
2. Cp. Jeremiah 36:9–10 and Baruch 1:1–5.
3. Reginald C. Fuller, ed. (1975) [1953]. A New Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture. Thomas Nelson., §504h. Also, "late Babylonian"; "alluded to, seemingly, in 2 Mac 2:1–3" in The Jerusalem Bible, 1966, p. 1128.
4. Bible Society, Baruch, Bible Book Club, accessed 22 July 2019
5. John Barton; John Muddiman (25 January 2007). The Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford University Press. p. 699. ISBN 978-0-19-927718-6.
6. "Baruch" by P. P. Saydon, revised by T. Hanlon, in A New Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, ed. Reginald C. Fuller, Thomas Nelson, Inc. Publishers, 1953, 1975, §504j. The same source states that "[t]here is also evidence that Baruch was read in Jewish synagogues on certain festivals during the early centuries of the Christian era (Thackeray, 107-11)", i.e. Henry St. John Thackeray, The Septuagint and Jewish Worship, 1923.
7. Bogaert, Pierre-Maurice (2005). "Le livre de Baruch dans les manuscrits de la Bible latine. Disparition et réintégration". Revue Bénédictine. 115 (2): 286–342. doi:10.1484/J.RB.5.100598.
8. John Barton; John Muddiman (25 January 2007). The Oxford Bible Commentary. Oxford University Press. p. 699. ISBN 978-0-19-927718-6.
9. New American Bible (Revised Edition), sub-heading at Baruch 4:5
10. Quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version
11. Adams, Sean A. (2014). Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah. Brill. p. 18.
12. Adams, Sean A. (2014). Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah. Brill. p. 19.
13. Adams, Sean A. (2014). Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah. Brill. p. 16.
14. Adams, Sean A. (2014). Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah. Brill. p. 17.
15. Paedagogus, Book II, Ch. 3
16. Bogaert, Pierre-Maurice (2005). "Le livre de Baruch dans les manuscrits de la Bible latine. Disparition et réintégration". Revue Bénédictine. 115 (2): 286–342. doi:10.1484/J.RB.5.100598.
17. Adams, Sean A. (2014). Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah. Brill. p. 1.
18. Adams, Sean A. (2014). Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah. Brill. p. 3.
19. Adams, Sean.A. (2014). Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah. Brill. p. 12.
20. Adams, Sean.A. (2014). Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah. Brill. p. 2.
21. Job 31:31
22. Job 11:11 or Psalms 26:4
23. Genesis 34:30 or Deuteronomy 4:27
24. Adams, Sean A. (2014). Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah. Brill. p. 2.
25. Tov, Emmanuel (1975). The Book of Baruch also Called I Baruch (Greek and Hebrew). Scholars Press.
26. Adams, Sean A. (2014). Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah. Brill. p. 4.
27. Adams, Sean A. (2014). Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah. Brill. p. 8.
28. Cyril of Jerusalem. Catechetical Lecture 4 Chapter 35. newadvent. Retrieved 12 October 2016.
29. of Alexandria, Athanasius. CHURCH FATHERS: Letter 39 (Athanasius). newadvent. Retrieved 14 October 2016.
30. Williams, translated by Frank (1987). The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis 8:6:1-3 (2. impression. ed.). Leiden: E.J. Brill. ISBN 9004079262. Archived from the original on 6 September 2015. Retrieved 11 October 2016.
31. Synod of Laodicea Canon 60. newadvent. Retrieved 12 October 2016.
32. Eccumenical Council of Florence and Council of Basel Session 11—4 February 1442. ewtn. Retrieved 20 October 2016.
33. Session IV Celebrated on the eighth day of April, 1546 under Pope Paul III
34. Decretum Gelasianum
35. "Canon XXIV. (Greek xxvii.)", The Canons of the 217 Blessed Fathers who assembled at Carthage, Christian Classics Ethereal Library
36. Westcott, Brooke Foss (2005). A general survey of the history of the canon of the New Testament Page 570 (6th ed.). Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock. ISBN 1597522392.
37. Council of Carthage (A.D. 419) Canon 24
38. of Hippo, Augustine. On Christian Doctrine Book II Chapter 8:2. newadvent. Retrieved 12 October 2016.
39. Tov, Emmanuel (1976). The Septuagint Translation of Jeremiah and Baruch: A Discussion of an Early Revision of Jeremiah 29–52 and Baruch 1:1–3:8. Scholars Press.

-Wiki-

(((The counter perspective in response to the text above must rest in the fact that many Books that was rejected in the ambitious attempt to unify the Christian Catholic Church at the Council of Nicaea 325 AD had a strong bias to create an institution for control and power. Teachings and interpretations that would threaten or undermine such a manmade controlling and regulating intermediate institution, were automatically rejected on those grounds. Officially the reasons for rejection were in many cases vaguely argumented with the same arguments that could question the validity of any book deemed as canon - The Council of Nicaea 325 AD was a perfect opportunity for any Emperor to create the very tool for population control that would preserve and expand it´s own power structure - But on the other hand, there was the risk that many of the Gnostic writings, which were written after the death of Jesus and the people who were contemporaries of Jesus, were posthumous constructions and did not bear the authentic fingerprints of these people..)))

.....

1. The Book of Baruch. Read by Christopher Glyn. Audio &Text - 2022.

https://youtu.be/V_nVrkaWCJU?si=LInLRCp4hCWw8_UC

2. 2nd Baruch, Jeremiah´s forgotten scribe. Read by Christopher Glyn. Audio % Text - 2022.

https://youtu.be/Hz7tqlRmW5Y?si=8dO77ZEKiMgy8Z2W

3. Book of Baruch explained. The Whole Storyline. Audio - 2026.

https://youtu.be/ucjd4zhRNRA?si=tmjHY3X05dTDSw92

4. The Apocalypse of Baruch. Audio Bible Recordings. Audio - 2020.

https://youtu.be/49_9LYpMhmM?si=HOA11xqLth1OrZDo

.....