Investigation: Two Ancient Jeremiahs

Open an English Bible and an edition of the Greek Septuagint side by side at Jeremiah 25 and they part company. The Hebrew continues with the cup of wrath for the nations (25:15–38) and the stories of chapters 26–45; the Greek turns straight to oracles against Elam, Egypt, Babylon and the rest, which the Hebrew keeps until chapters 46–51. Throughout the book the Greek also lacks words, verses and whole passages that the Hebrew has: 10:6–8 and 10, 33:14–26, most of 39:4–13, and much more.

In 1952–56, fragments of six Jeremiah scrolls were found in Qumran Caves 2 and 4. Several agree with the Masoretic Text. But 4QJer-b (and, by many accounts, the small fragment 4QJer-d) were reconstructed by their editors with the shorter form and order the Greek translated. Hebrew scribes, before the Christian era, copied both.

Explanation 1: an earlier short edition, later expanded

The most widely held view (J. G. Janzen, 1973; E. Tov and many others) is that the Old Greek translates an earlier Hebrew edition, and that the Masoretic edition is a later, expanded and rearranged revision. The pluses of the Masoretic Text are often of recognizable kinds: fuller names and titles ("Jeremiah the prophet," "Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon"), repeated passages (6:13–15 = 8:10–12), harmonizations with other books (39 with 52 and 2 Kings), and new promises (33:14–26). The relocation of the oracles against the nations to the end of the book also looks like an editorial decision. Supporters point to 4QJer-b as Hebrew evidence for the shorter edition.

Explanation 2: the shorter text lost material

Some scholars (for example J. R. Lundbom) argue that many Greek minuses arose by accident, especially by haplography (a copyist's eye skipping between similar words), in the Greek translator's Hebrew source or in translation, and that the Masoretic Text often preserves the older wording. On this view the shorter text is shorter for many different reasons, not because it represents one earlier edition.

Explanation 3: parallel growth

Others propose that both editions developed from a common earlier form along separate lines, each with its own additions and arrangement, so that neither is simply the ancestor of the other. Discussions of individual passages often combine these models: one plus may be a late addition, another minus an accident.

What the evidence can and cannot show

The evidence establishes that two forms of Jeremiah were copied in Hebrew before the Christian era; that the Greek is a translation of a shorter Hebrew form, not a free abbreviation of the Masoretic Text; and that the order of the book differed. It cannot establish, from the fragments alone, the full contents of any scroll: 4QJer-b's shorter chapter 10 is a reconstruction from fragments and line lengths, and 4QJer-d is very small. Nor can it settle which edition is "original": the book itself describes a scroll burned and rewritten with "many like words" added (36:32), an image many scholars apply to the book's growth (see "Baruch, Scrolls, and the Scribal World," release 4).

Why it matters

Jewish tradition preserved the longer Masoretic edition; the Greek-speaking churches read the shorter Greek, with Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah attached; Jerome translated from Hebrew. Hebrews 8:8–12 quotes the new covenant passage from the Greek (Greek chapter 38). Readers today meet the Masoretic edition in most Bibles, sometimes with footnotes from the Greek. Knowing that Jeremiah existed in two editions helps readers understand why ancient quotations and modern footnotes differ, without treating either edition as a mistake.