Polyphony and Ensemble in Prophetic Literature: Rereading Jeremiah 7-20

Historical criticism generally has viewed Jeremiah and other prophetic books as anthologies of nonrelated oracles and prose materials. Recent literary-critical analysis sees the same materials as fictive literary products, thus ignoring the composite nature of prophetic literature in favor of a strategy of reading which threatens to force homogeneity on that literature. In contrast, Biddle proposes a method of reading that listens to the voices and characterizations as defined and presented in the text as we have it. The complex history of Jeremiah, for example, should not be reduced to an anthology of unrelated oracles or to a single text produced by a fictive author. In comparison to newer literary theory, Biddle explains, the method proposed here resembles the task of the sophisticated concertgoer who hears not only the sound of the orchestra, but the voices of the different instruments and the various melodies, counter-melodies, and harmonies contributing to the whole. (This method) reflects an interest in developing something of a new harmonic theory of prophetic literature. Some such theory and method is necessary because prophetic music is symphonically complex. Historical-critical and literary-critical readers can recognize only plainsong. Biddle proposes to listen to the full symphonic polyphony of the prophetic voices.…