Nathan Mastnjak. Before the Scrolls: A Material Approach to Israel’s Prophetic Library. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. 250 pp.It's nice to have another typically thorough review from William Brown.... Shifting from Jeremiah and in light of his discussions on book history, Mastnjak argues that the redactional history of the Book of the Twelve is a helpful model for thinking about Jeremiah via a collection model. Subsequently, Mastnjak brings colophons from the Hebrew Bible and Akkadian literature, as well as Jeremiah’s mention of a “single scroll,” to strengthen his claim for a collection model in Jeremiah. This model likewise works for Psalms, the Book of the Twelve, Ezekiel, Daniel, Proverbs, and Samuel and the Song of Hannah. Simply put, the evidence that Mastnjak proposes for the claim that versions of Jeremiah reflect “a thematically and redactionally unified collection” as opposed to steps in composition history “suggest a reorientation of how biblical scholarship imagines its objects of study” (107). ...
I noted the publication of this book here.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.