That four of the middle chapters, the thirty-sixth, thirty-seventh, thirty-eighth, and thirty-ninth, originally formed a separate document is evident. Concerning these four chapters, Paine truthfully observes: “This fragment of history begins and ends abruptly; it has not the least connection with the chapter that precedes it, nor with that which follows it, nor with any other in the book” (Age of Reason, p. 129).
If Isaiah wrote this book, and Jeremiah wrote the books of Kings, as claimed; then either Isaiah or Jeremiah was a plagiarist; for the language of the four chapters just mentioned is, with a few slight alterations, identical with that of a portion of the second book of Kings.
The integrity of this book cannot be maintained. It is not the product of one writer, but of many. How many, critics may never be able to determine; certainly not less than five, probably more than ten.
Jeremiah.
The prophecies of Jeremiah, it is affirmed, were delivered at various times between 625 and 585 B.C., and a final redaction of them was made by him about the latter date. The book, as it now appears, is in such a disordered condition that Christian scholars have to separate it into numerous parts and rearrange them in order to make a consecutive and intelligible narrative. Dr. Hitchcock, in his “Analysis of the Bible” (p 1,144), says: “So many changes have taken place, or else so many irregularities were originally admitted in the arrangement of the book, that Dr. Blayney, whose exposition we chiefly follow, was obliged to make fourteen different portions of the whole before he could throw it into consecutive order.”
The following is Dr. Blayney’s arrangement of the book: Chapters i-xii; xiii-xx; xxii, xxiii; xxv, xxvi; xxxv, xxxvi; xlv-xlviii; xlix (1–33); xxi; xxiv; xxvii-xxxiv; xxxvii-xxxix; xlix (34–39); l, li; xl-xliv.
This disordered condition of Jeremiah indicates one of two things: a plurality of authors, or a negligence, if nothing worse, on the part of the Bible’s custodians that Christians will be loath to acknowledge.
The book, as a whole, was not written by Jeremiah. He did not write the following:
“And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, in the five and twentieth day of the month, that Evil-Merodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah, and brought him forth out of prison” (lii, 31).