How the Book of Jeremiah Came to Be: The Biblical Version of Events

With the Babylonians threatening to attack Jerusalem, God commanded Jeremiah to write down all the words that he had spoken to the prophet. According to the Book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah summoned his scribe Baruch and instructed him to begin writing the words. The biblical report (quoted below) on how this and a second draft of the text came into being is unique in the Bible.

The clay seal impression at right, which surfaced on the antiquities market and is now in a private London collection, belonged to that very Baruch, and the faint whorls of a fingerprint on the upper left edge of the seal impression may have been left by the scribe himself. (A second impression made from this same seal is in the Israel Museum. See “Fingerprint of Jeremiah’s Scribe,” BAR 22:02.) The Hebrew script dates to the late seventh century B.C.E, the time of Jeremiah. In this period, papyrus scrolls were commonly tied with string and then sealed with a lump of clay, called a bulla. A scribe would then press his seal into the clay, making the document official. The inscription on this bulla reads “Belonging to Berekhyahu son of Neriyahu the scribe.” Berekhyahu is a form of the name Baruch; Neriyahu is a form of Neriah. The longer versions incorporate the divine name Yahweh in the form -yahu. The shorter versions of the father’s and son’s names appear in the biblical passage quoted below, which is based on what author Steve Delamarter identifies as the Second Edition of Jeremiah.