Böcker av Nathan Mastnjak

Before the Scrolls argues that books of the Bible were not originally books or even single continuous book-scrolls. Instead, important works of the Hebrew Bible were originally archives or libraries that later scribes rendered onto single volume book-scrolls. By tracing the material history of the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible, Before the Scrolls gives a detailed insight into these processes and demonstrates how profoundly the transcription of archives into books transformed the biblical literature.

The close relationship between Jeremiah and Deuteronomy has stood near the center of Jeremiah scholarship for over a century. Nathan Mastnjak brings new light to this phenomenon by subjecting every credible allusion to Deuteronomy in Jeremiah to detailed analysis with particular attention to interpretative processes and the dynamics of authority. By locating each allusion in the history of the composition of the book, the author traces a discernible shift in the perspective on Deuteronomy's authority. While early texts in Jeremiah allude to Deuteronomy as merely one prestigious literary work among others, it emerges as a religious textual authority in the later layers. These later layers construct and deploy Deuteronomy as an authority but are simultaneously constrained to transform it in the interest of religious innovation.