ABSTRACT
This article seeks to establish the approximate date of the Book of Jeremiah, identify sources it used, and evaluate its historical worth. I argue that the Deuteronomistic literary stereotype of the persecuted prophet in Jeremiah draws on Greek antecedents, notably the portrait of Socrates in Plato’s writings (ca. 400–350 bce), that the Oracles against the Nations drew on the Sibylline Oracles (known in the east after ca. 335 bce), and that the account of Jerusalem’s fall in Jeremiah and Kings drew on the Babyloniaca of Berossus (ca. 280 bce). The extensive literary connections between Deuteronomy, Jeremiah and Kings point to a likely date of composition ca. 270 bce, shortly after the creation of the Pentateuch. This late date undermines Jeremiah’s value as a historical source, despite also likely drawing on local Jewish oral traditions from Shaphanite scribal circles of the early Hellenistic era.
