ABSTRACT
The history of religion requires the comparison of religions. But comparison extends to different phases and expressions of a given on-going religious tradition, which we may call diverse systems of that tradition. Rabbi Jeremiah's systematic doctrines and those of the ancient rabbis cohered and formed a single coherent statement on a cogent agendum. Jeremiah and the ancient rabbis identified as critical to Israel's existence the experience of catastrophe, loss of the Land in particular. The power of repentance is disproportionate, out of all balance with sin. The penalty for sin never exceeds the gravity of the sin. The rabbinic counterpart exhibits different qualities of mind and heart. Rabbinic theology and Jeremiah's thinking come together on the covenant between God and Israel. The theological system that pervades the rabbinic canon's hypothesis yields out of Jeremiah as read by the rabbinic sages respond to the same issues of monotheism and its logic.
