Mark Reasoner, «The Redemptive Inversions of Jeremiah in Romans 9–11», Vol. 95 (2014) 388-404
This article presents seven points of focused dissonance between Jeremiah and Romans, by identifying how Romans 9–11 inverts the judgment language of Jeremiah 1–20 against Judah. Without claiming that the inversions in Romans 9–11 are intentional, the article argues that the inversions of this section of Jeremiah are similar to the inversions that Deutero-Isaiah performs on this same section of Jeremiah, identified by B. Sommer. The inversions of Jeremiah that occur in Romans 9–11 highlight these chapters' positive stance toward corporeal, ethnic Israel, and provide another argument against interpreting 'all Israel' in Rom 11,26 as the church.
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The Redemptive Inversions of Jeremiah in Romans 9–11
Paul’s explicit dependence in Romans 9–11 on Isaiah is well
known. Isaiah is Paul’s favorite source for the explicit quotations
from the prophets 1. However, especially in this section of Romans
where Paul is wrestling with the question of whether or not God’s
word concerning Israel has failed, more is going on with the scrip-
tures than simply explicit quotation. Romans chapters 9–11 at-
tempts to reconfigure the inherited scriptures in order to make sense
of a moment in which the Jews do not seem to be following the
message that will lead to the culmination of Israel’s role as a nation
of priests for the world. Thus, in Rom 10,6-10 we observe a Christo-
logical gloss over Deut 30,12-14. Rom 9,24-26 plays with Hosea
so that a prophecy once referring to a rejected Israel coming back
to its spiritual inheritance signifies how foreign nations will become
Israel. Hays has referred to Paul’s images for Israel in Romans 9
as “scandalous inversions”, in which Israel is placed into the roles
of Ishmael, Esau and Pharaoh 2. Less noticed but just as crucial for
our understanding are the “redemptive inversions” that Romans 9–
11 makes of Jeremiah’s language regarding Israel. This reconfig-
uring of scripture by inversion must be carefully tracked, for
recognition of the dissonant intertextuality that emerges between
Romans 9–11 and Jeremiah sharpens the overall effect of this cen-
tral section of Romans. Romans 9–11 inverts Jeremiah to empha-
size God’s redemption of Israel: Paul asks Jeremiah’s question
about God’s faithfulness and salvation for Israel, specifically raised
in the first twenty chapters of Jeremiah. The text of Romans 9–11
goes on to invert Jeremiah’s response by including a prayer for Is-
rael’s salvation and a picture of Israel as a cultivated olive tree
1
See especially F. WILK, Die Bedeutung des Jesajabuches für Paulus
(FRLANT 179; Göttingen 1998) and J. R. WAGNER, Heralds of the Good
News. Isaiah and Paul “In Concert” in the Letter to the Romans (NTSupp
101; Leiden 2002).
2
R. B. HAYS, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven, CT
1989) 67.
BIBLICA 95.3 (2014) 388-404
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