04_Reasoner_388-404 28/10/14 10:43 Pagina 399 THE REDEMPTIVE INVERSIONS OF JEREMIAH IN ROMANS 9–11 399 to the nations from his mother’s womb, would find it dangerous en route to Jerusalem to cite Jeremiah the member of Benjamin who is designated prophet to the nations from his mother’s womb, for Jeremiah is the prophet with connections to the house of Eli and Abiathar who relativizes the Jerusalem temple by equating it with the tabernacle at Shiloh 33. Paul is anxious for a better reception in Jerusalem than Jeremiah received 34. But these connections, tempt- ing as they are within psychological analysis, have no place in an argument that is simply finding some dissonant intertextuality be- tween Jeremiah 1–20 and Romans 9–11 while making no claim re- garding Paul’s intentions. Let us return to the literary comparison of Romans 9–11 with the opening chapters of Jeremiah. III. Intertextuality That Avoids Quotation We can fill out our understanding of the relationship between Romans 9–11 and these opening chapters of Jeremiah by returning to B. Sommer’s work on intertextuality between Jeremiah and Deutero-Isaiah. Sommer’s identification of “reversals” that Deutero-Isaiah employs seems to be the most helpful analogy for what is going on here between the text of Romans 9–11 and Jere- miah. Sommer documents how Deutero-Isaiah uses material from Jeremiah, including material from chapter 2 and chapter 10. These chapters are in the same section of Jeremiah that I am suggesting Romans 9–11 redemptively inverts 35. Sommer argues that Deutero- Isaiah, even with these reversals, “reinforces Jeremiah’s position as a prophet, because in repeating Jeremiah’s words in the form proper for his own day he brings them new validity” 36. One exam- ple he offers is the use of language from Jeremiah’s letter to the ex- iles in Babylon, telling them to settle, build houses and plant gardens in Babylon (Jer 29,4-6), which Isaiah 65 then inverts by using the same language for what will happen in Jerusalem (Isa 65,18-23). This sort of adaptation may be what is happening in Ro- mans 9–11, a text so tenaciously certain of Israel’s future salvation 33 Jer 1,1.5; Gal 1,15-16; see Jer 7,1-15 and the discussion in J.D. LEVEN- SON, Sinai and Zion (San Francisco, CA 1985) 165-169. 34 Rom 15,30-32; Jer 38,1-28. 35 SOMMER, A Prophet Reads Scripture, 36-40. 36 SOMMER, A Prophet Reads Scripture, 41.