Jeremiah, Dramatic Dialogue, and "Conjugating" the Gospel

Greystone Conversations

A perhaps surprising amount of Holy Scripture is presented in terms of a dialogue where the identification of the different speakers is important to proper interpretation. And yet, biblical text does not provide us the modern printing conventions we are used to for dialogues, such as naming the speaker before the speech and clearly breaking up the speeches so we know where one ends and the next begins. Why is Scripture presented this way, and how does the form of Scripture belong to its message?

God did not give his inscripturated Word to his Church all at once or as a single literary unit. To use the language of Hebrews 1, it was “at many times and in many ways” that he gave the Word that finds its fullest visible and incarnate realization in Jesus Christ. The discreet parts of Holy Scripture, therefore, mark out the ways God has related to his people in history by particular words, words and messages and texts which have their own integrity. And yet that integrity must not be confused with independence: the integrity of every Word given from the mouth of God is rooted in its relationship to all Words given from that divine mouth and, most ultimately, in the fact that the divine Author is every word’s primary and original context.

When we further consider that the Author’s self-disclosure is part of that context—that the Gospel of God gives the God of the Gospel—then we can appreciate how every word may be understood as a “conjugating” of that Gospel. The Old Testament prophecy of Jeremiah is full of mysterious dialogue, weeping, and confession. How, then, does Jeremiah function as a canonical conjugation of the Gospel?

To discuss Jeremiah Dr. Mark A. Garcia was pleased to talk recently with the Rev. Dr. Matthew Patton who is minister of Word and Sacrament in Vandalia, Ohio, and who will teach a full Greystone course module on “Jeremiah as Christian Scripture” online and in Coraopolis, PA this Fall. Dr. Patton is also working on publications that explore Jeremiah’s text and message, including a major commentary with Zondervan. Among the features that we found most interesting in our conversation is what scholars call the “dramatic dialogue” literary device, including its relationship to patristic prosopological exegesis and the identity of God in relation to passions and history. Along the way we also talk a bit about one of Dr. Patton’s professors at Wheaton, Dr. Daniel Block, whose work in the Old Testament has been a great gift to the Church.

We trust you will find this conversation with Dr. Patton interesting and edifying. If you do, we’d like to encourage you to listen to his Greystone Online Postgraduate Seminar presentation on Jeremiah and the theology of repentance, and to consider signing up for his fall 2021 module on Jeremiah by visiting our Modules and Events page. Please remember, too, that we are in the midst of a major push for support as we seek to take the next steps in our development and fund our operations for the coming days. Your gift at our website, however small or great, is a terrific help to that end. Thank you once again for spending some time with us today to reflect together on the shape and direction of greater faithfulness to our triune God. Now, the Rev. Dr. Matthew Patton and Dr. Mark A. Garcia talk about Jeremiah, Holy Scripture, and conjugating the Gospel as episode 48 of Greystone Conversations.