What is a god like? Meta-theistic presuppositions in the letter of Jeremiah

Updated by: 
Shiran Shevah
Research notes: 
SHS/not checked/05/04/2017
Reference type: 
Journal Article
Author(s): 
Gericke, Jaco
year: 
2016
Full title: 

What is a god like? Meta-theistic presuppositions in the letter of Jeremiah

Journal / Book Title || Series Title: 
Journal for Semitics
Volume: 
25
Issue / Series Volume: 
2
Pages: 
523 - 545
Work type: 
Essay/Monograph
Abstract: 

In the apocryphal text of the Letter (Epistle) of Jeremiah (Ep Jer), a long list of reasons is given by the implied author as to why certain entities alleged to be gods are not in fact such. Brief summaries of the author’s various points characterise scholarly perspectives thereon. What has been overlooked in the research, however, and the topic of this article, concerns the converse fact that, in the construction of a negative identity for divinity, the text also assumes a lot about what a god must actually be like. Moreover, what is implicit in these “meta-theistic” presuppositions has never before been identified; hence the need for an attempted inferential reconstruction of what, according to the polemics of Ep Jer, makes a god divine.

Primary Texts: Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha: 
Composition / Author: 
Epistle of Jeremiah
URL: 
http://journals.co.za/content/journal/10520/EJC-584d95e0b
Label: 
08/05/2017
Record number: 
102 718