Configuring Addressee Communities in Ancient Jewish Letters: The Case of the Epistle of Baruch (2 Baruch 78–86)

The chapter investigates how the Epistle of Baruch configures Jewish national identity in the first or second century CE. Baruch emphasizes the unity and common lot of the twelve tribes: all of them have left their land; all they can rely on now is God and his Torah. Baruch thus shifts the focus from a this-worldly national expectation to an other-worldly hope. By requesting recurrent rereading of the Epistle and mutual commemoration, the Epistle (and with it the Apocalypse) specifies the preferred mode of its own reception. It is unclear whether it was successful with real communities of readers around 100 CE. But the stand-alone form of the Epistle popular in the Syriac tradition shows that it achieved its aim at least with later Syriac Christian readers.