Jeremiah: Truth and Sense in the History of Interpretation

What pre-critical and post-Enlightenment confessional interpretation teach us is to identify with the text's authorial intention or the text speaking for itself. This was understood to be Christological in the early centuries of the church. Then Augustine stood as the fount of a grace-laden interpretation, with the late Medieval and Reformation interpretation emphasising judgement and a sober response thereto, yet also a mystical sense of the covenant for the elect. The other side of the Enlightenment made room for divine providence on a wide historical scale forming souls to play roles of inspirational witness, with Jeremiah as model. If God is unpredictable, this is not the same as being arbitrary, capricious or divided against himself. The Word of God comes through oracular language, to which special attention should be paid.