Georg Fischer on Robert Carroll

//Carroll’s impact can hardly be overestimated. He ‘liberated’ the interpretation of [the book of Jeremiah] from a too close connection with the historical Jeremiah, as becomes evident, for example, in the commentaries of William L. Holladay, and even more so, of Jack R. Lundbom, but also in other studies. Carroll’s critical analyses allow for the separation of prophet and book, thus enabling the perception of Jer, more accurately, as the product of a later time.

Carroll’s second major contribution lies in his skepticism regarding our ability to reconstruct the compositional process of Jer. To quote him: “The story of the growth of the book of Jeremiah ‘is impossible to tell’ …”. Carroll rightly points out that we have no safe access to the literary development behind the genesis of Jer. What is adduced to explain the coming into being of Jer belongs to the realm of speculation and, sometimes, phantasy. Herein, Carroll’s clear words call for caution and should be taken seriously. If we can in no way verify hypotheses about the development of Jer, then they are methodologically unsound and should be left aside.

Carroll, in his ‘razor’ approach, has helped Jer research a great deal. Jer scholars can enjoy a new freedom and be open to the study of Jer as what it is, and in an appropriate way: a book, to be analyzed with respect to its literary characteristics.//

~Georg Fischer, Jeremiah Studies