BOOK OF BARUCH This deutero-canonical book of the Old Testament is placed by the LXX. between Jeremiah and Lamentations, and in the Vul gate after Lamentations. It consists of several parts, which cohere so badly that we are obliged to assume plurality of authorship.
The book consists of the following parts : i. 1-14. The historical preface with a description of the origin and purpose of the book.
i. 15–ii. 5. A confession of sin used by the Palestinian Remnant. This confession was according to i. 14 sent from Babylon (i. 4, 7) to Jerusalem to be read "on the day of the feast and on the days of the solemn assembly." The confession is restricted to the use of the remnant at home (see next paragraph). In this con fession there is a national acknowledgment of sin and a recogni tion of the exile as a righteous judgment.
ii. 6–iii. 8. A confession of the captives in Babylon and a prayer for restoration. This confession opens as the former (in i. 15) with the words found also in Daniel ix. 7, "To the Lord our God belongeth righteousness, etc." The confession is of the Exiles and not of the remnant in Palestine, as Marshall has pointed out. Thus it is the Exiles clearly who are speaking in ii. 13, "We are but a few left among the heathen where thou hast scattered us"; ii. 14, "Give us favour in the sight of them which have led as away captive"; iii. 7, "We will praise thee in our captivity"; iii. 8, "We are yet this day in our captivity where thou hast scat tered us." On the other hand, the speakers in the confession in 5 are clearly the remnant in Jerusalem, i. 15, "To the Lord our God belongeth righteousness but unto us confusion of face . . . to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem." The Exiles are mentioned by way of contrast to the speakers; ii. 4, 5, "He hath given them to be in subjection to all the kingdom that are round about us to be a reproach among all the people round about where the Lord hath scattered them. Thus were they cast down . . . because we sinned against the Lord our God." iii. 9–iv. 4. The glorification of wisdom, that is, of the law. Israel is bidden to walk in the light of it ; it is the glory of Israel and is not to be given to another.
iv. 5–v. 9. Consolation of Israel with the promise of deliver ance and lasting happiness and blessing to Jerusalem.
From the foregoing description it seems clear that the book is derived from a plurality of authors. The evidence for a fourfold authorship is strong though not convincing. In any case i.–iii. S and iii. 9–v. 9 must be ascribed to different authors.
It is generally agreed that i.–iii. 8 was originally written in Hebrew; the rest in Greek. As regards the date, the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem, mentioned in i. 2, will give the date for the first part of the book as A.D. 74 or 75, but it is evident that the writer made use of earlier material. Thus i. iii. 8 is strongly liturgical in character; it has all the leading notes found in the Jewish liturgy, which in its essential elements goes back to pre-Christian times (for details see Oesterley, The Books of the Apocrypha, pp. Soo seq.) . The section iii. 8–iv. 4 is a little later, but not later than the middle of the 2nd century A.D., as it is quoted by Athenagoras and Irenaeus. The last section iv. 5–v. 9 is probably a little earlier, the beginning of this century.