JEROME'S READING OF JEREMIAH 20:7-18.

This essay is a study of how Jerome reads Jeremiah (Jer) 20:7-18. It presents the exegetical practice of Jerome within his Christian theological frame of reference and examines how he approaches a difficult text of the Old Testament (OT) as Christian Scripture. This essay is in five parts. The first briefly introduces the reader to Jer 20:7-18, sets the context for the importance of hearing premodern interpreters in contemporary biblical and theological scholarship, and presents a caveat to the reader with methodological issues. The second part focuses briefly on situating Jerome as a reader of Scripture within the general patristic exegesis, its interfaces between literal and allegorical modes of reading Scripture and how Jerome receives and modifies the exegetical tradition inherited from the patristics. The third part presents quite extensively Jerome's exposition of Jer 20:7-18 and engages with his reading in order to hear his own voice as a distinctive Christian interpreter of this text. The fourth part provides some hermeneutical reflections on Jerome's reading of Jer 20:7-18 which may illustrate his theological usage of the OT. The final part evaluates Jerome's interpretation and concludes the essay by saying that his mode of reading the OT engages with the concerns of a life of faith and represents well the Christian usage of the OT in respect to issues of the church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]