In a massive study, Benjamin Ziemer has launched a scathing stricture of redaction criticism in Old Testament studies. Based on comparative material from an impressive range of Ancient Near Eastern, biblical, early Jewish and early Christian literature, he maintains that diachronic research is unable to deliver meaningful reconstructions that reach more than one stage of textual development behind the present biblical text. Moving beyond that boundary would amount to unfettered speculation. While his appraisal is overwhelmingly negative, there is one biblical book on which he endeavors to devise a redaction-critical hypothesis of his own: the book of Jeremiah. The article evaluates Ziemer’s theory on Jeremiah and draws some general conclusions regarding the validity of his verdict on traditional redaction-critical research.

在一项大规模研究中，本杰明·齐默 (Benjamin Ziemer) 对旧约研究中的编辑批评进行了严厉的限制。基于来自一系列令人印象深刻的古代近东、圣经、早期犹太和早期基督教文学的比较材料，他坚持认为历时研究无法提供有意义的重建，这些重建达到了当前圣经文本背后的一个以上文本发展阶段。超越该边界将等同于不受约束的投机。虽然他的评价压倒性地否定，但有一本圣经书让他努力设计自己的修订批判假设：耶利米书。这篇文章评估了齐默关于耶利米的理论，并就他对传统修订批判研究的判断的有效性得出了一些一般性结论。