Library/Deuterocanon
Baruch
Confession, a wisdom poem (Wisdom is the Torah), and consolation. Baruch is Jeremiah’s scribe in the Tanakh; here he becomes the voice of a diaspora that still faces Zion.
- Status
- Catholic & Orthodox deuterocanon
- Date
- 2nd–1st century BCE
- Languages
- Greek (surviving)
- Setting
- Exiles in Babylon, with a letter sent to Jerusalem
What it contains
- Letter and confession
- Wisdom poem
- Consolation of Jerusalem
Why it sits outside most canons
Attached to Jeremiah in some Greek Bibles; dropped with the other deuterocanonicals in Protestant lists.
Themes
- Exile
- Repentance
- Torah as Wisdom
- Jerusalem
Passages
Baruch 3:29–31
Who has gone up into heaven and taken her, and brought her down from the clouds? … She is the book of the commandments of God.