THE CALL OF JEREMIAH by DAVID TUDOR ... - David T Williams

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"Deuteronomic School" remains an open question.
Secondly a redactor may well have conformed his picture of Jeremiah
to a preconceived picture of a prophet, resulting in an assimilation to a
"normative" prophet, in which case the book would deal with an ideal
type, a kerygmatic rather than an historical figure (cf Von Rad 1975a).
This in itself is not serious for an investigation of prophetic experience
as a phenomenon.
It is unlikely that collection has resulted in essential change of the
record of the prophets experience. Just as the collection has not
resulted in a change of the message (Overholt 1972:459, Bright
1951:28), it is unlikely to have altered what will be of secondary
concern to the message, that is the prophet's experience, although
this is important to Jeremiah as authenticating his message. Moreover
the very disorderliness of the book indicates that it is a collection rather
than a reworking of material (Tucker 1978:31 commenting on Gunkel's
approach to the prophetic literature in general), and the early date of
writing leaves little time for such reworking. This of course accounts for
the relative consistency of style despite various literary types and
forms (Harrison 1973:27f). A further point is that the picture of the
prophet is self consistent, and moreover consistent with the prophetic
picture elsewhere in the Old Testament, if allowance is made for
difference in setting and situation.