Richard J. Clifford
Baruch, son of Neriah, was the secretary of the great prophet Jeremiah. He wrote down the prophet's preaching to preserve it for later generations, and on occasion he read that preaching to audiences when Jeremiah was not able to do so (Jer 32; 36; 45 ). Much more than a simple record keeper, he was from an important Jerusalem family and scribe in the employ of the palace. Sharing Jeremiah's fate as an exile in Egypt, he is last heard from in that country around 582 BC (Jer 43, 5–7 ). The book bearing his name is a collection of four sections, probably of separate origin, which were written long after Baruch, probably in the second or early first centuries. In the Second Temple period (520 BC to ad 70), it was not unusual to use the name of a well‐known ancient personage as the title of a contemporary work in order to link the work to earlier traditions and enhance its authority.
The book of Baruch has four sections: an introduction ( 1, 1–14 ), a long confession of sin ( 1, 15–3, 8 ), a poem on wisdom ( 3, 9–4, 4 ), and a consoling poem ( 4, 5–5, 9 ). In Roman Catholic Bibles, the so‐called Letter of Jeremiah is often printed as the sixth chapter of Baruch. When included in the book of Baruch, as it sometimes is, it makes a fifth section. Though the sections may have had separate origins, they are linked to one another, giving the book a clear unity. It is generally agreed that Baruch was written in Hebrew. No Hebrew manuscript survives, however. The Greek version serves as the basis of modern translations. Other ancient versions are in Syriac, Latin, Coptic, Ethiopic, Arabic, and Armenian.
Baruch is in the Orthodox and Roman Catholic canon of sacred Scripture. In the Protestant canon it is classed among the Apocrypha. Catholic Bibles such as the New American Bible add the Epistle of Jeremiah to Baruch as its sixth chapter.