Dewey M. Beegle on Jeremiah 36

One common charge against the Doctrine and Covenants is that, as Joseph Smith made revisions to the revelations, ipso facto, the Doctrine and Covenants are not inspired by God. Notwithstanding, there are many instances of even biblical prophets editing their revelations and/or the revelations of previous prophets. For a discussion, see:

Biblical Prophets Changing their Words and the Words of Previous Prophets

and also:

How is the Book of Mormon, the Word of God, if it was ABRIDGED and Edited?

One well-known example is recorded in Jer 36:28-32. After the king burnt his original revelation, the Lord instructs the prophet in the following manner:

"Take another scroll and write on it all the words that were on the first scroll, which Jehoiakim king of Judah burned up. Also tell Jehoiakim king of Judah, 'This is what the Lord says: You burned that scroll and said, "Why did you write on it that the king of Babylon would certainly come and destroy this land and wipe from it both man and beast? Therefore this is what the Lord says about Jehoiakim king of Judah: He will have no one to sit on the throne of David; his body will be thrown out and exposed to the heat by day and the frost on the night. I will punish him and his children and his attendants for their wickedness; I will bring on them and those living in Jerusalem and the people of Judah every disaster I pronounced against them, because they have not listened.'" So Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to the scribe, Baruch son of Neriah, and as Jeremiah dictated, Baruch wrote on it all the words of the scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire. And many similar words were added to them. (NIV)

In this pericope, we learn that Jeremiah did not simply dictate the same revelation the king destroyed, but an expanded revelation.

Commenting on this chapter, Dewey M. Beegle made the following comment which is rather apropos:

The Autograph of the Book of Jeremiah

The most detailed account of the origin of a biblical book is found in Jeremiah 36:1-32. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim (605 B.C.) the Lord told Jeremiah, “Take a scroll and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel and Judah and all the nations from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah until today” (v. 2).Jeremiah called his scribe, or secretary (known technically as an “amanuensis”), Baruch, who “wrote up on a scroll at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord which he had spoken to him” (v. 4).

Inasmuch as Jeremiah had been debarred from going to the temple, he ordered Baruch to read the scroll to the people on some fast day. This Baruch did (v. 10), whereupon a certain Micaiah, one of the officials, hearing the startling words of Jeremiah, reported what he heard to the princes who were sitting in the king’s house. They sent for Baruch and had him read the scroll to them (vv.14-15). In fear they reported to the king, who in turn asked to have the scroll read to him. Since I was winter, he happened to be warming himself before the fire in the brazier. Then “as Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a penknife and throw them into the fire in the brazier, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier” (v. 23).

The scroll must have been much shorter than our present text, because it was read three times, with intervals, apparently all on the same day. At any rate, after Jeremiah learned of the burning of the scroll, the Lord told him, “Take another scroll and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll” (v. 28). Then “Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the scribe, . . . who wrote on it at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the scroll which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire; and many similar words were added to them” (v. 32)

Some of the additional words were the oracle (included in our present book at 36:29-31) against King Jehoiakim for his shameless deed in burning the first scroll. However, the text says “many similar words were added,” so the second scroll (written in 604) was quite a bit longer than the first. On the other hand, this second scroll was much shorter than our present book of Jeremiah, for it did not contain the material dating from 604 to the all of Jerusalem, 587/6 .C.; nor did it have the section, 43:8 to 44:30, which reports Jeremiah’s activities in Egypt sometime after 586 B.C. When the latter unit was added, the preface of Jeremiah (1:1-3) was not brought up to date because it only purports to give the “words of Jeremiah . . . until the captivity of Jerusalem.” (Dewey M. Beegle, Scripture, Tradition, and Infallibility [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1973], 150-51)