scholarship concerning the formation of the book of jeremiah has, in recent years, undergone a type of renaissance. Whereas earlier approaches to the book and its formation were dominated by strict source-critical models, newer examinations have developed more intricate and advanced methods that in turn yield richer and more detailed results. Though the old source-critical paradigms are still useful in identifying literary genres within the book, they now seem rather limited in scope in terms of understanding the function of textual units, redactional growth, authorial intention, tradition history, and historical background to the Jeremianic tradition. While modern literary criticism has opened new avenues of analysis, interest in compositional and redactional analysis of the book of Jeremiah remains a staple of modern research. Most scholars have viewed the poetry in the book as largely original to the prophet, with the parenetic prose and narrative material constituting redactional additions to a once-independent collection of oracles. Little consensus, though, has arisen concerning the degree to which this redaction preserves the sentiments of the prophet himself. Still, there is general agreement that the book of Jeremiah has much in common with the Deuteronomistic tradition, especially when one considers the similarities in style and tone between Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History (DH) and the parenetic prose and prose narratives in the Jeremianic corpus.

Many have therefore postulated that the book of Jeremiah is the product of a Deuteronomistic redaction, a position most famously championed by W. Thiel.