My illustration above, I draw a scribe ‘Baruch’ at work, with the background showing the ruins of Jerusalem (586 BCE).
The Book of Baruch is one of those biblical texts that many modern readers have never heard of, yet it sits quietly in the Bibles of millions of Catholics and Orthodox Christians, and in the “Apocrypha” section of many ecumenical or study editions. It’s a relatively short work — five or six chapters depending on how the Letter of Jeremiah is counted — but it offers a surprisingly rich blend of lament, confession, wisdom, and hope.
Where the Book of Baruch sits in the Bible
In Jewish and most Protestant canons, Baruch is not part of the Old Testament; it belongs to what Protestants call the Apocrypha, a group of books that were included in the Greek Septuagint but not in the traditional Hebrew Bible. The book is named after Baruch ben Neriah, the scribe and companion of the prophet Jeremiah (see Jeremiah 36), and in many traditions it is physically placed next to Jeremiah and Lamentations, as if to extend Jeremiah’s voice into the time of exile.
The status of Baruch is tied up with the broader story of the Apocrypha in Western Christianity. Mid-20th-century reporting in Time magazine, for example, described how Catholic and Protestant leaders explored the possibility of a “common Bible” that would include these “deuterocanonical” books while also acknowledging Protestant reservations. An earlier Time survey of Bible publishing in the 1970s treated “Bible with Apocrypha” editions as an important bridge between traditions. Coverage of Catholic versus Protestant disputes over canon, such as a 1928 Time piece on whether the Apocrypha counted as “Bible” for customs purposes, shows that the question of these books’ status was not merely academic but had real-world legal and cultural implications.
Within the Roman Catholic Church, the Council of Trent (1545–63) confirmed Baruch as deuterocanonical; Eastern Orthodox churches also treat it as Scripture, often reading it as part of Jeremiah. Many Anglicans and other Protestants, while not calling it fully canonical, still use it liturgically. Baruch passages appear, for instance, in Anglican lectionaries and were long printed in the “Apocrypha” section of English Bibles that media reports in the mid-20th century described as “ecumenical” editions.
When and how Baruch was written
Although Baruch presents itself as a document written by Jeremiah’s scribe in Babylon after the fall of Jerusalem (Baruch 1:1–2), most modern scholars think the book was composed centuries later, likely in the Hellenistic period, possibly around or after the time of the Maccabees. The earliest manuscripts we have are in Greek, and linguistic analysis suggests that at least the first part (1:1–3:8) was translated from a Semitic original, probably Hebrew or Aramaic.
That mixture of ancient setting and later composition isn’t unusual in Second Temple literature. Modern newspaper features on “lost” gospels and other extra-canonical texts have often reminded readers that the Bible is a patchwork of writings emerging over many centuries, alongside a “whirl” of other potential scriptures that never made the canonical cut. Baruch belongs to that wider world of late biblical and parabiblical literature — texts like Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and the Maccabean books that were preserved in Christian Bibles even as they fell outside the Jewish canon.
Structure and content of the book
Despite its brevity, Baruch is carefully arranged:
- 1:1–14 frames the book as a scroll written by Baruch in Babylon and sent, along with offerings, to priests in Jerusalem. It roots the work in the trauma of exile: Jerusalem burned, people deported, Temple worship disrupted.
- 1:15–3:8 is a long communal confession and lament. The people accept responsibility for their suffering, echoing the theology of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah: disobedience to the covenant has led to disaster.
- 3:9–4:4 shifts into a wisdom poem. Here, “Wisdom” is portrayed almost like a personified figure who has been entrusted to Israel in the form of the Law; those who reject her are pictured as wandering in darkness.
- 4:5–5:9 personifies Jerusalem as a mourning mother who is nonetheless promised future joy as her scattered children are gathered back. These chapters, full of reassurance and imagery of light and glory, are why Baruch is often read in Christian liturgies during Advent and Christmas.
Modern Bible guides and study Bibles, like those profiled in mainstream book pages and religious columns, frequently highlight the way Baruch weaves together penitential prayer, wisdom theology, and prophetic consolation.
Baruch and Second Temple Judaism
Baruch comes from the same broad religious world as the Dead Sea Scrolls and other late Second Temple Jewish writings. The Scrolls famously include biblical manuscripts and sectarian compositions that shed light on how different Jewish groups understood scripture, law, and hope in the centuries before and after the Maccabean revolt. This wider context has been a staple of newspaper coverage ever since the Scrolls were first discovered in the 1940s and then fought over by scholars and institutions.
Baruch itself has not turned up among the Qumran finds, though a Greek fragment of the Letter of Jeremiah — sometimes printed as Baruch 6 — has been found. The absence of Baruch from Qumran isn’t decisive; the Scrolls don’t preserve every biblical book either. But the intense media interest in Scrolls exhibitions and controversies — like debates over access and publication, or coverage of major shows in San Diego and elsewhere — has helped popularize the idea that the Bible emerged amid a much larger library of Jewish texts. Baruch is one of those texts that makes more sense once you see it against that crowded literary background.
Theology: sin, exile, wisdom, and hope
The first half of Baruch insists that the Babylonian exile was not random tragedy but the fruit of covenant infidelity. The people confess that God’s judgments are just, echoing the tone of penitential prayers found elsewhere in the Bible. Yet the text is not primarily about guilt; it is about turning back. The confession leads into a renewed plea for mercy and restoration.
The wisdom section (3:9–4:4) marks a shift from “Why did this happen?” to “Where can true life be found?” In contrast to nations that seek wisdom in human power or foreign philosophies, Baruch announces that wisdom has “appeared on earth and lived among people” in the form of God’s revealed instruction. Later Christian theologians, like Thomas Aquinas, would quote this passage (Baruch 3:37–38 in the Vulgate) as a prophecy of the Incarnation, a reading that would shape liturgical use and doctrinal reflection.
The final chapters give the book its enduring emotional resonance. Jerusalem is told to stop mourning and put on garments of glory because God is bringing her sons home from east and west. That combination of honest grief and stubborn hope has made Baruch a natural text for communities reflecting on exile, migration, and identity — issues that media coverage has often highlighted in stories about Jewish and Christian readings of the Bible in times of crisis.
How Baruch has been read and reused
In early Christian literature, passages from Baruch are quoted or alluded to by authors like Irenaeus and Clement, though sometimes they treat the material as part of the book of Jeremiah. By the fourth century, Greek church writers more often cite “Baruch” explicitly. Western canon lists, however, often folded Baruch into Jeremiah, which is why later debates had to make explicit whether “Jeremiah” in a list implicitly included Baruch.
The Council of Trent’s confirmation of Baruch as deuterocanonical ensured it would remain in Catholic Bibles; modern Catholic translations like the Jerusalem Bible and the New American Bible, discussed in mid-century press coverage, treat it as a standard prophetic book. Protestant translations have taken a more varied approach. Ecumenical editions praised in Time and other outlets — for example, those that include the Apocrypha between Old and New Testaments — have often aimed to make Baruch and similar books accessible for study even when they are not read as Scripture in worship.
Outside church circles, Baruch appears sporadically but tellingly. Features and reviews that introduce the Apocrypha to general readers — whether in the context of Hanukkah stories from Maccabees, Judith’s dramatic exploits, or Tobit’s pious endogamy — help normalize the idea that the Bible exists in slightly different forms across traditions, with books like Baruch filling out that “expanded universe.”
Pop-culture or opinion pieces that drop casual references to “Apocrypha” or quote from these books reinforce the sense that they are part of the broader cultural Bible, even if they sit in the margins of many printed editions.
At the same time, there has been periodic journalistic fascination with alternative gospels and apocryphal Christian writings, from the Gospel of Philip to the Gospel of Judas. Articles on those texts often point out that the early Christian literary landscape included not only New Testament writings but also a wide range of apocrypha, some adopted, some rejected. Baruch, though not part of that Christian apocryphal genre, rides the same wave of curiosity about borderline or “extra” scriptures.
Why the Book of Baruch still matters
So why should anyone today care about this short, lesser-known book?
First, Baruch offers a distinctive theological angle on catastrophe. Instead of treating exile purely as punishment, it uses it as a moment for communal self-examination and renewed trust. For readers wrestling with national or communal failures — whether in discussions of war, injustice, or cultural loss — that pattern of honest confession paired with hope can be powerful.
Second, Baruch is a bridge text. It links the prophetic world of Jeremiah with the wisdom traditions that would flourish in late Judaism and early Christianity. Its vision of wisdom as God’s self-disclosure to Israel resonates with later Christian interpretations while remaining firmly rooted in Jewish tradition.
Third, the story of Baruch’s place in the canon is itself a window into how communities define Scripture. Media coverage over the past century — of new Bible translations, debates over the Apocrypha, and the discovery and exhibition of ancient manuscripts — has repeatedly shown that “the Bible” is not a static artifact but a living, contested collection. To pay attention to Baruch is to remember that, at the edges of our familiar biblical table of contents, there are other voices — sometimes quieter, but well worth hearing.
In that sense, the Book of Baruch is not just an obscure add-on; it is a compact meditation on sin and mercy, wisdom and revelation, homelessness and homecoming. Whether you encounter it in a thick “with Apocrypha” Bible, in a liturgy, or in a study guide, it invites you to stand with a community in exile, confess what has gone wrong, and listen for a word of wisdom that promises, even now, to lead wanderers home.