In prophetic and poetic literature of the Old Testament references to textual participants are inconsistent with regard to their gender, number and person characteristics. Oliver Glanz for the first time provides a systematic study of the phenomenon of participant-reference shifts. The study is restricted to the book of Jeremiah and reflects upon the methodological conditions that should guide the analysis of participant-reference shifts.
Focusing on computer assisted pattern recognition the research suggests that Jeremiah's participant-reference shifts should not be understood from a diachronic perspective. Understanding the origin and function of participant-reference shifts rather from the perspective of syntax, text grammar and rhetorics proves to be more consistent with the textual evidence. With this insight participant-reference shifts no longer have to distort textual coherence.