Henderson argues against a basic assumption of modern Jeremiah scholarship: that poetic form indicates authenticity. He shows how this assumption, introduced by Bernhard Duhm (1901) is founded on the Romantic identification of prophecy and poetry pioneered by Robert Lowth (1753). Further Henderson outlines how Duhm's assumption allowed him to create a biography of Jeremiah that closely resembles a Romantic Bildungsroman and to bring the book into conformity with a reconstruction of Israel's religious history rooted in Romantic historicism.

Although Duhm's compositional model and historical aims dominated Jeremiah scholarship for much of the 20th century, in recent decades scholars have attempted to "move beyond Duhm" to find literary coherence in the book. Henderson challenges the continued reliance on Duhm's assumption (to facilitate using poetic speeches as biographical evidence or prose speeches as a unifying redactional frame) showing that such reliance has prevented recognition of the dramatic function of the speeches in Jeremiah 2-20. In turn Henderson shows how Jeremiah 2-10 and 11-20 are unified literary creations characterized by dramatic presentation and narrative progression.