Abstract
This article examines 33 ‘generic’ citations of Israel’s scriptures in the NT, defined as passages containing an introductory formula or other overt reference to a source, but lacking any actual quoted text. Each passage (from the gospels, Acts and Pauline epistles) is examined in terms of its citation form and particular meaning in context, and then this broader pattern of ‘generic’ citation is compared with Second Temple citation practices. Having rarely been studied collectively, these citations provide interesting insight into how the NT authors draw upon the whole of the OT – without reference to specific prooftexts – to make assertions about Israel’s history, Christology, and the church. They should be given more consideration in the broader field of biblical intertextuality.
Amid the staggering amount of research conducted on the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament in recent decades lies one particular topic that, surprisingly, has been nearly untouched: what we might call, for lack of a better term, ‘generic’ citations of Israel’s scriptures. This essay examines thirty-three such instances scattered throughout the NT that include clear introductory formulae or direct reference to scriptural writings – such as καθὼς γέγραπται (Mk 14.21) or ἵνα ἡ γραϕὴ πληρωθῇ (Jn 17.12) – but do not actually contain any quoted text of an identifiable source. They are, it seems, intended to be summaries of scripture. In light of a recent call for ‘this whole enterprise of the study of echoes, allusions and intertextuality … to be soundly re-assessed’ (Foster 2008: 451), perhaps these long-overlooked generic or summary citations can breathe some new life into this field of research.
Background
As is well known, the study of how the NT authors engage with Israel’s scriptures has historically revolved around four poles: detection (criteria for identifying citations, quotations, allusions and echoes), text-form (alignment with or modification to the Hebrew, Greek or other forms of an OT passage), hermeneutics (Jewish midrashic methods, proof-from-prophecy, promise-fulfillment, typology and so on) and thematic orientation (Christology, ecclesiology, eschatology).
Across these playing fields scholars inevitably focus their efforts on tying NT passages to specific OT passages, from Dodd’s winnowing to ‘particular verses or sentences’ from Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Minor Prophets and Psalms (1952: 126), to Lindars’s highlighting of a handful of key ‘testimonies … adduced to prove the church’s claims’ (1961: 13), to Hays’s wide-ranging attempts to trace echoes to specific OT passages (1993, 2016). Indeed, much of the debate has centered on whether an NT author intends the reader to pick up on this or that concrete OT text – or whether it lies purely in the scholar’s imagination – and how methodologically to guardrail an effort that seems to get increasingly creative with each dissertation (see Porter 1997, 2007).
Lost in these debates over allusions and echoes lacking direct citation signals are the opposite situations, where plainly obvious scriptural citations of various forms do not point the reader to any specific OT passage at all. Though entire monographs have been written on as few as one OT passage’s influence on the NT (e.g., Hay 1973), these thirty-plus passages have rarely been studied together in any detail. Most of the field’s ‘classics’ have largely overlooked them (e.g., Dodd 1952; Lindars 1961; Stendahl 1968; Gundry 1975; Kaiser 1985; Juel 1988; Stanley 1992; Hays 1993; Menken 1996). Occasionally, scholars make one-off comments about them: i.e., ‘Some passages with a fulfillment formula appear to be broad or thick descriptions of several OT passages’ (Beale 2012: 58 n. 4); ‘Likewise to be taken into account are some of the instances where [Jesus] is reported to have said “as it is written” … but without actually quoting or alluding to any particular Old Testament passage’ (Longenecker 1999: 44); ‘Jesus expresses this … in general terms, without, apparently, alluding to any particularly scriptural context’ (Moo 1983: 86). A few are treated in passing in Beale and Carson 2007; none are covered in the ‘Datenbank Septuagintazitate im NT’ (www.isbtf.de/datenbank-septuagintazitate-im-nt).
The only sustained treatment is Liebers’s study of NT instances that have a Schrifthinweis but are not quotations or allusions to specific passages (‘weder ein mehr oder weniger wörtliches Schriftzitat vor, noch eine eindeutig verifizierbare Anspielung auf einen bestimmten atl. Sachverhalt’; 1993: 3, emphasis original). However, he systematically removes most candidates from consideration by postulating concrete source texts for them or questioning them as secondary redactions/accretions. He is left with four (Mk 9.11-13; 14.21; 14.48-49; 1 Cor. 15.3-5) that he uses as avenues for reconstructing the earliest stratum of Christian exegesis of scripture. Stanley rightly notes, ‘Liebers’s attempt to find a common pattern in the many “citationless references to Scripture” in the NT shows the need for further research in this area’ (1996: 350). Liebers’s attempt to use these passages to stratify early Christian traditions (especially Mark) has not found much following, and, as a result, his otherwise useful study of generic citations has been largely overlooked.
In seeking to build on Liebers’s research and fill a scholarly lacuna, I will structure this study as follows. First, I will survey introductory formulae found in the NT to demonstrate how these generic citations compare to other specific citations; as part of this, I will, by definition, exclude non-signaled quotations (e.g., Rom. 9.7) and allusions/echoes. Second, I will examine these generic citations along three thematic categories. Third, I will briefly compare these generic citations with broader Jewish patterns. Finally, I will offer some concluding implications/suggestions. I aim to argue the following: these 33 generic citations provide a vital, and often overlooked, window into how the NT authors treat the entirety of Israel’s scriptures – not just isolated prooftexts (even with metalepsis) – as foundational for understanding history, Christ and the church.
Survey of Citation Forms
I begin by framing the unwieldy set of data pertaining to introductory formulae or citation forms in the NT. There remains much debate about what ‘counts’ – and the haphazard mixing of citations/quotations and (often faint) allusions in the loci citati vel allegati appendix of the critical editions (NA28/UBS5) has not helped matters. Based on my own examination of the data, 266 passages contain wording that signals a quotation of some sort (cf. Archer and Chirichigno 1983). All but 19 involve a verb, with the three most common being λέγω, γράϕω and πληρόω; the verbless introductions typically occur in a chain that elsewhere involves a verb (e.g., Heb. 1.5-12) or use a noun (like νόμος or γραϕή) that functions equivalently. (Excluded from consideration are three citation-like passages dealing with recent prophecies [Jn 18.9, 32; Acts 21.11].)
The bulk of these 266 passages can be considered specific citations, including over 200 direct quotations of known OT passages as well as a couple of other special categories: quotations of known non-OT passages (e.g., Epimenides [most likely] in Titus 1.12; 1 Enoch in Jude 14), and wording clearly intended to be a quotation, but of an unidentified source (e.g., Eph. 5.14; 2 Tim. 2.19). The remaining are generic citations, where some kind of introductory formula (‘as it is written’) or broad reference to scriptural writings (νόμος, γραϕή or the like) is employed, but there is no wording intended to be taken as a quotation at all. To illustrate, Table 1 provides two citations from Matthew with essentially the same introductory formula, but one is clearly ‘generic’.
‘Fulfillment’ citations from Matthew.
Both citations involve ἵνα + πληρόω, a reference to a source (τὸ ῥηθὲν and αἱ γραϕαί, respectively) and ‘the prophet(s)’. The first, however, expressly quotes Hos. 11.1, while the second has no text that would be construed as directly quoting a source.
We can quantitatively compare these two citation patterns (specific and generic) in at least three ways: by NT corpus, by verb-form and by named OT author/source (see Table 2).
Categorization of citations.
Revelation is not shown because it lacks explicit citation formulae.
Column total is not shown due to double counting (some passages include more than one).
Others include ἐντέλλομαι, πίμπλημι, (δια)μαρτύρομαι and προϕητεύω.
Others include God, David, Spirit, Psalm(s), Jeremiah and Lord.
A full, categorized listing of all 266 is found in the Appendix. The generic citations of interest in this study are those shown in Table 3. (They are assigned a number that will be used to help identify them in the discussions that follow).
Catalog of generic citations in the NT.
The quantification analyses above (Table 2) indicate that these generic citations fit broadly into the same patterns as specific citations, though with differing distributions. They come from all parts of the NT (except the Catholics and Revelation, which have fewer OT citations anyhow), involve the same kinds of verbs and appeal to the same kinds of named authors/sources (apart from Isaiah). For instance, almost as many generic citations appeal to the ‘Law’ as do specific citations – i.e., in a single chapter Paul appeals specifically to Isa. 28:11-12 (!) with ἐν τῷ νόμῳ γέγραπται ὅτι (1 Cor. 14.21), but no particular text a few verses later with καθὼς καὶ ὁ νόμος λέγει (1 Cor. 14.34).
In sum, the 33 generic citations of interest are more or less indistinguishable in terms of the form of their introductory formulae relative to specific citations. Given they make up over one-tenth of total citations, it is surprising they have received so little attention.
Let us turn to examine them, grouped by theme.
Generic Citations Regarding Israel’s History
We begin with seven generic citations that give insight into the NT authors’ comprehensive understanding of the broad trajectory of Israel’s history. Here (and in subsequent sections) I will list the Greek text (NA28) of the passages as a group, with the citation formulae underlined. I will then examine them in some level of detail. (Given this essay covers 33 passages across five NT authors, space permits only selective engagement with the abundant secondary literature.)
Twice in the NT we find ‘Israel’s history … written out directly’ at length (Müller 2001: 327), namely, in the speeches of Stephen and Paul (Acts 7.2-53; 13.16-23). Each speech mixes specific citations with paraphrases, touching on the same major mileposts of Israel’s story such as Abraham, Moses, the exodus, the wilderness and conquest, the judges, David and the temple (see detailed treatment in Jeska 2001; Keener 2013: 1328-429, 2050-91). These summaries reveal an impressive comprehension of the moving parts of Israel’s scriptures, certainly beyond a limited engagement with isolated prooftexts.
This sweeping way of reading Israel’s story, found in long-form in these speeches, also appears in short-form in seven generic citations.
Looking Back
Citations §7 and §8 look back on the way in which God had promised deliverance to the patriarchs (Lk. 1.55) and all the prophets (Lk. 1.70). In each of their respective contexts – the Magnificat and Benedictus – numerous OT scenes come to mind, including the covenants of Genesis, the patriarchal narrative, the exodus event, a variety of psalms, the song of Hannah, the covenant promises to David and so forth (see Mittmann-Richert 1996; Dillon 2013). No specific texts are quoted in these Lukan hymns, however (Liebers 1993: 16). Rather, the author employs the same citation formula in these two verses (καθὼς ἐλάλησεν) in such a way as to draw upon the entire scope of history, from Abraham through all the prophets, without referring to any one text or writer in particular (Sanders 1987: 194). With this generic citation the author solidifies how the birth account is a continuation of Israel’s whole story and must be understood in light of everything ‘spoken’ in the past – not just this or that prooftext. (In this regard it is surprising that Litwak 2005, which propounds this theme fully, overlooks these two citations.)
Looking to the Present
The account of Peter’s sermon makes a similarly broad claim in citation §21 (Acts 3.24), that ‘all the prophets from Samuel’ onward anticipated ‘these days’. Certainly, the specific citation of Deut. 18.15 in v. 22 and Gen. 22.18 in v. 25 are relevant cotexts – along with, perhaps, the dynastic promises of 2 Sam. 7. But the Torah citations are pre-Samuel, and the open-ended scope of the claim deserves more attention: all prophets (not just those in the Nevi’im) anticipated everything happening in τὰς ἡμέρας ταύτας, without qualification (cf. Acts 2.17 for a similar use of ‘days’). There is a kind of hyperbolic expansion here, whereby all the contemporary events from Peter’s (or the author’s) perspective are seen to have been objects of reflection by Israel’s prophets, beyond any concrete OT passage (see Keener 2013: 1117-18).
This present-time horizon of Israel’s prophets is found in a slightly narrower form in citations §4 and §18. The former (Mk 9.13) speaks of the mistreatment of ‘Elijah’ – referring to John the Baptist’s imprisonment and death – as a fulfillment of everything ‘written about him’. But where was this fate discussed in the OT? The obvious source of the ‘Elijah’ idea is Mal. 3–4 (Kaiser 1985: 85-88), but entirely absent from that passage is any sense of a future suffering of this ‘messenger’. So, the field of vision must go beyond that singular text. Likely, given the Baptist’s association with Jesus, the verse is situating the Elijah/John forerunner in the long line of prophets that, per the so-called Deuteronomistic history, are sent by God but suffer an ill fate (see Lk. 11.49; Acts 7.52; cf. Mt. 11.13). Making this exegetical move presupposes a fairly sophisticated reading and synthesis of large swaths of Israel’s scriptures.
The latter (Jn 17.12) speaks of a different impending death, namely, that of Judas, the ‘son of destruction’. Though Ps. 41[40] (in Jn 13.18) and Pss. 69[68].26 and 109[108].8 (in Acts 1.20) are applied to Judas, it is unclear whether any specific OT text is identifiable here as the ‘scripture’ to be ‘fulfilled’ (Köstenberger 2007: 416; Hays 2016: 286). While some argue that the evangelist may be referring to a fulfillment of Jesus’ own previous prediction (Freed 1965: 57), the use of ‘son of destruction’ (not mentioned earlier by Jesus) suggests a broader biblical theme is at play. Regularly in the Psalms (e.g., Pss. 2; 18), Isaiah (e.g., 57.4 LXX) and Second Temple literature (e.g., Jub. 10.3; 1QS 9.16; 10.19), opponents of God’s righteous people are doomed to destruction as God metes out judgment. The destruction of Judas (and the protection of the rest, Jn 17.12a) ‘fulfills’ a broader pattern within Israel’s history; indeed, this pattern is key to making sense of the otherwise unusual specific citations mentioned at Jn 13.18 and Acts 1.20.
Looking Forward
The remaining two citations §10 and §26 draw together Israel’s scriptures in anticipation of future events. The first (Lk. 21.22) speaks comprehensively of the ‘days of vengeance’ that will befall Jerusalem. Though the particular phrase ἡμέραι ἐκδικήσεως recalls the Greek of Hos. 9.7 (αἱ ἡμέραι τῆς ἐκδικήσεως), the scope of Jesus’ statement – the surrounding of Jerusalem by armies, ‘desolation’, distress, captivity, trampling by Gentiles and so forth (21.20-24) – point to a much broader field of OT prophecy related to judgment on Jerusalem. Some scholars posit a substantial array of relevant passages as possible sources for Lk. 21.22, beginning with the curses of Lev. 26 and Deut. 28 and extending through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Micah and Zechariah (Liebers 1993: 169-78; Pao/Schnabel 2007: 376-77). Jerusalem’s distress is not limited to one specific phrase in Hosea but spans the entire OT witness; in this way, Jesus’ oracle shows in a comprehensive way how ‘Israel’s Scripture plays itself out again’ (Hays 2016: 221).
The second (Acts 24.14) features Paul’s defense of his own Jewish piety (Keener 2015: 3401). He claims to believe ‘everything’ in the Law and the Prophets. This is an unsurprising claim by someone trained as a Pharisee – though it does show how the ‘Jewish Bible becomes more important in itself’ in the Acts narrative (Müller 2001: 322, emphasis added). What is often missed by commentators, however, is how Paul elaborates further (via ἔχων) on what, in particular, he has in mind that is attested in the Jewish canon: ‘a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous’ (24.15). Several passages could be in his mind (Pss. 16.10; 49.15; Isa. 26.19; Ezek. 37.11-14; Dan. 12.2), but Paul cites none directly. Rather, he simply points out how he shares with his Jewish opponents a belief that Israel’s history marches towards resurrection, grounded in ‘everything’ written before.
Summary
These generic citations convey the sense that the speaker/authors have read across the OT canon and synthesized a view of Israel’s history – past, present and future – that goes beyond simple prooftexting. They show, just like the aforementioned speeches in Acts, the degree to which the NT authors see their story is a continuation of Israel’s.
Generic Citations Regarding Christology
Over half (19) of the generic citations, unsurprisingly, fall into the category of Christology. I will examine them in three groups: those that appeal to the whole OT as witness to a coming ‘Messiah’, explicitly using χριστός; those that refer to the suffering of the ‘Son of Man’ (ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου); and those that refer to the fulfillment of the OT in specific events of Jesus’s life.
General Messianology
I begin with the five passages from Luke–Acts that connect the ‘suffering’ (πάσχω or πάθημα) of ‘the Christ’ with a broad reading of the OT.
The two dominical statements (§11 and §12) of Lk. 24 are, of course, well known. Despite their robust references to ‘the prophets’ (3×), ‘Moses’ (2×), γραϕαί (2×), ‘Psalms’ (1×) and fulfillment (1×), there is no specific quotation of any OT passage (Liebers 1993: 23). Rather, these passages provide a ‘global reading of the OT’ (Fitzmyer 1985: 1565) – that is, a ‘hermeneutical key’ (Litwak 2005: 17) whereby the ‘sweeping language … point[s] beyond a limited number of scriptural predictions to something that is central to Scripture as such’ (Tannehill 1986: 286). Given that the OT itself does not, in direct terms, anticipate a χριστός who would suffer and die, the scholarship is divided on exactly what motifs from the OT are in mind. The four main options are the ‘Suffering Servant’ (Isa. 52–53), the righteous sufferer of the psalms, the violent fate of the prophets (mentioned above) and the eschatological role of various ‘savior’ or ‘anointed’ figures (see discussion in Litwak 2005: 119-41). Narrowing down any further is almost beside the point, given the lack of specifics from Luke’s account. It is almost as if there would be too many; from the evangelist’s perspective, the messianic claim is found ‘probably in “all the Scriptures” as a unit, whether any particular text is cited or not’ (Sanders 1987: 192). These verses, in short, provide ‘a comprehensive scheme of biblical interpretation’ (Dodd 1952: 100), whereby the disciples are given new eyes to read the whole OT as messianic in thrust (Hays 2016: 223).
Turning to Acts, we see this dominical cue reflected in briefer form with citation §20 (Peter’s speech, Acts 3.18) and citations §24 and §27 (Paul’s speeches, Acts 17.2-3; 26.22-23). Each of these citations is a ‘global reference to Scripture’ (Keener 2013: 1104) whereby the suffering of the χριστός is viewed as something prefigured in ‘all’ the ‘prophets’, ‘Moses’ and ‘scriptures’. These statements do not isolate any specific passage as a prooftext – though that does happen regularly in the speeches of Acts (see Steyn 1995) – but rather reflect what appears to be a burgeoning apostolic hermeneutic: the entire OT is retrospectively seen as containing a messianology of suffering.
Two other examples of deriving messianic ideas from a broad reading of scripture are citations §16 and §17. The first (Jn 7.42) voices a view held by some of the Jerusalem-based Jews that the γραϕή spoke of a ‘Messiah’ coming from the ‘seed of David’ and, thus, from ‘Bethlehem’. As Freed notes, ‘no one passage or combination of passages from the O.T. fully satisfies the words of Jn.’ here (1965: 41). Rather, the expectation of a Davidic deliverer is stamped in numerous places, from 2 Sam. 7 to Ps. 89 to Ezek. 36 and beyond. The Bethlehem reference is also intriguing, given that John’s gospel does not narrate the Bethlehem nativity (Mt. 1–2; Lk. 1–2); Mic. 5.1 is the natural candidate, though little is made of that prophecy in pre-rabbinic, non-Christian Judaism. The second (Jn 12.34) voices a view of the crowds that the ‘Law’ teaches that the ‘Messiah’ lasts forever (and, thus, may not suffer and die). Once more, ‘the reference is made here not so much to any one passage as to the general thrust of OT messianic teaching’ (Köstenberger 2007: 475). Where in the ‘Law’ they derive the idea is left unspecified by the evangelist (though, note, that John’s gospel uses νόμος flexibly, e.g., for the Psalms in Jn 10.34-35 and 15.25).
Each of these passages features a non-specific appeal to the whole corpus of Hebrew scriptures (explicitly in Lk. 24.44-47; implicitly in the other citations), as a kind of encyclopedia for messianological ideas pertaining to a χριστός-figure, particularly one who suffers. Let us narrow our field of vision further to ‘Son of Man’ references, then to specific ways these messianic ideas are applied to Jesus’ life directly.
The Son of Man
Space does not permit, of course, a detailed rehashing of the scholarship on the ‘Son of Man’ (see Müller 2014). Our interest lies in how these three passages (citations §1 and §5 are Synoptic parallels; the Lukan version [22.22] lacks a citation formula) refer generically to the OT as having ‘written’ (γράϕω) ‘about’ (περί/ἐπί) the betrayal and ill fate of the ‘Son of Man’. The usual suspects for a specific OT source are Isa. 52–53 and various psalms of righteous suffering, as well as other citations in the near context (i.e., Zech. 13.7 in Mt. 26.31). Daniel 7.13 is also a possibility, even though nominally it might not have been considered part of the ‘prophets’ (Lk. 18.31) in the threefold Hebrew canon; the Danielic ‘Son of Man’ is connected to Jesus by Mark (14.62), at least (regardless of debates on Second Temple views or authenticity).
But such considerations somewhat miss the point. These citations are intentionally indefinite, ‘list[ing] no scriptural texts which are to be “fulfilled”’ (Litwak 2005: 120). Thus, they map the same messianology of suffering surveyed previously onto the ‘Son of Man’ construct. Debates continue as to what prompts the evangelists (and/or Jesus) to connect the ‘Son of Man’ with ‘Messiah’ – but scriptural interpretation appears to be a key factor. In short, that which was ‘written’ about this figure’s fate in Jerusalem is not this or that particular text, but the entire sweep of scripture (Hays 2016: 79).
The Life of Jesus
Having moved from messianology in general to the Synoptic linking of a suffering figure with the ‘Son of Man’, I now turn to passages that see a fulfillment of the entire OT in the concrete events surrounding the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
Three Johannine citations – §13 (Jn 1.45), §14 (Jn 2.22) and §15 (Jn 5.39-46) – connect ‘Moses’/‘Law’, the ‘prophets’ and γραϕή to the initial ministry of Jesus, including his first arrival in Galilee, his miraculous deeds and his teaching in the temple during Passover (early in his ministry, per John’s chronology). John 1.45 shows how, according to the evangelist, the early disciples’ initial encounter with Jesus prompted them to see him as the one about whom the OT ‘was written’ – though, perhaps, their ideas along these lines were not yet fully defined. John 2.22 indicates how the resurrection provides stimulus to look backwards and see how Jesus had previously anticipated his own fate in his temple teaching, now understood in light of τῇ γραϕῇ (Hays 2016: 311-12). And Jn 5.39-46 records Jesus’ own testimony that the Jewish leaders (5.16) should not pit Torah against the self-authenticating quality of his deeds because Moses himself ‘wrote about me’. Jesus presses upon them a ‘fundamental hermeneutical claim’ whereby everything Moses wrote bears witness not with but against the Jewish interlocutors, so long as they remain opposed to Jesus’ ongoing ministry (Hays 2016: 282). None of these citations, however, point us to any specific OT passages where such things were recorded.
Two parallel Synoptic sayings, citations §2 (Mt. 26.54-56) and §6 (Mk 14.49; there is no Lukan equivalent), speak broadly of the fulfillment of αἱ γραϕαί in the betrayal and arrest of Jesus. Of particular interest is the Matthean form, which resembles the widely studied ‘fulfillment’ citations (e.g., Mt. 1.23; 2.15; 4.14; etc.) through its use of ἵνα πληρωθῇ and its reference to the prophetic corpus. But unlike the others, it ‘does not introduce a quotation, but is a reflection on the fulfilment, not of this or that particular text, but of the Old Testament as a whole’ (Soares-Prabhu 1976: 30). In neither account does Jesus connect a specific OT passage to his arrest, nor is there an obvious candidate anyhow (though some have suggested an allusion to the targum of Isa. 11.1; Albright and Mann 1971: 329). Rather, the generic citations suggest that the mistreatment of Jesus fulfills the inexorable trajectory of the OT witness – a tangible step of fulfillment in the unfolding of a messianology of suffering.
Further, the Fourth Gospel includes a unique authorial sidenote, citation §19 (Jn 20.9), about the as-yet incomplete knowledge of Peter and ‘the other disciple’ when they first visit the empty tomb. Though they believe (20.8), they do not yet understand τὴν γραϕήν, which, per the evangelist, spoke of the necessity (ὅτι δεῖ) of Jesus’ resurrection. Various options have been offered as source texts (e.g., Ps. 16.10; Isa. 53.10-12; Hos. 6.2), but it is more plausible ‘that the reference is to scripture in its entirety’ (Köstenberger 2007: 506). Though few if any concrete OT passages point decisively to the resurrection of a ‘Messiah’-figure, the evangelist sees it as the actualization of all ‘scripture’ – though the disciples did not yet realize it. Their epistemic turnaround is left unnarrated in John, instead standing prominently in Lk. 24.25-27, 44-47.
Finally, we can conclude this section with citation §25 (Acts 18.28), which is an authorial comment describing how Apollos argued with the Jews in Achaia that ‘Jesus’ is the ‘Christ’ – directly connecting messianological ideas with the person of Jesus himself – ‘through the scriptures’ (διὰ τῶν γραϕῶν). According to the author, the incipient Christian reading strategy – perhaps taught to Apollos by Priscilla and Aquila (18.26) – enables even the Alexandrian convert to see Jesus as χριστός across the OT, not just any specific text.
Summary
In dealing with christologically oriented generic citations, I have moved from messianology to the ‘Son of Man’ connection to specific events of Jesus’ life. But the astute reader will note that these passages so far derive from the gospels and Acts – perhaps raising doubts about how closely they reflect early Christian approaches to scripture. The clincher, however, is the generic appeal to the OT at the heart of the significant and possibly pre-Pauline summation found in Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians:
The tradition attested here by Paul clearly establishes Jesus as ‘Christ’ and twice declares that his death and his resurrection are ‘according to the scriptures’ (κατὰ τὰς γραϕάς). In other words, it claims that the OT offers not only a messianology of suffering but also vindication – and then connects this to Jesus Christ.
Typically, Isa. 52–53 and Hos. 6.2 are posited as the sources of this claim, though Jon. 2 and others are sometimes suggested (Metzger 1957; Ellis 1957: 139; Lindars 1961: 61; Juel 1988: 129). The preceding discussion of similar generic citations, however, would point in a different direction. By appealing to the γραϕαί in the plural here, Paul is not directing his reader to this or that specific text but is rather making a ‘general reference to the Old Testament’ (Ciampa/Rosner 2010: 747). Paul, who elsewhere in 1 Corinthians and his other major epistles evinces a detailed engagement with the OT along numerous dimensions, is suggesting that the salvific death and resurrection of the Messiah is the sum-total of ‘the whole OT’, capturing the essence of God’s saving plan recorded in all of Israel’s scriptures (Fitzmyer 2007: 546). Indeed, seeking to nail down an isolated prooftext would seem to be contrary to Paul’s intentions – ‘amount[ing] to unintended reductionism and constraint’ (Thiselton 2000: 1195; emphasis original).
If true, and if this reflects a pre-Pauline tradition, this generic citation points to the early roots of a christological reading of the entire OT as an entity, shared by Paul and the evangelists from the earliest days of the Christian movement. True, many dozens of specific citations in the NT treat individual OT passages as christological – but the overarching conviction is that the entire biblical message culminates in the Christ-event.
Generic Citations Regarding the Life of the Church
We wrap up our survey of generic citations in the NT with seven passages (two repeated from above) that canvas the OT in a broad way for the purposes of understanding the church’s gospel, highlighting the church’s mission, and guiding the church’s conduct.
Gospel
In three passages – citations §28 (Rom. 1.2), §29 (Rom. 3.21) and §31 (Rom. 16.26) – Paul articulates how the Christian gospel and its core idea of the ‘righteousness of God’ and ‘obedience of faith’ are found writ large in ‘the prophets’ (2×), ‘Law’ (1×) and the ‘holy’ or ‘prophetic’ γραϕαί (2×).
With regard to the first and third examples, it is fitting that a letter so drenched in scriptural exegesis – over 40 specific citations and dozens of non-signaled quotations and allusions – is bookended by summary references to the ‘prophets’/‘prophetic γραϕαί’ (withholding judgment on the text-critical issue for Rom. 16.25-27, which would not impact this analysis). This indicates that the gospel which Paul propounds in intricate ways is already recorded by ‘all the persons mentioned in the OT through whom God spoke’, not just the Nevi’im (Jewett 2007: 103; similarly, Longenecker 2016: 62). In the course of the letter, Paul draws on Genesis, Psalms, Isaiah, Hosea and much more to expound the gospel, such that Rom. 1.2 and 16.26 function as a kind of abstract or epitome.
In the third Romans example we see how such an overarching take on the OT is essential to Paul. At this key turning point of his argument about justification, he shows how he seeks not simply to ground his gospel claims in isolated prooftexts like, say, Hab. 2.4 (Rom. 1.17). Rather, his overall argument, if it is to be effective with Jewish readers at least, hangs or falls on whether, in fact, it is anticipated by ‘the Law and the Prophets’ in toto (Rom. 3.21). Though, in one sense, the ins and outs of his gospel were previously veiled as a ‘mystery’ (Rom. 16.25), Paul’s core claims about righteousness and God’s dealings with humanity would fail if he cannot root them in the entire written counsel of God.
Lastly, citation §22 (Acts 10.43) brings to a conclusion the recorded speech of Peter at Cornelius’s house. He provides a condensed summary of the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. But instead of citing the OT christologically (as elsewhere in Peter’s speeches, shown above), he instead claims that ‘all the prophets bore witness’ to the forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ – though without citing a specific passage where such an offer is made in the OT (Liebers 1993: 30). Rather, the verse suggests that this central gospel truth is, in a nutshell, the testimony of ‘all’ the prophets.
Mission
Previously, citations §12 (Lk. 24.44-47) and §27 (Acts 26.22-23) were examined in terms of their significance for basing christological claims – particularly a messianology of suffering – on the entirety of scripture. What often goes overlooked in these passages is how they move immediately from Christology to the mission of the church. In the former, the syntax of Jesus’ assertion makes clear what else ‘has been written’:
While the messianic suffering and vindication attract more scholarly attention, the third infinitive is precisely parallel and shows that the proclamation of repentance and the forgiveness of sins to all nations/Gentiles is also written in the ‘Law’, ‘Prophets’ and ‘Psalms’ (24.44). This clause is ‘is not a specific fulfillment of any scriptural promise’ (Litwak 2005: 145) but, rather, the salvific-mission-to-Gentiles could be traced to Gen. 12; 15; Isa. 42; 49; Jer. 1–3; Mic. 4; Zech. 8; and more.
The same is true for Acts 26.22-23. In a speech defending his Gentile-oriented ministry to Agrippa, Paul claims that ‘Moses’ and the ‘Prophets’ anticipated not just the death/resurrection of Jesus (syntactically parallel: εἰ παθητός…εἰ πρῶτος ἐξ ἀναστάσεως), but also that, by virtue of Christ’s work, ‘light’ would be proclaimed to the Jews and Gentiles (τῷ τε λαῷ καὶ τοῖς ἔθνεσιν). The mission to the nations is not an appendix but is the other half, so to speak, of what the OT writers said would occur. As with Lk. 24, this global reference ‘signif[ies] a much larger array of texts than Luke provides at any one time’ (Keener 2015: 3532) – appealing to the entirety of Jewish scriptural tradition not only in terms of Christology but also in terms of mission.
Conduct
Finally, two passages can be mentioned that apply the OT in a general way to the ongoing life or practice of the church. With respect to citation §30, it is important to note that several specific passages are brought to bear in Rom. 15.3-21, from Ps. 69[68].9 to Isa. 52.15. But in Rom. 15.4, Paul casts a broader net – using a form of γραϕ- three times – to assert that ‘everything’ (ὅσα) written beforehand in Israel’s scriptures is directed towards the instruction, endurance, encouragement and hope of the church. The entire OT is a word addressed not just to historical Israel, but also eschatological Israel, the new community of faith (Ellis 1957: 147-48; Farmer and Farkasfalvy 1983: 105; Hays 1993: 166, who likens it to 1 Cor. 10.11). Paul here points not only to the verses in the surrounding cotext but ‘to the entirety of Scripture’ (Jewett 2007: 880-81), introducing his readers to a whole-Bible hermeneutic that he himself models.
A final example of such a broad reading strategy is citation §32 (1 Cor. 14.34), which is part of an enigmatic instruction about the silence of women in the congregational assembly. The precise nature of the instruction and its ongoing normativity remain disputed, of course. What matters for the present purposes is Paul’s equally enigmatic appeal to no specific passage in particular as his scriptural warrant; rather, his instruction is ‘just as the Law also says’. Some suggest that Gen. 3.16 is in Paul’s mind (Ciampa and Rosner 2010: 727), but more likely it is a general reference to a variety of otherwise unspecified OT passages (Ellis 1957: 22; Fitzmyer 2007: 531-32), cumulatively brought to bear on the conduct of the church in worship. Here, as in several other specific Pauline citations, the OT retains some measure of force as a guide to Christian conduct (e.g., Rom. 7.7-8; 12.19; 13.9; 1 Cor. 6.16; Gal. 5.14; Eph. 6.2-3).
Summary
Though the christological use of the OT in the NT receives the preponderance of attention, there is also evidence for a doctrinal/ecclesiological use as well. These various citations make a generic appeal to the ‘scriptures’, ‘Law’, ‘Prophets’ and the like in order to articulate the gospel, mission and conduct of the church.
Comparison with Jewish Citation Practices
To what degree is this broad reading of Israel’s scriptures, signaled through generic citations not tied to any specific source passage, a unique early Christian phenomenon? A thorough study of early Jewish scriptural hermeneutics in general (pesher, gezerah shawah and so on) – and how they align with those of the NT – is well beyond the present scope (see, for starters, Longenecker 1999: 6-35). We can, however, make a few observations about how the particular pattern in question compares with Second Temple evidence.
Specific Citations and Allusions
A handful of studies have examined citations and allusions to the Hebrew Bible in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pseudepigrapha, Apocrypha and related literature. Fitzmyer’s pioneering analysis (1960) focuses on the citation formulae found in a few sectarian Qumran scrolls (1QS; CD; 1QM; 4QFlor), noting how some of their forms (e.g., כאשר כתוב; כאשר אמר) bear resemblance to NT citation patterns (1960: 300-302). Moreover, he observes how some explicit sources are cited, such as Moses, Isaiah or Ezekiel, and how a few passages use an introductory formula followed by a verbatim quotation of an otherwise unknown source (1960: 304). De Waard (1966) extends Fitzmyer’s study to a larger swath of Qumran writings, focusing on comparing the wording of Qumran citations with NT citations of the same known OT passages. VanderKam and Flint (2002) attempt to catalog all Qumran passages that could be tied ‘definite[ly] or reasonably’ to a known OT source (2001: 427-33). Chester (1988) extends beyond Qumran to 1–2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, Sirach and Wisdom. Only recently (Lange and Wiegold 2011) do we now have a nearly comprehensive inventory of OT citations and allusions across all known Second Temple writings, tying a wealth of Jewish passages to OT source texts.
Consistent across these efforts is the matching of Jewish passages to known, identifiable source texts in the Hebrew scriptures. It has been regularly observed that specific citations are less common in these corpora (especially the Scrolls) than allusions/echoes (Chester 1988: 141; Wold 2019: 116). And some specific citations use wording that is somewhat ‘free’ relative to the OT source, but a concrete source is still evident (e.g., 2 Macc. 10.26; Tob. 1.6).
Broader Scriptural Engagement
A related set of data includes various passages or entire works that have a more comprehensive take on Israel’s scriptures. For instance, the Qumran Hodayot often imitate and even elaborate on the Hebrew Psalter. Tobit extensively imitates the Joseph and exodus narratives. And several passages summarize various portions of the history of Israel (akin to Stephen’s speech in Acts 7), such as 1 Macc. 2.52-60, 3 Macc. 2.4-12, Bar. 2, Sir. 44–49 and Wis. 10–11 (see Jeska 2001: 44-115).
More pronounced are entire works that re-cast biblical narratives (whether they constitute a ‘rewritten Bible’ genre is beyond our purview). Famous examples include the Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20), the Reworked Pentateuch (4Q158, 4Q364–67), Jubilees, Pseudo-Philo’s Liber antiquitatum biblicarum and Josephus’s Antiquities. Each work shows a broader grasp and redevelopment of the biblical storyline that extends well beyond what we find with one-off citations of isolated passages.
Generic Citations?
Liebers’s study is rare in its attempt to detect ‘zitatlose Schriftbezüge’ – what I am calling generic citations – in Jewish literature (1993: 291-348). Most of the evidence he surveys fits better in the categories mentioned above, such as ‘free’ citations of known passages.
However, he does identify a small number of passages that use an introductory formula of some sort but do not include quoted text. Among post-biblical writings, the most interesting are 2 Macc. 2.17-18, which describes God’s works with Israel (redemption, land, kingship, priesthood) ‘as he promised through the law’ (καθὼς ἐπηγγείλατο διὰ τοῦ νόμου), and T. Zeb. 9.5, which references future apostasy and division in Israel revealed ‘in the books of my fathers’ (ἐν γραϕῇ πατέρων). Within the Hebrew Bible itself we find a few generic summaries of ‘everything written in the book of the Law’ (or similar phrasings) in, e.g., Deut. 28.58; Josh. 1.8; 23.6; 1 Kgs. 2.3; Ezra 3.2; 6.18; Jer. 25.13; 33.14; Dan. 9.11.
Such instances are certainly scattered throughout biblical and post-biblical literature, but they do show that the NT pattern is not entirely unprecedented.
Summary
These are but cursory soundings to illustrate how early Jewish engagement with the Hebrew Bible runs the spectrum from direct citation of individual passages to overarching retellings of whole books. Schiffman rightly suggests that these complex and often subtle ways in which they ‘reworked and drew on biblical ideas and biblical phraseology’ shows that what we now call biblical intertextuality was perhaps ‘just second nature to ancient Jewish authors’ (2019: 224). In this regard, much of the mechanics of NT specific citations, as well as indications of NT authors’ broader understanding of Israel’s history, are readily intelligible within the culture of Jewish scripture reading. Even the generic citations have some antecedents, though relatively sparse.
Concluding Thoughts
This study has attempted to plow anew in a heavily worked-over field by examining NT citations that, as a category, have often gone overlooked (though scholars often point them out in isolation). I identified 33 ‘generic’ citations of the OT (among 266 in total) that involve a common introductory formula – from the complex ‘so that the scriptures of the prophets would be fulfilled’ (Mt. 26.56) to the streamlined ‘according to the scriptures’ (1 Cor. 5.3-4) – but do not contain any text intended to be understood as a direct quotation. I then explored these passages along three themes, though in most respects I was only able to scratch the surface.
Other major works on the use of the OT and the NT indicate that the NT authors engage at some level with nearly every book of the OT, with some being regular favorites like Exodus, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Psalms and Daniel. But what is often lost in debates on echoes and text-form and so forth is the recognition that the apostolic authors are not merely attempting to make proofs-from-prophecy using miscellaneous ‘buried treasures’ in the OT (Litwak 2005: 142). (Perhaps Dodd accidentally set us on this far-too-limited course.) Rather, they show signs of a more sweeping synthesis of Israel’s scriptures, bringing it to bear as a whole on their understanding of history, Christ and the church. If so, these generic citations deserve more attention as a vehicle for understanding the NT authors’ engagement with predecessor scriptures, supplementing the effort of tracing quotations or allusions to this or that specific passage. To round things out, I will offer four brief concluding thoughts.
(a) The NT authors are more similar in their total outlook than often granted. Textbooks on the NT use of the OT are almost invariably organized book-by-book or author-by-author (e.g., Porter 2006; Beale and Carson 2007; Moyise 2015); monographs are even more specialized, often focusing on only one author or small section of text. The net effect is a tendency to pit one NT author against another. While we should avoid assuming Luke’s OT hermeneutic is identical to Matthew’s or Paul’s, the examples studied here guard against the opposite extreme. The NT authors are, upon close inspection, more alike than different in their overall way of reading the entire OT. There is a striking similarity, for instance, between Lk. 24.44-47, Jn 5.39-46 and 1 Cor. 15.3-4.
(b) The effort to pick one totalizing theme is misguided. A prior generation of scholarship sought to organize every NT use of the OT around the theme of Christology. A more recent trend (Hays and Litwak, for example) have attempted to put ecclesiology more on the map as, perhaps, a more dominant theme. This short study would seem to call into question this impulse to pit one against the other. As we have seen, the NT authors’ generic appeals to the sweep of scripture fit into multiple categories – because multiple categories mattered to them – and some passages (e.g., Lk. 24.44-47 and Acts 26.22-23) combine at least two of them (Christology and church mission). It might be more fruitful, perhaps, to explore how and why these themes mutually inform each other, rather than imposing one as dominant.
(c) The rhetorical purpose of these generic citations is, it seems, to prompt a two-way engagement with the OT. So far, I have simply documented that the NT authors employ this peculiar way of citing (but not actually citing) scripture. But why? What effect does it achieve? Standard, specific citations are generally understood to be a rhetorical device aimed at persuasion (Stamps 2006), while allusions/echoes cause the reader to understand the new context (NT) in light of the old one (OT) via their interplay (Hays 1993: 20). But what about these? More work should be done on this topic but, based on this initial survey, it seems that these generic citations call the reader to, in effect, figure it out for themselves by re-reading both OT and NT together. They ‘rouse our curiosity and put us on alert … [to ask] what Scriptures are being fulfilled’ (Hays 2016: 79). That is to say, they point us to the whole of the OT as the matrix for understanding the new reality – and the new reality as the lens for reading the whole OT. They call us into a ‘dialectical process’ (Marshall 1988: 4), such that the light of the new era illumines ancient texts and vice versa (Watson 2016: 15).
(d) Informed study of biblical intertextuality requires robust ‘biblical theology’. Finally, these data (among other) suggest that the NT authors could engage in a fairly sophisticated way with broad themes that span the entire Hebrew corpus – i.e. patriarchal history, sending-and-rejection of the prophets, suffering of the righteous, ‘anointed’ deliverers, eschatological ingrafting of the nations/Gentiles and judgment on Jerusalem. They position themselves to be, in the modern technical sense, quite competent biblical theologians. If so, this should at least inform our initial starting point in studying the OT in the NT. On the one hand, these generic citations should give one pause before, say, forcing any christological use of the OT into some kind of Isa. 52–53 procrustean bed. There is much more to consider. On the other hand, there may be better ways to frame a discussion of, say, the ‘new exodus’ theme (to pick a popular one) beyond trying to adjudicate allusions involving a set number of words in rough verbatim correspondence to a known OT text. If the NT authors signal that they grasp the entirety of scripture in a robust way – beyond quoting or alluding to passages in isolation – we should revisit our own task of reading how they read.
