The question arises as to what a NT author or the first audience knew of scripture; what did an author require of his real audience and what did he imply in his use of scripture? This topic is vexed by the subjectivity of reading today; one scholar may attribute to an author or audience specific knowledge of the context of a source quotation, whereas another scholar may find no evidence of such knowledge and restrict an author’s knowledge only to the quotation. This area of discussion proceeds outside the doctrinal framework of inspiration; a presumption of omniscient authorship changes the intertextual task completely.
It is useful to ask whether there are any criteria to apply in deciding whether an author requires a reader to know more of a source context for the quotation, allusion, or echo that is being included. In a programmatic exercise, the following loosely stated criteria are offered:
1) A quotation may stop in mid-sentence. For example, Luke’s quotation of Isa 61:1-2 stops with “to preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:19), which is half the sentence that is completed with “and the day of vengeance of our God” (Isa 61:2).[1]
The situation here is akin to someone announcing, “Friends, Romans, Countrymen…” which is an incomplete catchphrase and likely to be completed by the audience. Similarly, in the case of Luke’s quotation of Isaiah 61, an auditor[2] is likely to complete the quotation and ask why Luke has stopped mid-sentence.
The point here is that the absence[3] of material motivates an auditor to supply the missing material. What is to be made of the material left out is another question. Luke may or may not think that there is an imminent day of vengeance.
2) Conversely, an author may quote mid-sentence. For example, Luke quotes from Isa 58:6 in Luke 4:18, “to let the oppressed go free”, and this is a mid-sentence clause. Once a reader/hearer is sent to Isa 58:6, he is bound to ask how this clause fits with the immediate clauses.
3) A slight variation on the previous point, which sees a composite quotation of Isaiah 58 and 61 being used by Luke, is a composite quotation of fragments from a single text. For example, the author to the Hebrews, quotes Pss 102:25-27 in Hebs 1:10-12, but prefaces the quotation with the fragment, “And thou Lord…” from Psa 102:12. This kind of usage requires the reader/hearer to take, in this case, the whole Psalm, as a context for understanding the quotation.
4) Dropping into the middle of a sentence, or stopping mid-sentence, are obvious directions to a reader to fill in the gaps. A composite quotation from two oracles, as in the case of Isaiah 58/61 also directs a reader/hearer to associate the two oracles. Luke’s usage of two fragments from the two oracles brings the two oracles as a whole together and directs a reader to think beyond the quoted material to the question of how the oracles may be a background to Luke’s story.
5) Another indication to a reader/hearer that he is to draw in the wider context of a source text is the presence of corresponding lexical material in both quoting context and quoted context. It is this kind of correspondence that forms typological patterns. Correspondences may be established through the LXX or the MT; with the NT it is easier to use the LXX as a guide to correspondences with the MT.
For example, Pentecost can be compared to Isaiah’s Call.[4] Isaiah saw “the lord sitting (ka,qhmai/bvy) upon a throne” and “the house” (oi=koj/lkyh) “full (plh,rhj/alm) of his glory” (Isa 6:1, LXX[5]). In the accompanying theophany smoke fills (pi,mplhmi/alm, cf. Ezek 10:4) the temple, and there is a voice or sound (fwnh,/lwq) of praise (Isa 6:3-4), which shakes (evpai,rw/[wn) the doorposts of the temple. Isaiah has his “lips” (Isa 6:9) purged as a symbol of his appropriateness as a mouthpiece of the Deity.
Luke’s Pentecost account has corresponding detail: Luke has the disciples in “the house” (oi=koj),[6] when the house is filled (plhro,w) with a rushing mighty wind (Acts 2:2); the disciples are then filled (pi,mplhmi, Acts 2:4) with the holy Spirit, and their voice (fwnh,, Acts 2:6) is a voice of praise, and they are empowered to speak on behalf of God; finally, this event takes place after Jesus has ascended and been exalted to a position as “the lord” sitting upon a throne (ka,qhmai, Acts 2:33, 34).
In addition to these correspondences, there is a broad thematic “fit” with Acts insofar as Isaiah’s call narrative is about calling and commission. The crux in the text is about who will be “sent” and who will tell the people (Isa 6:8-9, xlv/avposte,llw). This corresponds to the commission of the disciples to be “apostles” (avpo,stoloj, Luke 6:13, Acts 1:8). Isaiah’s commission was ultimately to be unsuccessful insofar as the people would hear “but not understand”, and see “but not perceive” (Isa 6:9). This is the quotation upon which Luke concludes his view of the Jews (Acts 28:25-26), which thereby shows his Isaianic view of the preaching of the disciples throughout Acts.
In this example, there is no citation, but there is an allusion conveyed by multiple lexical items. When this occurs, the spread of the words and/or phrases from the source text involve a reader/hearer in taking in the whole of the source context as the background for the quoting narrative.
6) More broadly, if there are no corresponding lexical items between the quoting and quoted contexts, there may be shared concepts between the two texts that indicate why an author has chosen a text, and the shared themes may be the result of the author reflecting on the scriptural material. For example, Luke alludes to Mal 3:1 in the prediction that there was a “Coming One” (Luke 3:16). This person would baptise with “spirit and fire”. Mal 3:2 refers to the “refining fire” of the coming one, which is shared motif with Luke 3:16. This connection suggests that Luke expects a reader to compare more fully the oracle of Malachi 3 with the ministry of John the Baptist and Jesus.
7) Conversely, it may seem as if there is nothing in common between two contexts; it may appear as if a quote has been “lifted out of context”. The problem with this supposition is that deeper analysis may yield contextual linkage. However, if we suppose for the sake of argument that there are no contextual links, then this would indicate that the author does not expect a reader/hearer to read around the originating context of the quotation. It may be that the quotation is frozen and complete in the point it conveys. Obvious examples of this kind of quotation would be sayings and aphorisms.
8) A variation on (7) would be the situation when there is dissonance between two texts. Here a quotation seems partly appropriate, but there are elements in the quotation itself, which do not serve the author’s purpose. For example, Luke’s quotation of Joel 2:28-32 has an element of the sun being turned into darkness and the moon into blood. It is not clear that the sense such elements have in Joel is the sense that Luke requires in Acts. This kind of dissonance shows a reader/hearer engaging both texts, an engagement triggered by the author. In this exercise, the reader/hearer is driven to the wider context seeking resolution of the dissonance.
9) Finally, an author may offer a gloss on the quoted material that directs a reader/hearer to take the material in a certain way. For example, Paul says, “For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me. (Rom 15:3). This citation from Pss 69:9 is prefaced by the point that Paul wants to make; Paul is directing the reader to take from the source context the information he highlights. An auditor may read all of Psalm 69, but there is no impetus to do so on account of Paul’s citation.
In conclusion, these criteria have been loosely stated. However, they could be stated more precisely. For example, rule (8) could be stated thus: “if and only there is dissonance between quoted text and quoting context, then a reader/hearer is directed to the wider context of the source text to resolve the dissonance”. The major theoretical work on echoes in scripture has been undertaken in recent years by Richard Hays;[7] his criteria for evaluating echoes will be discussed in a future article.
[1] In Hebrew this point is strengthened because of the parallel structure of the poetry; it is more marked that one half of a bi-colon is absent.
[2] This term is used to refer to readers and hearers as a collective group.
[3] An analogy exists here between phrasal metalepsis and the absence of linked material from a source text in a quoting text.
[4] An allusion to this call narrative is noted (but not developed) by F. S. Spencer, Journeying through Acts: A Literary Cultural Reading (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 2004), 42.
[5] This LXX interpretation of the Hebrew is confirmed in Johannine tradition and applied to Jesus (John 12:41).
[6] Spencer, following other scholars, does not recognize Luke’s typological use of “house” for the temple, preferring an “upper room” location, Journeying, 42.
[7] R. B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One