Bible scholars and readers constantly make intertextual connections. In discussion, such connections are subject to disagreement. The question arises therefore as to how a connection can be assessed as valid. Richard Hays has proposed seven criteria for assessing the validity of intertextual connections.[1]
Hay’s Criteria of Intertextuality
1. Availability
Hays’ first criterion for assessing an allusion is whether the source text was available to the author and audience. Thus, a typology based on an author’s use of Jewish scriptural material has a firmer footing than one that is reliant on hypothetical reconstructions of the broader literary co-text of the first century.
2. Lexical volume
Hay’s second criterion concerns the volume of corresponding lexical and syntactic material. This criterion is obviously satisfied in respect of a quotation such as that of Joel in Acts 2. However, many allusions use less material. For example, in Luke 24:49, “from on high” and “upon us” quotes Isa 32:15. The common lexical material in the LXX and NT comprises four words with and two different grammatical forms. Nevertheless, an allusion appears certain for several reasons.
Hays notes that the volume of an echo is not only determined by lexical correspondence; the distinctiveness or prominence of the precursor text is also a factor. Thus, given the rarity of “Spirit of God” texts in prophetic corpus, their distinctiveness accentuates any possible allusion from a later writer, especially when the candidate allusion is set within a “Spirit of God” context; accordingly, the allusion to Isa 32:15 seems secure.
According to Hays, an allusion is also strengthened if it is rhetorically prominent in the successor text, i.e. the plausibility of co-incidence is reduced. The programmatic nature of the Baptist’s prediction, Jesus’ promises to the Twelve, as well as Pentecost, ensures that any allusion is meant to have a critical role in interpretation.
Semantic Volume
Hays does not offer a criterion relating to the volume of typical correspondences between precursor and successor texts. These may pertain to description of a location, the position of an episode in a plot, the details of event, the presence of corresponding characters or groups, and so on. These correspondences do not depend on lexical or syntactic links.
3. Recurrence
Hay’s third criterion is optionally applicable in that it tests whether an allusion is from a text that an author uses on more than one occasion. This criterion can be broadened to include a count of how often an author quarries a book or parts of a book for allusive material, which might show a predisposition towards making the allusion under test. For example, there is evidence to show that Luke re-used Malachi, Joel, and Isaiah in more than one place. Thus, while the quotation of Joel in Acts 2 is evident, the presence of this citation makes other allusions to Joel more likely. The use of “sun, moon, and stars” in Luke21:25 is more likely to be related to Joel 2:10 and 3:15, because of Luke’s use of Joel in Acts 2.
4. Thematic Coherence
Hay’s fourth criterion is that the allusion should fit with the line of argument being developed by the author. Luke’s use of Joel serves his purpose in offering a deliverance context and a broadly-based bestowal of the Spirit. Isaiah 32 likewise offers a deliverance context for the bestowal of the Spirit. These allusions therefore fit with his end-time expectations for Jerusalem and the “generation” contemporary with Jesus.
Coherence among the selected precursor texts
A variation of Hays’ “coherence” criterion would be to consider whether Luke’s precursor texts are a coherent grouping. This criterion is satisfied if the texts share common motifs and themes. If this is the case, it would be reasonable for Luke to incorporate allusions drawing on Isaiah 32 and Joel 2 when describing the bestowal of the Spirit.
5. Historical Plausibility
Hay’s fifth criterion is an assessment of whether a proposed allusion is historically plausible for the original audience. Such an audience for NT writers would have been comprised of pre-critical readers. Accordingly, much modern historical criticism of the NT use of the OT would have been foreign to them and is unlikely to be able to uncover what an allusion meant to a first century reader.
6. History of Interpretation
Hays defines his sixth criterion as a question: Have other readers, both critical and pre-critical, heard the same echoes?[2] The problem with this criterion is that different reading communities offer different histories of interpretation. Historical critics offer a different history to that of a pre-critical fundamentalist community.
7. Satisfaction
Hays’ final, seventh, criterion “is difficult to articulate precisely without falling into the affective fallacy, but it is finally the most important”.[3] The “satisfaction” of an allusion or a cluster of allusions is a function of the reading background that a commentator brings to the text and it suffers from the same problem as the “history of interpretation”.
Conclusion
Hays’ criteria have been widely discussed and applied in Old and New Testament Studies; other criteria could be offered. Strictly speaking, they are not “criteria” of evaluation; our presentation has been a loose statement. They are however useful tools for assessing allusions.
[1] R. B Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 29-32.
[2] Echoes, 31.
[3] Echoes, 31
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One