Readers, Authors, And The Divine Author: An Evangelical Proposal For Identifying Paul’s Old Testament Citations

By Christopher R. Bruno

[Christopher R. Bruno is a Ph.D. student at Wheaton College Graduate School in Wheaton, Ill.]

I. Introduction

Without a doubt, the OT was the primary literary source of the NT writers.[1] The writings of Paul are no exception to this pattern.[2] Although students of the NT have always recognized Paul’s dependence on the OT, the last thirty years have seen a number of significant scholarly discussions about Paul’s use of the OT.[3] It is often noted that although Paul frequently includes a citation formula when he quotes the OT, this is by no means always the case.[4] In many cases, verbal parallels from the OT are seamlessly integrated into Paul’s letters. In spite of the great amount of attention these unmarked citations have received in recent years, no consensus has been reached about whether we can actually label verbal parallels between the OT and Paul as legitimate citations, and, if so, how many we can identify and what method we may use to identify them.[5]

Part of this question hangs on whether we adopt an author-centered or reader-centered approach in our analysis of these citations. In what follows, I will review several major proposals for analyzing these possible citations and evaluate how successful each approach is. Following this, I will suggest a distinctively evangelical approach to this question that draws on both methods to some extent.

II. Defining Terms

Before we begin, however, we will pause to establish preliminary definitions of the terms “author-centered” and “reader-centered.” One of the first to deal with the differences between author-and reader-centered approaches to Paul’s OT citations was Christopher Stanley.[6] According to Stanley, one using a reader-centered approach recognizes an OT citation only in those places where clear indicators marking the citation are present. Stanley suggests indicators such as introductory formulas, interpretative glosses, and unmistakable shifts in the author’s style as examples of such objective criteria.[7] For Stanley, an author-centered approach, on the other hand, is one in which any significant verbal parallel is counted as an OT citation.[8] For our purposes, we will generally follow Stanley and define a reader-centered method as an approach that is oriented toward the receiver of the letter and what he or she may discern in the reading of the letter through some quantifiable criteria; it seeks to answer the question: Could the reader have recognized this OT citation?[9] An author-centered approach, however, is oriented toward the composer of the letter, his or her intent and/or authorial action; it seeks to answer the question: Could the author have intended this OT citation?

Since most scholars who have proposed careful methods for identifying Paul’s OT citations advocate a reader-centered approach, we will first examine three proposals that are more or less reader-centered. Although fewer scholars have explicitly discussed an author-centered approach, Stanley Porter has provided a clear example of this method that we may consider. From this overview, we will be able to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each perspective and suggest a possible way forward.

III. Reader-Centered Approaches

1. Christopher Stanley

We will begin our discussion of reader-centered approaches with Stanley’s proposal, since it is the most stringent. Although Stanley seems to think that both author-and reader-centered approaches could be fruitful, he favors a reader-centered approach because he considers the criteria for this approach to be less ambiguous.[10] Therefore, he proposes three tests for determining whether Paul is citing the OT: (1) “an explicit quotation formula,” (2) “a clear interpretive gloss,” and (3) “demonstrable syntactical tension.”[11] Therefore, while Stanley does not necessarily discount the possibility that Paul may have more subtly alluded to the Scriptures, he maintains that we cannot assume Paul’s readers would have recognized a citation beyond those that fit his criteria. A consistent application of his reader-centered approach, therefore, leaves texts that fail to measure up remaining permanently on the sidelines in our discussion of Paul’s use of the OT.[12]

One is left to wonder, however, if Stanley’s definitions are adequate. Granted, his three criteria are likely to expose some places where some readers would recognize that the OT is being cited. But are these three indicators adequate if we wish to adopt a truly reader-centered approach? A major problem with the tests Stanley suggests is that they are quite minimalist. That is, although he claims to have in mind the majority of the readers of Paul’s letters (who are, incidentally, Gentiles[13]), would their comprehension have been so universally limited? If so, why does Paul cite the Scriptures to the degree that he does? Stanley claims that Paul’s citations are essentially rhetorical strategies, even power plays, meant to reinforce his own authority and therefore his own arguments.[14] But even if we grant that most of Paul’s readers had a minimal knowledge of Scripture, then what of those who knew the Scriptures well? It is likely that the elders in each church who initially received the letter would have known the Scriptures to some degree. Surely they could have recognized Paul’s manipulative agenda. Therefore, on the one hand, if we assume the elders were Paul’s intended readers, we can also assume that they could recognize more OT citations than Stanley allows. On the other hand, we have no real guarantees that some of Paul’s readers could have always recognized an interpretative explanation or syntactical tension. Some could have even failed to recognize the citations that Stanley allows. Therefore, when Stanley argues for a reader-centered approach, he implies a certain kind of reader, one who is able to recognize Paul’s rhetorical markers, but no more and no less. This limitation makes Stanley’s proposal difficult to accept.

2. Dietrich-Alex Koch

In his Die Schrift als Zeuge des Evangeliums: Untersuchungen zur Verwendung und zum Versta¨ndnis der Schrift bei Paulus, Dietrich-Alex Koch proposes six ways to identify possible OT citations without an introductory formula: (1) the same quotation was cited in the near context; (2) the author, through an interpretative statement, makes it clear that he now turns from a citation to its interpretation; (3) the wording in question is not syntactically integrated into the context, so that it is clear that it was not originally formulated for the current context; (4) the wording in question clearly stands out stylistically from the current context; (5) the author marks the quoted wording, at least incidentally, as such with an easily recognized linguistic emphasis (i.e., with μενοῦνγε, ὅτι, αλλά, or an inserted γάρ or δέ); and (6) it concerns a statement, utterance, or such that belongs to the common educational or traditional property of the author and the reader.[15]

Stanley’s response to Koch’s proposal is that Koch fails to deal adequately with the ability (or lack thereof ) of Paul’s Gentile readers to recognize an OT citation apart from an explicit marker.[16] Therefore, Stanley thinks that Koch is giving Paul’s readers too much credit. Koch’s approach, however, is actually quite close to Stanley’s, for his second criterion parallels Stanley’s and his third, fourth, and fifth parallel Stanley’s third. His first and last criteria simply assume a reader with a slightly wider knowledge of the OT than Stanley’s criteria do (either from the near context or shared tradition). Therefore, both Koch and Stanley assume that our knowledge of the ability of Paul’s readers to recognize a citation is essential for identifying Paul’s OT citations. The fundamental difference between the two, however, is the degree to which they are willing to grant the readers the ability to recognize Scripture. As with Stanley, Koch leaves us wondering which reader fits within the proposed scheme. Although these criteria will help us identify the ways in which some readers may have recognized an OT citation, if we adopt Koch’s model, we are still excluding many readers. Furthermore, we have no real guarantee that we are including any reasonable percentage of Paul’s readers, ancient or modern.

3. Richard Hays

In his influential work Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, Richard Hays argues for a reader-centered approach, but assumes the possibility of a much more skillful reader than either Stanley or Koch. Hays’s book was among the first in biblical studies to interact seriously with recent literary theory and intertextuality. Hays primarily draws from the work of John Hollander,[17] who focuses on neither authorial intent nor historical reconstruction of original contexts, but “on the poetic effects produced [by an echo] for those who have ears to hear.”[18] From this, Hays concludes that our study of intertextual echoes should be oriented toward two goals: “(a) to call attention to [echoes] so that others might be enabled to hear; and (b) to give an account of the distortions and new figuration that they generate.”[19] Furthermore, Hays follows Hollander in arguing that many literary echoes are examples of metalepsis, that is, “when a literary echo links the text in which it occurs to an earlier text, the figurative effect of the echo can lie in the unstated or suppressed (transumed) points of resonance between the two texts.”[20]

Hays also suggests seven general guidelines that can help positively identify whether or not an echo is present in a given text: (1) Availability: Was the text available to the author and his audience? (2) Volume: What is the degree of syntactical overlap and/or rhetorical stress between the texts in question? (3) Recurrence: How often does the author cite the text? (4) Thematic coherence: Does a citation to the text fit with the author’s argument? (5) Historical plausibility: Could the author have intended this echo and could his readers have seen it? (6) History of interpretation: Have other interpreters seen this same echo? (7) Satisfaction: “Does the proposed reading make sense?”[21]

Although Hays’s work has generated a glut of criticism, commendation, and correction, we need not discuss it in detail here.[22] We can simply note that his criteria are all to some degree oriented toward the question of whether the audience could have recognized the citation. Like Stanley and Koch, Hays begins with this question; his embrace of Hollander leads him to orient his method towards “those who have ears to hear.” Unlike Stanley and Koch, however, Hays assumes that at least some of Paul’s readers were able to recognize subtle allusion to the Scriptures. Even with Hays’s approach, however, we are left with a significant amount of ambiguity. Although it is certainly possible that some of Paul’s readers would have recognized the echoes that Hays’s criteria affirm, we cannot speak with any confidence about how many, if any, we may reasonably expect to have recognized these echoes.

In each of these reader-centered approaches, our ability to identify OT citations is more or less linked to our assumptions of reader competence. These assumptions will likely be built more on historical reconstructions than the actual text itself. Therefore, since all scholars will differ about the competence of Paul’s readers, all scholars who adopt this approach will also differ about which OT citations can be legitimated. Although Stanley, Koch, and Hays may grant that there are places where Paul alludes to the OT other than those discernable through their methods, their methods themselves prevent them from discussing these places with any real confidence. Even if we extend the conversation into questions about the modern reader, whom we may be able to reconstruct more accurately, the ability to recognize subtle (or not so subtle) OT allusion will differ with each individual. Therefore, accepting a reader-centered approach seems to hang on the question, or, perhaps, beg the question, which reader? Given the important place that the OT plays in Paul’s thinking, it seems less than satisfactory to lean on our reconstructions of Paul’s audience as the deciding factor in our analysis of his use of the OT.[23]

IV. Author-Centered Approach

Stanley Porter deals with the question of author-vs. reader-centered approaches in his contribution to Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel.[24] In this essay, Porter notes that since a reader-centered approach is fundamentally oriented toward how the audience will respond, it cannot provide a complete understanding of Paul’s use of the OT.[25] Regardless of whether the criteria are quite narrow, as with Stanley, or broader, as with Hays, we are likely to discount possible, or even probable, OT allusions.

Porter suggests an author-centered approach that parallels most commentary writers. With this method, the actual words of the text are ultimately determinative in finding OT citations.[26] Porter argues that this approach is more fruitful for at least two reasons. Positively, it is based on evidence available to us, namely, the actual words of the author. Negatively, it prevents an overly speculative reconstruction of Paul’s audience.

Although Porter’s comments on this issue are brief, they may help ease the tension that the reader-centered approach creates. No longer are historical reconstructions the sine qua non of understanding Paul’s use of the OT, Porter claims, but a careful reading of the OT and NT themselves. Based on the statements that Porter makes in this essay, it is unclear whether he advocates a careful historical reconstruction of Paul’s circumstances at the time that he wrote the letter. He argues that our analysis should be geared toward “formal correspondence with actual words found in antecedent texts.... It would appear imperative to orient one’s discussion to the language of the author.”[27] However, Porter’s starting point is the commentary genre, which almost always attempts a historical reconstruction of the author’s circumstances. Therefore, it seems that historical reconstruction is inevitable in Porter’s model.

Although the two approaches described above certainly differ in many respects, it seems that they are in fact closer than Porter realizes. While it is true that an author-centered approach is fundamentally oriented toward the actual language of the text, the reader-centered approach certainly does not ignore the text. Both approaches begin with the language of the text; both identify the obviously marked citations, such as those meeting Stanley’s and Koch’s criteria. The essential difference is that an author-centered approach goes beyond these criteria to include any significant verbal parallel. Furthermore, while it is true that the reader-centered approach relies on some form of historical reconstruction, the author-centered approach actually does the same. Although the approach of the latter may be more directly rooted in the text than the former, most commentaries also devote enormous attention and significance to uncovering historical details beyond those found in the text in question. Again we bump into the problem of possible minimalism. Is this truly an author-centered approach? Although, at least in the case of Paul’s letters, we are not begging the question of the author, we are still left with some ambiguity if we exclusively orient our attention toward the question of whether Paul could have intended an OT citation here.

To summarize our findings to this point, it seems that both reader-and author-centered approaches to finding Paul’s OT unmarked citations are similar at many points. Specifically, both base their findings on a combination of the actual wording of the text and a reconstruction of the reader or author. In fact, the author-centered approach includes all of the traits of the reader-centered and more. Although it may be preferable to adapt an author-centered approach because of less ambiguity about the author, one is still left with the difficulty of trying to determine whether or not an author intended a reference to the OT, especially in cases where a verbal parallel is evident, but no other clear indicators are present. In both models, therefore, our results will always be tentative.

V. Case Study: Job 13:16 In Philippians 1:19

In order to illustrate this problem, we will examine what has become a ubiquitous test case for advocates of both methods. In Phil 1:19, Paul says that all of the adverse circumstances he has faced will “turn out in my salvation” (τοῦτό μοι ἀποβήσεται εἰς σωτερίαν). His wording here is an exact parallel of LXX Job 13:16, where Job also expects adverse circumstances to result in his salvation.

According to some forms of the reader-centered approach, the possibility of this being an OT allusion is irrelevant. Since this phrase is seamlessly woven into Paul’s argument here, according to Stanley’s method, his readers would have failed to detect an OT allusion. The same could be said for Koch. According to Stanley and Koch, we may safely eliminate this allusion from our discussion. Hays, however, allows that an ancient or modern reader of Paul who has “ears to hear” might profit from this allusion.[28] The recognition of this allusion, however, will be by no means universal. We are then able, on the one hand, to push the recognition of these allusions as far as we desire, and, on the other hand, discount as many allusions as we wish. So while the reader-centered approach might allow us to recognize subtle allusions such as Job 13:16 in Phil 1:19, it provides us with no real reason for doing so, unless our reconstructions of Paul’s readers allow us to do so.

In Porter’s discussion of Phil 1:19, he concludes that since there are explicit verbal and thematic parallels between Job 13:16 and Phil 1:19, we can rather confidently conclude this is a quotation.[29] Although Porter ties the actual words of the text with a known author, we are still left to wonder whether this quotation was really in the mind of Paul. If we are only employing an author-centered approach, our result is uncertain. There is a strong possibility that Paul actually intended an allusion, but a lack of any clear indicator at least leaves the question on the table.

VI. Divine Author-Centered Approach

So are we at an impasse? I would suggest that both reader-and author-centered approaches, while certainly providing us with a way of identifying and analyzing some of Paul’s OT citations, are not enough. Rather, we must move beyond those approaches to a Divine Author-centered approach. Although some scholars are not willing to concede and/or deal seriously with the divine authorship of the Scriptures, if we as evangelicals are sincere in our beliefs about inspiration we cannot simply discount divine authorship in this discussion.[30]

In several articles, Vern Poythress has advocated a serious reappraisal of our understanding of divine authorship of Scripture.[31] Among other suggestions, he proposes a three-fold method for analyzing the Scriptures in light of both human and divine authorship:

1. “Any passage is to be read in the context of the particular book of the Bible in which it appears, and in the context of the human author and historical circumstances of the book.”
2. “Any passage is to be read in the context of the total canon of Scripture available up to that point in time.”
3. “Any passage is to be read in the context of the entire Bible (the completed canon).”[32]

Although his proposal does not touch directly on our ability to identify OT citations in Paul’s letters, I believe it provides a general framework that we may be able to adapt into a method for identifying these citations.

Poythress’s first point corresponds quite closely to an author-centered approach. So in our appropriation of this model, the starting point is author-centered. As we noted above, however, an author-centered approach includes the criteria of the reader-centered, plus more. Therefore, since Hays’s criteria are the most optimistic of the reader-centered approach, they provide a valid starting point. Although Hays’s method is by no means perfect, it provides us with hooks upon which we may hang our initial discussion of Paul’s OT citations.[33] Here Porter’s concerns about the actual words of the text will be largely met. Furthermore, historical investigation into the circumstances of the author will play a role here. But, as we noted above, this analysis is not sufficient, for we are still left with some ambiguity about whether an author consciously intended an OT allusion.

If we move to Poythress’s next step, we find a loose parallel with part of the reader-centered approach. Just as we must consider a text of Scripture in light of its chronological place in the canon, we can also consider an OT citation in light of the original reader’s reception of the OT canon. In other words, if we assume knowledgeable readers, as Hays does, we can also assume that these readers will be able to recognize and process subtle allusions to the Scriptures that they know. If we begin with an author-centered approach, however, our appropriation of the reader-centered approach may not add any further textual observations. This step will be part of our historical background and reconstruction. Our results, however, are still tentative, for we cannot be sure that either author or reader will fully comprehend the parallel.

Finally, we may draw a parallel between Poythress’s final step and a Divine Author-centered approach to finding OT citations. Here, we may legitimately draw fully and freely on the whole canon and see any and all verbal parallels as intentional products of the Divine Author of Scripture. If we may return to our Philippians example, although we cannot be sure of the reader’s or perhaps even Paul’s ability to recognize the Job allusion, we can be sure of God’s recognition of the verbal and thematic parallels between both texts.

The possibility of unconscious allusion cannot apply to the Divine Author. On the grounds of divine inspiration and divine omniscience, if a verbal and/or thematic parallel is present, we may be confident that the Divine Author of Scripture intended the citation. Of course, this method will not answer all of our questions, for, even in cases where explicit citation formulas are present, there is often great ambiguity about how the NT is using the OT. Our next task, therefore, is to analyze the precise theological import of these parallels. But our method for approaching this analysis will have to wait for another day.

So we conclude that the best approach for determining whether Paul, or any other NT writer, is citing the OT is to approach the text with three lenses. First, an author-centered approach will lay the foundation for our analysis through careful consideration of verbal and thematic parallels between the OT and NT. This approach, however, cannot be the final word. A reader-centered approach, although probably not able to identify any previous undetected citation, can provide a fuller understanding of the citation by considering its impact on the original (and later) audiences. Finally, both of these approaches culminate in a Divine Author-centered approach. Here, regardless of the fully conscious intent of the author or the audience’s ability to perceive an OT citation, we may confidently identify most, if not all, verbal and thematic parallels from the OT as products of divine inspiration and therefore significant for a full-orbed biblical, and, in our case, Pauline theology. I suspect that rarely, if ever, will such an approach violate Paul’s intent, although it may in fact provide a greater depth to his writings than even he himself recognized.

This article is a revised version of a paper originally presented in the Theological Interpretation of Scripture Ph.D. Seminar at Wheaton College in December 2007. I wish to thank the members of the seminar and especially Dr. Steve Spencer for helpful feedback. Of course, any errors remain entirely my own.

Notes

1. Although Greco-Roman literature may have been a secondary influence, few would dispute that the OT is paramount when considering the literary background of the NT. For a broad overview of the influence of the OT on the NT writers, cf. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, eds., Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007); C. Brekelmens, Menahem Haran, and Magne Sæbø, eds., Hebrew Bible, Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation (3 vols.; Go¨ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996); Martin J. Mulder and Harry Sysling, Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading, and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (CRINT 1; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988); and D. A. Carson and H. G. M. Williamson, eds., It Is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture: Essays in Honour of Barnabas Lindars, SSF (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
2. In the thirteen letters attributed to Paul, UBS4 lists 111 OT quotations and 385 “allusions and verbal parallels.”
3. See the following for recent discussion of Paul’s use of the OT: Beale and Carson, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament; G. K. Beale, ed., The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts? Essays on the Use of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994); David B. Capes, Old Testament Yahweh Texts in Paul’s Christology (WUNT 47; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992); Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders, eds., Paul and the Scriptures of Israel ( JSNTSup 83; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993); Evans and Sanders, eds., Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel: Investigations and Proposals (JSNTSup 148; Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1997); E. Earl Ellis, “How the New Testament Uses the Old,” in New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods (ed. I. H. Marshall; Exeter: Paternoster, 1977), 199-219; Ellis, Prophecy and Hermeneutic in Early Christianity: New Testament Essays (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978); Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989); Hays, The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005); M. D. Hooker, “Beyond the Things That Are Written? St. Paul’s Use of Scripture,” NTS 27 (1981): 295-309; Dietrich-Alex Koch, Die Schrift als Zeuge des Evangeliums: Untersuchungen zur Verwendung und zum Verständnis der Schrift bei Paulus (BHT 69; Tu¨bingen: Mohr, 1986); D. Smith Moody, “The Pauline Literature,” in It Is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture, 265-91; A. T. Hanson, Studies in Paul’s Technique and Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974); R. N. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975); Moise´s Silva, “Old Testament in Paul,” DPL, 630-42; Christopher D. Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary Literature (SNTSMS 69; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Stanley, Arguing with Scripture: The Rhetoric of Quotations in the Letters of Paul (New York: T&T Clark, 2004); Francis Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (London: T&T Clark, 2004); N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991).
4. By citation formula, I am referring to a verbal introduction to the OT quote. The most common are some form of the phrase “it is written” (γέγραπται) or a proper noun followed by a verb of communication, such as “says” (λέγει)or “writes” (γράφει).
5. We cannot here discuss the many terms and their respective definitions that have been suggested to classify Paul’s OT citations. I am using the word “citation” as a catch-all term including all references to the OT. Beetham suggests several rather precise definitions for these phenomena (Christopher A. Beetham, Echoes of Scripture in the Letter of Paul to the Colossians [Biblical Interpretation Series 96; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2008]). First, Beetham defines quotations: “An intentional, explicit, verbatim or near verbatim citation of a former text of six or more words in length. A formal quotation is a quotation accompanied by an introductory marker, or quotation formula; an informal quotation lacks such a marker” (17). Although Beetham’s definition is objective and clear, it is not clear why a quotation must be delimited by six or more words. However, his suggestion provides a helpful starting point. Next Beetham discusses allusions, which he defines as: “A literary device intentionally employed by an author to point a reader back to a single identifiable source, of which one or more components of the original sense must be remembered and brought forward into the new context in order for the alluding text to be fully understood. An allusion is less explicit than a quotation, but more explicit than an echo. In this study, a linear marker of five words or less is considered to be an allusion” (20). Again, apart from a seemingly arbitrary word limit, Beetham’s definition is a helpful starting point. Finally, Beetham defines echoes: “A subtle, literary mode of reference that is not intended for public recognition yet derives from a specific predecessor. An author’s wording may echo the precursor consciously or unconsciously and/or contextually or non-contextually” (24). Although Beetham’s definitions are not without problems, as noted above, we will generally follow his definitions in this study. I should note, however, that I am not adopting these terms rigidly, but simply as heuristic devices.
6. Stanley, Paul and Language.
7. Ibid., 34.
8. Ibid.
9. Stanley primarily focuses on the original audience of Paul’s letters. A possible extension of the reader-centered approach discussed here could include the modern reader. As will become evident below, however, many of the same points that will be made about the ancient reader can also be made about the modern reader.
10. Stanley, Paul and Language, 37.
11. Ibid.
12. Stanley claims that many texts often classified as Pauline citations (he cites Rom 10:13; 11:34-35; 12:20; 1 Cor 2:16; 5:13; 10:26; 15:32; 2 Cor 9:7; 10:17; 13:1; Gal 3:11) are out of bounds for his study “on the grounds that the uninformed reader could readily take any or all of them as Pauline formulations [and therefore not OT citations]” (ibid.).
13. In a later work, Stanley argues at some length that the majority of Paul’s readers were Gentile Christians who had limited or perhaps no knowledge of the Scriptures (Arguing with Scripture, 67-68).
14. Ibid., 62-63.
15. This is my translation from Dietrich-Alex Koch, Die Schrift als Zeuge des Evangeliums, 13-14.
16. Stanley, Paul and Language, 36.
17. John Hollander, The Figure of Echo: A Mode of Allusion in Milton and After (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981).
18. Hays, Echoes of Scripture, 19.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., 20. Although built on different arguments, it seems that, when applied to Scripture, this proposal has much in common with C. H. Dodd’s suggestion that NT authors quoted from the OT with the larger context in mind (Dodd, According to the Scriptures: The Sub-Structure of New Testament Theology [London: Nisbet & Co., 1952], 126).
21. Hays, Echoes of Scripture, 31.
22. In addition to numerous formal book reviews and responses in most works touching on this subject, see Part 1, “Echoes of Scripture in Paul—Some Reverberations,” in Paul and the Scriptures of Israel, 42-96. Hays has recently repeated his criteria in The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 34-45. The seven criteria are more or less unchanged from Echoes of Scripture.
23. Cf. Florian Wilk, who argues, “The difficulty of a reception-oriented perspective in this case consists in the fact that we know nothing about the degree of knowledge of Scripture that the Christians to whom Paul wrote had. Therefore, one can only assume a communicative function of scriptural connections on the basis of explicitly marked citations” (“Paul as User, Interpreter and Reader of the Book of Isaiah,” in Reading the Bible Intertextually [ed. Richard Hays, Stefan Alkier, and Leroy Huizenga; Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2009], 85).
24. Stanley Porter, “The Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament: A Brief Comment on Method and Terminology,” in Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel, 79-96.
25. Ibid., 93.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid., 95.
28. Hays, Echoes of Scripture, 24.
29. Porter, consistent with his method, notes that most modern Philippians commentaries classify this as an OT quotation/citation (“Use of the Old Testament,” 90-91).
30. The standard American evangelical statement on biblical inerrancy makes the following statement: “We affirm that the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down to the very words of the original, were given by divine inspiration. We deny that the inspiration of Scripture can rightly be affirmed of the whole without the parts, or of some parts but not the whole” (taken from the “Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy,” in Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority [6 vols.; Wheaton: Good News Publishing, 1999], 4:213). Although most evangelical scholars affirm this statement, how many seriously incorporate this statement into their method of identifying OT citations?
31. Vern Sheridan Poythress, “Divine Meaning of Scripture,” WTJ 48 (1986): 241-79; “God’s Lordship in Interpretation,” WTJ 50 (1988): 27-64; “Christ the Only Savior of Interpretation,” WTJ 50 (1988): 305-21; “Truth and Fullness of Meaning: Fullness Versus Reductionist Semantics in Biblical Interpretation,” WTJ 65 (2005): 211-27; “The Presence of God Qualifying Our Notions of Grammatical-Historical Interpretation: Genesis 3:15 as a Test Case,” JETS 50 (2007): 87-103.
32. Poythress, “Divine Meaning,” 267.
33. For a detailed critique of Hays’s criteria, see Porter, “Use of the Old Testament,” 83-84.