CHAPTER 1: Introduction
1.6 Evaluating Potential References
1.6.1 Availability
The most obvious requirement for any potential reference is the availability of the source text. 145 However, the dating of many texts is disputed, and even those that clearly pre-date the Pastorals may have existed in a different form then, compared to what is available to us now. This problem applies to some extent to the Septuagint, as seen through its various textual variations, but is especially relevant to the Jewish Pseudepigrapha whose provenance is less clear. The discovery of textual fragments amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls has demonstrated that at least some of the
Pseudepigrapha have Jewish origins. However, since many of these documents have
145 This criterion is explicitly mentioned by Allison, Hays and Thompson, and is implicit in the studies of Hartog, Hughes, Stead and Wold. See Dale C. Jr. Allison,
The New Moses: A Matthean Typology (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 1993), 21;
Hays, Echoes, 29; Benjamin G. Wold, Women, Men and Angels: The Qumran
Wisdom Document Musar LeMevin and Its Allusions to Genesis Creation Traditions
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 77; Michael Thompson, Clothed with Christ: The
Example and Teaching of Jesus in Romans 12.1 - 15.13 (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf &
only been preserved by the Church and contain sections that are clearly Christian,146 it is often difficult to decide which parts of a document were originally Jewish, if any, and which parts were added or modified during the process of scribal transmission.147 Nonetheless, this process of adaptation means that even those documents that were written after the Epistles may contain Jewish traditions that the author of the Epistles had access to.
Therefore, within this study, all of the Septuagint will be treated as potentially available to the author of the Epistles but textual variants will be considered to determine which form of the text might have been available. However, for every potential reference to the Jewish Pseudepigrapha, special attention will be given to the surrounding context of the source text in order to determine whether the matching words appear to be a part of a Jewish or Christian section of the text.
1.6.2 Volume
Hays defines the criterion Volume as a combination of ‘the degree of exact verbal correspondence’ (i.e. verbal similarity) and ‘the relative weightiness of the material cited.’148 He further describes this ‘weightiness’ as both the ‘distinctiveness,
146 For an example of apparent Christian authorship/influence, see The Testament of Benjamin, 3:8 – Πληρωθήσεται ἐν σοὶ προφητεία οὐρανοῦ περὶ τοῦ ἀµνοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ σωτῆρος τοῦ κόσµου, ὅτι ἄµωµος ὑπὲρ ἀνόµων παραδοθήσεται καὶ ἀναµάρτητος ὑπὲρ ἀσεβῶν ἀποθανεῖται ἐν αἵµατι διαθήκης, ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ ἐθνῶν καὶ Ἰσραήλ (Eng. Trans. – In you shall be fulfilled the prophecy of heaven concerning the Lamb of God and Saviour of the world [cf. John 1:29], that a blameless one shall be delivered up for the lawless, and a sinless one shall die for the ungodly in the blood of the covenant, for the salvation of the Gentiles and of Israel).
147 Indeed, some documents may be entirely Christian.
148 Richard B. Hays, The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of
prominence or popular familiarity’ of the source text and the ‘rhetorical stress’ on the matching words in either the source or target texts.149
Within this study, Hays’ idea of the ‘distinctiveness, prominence or popular
familiarity’ of the source text and his idea of the ‘rhetorical stress’ within the source text (but not the target text) are both relocated to the criterion of Recurrence (see Section 1.6.3). This modification allows for a slightly narrower definition of Volume as either ‘verbal correspondence’ within a single clause of the target text or ‘rhetorical stress’ upon the matching words in the target text. Thus, the Volume criterion
becomes an indication of whether there is an apparent attempt by the author of the target text to communicate which source text is being referred to. As such, direct references and allusions will have a high level of Volume, whereas echoes have a low level of Volume.
As with Hays’ criterion, the level of Volume is a subjective evaluation in this study. Generally, a verbatim (or near-verbatim) clause of any length will suggest a high level of Volume. However, as the examples in Section 1.5.3 illustrate, verbal similarity is not always a clear indication of an obvious reference. As was mentioned in that discussion, the rarity of the matching words (i.e. how few source texts they appear in) will serve as a pre-requisite of a potential reference before its verbal similarity is considered (this is discussed further in Section 1.6.8, Singular Potential).
Indicators of ‘rhetorical stress’ within the target text will include an introductory formula, such λέγει γὰρ ἡ γραφή (‘for the Scripture says’, 1 Tim 5:18). Less formal introductions will also be considered, such a ὅτι or a γάρ, and whether the matching words are either emphasized (by fronting of words etc.) or appear to be out-of-place.
1.6.3 Recurrence
Hays uses the criterion Recurrence to indicate whether there are other potential references to the same source text by the author of the target text.150 This criterion is
149 Hays, The Conversion of the Imagination, 36–37. Hays refers to the source text as the ‘precursor text’ and he refers to the target text as ‘Paul’s discourse’ (since he is specifically writing about echoes in Pauline letters).
based on the understanding that references are more likely to refer to familiar/well- known passages. Within this study, the Recurrence criterion is extended to include potential references to the same source text anywhere in the New Testament (and so this picks up the idea of the ‘popular familiarity’ of the source text that Hays includes within his Volume criterion).151
In the evaluation of potential references to the Septuagint, the Index of Quotations and the Index of Allusions and Verbal Parallels in the UBS5, the appendix of Loci Citati
Vel Allegati in the NA28, McLean’s Citations and Allusions to Jewish Scripture in
Early Christian and Jewish Writings through 180 C. E., Gough’s The New Testament Quotations, and Dittmar’s Vetus Testamentum in Novo, will each be consulted in
order to determine if the source text appears to be familiar.152 For the Jewish Pseudepigrapha, Evans’ Ancient Texts for New Testament Studies: A Guide to the
Background Literature will be consulted.153 Since this study detects many potential references to the Jewish Pseudepigrapha that are not listed in Evans (see Chapter 7), these new potential references will also be included as an indication of the author’s familiarity with these source texts.
1.6.4 Thematic Coherence
Hays uses the criterion Thematic Coherence as an indication of whether a proposed reference fits the logic of the target text.154 As noted by Beetham, this criterion
151 Wold includes this concept under the criterion of ‘similar tradition(s)’, as does Hughes, who uses the phrase ‘multiple attestation,’ and Hartog, who describes it at ‘recurrence.’ See Wold, Women, Men and Angels, 78; Thompson, Clothed with
Christ, 33; Hartog, Polycarp, 174.
152 McLean, Citations and Allusions; Henry Gough, The New Testament Quotations (London: Walton and Maberly, 1855); Wilhelm Dittmar, Vetus Testamentum in Novo.
Die Alttestamentlichen Parallelen Des Neuen Testaments Im Wortlaut Der Urtexte Und Der Septuaginta (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1899).
153 Craig A. Evans, Ancient Texts for New Testament Studies: A Guide to the
Background Literature (Peabody, Massachusetts: Baker Academic, 2012).
appears to overlap with Hays’ criterion of Satisfaction.155 As such, this study
simplifies the definition of Thematic Coherence to be whether the matching words of a verbal parallel are used in the same manner in both the source and target texts and the context of the two texts is similar (e.g. both texts refer to ‘salvation’ or ‘kingship’ etc.). The decision of how well the potential reference fits the logic of the target text is delayed until the Satisfaction of the reference is determined (see Section 1.6.7). The benefit of having this simplified definition is that this criterion can then be used as an initial test of whether a potential reference is worth investigating. As such, if the matching words are used in a different manner or there is no shared context, a verbal parallel is immediately discounted. This helps to make the method more efficient (see Section 1.7 and Chapter 3).
1.6.5 Historic Plausibility
The Historic Plausibility criterion is used by Hays to determine whether the original reader(s) are likely to have understood a source text the same way. The only way to verify this is to find a similar interpretation of the source text in a text that is
contemporary with the target text. As such, this verification is not always possible. This study attempts this task by looking for similar interpretations of a source text in the New Testament, the Jewish Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, and the Early Church using the resources mentioned above in Section 1.6.3 – Recurrence.
1.6.6 History of Interpretation
This criterion checks whether other scholars have also detected a proposed reference. Within this study, potential references to the Septuagint are checked against the commentaries of Towner and Knight, Towner’s and Wolfe’s summaries of potential references in the Pastoral Epistles, and the collated lists of parallels by Dittmar, Evans, Gough, Hübner, McLean and Wilson.156 Potential references to the Jewish
155 Beetham, Echoes of Scripture in the Letter of Paul to the Colossians, 34.
156 Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2006); Knight III, The Pastoral Epistles; Towner, ‘1-2 Timothy and Titus’; Wolfe, ‘The Sagacious Use of Scripture’; Dittmar, Vetus Testamentum in Novo;
Pseudepigrapha are checked against these same resources as well as Delamarter’s Scripture index of the Pseudepigrapha.157
1.6.7 Satisfaction
Hays’ final criterion, Satisfaction, assesses whether a proposed reference to a source text serves to ‘illuminate’ the target text.158 Although Hays uses this criteria to assess what he calls an ‘echo’, the criterion is best suited for allusions (i.e. indirect
references) where the context of the source text contains a benefit that adds meaning to, or enhances, the target text. Stead makes a similar assessment when he determines whether the source text provides answers to problems (i.e. fills ‘gaps’) in the target text.159 Likewise, Beetham has a similar concept that he calls an ‘essential interpretive link’ that he says is necessary for ‘a proposed allusion to be validated as authentic.’160 Within this study, a potential allusion can meet the Satisfaction criterion in two different ways. The first is if the tacit benefit from the source text is expanded upon in the target text. This was the case with the allusion to Num 21 in John 3:14 where the benefit of Num 21 (restored life) was explicitly mentioned in the following verses of the target text (see Section 1.5.3).
This second way of a potential allusion meeting the Satisfaction criterion is based on the recognition that the main purpose of the borrowed words in an allusion is to identify the source text rather than convey a literal meaning. Because of this, these borrowed words can sometimes appear out-of-place. For example, calling someone a Evans, Ancient Texts; Gough, The New Testament Quotations; Hans Hübner, Vetus
Testamentum in Novo: Band 2 Corpus Paulinum (Göttingen: Vanhoeck & Ruprecht,
1997); McLean, Citations and Allusions; Wilson, Pauline Parallels.
157 Steve Delamarter, A Scripture Index to Charlesworth’s The Old Testament
Pseudepigrapha (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002).
158 Hays, Echoes, 31; Hays, The Conversion of the Imagination, 44.
159 Stead uses the term ‘gap’ to refer to something that is unexplained or would not make sense to the audience. See Stead, The Intertextuality of Zechariah 1-8, 38–39. 160 Beetham, Echoes of Scripture in the Letter of Paul to the Colossians, 30–32.
‘good Samaritan’ (thereby appealing to Luke 10) is out-of-place when the person addressed is not from Samaria.
For echoes (where the benefit is contained within the borrowed words), the
Satisfaction criterion is difficult to judge because the matching words usually make perfect sense when they are read literally (i.e. without a reference). As such, within this study the Satisfaction criterion is met for an echo if there is a ‘density of verbal parallels’ (as used by Hartog to assess potential references from Polycarp to the New Testament).161 This involves noting other potential verbal parallels with same source text in the surrounding context of the target text.
1.6.8 Singular Potential
As well as Hays’ seven criteria, this study includes another criterion called Singular Potential that allows the method to evaluate large numbers of verbal parallels in an efficient manner. This criterion is based on the understanding that allusions usually refer to a particular source text, or a small set of source texts (see Section 1.5.3). As such, it is not the high number of borrowed words that matters most in a reference (i.e. the verbal similarity) but the low number of source texts that they are found in. So, for example, the single word Μελχισέδεκ (‘Melchizedek’) could serve as a keyword because it only occurs twice in a particular intertextual framework (in this case, the Septuagint), but the three-word verbatim clause καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ (‘and he said to him’) is unlikely to be a quotation because it occurs 174 times in the same set of source texts. Likewise, the three words that are used to signal an allusion in John 3:14 (i.e. Μωϋσῆς, ὄφις and ἔρηµος) are found together in only one source passage of the Septuagint (i.e. Num 21), making it a ‘singular’ reference.
However, while an allusion may attempt to identify a single source text (cf. Perri and Beetham), this study recognizes that this goal is not always achieved.162 This was seen in the possible allusion in 2 Tim 2:19 (see Section 1.5.3). This verse contains three words, ὀνοµάζω, ὄνοµα and κύριος, which are found together in four passages of the
161 Hartog, Polycarp, 78.
162 Perri, 291; Beetham, Echoes of Scripture in the Letter of Paul to the Colossians, 20.
Septuagint. It may be that the author of the Epistles was attempting to identify one of these passages, but did not realize that the borrowed words were also found in the other three passages, thereby making the intended allusion ambiguous.
In order to accommodate this type of imprecision (where the matching words occur in more than one source text), this study introduces the criterion of Singular Potential. This enables the method to detect allusions where the matching words occur in a small number of source texts. Within this study, this small number is set to nine or less source texts (see Chapter 3 for how this is implemented), but this value can be altered in order to fine-tune the efficiency of the method.
While the Singular Potential criterion is based on the literary theory of allusions (as expressed by Perri), this study demonstrates that it is also effective for direct
references and echoes.163 Notably, all the direct references that are listed in the UBS5 and NA28 for the Pastoral Epistles, as well as those noted by Towner and Wolfe, were detected using this criterion and the proposed set of search features. The criterion was also able to efficiently detect the majority of the thematically coherent echoes that are listed in UBS5 and NA28 for the Pastoral Epistles.164
Other studies have also used the rarity of the matching words as a means of evaluating verbal parallels. For example, both Hartog and Kittel use the more restrictive criterion of ‘singularity’ (i.e. in just one source text).165 However, since allusions can
sometimes be imprecise (see above example) and echoes don’t need to be dependent on a single text (i.e. the influence can come from multiple source texts), this study allows the matching words to occur in a small number of source texts (i.e. less than ten).
In summary, rather than requiring potential references to have a minimum level of verbal similarity, this study uses the Singular Potential criterion to highlight which verbal parallels are to receive detailed evaluation. This approach means that the
163 Perri, 291.
164 A ‘thematically coherent echo’ is one that satisfies the above Thematic Coherence criterion (see Section1.6.4).
165 See Hartog, Polycarp, 174; Bonnie Pedrotti Kittel, The Hymns of Qumran (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Scholars Press, 1981), 51.
method is able to detect a greater variety of reference forms, even those with low verbal similarity, and can efficiently search through multiple intertextual frameworks.