Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

QUOTATIONS

The OT contains a number of direct quotations, all poetic, from books no longer extant, including the Book of Jashar (Josh. 10:12-13; 2 Sam. 1:18-27) and the Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num. 21:14-15). Indirect quotations from such works also appear. The books of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and Judah are major sources for 1-2 Kings (e.g., 1 Kgs. 14:19; 2 Kgs. 24:5). 1 Kgs. 11:41 refers to a Book of the Acts of Solomon. A genealogical Book of the Kings of Israel was used by the Chronicler (1 Chr. 9:1), as were a Commentary on the Book of the Kings (2 Kgs. 24:27) and other works (1 Chr. 27:24; 29:29; 2 Chr. 12:15; 33:18-19). The Chronicler also drew on the Pentateuch and the books of Samuel and Kings (perhaps referring to the latter by name at, e.g., 2 Chr. 16:11; 32:32). A shorter quotation of a canonical book is the quotation of Mic. 3:12 at Jer. 26:18.

The NT contains more than 1000 quotations from and allusions to each of the three divisions of the OT. These function in a variety of ways, largely to underscore the authority of a NT statement or to show an event as divinely ordained. The fundamental assumption underlying such quotations is that the divine origin of the salvation in Jesus and of the proclamation and possession of that salvation by the Church is recognizable only because in the events so noted has the OT reached its fulfillment; the quotation formulas (e.g., “to fulfill what the Lord has spoken by the prophet,” Matt. 2:15) make this clear. Elsewhere the teaching of the OT is held up as exemplary moral teaching (e.g., Mark 10:19), or it may be cited only for the sake of criticism and revision (e.g., vv. 2-9).

The NT quotes the OT most often according to the LXX. Matthew is the most significant exception to this rule; 32 of his quotations differ from the LXX, which may indicate that he used the MT or that he had access to a now lost Greek version of the OT. Some quotations are targumic in style (e.g., Rom. 12:19, quoting Deut. 32:35), while others join interpretation closely to quotation in a manner somewhat like that of the Qumran commentaries (e.g., Mark 1:2-4, quoting Mal. 3:1; Isa. 40:3). Effort generally is made in the choice of text and in its presentation to show clearly the correspondence between the OT text and that aspect of the coming redemption in Christ that constitutes fulfillment of the particular text. Sometimes the meaning of an OT passage in its original historical context is set aside in its application to a new situation in the NT; e.g., what is said of Solomon at 2 Sam. 7:14 is applied to believers in Christ at 2 Cor. 6:18. In such cases, a typological correlation between the original form of the statement and the new focus is assumed, as is the underlying continuity of salvation history.

The pseudepigraphal book of 1 Enoch is quoted in Jude 14-15 (1 En. 1:9). Greek poets are quoted in the Epistles: the Cretan Epimenides at Titus 1:12; Epimenides and Aratus of Cilicia at Acts 17:28; and the Athenian Menander at 1 Cor. 15:33.

Each of the Gospel writers was dependent upon earlier sources, both oral and written, as the basis for his work. These sources were quoted liberally, as can be seen in the way in which Mark serves as a source for Matthew and Luke, at times quoted verbatim and at others changed significantly by the later Gospels. Authors apart from the Evangelists quote liberally from hymnic and poetic sources (e.g., Phil. 2:6-11; 1 Tim. 3:16; and hymns found in the book of Revelation). Some later NT books were written with knowledge of others written earlier, and contain a development of the thinking found in the earlier works. 2 Peter, e.g., is partly based on the Epistle of Jude, and Ephesians is apparently a development of the thought in Colossians and its application to a new situation.

Bibliography. J. M. Efird, ed., The Use of the Old Testament in the New (Durha, 1972); R. H. Gundry, The Use of the Old Testament in St. Matthew’s Gospel. NovTSup 18 (Leiden, 1967).

Lee E. Klosinski

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

QUOTATIONS

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)