In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

ϰϰ   Chapter Three The Old Testament and Jewish Hermeneutics Introduction There is no handy rule by which to explain the manner in which the New Testament writers use their Scriptures which to us are represented more or less by the Old Testament of the Christian Bible or the Hebrew Bible. This situation has led to misunderstanding among scholars as to how the two testaments relate to each other in terms of scriptural interpretation. Paul Joyce claims that a "careful study of the biblical texts by these methods (that is literary and historical criticism) has made very clear the important differences which exist between the original meaning of certain Old Testament material and the re-use of that same material in the New Testament."1 Lindars is of the opinion that "Matthew inherits the formula-quotations without being aware of the issues which underlie the selection of them and are responsible for their text-form."2 Even Rudolf Bultmann is perplexed by the fact that many Old Testament texts appealed to by the New Testament writers as having been fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ are not "prophetic" in the sense of being explicitly forward-looking, and seeks a solution to his dilemma by siding with J.C.K. Hofmann who concluded before him "that it is not the ‘words’ of the Old Testament that are really prophecy, but the ‘history’ of Israel to which the Old Testament testifies."3 However, despite the absence of a simple and explicit hermeneutical principle to explain all that is involved in the New Testament exegesis of the Old, there are some observable tendencies that offer us some clues to discern exegetical practices of the New Testament writers as well as presuppositions at work behind these hermeneutical practices. The present chapter attempts to explore these background Jewish hermeneutical practices. Seen from this perspective the New Testament use of the Old becomes a meaningful enterprise and the "important differences" between  1 Paul Joyce, "The Old Testament and its Relation to the New Testament," in John Rogerson (ed), Beginning Old Testament Study, London: SPCK, 1983, p. 140. 2 Barnabas Lindars, New Testament Apologetic, the Doctrinal Significance of the Old Testament Quotations, London: SCM, 1961, p 16. 3 Quoted in John Goldingay, Approaches to Old Testament Interpretation, Leicester: Apollos, 1990, p 116 ϰϱ   the original settings and the new meaning it acquires in its New Testament context, as Joyce observes, become strikingly sensible.4 In this chapter, I shall first look at the text-form of the Old Testament quotations in the New Testament. Then I will turn to Jewish literary methods and exegetical practices of the first century AD, which provide a literary background to New Testament exegesis of the Old Testament. The Text-Form of Old Testament Quotations One of the notoriously difficult problems in the textual study of the Old Testament is the reconstruction of an authoritative version of the first Century Bible which New Testament writers used. This section examines the nature of this difficulty and concludes that New Testament writers are early witnesses to a variety of textual traditions that existed at the time. 1. Textual Variations in Old Testament Quotations The text-forms of the quotations used by New Testament writers take various forms of phraseology which include verbatim quotations with introductory formula, verbatim quotations without introductory formula, clear verbal allusions, clear references without verbal allusion, possible verbal allusion, allusions and possible references without verbal allusions. It is, however, not always easy to distinguish a quotation from an allusion or even a mere coincidence in phraseology. The phrase  4 A discussion of the results that come out after applying the methods of literary and historical criticism to the biblical texts relevant to this study is nevertheless beyond the scope of the present inquiry. It is, however, sufficient to note that these critical methods have their own presuppositions which do not necessarily correspond to those hermeneutical presuppositions held by New Testament writers. It is, therefore, probably rash to judge first century A.D. hermeneutical practices using twenty-first century hermeneutical presuppositions which we know are alien to the biblical times. For a discussion on the need for compatibility (not identity) of our world view with the biblical view necessary for our proper understanding of New Testament hermeneutical practices, see Dan G. McCartney, "The New Testament Use of the Old Testament," in Harvie M. Conn (ed), Inerrancy and Hermeneutic: A Tradition, a Challenge, a Debate, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988, p. 111. For a recent critical...

Share