Casting Shadows: The Old in the New
Here's an excerpt from an article I'm currently working on. This is the introduction, which pretty much explains what the project is all about. I post it here to inspire your own imagination ...
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There are literally hundreds of references to the Old Testament within the texts of the New Testament writings. Over 200 of these are direct or explicit quotations, while many more are implicit references by way of drawing attention to certain people, places, names, events, and institutions.
The NT writers were very fond of showing, by way of allusion to the OT, how Our Lord gloriously fulfilled the ancient prophecies (both spoken and enacted) and gave substance to the shadows that were cast long before His birth, life, death, and resurrection.
One particular episode sums up this idea quite well. on the road to Emmaus, the Risen Lord talked with two of His disciples who, at the time, did not recognize Him. They were quite shaken by the events of the previous days (His trial, crucifixion, and burial), but He made them understand that all of these things were foretold long ago. The text says that, "beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." (Luke 24:27)
This is, in essence, what the NT writers continued to do for their readers long after Our Lord ascended - they explained how Moses, the prophets, and indeed "all the scriptures" spoke of Jesus the Christ.
Unfortunately, most of their references to OT passages are lost on the modern-day reader. Why? Because the NT writers had something that most modern-day readers do not have: a thorough knowledge of the OT texts, their history, and their larger context.
For example, to borrow from the first text we will examine, St. Matthew writes that Jesus and His family fled into Egypt to escape Herod's soldiers, and that this was to fulfill the prophecy, "out of Egypt I have called my son." Most readers today will blow right past that statement; they will not know which prophet said those words, nor will they necessarily care. They will simply take St. Matthew's word for it that there was a prophet somewhere in the OT, who at some time said "out of Egypt I have called my son," and that this prophet was referring to Jesus.
Of course, if the modern-day reader knew the OT like St. Matthew did, or at least took the time to look up that prophecy, he would find that Hosea the prophet said these words, and that he was not talking about Jesus - at least not in a primary sense. He was talking about Israel. This then opens up a whole new field of questions. Has St. Matthew misinterpreted the verse? Has he proof-texted the verse and violated its context? Why would he take a passage that was written about Israel and apply it to Jesus?
These are the sorts of questions we are hoping to answer in this essay. While it would be difficult to look at every single OT passage that is quoted in the NT, we can make some headway by looking at a representative sample of authors and their works: St. Matthew's Gospel, St. Luke's Gospel, St. John's Gospel, St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, etc.
Our working hypothesis is this: the NT writers, when they quote a snippet of a an OT passage, are drawing on a well-known common tradition, and expect the readers to recall to mind the larger context from which that verse is taken. Just as surely as saying something as simple as, "buy me some peanuts and cracker-jacks," would evoke images of a baseball game (and not just a candy store) in your mind, so also saying, "not a bone of his shall be broken" would conjure up images of the Passover Lamb in the Jewish mind, and not just an image of Roman Soldiers refusing to break Our Lord's legs on the cross.
Another technique sometimes employed by the NT writers is a little more complex: conflating two or more texts together by linking up key words from those texts, with the intention of allowing the reader to import the context of all the quoted passages, and allowing all of the respective contexts to color their imagination and understanding.
Here's an example: Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden, and were told by God that they could eat from any tree in the Garden except for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But one day, while they were walking in the Garden, a Bronze Calf appeared to Eve and tempted her to eat the forbidden fruit - which she did, thus sinning against God.
What have I just done? I imported two key words from two different stories into a third familiar story, hoping that in doing so, you will hold all three stories in tension and let them help interpret each other.
The "calf" image should immediately evoke Israel's worship of the Golden Calf in your mind; except, that was a Golden Calf, not a "Bronze Calf," as I reported it.
The "bronze" image, associated as it is (in my version of the story) with the serpent in the Garden, should evoke in your mind the story of the fiery serpents sent to punish Israel in the wilderness, and the bronze serpent that Moses created and lifted up on a pole to serve as a healing remedy.
Now all three stories are able to shed light on each other, and I have just made several statements: 1) that worshiping the Golden Calf for Israel was equivalent to the Fall of Adam; 2) that in worshiping the Golden Calf, the Israelites were really worshiping the serpent, the devil; 3) that the serpent in Genesis 3 was like the fiery serpents who murdered the Israelites, sent to kill and destroy; 4) that the fiery serpents in Numbers had a supernatural, possibly demonic/satanic dimension.
But I was able to say all of that by simply dropping two key words into my narrative, key words that were imported from other very familiar stories. The NT writers employ this technique from time to time as well (see John 12:15, which is a conflation of prophecies from Zephaniah and Zechariah; also Matt. 27:9-10, which is a conflation of prophecies by both Zechariah and Jeremiah).
Without further delay, then, let's begin examining a few specific examples of these "inter-textual echoes."
*******************************
There are literally hundreds of references to the Old Testament within the texts of the New Testament writings. Over 200 of these are direct or explicit quotations, while many more are implicit references by way of drawing attention to certain people, places, names, events, and institutions.
The NT writers were very fond of showing, by way of allusion to the OT, how Our Lord gloriously fulfilled the ancient prophecies (both spoken and enacted) and gave substance to the shadows that were cast long before His birth, life, death, and resurrection.
One particular episode sums up this idea quite well. on the road to Emmaus, the Risen Lord talked with two of His disciples who, at the time, did not recognize Him. They were quite shaken by the events of the previous days (His trial, crucifixion, and burial), but He made them understand that all of these things were foretold long ago. The text says that, "beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." (Luke 24:27)
This is, in essence, what the NT writers continued to do for their readers long after Our Lord ascended - they explained how Moses, the prophets, and indeed "all the scriptures" spoke of Jesus the Christ.
Unfortunately, most of their references to OT passages are lost on the modern-day reader. Why? Because the NT writers had something that most modern-day readers do not have: a thorough knowledge of the OT texts, their history, and their larger context.
For example, to borrow from the first text we will examine, St. Matthew writes that Jesus and His family fled into Egypt to escape Herod's soldiers, and that this was to fulfill the prophecy, "out of Egypt I have called my son." Most readers today will blow right past that statement; they will not know which prophet said those words, nor will they necessarily care. They will simply take St. Matthew's word for it that there was a prophet somewhere in the OT, who at some time said "out of Egypt I have called my son," and that this prophet was referring to Jesus.
Of course, if the modern-day reader knew the OT like St. Matthew did, or at least took the time to look up that prophecy, he would find that Hosea the prophet said these words, and that he was not talking about Jesus - at least not in a primary sense. He was talking about Israel. This then opens up a whole new field of questions. Has St. Matthew misinterpreted the verse? Has he proof-texted the verse and violated its context? Why would he take a passage that was written about Israel and apply it to Jesus?
These are the sorts of questions we are hoping to answer in this essay. While it would be difficult to look at every single OT passage that is quoted in the NT, we can make some headway by looking at a representative sample of authors and their works: St. Matthew's Gospel, St. Luke's Gospel, St. John's Gospel, St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, etc.
Our working hypothesis is this: the NT writers, when they quote a snippet of a an OT passage, are drawing on a well-known common tradition, and expect the readers to recall to mind the larger context from which that verse is taken. Just as surely as saying something as simple as, "buy me some peanuts and cracker-jacks," would evoke images of a baseball game (and not just a candy store) in your mind, so also saying, "not a bone of his shall be broken" would conjure up images of the Passover Lamb in the Jewish mind, and not just an image of Roman Soldiers refusing to break Our Lord's legs on the cross.
Another technique sometimes employed by the NT writers is a little more complex: conflating two or more texts together by linking up key words from those texts, with the intention of allowing the reader to import the context of all the quoted passages, and allowing all of the respective contexts to color their imagination and understanding.
Here's an example: Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden, and were told by God that they could eat from any tree in the Garden except for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But one day, while they were walking in the Garden, a Bronze Calf appeared to Eve and tempted her to eat the forbidden fruit - which she did, thus sinning against God.
What have I just done? I imported two key words from two different stories into a third familiar story, hoping that in doing so, you will hold all three stories in tension and let them help interpret each other.
The "calf" image should immediately evoke Israel's worship of the Golden Calf in your mind; except, that was a Golden Calf, not a "Bronze Calf," as I reported it.
The "bronze" image, associated as it is (in my version of the story) with the serpent in the Garden, should evoke in your mind the story of the fiery serpents sent to punish Israel in the wilderness, and the bronze serpent that Moses created and lifted up on a pole to serve as a healing remedy.
Now all three stories are able to shed light on each other, and I have just made several statements: 1) that worshiping the Golden Calf for Israel was equivalent to the Fall of Adam; 2) that in worshiping the Golden Calf, the Israelites were really worshiping the serpent, the devil; 3) that the serpent in Genesis 3 was like the fiery serpents who murdered the Israelites, sent to kill and destroy; 4) that the fiery serpents in Numbers had a supernatural, possibly demonic/satanic dimension.
But I was able to say all of that by simply dropping two key words into my narrative, key words that were imported from other very familiar stories. The NT writers employ this technique from time to time as well (see John 12:15, which is a conflation of prophecies from Zephaniah and Zechariah; also Matt. 27:9-10, which is a conflation of prophecies by both Zechariah and Jeremiah).
Without further delay, then, let's begin examining a few specific examples of these "inter-textual echoes."
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