Old Testament Chronology Lecture 2

SHEPHERDS COLLEGE SHORT COURSE: OLD TESTAMENT CHRONOLOGY 25 MARCH 2025, LECTURE 2 1 SURVEY 2 KEY POINTS AND EVENTS 1. Genesis 11:26—Terah 2. Genesis 12-24—Abraham 3. Genesis 25-36—Jacob 4. Gensis 37-50—Joseph 3 CONNECTING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT • Genesis 1:27; 2:24 // Matthew 19:4 • Genesis 2:2 // Hebrews 4:4 • Genesis 5:2 // Mark 10:6 • Genesis 12:1 // Acts 7:3, Hebrews 11:8 • Genesis 12:3 // Galatians 3:8 • Genesis 13:15 // Galatians 3:16 • Genesis 14:17-20 // Hebrews 7:1-2 • Genesis 15:4 // Romans 4:18 4 THE NEW TESTAMENT USE OF THE OLD: SOME IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS 1. The assumptions of the Jesus and the New Testament Authors 1. Historical Fact 2. Theological Significance. Christ is the meaning of the Old Testament 2. Types of use of the Old Testament 1. Quotations 1. Hebrew 2. LXX 5 THE NEW TESTAMENT USE OF THE OLD: SOME IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS (CONTINUED) 2. Types of use of the Old Testament 1. Quotations 1. Hebrew 2. LXX 2. Allusions/Echo 3. Types: Melchizedek 4. Foreshadowing: Genesis 43:8-10 6 CONSIDERATIONS 1. Availability. The source text (the Greek or Hebrew OT) must be available to the writer. The writer would have expected his audience on a first or subsequent reading to recognize the intended allusion. 2. Volume. There is a significant degree of verbatim repetition of words or syntactical patterns. 3. Recurrence. There are references in the immediate context (or elsewhere by the same author) to the same OT context from which the purported allusion derives. 4. Thematic Coherence. The alleged OT allusion is suitable and satisfying in that its meaning in the OT not only thematically fits into the NT writer’s argument but also illuminates it. G. K. Beale, Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Exegesis and Interpretation (Grand Rapids, 7 MI: Baker Academic, 2012), 33. CONSIDERATIONS 5. Historical Plausibility. There is plausibility that the NT writer could have intended such an allusion and that the audience could have understood the NT writer’s use of it to varying degrees, especially on subsequent readings of his letters. Nevertheless, it is always possible that readers may not pick up an allusion intended by an author (this part of the criterion appears to have some overlap with the first). Also, if it can be demonstrated that the NT writer’s use of the OT has parallels and analogies to other contemporary Jewish uses of the same OT passages, then this may enhance the validity of the allusion. 8 CONSIDERATIONS 6. History of Interpretation. It is important to survey the history of the interpretation of the NT passage in order to see if others have observed the allusion. Yet this is one of the least reliable criteria in recognizing allusions. Though a study of past interpretation may reveal the possible allusions proposed by others, it can also lead to a narrowing of the possibilities since commentators can tend to follow earlier commentators and since commentary tradition always has the possibility of distorting or misinterpreting and losing the fresh and creative approach of the NT writers’ intertextual collocations. 7. Satisfaction. With or without confirmation from the preceding six criteria, does the proposed allusion and its interpretative usage make sense in the immediate context? Does it illuminate the surrounding context? Does it enhance the rhetorical punch of the point being made by the NT writer? Does the use of the allusion result in a satisfying account of how the author intended the allusion 9 and how this use of the allusion would have made its effect upon the reader? SUMMARY 1. The New Testament writers did not doubt the historicity of the Old Testament. 2. The Christ is the interpreter of the Old Testament. The new interprets the Old. 10