Exegetical Toolkit, Part 7
Intertextuality
(avg. read time: 15–29 mins.)
Part 1: Introduction and Context
Part 3: Grammatical-Syntactical Analysis
One tool that has boomed in popularity in NT studies since the year of my birth is the use of intertextuality or intertextual studies. Though initially (and sometimes afterwards) rooted in the works of Julia Kristeva and Mikhail Bakhtin, its application to biblical studies was popularized by Richard Hays in his Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul.1 Later in life, he extended this work in Paul with The Conversion of the Imagination and in the Gospels with Reading Backwards and Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels.2 In between and beyond these works, many others have endeavored to study the NT intertextually, although the purposes for doing so and the strategies employed have become diffused.3 I myself have done some work in this area.
As this tool is so widely used, I could not possibly do an adequate review of it here. While it is popular to call it “intertextuality” or “intertextual studies,” some insist on avoiding this label. G. K. Beale, for example, prefers “inner-biblical exegesis” because it avoids the baggage of postmodernity that he does not want to claim.4 Of course, this term was popularized by Michael Fishbane,5 a scholar whose hermeneutical assumptions Beale certainly does not accept in toto. Any term used for it can be considered overly broad or overly specific, and I am not one to be especially picky here.
Broadly speaking, though with the understanding that the tool is used for a variety of purposes, intertextual studies analyze how and why a text’s meaning is formed in relation to other texts. An author may consciously form a text in relation to another text, or this formation may be unintentional and subconscious, a result of the author’s own formation by the other text without consciously seeking to connect them or acknowledging a connection. Both of these things can be the subject of intertextual study, and the focus may be on the reception of the donor text, the use of the donor text by the receptor text, the more subtle shaping of the latter by the former, on some intersection between the texts, and so on. As I have noted before, the links between texts may be lexical/verbal, structural, and/or thematic with varying degrees of (in)directness.
While I am most familiar with the use of this tool in NT studies to analyze the intertextual relationship of the NT with the OT, it has uses beyond this scope. It is, in fact, quite often used in OT studies as well. The exodus and narrative or imagistic aspects related thereto are referenced throughout the OT. Many other texts have summaries of the story of Israel to certain points for a variety of purposes. Other texts throughout the OT make references of varying degrees of directness to the Torah. The Books of Chronicles pretty obviously derive from earlier sources, including what we see in the Books of Samuel and Kings. The aforementioned Fishbane wrote an extensive volume on this before Hays wrote his seminal work. An even larger work by Gary Schnittjer focuses on the OT use of the OT.6
(One can further extend such studies outside of canonical texts. One could even apply it, for example, to studying the hundreds of links between The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings [or the links with The Hobbit for that matter].)
As for the NT use of the OT, by any account, the OT had a significant role in shaping the categories of thought for the earliest Christians and the NT authors in particular. According to one popular summary, the NT features at least 295 quotations in 352 verses and 600–1,640 allusions (with one outlier account claiming as many as 4,100).7 The number of echoes, due to the nature of echoes as being more indirect than allusions, is even more indeterminate. Beyond these statistics, certain stories, speeches, arguments, and commentaries in the NT form around quotations or other uses of the OT, so that these uses of the OT typically occupy crucial places in their contexts. As such, and because verses were later divisions introduced to the text, the OT’s significance for the NT cannot be adequately conveyed by such verse statistics.
Before moving forward, we should also have a sense of what we mean by the different categories of connection, particularly of the most common kinds of deliberate connection between texts. A “quotation” involves duplicating the words of a source or donor text, usually with uniquely identifiable verbal parallelism,8 although at times this may be inexact (such as if the quote is from memory or if some grammatical adjustment is made to better fit a context). The quote may or may not be introduced; when it is, that is referred to as a “citation” (especially if it is attributed to a particular author). An “allusion” is a reference to another text that is less direct than a quotation, though it may feature significant verbal, structural, or thematic links to the source/donor text. Because they are less direct, determinations of allusions are more probabilistic, with some identifications of alluded texts being practically certain and others being mere speculation on the interpreter’s part. There is admittedly a gray area here when short excerpts of text have been adjusted for the context and are thus less direct than other short quotations (for example, see the use of Ps 34:8 in 1 Pet 2:3). Insofar as an “echo” is distinguishable from an allusion, it is even more indirect, being a textual reference that operates at a greater degree of subtlety than an allusion, but it is admittedly an elusive term.
To study such uses, there are now many, many resources available. Technical commentaries will often engage with the NT use of the OT at length (as in, e.g., G. K. Beale’s Revelation commentary for NIGTC). Specialized studies appear in monographs, edited volumes, and articles.9 I generally recommend the broad reviews of the texts and issues in The Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament10 and its companion volume Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament by G. K. Beale.11 Both volumes outline and exemplify a ninefold approach, of which I have used various steps in other analyses:
1) identify the OT reference
2) analyze the NT context where the use of the OT occurs
3) analyze the OT context (both broadly and immediately)
4) survey the use of the OT text in Jewish sources that might be relevant
5) compare these texts along with the scriptural versions on a text-critical level
6) analyze the author’s textual use of the OT
7) analyze the author’s interpretative use
8) analyze the author’s theological use
9) analyze the author’s rhetorical use.12
Naturally, it is debated whether or to what degree the NT authors regard the OT context (as but one example, see the Three Views book cited below). Although I am inclined to think that the NT authors tended to write in light of the immediate OT contexts of the texts they used, I am aware that the obvious temptation of an approach like the one outlined above is to turn the NT authors into exegetes that operate by the supposed best practices of biblical exegesis in the present. Such a temptation is the result of the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction from claims that the NT authors did not care about the OT text-in-context and simply used the text for their own purposes. But to give into that temptation is to hear NT authors who lived in a starkly different context (linguistically, historically, culturally, politically, philosophically, theologically, and so on) and find, with great astonishment, that the authors speak in one’s own voice and interpret the Scripture in accordance with one’s own view. One must at least be open to the possibility that the NT authors use a text in a way that one does not expect, a manner that seems odd (if not absurd) to exegetes informed by methods and prevailing assumptions of the present, but which would not have been so viewed in the authors’ era.
Some scholars using this approach fall into that trap because their notions of authorial meaning and context are too restricted. While the NT authors were aware of the role of human authors in the composition of Scripture, their concern was rather with the message of the divine author, the same one at work in their midst who had brought to fruition many wonderful promises and had provided a new depth of revelation in Jesus and the Spirit. Of course, they believed that they saw anew what was always there, but which they could not have seen had God not opened their eyes to see it in the light of Christ (Luke 24:27, 32, 44–47; John 2:22; 20:8–9; Acts 2:25–36; Rom 1:1–4; 1 Cor 15:3–4; Gal 3:8; 1 Pet 1:10–12). As the ending of a story can change how one interprets everything else that preceded it, so too the NT authors—who claimed the grand story of Scripture as their own—read the OT in a new light from what they saw as their eschatological vantage point on the other side of the gospel events. If there is a divine Author at work in the NT and the canon as a whole, it is necessary to regard the wider context of that Author’s work and how that context can affect meaning. And as I have sought to illustrate elsewhere, the NT authors understood the old in light of the new and the new in light of the old; both gave new levels of understanding to each other.
As long as one remembers these factors in the use of the method, one will find that the method itself is extremely useful in how comprehensive and thorough it is. It is best to use the notion of a contextual use of the OT like a working hypothesis that may or may not be disproven, rather than steadfastly assuming that all NT uses are contextual. In the process, one must interact thoroughly with both OT and NT contexts, examine uses of the text elsewhere in Jewish writing, engage in textual criticism, classify what kind of interpretative use the NT is engaging in (and Beale’s catalog of possible uses is helpful in this regard), compare the usage to other NT and post-NT uses, determine the theological character and presuppositions of the NT, and discern the rhetorical function of the OT quotation, allusion, or echo.13 This interdisciplinary method thus encourages due diligence and scrupulous study of all the relevant texts. The full ninefold approach outlined above also tends to be more fruitful with quotations than allusions, although one should see the edited commentary itself for more detail to see where this approach is fruitful.
One might similarly consider the NT use of the NT. However, here it is not necessarily clear that an author is using another written text (even, I would suggest, for many instances of similarity among the Synoptic Gospels). In that case, one might rightly wonder if this is a subject for intertextuality per se insofar as intertextuality is concerned with writings. I have reviewed such subjects here. Still, as it is a matter worth exploring for seeing connections between texts that compose the NT, I will consider it below.
Application to Rev 1:1–8
I have already done (non-comprehensive) surveys on Revelation’s links with the OT and the NT, as it is the climax of both, here and here. I have also explored theological affinities between Revelation and the Gospel according to John here. Unlike in other cases—including John, Matthew, Luke-Acts, Hebrews, and others—Revelation never cites any the many donor texts it draws language from (its most extensive linguistic similarity comes in 2:27 with language drawn from Ps 2:9). And yet it is thoroughly shaped by language, imagery, structure, and themes drawn from hundreds of links to the OT and the NT. In the course of this series alone, we have already seen a number of occasions where Revelation is connected with the OT and other parts of the NT. And while I have sought to illustrate that one could go deeper with these links (such as in the use of the OT in Revelation’s Trinitarian presentation), for the purposes of this series, I will only provide broad overviews here.14
For the text of Rev 1:1–8 that is the focus of this series, the language is more similar to other parts of the NT than to the OT per se, which is a contrast to many other sections of the book. As such, the section on this portion of text is much longer in my entry on Revelation as the climax of the NT than in my entry on Revelation as the climax of the grand story drawn from the OT. But this is not to suggest that any particular text of the NT is especially formative here. It is more a matter of general similarity.
For example, for as much as the rest of the NT declares Jesus’s worshipfulness, Revelation is the book that most extensively portrays him being worshiped in the heavens as essential to worshiping the one God. God the Father and Jesus, as well as the Holy Spirit, are distinguished, but they are all treated as one God. This is the same throughout the NT as writers and speakers refer to “God” and the “Lord,” usually with reference to the Father and the Son, respectively, but without the sense that they are two gods (Mark 16:19; Acts 2:36; 20:21, 24; Rom 1:7; 5:1, 11; 7:25; 8:39; 10:9; 14:6; 15:6; 1 Cor 1:2–3, 9; 6:14; 8:6; 15:57; 2 Cor 1:2–3; 11:32; 13:14; Gal 1:3; Eph 1:2–3; 5:20; 6:23; Phil 1:2; 2:11; 1 Thess 1:1, 3; 3:11, 13; 5:9, 23; 2 Thess 1:1–2, 8; 2:13, 16; 1 Tim 1:2; 2 Tim 1:2; Titus 1:4; Phlm 3; 1 Pet 1:2; 2 Pet 1:2; 2 John 3; Jude 21, 25). Throughout Revelation, Jesus is often designated as “Lord” (1:10; 11:8; 14:13; 17:14; 19:16; 22:20–21), and even “Lord God” as here in 1:8, but the fact that such designations can also refer to the Father (4:8, 11; 11:15, 17; 15:3–4; 16:7; 18:8; 19:6; 21:22), or they may be ambiguous (6:10; 11:4; 22:5–6 [cf. 1:1]), shows that both are being worshiped with the same name that there is but one of, according to the affirmation since the OT that there is one God and one Lord (Deut 6:4).
In v. 1, such similarities include references we have already reviewed about the “revelation of Jesus Christ” and the description of the faithful as slaves/servants/subjects. The latter fits both OT and NT tendencies, as does the description of the angel sent being “his” angel. This is the case as well with the reference to “sending” the angel (Gen 24:7, 40; Exod 23:20; Num 20:6; 1 Chr 21:15; 2 Chr 32:21; Dan 3:28; 6:22; Matt 13:41; 24:31 // Mark 13:27; Luke 1:26; Rev 22:16).
Verse 2 similarly shows how Revelation is shaped by language characteristic of the rest of the NT, as well as the OT. The use of testify/testimony/witness language is in line with the Johannine corpus, as noted previously (the language appears in legal contexts in the OT or, usually, with reference to the Torah). Referencing the “word of God” is more characteristic of the NT (as observed here), though it is similar to the “word of the Lord” in the OT, and the “testimony of Jesus Christ” is obviously characteristic of the era of the new covenant. On the other hand, v. 3 is not especially characteristic of OT or NT in its language. Still, the use of τηρέω in reference to commandments or to what is written (as here) is characteristic of the NT as opposed to the OT.
Concerning v. 4, I have already noted at multiple junctures, including in this series, of how the reference to God as “the one who is, the one who was, and the one who is coming” has its basis in Exod 3:14, even as it is a modification of it. One of the modifications to refer to “the one who is coming” (cf. 1:8; 4:8) fits both OT promises of YHWH’s coming (Pss 50:3–4; 96:12–13; 98:8–9; Isa 4:2–5; 24:21–23; 25:6–10; 31:4–5; 35:3–6, 10; 40:3–5, 9–11; 52:7–10; 59:15–21; 60:1–3, 19–20; 62:10–11; 63:1, 3, 5, 9; 64:1; 66:12, 14–16, 18–20; Ezek 43:1–7; 48:35; Joel 3:16–21; Zeph 3:14–20; Hag 2:7, 9; Zech 1:16–17; 2:4–5, 10–12; 8; 14:1–5, 9, 16, 20–21; Mal 3:1–4) and the NT expectation of the Second Coming (John 14:3; 21:22; Acts 1:11; 1 Cor 11:26; 15:24–28; 1 Thess 4:13–18; 5:2; 2 Thess 1:10, among others). We have also noted how the “grace and peace” formula is at home in the NT. The reference to the “assemblies” of God’s people uses ἐκκλησία, a term that is much more common in the NT, although it has many precedents in the OT. We have also reviewed previously the references to God as “the one who sits on the throne.” There are many references to God’s throne in the OT (1 Kgs 22:19; Pss 9:4, 7; 11:4; 45:6; 47:8; 89:14; 93:2; 103:19; Isa 6:1; 66:1; Jer 3:17; 14:21; Ezek 1:26; 10:1; 43:7; Dan 7:9), and this carries over to the NT (Matt 5:34; 23:22; Acts 7:49; Heb 1:8; 4:16; 8:1; 12:2; cf. Matt 19:28; 25:31), but among all the books of the OT and NT it is a peculiar emphasis of Revelation to draw attention to God as the one who sits on the throne. Likewise, what the rest of the NT presents in terms of Jesus being at the Father’s right hand in heaven (Matt 22:43–45 // Mark 12:35–37 // Luke 20:41–44; Matt 26:64 // Mark 14:62 // Luke 22:69; Acts 2:33–36; Rom 8:34; Eph 1:20–23; Col 3:1; Heb 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12–13; 12:2; 1 Pet 3:21b–22) is presented in Revelation in terms of the Lamb sharing in God’s throne (1:5; 3:21; 5:8, 10; 7:17; 11:15; 12:5; 19:15; 22:1, 3) or otherwise being presented in proximity to it (5:13; 7:9–10). Many of these points carry over to v. 8 as well, except we can also add that the reference to God as “Almighty” (παντοκράτωρ) is particularly influenced by the language of the OT, where the term appears just under 150 times (nearly all of the uses of the term in the NT are in Revelation, except for 2 Cor 6:18).
Verses 5–7 contain one of two clusters of OT imagery in ch. 1. First, John speaks of the effects of Jesus’s blood. The OT informs statements like this about the significance of Jesus’s blood and what it has accomplished. Exodus 24 is an especially significant text in the NT for providing context for this, but one can also point to various parts of the sacrificial system, and especially the Day of Atonement (see Lev 16–17 in particular). This imagery describes how Jesus has instituted the new covenant by his blood and constituted the new covenant community. This is further reinforced by what follows.
Second, what v. 6 says Jesus has made the new covenant community to be—a kingdom and priests—supplies another link to the OT. The book invokes this image multiple times hereafter, explicitly in 5:10 and with some more extensive description in 20:4–6 (cf. 3:21 and 22:5). In short, John is saying that Jesus has already accomplished—and will yet consummate this goal further in the anticipated future—making his covenant community into the fulfillment of God’s covenant community as articulated in Exod 19:4–6. God spoke these words to Moses to say to the Israelites after they arrived at Sinai subsequent to the exodus out of Egypt. As is typical in these statements of covenantal relationships, the statement of who God is and what God has done is the foundation for covenant communal identity and covenant communal responsibility. This is as true for the Revelation text as it is for the Exodus text, though I have only referenced here the portion that had more to do with OT imagery. This connection between the holy rule of Christ and the holy rule of his people here is also similar to the scene in Dan 7 where the vindicated Son of Man represents the holy people of God and their rule over his world, along with the reception of glory and dominion.
Third, speaking of which, the first line in v. 7 is linked with a Greek version of Dan 7:13 (ἰδοὺ μετὰ τῶν νεφελῶν … ἐρχόμενος), with some adaptation of course. This language connects Jesus with the Son of Man figure, and this will not be the last time that language and imagery from Dan 7 appears in Revelation, even in this chapter. The reference to the people seeing the one they pierced has obvious connections to Jesus’s crucifixion, but it also draws on the language of Zech 12:10 describing the house of David and Jerusalem looking on the one they pierced (i.e., God) and mourning. This takes place in a scene preparing for God’s coming to Jerusalem to save his people, judge the wicked, and assert his kingship over the world. Again, these texts subtly but clearly affirm that Jesus is the fulfillment of these long-held hopes for deliverance, justice, and the divine kingdom. John likewise evokes these hopes in his earlier description of Jesus as the firstborn from the dead (i.e., by resurrection) and the ruler of all kings, though the language here is not especially reminiscent of any particular OT passage; they are simply statements of eschatological hope held in common with the earlier scriptural witnesses and their audiences.
We can see already how Revelation’s use of language is shaped by the OT more generally. In cases like this cluster of images where that language is foregrounded, it is worth considering what is being conveyed more broadly. One, this establishes from the beginning that the story of Revelation is rooted in the story of the OT. It is part of the same worldview narrative. From this outset, John is telling us that the revelation he receives is processed through the conceptual framework of the OT. Moreover, this is so not simply because John himself is so shaped by the Scriptures. It is so because God himself is acting to bring that story, as well as the many promises and revelations contained therein, to fruition. God has been, is, and will continue revealing himself in Jesus Christ in ways that purposefully recall the OT. The visions themselves have not yet been narrated at this point, but this introduction sets the reader’s expectations for seeing such fulfillment of the OT unfold in the events that follow and the characters that enact them.
Two, although this will not be true of all links to the OT in Revelation, it is noteworthy that here the cluster of OT images focuses on Christ and the effects of his work. The references to Dan 7 and Zech 12 are important for identifying Christ as the one who has come to execute God’s promises, being himself on the Creator side of the Creator/creature distinction, which is signified not only by his identification with the one referenced in Zech 12:10, but also by his identification with “the one who is, the one who was, and the one who is coming” in 1:8 (drawing on Exod 3:14) and by his sharing the throne of God that uniquely identifies him as God throughout Revelation (as we reviewed in the analysis of the Trinitarian theology of Revelation). He is also presented as the one fulfilling the promises linked with the Son of Man in Dan 7. He has done this by fulfilling the institutions of the old covenant and establishing the new covenant (which is implied more subtly and succinctly here than the much more extensive argument in Hebrews). The new covenant community identified as a kingdom and priests are made like Christ in numerous ways, including their linkage with his kingly and priestly offices (also see here).
Three, the use of the OT imagery in this introduction sets the stage for the larger narrative of Revelation as one of completing the climax of the grand narrative that has already begun. Namely, the climax of the story that Revelation unfolds has already begun in the gospel story of Jesus, as signified by the OT imagery here. He has done this through the gospel events that have established the new covenant (in fulfillment of promises like Jer 31:31–34) and the new covenant community, of which we are a part. That establishment of the new covenant community with an identity evoking the original exodus is also a signal of the inauguration of the new exodus in further fulfillment of promises and hopes articulated in the OT.
That leads us to the flipside of these observations on vv. 5–7. Even with this concentration of OT imagery, it is notable how much this text comports with what we see elsewhere in the NT. Revelation also comports with the NT in how it presents its summary of the central gospel narrative. I have already reviewed this in my series on the three-stage gospel narrative in the NT, including the final entry on Revelation. Crucially, the gospel pattern is presented as the pattern of the victorious life of the faithful Christian. John refers to Jesus as a faithful witness (1:5; 3:14), which, in the context of Revelation as a whole, implies his faithfulness and testimony was unto death, specifically leading directly to his death (cf. Antipas in 2:13, the two witnesses in 11:3, and the blood of the witnesses in 17:6). But even if that were not so, his death and its efficaciousness in dealing with sin are still invoked beginning in 1:5. While one could argue, accurately, that this conquest characterizes Jesus’s life as a whole through the lens of Revelation, the action that most fittingly crystallizes that conquest is his resurrection after being a faithful witness unto death. Such an interpretation also makes sense in light of the juxtaposition of conquest and session on the heavenly throne. It is rather common in the NT for reference to the resurrection to be in proximity to reference to the exaltation (Matt 28:18; Acts 1:3–11; 2:31–36; 5:28–32; 7:55–56; 13:30–39; 17:31–32; Rom 1:1–4; 8:34; 1 Cor 15:20–28; Eph 1:17–23; Phil 3:18–21; Col 1:18–20; 2:11–15; Heb 2:5–12; 7:23–27; 12:2; 1 Pet 1:18–21; 3:18–22). In Revelation itself, this link is first made in 1:5. The same gospel progression is also shown, in a more implicit way, in 1:17–18. And as Jesus states in 3:21, this is the same progression for those who adhere to and identify themselves by the gospel when they are faithful followers of Jesus. They can expect the goal of their story to be the same as the goal of this story.
Also significant in the opening is the reference to Jesus as “the firstborn from the dead” (1:5). This is reminiscent of the reference to Jesus as “first fruits” in 1 Cor 15:20, but it is especially close to Col 1:18 (cf. Rom 8:29). The language not only expresses his preeminence, but it also indicates that there are more of the dead who will rise. In Col 1:18 this is indicated by the reference to Jesus as head of the body that is the church and that in a similar way his “birth” out of death is the first of others. In Rev 1:5 this is indicated by the reference to Jesus as the faithful witness, implying that other faithful witnesses will become like him in being born from the dead in the event of resurrection. This future is secured by Jesus already blazing the trail in his death and resurrection and by his blood that liberates those who follow him from their sins. Indeed, Jesus’s resurrection enables and ensures all of his action that brings about the future salvation, not least because his resurrection is connected to his exaltation to ruling over the world. The future is in his hands. The faithful simply must persevere to inherit that future.
This opening also introduces a motif from Revelation that resonates with the rest of the NT. That is, Jesus is said to release us from our sins by his blood (1:5), to purchase us as a people by his blood (5:9; 14:3–4), to sanctify us by his blood (7:14), and to give us participation in his victory by his blood (12:11). All of these elements resonate with statements throughout the NT to these various effects that come from the blood of Jesus (Matt 26:28 // Mark 14:24 // Luke 22:20 // 1 Cor 11:25; Acts 20:28; Rom 3:25; 5:9; 1 Cor 6:20; 7:23; 10:16; Eph 1:7; 2:13; Col 1:20; Heb 9:11–28; 10:19, 29; 12:24; 13:12, 20; 1 Pet 1:2, 19; 2 Pet 2:1; 1 John 1:7). While John 6:53–56 is at a further remove from these particular ideas, it is notable how the text provides the ground of participation in the victory of Christ through the expression of union with Christ through “eating his flesh and drinking his blood.” (I have examined how John 6 relates to John’s theology of resurrection elsewhere.) These various statements point to the sacrificial, redemptive, purifying, and covenant-making nature of his death. Some cases highlight the victory achieved in Jesus’s death and what follows (Rev 5:5; cf. John 16:33; Col 2:15; 1 John 5:4–5), and Revelation unfolds this victory in the course of the narrative, including by applying the victory of God in Jesus to the believers who are also victorious (3:21; 12:11; cf. 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12; 15:2; 21:7; 1 Cor 15:54–57; see here for more).
The outcome of Jesus’s work making us a kingdom and priests to God obviously derives from the OT, as we have observed, and as further illustrated by the similarity of 1:6 to 1 Pet 2:5 and 9, which evokes the same text. But it also owes something to the NT emphasis, especially in the Gospels, on the coming of the kingdom of God in Jesus (outside of the Gospels, see Acts 1:3, 6; 8:12; 14:22; 19:8; 20:25; 28:23; Rom 14:17; 1 Cor 4:20; 6:10; 15:24; 5:21; Eph 5:5; Col 1:13; 4:11; 1 Thess 2:12; 2 Thess 1:5; 2 Tim 4:1, 18; Heb 12:28; Jas 2:5; 2 Pet 1:11). Beyond 1:6 and the similar 5:10, one can see this in how John describes himself as a fellow participant in the kingdom (1:9) and the declaration of the kingdom and dominion of God and Christ (11:15; 12:10).
Furthermore, Rev 1:7 may allude to Dan 7:13–14, as does the later Rev 1:13, but this too is in line with other parts of the NT. In fact, this is a rare case outside of the Gospels where Jesus is referred to in ways that connect to both Dan 7:13–14 and his preferred means of self-reference as recorded in all the Gospels. The fact that Jesus distinctively presented himself as the Son of Man in ways that showed this language was crucial to his self-conception and self-presentation (Matt 8:20 // Luke 9:58; Matt 9:6 // Mark 2:10 // Luke 5:24; Matt 10:23; 11:19 // Luke 7:34; Matt 12:8 // Mark 2:28 // Luke 6:5; Matt 12:32 // Luke 12:10; Matt 12:40; 13:37; 16:13; Matt 16:28; Matt 17:9 // Mark 9:9–10; Matt 17:12, 22 // Mark 9:31 // Luke 9:44; Matt 20:18–19 // Mark 10:33–34 // Luke 18:31–33; Matt 20:28 // Mark 10:45; Matt 24:27–31 // Mark 13:24–27 // Luke 21:25–28; Matt 24:39 // Luke 17:26; Matt 24:44 // Luke 12:40; Matt 26:2, 24 // Mark 14:21 // Luke 22:22; Matt 26:45 // Mark 14:41; Mark 8:31; 9:12; Luke 6:22; 11:30; 19:10; 22:48; John 3:13–14; 6:53, 62; 8:28; 9:35; 12:23, 34; 13:31), and that he would regularly refer in his eschatological teaching to what the Son of Man would do (Matt 13:41; 16:27 // Mark 8:38 // Luke 9:26; Matt 19:28; 25:31–46; Luke 12:8; 17:22, 24, 30; 18:8; 21:36; John 1:51; 5:27; 6:27), means that Jesus’s self-presentation in his earthly life correlated with his heavenly revelation to John. This also comports with how the heavenly revelation to Stephen in Acts 7:55–56 refers to him as the Son of Man, which is the only other text outside of the Gospels and Revelation to refer to him in such a fashion (see here and here for more details). Although the terminology is not exactly widespread in Revelation, not least since John has other ways of referring to Christ, we can see how the presentation here is one of Christ’s own self-presentation coming to realization in his execution of God’s will and his enabling of the faithful to share in God’s reign. The imagery also resembles NT texts referring to Jesus coming on the clouds in Matt 26:64 // Mark 14:62 and Mark 13:26 // Luke 21:27 (cf. 1 Thess 4:17).
The use of language from Zech 12:10 is also remarkable for how it links with other parts of the NT. More generally, I have noted elsewhere how chs. 9–14 in Zechariah are used in the Gospels, including John, to present the story of the gospel as fulfilling Scripture. More specifically, two other texts are worth noting. The language of Zech 12:10 in combination with Dan 7:13–14 resembles how the texts are combined in Matt 24:30. The language drawn from Zech 12:10 also matches how it is used in John 19:37. Both John 19:37 and Rev 1:7 use the verb ἐκκεντέω (“pierced”), which does not appear in the LXX/OG (the later Aquila and Theodotion use the verb here while Symmachus has an extra prefixed preposition). Both John and Revelation use a common textual basis to identify Jesus as the Lord in this text, as God in the fullness of time has revealed himself in Jesus as the one who executes the divine will (hence, God is the source of revelation while Jesus is the subject of the verbal idea acting as the intermediate source of revelation, per our comments in Part 3).
Revelation is also climactic in its culminative view of what will go on “forever.” On the one hand, various NT authors call for God to be glorified forever (Rom 1:25; 9:5; 11:36; 16:27; 2 Cor 11:31; Gal 1:5; Eph 3:21; Phil 4:20; 1 Tim 1:17; 2 Tim 4:18; Heb 13:21; 1 Pet 4:11; 5:11; 2 Pet 3:18; Jude 25). Revelation joins this chorus and narrates how God will bring about everlasting worship (1:6, 5:13; 7:12). On the other hand, the NT, especially in the Gospel according to John, declares the promise of everlasting life that extends from God’s own eternal life, as the former shares in the latter (John 3:15–16, 36; 4:14, 36; 5:26, 39–40; 6:27, 33, 35, 40, 47–51, 53–54, 57–58, 63, 68; 8:12, 51; 10:10, 28; 11:25–26; 12:25, 50; 14:6, 19; 17:2–3; 20:31; Acts 17:25; 1 Tim 1:17; 6:13, 16; Heb 5:6; 6:20; 7:16–17, 21, 24, 28; 13:8; 1 John 2:17). This is something Revelation grounds in God’s eternal life as well (1:18; 2:8; 4:9–10; 10:6; 11:15; 15:7; 22:5; cf. 2:7, 10; 11:11; 21:6; 22:1–2, 14, 17, 19).
Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). Although less well known, another work that came out the same year was an edited volume: Sipke Draisma, ed., Intertextuality in Biblical Writings: Essays in Honour of Bas Van Iersel (Kampen: Kok, 1989).
Richard B. Hays, The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005); Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016); Hays, Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness (London: SPCK, 2014).
My friend and cohort-mate Dain Smith has provided a helpful survey in a relatively recent article. Dain Alexander Smith, “Intertextuality and Hermeneutic Phenomenology: Finding Hermeneutical Clarity in the Diversity of New Testament Scholarship,” HBT 44 (2022): 228–55.
G. K. Beale, Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Exegesis and Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 39–40. Also see Russell L. Meek, “Intertextuality, Inner-Biblical Exegesis, and Inner-Biblical Allusion: The Ethics of a Methodology,” Bib 95 (2014): 280–91.
Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon; Oxford University Press, 1985).
Gary Edward Schnittjer, Old Testament Use of Old Testament: A Book-by-Book Guide (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2021). Also see Gary Edward Schnittjer and Matthew S. Harmon, How to Study the Bible’s Use of the Bible: Seven Hermeneutical Choices for the Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2024).
Roger Nicole, “The New Testament Use of the Old Testament,” in The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts? Essays on the Use of the Old Testament in the New, ed. G. K. Beale (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 13–14.
I say “usually” because one may find a case like 1 Pet 1:16, which quotes a text that is a refrain in the source of Leviticus, appearing in 11:44, 45; 19:2; and 20:7 (cf. 20:26).
For just a few examples, other than those I have already cited, see G. K. Beale, John’s Use of the Old Testament in Revelation, JSNTSup 166 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1998); Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011); Beale, ed., The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts? Essays on the Use of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994); Kenneth Berding and Jonathan Lunde, eds., Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008); Richard N. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999). My old doctoral mentor Ben Witherington wrote a trilogy Torah Old and New, Psalms Old and New, and Isaiah Old and New. Steve Moyise has also written several books on the subject.
G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, eds. Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.
Beale, Handbook, passim. Although it is a work in a different vein, there is also now G. K. Beale, D. A. Carson, Benjamin Gladd, and Andrew David Naselli, eds., Dictionary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2023).
Beale, Handbook, 42–43.
Ibid., 42–54.
Again, one could extend this form of analysis to other text beyond the OT and NT. For example, I have suggested some possible comparisons one might make with Roman literature in this series (especially here). However, it is clear that John consciously forms his text with the language of the OT, whereas links with Roman literature are not as obvious.