Scholarly interest in intertextuality remains as keen as ever. Armed with new questions, interpreters seek to understand better the function of older scripture in later scripture. The essays assembled in the present collection address these questions. These essays treat pre-Christian texts, as well as Christian texts, that make use of older sacred tradition. They analyze the respective uses of scripture in diverse Jewish and Christian traditions. Some of these studies are concerned with discreet bodies of writings, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, while others are concerned with versions of scriptures, such as the Hebrew or Old Greek, and text critical issues. Other studies are concerned with how scripture is interpreted as part of apocalyptic and eschatology.

Early Christian Literature and Intertextuality includes essays that explore the use of Old Testament scripture in the Gospels and Acts. Other studies examine the apostle Paul’s interpretation of scripture in his letters, while other studies look at non-Pauline writings and their utilization of scripture. Some of the studies in this collection show how older scripture clarifies important points of teaching or resolves social conflict.

Law, conversion, anthropology, paradise, and Messianism are among the themes treated in these studies, themes rooted in important ways in older sacred tradition.

The collection concludes with studies on two important Christian interpreters, Syriac-speaking Aphrahat in the east and Latin-speaking Augustine in the west.

K. L. Noll, “The Evolution of Genre in the Hebrew Anthology”
Francis Borchardt, “Concepts of Scripture in 1 Maccabees”
Matthew Goff, “Ben Sira and Papyrus Insinger”
Ian Scott, “Is the Bible always Scripture: The ‘Low’ View of the Pentateuch in the Letter of Aristeas”
Jonathan Pennington, “Refractions of Greek Daniel in the Gospel of Matthew”
Anthony Le Donne, “Messianic Duality in Matthew and the Dead Sea Scrolls”
Peter T. Lanfer, “Paradise in the Pseudepigrapha”
Rivka Nir, “Aseneth as the ‘Prototype of the Church of the Gentiles’”
Annette Yoshiko Reed, “Beyond Revealed Wisdom and Apocalyptic Epistemology: The Redeployment of Enochic Traditions about Knowledge in Early Christianity”
Jin Hwang, “The Corinthian Crises and Paul’s Use of Numbers in 1 Corinthians 1–5”
Stephen Moyise, “How Does Paul Read Scripture”
Wayne Baxter, “From Ruler to Teacher: The Extending of the Shepherd Metaphor in Early Jewish and Christian Writings”
Radu Gheorghita, “Who Influenced Whom? The Reciprocal Influence between the Septuagint and the New Testament Textual Witnesses”
Aaron Canty, “The Nuptial Imagery of Christ and the Church in Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos”

Craig A. Evans (Ph.D., Claremont) is Payzant Distinguished Professor of New Testament, Acadia Divinity College Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada.

H. Daniel Zacharias is a Lecturer at Acadia Divinity College, Nova Scotia, Canada.