Old Made New E-Book

Greg Lanier

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Greg Lanier Presents a Simple Method for Studying Old Testament Citations in the New Testament Many Bible readers have difficulty understanding the Old Testament's connection to the New Testament, and some even believe it's obsolete in light of God's new covenant. In reality, New Testament writers alluded to earlier books of the Bible roughly 300–400 times. The Old Testament isn't outdated; it's critical to understanding the rest of Scripture.  In Old Made New, Greg Lanier explains how New Testament authors used the Old Testament to communicate the gospel and present the person and work of Jesus. He also explains what the Old Testament teaches Christians today about the church's identity and ethics. Writing for a broad range of readers, Lanier distills thorough research into simple, descriptive examples and tips. His 3-step method explains how to identify and explore an Old Testament passage and see how it's "remixed" in the New Testament to thoughtfully engage with Scripture. Download Study Guide Download Redemptive-Historical Bible Reading Plan - Accessibly Written: Clear language and easy-to-follow methods make this resource helpful for laypeople, Sunday school leaders, and students - Effective Bible Study Method: Includes the most recent research on Old Testament references in the New Testament, complete with a simple 3-step study plan to help readers apply it - Comprehensive: Tables, worksheets, case studies, and notes guide readers through exciting, thorough Scripture study - Appendices Included: Features the most agreed-upon citations, quotations, and allusions to the Old Testament in the New Testament, along with a Bible reading plan 

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“Here’s a book that doesn’t just tell you how to rightly interpret the Bible; it shows you with example after example of how to read and compare Old Testament texts to their citations or allusions in the New Testament in a way that will lead to insight and understanding. Not only is this a book worthy of working through to develop skills for use in the text, but this is also a book I will pull off the shelf again and again to reference whenever I see an Old Testament quote or allusion arise in a New Testament text.”

Nancy Guthrie, author; Bible teacher

“Greg Lanier has produced a fine, accessible manual on the apostles’ use of the Old Testament. Old Made New wisely instructs the reader through the maze of inner-biblical exegesis. New Testament authors carefully draw from the Old Testament to signal the fulfillment of the Bible’s story in Christ and his people.”

Benjamin L. Gladd, Associate Professor of New Testament, Reformed Theological Seminary

“Greg Lanier’s goal with this book is to entice modern readers to read the New Testament in light of the Old. This is a tricky wood where many of us without a skilled and understanding guide might lose our way or perhaps find the going so tedious that we run away screaming and never return. But Greg is a teacher as well as a scholar. He is sensitive to his reader’s need for clarity and encouragement, and he brings both to the table. His guidance is not only insightful, it is reproducible. A reader armed with this book will gain the confidence to enter this wood himself. At the same time, Greg takes us to a height from which, surveying the whole wood, we are able to marvel at how both Testaments are wonderfully woven together.”

Randall R. Greenwald, Pastor, Covenant Presbyterian Church, Oviedo, Florida; author, Something Worth Living For

“The use of the Old Testament in the New Testament is one of the most exciting and productive aspects of the interpretation of Scripture. Yet, it is undoubtedly one of the most challenging for the lay student of the Bible. In Old Made New, Greg Lanier breaks down a complex subject into its essential elements resulting in a one-of-a-kind, user-friendly exegetical and theological guide. The avid student of Scripture will benefit from a clear, jargon-free explanation of the method—including examples—and from rich theological insights that will enable a deeper understanding of the most common ways the authors of the New Testament use the Old Testament. From pastors to people in the pews, this book will be received with much excitement.”

Mateus F. de Campos, Academic Dean and Assistant Professor of New Testament, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary; author, Resisting Jesus

“Exciting advances and discoveries have marked the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament in recent years. Unfortunately, most of these studies are technical and not accessible to ordinary readers. Greg Lanier has now bridged the gap with this remarkably clear and useful study, showing us with multiple examples how New Testament writers appropriated the Old Testament. As readers we are also given illuminating studies on the gospel, Christology, and the church.”

Thomas R. Schreiner, James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Old Made New

Other Crossway Books by Greg Lanier

Is Jesus Truly God? How the Bible Teaches the Divinity of Christ

The Septuagint: What It Is and Why It Matters (with William A. Ross)

Old Made New

A Guide to the New Testament Use of the Old Testament

Greg Lanier

Old Made New: A Guide to the New Testament Use of the Old Testament

Copyright © 2022 by Gregory R. Lanier

Published by Crossway 1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jordan Singer

Cover image: Isaiah scroll (Wikimedia Commons)

First printing 2022

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ASV are from the American Standard Version of the Bible. Public domain.

Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible. Public domain.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are from The New American Standard Bible®. Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright ©1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-7783-3 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-7786-4 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-7784-0 Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-7785-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lanier, Gregory R., author. 

Title: Old made new : a guide to the New Testament use of the Old Testament / Gregory R. Lanier. 

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. 

Identifiers: LCCN 2021031008 (print) | LCCN 2021031009 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433577833 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781433577840 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433577857 (mobipocket) | ISBN 9781433577864 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible. New Testament—Relation to the Old Testament. | Bible. New Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 

Classification: LCC BS2387 .L355 2022 (print) | LCC BS2387 (ebook) | DDC 225.6—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021031008

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021031009

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2022-02-21 10:14:19 AM

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1  Tools of the Trade

2  The Old Testament and the Gospel

3  The Old Testament and Jesus Christ

4  The Old Testament and the Church

Conclusion

Appendix: Inventory of New Testament Uses of the Old Testament

General Index

Scripture Index

Illustrations

Figures

1.1 Three-Step Process

3.1 The Christological Shema

Tables

1.1 Luke 19:45–46

1.2 Citation Examples

1.3 Examples of Revisions to OT Citations/Quotations

1.4 Luke 19:45–46 Wording Analysis

1.5 Observations about the Source Passages of Luke 19:45–46

1.6 Three-Step Process Worksheet

2.1 Amos at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:16–17)

2.2 Isaiah and the “Day” (2 Cor. 6:2)

2.3 Isaiah and the Deliverer from Zion (Rom. 11:26–27)

2.4 Examples for How the OT Assists with Understanding Gospel Concepts/Vocabulary

2.5 Ezekiel and a Heart of Flesh (2 Cor. 3:3)

2.6 Abraham and Justification by Faith (Rom. 4:3; Gal. 3:6)

2.7 Isaiah, Hosea, and the Defeat of Death (1 Cor. 15:54–55)

3.1 Genesis Language in John 1

3.2 The Son in the Isaiah 6 Throneroom (John 12:39–40)

3.3 The Forerunner of the Lord (Mark 1:2–3)

3.4 The Shepherd from Bethlehem (Matt. 2:5–6)

3.5 The Last Supper (Luke 22:20)

3.6 One Like a Son of Man (Gospels, Revelation)

3.7 Isaiah 52:13–53:12 in the NT

3.8 Psalm 22 in the NT

4.1 The New Passover Community (1 Cor. 5:7–8)

4.2 Unveiled Faces (2 Cor. 3:7–18)

4.3 The New Royal Priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9)

4.4 A Light to the Nations (Acts 13:46–47)

4.5 The Decalogue in the NT

4.6 Purge the Evil (1 Cor. 5:12–13)

4.7 Meat Is the Lord’s (1 Cor. 10:25–26)

4.8 Negative Examples from the OT

5.1 The OT at the End of the NT

6.1 Inventory of NT Uses of the OT

Acknowledgments

This book is a humble attempt at distilling years of fascination with a particular aspect of God’s word into a form that my mother might enjoy. It is impossible to say everything I wanted to say and keep it brief, and many issues will not receive the attention that a technical specialist would expect. But my goal is simple: to hook the average Christian on uncovering the Old made New in their Bible.

The core content of this project began as a series of seminars I led as part of “Teaching Women to Teach,” hosted by Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando, FL) in the spring of 2020. I extend my gratitude to Scott Swain and Leigh Swanson for the invitation, and to the more than one hundred women in attendance for their helpful feedback.

I further honed the material in an adult education series at River Oaks Church (Lake Mary, FL), where I serve as associate pastor. Though a pandemic hampered attendance, the helpful questions and feedback from those who participated proved invaluable.

I am also grateful for the years of insights I have gained from my students at Reformed Theological Seminary. The running joke is that my New Testament courses on the Gospels, Acts, and Paul are really just Old Testament classes. Here I stand—I can do no other.

Lastly, I extend my thanks to the Crossway team for their partnership: to Justin Taylor and the editorial board for seeing the need for a resource like this; to the design team for crafting cover art that perfectly captures the spirit of the book; to the marketing team for their creative assistance; and to the editors Kevin Emmert and Chris Cowan for their astute work.

My wife, Kate, is a constant champion of my writing endeavors, and she is always in the back of my mind as the ultimate audience. As we teach our children to love both Testaments, I cannot help but dedicate this book to them.

To Caroline, Amelia, and Sydney, may you love the gospel, the Savior, and the church all the more

as you read of them from Old to New

Introduction

Pop quiz. Name that Bible verse:

1. “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.”

2. “He catches the wise in their craftiness.”

3. “You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan.”

Scratching your head? That is understandable. These would not make anyone’s Top 10 Bible Verses list. If you had to choose, you would probably wager that they are from the Old Testament (OT). And you would be correct: Exodus 13:2, Job 5:13, and Amos 5:25–27, respectively.

But they also appear in the New Testament (NT). While these verses are somewhat unfamiliar to us, they were not unfamiliar to the NT authors. The first is quoted in Luke 2:23, the second in 1 Corinthians 3:19, and the third in Acts 7:43. What made these verses stand out to the writers? What are they trying to achieve by quoting them? What are we to do with these quotations? Such questions are the stimulus of this book, which aims to equip you with the tools needed to grapple with the NT use of the OT.

Why Does This Topic Matter?

The topic of the use of the OT in the NT matters for two main reasons.

1. The OT was written for us. In recent decades, the OT seems to have fallen on hard times. Many churches and theologians argue that the Scriptures of the “old covenant” are practically irrelevant to “new covenant” Christians. That was then, this is now! Others suggest that we should distance ourselves from the OT because its many hard passages offend people and keep the church from growing. But such ideas are actually nothing new. Skepticism toward the OT goes back to the earliest decades of the church and has simply changed shape over time.1

One odd thing about all this is that the NT itself tells us not to ignore or downplay the OT. Paul writes, “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction” (Rom. 15:4). And again, “These things happened to [Israel] as an example, but they were written down for our instruction” (1 Cor. 10:11). And once more, “All Scripture”—referring mainly to the OT—“is breathed out by God and profitable . . . that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16–17). Paul is clear, and other NT authors could be added, that the OT is not outdated. It was given by God to Israel, but it is also for us today. The NT gives a hearty yes to what the OT promised (2 Cor. 1:20). If that is true, then the OT is essential to understanding God’s purposes today.

2. The NT authors use the OT a staggering number of times. The other odd thing about modern aversion to the OT is that it is difficult to make your way through most NT books without stumbling into the OT at nearly every turn.

The first words of the NT—“The book of the genealogy” (Matt. 1:1)—are clear references to the genealogies of Genesis and 1–2 Chronicles. The last words of Jesus in the NT are allusions to Isaiah (Rev. 22:16). The NT is quite literally bookended by the OT.

Each of the other Gospels leads off with loud references to the OT: Mark quotes Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3 (Mark 1:2–3); Luke peppers his first two chapters with numerous images from the OT; and John’s “in the beginning” (1:1) points back to Genesis 1:1. Jesus regularly engages Scripture, perhaps most vividly in wielding three citations of Deuteronomy against Satan in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–12). And some of the most important arguments in the NT—such as the middle part of Galatians, the bulk of Romans from 1:17 to 15:21, and the covenant discussions in Hebrews—are built on an OT foundation.

Indeed, there are roughly three hundred to four hundred (or more) quotations and allusions to the OT in the NT, depending on how you count.2 Roughly thirty OT books are quoted at least once, and the most-cited passages are the Ten Commandments, Leviticus 19, a handful of key psalms (especially Pss. 2; 22; 110; 118), important chapters of Isaiah (chaps. 6; 40; 52–53), and Daniel 7. Though some NT writings do not directly quote the OT, such as 1–3 John, it is safe to say that without the OT, it would be hard to make full sense of much of the NT. The OT provides the colors the NT authors use to paint.

One of the last things Jesus did before his ascension was to open the minds of the apostles “to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45). Following his cue, the NT authors tell us that the OT matters, and they also show us by their own frequent engagement with it. For these two reasons, the topic of this book is essential for today’s Christian.

What Are this Book’s Aim and Audience?

Given these motivating factors, this book will provide a thorough but accessible introduction to how the NT engages the OT, aimed at a broad array of Bible readers.

If one wants to retrace the footsteps of Jesus and the apostolic circle in how they read and apply the OT, the landscape can be daunting. Studies often lament the fall of biblical literacy in the modern church3—and the OT is the weakest link. Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and Daniel may still be familiar from children’s church, but a thorough grasp of the first Testament is an endangered species.

On top of this, readers who try to brush up on the NT use of the OT often find themselves overwhelmed with jargon and theoretical frameworks. Some of the best books on the subject quickly drown the reader with technical terminology like “rabbinic midrashic exegesis,” “Qumran scrolls,” and “Jewish apocalyptic literature.”4 Others clothe excellent ideas with flowery garb—“catalytic fusion,” “figural fusions,” “figural web”5—that may puzzle the average layperson. Commentators regularly declare that an NT author has ripped an OT passage out of context,6 raising questions about the trustworthiness of the Bible. Other scholars draw fine distinctions between Luke’s “prophetic-fulfillment” versus Matthew’s “messianic” use of the OT, without explaining why or how those differ.7 In short, the step from knowing that the NT uses the OT to understanding how is often a perilous one.

The point of this book, then, is simple: to hold the reader’s hand in making that crucial step. Or, put differently: to map the terrain of the landscape to prepare you for a lifetime of exciting study.

For NT scholars, the chapters that follow are not new news per se. The field of so-called biblical intertextuality—the use of the OT in the NT—has been one of the most active areas of study in the past few decades.8 Unfortunately, many of the insights remain locked up in cumbersome monographs and journal articles, thus having limited impact on people in the pew.

This book aims to fill the gap by giving readers the basic tools they need for effective study—and none of the chaff of buzzwords and theoretical side trails they do not need. What follows would serve well as training for lay-level Bible study or Sunday school leaders, a stepping-stone to more advanced study for Bible college and seminary students, or a quick refresher for vocational ministers.

Teachers, Model Excitement!

If you are involved in teaching others about the Bible, a key part of the equation is simply being a good role model: show your students or Bible study members that you are excited about the OT itself and the use of the OT in the NT. If you set a tone that “this is super boring and complicated, and only pastors or scholars care about this,” it will rub off. Likewise, if you set a tone that “this is wonderful and energizing,” that will rub off too.

How Will This Book Proceed?

To accomplish this aim for the intended audience, I will proceed as follows:

The bulk of the book consists in tracing the NT authors’ engagement with the OT along three major themes:

Chapter 2—articulating thegospel in terms of the saving work of God in history and the gift of salvation to individual believers

Chapter 3—articulating the fullness of Jesus in his person and work, both as divine Son and human Savior

Chapter 4—articulating the identity of the church as eschatological Israel, as well as its mission and conduct for today

Each chapter has a mix of shorter examples that help prove out these themes, as well as longer case studies (six per chapter) that model for the reader how to do the work. This approach is different from those in other books but will serve the reader well long-term. There are three main options out there: (1) The leading textbook focuses heavily on theoretical concerns (including a nine-step process and twelve “primary ways” the NT uses the OT).9 (2) Most guides go book by book, which is helpful but can pit the NT authors against each other or fail to draw out overarching patterns.10 (3) Technical monographs tend to have a scope (e.g., one biblical author, one book, sections of one book) that is too limited for the general reader.11

The approach taken here will, instead, help the reader begin to sort through how any given NT author uses any given OT passage, since the three themes cover the waterfront. By studying the way various passages support these themes, the reader will come away with a much clearer overall picture of what Paul means when he says that the OT was written “for our instruction”: namely, instruction about salvation, Jesus, and us.

Before diving into these themes, we must first cover some basic tools. This is where many books get bogged down. But my goal is to keep things simple, yet robust enough that the tools can be used by any reader for any passage, without requiring hours of work.

1  Daniel Gard, “The Church’s Scripture and Functional Marcionism,” Concordia Theological Quarterly 74 (2010): 209–24.

2  Gleason Archer and Gregory Chirichigno list 312 in Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1983). The tabulation in Appendix 1 at the end of this book exceeds four hundred.

3  Justin Dillehay and Ivan Mesa, “Bible Literacy Crisis!,” The Gospel Coalition, January 14, 2020, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/.

4  All three phrases are found on the first page of G. K. Beale, Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Exegesis and Interpretation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012).

5  Richard Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016), 8, 14, 343.

6  E.g., “Paul often quotes from Scripture in a way that bears little evident relation to the apparent sense of the original” (Christopher D. Stanley, Arguing with Scripture: The Rhetoric of Quotations in the Letters of Paul [London: T&T Clark, 2004], 53); “What . . . could have led Paul to such a brazen misreading of the prophet?” (J. Ross Wagner, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul “in Concert” in the Letter to the Romans [Leiden: Brill, 2000], 211). See examples of this critical sentiment about Matthew’s “Out of Egypt” quotation catalogued in G. K. Beale, “The Use of Hosea 11:1 in Matthew 2:15: One More Time,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 55, no. 4 (2012): 697–715.

7  E.g., Darrell L. Bock, Proclamation from Prophecy to Pattern: Lucan Old Testament Christology (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987); Michael Knowles, “Scripture, History, Messiah: Scriptural Fulfillment and the Fullness of Times in Matthew’s Gospel,” in Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament, ed. Stanley E. Porter (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006).

8  Two seminal works are C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures: The Sub-Structure of New Testament Theology (New York: Scribner, 1952); Richard Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993).

9  Beale, Handbook.

10  Steven Moyise, The Old Testament in the New: An Introduction (London: T&T Clark, 2015); G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, eds., Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007); Stanley E. Porter, ed., Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006).

11  E.g., Rikki Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus in Mark (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997); Wagner, Heralds of the Good News; Matthew Scott, The Hermeneutics of Christological Psalmody in Paul: An Intertextual Enquiry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

1

Tools of the Trade

Every good carpenter masters some basic tools, and students of Scripture should be no different. In this chapter, I will provide an overview of the tools that anyone can use when delving into the NT use of the OT.

Precisely here we need to avoid two pitfalls.

Some carpenters are overzealous: they purchase every possible tool, get overwhelmed by massive instruction manuals and costly upkeep, fail to learn many of the tools very well, and become frustrated by how complicated making even a birdhouse has become. Many books on the use of the OT in the NT are like this: so many steps, philosophical debates, and hermeneutical jargon (like pesher or gezerah shawah) that the average reader gets thoroughly bogged down.

Other carpenters just wing it: use few tools, let whatever they have get rusty, and basically make things up as they go along. No books on the use of the OT in the NT fall into this category, but many readers of the Bible probably do. And as with carpentry, the end result is often injury in the form of mistakes or discouragement.

This book charts a course between these two pitfalls. I hope to provide tools that are simple enough to remember, master, and actually use—and robust enough to use responsibly. I will cover three steps that should be used anytime you are studying an NT passage that draws on an OT passage. These steps could be done quickly or in extensive detail, depending on how much time you can invest. And they may seem relatively obvious, but that is the beauty of the most effective tools; the hammer is effective for its brutal elegance (see figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Three-Step Process

Throughout this chapter, Luke 19:45–46 will serve as an illustrative example.

Step 1: Identify the Passage

The first step in studying the use of the OT in the NT is, of course, identifying when and how it is actually taking place. Much like any good carpentry project requires selecting the right wood for the job, this step need not be skipped over too quickly.

In general, it is straightforward to determine when an NT author is drawing on the OT and which passage is being used. Modern English Bibles often include quotation marks around OT portions and, in turn, list cross-references in the footnotes. But you need to keep in mind that such notes do different things depending on the version you are using: sometimes they are simply pointing out similar ideas found in other passages, not direct uses of the OT. And due to the varying opinions of Bible editors, the footnotes may not always be uniform: some editors are maximalist in what they include, while others are minimalist.1 If in doubt, you can consult a commentary for a given book or one of the major resources devoted to the NT use of the OT.2 In the Appendix, I provide an inventory of essentially all instances that scholars largely agree on.

Let us take a look at our example passage to illustrate this part of the process. Two versions read as follows (see table 1.1):

Table 1.1 Luke 19:45–46

ESV 2016

NIV 2011

He entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”

When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”

Let us begin by paying attention to the punctuation. Both versions enclose “My house . . . prayer” in quotation marks, clearly identifying it as something from the OT. Other translations may use something like bold font (CSB) or smallcaps (NASB) to accomplish the same objective. (And some, like ASV and KJV, use no markup and leave it to the reader’s detective work.) Moreover, observe that NIV also includes “a den of robbers” in quotation marks, but ESV does not; other translations fall into either camp, depending on how their editors view the phrase.

Next let us look at the footnotes or cross-references that most modern translations (excluding some of the older ones like ASV and KJV) include in the bottom or side margins. These tools are invaluable for figuring out which OT passages are being used here. Nearly all will show that “my house . . . prayer” is from Isaiah 56:7. Some will also correctly identify “a den of robbers” as coming from Jeremiah 7:11. (And even the same translation, such as the ESV, may list both in reference Bibles that tend to have lots of notes, but only the first in Bible editions that have fewer textual helps.)

This brief example helps illustrate that a vital part of the process is looking at multiple translations and their notes to make sure you are not missing anything.

Next, you should step back and consider how the NT author is signaling the use of the OT (if at all). There are three possibilities, and each carries particular implications: citation, quotation, and allusion.3

Citation

Citations use an introductory formula such as “it is written” to directly alert the reader that the OT is being used. They are, in effect, saying, “Don’t miss this!” Sometimes the NT authors even specify the source they are using. And typically the amount of the OT passage being cited is often a sentence or more, as opposed to just a word or two. A sampling of citation formulas is found in table 1.2.4

Table 1.2 Citation Examples

Nonspecific

Specific

John 6:31: “As it is written”

1 Cor. 15:54: “The saying that is written”

Eph. 4:8: “Therefore it says”

Heb. 2:6: “It has been testified somewhere”

Matt. 2:17: “Spoken by the prophet Jeremiah”

Mark 1:2: “Written in Isaiah”

Acts 13:33: “Written in the second Psalm”

1 Cor. 9:9: “Written in the Law of Moses”

In general, an apostolic author might choose to use an explicit citation in order to prove something apologetically (“this is what the OT foretold long ago”) or to add argumentative weight (like an accountant citing IRS Code 213.d).5 Either way the citation formula makes sure the reader does not accidentally overlook that God has spoken decisively on the matter.

Quotation

Quotations are similar to citations in that somewhat lengthy portions of the OT are used, often verbatim, but with one difference: there is no introduction like “as it is written.” In other words, the NT author is quoting the OT, but not necessarily telling you that. Some English Bibles enclose the text in quotation marks, while others do not. A good example is Romans