Not All Moabites Are Moabites: Gary Edward Schnittjer on How the Old Testament Uses the Old Testament

Most readers hear "Old Testament use of the Old Testament" and picture quotations. Dr. Gary Edward Schnittjer says quotation is the small end of it. An interpretive allusion needs three things: a donor text that gives the language, a receptor text that takes it up, and an identifiable interpretive outcome. That third item is what separates an allusion from an echo, and it is also why later biblical authors so often change the wording. Saying the same thing again was never the point. Moving it forward was.

In this episode, Dr. James Spencer talks with Dr. Schnittjer about his forthcoming Old Testament Use of Old Testament in Parallel Layout from Zondervan Academic, a full-color, side-by-side presentation of the evidence built as an inductive tool rather than an argument. They work through Genesis 5 as an interpretive blend of Genesis 1 and 2, where the image of God turns out to mean son of God. Amos taunting his congregation about bringing sacrifices every three days. The Sabbath command, which stops being a capital matter by the time Nehemiah is arguing with merchants at the gates, and which had already been adjusted once inside the Ten Commandments themselves.

The long middle of the conversation is Ruth. Levirate marriage, land redemption, the rights of gleaning, and the Deuteronomic exclusion of Moabites all pressing on one another at the city gate, with the Davidic covenant hanging on how the exclusion gets read. Dr. Schnittjer will not let his students say kinsman redeemer. He makes them say financially responsible near relative, because the plain term forces you to stay in the moment instead of leaping past it. The gospel is already here, he argues. We do not have to smuggle it in.

Content note: the conversation includes a brief discussion of the rape of Tamar in 2 Samuel 13 and the rape laws of Deuteronomy 22.

Dr. Gary Edward Schnittjer is distinguished professor of Old Testament for Cairn Theological Seminary at Cairn University. He writes at Carpenter's Student.

This is part three of our conversation, and the first of two on the parallel layout project. In the next episode we turn to the New Testament use of the Old Testament.

Purchase Old Testament Use of Old Testament in Parallel Layout Volume 1: Torah and Prophets at amazon.com

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