Given the present state of affairs in the area of intertextuality, along with the multitude of competing interpretations of Scripture, Validity in the Identification and Interpretation of a Literary Allusion in the Bible seeks to bring a measure of reason and methodological control back into the discussion. With that in mind, this work is heavily philosophical yet also deeply practical. By defining what literary allusions are and how they work, David Klingler seeks to provide some interpretive criteria for assessing the various claims about literary allusions in the Bible.

This volume defines allusion then identifies the 23 likely allusions in the Elihu speeches (Job 32–37) to Job 1–31. The allusiveness of the unit is a compositional feature that explains the varied evaluations of Elihu throughout interpretive history.

“Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” This well-known indictment rumbles across the epilogue of Judges, denouncing God’s people as wayward. Yet understanding the source of Israel’s degenerative and downward spiral comes from an oft-overlooked declaration: Yahweh is testing Israel’s fidelity to the commandments he gave “by the hand of Moses.” By employing covert allusions rather than explicit quotations Judges contrasts the obvious sins of Israel with veiled reminders of the law that they have abandoned. In this volume, Jillian Ross employs current insights from literary theory, establishing a robust methodology for identifying allusions in the text. Once applied, the allusions to the Law, especially as presented in Deuteronomy, display three clear peaks: the prologue, Gideon narrative, and epilogue. The results suggest that Judges teaches a Deuteronomistic concept that the Israelites failed to obey the Torah, particularly its call for covenant fidelity in worship and warfare, as given to them “by the hand of Moses.”

This work examines the background of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26–40. For a comprehensive study, it utilizes echoic allusion, cultural background, and narrative criticism. It explores the textual tradition of Deut 23:1–8 in Jewish literature, with a particular focus on Isaiah’s inclusive presentation of “eunuchs” and “foreigners” in contrast to the Deuteronomy stipulation for the assembly of the Lord. This work also explores the ancient practice of castration, the Jewish exiles in Elephantine, and Jewish pilgrimage to reconstruct the cultural background of the Ethiopian eunuch. Additionally, it focuses on Luke’s authorial role in presenting the gospel’s geographic, ethnic, and religious expansion to identify the Ethiopian’s ethnic and religious identity in the narrative development of the three trajectories. The conclusion drawn is that the Ethiopian eunuch cannot be identified as an uncircumcised gentile. Instead, he is more like an African man of Jewish descent, included in the Abrahamic covenant but excluded from the cultic setting of worship in the temple.

This collection gathers together Professor Shemaryahu Talmon’s contributions to the literary study of the Bible, and complements his acclaimed Literary Studies in the Hebrew Bible: Form and Content: Collected Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes / Leiden: Brill, 1993). The articles included herein span a broad range of topics, closely and comprehensively assessing fundamental themes and stylistic conceits present in biblical literature. Each study picks up one of these motifs or patterns, and traces its meaning and usage throughout the entire Bible. In Talmon’s estimation, these literary markers transcend all strata of the Bible, and despite diachronic developments, they retain their basic meanings and connotations throughout, even when employed by different authors over a span of hundreds of years. He demonstrates this convincingly by marshaling dozens of examples, each of which is valuable in its own right, and when taken all together, these building-blocks form a solid edifice that validate his approach. He judiciously employs this synchronic method throughout, frequently invoking an exegetical principle according to which one biblical verse can be employed to interpret the other, if they are found in similar contexts and with overlapping formulation. To use an expression that he coined elsewhere, his hermeneutical method can be described first and foremost as “The World of the Bible from Within.” Throughout the articles that appear in this volume, one is repeatedly struck by his sensitivity to the language and style of the biblical authors. He was blessed with a rich literary intuition, and shares with his readers his ability to see, hear, and understand the rhythms and poetics of biblical literature. In this volume, many of Talmon’s contributions are made accessible in fresh form to the benefit of both those who already know his work and to a newer generation of scholars for whom his work continues to prove important.

When biblical studies adopted the language of intertextuality, it began using it in conjunction with other vocabulary--inner-biblical exegesis and interpretation, echoes, allusion--all of which it uses to signify when a biblical text refers to another text that appears elsewhere in Bible. This study examines the way such academic language is shaped by and shapes the assumptions of biblical scholarship. It examines the nature of linguistic signs and applies the insights of this examination to evaluating the language of reference in the study of the Hebrew Bible. The study concludes that the lanquage and theory of literary allusion is the best suited for enriching the academic discourse on the relationship of referential texts in the Hebrew Bible. It discusses methodological criteria for detecting allusion informed by a theoretically developed understanding of literary allusion.