Allusions to Matrices of Texts and Traditions Sample Clauses

Allusions to Matrices of Texts and Traditions. The above discussion of metalepsis has dealt mainly with the way that an allusion can draw on the wider literary context of the source text. But allusions and echoes should not necessarily be restricted to one single text, or even a text per se. Authors can also allude, via a single text or phrase, to a matrix of texts or even a whole tradition. Earlier in the chapter, I drew on Xxxxxxx’x definition of an allusion. One debatable aspect of his definition is that an allusion is meant to point the reader back to a ‘single identifiable source’ or that an echo derives from a ‘specific predecessor’. In all fairness, Xxxxxxx’x definition allows for the possibility of a ‘single identifiable source’ being a matrix of texts or a tradition, and not a single text. But it is worth making this explicit here, and it should be relatively uncontroversial to note that early Christian and Jewish writers regularly drew on multiple texts simultaneously, often amalgamating them.20 Indeed, there are clear instances of Xxxx quoting or alluding to multiple Old Testament texts in the same breath. One instance of allusion to multiple Old Testament passages, which we explore in this study, is 2 Corinthians 3.3, in which Xxxx is likely alluding simultaneously to 3 separate Old Testament texts: Ezekiel 36.26, Xxxxxxxx 31.33 and 19 On the possibility of overreading an allusion or instance of metalepsis, see Xxxx Xxxxxx, ‘Echoes without Resonance: Critiquing Certain Aspects of Recent Scholarly Trends in the Study of the Jewish Scriptures in the New Testament’, JSNT 38.1 (2015): 96–111. Xxxxxx is concerned that many studies in Xxxx’ wake run the risk of lacking general plausibility, with some arguing for complex allusions and echoes without any direct verbal overlap. 20 Xxxxxx, ‘Scriptural Reuse’, 28–31. In fact, Xxxxxx goes as far as to say, ‘I would suggest that amalgamation is the norm for Second Temple literature. Most texts are a complex of diverse scriptural materials’ (29, emphasis in original). The Approach of this Study Exodus 34. In this case, insisting on an allusion having one identifiable source could obscure the way in which these multiple texts interplay within Xxxx’s mind. Our understanding of 2 Corinthians 3 is influenced not only by understanding how Xxxx understood each of these texts individually, but also by how he sees them as acting together. Furthermore, just as an author can allude to, or echo, multiple texts in consort, he or she can also echo a whole tradition, ...