To Quote or Not to Quote? Categorizing Quotations in the Epistle to the Hebrews

Abstract

An overview of the appendices in NA28 and UBS5 reveals that the editors agreed regarding the number of quotations in Hebrews on 37 occasions. They disagreed, however, as to whether an intertext was a quotation or an allusion on nine occasions. The compilers of these lists did not provide a basis for their conclusions, and inability to agree on the number of intertexts could be due to multiple reasons. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to develop a set of criteria by which to identify quotations in Hebrews. Auctor’s quotations were determined to possess four characteristics: (1) introductory formula, (2) a recognizable source, (3) verbal correspondence with the hypotext and (4) syntactical tension. These four characteristics were then utilized to assess the nine disputed intertexts between NA28 and UBS5. By assessing the nine intertexts for the presence of the criteria, four out of the nine were determined to be quotations, whereas five were deemed to be allusions.