Identifying the citations

Modern studies of Paul's use of Scripture have been unanimous in finding just under a hundred quotations in the various letters that make up the Pauline corpus. Almost all of these passages appear in the four Hauptbriefe, so research in this area has been little affected by questions concerning the authorship of several of the letters that circulated under the apostle's name. Of the disputed letters, only Ephesians and the two letters to Timothy contain any citations at all, and even here the number is quite small. Debates over the integrity of 2 Cor 6.14–7.1 have recently added the citation unit in 2 Cor 6.16–18 to the “questionable” list. Arguments against the Pauline origin of the latter passage have been ably answered by a number of scholars, and need not affect the inclusion of 2 Cor 6.16–18 in the present study. Questions concerning the authorship of Ephesians and the Pastorals have proven more intractable. A concern for methodological purity has dictated their exclusion from the present investigation.

Despite general agreement on the basic number of citations, consensus on the precise identity of those citations has been slow in coming. Almost all the disagreements in this area can be traced to differing notions as to what constitutes a “citation.” Fortunately, Paul has made his intentions quite clear in the great majority of cases. At least seventy-six times Paul introduces (or concludes) a quotation with a phrase or clause that specifically identifies the accompanying text as having come from an outside source.