New Course: The OT in the NT

In Fall 2010, I will be teaching a new course: “The Old Testament in the New Testament.” Students will learn about literary allusion, and examine select examples of allusion to the Hebrew Bible in the Christian New Testament.

As part of assessing the case for specific examples of allusion, students will develop claims about

• what the OT source text means in its literary and social/historical context, and


• how this allusion in the NT alluding text functions as a rhetorical trope in its own literary and social/historical context.

I will be allowing students to take the course either for OT credit or for NT credit, shaping their final exegesis papers accordingly.

Besides the usual run of Masters students (mostly M.Div or MTS), the course will also be open to doctoral students, who will have to meet an appropriately higher bar in the course work.

My dissertation—“Daniel Evokes Isaiah: The Rule of the Nations in Apocalyptic Allusion-Narrative”—involved allusion to Isaiah in the book of Daniel, and I have looked forward to the opportunity to teach allusion to my students in Bible.

If you have any interest in literary allusion generally, or in “the OT in the NT,” what would your wish list be for select topics? (I have a handful of my own ideas, of course.) What related issues would you want to see treated?

[New Course: The OT in the NT was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2010/03/12. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]