The Concept of Canonical Intertextuality and the Book of Daniel

Scheetz

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9781498270045
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The Concept of Canonical Intertextuality and the Book of Daniel is an attempt to bring clarity to the concepts of intertextuality and canon criticism in the field of biblical studies. This volume combines an examination of the theories of intertextuality (Julia Kristeva), canon criticism (Brevard Childs and James Sanders), inner-biblical exegesis (Michael Fishbane), intratextuality (George Lindbeck), and kanonische intertextuelle Lekture (Georg Steins) with an inductive study of the Masoretic Text of Daniel, of its concrete relationship with other texts in the Hebrew Bible, and finally of quotations in the Greek text of the New Testament. The Masoretic Text of Daniel serves as an excellent testing ground through its multilingual character (Hebrew and Aramaic), through its differing placement in various biblical canons, and through its clear quotation in a limited number of New Testament texts. The end result of this study is a theory of canonical intertextuality unique in its definition in relation to the theories investigated, as well as in its application to an entire biblical book and to other texts in the Old and New Testaments.

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Intertextuality, Canon Criticism, and Biblical Studies

Overview

At the end of the 1960s, two movements began that at first glance do not appear to be related. In the field of literary theory, Post-structuralism began.1 In the field of Old Testament theology, canonical theology or canon criticism began. Both methods raised important questions about context. In the field of literary theory, the question was more a challenge to the accepted theory of the relationship between the signifier and the signified.2 In the field of Old Testament theology, there was the challenge of whether the research was moving overall in the right direction when the foundation of the research was based on the prevailing critical method.3

Context in both situations received a more refined meaning. Literary theory broadened the context. When one looks at a word, there is more than a static relationship between the signifier and the signified.4 Although one uses the same words, it does not mean that when the same words are used in another context that they will have the same meaning because there is not a static relationship between the signifier and the signified. Julia Kristeva first called this situation intertextuality, where one notes the transposition of the meaning. She did not mean it to be a diachronic analysis but as a notation of the so-called third possibility, where although the same words are used, they are not the exact sum of what they mean earlier or later.5

Context also had a challenge in the field of Old Testament theology. In the pre-critical era, context had to do with the inspired words of the canonical books (Baba Batra 14b–15a).6 In the critical era, context primarily had to do with the different diachronic texts in the Old Testament, where J, E, D, P represented different time periods in the development of the Old Testament.7 The search in both situations was similar. The authoritative texts were the “original texts.”8 The pre-critical era connected authority with the author (Moses, Isaiah, Daniel, et al.), because they were inspired. The critical era connected authority with the earliest texts of the Old Testament (normally J, especially the narrative texts) and, in the case of the prophets, the “original prophets” and their message (Isaiah, not Deutero-Isaiah or Trito-Isaiah).

The challenge comes through the question of the composition of the Old Testament. How was the Old Testament put together? The answer is probably best described as a post-critical position, because the answer goes further than both the pre-critical and critical position. The composition of the Old Testament is something that began relatively early in the history of Israel and grew over time. But it grew through a reflective process. This position says that the Old Testament grew through particular historical situations, reflection on these particular situations, and exegesis on the texts of these reflections. The whole Old Testament, containing as it does texts very different in their contents, is not merely the product of many books having simply been brought together (vis-à-vis the pre-critical assumption), neither is it only a collection of many texts from different times that were simply put together (as assumed by the classical critical position). The canonical perspective rather sees the Old Testament as a text that progressively grew and took shape through this process.

Michael Fishbane wrote a whole book, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, with the proposal that the interpretations one finds in the Talmud and the New Testament are not something that began in the post-biblical era, but something that came from the biblical era.9 This means that when one sees interpretations of Old Testament texts in the New Testament that are different from their original Old Testament contexts, and these interpretations move us in a direction that is different from the earlier context, this is not a new process that begins in the New Testament, but a process that already began in the Old Testament.

This tendency, where a text quotes or alludes to another text and through the quote or allusion the meaning is changed or broadened, is intertextuality. One sees the “transposition,” the words in a new context with a new denotation.10 And so one sees a connection through this process between the two movements in literary theory and canon criticism. Further, there is at least the possibility where one can understand the relationship between texts in the Old Testament, the relationship between the Old and the New Testament, and the relationship between the Bible and extra-biblical literature.

Julia Kristeva’s Concept of Intertextuality

In theological studies the terms intertextual or intertextuality have become commonplace. These terms have become helpful in identifying the relationships between texts within the Bible, between those outside the Bible, and between the Bible and texts outside the Bible. As useful as these terms are, they have become opaque descriptions that are in need of a particular identity. As with all neologisms, it would be useful that they actually describe something new and not a process that has already been clearly defined through other terms and processes. So, for “intertextual” or “intertextuality” to be simply identified as quotations or allusions to other texts, is both obvious and clearly defined through centuries of research. For such a definition one needs to turn to the origin of the terms “intertextual” or “intertextuality” in the writings of a Post-structuralist writer.

Julia Kristeva is recognized as the originator of the term and theory of intertextuality.11 As has already been noted, though the term has come into broad use over the course of the past thirty years, it has for the most part been misunderstood12 and in the words of Kristeva “has often been understood in the banal sense of ‘study of sources.’”13 Others who have understood the concept in a more general sense have followed Derrida, who sees all of reality as intertextuality, noting, “There is nothing outside of the text.”14 As will be obvious in the following discussion the term and theory were developed with different connotations than both of these derivative positions.

Kristeva, though very eclectic in her conclusions, began within the broad category of structuralism and ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: Intertextuality, Canon Criticism, and Biblical Studies
• Chapter 2: Three Approaches to the Interpretation of Daniel
• Chapter 3: Canonical Intertextuality: Daniel 1-6
• Chapter 4: Canonical Intertextuality: Daniel 7-12
• Chapter 5: Canonical Intertextuality and the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament
• Chapter 6: Canonical Intertextuality and the Book of Daniel in the New Testament
• Bibliography