Full Description
The Book of Psalms is one of the most frequently cited books in the New Testament. The Synoptic Evangelists seem to read the Psalms not primarily as prayers but as prophecies of the future. They discovered in its language prophecies concerning the life and ministry of Jesus and attempted to show how Jesus' life was prefigured in the Psalms. Samuel Subramanian examines the topic within the broader use of the Old Testament in the New Testament, that of the prophetic reading of the Psalms in the Synoptic Gospels and in the context of Second Temple Judaism. Although others have treated individual psalm quotations as prophecy, my work is the first to examine all of the psalm quotations within the Synoptic Gospels in this light and the first to demonstrate that these excerpts were used prophetically. In some cases, these psalm quotations were used by the Synoptic Evangelists in a manner that is thought to fulfill a prophecy from or about Jesus within the gospel narratives, even though this particular use of the psalms by the Synoptic Evangelists has not been widely recognized previously. This study shows how similar exegetical techniques of looking for prophecies in the Psalms was practiced by non-Christian Jews of the period.
Contents
Chapter One
Overview of the topic, selected examples of uses of the Psalms throughout the New Testament, a critical survey of selected earlier works in related areas of study, as well as working definitions of "citation" and "prophecy" as these are utilized in the balance of the book.
Chapter Two
Examines prophetic reading of the Psalms in Second Temple Jewish literature. The prophetic role of the King David, as attested in some Second Temple Jewish literature, seems to provide the fundamental background for the Synoptic Evangelists' reading of the Psalms as prophecy.
Chapters Three, Four, and Five include discussions of each of the psalm quotations in the Gospels Mark (four), Matthew (nine), and Luke (six), respectively.
Chapter Six provides summary conclusions and suggestions for further research.
