Vanishing Quotations in Romans

The use of the Old Testament in Romans has been a fertile ground of investigation for decades, and rightly so since there are about sixty OT “quotations” in Romans. The number varies according to how you define a “quotation” and a few others technical arguments better left out of this post.

Westcott-Hort 1881: Quotation in Rom 2.6 in capitals

The debate is ancient as to whether here and there Paul refers or alludes to some OT passages or not. I have already mentioned the use of Ps 97 in Rom 1.17 as an example.

But it is one thing to debate about allusions, it is another altogether to see “quotations” disappear from one edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Græce (pretty much the standard edition of the Greek Text used today) to the next one. Some texts that were typographically printed as quotations up to the twenty-fifth edition simply became allusions from the NA26 onward, in some cases wrongly I think.

Changes in Romans

Here is a list of OT quotations in Romans that were demoted to mere allusions or parallels, from bold in the text and italics in the margin to plain text and non-italic references, in NA 26 and thereafter.

All OT references are to the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the OT used most of the times by Paul. NA 25 is Nestle-Aland 25th edition, and so forth. WH is the Westcott and Hort New Testament in the Original Greek of 1881. MT is the Massoretic Text, to put it simply the Hebrew OT as we use it today. - the text is not presented as a quotation, x it is.

Food for thought

For some comments by Hort on the OT quotations in the NT and the list of OT references see Appendix III in Hort’s Introduction (p. 581–595 in the 1881 edition of the text). While Nestle-Aland’s appendix IV gives the references in the order of the OT books, Hort’s list follows the NT books. The UBS’s (the United Bible Societies edition of the Greek New Testament) Appendix gives both orders.

Notice how most of quotations followed the WH then changed with NA26. But not always, as in clear in 3.10. One wonders whether the changes from quotations to parallels result from conscientious exegetical decisions or simply from throwing away the baby with the water.

Notice in Rom 2.6 the preference for the Ps and then for the Pr. A comparison with the UBS shows the interest of the exercise. Even though the text of the UBS and the NA27 are supposed to be the same, they are not entirely actually. In 2.26 and 11.1–2 for example, the UBS sees no quotations at all, only allusions. This is not an unimportant “textual” element.

NA 27: Pr 24 (or Ps 61 LXX) in Rom 2:6 in italics

UBS 4: No quotation in Rom 2:6

These changes and the reasons for them are almost never discussed. Since it is not unusual for students, commentators or translators to discuss OT quotations in the NT based on the printed edition of the Greek Text, this is not without consequences. One telling example of the ramifications of this discussion is the use of Ps 142 LXX in Rom 3.20. The quotation used to be accepted before NA26. The quotation was or is accepted by Gifford, Bonsirven, Lagrange, Leenhardt, Hays, Wright, etc. Yet it was dropped in NA26. No word of it is found in the treatment of Rom 3 by Seifrid in the Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (p. 617–618), not even to refute the use of a quotation, even though the Dictionary purports to study citations and probable allusions (p. xxiii) and even though Seifrid mentioned the Psalm in Variegated Nomism 2 p.141. If one was to only use the NA27 and the Dictionary, one would have no clue about the importance of Ps 142 for reading Rom 3.

Nestle-Aland 25: Quotation of Ps 142 LXX in Rom 3:20 in bold

Nestle-Aland 27: Ps 142 LXX is no longer a quotation in Rom 3:20

Usually, discussions about the editions of the Greek Testament center on textual criticism, manuscripts, etc. But other aspects related to the making of Greek New Testament editions are important too. I have never seen or read anything on the ebb and flow of quotations in editions of the Greek text (which does not mean there is nothing) and have had no time to dig into it further but I’d be interested if there is anything on this. Well, there you have it. Food for thought!