My new article in Westminster Theological Journal with Dr. Jon Lunde

A few weeks ago I posted a link to an article that I co-wrote with Dr. Jonathan M. Lunde for the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. That article was on the use of Isaiah in Ephesians 5.14. This new article — “Paul’s Creative and Contextual Use of Psalm 68 in Ephesians 4:8,” Westminster Theological Journal 74.1 (Spring 2012): 99-117 — functions as a sister article to the earlier one. Together these articles address the use of the OT in Ephesians. This is especially intriguing since Ephesians 4:8 and 5:14 provide introductory formula for their citations — “Therefore it says” / διὸ λέγει — and yet the texts include significant aberrations from known texts such as the MT and LXX. These variations have caused scholars to suggest that Paul — or whoever the author of Ephesians may have been — is citing well-known hymnic material rather than the OT. Our contention in these two sister articles is that the two citations are to be interpreted together and that both are creative yet contextual uses of the broader context of the respective OT passages. If you’re interested, read it here.