Rezeption und interpretation von Jesaja in Epheser 6,13-17

Abstract

“Reception and Interpretation of Isaiah in Ephesians 6:13-17” The question of the relationship between the Old and the New Testaments is arguably one of the most complex subject areas of Christian theology. After the traditional approach, which viewed the Hebrew Bible exclusively from a Christian perspective, was heavily questioned in the centuries after the Enlightenment and the Reformation, the development in the interpretation was to separate both parts of the Bible from one another and to consider each in the light of its own theology. However, the concern of an all-biblical theology became ever stronger, especially in the last century. Among other things, there is an increased interest in the New Testament interpretation of the Old Testament writings, based on the quotations and allusions in the New Testament writings. Through the intertextual approach known from literary critics, interpreters of biblical texts became increasingly aware of a hermeneutics of the New Testament writers which respected the theology of the Old Testament, at the same time giving it a new horizon of interpretation. In my thesis I inquire into the question of the interpretation of Old Testament writings by New Testament authors using the concrete example of the Book of Isaiah and the Letter to the Ephesians, with special emphasis on Ephesians 6:13-17 since it contains three intertextual allusions to three sections from all three different parts of the prophetic book (Isaiah 11:5; 52:7 and 59:17). The main question will be: What do the intertextual parallels in Eph 6:13-17 to the book of Isaiah show us about the writer’s Christian way of re-interpretating the book of Isaiah? For this purpose, it is first clarified what defines Old Testament quotations and allusions in the New, especially in the Pauline letters (the hermeneutic principles behind them), and to what extent the book of Isaiah and the Letter to the Ephesians are suitable for an investigation of possible quotations and allusions. The literature which was taken into account covers the topics of unity of the book of Isaiah, important theological themes of Isaiah, the importance of the book of Isaiah in Pauline theology and the importance of the book of Isaiah as a backdrop for Eph 6:13-17. After the Isaiah allusions of Eph 6:13-17 are identified via intertextual analysis, they are examined exegetically in their proper context in the Hebrew Bible, with the question of their original theological statement for the entire book in its final form being in the foreground. Then the allusions are analyzed in their context in Ephesians, considering the theological statements of their original context of the Book of Isaiah, so that it becomes clear how the texts receive a new level of interpretation when read from a Christian perspective. The result of the study can be summarized as follows: the intertextual parallels to the book of Isaiah in Eph 6:13-17 show that the book was viewed as a literary unity, that some theological themes and motifs of Isaiah can be considered as more relevant for its Christian reception, that Ephesians in general shares Pauline hermeneutics and its theological acknowledgment of Isaiah and that the allusions to Isaiah in Eph 6:13-17 are used for a deliberate paraenetic effect that underscores the theology of the entire epistle.