Allusions as a form of intertextuality have been a recent discussion concerning how Scripture is reused in the New Testament (NT), but there remains uncertainty regarding how to define precisely and identify allusions. The influence of Richard Hays echoes through scholarship of this nature, and others such as G. K. Beale, Christopher A. Beetham, and Steve Moyise have set out to reinforce our understanding of the use of Scripture in the NT. An adjacent conversation concerns the composition of the Gospels and how oral Jesus tradition impacted this development. This tradition naturally included engagement with Scripture as the authors and their communities interpreted it. Memory plays a significant role in tradition, with important contributions from Barry Schwartz, Tom Thatcher, Alan Kirk, Nicholas Elder, and others, and there are perceptible connections between how scriptural texts are remembered and then reused in the NT.
This paper aims to chart the interplay between memory, oral tradition, and allusions in order to provide a framework for establishing allusions as a feasible and reliable form of intertextuality. There is significant overlap between criteria for oral tradition and allusions, and understanding how the former works sheds light on the latter. Through the integration of medium and memory, allusions within Jesus tradition are more definitively discernible. In this paper, I will blend these disciplines to explore the role of oral tradition in the formation of the allusive intertextuality of the Gospel of John specifically. There are instances where remembrance is tied with explicit quotations (2:17; 12:15-16), but the reuse of Scripture as allusions in John is far more subtle and profuse than quotations, which provides fertile soil for a study such as this. The primary focus will stem from Jesus’s words that the Spirit will “bring to remembrance” all that Jesus spoke to them (14:26), and I will examine instances of Jesus’s words to his disciples that are woven together with allusions to Scripture. Aligning ancient memory methods with the media culture of the first century, allusions emerge as an expected and reasonable way of recalling previous texts and traditions and integrating past history and tradition with that of the NT.
Ultimately, the interdisciplinary work of this paper seeks a new way forward in identifying and establishing allusions as a viable form of intertextuality in the New Testament. Evaluating the intertextuality in the Gospel of John is a good next step in the broader development of recognizing and defining allusions in the New Testament.