Joel's use of scripture and the scripture's use of Joel: A study in the appropriation and resignification of scripture in Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity

The methodological approach employed in this research combines the hermeneutics of intertextuality together with comparative midrash. The purpose is to discern the function of scripture in the book of Joel and how Joel functioned for the NT communities. I have employed the terms appropriation and resignification to describe this process in the book of Joel and Joel's Nachleben in the New Testament. Aspects of these terms have been used by James A. Sanders to describe the hermeneutical process of comparative midrash. The book of Joel is replete with echoes, phrases, and allusions to Israel's scriptures but have been adapted and transposed for his prophetic message.;The purpose of this research is to give an account of the intertextual dialogism involved in the process of appropriation and resignification. Certain aspects of Kristevan intertextuality and Bakhtinian dialogism have been employed that demonstrates how borrowed motifs and images are resignified for the various communities in Joel and the New Testament. The purpose is to enter into the intersection of these textual surfaces and to interact with the different canonical voices to discern their function in the process of appropriation and resignification.;This work does not eschew the importance of diachronic issues. This diachronic method pays attention to the appropriation of an antecedent text, while the synchronic methodological approach pays attention to the function and purpose of how the receptor text resignifies the appropriated motifs and allusions. The diachronic becomes fused with the synchronic in the process of the allusion's recontextualization. The purpose of this research is to discern the logic of the use of scriptural motifs and traditions and to discern how they were resignified hermeneutically. This study demonstrates that each allusion without exception that has been employed in the book of Joel or the New Testament's use of Joel has been resignified to meet the needs of each individual community.