The Pauline Use of the Rabbinical Gezerah Shawah

From Hillel's Halakah on Pesach to the Abraham of Rom 4

Abstract

Why is it that from time to time in the New Testament, and in the Pauline corpus in particular, two consecutive citations from the Old Testament appear without interruption? Is it not enough to give a single citation to confirm a thesis or an argument? Why, for example, does Paul not limit himself to the simple mention of Gen 15:6 to confirm that his thesis of justification by faith alone was already contained in the OT, but adds to it the proclamation of Psalm 32:2? How does this second text relate to the theme of justification by faith alone?
To answer these questions I propose a long and articulate itinerary which introduces us to the vast world of inner-biblical exegesis, that is, to that movement within the Bible by which a biblical text is born from the interpretation of another, preceding one. The objective is to see how the apostle placed himself in front of the Old Testament at the moment when he reinterpreted it in the light of what had happened in recent times with the advent of Christ, a fact which forced him to re-read the ancient Scriptures in many places.