07_Biblica_AN_Meek_280-291 15/07/14 12:24 Pagina 280 Intertextuality, Inner-Biblical Exegesis, and Inner-Biblical Allusion: The Ethics of a Methodology I. This Again? 1 It seems that no stone has been left unturned in the search for inter- texts, allusions, and echoes within the biblical text since Michael Fish- bane’s magisterial work in inner-biblical exegesis thirty years ago 2. Fishbane explicitly avoided the label “intertextuality” to describe his method, opting instead to call his work “inner-biblical exegesis”. Not all scholars followed suit, however, and it quickly became popular to use intertextuality as the label for all manner of investigations into literary relationships between various texts. Shortly after Fishbane wrote, Ellen van Wolde accused biblical scholars of the ugliest sort of methodological sin, that of using intertextuality merely as a way to “supply labels” in order to make their work sexier 3. Despite such criticism, Paul Noble could state some thirteen years later that, “‘Intertextuality’ is currently used with widely divergent meanings by different scholars, depending upon their hermeneutical persuasions. Since, however, these issues have little bearing on the subject-matter of the present article, I simply state that I shall here be using ‘intertextuality’ very broadly, for the interpre- tative relationships that pertain between texts” 4. Nearly a decade after Noble, Geoffrey Miller could still write, “Unfortunately, consistent use of terminology, especially the word ‘intertextuality’, has been lacking” 5. Not all scholars have consented to using the term so broadly; rather, some have sought methodological clarity when “supplying labels” so that the present state of scholarship represents three primary trajectories 1 I would like to thank my friends and colleagues, Joseph Ryan Kelly and William R. Osborne, for their insightful criticism of my misuse of terminol- ogy in a previous essay, which prompted me to address the issue here. 2 M. FISHBANE, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford 1985). 3 E. VAN WOLDE, “Trendy Intertextuality?” Intertextuality in Biblical Writ- ings. Essays in Honour of Bas van Iersel (ed. S. DRAISMA) (Kampen 1989) 43-49, here 43. 4 P.R. NOBLE, “Esau, Tamar, and Joseph: Criteria for Identifying Inner- Biblical Allusions”, VT 52 (2002) 219-252, here 219. 5 G. MILLER, “Intertextuality in Old Testament Research”, Currents in Biblical Research 9 (2011) 238-309, here 285. BIBLICA 95.1 (2014) 280-291