Similarities between texts can support a comparison without proving direct borrowing, and each proposed connection requires evidence suited to the texts involved.
When Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Canaanite texts were first discovered and translated in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, researchers immediately noticed similarities with the Hebrew Bible. Interest ran high, and the comparisons were often uncritical. A series of famous lectures delivered in Berlin in 1902 heightened public awareness of the Mesopotamian tablets and spawned a movement called "Pan-Babylonianism," which argued that all world myths, both Old and New Testament, were simply versions of Babylonian mythology.1 The stories of Jesus in the Gospels were said to be based on the Gilgamesh Epic, and the passion of Jesus was traced to Marduk mythology. Similar patterns emerged after the discovery of Ugarit in 1928, when researchers rushed to propose connections between Ugaritic religion and various ancient Near Eastern cultures, showing little concern for differences in historical setting, chronology, function, or literary genre.2
Exaggerating Similarities Between Texts
A 1962 presidential address to the Society of Biblical Literature introduced the label "parallelomania" for the tendency to exaggerate similarities and then assume that one text depended on another.3 The criticism concerned comparisons that removed passages from their contexts and asserted dependence without explaining the direction of influence. Some similarities were real, while others depended on overlooking how each passage functioned within its larger work.
The address supported comparative study but called for closer evaluation of its evidence. Exact parallels could differ in significance, apparent parallels could be incomplete, and some resemblances disappeared when the passages were read in context.4 The objection concerned claims of dependence that went beyond what the comparison established.
Avoiding Comparisons Altogether
Sandmel's warning proved effective, perhaps more effective than he intended. In the decades following his address, some researchers became more cautious about comparisons, and others avoided comparative work altogether. This reaction has been described as "parallelophobia," and it has been observed that researchers moved from one extreme to the other, from overstressing the similarities between texts to downplaying them to the point of ignoring clear, informative connections.5 Two extreme positions emerged from this dynamic. Those on one side interpreted the Bible through the lens of ancient Near Eastern texts at every turn, while those on the other dismissed the comparative material as irrelevant for biblical interpretation entirely.
Fear of the charge of parallelomania may have discouraged research into significant connections between the Pseudepigrapha and the New Testament.6 Such caution could prevent comparisons from being evaluated at all, although the original criticism called for better methods rather than an end to comparative study.
The study of Ugaritic religion showed a similar division, where early scholarship swung between two equally narrow approaches. One camp saw connections everywhere between Ugaritic and Israelite religion, while another used the Ugaritic material primarily as a foil to underscore the superiority of biblical religion, reducing an entire culture to a servant of biblical studies.7 Neither approach served the texts well, and it took several generations for a more balanced methodology to emerge.
Comparing Texts in Their Cultural Settings
The contextual approach developed as a way to examine both similarities and differences between the Bible and other ancient Near Eastern texts. It places biblical literature within its cultural setting without assuming that every feature derives from a particular neighboring text.8 Ideas about family, death, kingship, and the gods could be shared because communities participated in overlapping cultures, as well as through direct borrowing.
The contextual method improves on both of the extremes that preceded it. Rather than asking only whether text A was copied from text B, it asks what light each text sheds on the other when both are understood within their shared cultural environment. Similarities may reflect direct borrowing, or they may reflect a common tradition, a shared literary convention, or the simple fact that people living in proximity often think about similar problems in similar ways. The method does not prejudge the answer; it begins with careful description of each text in its own historical and literary setting and only then asks what, if anything, the comparison reveals.
Distinguishing Quotations, Allusions, and Echoes
Intertextual methodology brings additional precision to this middle ground by distinguishing among different types of textual relationships and developing criteria for evaluating them. Rather than treating all similarities as undifferentiated "parallels," intertextual analysis draws distinctions between quotations (where one text reproduces the language of another, sometimes with an introductory formula like "as it is written"), allusions (where an author intentionally evokes an earlier text through shared language or imagery, expecting the audience to recognize the reference), and echoes (subtler resonances that may or may not reflect conscious intention).9 These categories are not rigid, and researchers disagree about where the boundaries fall, but the basic framework prevents the kind of undifferentiated comparison that Sandmel rightly criticized.
The development of criteria for identifying these relationships has been one of the main contributions of intertextual scholarship. A widely adopted framework proposes seven criteria for evaluating proposed echoes of Scripture, including availability (whether the source text was accessible to the author), volume (the degree of verbal repetition), recurrence (whether the same source is evoked elsewhere in the context), thematic coherence (whether the proposed connection fits the argument), and historical plausibility (whether the author and audience could have recognized the reference).10 These criteria do not produce certainty, and they cannot be assigned numerical values and added up to determine mechanically whether a connection is genuine. They function instead as a set of disciplined questions that guard against both overconfidence and excessive caution, helping readers judge how strongly the evidence supports a proposed connection.
This graduated approach to evidence is what distinguishes intertextual methodology from the parallelomania that Sandmel diagnosed. When a researcher proposes that one text alludes to another, the claim can be evaluated against established criteria rather than simply asserted or dismissed. The criteria make it possible to say that some proposed connections are well supported by evidence while others remain speculative, and to explain why. They also make it possible to recognize that textual relationships exist on a spectrum, from explicit quotation (where the evidence is strong) to faint echo (where it is weaker), without insisting that every connection be either certain or nonexistent.
Beyond Direct Dependence
Intertextual methodology also navigates between parallelomania and parallelophobia by expanding the range of relationships it can describe. The older comparative approach tended to assume that if two texts were similar, one must have been derived from the other, and the scholarly task was to determine the direction of dependence. This assumption is what made parallelomania tempting, since every observed similarity became a potential case of borrowing. Intertextual analysis, by contrast, recognizes that texts can be connected in ways that do not require direct literary dependence.11 Two texts may share language, imagery, or narrative patterns because they draw on a common tradition, because they address similar situations using the language and concepts available in their cultural environment, or because one has shaped the broader literary culture in which the other was produced, even without direct transmission.
The criteria for identifying genuine intertextual connections still apply, and some proposed relationships remain more convincing than others. What it acknowledges is that the ancient literary world was more complex than a simple model of source and derivation can capture. Authors did not always work by copying directly from a text in front of them; they sometimes worked from memory, from oral tradition, from shared liturgical language, or from a general familiarity with a body of literature that shaped their language and patterns of thought. Recognizing this complexity makes it possible to discuss textual relationships honestly, neither claiming more than the evidence supports nor ignoring connections that illuminate how ancient texts were produced and understood.
Lutz Doering, Parallels without "Parallelomania": Methodological Reflections on Comparative Analysis of Halakhah in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 19–21.
Article
Intertextuality and Parallelomania
How Methodology Helps Navigate Between Too Many and Too Few
Similarities between texts can support a comparison without proving direct borrowing, and each proposed connection requires evidence suited to the texts involved.
When Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Canaanite texts were first discovered and translated in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, researchers immediately noticed similarities with the Hebrew Bible. Interest ran high, and the comparisons were often uncritical. A series of famous lectures delivered in Berlin in 1902 heightened public awareness of the Mesopotamian tablets and spawned a movement called "Pan-Babylonianism," which argued that all world myths, both Old and New Testament, were simply versions of Babylonian mythology.1 The stories of Jesus in the Gospels were said to be based on the Gilgamesh Epic, and the passion of Jesus was traced to Marduk mythology. Similar patterns emerged after the discovery of Ugarit in 1928, when researchers rushed to propose connections between Ugaritic religion and various ancient Near Eastern cultures, showing little concern for differences in historical setting, chronology, function, or literary genre.2
Exaggerating Similarities Between Texts
A 1962 presidential address to the Society of Biblical Literature introduced the label "parallelomania" for the tendency to exaggerate similarities and then assume that one text depended on another.3 The criticism concerned comparisons that removed passages from their contexts and asserted dependence without explaining the direction of influence. Some similarities were real, while others depended on overlooking how each passage functioned within its larger work.
The address supported comparative study but called for closer evaluation of its evidence. Exact parallels could differ in significance, apparent parallels could be incomplete, and some resemblances disappeared when the passages were read in context.4 The objection concerned claims of dependence that went beyond what the comparison established.
Avoiding Comparisons Altogether
Sandmel's warning proved effective, perhaps more effective than he intended. In the decades following his address, some researchers became more cautious about comparisons, and others avoided comparative work altogether. This reaction has been described as "parallelophobia," and it has been observed that researchers moved from one extreme to the other, from overstressing the similarities between texts to downplaying them to the point of ignoring clear, informative connections.5 Two extreme positions emerged from this dynamic. Those on one side interpreted the Bible through the lens of ancient Near Eastern texts at every turn, while those on the other dismissed the comparative material as irrelevant for biblical interpretation entirely.
Fear of the charge of parallelomania may have discouraged research into significant connections between the Pseudepigrapha and the New Testament.6 Such caution could prevent comparisons from being evaluated at all, although the original criticism called for better methods rather than an end to comparative study.
The study of Ugaritic religion showed a similar division, where early scholarship swung between two equally narrow approaches. One camp saw connections everywhere between Ugaritic and Israelite religion, while another used the Ugaritic material primarily as a foil to underscore the superiority of biblical religion, reducing an entire culture to a servant of biblical studies.7 Neither approach served the texts well, and it took several generations for a more balanced methodology to emerge.
Comparing Texts in Their Cultural Settings
The contextual approach developed as a way to examine both similarities and differences between the Bible and other ancient Near Eastern texts. It places biblical literature within its cultural setting without assuming that every feature derives from a particular neighboring text.8 Ideas about family, death, kingship, and the gods could be shared because communities participated in overlapping cultures, as well as through direct borrowing.
The contextual method improves on both of the extremes that preceded it. Rather than asking only whether text A was copied from text B, it asks what light each text sheds on the other when both are understood within their shared cultural environment. Similarities may reflect direct borrowing, or they may reflect a common tradition, a shared literary convention, or the simple fact that people living in proximity often think about similar problems in similar ways. The method does not prejudge the answer; it begins with careful description of each text in its own historical and literary setting and only then asks what, if anything, the comparison reveals.
Distinguishing Quotations, Allusions, and Echoes
Intertextual methodology brings additional precision to this middle ground by distinguishing among different types of textual relationships and developing criteria for evaluating them. Rather than treating all similarities as undifferentiated "parallels," intertextual analysis draws distinctions between quotations (where one text reproduces the language of another, sometimes with an introductory formula like "as it is written"), allusions (where an author intentionally evokes an earlier text through shared language or imagery, expecting the audience to recognize the reference), and echoes (subtler resonances that may or may not reflect conscious intention).9 These categories are not rigid, and researchers disagree about where the boundaries fall, but the basic framework prevents the kind of undifferentiated comparison that Sandmel rightly criticized.
The development of criteria for identifying these relationships has been one of the main contributions of intertextual scholarship. A widely adopted framework proposes seven criteria for evaluating proposed echoes of Scripture, including availability (whether the source text was accessible to the author), volume (the degree of verbal repetition), recurrence (whether the same source is evoked elsewhere in the context), thematic coherence (whether the proposed connection fits the argument), and historical plausibility (whether the author and audience could have recognized the reference).10 These criteria do not produce certainty, and they cannot be assigned numerical values and added up to determine mechanically whether a connection is genuine. They function instead as a set of disciplined questions that guard against both overconfidence and excessive caution, helping readers judge how strongly the evidence supports a proposed connection.
This graduated approach to evidence is what distinguishes intertextual methodology from the parallelomania that Sandmel diagnosed. When a researcher proposes that one text alludes to another, the claim can be evaluated against established criteria rather than simply asserted or dismissed. The criteria make it possible to say that some proposed connections are well supported by evidence while others remain speculative, and to explain why. They also make it possible to recognize that textual relationships exist on a spectrum, from explicit quotation (where the evidence is strong) to faint echo (where it is weaker), without insisting that every connection be either certain or nonexistent.
Beyond Direct Dependence
Intertextual methodology also navigates between parallelomania and parallelophobia by expanding the range of relationships it can describe. The older comparative approach tended to assume that if two texts were similar, one must have been derived from the other, and the scholarly task was to determine the direction of dependence. This assumption is what made parallelomania tempting, since every observed similarity became a potential case of borrowing. Intertextual analysis, by contrast, recognizes that texts can be connected in ways that do not require direct literary dependence.11 Two texts may share language, imagery, or narrative patterns because they draw on a common tradition, because they address similar situations using the language and concepts available in their cultural environment, or because one has shaped the broader literary culture in which the other was produced, even without direct transmission.
The criteria for identifying genuine intertextual connections still apply, and some proposed relationships remain more convincing than others. What it acknowledges is that the ancient literary world was more complex than a simple model of source and derivation can capture. Authors did not always work by copying directly from a text in front of them; they sometimes worked from memory, from oral tradition, from shared liturgical language, or from a general familiarity with a body of literature that shaped their language and patterns of thought. Recognizing this complexity makes it possible to discuss textual relationships honestly, neither claiming more than the evidence supports nor ignoring connections that illuminate how ancient texts were produced and understood.
Notes