Date
5-20-2026
Department
Rawlings School of Divinity
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy in Bible Exposition (PhD)
Chair
Benjamin Laird
Keywords
Canonical Approach, Canon Criticism, Jesus' use of the OT, Jesus' use of the Psalms, Jesus' use of the Psalter, formal quotations
Disciplines
Religion
Recommended Citation
Richardson, Andrew W., "The Canonical Use of the Psalter in the Formal Quotations of Jesus, Didactically Applied to His Self-Identification as Messiah" (2026). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 8508.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/8508
Abstract
This dissertation investigates the canonical use of the Psalter in the formal quotations of Jesus, focusing on how he uses these citations didactically in his self-disclosed explication of a holistic, Old Testament Messiah. Rather than treating Jesus’s use of the Psalms as isolated prooftexts or rhetorical devices, this study contends that Jesus interpreted and applied the Psalter as a unified canonical whole whose theological trajectory assimilates disparate Old Testament messianic expectations. These layered expectations are encapsulated in Jesus’s own self-disclosure as that Messiah. This study adopts a canonical methodology that emphasizes the final form, theological unity, and intertextual development of the Hebrew Scriptures. By limiting the scope of analysis to explicit, formal quotations attributed to Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels, the study establishes clear authorial intentionality and provides a controlled framework for assessing Jesus’s self-proclaimed identity. The study first situates its methodology within the broader scholarly discussion of the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament, engaging the canonical approaches of Brevard Childs and James Sanders and defending their relevance for understanding Jesus’s own interpretive practice. It then addresses questions of historical reliability, arguing that the canonical Gospel record faithfully preserves Jesus’s teaching and that his formal quotations of Scripture may be treated as authentic expressions of his self-disclosure. Building upon recent scholarship in eyewitness testimony and social memory, the dissertation affirms the credibility of the Jesus tradition against the legacy of form critical skepticism. Central to the argument is an examination of the canonical shape of the Psalter as a unified book that integrates royal, priestly, prophetic, and righteous-sufferer motifs into a coherent messianic vision from the larger Old Testament corpus. Within this framework, this study offers detailed exegetical analysis of Jesus’s formal quotation (and application) of Psalms 8, 110, and 118 [LXX 8, 109, 117]. Jesus’s use of these psalms reveals a holistic, unified, consistent, and theologically sophisticated canonical understanding of the Old Testament’s Messiah with whom he identifies. Therefore, this dissertation contributes to ongoing discussions in Christology, hermeneutics, and the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament, showing that Jesus’s canonical reading of the Psalter is foundational for understanding both his identity and early Christian interpretation of Scripture.
