Witherington said that most of the citations are from Isaiah chapters 40 through 66, emphasizing judgment and restoration. He said that the themes used from Isaiah in the New Testament are reflective of the fact that the New Testament writers believed they were living in the eschatological age, the age of prophecy fulfillment.In general, the writers of the New Testament used the same exegetical rules as the writers of Second Temple Jewish literature, except that the NT writers also assumed that difficult passages in scripture really were saying something about Jesus. Modern historical biblical exegesis is very different from either type of ancient exegesis.
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