ABSTRACT
The fourth appendix to the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament (NA27) lists the scriptural allusions and citations from the Old Testament and Apocrypha that are contained in the various NT books.1 Under the Zechariah subheading there are fifteen references to Matthew’s gospel.2 Twelve of these references are classed as allusions and the other three are listed as direct citations (distinguished by giving the Matthean reference in italicized typeface for the latter category).3 On the whole the distinction is fairly self-explanatory when one looks at the level of correspondence between such OT texts and their use in the gospel of Matthew. Only at one point will the NA27 classification be called into question, that is in regard to the use of Zech 11:12 in Matt 26:15, which it will be argued is better taken as a citation rather than an allusion to the OT passage in question. However, what will be questioned is the value of the allusions category as a whole.
