This article argues that the current predominant interpretation of the use of Psalm 16 in the speech in Acts 2, namely the ‘proof’ from prophecy explanation, as well as the few other models which have been advanced, are unconvincing on narratival grounds. Instead, it suggests that the Psalm is primarily quoted as a rationale to explain why Jesus rose from the dead and death could not detain him – namely because of his righteousness. The article concludes by submitting that this reading sheds important new light on the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus as a divine necessity in the early kerygma in Acts.

Ascribing inspiration to the composition and canonisation of the NT did not exempt it from the flux of history. Its contents were variously copied, quoted and interpreted. For example, early-church responses to Matthew's use of some of the OT prophets illustrate the freedom with which perhaps the most Jewish of the evangelists, having appropriated some of Judaism's greatest figures, was in turn appropriated by early Christianity, how also he was read by pagans and Jews, and how all, in good faith or not, sought to expose or defend or correct what readers thought to be its problems.