When Jesus tells Pilate “my kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), he may be reassuring Pilate that Jesus and his followers pose no political threat. In our time, however, the secular idea of “alternate facts” has become something of a new religion and affects both our politics and our academic study. The difficult questions of what constitutes facts or credible critical interpretation of literary facts is particularly vexed when there is a question of citation. This article does not deal with questionable abbreviations of citation (such as “The Lord is merciful and compassionate” Exod. 34:6 without the deflected punishment clauses) or expanded citation (such as “You have heard it said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemies’ ” [Matt. 5:43]). It concerns rather some instances where a verse may or may not be a citation and where extra-biblical ideology can interfere with the interpretation of what is being quoted, if it is being quoted. “The poor you have always with you” (Mark 14:7, possibly citing Deut. 15:11) is one such example.

当耶稣告诉彼拉多“我的国度不属于这个世界”（约翰福音18:36）时，他可能会让彼拉多放心，耶稣和他的追随者不构成政治威胁。然而，在我们这个时代，“另类事实”的世俗观念已经成为一种新的宗教，并影响了我们的政治和学术研究。当存在引证问题时，关于构成事实或对文学事实进行可靠的批判性解释的难题尤其烦人。本文不涉及可疑的引文缩写（例如，“主是仁慈而富有同情心的”出埃及记34：6，没有偏重的处罚条款）或扩展的引文（例如“您已经听说过，'爱您的邻居并讨厌敌人的”（太5:43））。它涉及的是在某些情况下，某节经文可能被引用，也可能不被引用，圣经以外的意识形态可能会干扰所引用内容的解释（如果被引用的话）。这样的例子就是“你们永远与穷人在一起”（马可福音14：7，可能引申申命记15:11）。