Anyone who studies the Bible will notice that often the New Testament (NT) writers quote from the Old Testament (OT). The problem arises when you compare the NT quotes with the actual verses in the OT and sometimes discover they don’t seem to match up. In a few cases, they say something that looks entirely different. How can this be if the entire Bible is inspired and is the Word of God?

Many books and journal articles have been written in scholarly circles on this subject, and it has occupied the debate propensity of theologians—that should inform us that this is a complex subject. The challenge comes from the fact that the Bible covers more than 1,500 years of writing, a multiplicity of literary genres (narrative, didactic, prophetic, biography, poetic, etc.), various languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek), and innumerable translations to the common language of readers.

Despite the challenges, though, thanks to those who have studied the origins, authenticity, and accuracy of the Bible we have in our hands, we can be assured of its inspiration as the Word of God. So we ask the question of quotations not to doubt the authenticity of the Bible but to better understand what we read therein.

This essay deals with a sliver of insight into the NT’s use of quotes from the OT. When a quote is made in the NT, we may ask which OT text version it quotes from. That is like someone quoting from the NT, where the verse reads differently depending on which modern English translation the quote is taken from. Jesus and the NT writers had two versions of the OT commonly in use. First, they had the text written in the original Hebrew language (it also includes a small amount of Aramaic). That text of a collection of Jewish writings was considered inspired and was compiled beginning around 500 B.C. We don’t have those original writings, but Jewish scribes meticulously made copies over the centuries. Today, we have the Masoretic Text (MT), which are copies based on the text Jesus and the NT writers used, the earliest extant manuscripts of which date to around the 10^th century A.D. Modern translators of the Bible rely heavily on the MT (written in Hebrew).

The other OT version available to Jesus and the NT writers was a Greek translation called the Septuagint (also referred to as LXX). The name derives from the 70 or 72 scholars who did their work in the 3^rd to 2^nd centuries B.C. The form of Greek used was koine Greek, the common language of the people in the first century during and after the time of Christ. NT translators today rely on the LXX to help translate the ancient Hebrew text (now preserved in the MT). There is an entire field of study around LXX because present-day scholars recognize that the LXX translators were closer in time to the original Hebrew writings than scholars today. Thus it is essential to understand how the LXX translators understood the meanings of the Hebrew words, idioms, and grammatical and syntactical structures.

Furthermore, the NT writers were closer to both the Hebrew and LXX text and therefore were in a better position to understand the language and meanings of both than we are today. Jesus as God understood the OT better than anyone, and therefore His quotations are inspired, whether exact recitations, inspired interpretations of them, or simply allusions to the concepts embodied in the OT. The same applies to the NT writers since their writings are also inspired.

As we said earlier, this subject is complex; but we can be assured that quotations of the OT in the NT are affirmed by God because the NT writings are the infallible Word of God. There are no misquotes. We must work a little harder to see the why and how of NT writers using the OT. In the end, we do well to look to the NT as our final guide in understanding the OT passages quoted.