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Course 4 · Lesson 2.4

How New Testament writers quote the Old Testament

13 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 4 outline

Module 1: How the Canon Formed

  1. What a canon is, and what canonical means
  2. The Old Testament canon: Law, Prophets and Writings
  3. The New Testament canon: from gospels and letters to a list
  4. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant canons compared

Module 2: The Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint

  1. The Hebrew Bible and the work of the Masoretes
  2. Origin and character of the Septuagint
  3. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the state of the Old Testament text
  4. How New Testament writers quote the Old Testament

Module 3: Transmission of the New Testament Text

  1. Copying by hand: papyri, codices and scribes
  2. Manuscript traditions: Alexandrian, Western and Byzantine texts
  3. Kinds of variants and how they arise
  4. The principles of textual criticism
  5. Reading a critical apparatus and a translation footnote

Module 4: Reading Responsibly: Exegesis and Method

  1. Exegesis and eisegesis with worked examples
  2. Source, form and redaction criticism: what each asks
  3. Strengths and limits of the historical method
  4. Literary and canonical reading

Module 5: Meaning Beyond the Surface: Typology, Allegory and Genre

  1. Typology in the New Testament and the fathers
  2. Allegory and its critics: Alexandria and Antioch
  3. Reading by genre: narrative, law, poetry, prophecy, gospel and letter
  4. Setting, authorship and audience as questions to ask of any passage

Module 6: Christian Approaches to Interpretation

  1. The fourfold sense of Scripture in the medieval church
  2. Reformation principles: Scripture, clarity and the grammatical and historical sense
  3. Orthodox and Catholic approaches: Scripture within Tradition
  4. Historical scholarship and theological interpretation in conversation

Module 7: Writing an Exegesis

  1. Choosing a passage and framing a question
  2. Observation and context: what the text says and where it stands
  3. Using commentaries and reference works without being led by them
  4. Writing up, checking conclusions and revising

All courses

Program / Course 4: Biblical Studies and Hermeneutics / Lesson 2.4

What you will learn

  • Distinguish a direct quotation, an allusion and an echo.
  • Recognize the main introductory formulas the New Testament uses, including the fulfilment formulas of Matthew.
  • Explain why a New Testament quotation may differ from the Old Testament in your Bible.
  • Describe the main positions on whether the New Testament writers respect the original context of what they quote.

The big idea

The New Testament is full of the Old. Writers quote it directly, allude to it and echo it in ways a modern reader can miss. They usually follow the Greek translation, sometimes the Hebrew, and sometimes adapt freely. They use the Old Testament to explain who Jesus is, to teach the church and to answer opponents. Whether they always respect the original setting of the passages they use is a lively question, and Christians and scholars answer it in several ways.

Key terms

Quotation
A direct citation of an Old Testament passage, often with an introduction such as it is written.
Allusion
A brief reference to an Old Testament person, event or phrase without a formal citation.
Echo
A faint resemblance in wording or theme to an Old Testament text. Scholars debate how much weight echoes can bear.
Fulfilment formula
A phrase such as that it might be fulfilled, which in Matthew introduces a quotation said to be fulfilled in the events of Jesus’ life.
Midrash
A Jewish way of interpreting Scripture by close attention to its words, often applying it to new situations.
Typology
A way of reading in which persons, events or institutions in the Old Testament are seen as patterns pointing to Christ and the church. Lesson 5.1 treats it in full.
Context
The setting of a passage: the words around it, the book it belongs to and the historical situation in which it was written.

Background

Open a reference edition of the New Testament and look at the margins or footnotes. They will show hundreds of quotations and thousands of allusions to the Old Testament. Counts differ depending on what is counted, but every book of the New Testament uses the Old in some way, and the Psalms, Isaiah and Deuteronomy are among the most cited. The first Christians were Jews or Gentiles who had come to the Scriptures of Israel, and they believed those Scriptures spoke of Jesus.

Jesus himself set the pattern. In Luke 24:27 he explains to two disciples on the road to Emmaus the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures, beginning with Moses and all the prophets. Later, he tells the group that everything written about him in the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms had to be fulfilled (Luke 24:44). The writers of the New Testament take this as a guide to how to read the Old.

A modern reader meets two puzzles. First, the wording often does not match the Old Testament in a modern English Bible. Second, the use sometimes seems to take a passage in a way its first readers may not have expected. This lesson takes up both, and it does not claim that every difficulty has an agreed solution.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Learn the kinds of use

Writers use the Old Testament in several ways. A direct quotation comes with a formula, such as it is written or the Scripture says. An allusion refers to a story or a phrase without naming it, such as the many references to the exodus. A fulfilment formula in Matthew states that an event happened that the word spoken by a prophet might be fulfilled, as in Matthew 2:15 which applies Hosea 11:1 to the return of Jesus from Egypt. Paul often argues from a verse, as in Galatians 3:16 where he draws a point from the singular word seed in the promise to Abraham.

It helps to label each case as you meet it. A quotation, an allusion and an echo do not carry the same weight, and a reader who treats a faint echo as a formal citation may claim too much.

Step 2: Compare the wording

Often a New Testament quotation reads differently from the Old Testament in your Bible. There are several reasons. The writer may be following the Septuagint, which can differ from the Hebrew. The writer may be quoting from memory, or paraphrasing for the sake of his point. Or he may be translating the Hebrew himself, or using a form of the text that we no longer have.

A well known case is Acts 15:16-18, where James quotes Amos 9:11-12. The Greek text, which James follows, speaks of the rest of mankind seeking the Lord. The Hebrew text of Amos speaks of the possession of the remnant of Edom. The argument at the council in Jerusalem depends on the Greek wording. Modern readers have to ask whether James used a Greek text, or whether he used a Hebrew text that differed from ours. Scholars discuss both options.

Step 3: Ask about the original context

The hardest question is whether the New Testament writers respect the original setting of what they quote. In Matthew 2:15 the verse from Hosea speaks in its own place of God calling Israel his son out of Egypt, in a passage about the past. Matthew applies it to Jesus. Is this a sound reading or an arbitrary one?

Several answers are given. One holds that the writers see Israel’s history as a pattern, so that Jesus, as the true Israel, repeats and fulfils it. This is a typological reading. A second holds that the writers sometimes draw out a fuller sense of the text, beyond what the human author could see, but one that God intended. A third holds that the writers follow Jewish methods of the time, such as midrash and pesher, which are not those of a modern historian, and that these methods were accepted in their setting. A fourth, the view of some critics, holds that the New Testament sometimes reads texts in ways that cannot be defended on the basis of their original meaning. Christians answer in different ways, depending on how they understand inspiration and authority.

Step 4: Follow the larger story

Many scholars argue that the New Testament writers often quote a short phrase while meaning to evoke the whole passage around it. C. H. Dodd made this proposal in the twentieth century, and others have developed it. On this view, to quote a line from a psalm is to invite the hearer to think of the entire psalm. The idea is useful because it encourages readers to look at the original setting, but it is not accepted for every case, and scholars debate how far it can be pressed.

For the student, a sound habit is to read the Old Testament passage in its own place before reading the New Testament use. Write down what the Old Testament passage says. Then compare. This avoids both extremes, reading the New Testament back into the Old before listening to the Old, and dismissing the New Testament’s use without understanding its logic.

  1. Is this a quotation, an allusion or an echo?
  2. Which wording does the New Testament writer follow, Greek or Hebrew?
  3. What does the Old Testament passage mean in its own setting?
  4. What new thing does the writer claim, and how does he reach it?
  5. Are other writers of the time using the same method?
  6. Would a reader without the New Testament see the same meaning?

Examples

Hosea 11:1 in Matthew 2:15

Hosea speaks of God loving Israel as a child and calling his son out of Egypt, and the next verses speak of Israel turning away. Matthew uses the first line of this verse of Jesus. Interpreters disagree whether Matthew treats Jesus as the true Israel, whose life repeats Israel’s, or whether he reads the verse as a prediction. The case is a standard test of method, and it appears in the scripture list of this course for that reason.

Psalm 110 in the Gospels

Jesus asks the Pharisees about the verse in Psalm 110 in which David calls someone my Lord (Matthew 22:41-45). The question depends on the way the Psalm was read at the time, as a psalm of David about a coming figure. The question is part of the Gospel’s argument about who Jesus is.

The exodus in 1 Corinthians

In 1 Corinthians 10:1-11 Paul looks at Israel in the wilderness and calls the events examples for later believers. He uses the story as a warning to Christians in Corinth. This is not a prediction of a single event but a pattern of the way God deals with his people.

Different perspectives

Orthodox

Orthodox writers read the whole of the Old Testament as speaking of Christ, following Luke 24 and the fathers. The New Testament’s use of the Old is a model for the church’s reading, and it is understood within the life of the church and its liturgy, where the Old Testament is read in the light of Christ.

Catholic

The Catechism and the Second Vatican Council speak of the unity of the two Testaments. The Old Testament is read in the light of Christ, and typology is a legitimate way of reading. The church also teaches that the literal sense, which is the meaning the human author intended, is the foundation for other senses.

Protestant

Protestants differ. Many in the Reformed and evangelical traditions hold that the New Testament writers faithfully interpret the Old, and that careful study of context reveals the logic. Others stress a single intended meaning in the human author’s own setting and allow a fuller sense only when the New Testament itself gives it. A tradition that stresses the grammatical and historical method has to account for such cases, and does so in several ways.

Jewish

Jewish readers often reply that the New Testament reads verses out of their contexts. Hosea 11:1, for example, speaks about Israel’s past, and Isaiah 7:14 speaks to King Ahaz about his own time. Jewish scholars note that Jews of the period also used creative methods, so the dispute is not about method alone but about whether Jesus is the one to whom the texts point.

Scholarly

Scholars debate the question under headings such as the whole context thesis, the idea of intertextual echo and the role of Jewish interpretive habits. They agree that the writers knew the Scriptures well. They disagree on how far their methods can be repeated by modern interpreters.

Why it matters

How the New Testament reads the Old affects how Christians read it today and how they explain it to others. If you know the range of uses, you can recognize which case you face, you can read both testaments with care, and you can understand why Jews and Christians disagree about the same verses. It also prepares you for the lessons on typology, allegory and the major approaches to interpretation.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The New Testament writers invented prophecies by twisting the Old Testament.

Correction: This is a serious claim that some critics make, but the writers were part of a Jewish world in which close, creative reading of Scripture was usual. Whether they succeeded is the subject of the debate, and a fair reader weighs it passage by passage.

Misunderstanding: Every prophecy in the Old Testament is a direct prediction of Jesus.

Correction: The New Testament uses the Old in different ways. Some uses are direct predictions, some are patterns, and some are illustrations. Treating them all as the same distorts them.

Misunderstanding: If a quotation does not match my Old Testament, one of them is wrong.

Correction: The difference may come from the Septuagint, from a variant Hebrew text or from paraphrase. Check the footnotes and the versions first.

Misunderstanding: The question of context is a modern invention and the New Testament has no interest in it.

Correction: Many scholars find that the writers often attend to the wider setting. The extent of that attention is debated.

Knowledge check

What is the difference between a quotation, an allusion and an echo?

A quotation is a direct citation, usually with an introduction. An allusion is a brief reference to a person, event or phrase without a formal citation. An echo is a faint resemblance of wording or theme that scholars debate. They carry different weight in an argument.

Why might a New Testament quotation differ from the Old Testament in your Bible?

The writer may follow the Septuagint, which sometimes differs from the Hebrew. He may quote from memory or paraphrase for his point. He may translate the Hebrew himself or use a Hebrew text that differed from the one we have.

Describe two positions on whether the New Testament respects the original context.

One position holds that the writers see patterns in Israel’s history that Jesus fulfils, so the use is typological and context sensitive. Another holds that some uses follow Jewish methods of the time that differ from modern ones, and that critics may judge them not to respect the original meaning.

What case from Acts shows the importance of the Greek wording?

In Acts 15:16-18, James quotes Amos 9:11-12 following the Greek, in which the rest of mankind seeks the Lord. The Hebrew speaks of possessing the remnant of Edom. The argument at the council depends on the Greek wording.

Think it through

  1. Which of the four answers about context do you find most persuasive, and what would test it?
  2. Why might the first Christians have used the Old Testament so heavily to explain Jesus?
  3. How should a reader treat a quotation whose Old Testament setting seems to say something different?
  4. What are the dangers of reading the New Testament’s meaning back into the Old Testament before listening to the Old on its own terms?

Independent assignment

Trace one quotation

Choose one Old Testament quotation in the New Testament, such as Hosea 11:1 in Matthew 2:15, or Psalm 110:1 in Matthew 22:44. In your notebook, write the Old Testament passage in its context (a paragraph before and after). Then write the New Testament passage. Compare the wording and the setting. In 300 to 450 words, say what the New Testament writer is doing with the text, and name at least two views a reader could take. Keep your work in your notebook.

Further study