Most-quoted Old Testament Books

[yellow8yellowM]

Which books of the Old Testament were the most quoted by Jesus or otherwise in the New Testament?

It seems that the Psalms are highly quoted, but I don’t know if they are the most quoted. The second part of my question is, is there some reason why one book is so highly quoted? Was that book more important in the Jewish Tradition, or did it have more authority?

 

[sirach2v4]

no one here, almost certainly, can answer your question based on their own analysis. I have run across a couple published statements about the overall statistics, but I don’t think I heard it put in those terms.

The analysis would be a bit skewed, if the same quotation occurs in more than one gospel. Would you want the most-quoted book to be the one where there were repetitions of the quote, or not allowing duplicate quotes?

There’s also the problem of whether you’re talking about explicit quotes or whether you expand the analysis to include implicit quotes.

Deuteronomy 6:4 is quoted in all the synoptic gospels, as I recall. “hear O Israel, the LORD is God, the LORD alone”

That would be three direct quotes (in the gospels) and I think this verse is quoted implicitly somewhere in James.

If I ignore my own nit-picking questions, I’d speculate that it would be Deuteronomy and Psalms quoted the most.

I just finished reading one of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture volumes on the first half of Matthew’s gospel (Intervarsity Press). I was quite surprised to see the early church fathers connect so many verses in Mt to the OT.

There are sub-questions involved here, too. Like, which book of the NT quotes the most from the OT?

 

[centurionguard]

Which books of the Old Testament were the most quoted by Jesus or otherwise in the New Testament?

It seems that the Psalms are highly quoted, but I don’t know if they are the most quoted. The second part of my question is, is there some reason why one book is so highly quoted? Was that book more important in the Jewish Tradition, or did it have more authority?

Here’s a collection of biblical concordance quotes you might like. Downloadable in Pdf format.
jewsforjesus.org/publications/newsletter/2008_09/05

 

[patrick457]

Which books of the Old Testament were the most quoted by Jesus or otherwise in the New Testament?

It seems that the Psalms are highly quoted, but I don’t know if they are the most quoted. The second part of my question is, is there some reason why one book is so highly quoted? Was that book more important in the Jewish Tradition, or did it have more authority?

Within the New Testament, the Psalms, Isaiah, and Deuteronomy are the most frequently quoted books. Interestingly enough, these three are also among the most well-attested biblical books among the Dead Sea Scrolls (thirty-six manuscripts of the Psalms, twenty-nine of Deuteronomy, and twenty-one of Isaiah) and the most quoted in writings from Qumran.

 

[Oldtimer_7]

Another point to consider is that, of those quotations where the source can be identified, over 80% are from the Septuagint.