The Agreement of Scripture?

[scameter18]

My father and I have been discussing something recently: why is there such little importance placed on Biblical translations that have the New Testament quotations of the Old Testament agree? For example, in almost every Bible, verses in the NT that quote verses in the OT do not match up when referenced to the corresponding OT verses in that translation of the Bible. I understand the reason - because the NT writers used the Septuagint, which modern Biblical translators do not use in favor of much later, largely non-Christian Hebrew texts in the belief that those late Hebrew texts would necessarily resemble the “original” Hebrew texts of the OT, apparently more than the Septuagint does. But is this agreement not important? If I was a new Christian, and while reading the NT I referenced back to quoted passages in the OT but found that they did not agree, couldn’t that make me either doubt the validity of that translation, or the validity of the NT writers themselves, since they used a Bible translation that is no longer used and which disagrees with modern translations? Couldn’t that potentially cause doubt? Thank you all for your help. God bless.

 

[bogeydogg]

Actually I dislike that we do not use the LXX. I think that we use a source that we know is corrupted and written by those who deliberately sought to undermine the Messianic Mission of Christ (for example the gloss in Psalm 22 about piercing the hands) is foolish. I know it is very impressive that scholars can read Hebrew and all, but if the Apostles used the LXX and Christ taught and quoted from it then who exactly do we think we are anyway to correct them?

After all the Holy Spirit chose to lead the NT to be written Greek and somehow that was good enough and yet we are supposed to believe that this Hebrew source that came along some 1000 years after the writing of the LXX is better?

Just bugs me somehow.

God Bless

 

[Polycarp1]

While the Incarnation fulfilled much of the Old Testement prophecies it also rendered some of the Old Testament laws obsoletete. The old covenant was replaced with the new covenent. Jesus gave us a new command.

 

[Walcot]

Actually I dislike that we do not use the LXX. I think that we use a source that we know is corrupted and written by those who deliberately sought to undermine the Messianic Mission of Christ (for example the gloss in Psalm 22 about piercing the hands) is foolish. I know it is very impressive that scholars can read Hebrew and all, but if the Apostles used the LXX and Christ taught and quoted from it then who exactly do we think we are anyway to correct them?

After all the Holy Spirit chose to lead the NT to be written Greek and somehow that was good enough and yet we are supposed to believe that this Hebrew source that came along some 1000 years after the writing of the LXX is better?

Just bugs me somehow.

God Bless

It would seem that some Quotes from the NT match up with the LXX and some don’t - they match up with the Hebrew.
In I Corinthians 2:8-9 apparently Paul quotes Isaiah and the wording matches the Hebrew and not the LXX.

 

[COPLAND_3]

As for I was a new Christian and a zealous student of the Bible, and I did run into that same thing you mentioned. But it raised enough doubt in me to research and find out why those quotations did not match up. My faith didn’t crash and burn, but it did give me a reverence for the Septuagint and a less than satisfaction for the Masoretic Text. But if a person loses their faith over the whole issue their foundation is weak. Basically it boils down to them just looking for an accuse to lose faith.

 

[scameter18]

From my further study, it seems that 90% of the NT quotes from the OT match up with the LXX, and only 10% do not, whereas the Hebrew/Masoretic is a much higher disparity. Often times, people in the NT (such as St. Peter in Acts) give a detailed sermon centered on the Gospel fulfillment of a specific OT passage, such as St. Peter’s quotation of Psalm 15:10 (in Acts 2:27 and 13:35) where he uses the word “corruption” in Psalm as reference to Christ’s Resurrection, whereas the Hebrew Psalm says “the pit” which makes no sense in St. Peter’s sermon. Also, the tendency to translate Isaiah 7:14 as “young woman” rather than virgin, and many other passages that, in the Hebrew, do not match up with the NT.

I see no reason why we should use the much later, Judaic Masoretic Hebrew text as the basis for our Old Testaments, assuming that because they are Hebrew they necessarily match up with the “original” Hebrew OTs predating the Septuagint. The Septuagint is much older and more reliable, especially since it was the Scripture of the apostles and the early Church. However, there seems to be very few modern English Bibles that use the Septuagint entirely as the basis for the OT, since even the Vulgate only uses the Septuagint in some places and modern Bibles entirely use the Hebrew (except for the deutero-canonical books in Catholic Bibles). God bless.

 

[scameter18]

It would seem that some Quotes from the NT match up with the LXX and some don’t - they match up with the Hebrew.
In I Corinthians 2:8-9 apparently Paul quotes Isaiah and the wording matches the Hebrew and not the LXX.

Both seem to agree with St. Paul here. According to the Knox Bible, that Corinthians passage says:

(None of the rulers of this world could read his secret, or they would not have crucified him to whom all glory belongs.) 9 So we read of, Things no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human heart conceived, the welcome God has prepared for those who love him.

The corresponding OT verse is Isaiah 64:4 (or 64:3 in the Masoretic). The Septuagint reads:

From of old we have not heard, neither have our eyes seen a God beside thee, and thy works which thou wilt perform to them that wait for mercy.

And the Masoretic Hebrew reads:

And whereof from of old men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen a God beside Thee, who worketh for him that waiteth for Him.

So they are both very similar. Not all NT quotations are exact, especially depending on the translation, both this seems to be similar enough that both the LXX and Masoretic are valid.

 

[bogeydogg]

It would seem that some Quotes from the NT match up with the LXX and some don’t - they match up with the Hebrew.
In I Corinthians 2:8-9 apparently Paul quotes Isaiah and the wording matches the Hebrew and not the LXX.

I don’t find this surprising given that Paul was a Hebrew of the Hebrews and so his quotations would probably favor a more Hebrew tilt, but that doesn’t bother in the the least. Especially given that when Peter or John or Luke quote the OT they are quoting the LXX.

Also Paul’s quotes, as has been pointed out, are more paraphrases of one who is extremely familiar with the text and just speaks it out without exact chapter and verse (I am thinking Augustine for example here) and so Paul’s quotations, while accurate and in context, do also tend to be a little less chapter and verse. This is also (I think) why Paul uses the same quotations again and again because he was a preacher and was probably using his familiar sermon material to write his letters.

God Bless

 

[scameter18]

I don’t find this surprising given that Paul was a Hebrew of the Hebrews and so his quotations would probably favor a more Hebrew tilt, but that doesn’t bother in the the least. Especially given that when Peter or John or Luke quote the OT they are quoting the LXX.

Also Paul’s quotes, as has been pointed out, are more paraphrases of one who is extremely familiar with the text and just speaks it out without exact chapter and verse (I am thinking Augustine for example here) and so Paul’s quotations, while accurate and in context, do also tend to be a little less chapter and verse. This is also (I think) why Paul uses the same quotations again and again because he was a preacher and was probably using his familiar sermon material to write his letters.

God Bless

I would agree with this, though I would point out that Paul (as his name and ministry point out) was the Doctor of the Gentiles, and would not have been opposed to using the Septuagint, neither were most Jews before the advent of Christianity and the destruction of the Temple, after which Hellenism became greatly distrusted in the Judaic culture, even more than it had been previously. As I pointed out, the Corinthians quotation mentioned mirrors both the Masoretic (not necessarily the much earlier Hebrew that would have been available, to an extent, during St. Paul’s life) and the LXX, yet not exactly - for the reason you said. God bless.