Quotations in the New Testament

The NT quotes the OT approximately 300 times in formal citation and alludes to it hundreds more times. The most frequently cited OT books are the Psalms (approximately 60 quotations), Isaiah (over 50), Deuteronomy (over 40), and Exodus (over 30). The NT authors quoted primarily from the Greek Septuagint (LXX), though in some cases they reflect a Hebrew text or a targum-like interpretive tradition. In a number of quotations (especially in Matthew and Hebrews), the text cited differs from both the MT and the LXX, possibly reflecting alternative textual traditions, the author's own rendering, or the use of a Hebrew text closer to Qumranic witnesses than the Masoretic tradition.

The interpretive methods NT authors use to apply OT texts include: typological fulfillment (OT events or persons are 'types' prefiguring NT antitypes — e.g., the bronze serpent and the Son of Man, John 3:14); direct predictive prophecy (e.g., Isaiah 53 applied to the passion); analogy (the same pattern of divine action recurs in both periods); and what some scholars call 'corporate solidarity' or 'pesher' interpretation (reading a text as addressed to the present eschatological community, as in Acts 2:16-21). The christological logic underlying all NT OT interpretation is stated in Luke 24:44-47: 'everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.' The OT is not abandoned but reread in light of the Christ-event as its interpretive key — a hermeneutical move with far-reaching implications for understanding the relationship between the two Testaments.