The New Testament misquotes and misinterprets the Old Testament. [Answered]

There is no truth to this claim. You must remember that all the New Testament authors were Jews—with one probable exception—and they were sometimes writing to Jewish readers who knew their Scriptures well. To manufacture, misquote, or misinterpret verses from the Tanakh would be absolutely self-defeating. The fact is, these authors spent much time meditating on the Tanakh, and you would be amazed to see just how insightful their quotations and interpretations are, not to mention how much they are in keeping with the ancient Jewish methods of scriptural hermeneutics.

You need to keep in mind that your very objection points to something of great significance: The New Testament authors are constantly quoting and referring to the Hebrew Scriptures. That was their Bible, their primary source of authority, the foundation of their faith. As noted in volume 1 (239, n. 160), the pages of the New Testament are filled with citations from the Hebrew Scriptures, with as many as three hundred direct quotations from the Tanakh and several thousand allusions to the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament. In fact, some scholars claim that almost one out of three verses in the New Testament—2,500 out of a total of 8,000 verses—contains an Old Testament quote or general allusion, while, quite solidly, it can be demonstrated that “more than ten percent of the New Testament text is made up of citation or direct allusions to the Old Testament.”¹ More than 10 percent! The Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament, contains 404 verses, most of which (as many as 331 verses) are drawn from the imagery of the Hebrew Scriptures, although Revelation hardly ever directly quotes a specific verse from the Tanakh. All this indicates how deeply the Hebrew Scriptures are intertwined in the New Covenant Scriptures.²

New Testament and Judaic literature scholar Craig Evans summarized the situation well:

The theology of the nt is fundamentally indebted to, and a reflection of, major ot themes, images, and language. There is simply no significant element in nt theology that is not in some way a development of a tradition or theology expressed in the sacred writings that eventually came to be what Christians call the Old Testament (ot), Jews call the Tanakh, and scholars call the Hebrew Bible (hb).³

Not surprisingly, with so many quotes and references drawn from the Tanakh by different authors writing with different styles, not every citation will follow the same format or be based on the same principle of interpretation. This, of course, is the case as well in Rabbinic literature (e.g., the Talmud) and the Dead Sea Scrolls (abbreviated DSS): Not all citations from the Hebrew Bible in these writings follow an identical pattern. (This is actually a massive understatement!) To mention just a few of the ways that the Scriptures are cited in ancient Jewish literature, some of the citations reflect something as minor as a play on words, others are primarily homiletical (i.e., midrashic), while others play a foundational role, with the Scripture verse supporting a major doctrinal or legal point. To illustrate some of these principles, we turn to the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Rabbinic writings, and then the New Covenant Scriptures.

New Testament and Semitic scholar Joseph Fitzmyer observed that there are four major ways in which verses from the Tanakh were cited in the writings from Qumran, each of which has a parallel in the New Testament writings, pointing once again to the Jewishness of those writings. Fitzmyer calls the first class of quotations “The Literal or Historical Class,” which he describes as citations “in which the Qumran author quotes the Old Testament in the same sense in which it was used in the original writing,”⁴ citing seven examples, including CD 7:8–9 which quotes Numbers 30:17. For a New Testament example, Fitzmyer cites, among others, John 6:31 quoting Psalm 78:24.

The next grouping of citations is labeled “The Class of Modernized Texts,” meaning those texts,

in which the words of the Old Testament refer to a specific event in their original context, but which are nevertheless vague enough in themselves to be used by the Qumran author of some new event on the contemporary scene. In other words, the same general sense of the Old Testament is preserved, but it is applied to a new subject.… In this class of quotations one normally finds the Old Testament quoted in the same way it is found in the original context, without modification or deliberate changing of it. A new reference or a new dimension, however, is given to it in the way it is quoted.⁵

In the Qumran pesharim (biblical interpretations), Fitzmyer finds such citations to be “abundantly attested.”⁶ Among other texts, for example, he cites CD 1:13–14, quoting Hosea 4:16. For a New Testament parallel, compare Matthew 4:15–16, citing Isaiah 9:1–2[8:23–9:1], where Fitzmyer notes:

No less than the Qumran authors, the New Testament writers considered their history to be guided by the hand of God. But for the New Testament authors his word spoken through the prophets and writers of the Old Testament had already seen fulfillment in the new events and situations of the early Christian history. Due to the predominantly backward glance of the New Testament writers, which we have already noted, the number of such modernized texts in the New Testament is considerably greater.⁷

The next class of quotations is called “Accommodated Texts,” which, Fitzmyer explains, “has in common with the [Modernized Texts] the application of the text to a new situation or subject. However, it differs in that the Old Testament text in this case is usually wrested from its original context or modified somehow to suit the new situation.”⁸ He cites twelve examples of this from Qumran, including 1QS 8:13–16, quoting Isaiah 40:3 (for more on this, see below). For a New Testament example cited by Fitzmyer, compare Ephesians 4:8, citing Psalm 68:18[19].

Fitzmyer calls the fourth and final class of quotations “The Eschatological Class of Texts,” described as such because “they usually express in the Old Testament context a promise or threat about something still to be accomplished in the eschaton, which the Qumran writer cites as something still to be accomplished in the new eschaton of which he writes.”⁹ He cites ten passages in this category, including CD 7:10–12, quoting Isaiah 7:17. Among the examples he cites from the New Testament is Romans 12:19, citing Deuteronomy 32:35. As for the relative paucity of these types of citation in the New Testament, Fitzmyer observes that it occurs less frequently than in the Qumran writings, suggesting,

this is probably due again to the fact that Christian writers were more often looking back at the central event in which salvation had been accomplished rather than forward to a deliverance by Yahweh, which seems to characterize the Qumran literature.¹⁰

To summarize, the use of the Tanakh in the New Covenant Writings finds many parallels with the usage of the Tanakh in the Qumran writings, in keeping with Jewish methods of biblical interpretation dating back to the first century (and even earlier). In other words, a biblically literate Jew living in the first century of this era would not find the New Testament citations of Scripture to be outlandish in the least. Rather, both the substance and style of the quotes would be very familiar to him. The same can be said of the use of the Scripture in the later, Rabbinic writings. Let’s analyze a representative—but tiny—sampling of the Rabbinic use of Scripture, looking at the first few pages of Berachot, the opening tractate of the Babylonian Talmud.

(1) On 2a (the Talmud always starts on p. 2), the end of Deuteronomy 6:7 is cited (“when you lie down and when you get up”) to explain why the Mishnah first deals with reciting the Shema in the evening before dealing with reciting it in the morning; alternatively, Genesis 1:5b is cited (“And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day”) as another possible supporting verse. Are these scriptural “proofs”? Hardly, but they are part of the supporting discussion. (2) Leviticus 22:7 is then cited to explain at what time the priests can partake of their portion of the offering. As rendered in the NJPSV, the meaning is straightforward, simple, and completely unambiguous: “As soon as the sun sets, he shall be clean [Hebrew, we-taher]; and afterward he may eat of the sacred donations, for they are his food.” Surprisingly, the Talmud raises the question as to whether the meaning of we-taher is “he [the man] shall be clean,” which is the universal understanding of the text in virtually all ancient and modern versions, or “it [the day] shall be clean” (as if it meant “clear”), meaning that the sun has set. As stated, the fact that this discussion occurs at all is surprising, but it is startling that it is the latter meaning (“the day is clear”) that the Talmud eventually accepts, basing its final decision on that understanding (see 2b, “the meaning of we-taher is the clearing away of the day”). This is totally contrary to the meaning of the Torah text.¹¹

(3) Nehemiah 4:15–16 [4:21–22 in most English versions] are cited as a hint (zeker) rather than a proof (ra’ayah) that the appearance of the stars was the mark of nighttime. (4) On 3b, Judges 7:19, which makes reference to “the middle watch,” is cited to support the view that there are three watches in the night (meaning that the night is divided into three four-hour periods). Psalm 119:62 and 119:148 are then cited to prove that there are actually four watches in the night. A simple review of these verses from Psalm 119 would indicate that, at first glance, they do not demand such an understanding, but that is how the Talmudic rabbis interpret them. (5) Psalm 119:147, Proverbs 7:9, and 1 Samuel 30:17 are then brought into the discussion to determine the meaning of the word nesheph (“evening” or “morning”?), followed by a discussion of Exodus 11:4, with the goal of determining exactly when midnight occurred. (6) On 3b–4a, there is a misquotation of a biblical text, the Talmud confusing two different individuals with similar names. To cite this in full, “R. Joseph says: What verse [may be cited in support of this]? ‘And after Ahithofel was Jehoiada, the son of Benaiah, and Abiathar; and the captain of the King’s host was Joab,’ [1 Chron. 27:34]” but, as noted in the Soncino Talmud footnote, “The [Talmudic] text here has ‘Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada’, who is mentioned in 2 Sam. 20:23.”¹² Yet the quote in the Talmud is from 1 Chronicles 27:34, which says that “Ahithophel was succeeded by Jehoiada son of Benaiah [not Benaiah son of Jehoiada, as written in the Talmudic citation] …” The Talmud apparently got Jehoiada son of Benaiah confused with the better-known Benaiah son of Jehoiada, and for centuries, that reading has been preserved.¹³ If we continue reading for several more pages, we find plays on words, a very common method of using the Scriptures in Rabbinic literature.

Now, this is just a sampling from the first few pages of the Talmud, pages which are certainly reflective of the Talmudic use of the Hebrew Scriptures, but already we found: (1) verses cited to support positions which barely relate to the discussions at hand; (2) verses cited in somewhat contrived ways to support various positions; (3) a verse cited, discussed, and ultimately interpreted contrary to its clear, contextual meaning; (4) a verse that is actually misquoted, with key names being reversed; (5) plays on words, with no attempt to elucidate the primary (or, original) meaning of the text.¹⁴

Do I write this to demean the Talmud? Absolutely not. Rather, my purpose is to illustrate that: (1) Jewish interpretation and use of Scripture in the first five-plus centuries of this era was much more free-flowing than our contemporary, historical-grammatical approach. (2) Verses from the Tanakh could be cited on many different levels and for many different purposes. (3) Editorial or copyist errors could easily creep into the texts. (4) The use of the Hebrew Bible in the New Covenant Scriptures is completely in line with the Jewish interpretive methods of the day, with this one caveat: In many ways the use of the Tanakh in the New Testament is more restrained, contextual, and sober than its use in the Rabbinic writings.

An analysis of the use of the Tanakh in the Dead Sea Scrolls, representing Jewish biblical interpretation contemporaneous with and immediately prior to the New Testament period, offers further support for this position.¹⁵ This was the conclusion of Robert H. Gundry, a respected Christian scholar who painstakingly analyzed the citations from the Tanakh found in Matthew’s Gospel—the Gospel most frequently attacked for alleged misuse of the Tanakh—comparing Matthew’s usage of the Hebrew Scriptures with that of the early Rabbinic writings and the Dead Sea Scrolls. What he found was that “Matthean hermeneutics were not atomizing—in contrast to Qumran and rabbinical literature.”¹⁶ In other words, it was Matthew who cited verses from the Hebrew Bible with more care for their original context than either the Rabbinic writings or the Dead Sea Scrolls!

Orthodox Jewish journalist and author David Klinghoffer, speaking of the citations from the Tanakh in the early chapters of Matthew, wrote:

Pointing out the imprecision of proof texts like these, one feels almost unsporting. It’s too easy. Yet it is with these that the New Testament begins its first attempt at a narration of the life of the Christian Messiah. Whoever the first educated Jews were to have these prophetic verses cited to them, whether in Jesus’ lifetime or later, they could have reacted only with puzzlement and disbelief. As the song says, “Is that all there is?”¹⁷

To the contrary, to many educated Jews of his day, Matthew’s use of Scripture was both legitimate and sensible, regardless of whether the evidence was accepted or not, and statements such as Klinghoffer’s actually betray ignorance of either ancient Jewish usage of Scripture or the thoroughly Jewish nature of Matthew’s use of Scripture—or both.¹⁸

Many Jewish readers through the centuries have also felt a deep kinship with Matthew’s style of interpretation (for a well-known example, see vol. 1, 150). It is because of this that W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison Jr., the learned scholars who produced the most exhaustive, technical, and linguistically detailed commentary on Matthew to date (totaling over 2,300 pages!), recognized the depth of Matthew’s hermeneutics, stating:

Matthew was not above scattering items in his Greek text whose deeper meaning could only be appreciated by those with a knowledge of Hebrew. Indeed, it might even be that Matthew found authorial delight in hiding ‘bonus points’ for those willing and able to look a little beneath the gospel’s surface.¹⁹

Those differing with this conclusion would do well to work through the massive scholarly data presented in their commentary before begging to differ. Rather than Matthew (and the other New Testament authors) being superficial, it is actually the criticisms of Matthew (and the other New Testament authors) that are superficial.²⁰

In some of the objections that follow (see 5.2–5.5), we will carefully analyze some of the better known quotations in Matthew and Hebrews. Here, we will look at some general issues of importance before examining some verses from other parts of the New Testament, as well as some less-cited quotations in Matthew. After reviewing the evidence, it should be readily apparent to you that some of the claims of the anti-missionaries are quite bizarre, if not somewhat deceptive. Typical are the remarks of Rabbi Tovia Singer:²¹

Moreover, in an effort to distance Christians from a compelling Jewish message, the founders and defenders of Christianity methodically altered selected texts from the Jewish scriptures. This rewriting of Tanach was not done arbitrarily or subtly. The church quite deliberately tampered with the words of the Jewish scriptures in order to bolster their most startling claim which is: The Old Testament foretold of no messiah other than Jesus of Nazareth. With this goal in mind, missionaries manipulated, misquoted, mistranslated, and even fabricated verses in Tanach in order to make Jesus’ life fit traditional Jewish messianic parameters and to make traditional Jewish messianic parameters fit the life of Jesus.…

The King James Version and numerous other Christian Bible translations were meticulously altered in order to produce a message that would sustain and advance church theology and exegeses. This aggressive rewriting of biblical texts has had a remarkable impact on Christians throughout the world who unhesitatingly embrace these twisted translations.… ²²

Of course, it is easy for anyone with solid biblical foundations to refute and dismiss such charges—in fact, it is tempting to simply ignore this kind of rhetoric—and it is only fair to ask what Singer would have said had he been criticizing the Rabbinic use of Scripture. Without a doubt, serious students of the Scriptures who will read this accusation that the New Testament authors “manipulated, misquoted, mistranslated, and even fabricated verses” from the Hebrew Bible will only shake their head in pity and disbelief. Still, I’m aware that there are many seekers of truth with limited knowledge in these areas, and so it is worthwhile to take the time to refute such extreme claims.

We must first understand that the Tanakh existed in a number of different textual forms in Jesus’ day, including several Hebrew texts (reflecting different versions of the original), some Aramaic versions (in written or oral form, reflecting different translations and paraphrases of the original), and at least one Greek version (again, reflecting a translation of the original). This means that when a New Testament author was quoting from the Scriptures, he might have drawn from any number of recognized, Jewish biblical sources. This would be like a rabbi preaching to his congregation today and translating directly from the Hebrew or quoting from one of the modern Jewish translations of the Tanakh into English or paraphrasing the text based on Rabbinic interpretations. In all these cases he would be following common Jewish practices, and, in most cases, even if the specific wording differed between the versions he might be using, the overall meaning would be the same. All this is regularly done by rabbis communicating in a language other than Hebrew or by pastors communicating in a language other than Hebrew (for the Old Testament) and Greek (for the New Testament), and all of it has validity.

“But that’s where you’re wrong,” you object. “You see, there is only one true and original Tanakh, and it’s in Hebrew, the Masoretic text, not in any translation. Plus, when the New Testament authors quote from one of the other versions you speak of—like the Greek Septuagint or the Aramaic Targum—they do change the meaning of the verse itself.”

I’m glad you raised these points. Let’s take a more careful look at these issues.

There are many good reasons to believe that God has caused the text of the Bible—both the Tanakh and the New Covenant Scriptures—to be preserved with the utmost care. No documents from the ancient world have been preserved with such accuracy as have the manuscripts of the Bible (see below, 5.6). Still, we do not have one authoritative copy of the Scriptures; rather, we have thousands of copies, not all of which agree with each other in totality. With regard to the Tanakh, it is a misnomer to speak of “the Masoretic text” as if there was one authoritative, definitive, final text of the Hebrew Scriptures that was preserved unsullied through the centuries. Rather, there is a Masoretic textual tradition consisting of several thousand manuscripts which are in remarkable harmony but still contain thousands of minor discrepancies.²³ In addition to this, the Dead Sea Scrolls preserve four different textual traditions—I’m speaking here of Hebrew textual traditions—some of which agree letter for letter with the tradition we call the Masoretic tradition, others of which differ at many points.²⁴ Yet on some occasions, scholars have shown clearly that it is the variant tradition found in the Scrolls that is the most accurate and the Masoretic tradition that is faulty!

To give just one example, in 1 Samuel 1:24, the Masoretic textual tradition (abbreviated MT) tells us that when Hannah went to dedicate her son Samuel to the work of the Lord, she brought with her three bulls, an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine. However, the next verse says that they slaughtered the bull. What happened to the other bulls? Why this reference to only one bull? The answer is simple: There was only one bull involved, as the Hebrew text of 1 Samuel preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) indicates (confirmed also by the Greek Septuagint), telling us in verse 24 that Hannah brought with her one three-year-old bull (cf. Gen. 15:9, where Abram was commanded by the Lord to offer up some three-year-old animals). This fits the context perfectly and makes complete sense: She brought a three-year-old bull and sacrificed it at the Tabernacle. The differences in the Hebrew texts are minimal, and on a doctrinal level, there is nothing significant about those very minor differences. Nonetheless, in this case, the evidence clearly suggests that the MT does not preserve the original wording whereas the DSS and the Septuagint (abbreviated LXX) do.

This phenomenon, of course, is of real importance when discussing the usage of the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament since, (1) the New Testament authors sometimes cite texts reflecting the MT (or another ancient biblical Hebrew tradition, as reflected in the DSS); (2) at other times—quite frequently, in fact—they cite the Septuagint, which would be logical when writing for an audience that read and understood Greek and for whom the Septuagint was their Bible; (3) still other times, they make their own translation or paraphrase from the Hebrew original (remember: the authors of the New Testament wrote in Greek—with only rare, possible exceptions—so they would have to translate the Hebrew text or else use a Greek translation);²⁵ and (4) there are times when the authors cite texts reflecting the interpretation preserved in the Aramaic Targums. So, while it would be easy to jump to conclusions and accuse the New Testament writers of misusing the Tanakh, a closer look proves the opposite: They drew on their biblical heritage in many varied and rich ways without changing the essential meaning of the original text.

Interestingly, Abraham Ibn Ezra, one of the greatest of the medieval Rabbinic exegetes, made this important observation about the prophets of Israel: “The prophets do not preserve the exact wording when they repeat something. They only preserve its substance. For that is what is important.… There are many other such instances… [and] many other additions and omissions in the [second version of the] decalogue. The intelligent person will understand why this is so.”²⁶ The same can be said of the New Testament authors: They too preserve the substance of the original, often with unique and penetrating insights, without always preserving the exact wording.²⁷ As to the accuracy of the citations of the New Testament authors, Evans correctly observes:

The multiformity of the biblical text must be taken into account when studying ot quotations and allusions in the nt and in other writings of late antiquity. What at first may appear to be an inaccurate quotation, or a quotation of the lxx, itself thought to be an inaccurate translation of the underlying Hebrew, may in fact be a quotation of a different textual tradition.²⁸

Here are a few examples:

• In Isaiah 6:10, the prophet is commissioned to a ministry of hardening his people, lest upon seeing, hearing, and understanding “it [i.e., the nation] repents and is made well” (my translation). This verse is quoted in Mark 4:12, where the Gospel author follows the rendering found later in the Aramaic Targum, “and they repent and be forgiven,” the highlighted words representing interpretive variations from the Hebrew (cf. also the Syriac Peshitta, and note that the LXX’s literal kai iasomai autous was not followed by Mark).²⁹ This, then, is an example of a New Testament author following a tradition similar to that found in the Aramaic Targum—which was the translation that was later read in the synagogues—and in doing so, he interprets the text with fairness, not altering its fundamental meaning.³⁰
• Matthew 8:16 describes the miracles of healing that took place at the Messiah’s hands, stating in 8:17 that this fulfills what was written in Isaiah 53:4, which Matthew translates, “He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases.” Here he does not cite the Septuagint, which spiritualized the verse in Isaiah (“He himself bore our sins and was pained because of them”) nor does his translation agree with the paraphrase found in the Targum, which also spiritualized the Hebrew (“Then for our sins he will pray and our iniquities will be forgiven because of him”). Rather, he translated the Hebrew literally, emphasizing the reality of its fulfillment in Yeshua.³¹
• The LXX is cited with great frequency by the authors of the New Testament since Greek was the most widely spoken language of the day, common to both Jews and Gentiles, and the LXX would be the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures to which most of the readers would have access. (Remember, however, that the LXX was a Jewish translation of the Tanakh by Greek-speaking Jews and was only subsequently adopted by Christians. It was not a later Gentile translation!)³² In many cases, the differences between the LXX and the MT are minute; in many other cases, the wording changes but the overall meaning is not altered.³³ A good example is found in Mark 1:3, with reference to John the Immerser, quoting Isaiah 40:3. He is described as: “a voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’ ” (See also Luke 3:4.) The problem here is that the MT of Isaiah 40:3 reads, “A voice of one calling: ‘In the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.’ ” So, the New Testament text speaks of “one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,’ ” while the MT speaks of, “A voice of one calling: ‘In the desert prepare the way for the Lord.’ ” Why the discrepancy? Very simply, Mark and Luke are quoting the LXX, which reads just as it is cited here in the Gospels. And in reality, there is no conflict in meaning, since both refer to preparing a way for the Lord in the desert, the LXX also placing the speaker there. No one reading the LXX would have accused the translators of “manipulating, misquoting, or mistranslating” the Hebrew, to use the words of the anti-missionaries. And it is not without significance that the DSS used the Hebrew of Isaiah 40:3 in almost the identical way, explaining why the Qumran community felt called “to go into the desert to prepare there the way of Him, as it was written, ‘in the desert make ready the way of… Make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God’ ” (1QS 8:13–14).³⁴
• Hebrews 1:6 reads, “And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship him.’ ” The citation is from Deuteronomy 32:43, but when you check the MT, you find that these words do not exist. Does that mean that the author of Hebrews made this up? Certainly not! What would be the purpose of citing a nonexistent verse? Why draw attention to something that is not there? Of course, scholars have known for many centuries that Hebrews 1:6 was simply quoting the LXX. What they only learned last century was that this reading was also attested in the DSS in Hebrew, and so the author of Hebrews was citing a verse that was attested in both a Hebrew biblical manuscript and a Jewish, Greek translation well before the first century of this era.
• There are also examples of homiletical interpretations (or free-form uses of the biblical text), similar to the midrashic usage found in later Rabbinic literature. A good example of this is found in Romans 10:6–8, based on Deuteronomy 30:12–14, with a possible reference to Psalm 107:26. The text in Romans reads: “But the righteousness that is by faith says: ‘Do not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?” ’ (that is, to bring [Messiah] down) ‘or “Who will descend into the deep?” ’ (that is, to bring [Messiah] up from the dead). But what does it say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming.” So Paul, noticing the emphasis on the nearness of God’s Word, specifically with reference to mouth and heart, applies the verse to “the word of faith,” with specific reference to confessing Yeshua as Messiah with the mouth and believing in him with the heart (see Rom. 10:9–10). In similar fashion, the Talmudic rabbis interpreted Deuteronomy 30:12–14 in terms of their own system of belief, first stating the Torah was no longer in heaven, as if that meant that God would no longer give legal revelation from heaven, and interpreting the references to having the Word in one’s heart and mouth as if it were referring explicitly to the oral Torah (for more on this, see vol. 5, 6.1, 6.9). Both Paul and the Talmudic rabbis, then, homiletically interpreted well-known verses in the Torah, and both methods are valid within their own systems of belief, without serving as exegetical or doctrinal “proofs.” Thus, Joseph Klausner, one of the original professors of the Hebrew University, wrote, “It would be difficult to find more typically Talmudic expositions of Scripture than those in the Epistles of Paul,”³⁵ citing this text in Romans 10 as a prime example.
• As observed in Hard Sayings of the Bible: “Sometimes New Testament writers chose a particular version because it made the point they wanted to make, much as preachers today sometimes choose to quote from translations which put a passage in such a way that it supports the point they want to make. For example, when we read Ephesians 4:8 we discover that it reads differently than Psalm 68:18 in English. This is not because Paul used the Septuagint, for in this case that translation agrees with our English Bibles. Instead, Paul appears to have used one of the Aramaic translations (called a Targum). In many Jewish synagogues the Scriptures were first read in Hebrew and then translated into Aramaic, for that is the language the people actually spoke. Paul would have been familiar with both versions, and in this case he chose to translate not the Hebrew but the Aramaic into Greek. The Hebrew text would not have made his point.”³⁶
• On certain occasions, the New Testament speaker or author will insert some additional words to explain or apply the text he is quoting. So, in Acts 2:17, Peter cites Joel 2:28[3:1], which in the MT reads, “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people …” Yet Peter quotes it as saying, “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people …” This was obviously quite intentional, indicating to the hearers that, not only was Joel’s prophecy being fulfilled, but that the season in which it was being fulfilled was the season of the “last days,” meaning, the inbreaking of the Messianic age, a concept that certainly would have been in keeping with the message of Joel.

Such examples could easily be multiplied, but those already cited provide a representative sampling, indicating again that the use of the Hebrew Scriptures in the New Covenant Writings is both fair to the original text and in keeping with Jewish interpretive methods of the day. The summary given in Hard Sayings of the Bible bears repeating:

What [the authors of the New Testament] are doing is teaching New Testament truth and showing that the Old Testament supports the point that they are making. In general this is true, even though they did not have the relatively accurate and carefully researched texts of the Old Testament that we have today. When they appear to be “wrong” (allowing that they interpreted the Old Testament differently then than we do now), we must remember (1) that it could be that they may indeed have a better reading for the text in question than we have in our Bibles and (2) that the Spirit of God who inspired the Old Testament text has every right to expand on its meaning.³⁷

The comments of professor John Wenham are also relevant:

We have… no right to demand of believers in verbal inspiration that they always quote Scripture verbatim, particularly when the Scriptures are not written in the native language of either writer or reader. As with the word preached, we have a right to expect that quotations should be sufficiently accurate not to misrepresent the passage quoted; but, unless the speaker makes it clear that his quotation is meant to be verbatim, we have no right to demand that it should be so. In the nature of the case, the modern scholarly practice of meticulously accurate citation, with the verification of all references, was out of the question.³⁸

Before looking at some of the New Testament citations that are most frequently attacked as erroneous (this will be done in 5.2–5.5; for the famous virgin birth prophecy, see vol. 3, 4.3), we will look at more examples of verses from the Tanakh that are allegedly misquoted in the New Testament, using these as test cases to see whether there is truth to the claims of the anti-missionaries that the New Testament misquotes and/or misuses the Hebrew Scriptures. My intent in doing so is not to prove that it is possible to come up with all kinds of ingenious ways to cover up errors and inaccuracies in the Messianic Scriptures (commonly called the New Testament). To the contrary, my intent here is to evaluate the data with honesty and integrity, allowing you to draw your own conclusions. And I will do this in an evenhanded manner, seeing if there is a plausible answer to the apparent problem, rather than attacking the objection in a hostile manner, since that often produces very superficial discussion. (For more on this, see the appendix in vol. 5, “Unequal Weights and Measures.”)

We will now look at three passages from the Tanakh that are cited (or appear to be cited) with some key changes (or misunderstandings) in the New Testament: first, Isaiah 59:20, cited in Romans 11:26–27, then Zechariah 9:9, cited in Matthew 21:5, and, finally, the famous words of the Shema, the prayer of confession found in Deuteronomy 6:4–5, with 6:5 apparently cited in Matthew 22:37.

In Romans 11:26–27, Paul pens these famous words, “And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.’ ” In these verses, Paul quotes from the Book of Isaiah, primarily from Isaiah 59:20, but with allusion also to 59:21 and 27:9. The problem is in the phrase “The deliverer will come from Zion,” whereas the Hebrew reads, “The redeemer will come to [or for] Zion.”³⁹ Did Paul misquote or misunderstand the Hebrew text?

One logical answer would be that he was simply quoting from the LXX, but in this case, that answer will not do, since the LXX reads, “The redeemer will come for Zion,” which is an equally legitimate reading of the Hebrew letsiyon. But that is not what Paul wrote. Was he wrong, then? Actually, it is very superficial to suggest that he wrongly quoted the text, since the reading of either the MT or the LXX would support his argument well in that he is quoting a promise in the Tanakh that speaks of Israel’s final redemption at the time of the Messiah’s return. So, either the MT’s “The redeemer will come to Zion,” or the LXX’s “for Zion” would work well. Why then didn’t Paul use either of these texts?

1. B. Wallis suggested many years ago that Paul’s understanding of the Hebrew letsiyon (which consists of the preposition lamed, meaning, “to, for,” and the proper noun tsiyon) reflected a largely unrecognized nuance of lamed, meaning “from,” with apparent support from Ugaritic (an important Semitic language) and biblical Hebrew as well.⁴⁰ Further research into this grammatical argument, however, has indicated that such a meaning is highly improbable and, accordingly, this proposal should be dropped.

A better explanation is that Paul, in keeping with his Pharisaical heritage (see the quote from Klausner, cited above, and see further, below, 5.26), conflated two passages, namely, Isaiah 59:20 and Psalm 14:7a (= 53:7a), which reads, “Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of [or from] Zion! When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people, let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!” (Cf. also Psalm 20:2: “May he send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion.”) Both Isaiah 59:20 and Psalm 14:7 are passages speaking of national redemption/salvation for Israel, both speak of Zion and Jacob, and both contain the root shuv, meaning turn back, repent, restore. So Paul, in a very sophisticated use of Scripture, blends the themes of the passages together, citing parts of both accurately, indicating that Israel’s salvation would ultimately come from Zion, which could either mean from the heavenly Zion to the earthly Zion, or from the Messiah who will rule and reign from Zion after his return to Zion.

An interesting parallel to this can be found in the Siddur, the Jewish prayerbook, where a similar conflation of verses is found, beginning with Psalm 20:2, “May [the Lord] send you support from Zion” and continuing with Isaiah 59:20–21, the promise that the redeemer will come to Zion (see ArtScroll Siddur, 153–55).⁴¹

Matthew’s use of part of Zechariah 9:9 has also received much attention, often in a derogatory way, with the claim sometimes made that he did not understand Hebrew poetic parallelism. The verse in Zechariah reads:

Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!

          Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!

See, your king comes to you,

          righteous and having salvation,

          gentle and riding on a donkey,

          on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Matthew actually merges part of Isaiah 62:11 with his citation of Zechariah 9:9 (specifically, the words, “Say to the Daughter of Zion,” which is followed by, “See, your Savior comes!” which is very close to Zechariah 9:9). And so Matthew quotes “the prophet” to say:

Say to the Daughter of Zion,

          “See, your king comes to you,

gentle and riding on a donkey,

          on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Matthew 21:5

None of this presents any problem at all and actually speaks of Matthew’s fluency in the Scriptures as opposed to his ignorance of the Scriptures. The alleged problem is found in the preceding verses which, according to Matthew 21:4, fulfill Zechariah’s prophecy. The narrative states:

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”… The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them.

Matthew 21:1–3, 6–7

What was Zechariah actually predicting? Was he speaking of two animals, a donkey and her colt, or was he using Hebrew parallelism, referring to a donkey, namely, a colt, the foal of a donkey?⁴² Without question, it is the latter, as New Testament scholar D. A. Carson rightly notes: “The Hebrew, of course, refers to only one beast: the last line is in parallelism with the next-to-the-last line and merely identifies the ‘donkey’ (line 3) as a colt (a young, male donkey).”⁴³ Certainly, even to someone ignorant of Hebrew, it is clear that Zechariah was not prophesying that Israel’s king would come riding both a donkey and her colt at the same time. Moreover, “it is quite unreasonable to suggest that Matthew, who demonstrably had a good command of Hebrew (cf. Gundry, Use of Old Testament, 198), added the extra animal to fit a text he radically misunderstood.”⁴⁴

“But,” you say, “Matthew clearly misread Zechariah, which is why he drew attention to the two animals—in contrast with Mark and Luke, who only spoke of one donkey, namely a young animal that had never been ridden—and, quite preposterously, Matthew specifically claims that Jesus rode on both the donkey and her colt.”

Let’s deal with the second part of your objection first. We cite Carson once more, commenting on the words, “Jesus sat ‘on them.’ ” He explains, “Not a few critics take the antecedent of ‘them’ to be the animals and ridicule the statement. But as Plummer remarks, ‘The Evangelist credits his readers with common sense.’ ”⁴⁵ Common sense indeed! Matthew 21:7 states, “They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them”—meaning, he sat on the cloaks, which were placed on the colt, not that he somehow managed to ride the donkey and colt at the same time, like some rodeo showman.

As for Matthew’s understanding of the parallelism of Zechariah 9:9, a few comments are sufficient: (1) It is clear from other biblical citations in Matthew’s work that he understood Hebrew well; see, for example, his citation of Isaiah 53:4a in Matthew 8:17, referenced above. This makes it highly unlikely that he would grossly misunderstand Zechariah’s words. Moreover, his whole point, in harmony with the other Gospel accounts, is that Jesus rode a colt, in accordance with Zechariah 9:9. (2) Matthew is the one Gospel author of whom the tradition exists that he wrote his book in Hebrew, implying that it was then translated into Greek (see vol. 5, 6.15, for further discussion; some scholars accept that there was a Hebrew Matthew but argue that the Greek shows no signs of being a translation and, hence, is an independent work).⁴⁶ This tradition would also underscore the unlikelihood that Matthew, who may have written his account in Hebrew, misunderstood Zechariah. (3) It is possible that Matthew, in keeping with a style attested in later Rabbinic Midrash, found a hyperliteral meaning of Zechariah 9:9, just as some Rabbinic interpretation of the verse also found a reference to two animals.⁴⁷ This would mean that Matthew, just like the rabbis, chose to read the text in a hyperliteral manner, either for homiletical purposes or here, as a hyperliteral fulfillment of the prophetic text. That is to say, even if Matthew understood Zechariah 9:9 to refer to two animals, he probably did so intentionally (rather than through misunderstanding), and in doing so, he was in good company with the later Rabbinic interpreters. So much for Matthew’s ignorance!⁴⁸

What about Matthew 22:37? There Matthew has Yeshua say that the first and greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” whereas the Shema, the fundamental prayer of confession in Judaism, says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” How could any literate Jew, even a barely literate Jew, get this wrong? It was one thing for Mark to add the word “mind” to the phrase, as cited in Mark 12:30, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” An expansion like that, especially for the purposes of clarification—specifically, that God required our total devotion, mind and heart (both contained in the Hebrew levav, used in Deut. 6:5), soul and strength—is not problematic. What appears to be problematic is that Matthew, reducing the number of nouns to three, seems to have left out the wrong one (i.e., he should have left out mind, not strength). Again, it is argued, that even a Jewish child living in Matthew’s day would have caught this.⁴⁹

The very force of this objection, however, is its greatest weakness. How could Matthew, a man literate in the Scriptures with a clear knowledge of Hebrew, have made this mistake, especially in light of the fact that his book was directed to Jews? It is one thing to question his use of the Tanakh (see above, and cf. 5.2-5.4); it is another thing to accuse him of getting something as fundamental as this completely wrong. To make that case, one would have to argue that Matthew was actually a Gentile, a position widely dismissed by scholars for many good reasons.⁵⁰ To the contrary, even here in Matthew 22:37 there is a possible indication that Matthew had the Hebrew text in mind, since he does not follow Mark or the LXX here, both of which use the preposition ek, literally, “out of,” to render the Hebrew preposition be, “in, with.” Instead, he substitutes the Greek preposition en, which corresponds to the Hebrew, pointing again to his familiarity with the text.⁵¹

What then is the solution to this apparent slip on Matthew’s part? First, it is possible that the twice-daily recitation of the Shema, including Deuteronomy 6:5, which is assumed by the time of the final compilation of the Mishnah at the end of the second century c.e., had not yet been rigidly fixed in Yeshua’s day. As Foster notes, after examining the evidence for the recitation of Deuteronomy 6:5 at the beginning of the first century c.e.,

… while Deuteronomy 6:4–5, as part of the biblical text, was known in both the Hasmonean and Herodian periods (and presumably throughout all of the postexilic era), it had not at that time attained the prominence that was to be ascribed to it from the third century onward as part of the twice-daily creedal affirmation of a fundamental tenet of the Jewish faith.⁵²

If this is true, then it would not have been so striking—or sacrilegious!—for Matthew to have varied the words slightly, seeing that they were not yet part of a fixed, daily liturgical formula and, after all, Jesus is simply responding to a question about religious obligation in which Scripture truths form the basis for his answer. More specifically, the Talmud in b. Ber 21b asks whether the recitation of both Deuteronomy 6:4 and 6:5 was mandated by the Torah or if verse 4 was a Torah obligation and verse 5 only a Rabbinic obligation, in which case it would have become fixed later in time. The conclusion there is that the recitation of verse 5 was a Rabbinic obligation, and it is verse 5 that Jesus is quoting here.⁵³

Second, there are translation variants in the LXX to Deuteronomy 6:5, with some rendering the Hebrew levav with the Greek kardia, heart, and others with dianoia, mind, but both of these terms are used in Matthew’s text.⁵⁴ However, since Mark used the Greek word ischus to translate the Hebrew me’od, strength, whereas the LXX used dunamis, it appears that Matthew, writing in Greek (or, translating and paraphrasing from a Hebrew original into Greek), was removing the one word from Mark’s account that did not occur in the LXX while returning to the threefold emphasis found in the Hebrew. (Remember that Mark used four nouns while the MT and LXX each used three; Matthew, then, is returning to the proper threefold emphasis.) Interestingly, after analyzing all this in detail, Foster concluded:

This decision could not have been undertaken by a person who did not possess linguistic competence in both Hebrew and Greek, as well as a knowledge of the Hebrew biblical text. It is far more plausible to think of a native Jew having gained competence in Greek in addition to his native language, than to suggest the opposite possibility.…

Matthew 22:37 does not reflect an ignorant Gentile author who erred in his presentation of a fixed liturgical text. Rather, it reveals the opposite, an ethnically Jewish evangelist who dealt sensitively and conservatively in transmitting a text that had become part of the dominical tradition of his community, but in the sources which Matthew received deviated from both the structure and contents of the biblical tradition. The redactional reworking of the sources shows a sophisticated editor who attempted to produce greater conformity with existing biblical tradition but also did not wish to deviate from this well-known Jesus saying in too radical a fashion. Surely this is the work of a highly trained Jewish scribe.⁵⁵

It is true that some medieval Hebrew manuscripts of Matthew 22:27 read “with all your heart,” etc., while others read “with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength,” which might even point to an original reading, thus “correcting” our extant Greek manuscripts of Matthew 22:37. That, however, is quite speculative, and Foster’s observations sufficiently answer the charge that Matthew was ignorant of Hebrew and/or Jewish custom of the day. (For further thoughts on Matthew’s knowledge of Scripture, see below, 5.4.)

Let us now, in the next four objections, move on to some of the more prominent claims of “Scripture-twisting” in the New Covenant Scriptures.

¹ Roger Nicole, “New Testament Use of the Old Testament,” in Revelation and the Bible, ed. C. F. H. Henry (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1958), 138.

² In contrast with this, the Mishnah, the first foundational document of Rabbinic Judaism, rarely quotes its scriptural sources—indeed, in many cases, there are no scriptural sources for the Mishnaic discussions—and one of the purposes of the discussions in the Talmud was to connect the rulings of the Mishnah with the text of the Tanakh. According to Jacob Neusner, “By the end of the composition of those components of the oral Torah that would be complete in ancient times—from the Mishnah through the Bavli—the consenus had been reached that statements in the oral Torah could be shown to derive from, to rest upon the authority of, the written Torah. Hence, a systematic effort to locate warrant or proof in the written Torah for propositions first surfacing in the oral Torah would follow.” See the anthology edited and translated by Jacob Neusner, The Scriptures of the Oral Torah: Sanctification and Salvation in the Sacred Books of Judaism (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), 230. See also Samuel Rosenblatt, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Mishnah (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1935), and note that the entire book, which consists mainly of endnotes, totals just 93 pages.

³ Craig A. Evans, “From Prophecy to Testament: An Introduction,” in idem and J. A. Sanders, eds., From Prophecy to Testament: The Function of the Old Testament in the New (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 1–2, with bibliography on 1.

⁴ Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament (Missoula, MT: Scholar Press, 1974), 17–18.

⁵ Ibid. , 21–22.

⁶ Ibid., 22.

⁷ Ibid., 31.

⁸ Ibid., 33.

⁹ Ibid., 46.

¹⁰ Ibid., 52.

¹¹ The verbal root t-h-r occurs 43x in Leviticus, and in each case, the clear, unambiguous meaning of the root is “to be clean, pure”; elsewhere in the Torah, it occurs 1x in Genesis and 10x in Numbers, and in each case, the meaning remains the same. This is not a matter of dispute! The only different usage of t-h-r is found in Job 37:21, where it means “to clear” the sky (apparently, of clouds; cf. NJPSV). This, however, is not cited in the Talmudic discussion and, in fact, neither provides an exact parallel to the Talmudic interpretation of Leviticus 22:7 nor negates the fact that the plain, contextual meaning of the verb in Leviticus 22:7 has been abandoned in favor of a farfetched interpretation.

¹² Soncino Talmud, with footnote 23. Footnote 24 simply references “I Chron. 27:34.” The rendering of 2 Sam. 20:23 is, “And Joab was in command of all the army of Israel; and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the Kerethites and over the Pelethites.” Cf. e.g., 2 Sam. 8:18; 23:20, 22; 1 Kings 1:8; 2:25; 1 Chron. 11:22.

¹³ When I say that the Talmud got this confused, I mean that either the Talmudic rabbi who quoted the verse got it wrong, or later editors or copyists transmitted it incorrectly to the point that it became the “standard” text, not to be changed by subsequent editors. Amazingly, some later Talmudic commentators sought to defend the Talmudic text here. See further, below, 5.16.

¹⁴ Sometimes, the Talmudic rabbis do make explicit reference to the “literal” meaning of the text (often referred to as kemashma‘o, according to its sense, or legupheyh, according to its own meaning) in contrast with a more homiletical meaning. In keeping with this, the Talmud states that “the scriptural verse does not depart from its plain meaning” (b. Shab 63a; b. Yev 11b; 24a), although the Talmud also states that “whoever translates a verse according to its literal sense [lit., form] is a liar” (b. Kid 49a, which footnote 17 in the Soncino Talmud explains to mean, “This refers to the public translations in the synagogue alongside the Reading of the Law, which was also a feature of ancient times.”). For a very useful orientation into the wider subject of Talmudic dialectology, cf. Louis Jacobs, The Talmudic Argument: A Study in Talmudic Reasoning and Methodology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

¹⁵ Generally speaking, traditional Jews do not recognize the Qumran Jews as holding to a legitimate form of Judaism and, therefore, they do not recognize the Qumran literature as preserving a “Jewish” method of biblical interpretation. In reality, however, biblical interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls was every bit as “Jewish” as the later methods of biblical interpretation of the Rabbinic literature, as most scholars, both Jewish and Christian, would recognize. For a summary of Qumran hermeneutics, see Fitzmyer, Essays on the Semitic Background, cited in note 4; for a focused, recent study, see Julie A. Hughes, Scriptural Allusions and Exegesis in the Hodayot (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 59; Leiden: Brill, 2006); for a useful, wide-ranging survey, cf. Richard N. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).

¹⁶ Robert H. Gundry, The Use of the Old Testament in St. Matthew’s Gospel, with Special Reference to the Messianic Hope (Supplements to Novum Testamentum 18; Leiden: Brill, 1967), xiii.

¹⁷ David Klinghoffer, Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History (New York: Doubleday, 2005), 66.

¹⁸ Most recently, cf. John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 29–37.

¹⁹ W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew: Matthew 1–7, vol. 1, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988), 279, with reference to R. T. France (henceforth cited as Matthew 1–7).

²⁰ If you come to the text with a presupposition that Matthew was ignorant of the Scriptures, you will find your view confirmed by a citation like this. On the flip side, if you come to the text with a presupposition that Matthew had a tremendous handle on the Scriptures, you will find that view confirmed by a citation like this. In the same way, if you come to the Talmud with the presupposition that the rabbis played footloose and fancy-free with the Scriptures, or with the presupposition that they were masters of the Scriptures, you will find either of those views confirmed by what you read. So, my goal here is not to persuade you that “Matthew got it right.” My goal is to seek to understand what text or texts he had in mind and why he chose to use them, since I am convinced that there is ample evidence to support the belief that he had a firm grasp on the Scriptures.

²¹ A number of objections listed in this volume deal with some specific New Testament verses in question; for further treatment of the Rabbinic use of the Hebrew Bible, see vol. 5, 6.1–4.

²² Rabbi Tovia Singer, “A Lutheran Doesn’t Understand Why Rabbi Singer Doesn’t Believe in Jesus: A Closer Look at the ‘Crucifixion Psalm’,” Outreach Judaism, http://www.outreachjudaism.org/like-a-lion.html.

²³ For a vigorous critique of the concept of the Masoretic text as opposed to the Masoretic textual tradition, see Harry M. Orlinsky, Prolegomenon to Christian D. Ginsburg, Introduction to the Masoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible (New York: Ktav, 1966), I–XLV; see further Barry Levy, Fixing God’s Torah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

²⁴ For a convenient summary with bibliography, see Evans, “From Prophecy to Testament,” 4–8. For the different Hebrew text forms found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, cf. E. Tov, “Scriptures: Texts,” in L. H. Schiffman and J. C. VanderKam, eds., Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 2:832–36; E. Ulrich, “Pluriformity in the Biblical Text, Text Groups, and Questions of Canon,” in J. Trebolle and L. Vegas Montaner, eds., The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid, 18–21 March 1991 (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 11; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991), 23–41.

²⁵ According to some early Christian traditions, primarily based on the testimony of Papias, Matthew originally wrote his Gospel (or, a collection of Yeshua’s sayings) in Hebrew (or, Aramaic; or, a heavily Semitized Greek); for recent discussion, cf. Nolland, Gospel of Matthew, 2–4, who, like most Matthew scholars, does not believe there is any direct connection between our current, Greek Matthew, and the alleged Hebrew Matthew; cf. further S. McKnight, “Matthew, Gospel of,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. Joel G. Green; Scot McKnight; I. Howard Marshall (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1992), specifically, “The Origin of Matthew,” 526–27. He states, “In conclusion, the most recent scholarship on the Papias logion suggests that the traditional rendering is insufficient and should be understood now in the following manner: In contrast to Mark’s unordered, chreia-style Gospel, Papias contends, Matthew composed a more Jewish, orderly styled Gospel. The original language, then, is of no concern to Papias.… In all likelihood our Gospel of Matthew was composed originally in Greek and in a Jewish style.” Some, however, have argued that a medieval copy of Matthew in Hebrew preserves some of Matthew’s alleged original Hebrew text. See George Howard, The Gospel of Matthew according to a Primitive Hebrew Text (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1987); see further, vol. 5, 6.15. For refutation of the claim that the whole New Testament—or, at least, the text of the four Gospels—was originally written in Hebrew, see Michael L. Brown, “Recovering the Inspired Text? An Assessment of the Work of the Jerusalem School in the Light of Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus,” Mishkan 17/18 (1993): 38–64.

²⁶ Abraham Ibn Ezra, The Secret of the Torah: A Translation of Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Sefer Yesod Mora Ve-Sod Ha-Torah, trans. Norman Strickman (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1995), 27–28. When he refers to the second version of the Decalogue, he means Deuteronomy 5:1–21, as compared to Exodus 20:1–17, the first version of the Decalogue. Even a casual comparison between the two demonstrates that there are a number of important differences between the texts, yet we are talking about the Ten Commandments here. Still, there are differences between the two versions! See further the relevant discussion in the appendix to vol. 5 .

²⁷ There is even a fascinating Talmudic tradition that when two prophets bring an identical message, it is to be rejected for this very reason. See b. Sanh 89a and note the further discussion in Michael L. Brown, “Jeremiah,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, rev. ed., vol. 7 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, forthcoming) to Jer. 49:16 (henceforth cited as EBC²); my appreciation to Zondervan for allowing me to excerpt some of my forthcoming commentary from the unedited manuscript later in this volume.

²⁸ Evans, “From Prophecy to Testament,” 5.

²⁹ For further discussion, see Michael L. Brown, Israel’s Divine Healer, Studies in Old Testament Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 196.

³⁰ For further discussion and analysis, see Bruce Chilton, “From Aramaic Paraphrase to Greek Testament,” in Evans and Sanders, From Prophecy to Testament, 23–43.

³¹ It has also been observed that Matthew’s citation here points to the vicarious nature of Yeshua’s earthly ministry, as he entered into human suffering and took it on himself—by bearing it and removing it—until he ultimately bore our sins on the cross. As D. A. Carson rightly noted, “Jesus’ healing ministry is itself a function of his substitutionary death, by which he lays the foundation for destroying sickness” “Matthew,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 8:205 (henceforth cited as EBC); for further details, see Brown, Israel’s Divine Healer, 196–98.

³² See Martin Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture: Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its Canon (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002).

³³ For a detailed study of the intentional reinterpretation of the Hebrew text in the LXX, see Ashley Crane, “Ezekiel 36–39: The Restoration of Israel in Early Jewish Interpretation,” (Ph.D. diss., submitted to Murdoch University, Australia).

³⁴ As translated by Fitzmyer, Semitic Background, 34, with further explanation on 35–36.

³⁵ Joseph Klausner, From Jesus to Paul, trans. William F. Stinespring (New York: Macmilian, 1943), 453–454.

³⁶ Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Peter H. Davids, F. F. Bruce, and Manfred T. Brauch, Hard Sayings of the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1997), 77.

³⁷ Ibid, 78.

³⁸ John Wenham, Christ and the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 107.

³⁹ The second part of the citation is also different, with Paul writing in Romans 11:26, “he will turn godlessness away from Jacob,” whereas the Hebrew reads, “to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,” but there is clearly no difference in substance here, and this point is not generally raised as an issue by anti-missionaries.

⁴⁰ See C. H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1965), 92; Wallis proffered this suggestion while a graduate student of Gordon’s.

⁴¹ For a detailed study of Paul’s use of the book of Isaiah in his citations (especially in Romans 9–11), see now J. Ross Wagner, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul “in Concert” in the Letter to the Romans (Novum Testamentum Supplements 101; Leiden: Brill, 2002). Wagner believes that Paul had the Greek translation of Isaiah committed to memory, helping to explain the depth of understanding he brought to his interpretations.

⁴² In the words of professor James Kugel, Hebrew parallelism is best explained as, “ ‘A’ is this, and what’s more, ‘B’.” See his The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and Its History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), in which he argued for the Rabbinic understanding of parallelism in contrast with the widely accepted approach to parallelism popularized by Archbishop Robert Lowth in the nineteenth century.

⁴³ Carson, “Matthew,” EBC, 8:438. Note that only Matthew makes reference to the two animals; the other Gospel accounts speak only of one; see Mark 11:1–3; Luke 19:28–31; John 12:14–15.

⁴⁴ Ibid.

⁴⁵ Ibid.

⁴⁶ Cf. above, n. 25.

⁴⁷ According to W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew: Matthew 19–28, vol. 3, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997), 316, “rabbinic texts contain numerous tendentious renderings of Scripture which ignore the rules of poetry in favor of excessively literal interpretation… [and] some rabbis found two animals in Zech 9:9.”

⁴⁸ For Zechariah 9:9 as a clearly understood Messianic prophecy in Rabbinic literature, cf., e.g., b. Sanh 99a.

⁴⁹ For a critical analysis of the antiquity of the Shema in Jewish prayer, see Paul Foster, “Why Did Matthew Get the Shema Wrong? A Study of Matthew 22:37,” Journal of Biblical Literature 122 (2003): 321–31.

⁵⁰ For discussion and refutation of the rare claim that Matthew was a Gentile, cf. Foster, “Why Did Matthew Get the Shema Wrong?”, 309–13. See further Davies and Allison, Matthew 1–7, 10–11.

⁵¹ See Foster, “Why Did Matthew Get the Shema Wrong?”, 313–16, for discussion and dismissal of other reasons why Matthew might have used the preposition en.

⁵² Ibid., 327. Interestingly, the oldest preserved copy of a Hebrew text including Deuteronomy 6:5, the famous Nash papyrus from the second century b.c.e., does not agree exactly with the MT. Cf. ibid., 327–28.

⁵³ Privately, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi informed me that it would have been acceptable to quote Deuteronomy 6:5 in different languages, even paraphrastically, meaning that Matthew 22:37 would not have been considered an error in popular Jewish usage. Note also that in Deuteronomy there is often a twofold emphasis on heart and soul—without strength—rather than the threefold emphasis found in Deuteronomy 6:5, and the context frequently refers to loving the Lord with one’s heart and soul. This too could be a factor in Matthew’s citation; see Deut. 4:29; 10:12; 11:13, 18; 13:4; 26:16; 30:2, 6, 10.

⁵⁴ Cf. Nolland, Gospel of Matthew, 911, commenting on Matthew 22:37: “The addition of dianoia to the list is likely to be related to its occurrence as a variant to kardia [‘heart’] in the LXX of Dt. 6:5 and other texts.”

⁵⁵ Ibid., 333.

Brown, M. L. (2007). Answering Jewish objections to Jesus, Volume 4: New Testament objections. (3). Grand Rapids, Mich.; Baker Books.

The New Testament misquotes and misinterprets the Old Testament. [Answered]