Note: These are summarized compilations from the book, “When Critics Ask”, authored by Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe.
Demanding that New Testament Citations of the Old Testament Always Be Exact Quotations.
Critics often point to variations in the New Testament’s (NT) use of the OT (OT) Scriptures as proof of the error. However, they forget that every citation need not be an exact quotation. It was then (and still is today) a perfectly acceptable literary style to give the essence of a statement without using precisely the same words. The same meaning can be conveyed without using the same verbal expressions.
Variations in the NT citations of the OT fall into different categories. Sometimes they vary because there is a change of speaker. For example, Zechariah records the Lord as saying, ‘they will look on Me Whom they have Pierced” (12:10). When this is cited in the NT, John, not God, is speaking. So it is changed, “They shall look on Him whom they pierced” (John 19:37).
At other times, writers cite only part of the OT text. Jesus did this at His home synagogue in Nazareth (Lk. 4:18-19, citing Isa. 61:1-2). In fact. He stopped in the middle of a sentence. Had He gone any farther, He could not have said as He did, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (v. 21). For the very next phrase, “And the day of vengeance of our God,” is a reference to His second coming.
Sometimes the NT paraphrases or summarizes the OT text (e.g., Matt. 2:6). Others blend two texts into one (Matt. 27:9-10). Occasionally a general truth is mentioned, without citing a specific text. For example, Matthew said Jesus moved to Nazareth “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene’” (Matt.2:23). Notice Matthew quotes no given prophet, but rather “prophets” in general, so it would be futile to insist on a specific OT text where this could be found.
There are also instances where the NT applies a text in a different way than the OT did. For example, Hosea applies “Out of Egypt have I called My Son” to the Messianic nation, and Matthew applies it to the product of that nation, the Messiah (Matt. 2:15, from Hos. 11:1). In no case, however, does the NT misinterpret or misapply the OT, nor draw some implication from it that is not validly drawn from it. In short, the NT makes no mistakes in citing the OT, as the critics do in citing the NT.
