Have you ever read a passage in the New Testament, perhaps in the writings of Paul or Matthew, where the author quotes a passage from the Old Testament, but when you compared the New Testament quotation with the original source you found slight variations in the wording? For example, the Luke 4 quotation from Isaiah 61: (red added to show differences)
Lk 4: 18-19 (NIV)
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Isa 61:1-2a (NIV)
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Should the New Testament authors have not been more careful when quoting the Old Testament? Because the Bible is God’s word, shouldn’t we be extra vigilant to get our wording right? What’s the deal?
The good news is there is a logical explanation for these “loose” standards of quotation, and ultimately the word variations between Old Testament sources and New Testament quotations, while it may give nuance to the passages, do not change the meanings especially when the passages are viewed as a whole and not by word count.
The reason why the New Testament authors were not as “precise” in their citing of the Old Testament reflects a difference between their first century Near Eastern culture and our own twenty-first century Western culture. It was sometime around the third century when the quotation mark was invented and the idea of exact, word for word quotation, began. By the societal standards of the day, the New Testament authors were being accurate in their quotation of Old Testament texts. The challenge for us now is understanding their standards of accuracy and our modern standards of accuracy are different. Today with modern technology I can copy and paste a paragraph, quote, or even an entire manuscript with complete confidence I am not forgetting a word or letter. Computers are really good at assisting with these kinds of tasks. Such luxury was not available to Paul. Neither was a personal copy of scripture; before the advent of the printing press copies of the Bible were too laborious and expensive for an individual to own.
It is fine for us to adhere to the standards of precision afforded to us by modern technology, but we should not be upset when we cannot impose our cultural value upon biblical texts written in the context of a different culture.
