New Testament Variant Quotes of the Hebrew Bible
So far throughout previous articles, we’ve seen several examples of the New Testament writers using other sources besides the Hebrew Bible, whether from the Pseudepigrapha, the Deuterocanon/Apocrypha, or early/pre-rabbinic sources. The New Testament writers make dozens of possible allusions to the Apocrypha that I have not covered.[1] But we will leave those be for now, as I’d like to focus on how the New Testament writers may have viewed things differently simply because their own Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible was different, or because they themselves produced their own unique quotes.
The Virgin Birth
One of the most glaring “errors” that modern scholarship often assumes for one New Testament author was already mentioned in chapter 6: the use of Isaiah 7:14. The first chapter of Matthew is the only place in the New Testament where the prophecy of Jesus being born of a virgin is mentioned.[2] Scholars are quick to point out that the word “virgin” is only found in the Greek of the Septuagint: the Hebrew only says a “young woman”[3] will bear a child. Interestingly, they usually do not mention that “virgin” is also one of the meanings of the Hebrew word, not just “young woman.” However, as I noted above, Isaiah’s narrative sees this prophecy as completed in the very next chapter. Matthew’s use of Isaiah 7:14 likely sees Jesus’ birth as another fulfillment. God promised King Ahaz that the kings he feared would not be a problem before a child was born and old enough to know good from evil, with the sign of God being “with them” in the meaning of the child’s name, “Immanuel.” Matthew is making a theological application to Jesus, not necessarily a mistake from an “error” in the Septuagint.
Other Differences from the LXX
But there are several other uses of the Septuagint in the New Testament where it definitely diverges from the Hebrew; and sometimes the writers themselves diverge on their own. Occasionally, I’ve seen Christians actually look up the cross-references of New Testament quotations of the Hebrew Bible; they’re then confused because the quotes can often be quite different. The New Testament writers mainly used the Septuagint as their Bible, as did most Christians for hundreds of years. Only after Jerome’s Latin Vulgate finally became popular did the West switch to a translation based on Hebrew, which was fairly unpopular when Jerome first made it: an attempt to use the “Jewish” version of the Scriptures was even seen as the anathema of “judaizing.” But the East would continue to use the Septuagint, even until the present. Using the Septuagint was not just a tradition of most Christians for hundreds of years, but of the New Testament writers themselves. Considering this, it is not hard to understand how some of the patristic writers even had a theory that the Holy Spirit had been instrumental in adding the Septuagint’s “interpretations” and even interpolations to the Hebrew Bible. Whether the Septuagint had apostolic approval is typically a point not considered by Western theologians, whose church history texts largely forget the traditions of the East that gave us the Bible. I bring it up here so that hopefully they will. I’m seeing many Protestant preachers today finally recognizing the value of the Septuagint for understanding the New Testament. I recommend that the reader who wishes to understand the biblical authors, and who wishes to read the differences presented below, get a copy of the Septuagint. You can find pdfs online for free, but I recommend an ebook format with content links for easy navigation, which can be had for the price of a cheap cup of coffee. A physical copy is also easy to navigate and cheap, if you prefer that format. I personally prefer digital texts that can be quickly searched for key words and read anywhere.
Before we get to specific examples, I’d like to mention one more caveat. We’ve seen how the Septuagint can sometimes contain evidence for earlier forms of the Hebrew, lacking certain changes that were later made to the Hebrew Scriptures. Newer Bible versions will often rely on the Septuagint as “more original” where the Hebrew is uncertain. However, the Septuagint translators were often the ones to make changes and mistakes, as well. Based on the scholarship I’ve read, at least most of the following differences were likely original to the Septuagint, and are not evidence of an earlier Hebrew form that has since been lost. Also, these are only a sampling.
Hebrews 11:21 follows the Greek mistranslation of mth from Genesis 48 as “staff” instead of “bed”. Revelation speaks multiple times of the Messiah’s rule with a rod of iron,[4] which comes from the Septuagint’s version of Psalm 2:8-9; the Hebrew text, on the other hand, says that he will break the nations with that rod. Mark 7:6-7 quotes from Isaiah 29:13, which in the Septuagint condemns their “teaching human precepts as doctrines”; Mark is applying the passage to Jesus’ condemnation of the teachings of the elders, which contradict the Law. But in the Hebrew text, the emphasis seems to be just on the state of the heart, not whose rules they were following. Luke 4:17-18 quotes from the Septuagint’s version of Isaiah 61:1, applying it to Jesus’ giving of sight to the blind; however, this detail is totally missing from the Hebrew.
But perhaps some of the most theologically significant quotes of the Septuagint’s variants occur in Romans, which is largely patterned on the teachings of Isaiah.[5] Paul is probably the most influential writer for affecting what Christianity would become, and Romans is one of his most seminal works. Romans 2:24 quotes the Greek version of Isaiah 52:5, saying that “The name of God is blasphemed among the gentiles because of you;” but the Hebrew says that God’s people are taken away without cause, their rulers wail, and continually his name is despised/blasphemed. It does not explicitly complain that it is the nations blaspheming God’s name.
Paul expansively applies God’s plan to save the Gentiles, especially in Romans chapters 9 to 11. In Romans 9:25 and 26, he references Hosea 1:10 and 2:23, which is about Israel, yet Paul uses a wording to make it sound like those passages had Gentiles in mind. Compare Paul’s “those who were not my people” to God saying to his own people “you are not my people.” However, I would argue that Paul is intentionally making a theological interpretation. He will classify even the Gentiles as spiritual Israel, and the disobedient/unbelieving Israelites, like Hosea said, as not true Israel.[6] However, by the standard of logic I’ve seen many fundamentalists use, they would probably conclude that Paul misquoted Hosea, were it not Paul who said it. Perhaps one of the most quoted verses today among Christians, few have probably noticed what Paul changes when he quotes Isaiah 52:7 in Romans 10:15, “how beautiful are the feet of those proclaiming good news.” He removes the phrase “on the mountains”, and changes the singular word “messenger” to plural; and Paul adds “good news”, the expression for the gospel.
Similarly, Paul in Romans 10:20-21 makes Isaiah 65:1-2 about the Gentiles, where the context clearly refers to Israel. To do so, he speaks of those who have found God, wording which is only found in the Septuagint. The Hebrew only speaks of a people whom God is ready to be found by.
In Romans 15:11, Paul has a line from the Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32:43) looking for the inclusion of the Gentiles, a detail only found in the Septuagint, not the Hebrew, although there was a possible allusion to another nation in Deuteronomy 32:21 early in the song, which Paul also used in Romans 10:19.
Although the Hebrew of Isaiah 11:10 does speak of the seed of Jesse (David’s offspring) being a “signal” to the nations, who will inquire of him, only the Septuagint explicitly says that he will rule the nations. Once again, Paul goes with the Septuagint in Romans 15:12.
Some scholars argue that the theology of the New Testament writers might have been very different if they primarily relied on the Hebrew and not the Greek.[7] Maybe so. But in regard to Paul’s preoccupation with including the Gentiles, there were plenty of excellent passages in the ancient Scriptures to indicate the inclusion of the Gentiles, even in the Hebrew. Maybe Paul was being creative within the bounds of acceptable ancient literary practice; from a fundamentalist perspective, maybe he would have been misquoting if he didn’t have the Holy Spirit to guide him. I leave the reader to ponder such questions.
To read the next section on varying New Testament views on Jesus’ second coming, check out my book here.
[1] For more, see When God Spoke Greek, by Timothy Law, ch. 8.
[2] Luke does not cite Isaiah, though he may have held it to be understood.
[3] Strong’s 5959, almah.
[4] 2:26-27, 12:5, and 19:15
[5] See Heralds of Good News: Isaiah and Paul in Concert in the Letter to the Romans, by J. Ross Wagner.
[6] C.f. Romans 9:6-8; 10:12; Galatians 3:7, 29.
[7] When God Spoke Greek, by Timothy Law, ch. 9.