Christ's OT quotes and Pshitta primacy

[Paul Younan]

Thanks for the information and examples.

So is it fair to conclude therefore, that in both the Greek and Aramaic NT's, Christ's references to OT passages are not verbatim anyway in either instance?

That is true.

However, that being said, there are documented cases where Greek scribes went back and .....

(a) modified the LXX to conform to NT readings (e.g., Romans 3:13-18). This is particularly noticable in a manuscript of the LXX by the name of Codex Alexandrinus.

(b) standardized the GNT to conform to LXX readings.

With both of these things in mind, as you can see, we have no way of knowing what to make of GNT OT quotes. Meshikha certainly didn't use it.

Think about the absurdity of the idea that Meshikha, while preaching in Aramaic, should quote the LXX.

What? He broke into Greek all of a sudden in the middle of his Aramaic sermon? The LXX is in Greek, isn't it? How could He have quoted a Greek text in an Aramaic sermon?

It's ludicrous, the very idea.

It's much more reasonable to suggest that Luke, or Paul maybe used the LXX.....however, I'm going to put that to rest once and for all as well. These people simply didn't consider a translation as authoritative. They used some paraphrasing, and in other cases they remembered the exact reading from some pre-MSS Hebrew text that happened to agree with the reading in the LXX simply because the LXX was based in part on it.

People at that time simply didn't quote anything....nobody sat writing their Gospel or Epistle with a Hebrew OT (much less Greek OT) in front of them.....and I'm going to prove it from the GNT itself.