Ask the Pastor 58

What about the differences in quotations in the Bible?

The New Testament quotes from the Old Testament quite frequently and there are times when it does not look like the quote in the New is the same as what we read in the Old or it is not from the same reference as what we know. Many times, there is a difference between our Old Testament text and the New Testament quote because the New Testament author was quoting from the Greek text, the Septuagint, while our version comes from the Hebrew. Other times, an author will ascribe the quote from the most well-known prophet rather than cite both prophets who wrote the words quoted. In the book of Jude, we have what seems to be quotes from extra biblical books which were determined to be not inspired and, in many cases, actually fraudulent. However, Jude did not cite the references so we do not know where he got the information, it could have been told to him verbally or he knew that those sayings were true even if the rest of the book cited was not. In the final analysis we must remember that all Scripture is inspired of God and is true that we might know God and know that we have everlasting life through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Have questions about the Bible? Send them to Dr. Greg Koehn at gak4850@gmail.com and read the answer here in this article.