When the New Testament writers introduce scripture, the text that follows is usually the Greek translation. This page scores 140 formal Old Testament quotations, across Paul, Hebrews, Luke and Acts, Peter, and James, against the Hebrew and the Greek. It identifies the arguments that need the Greek reading to work, and it keeps the quotations that follow other texts in full view.
The New Testament was written in Greek, for congregations that heard scripture in Greek. So mere overlap with the Septuagint proves little. The useful test is the same one used for the sayings of Jesus: which text-form do the quotations follow where Hebrew and Greek part ways, and do any arguments depend on the Greek reading?
140 formal quotations, grouped by author. The Greek Old Testament used for scoring is Swete's edition, which prints the text of Codex Vaticanus, the oldest complete Greek Bible; places where editions of the Septuagint differ are flagged, not smoothed over. Quotations following other text-forms are counted, not excluded.
That the New Testament writers used Greek scripture as a working Bible, and that a subset of their arguments depends on its distinctive readings. It does not claim every quotation follows the Greek. Eight demonstrably do not, and they are listed below.
If the Greek Old Testament was their working Bible, the decisive places are the forks: passages where the Hebrew and the Greek genuinely part ways, so a quotation has to follow one or the other. Here is the count.
The pattern holds across authors: Paul, Hebrews, Luke and Acts, Peter, and James each contain Greek-following rows, and the corpus as a whole still contains Hebrew-following and free rows. No author quotes one way uniformly.
Grading discipline, shown by example: two famous readings were kept out of the top grade even though they favor the Greek. “The rest of mankind” in Acts 15 (Amos 9) and the long form of Deuteronomy 32:43 in Hebrews 1 both have possible support in Hebrew scrolls from the Dead Sea. Where an ancient Hebrew text could explain the wording, the entry was demoted. The eight readings in Part II survived that filter.
Quoting a Bible can be habit. Arguing from its exact wording is dependence. Eight readings in the corpus carry that weight; the strongest three follow in full.
The letter to the Hebrews builds its central chapter on a psalm: sacrifices were never the goal, because God prepared something else. What God prepared depends on which text you read.
The chapter then argues from the word. Christ comes into the world saying “a body you prepared for me,” and five verses later the conclusion lands on it: “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” The argument runs on “body.” From the Hebrew's “ears you have dug,” this chapter cannot be written.
One edition note, flagged rather than hidden. The oldest Greek codices read “body,” and this page scores against that manuscript text. One modern critical reconstruction prints “ears,” judging “body” a later adjustment. The choice matters for how the reading arose; it does not change what the author of Hebrews quoted, or that his argument requires it.
Paul argues that relying on works of the law puts a person under a curse, because the law demands everything and no one performs everything. The word that makes the argument universal is in the Greek.
Three verses later Paul completes the pincer with a second Deuteronomy quotation in its Greek form: “cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” The universal curse and the curse borne on the tree are both quoted in the wording of the Greek translation, and the argument of Galatians 3 is assembled from them.
At Pentecost, Peter argues that David foresaw the resurrection: “you will not let your Holy One see corruption.” David died and was buried, Peter says, and his tomb is right here; so the psalm must speak of the Messiah, whose flesh did not decay. The argument runs on the Greek word διαφθορά, “corruption, decay.” The Hebrew word is usually read as “the pit,” a name for the grave.
The Hebrew word can be construed either way, and the grading reflects that: this entry counts as strong rather than airtight. What is not in doubt is which wording Peter's recorded sermon uses, and that Paul's synagogue sermon in Acts 13 makes the same argument from the same Greek word.
The other readings the scoreboard marks as load-bearing, one line each.
The Hebrew reads “a little lower than God.” The Greek reads “angels,” and Hebrews' argument about the Son's temporary humbling below the angels is built on it. The same psalm carries the temple retort on the Jesus page.
Two different authors quote the same verse in the same Greek form, where the Hebrew reads “he scorns the scorners.” One wording, two independent pens: the mark of a shared Bible.
The Hebrew reads “the righteous is repaid on earth.” Peter's warning about judgment beginning at God's household quotes the Greek line, “scarcely saved.”
Stephen counts Jacob's family at seventy-five, the Greek text's number. The Hebrew counts seventy. A speech before the Sanhedrin, told in the Septuagint's figures.
A working Bible is not a script. Where the writers had other text-forms, they used them. That is what makes the pattern above a measurement rather than an echo.
If the New Testament writers were simply copying their Greek Bibles, these rows should not exist. They do, in every part of the corpus, and they were verified against the same edition as everything else.
The counters are the calibration. The writers demonstrably could quote from Hebrew forms, from shared traditions, and from memory. Against that baseline, the pattern in the forks, twenty-two Greek against five Hebrew, and the eight arguments built on distinctively Greek readings, is a measured result rather than an artifact of the sample.
Made and revered in the synagogue. Argued from by Jesus. Built on by the apostles. Kept by the church.
The reader shows the Greek beside two public-domain English translations. “A body hast thou prepared me” is on the page.
This page is adapted from a research scoreboard of 140 formal quotations, graded per entry with verification notes. Texts: SBLGNT (New Testament); Swete's edition of the Greek Old Testament (Codex Vaticanus base) as primary, with Rahlfs 1935 used only as a cross-check; Masoretic Text for Hebrew comparison. Open items are tracked in the scoreboard, including optional apparatus checks against the Göttingen edition.