New Testament Quotations of the Old Testament: Passing by Nehushtan

New Testament quotations of the Old Testament

J. Barton Payne’s Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy seems to be the standard for this subject. There is also Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament by Gleason Archer and Gregory Chirichigno. That one is more to single out the references taken from the LXX and any other underlying text, such as a proto-Masoretic text.

This is a modified chart of NT quotations found online which is unattributed.

190 Combined NT quotations, conflating repetitions

255 separate NT verses citing 232 OT verses

137 are marked clearly prophetic, 30 are used in a strong prophetic argument, making a total of 167 out of 231 OT verses strongly prophetic.

OT verses that we may not consider prophetic are considered prophetic if the NT writer thought they were or used them in a theological discussion that takes its authority from fulfilled prophecy. Jesus, in Matthew 22:37, uses Deuteronomy 6:5 to declare the prophecy of Jeremiah 31:31-32 is fulfilled in the new Law of Faith, which is in turn proven by Jesus’ fulfillment of the prophets. Those marked “prophetic argument” are so marked very conservatively. The number is actually much higher. For example, the entirety of the Book of Hebrews is an extended argument for the ministry of Christ on the predication of Old Testament prophecy and fulfillment. Any Old Testament text used is, therefore, if not itself prophetic, in the service of teaching from prophecy.