in turn, moulded and shaped by the dialect of the Septuagint, nor can the former be successfully studied except in connection with the latter.  Then again the greatest number of quotations in the New Testament from the Old is made from the Septuagint.  According to Mr. Greenfield (quoted in Smith’s Bible Dict., art.  Septuagint) “the number of direct quotations from the Old Testament in the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles, may be estimated at three hundred and fifty, of which not more than fifty materially differ from the seventy.  But the indirect verbal allusions would swell the number to a far greater amount.”  The discussion of the principles upon which the writers of the New Testament quote from the Old belongs to another part of this work.  It may be briefly remarked here that they quote in a free spirit, not in that of servile adherence to the letter, aiming to give the substance of the sacred writers’ thoughts, rather than an exactly literal rendering of the original word for word.

The prophecy of Isaiah, for example (6:9, 10), is six times quoted in the New Testament, wholly or in part, with very free variations of language.  Matt. 13:14, 15; Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10; John 12:40; Acts 28:  26, 27; Rom. 11:8.  From neither of these quotations, nor from all of them combined, could we draw a critical argument respecting either the Hebrew or Greek text of the passage quoted.  Neither can we argue from the exact agreement of a quotation in the New Testament with the Septuagint where that differs from the Hebrew, that the Hebrew text has been corrupted.  The New Testament writers are occupied with the spirit of the passages to which they refer, rather than with the letter.

7.  The Hebrew text from which the Septuagint version was executed was unpointed and much older than the Masoretic text.  Were the version more literal and faithful, and had its text come down to us in a purer form (see below, Chap. 17, No. 2), it would be of great service in settling the exact text of the original Hebrew.  With its present character, and in the present condition of its text, it is of but comparatively small value in this respect.  Yet its striking agreement with the text of the Samaritan Pentateuch (Ch. 13, No. 8) is a phenomenon worthy of special notice.  Biblical scholars affirm that the two agree in more than a thousand places where they differ from the Hebrew.  For the probable explanation of this see above, Ch. 14, No. 9.

The reader must be on his guard against the error of supposing that these more than a thousand variations from the Hebrew text are of such a nature as to affect seriously the system of doctrines and duties taught in the Pentateuch.  They are rather of a critical and grammatical character, changes which leave the substance of revelation untouched.  See on this point Ch. 3.  There is one striking agreement between the Samaritan text and that of the Septuagint in which many biblical scholars think that the true ancient reading has been preserved.  It is that of Gen. 4:8:  “And Cain said to Abel his brother, Let us go out into the field.  And it came to pass when they were in the field.” etc.

II.  OTHER GREEK VERSIONS.