Misquotation

Misquoting the Old Testament (in the New)

https://stephencook.wordpress.com/category/septuagint/

“It is written” – Quotations from the Old Testament in the New Testament (4)

Jeremiah 18:2-3 cited in Matthew 27:9-10

Matthew 27:9-10 is the most puzzling citation of Jeremiah in the New Testament. In fact, it is possibly one of the most puzzling citations of any Old Testament text. Matthew introduces this ‘quotation’ with the formulaic “Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying …” The most remarkable thing about this is that nowhere in any of our manuscripts of Jeremiah do the quoted words appear. The wording which is most similar is Jeremiah 18:2-3 which refers to Jeremiah being directed to go to the potter’s house. Both texts refer to a potter but there the similarity ends. In fact, Matthew’s quotation parallels Zechariah 11:12-13 more closely than any text in Jeremiah. Zechariah refers to thirty pieces of silver as well as a potter, but not to a field. Elsewhere in Jeremiah (32:6-9) the prophet bought his cousin’s field in Anathoth, but there the price is seventeen shekels. Matthew’s ‘quotation’ appears to be a composite of Jeremiah 18:2-3 and Zechariah 11:12-13 with a possible allusion to Jeremiah 32:6-9 and it is difficult to see how it is a ‘fulfilment’ of any specific prophecy. Craig Blomberg has argued that “Rabbis would sometimes create a composite quotation of more than one Scripture but refer to only one of their sources by name, often the more obscure one (though sometimes also the more important one) to ensure that others would pick up the reference”.[1]

Matthew’s quotation of Zechariah preserves a clause found in the Masoretic Text but missing from the Septuagint: “the lordly price at which I was priced by them”. His concluding clause (“as the Lord directed me”) is not in either source text, but could be alluding to Jeremiah 13:15 “So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as the Lord commanded me”. Neither source text refers to a potter’s field, although this is a key item in the fulfilment of the prophecy to which he is referring. Later in the story about the potter in Jeremiah (19:2) the prophet is instructed to “buy a potter’s earthenware flask, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests, and go out to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom at the entry of the Potsherd Gate”. We may be tempted to see a connection between the Valley of the Son of Hinnom (known as Gehenna in the Gospels) and the traitor Judas Iscariot but Matthew makes no such connection, nor does Luke when writing about Iscariot’s fate in Acts 1:18-20.

What is Matthew doing here with a composite quotation which he attributes to Jeremiah and how can he say that Iscariot’s actions ‘fulfil’ Scripture when there is no such prophecy? Joseph Fitzmyer has noted that “the use of well-known introductory formulae to cite a passage which is not found in the Old Testament (or at least which is not found in any of the known texts or versions)” is a phenomenon found both in the NT and in the Qumran literature” (think “Dead Sea Scrolls”).[2] He put this in the category of “modernized texts” rather than as a literal fulfilment of prophecy.[3] This could also be a case of what he later describes as an “accommodated text”, that is, one which is “wrested from its original context or modified somehow to suit the new situation”[4].

Archer and Chirichigno put this text in the category of quotations which give the impression that unwarranted liberties were taken with the Old Testament text in the light of its context. It would probably be even better, in my view, to categorise the Matthew quotation as a composite allusion rather than a quotation.

[1] Craig Blomberg, [“Matthew” in G.K.Beale and D.A.Carson (eds.) Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), p. 95]. Unfortunately Blomberg doesn’t provide any sources for or examples of this Rabbinic practice. Archer and Chirichigno also claim that in combining elements from both Jeremiah and Zechariah Matthew is “simply conforming to contemporary literary custom when he cites the name of the more famous of the two” [Archer, Gleason L. and G. C. Chirichigno Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament: A Complete Survey(Chicago: Moody, 1983) p. 163]. but they don’t provide references for their claim either.

[2] Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “The Use of Explicit Old Testament Quotations in Qumran Literature and in the New Testament”, New Testament Studies 1961;7(04):297-333, p. 304. Another example of this in the Gospels is Matthew 2:23 “he shall be called a Nazarene” while ‘As for that which it said, “Your own hand shall not avenge you”‘ (CD ix 8-9) is an example of a Qumran text quoting an unknown source.

[3] Ibid, p.315

[4] Ibid, p.316. Fitzmyer finds twelve examples of accommodation in Qumran texts.