[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Luke 4:4
And Jesus answered him, saying,
It is written,
That man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word of God.

(last phrase omitted in mvs in a major corruption, John Hinton has article on Luke 4:4)

We discussed Luke-Isaiah back in June, and I replied to Brian's article which was posted (afaik, he was not on the forum at that time). I have built on that post and added a smidgen.

First and foremost, it is very helpful to see the tapestry of Scripture woven by the Lord Jesus, helping men to live by every word of God.

And to Peter's question - perhaps the closest similar example in the NT, worthy of close study, is Paul in Romans 3. Interestingly, this is the basis for one of the most blatant and astounding Greek OT (socalled LXX) corruptions, where a number of verses from Romans 3 are actually inserted into Psalm 14 in the Greek OT ! The same (likely alexandrian) scribes who tampered with Psalm 14 to be closer to Romans 3 very possibly "smoothed" the Greek OT in some verses to have Isaiah closer to Luke. Once burned by the smoking cannon (Psalm 14) an analyst learns to be very shy about presuming any integrity within the Greek OT text.

http://av1611.com/forums/showthread.php?t=312
NT authors/Christ quoting OT? - (earlier thread)

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Brian Tegart would do well to look at the scripture with faith and a heart to seek the fullness of the word of God. Jesus definitely "stood up for to read" and then read in a fashion that touched every heart listening. That is why :

"all bare him witness" and
"wondered at the gracious words".

And it would do well for those who have no pure word of God to also:
"wonder at the gracious words".

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Let's first note:

John Gill
it being allowable for a reader in the prophets, to skip from place to place,
which our Lord here did, in order to explain this passage more fully.

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Luke 4:16-22

And he came to Nazareth,
where he had been brought up:
and, as his custom was,
he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day,
and stood up for to read.
And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias.
And when he had opened the book,
he found the place where it was written,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, (Isaiah 61:1)
because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor;
he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, (Isaiah 58:6)
and recovering of sight to the blind, (Isaiah 42:7)
to set at liberty them that are bruised, (Isaiah 42:7 49:9 61:1)
To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. (Isaiah 61:2)

And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down.
And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
And he began to say unto them,
This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
And all bare him witness,
and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.
And they said, Is not this Joseph's son?

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Isaiah 61:1
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me;
because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek;
he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

Isaiah 58:6
Is not this the fast that I have chosen?
to loose the bands of wickedness,
to undo the heavy burdens,
and to let the oppressed go free,
and that ye break every yoke?

Isaiah 42:7
To open the blind eyes,
to bring out the prisoners from the prison,
and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

Isaiah 49:9
That thou mayest say to the prisoners,
Go forth; to them that are in darkness,
Shew yourselves.
They shall feed in the ways,
and their pastures shall be in all high places.

Isaiah 61:2
To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all that mourn;

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From Alfred Edersheim with insertion notes by Will Kinney.

http://philologos.org/__eb-lat/book311.htm
Life And Times Of Jesus The Messiah

"When unrolling, and holding the scroll, much more than the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah must have been within range of His eyes. On the other hand, it is quite certain that the verses quoted by the Evangelist could not have formed the Haphtarah. [Edersheim explains earlier that the Haphtarah is a normal range of verses employed according to Jewish custom]. According to traditional rule (Massech. Soph. 12.7), the Haphtarah ordinarily consisted of not less than twenty-one verses, though, if the passage was to be "targumed" [Edersheim explains this means "expounded" by the preacher, also a well-known Jewish custom], or a sermon to follow, that number might be shortened to seven, five, or even three verses. ...the passages quoted formed the introductory text of Christ's discourse, such quotation and combination were not only in accordance with Jewish custom, but formed part of the favourite mode of teaching - the Charaz - or stringing, like pearls, passage to passage, illustrative of each other. "

Note: Edersheim himself was buffeted by the common Greek OT error and while skeptical of "the so-called LXX version" he was not emphasizing how the Greek had been smoothed and tampered to the NT. However his basic points on Luke and Isaiah are excellent.

Here is a modern scholar saying similar, less elegantly, with less detail.

"It was not at all uncommon as a practice in the first century to pull two or more passages out of their original literary content and read them together"
Interpreting the Prophets (1987 p.81) -Isaiah in Luke - James Sanders

Also helpful is to remember not to be overly one-dimensional and try to straitjacket the Lord Jesus Christ, telling the Lord Jesus to limit his own message !

"The statement is not simply a scripture quotation, therefore; it is a declaration that the time has arrived. As GB Caird expressed it, 'He has not merely read the scripture; as King's messenger he has turned it into a royal proclamation of majesty and release.' Moreover, the Spirit of the Lord has anointed him to make known this good news and to put it into effect. Jesus had been sent with the word of release, which is a word of power; he had been sent to "set free those who had been crushed. The proclamation of release is accompanied by acts of release, as elsewhere in the preaching of Jesus."
Jesus and the Kingdom of God By George Raymond Beasley-Murray (1986 p. 89)

As Will Kinney adds :

http://www.exorthodoxforchrist.com/t...uagint_-_3.htm
Luke stated that Jesus FOUND the PLACE where it was written. He did NOT say that Jesus QUOTED directly from the scroll, or that Jesus explicitly READ the scroll VERBATIM.

And significantly, we can use the pretensions and confusions of the "no-pure-Bible" crew as a point from which to study the word of God more excellently, wondering at the gracious words of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

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Oh, let me add a couple of points.

http://www.christianmissionconnectio...l_Analysis.pdf
The Septuagint - A Critical Analysis - Floyd Nolen Jones

Since the language used by the Jews in their synagogues was Hebrew, we can be certain that the scroll which was delivered to Him was written in Hebrew.1 Even today the Jews read and use Hebrew in their Synagogues as it is their only "holy language"2 – the one in which their Scriptures were originally written. The Lord Jesus Christ showed great respect for the Old Testament Word and upheld it completely. (p. 41)

Nobody could (scholastically and seriously) argue that Jesus was using a Greek scroll in the synagogue. As Floyd Jones properly says, about the usage of Hebrew scrolls in the synagogue in Israel, "The matter is not controvertible". Thus the LXX-pushers have to say that Jesus used the Hebrew scroll and was misquoted by Luke ! Or that the Hebrew scroll was a whole different 'vorlage' an idea that might have been offered up weakly before the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Great Isaiah Scroll. To try to come up with a theory, they then have to add more Bible errors, much like in their modern versions.

Thomas Strouse covers a few of these points as follows.

http://www.emmanuel-newington.org/se...pring_2006.pdf
Emanuel Baptist Theological Journal p. 114 - Thomas Strouse

when the Lord and the apostles did cite the OT, they gave their inspired targums (paraphrases) of the passage to which they alluded. For instance, on one occasion when the Lord Jesus Christ taught in the synagogue, He was handed a scroll and He found the passage of Isaiah 61 (Luke 4:15-20). The Hebrew text was in His hand intact (“it was written”), and Luke recorded the Lord’s targum with its application. His inspired paraphrase expanded the truth of Isaiah’s text (the Greek behind “to set at liberty them that are bruised” is not coming from either the Hebrew or LXX of Isaiah 61:1, so Luke is not giving a quote but a paraphrase), and where the LXX agrees with the NT Greek text rather than the OT Hebrew, it may be the result of someone inserting the NT Greek into the LXX.

Will Kinney's article is available at:

http://www.exorthodoxforchrist.com/t...uagint_-_3.htm
http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/NoLXXThree.html
Did Jesus quote the Greek Septuagint? Luke 4:16-19 compared with Isaiah 61:1-2

And to close, a remembrance that Jesus harkened back to the gracious words, a remembrance of the Scripture and what Jesus spoke in the temple.

Luke 7:22
Then Jesus answering said unto them,
Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard;
how that the blind see,
the lame walk,
the lepers are cleansed,
the deaf hear,
the dead are raised,
to the poor the gospel is preached.

Shalom,
Steven Avery