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Question 3

Archer’s claim (as summarized by Bercot) is that the apostles used the Septuagint only because it was the Bible the Greek-speaking world had, and that they reverted to the Masoretic text when not constrained; how does Bercot’s counterpoint—that Jesus quoted the Septuagint even when rebuking scribes and Pharisees in Palestine—reshape your assumptions about what “authority” meant to Jesus?

Another way to ask: Archer says the apostles used the Septuagint mainly because Greek speakers used it, but Bercot says Jesus quoted it even in Palestine when correcting leaders. How does that change what you think “authority” meant to Jesus?

Direct Answer Bercot’s counterpoint suggests that, for Jesus, “authority” wasn’t simply the Hebrew text used by Palestinian religious leaders; Jesus treated the Septuagint as authoritative even in local Jewish settings where “need” for a Greek Bible argument doesn’t fit.

Support from Transcript:

Bercot summarizes Archer: apostles used the Septuagint because they “had no choice” in the Greek-speaking world, and “whenever… not constrained… they immediately went back to the Masoretic text.”
Bercot answers, “this simply is not true,” beginning with Jesus: “Jesus never left Palestine, but when he quoted scripture, he nearly always quotes from the Septuagint.”
He highlights two rebukes: Jesus quoted the Septuagint “to the scribes and Pharisees… They were not Gentiles… not part of the dispersion.”
In those rebukes, “Jesus’ rebuke… depended on the language of the Septuagint. The rendering in the Masoretic Text wouldn’t have worked.”
He adds Jesus read Isaiah “in the synagogue in Nazareth from the Septuagint.”

Discussion Follow-ups If Jesus used the Septuagint when confronting religious elites, what does that say about letting the opponents of Christianity define which textual tradition has “real” authority?

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