A friend who is a very competent, evangelical New Testament scholar recently responded to these questions:

Are there ‘errors’ in the NT documents?

Response:

I prefer not to use the language of ‘errors’ as it usually privileges a particular scientific-historical view of truth (or ‘modernist’ view of truth) that many in our churches are unhelpfully still locked into (as in: God’s Word is true; science and history are true; therefore God’s Word must be scientifically and historically true — when actually the nature of scientific and historical ‘truth’ and their claims to truth have changed dramatically in the last 50 years. Just ask how many people use acupuncture and ancient herbal remedies today and you can see the limits of medical science. It’s great for some areas of health, but not for all!). It’s helpful to ask what kind of ‘history’ Luke thought he was writing — 20th century? 21st century? First century? — and how do people think they differ.

We can illustrate this very easily with a synopsis (that ‘instrument of the devil’, as some have called it — even though forms of them existed from very early on). The Gospels are not concerned about chronology or biographical detail, but (Jn 20:31) “these things are written so that you may know that Jesus is the Christ”, NOT so that you may have an exact and accurate historical record according to the now obsolete 20th century understanding of factual history!

So, for example, the text that caused a New Testament scholar/colleague to lose his position at a Baptist Seminary: the entry into Jerusalem and cursing of the figtree seems to occur over 3 days in Mark and 2 days in Matthew (one day in Luke, but there’s no figtree, and one in John, but it’s at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry rather than the end!). Look at these accounts side by side and see if you can work out the very clearly described entries and exits from Jerusalem.

Are there ‘misquotes’ of the OT/apocryphal writings etc. in the NT?

Response:

The New Testament NEVER quotes the Old Testament. It ALWAYS (re)interprets it! This is true because there are actually very few ‘verbatim quotations’ of the Old in the New — and even when they do agree word for word with our OT, they have been put into a new context anyway, and given a (sometimes radically) new meaning [such as Matthew’s use of “Out of Egypt have I called my son” (of Moses) reapplied to Jesus (as ‘new Moses’), Mt 2:15]. Part of the variability can be explained by the diversity of OT texts (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek) available to the NT writers (and even this observation should move people away from the idea of ONE inerrant text), but beyond that are the following problem areas (I don’t like to call them ‘misquotes’ because some are deliberate and theologically significant, whereas others are just awkward!):

There are seemingly wrong attributions given to citations (eg Mark 1:2 referring to Isaiah, when it’s actually Exodus and Malachi that are referred to first, then Isaiah, in verse 3. But I think this is deliberate. More awkward, perhaps, are Matthew’s ‘misquoting’ of Zech 9:9 in Mt 21:7, so that Jesus has to sit on TWO animals to enter Jerusalem in order to fulfill the prophecy — and no fiddling with the Greek will help here; and Matthew’s claim that ‘he shall be called a Nazarene’, 2:23, comes from the prophets somewhere — we haven’t yet found where — especially since the name Nazareth never occurs in any known literature of any kind before the Gospel of Mark — although some kind of play on words is obviously intended by Matthew. Mark’s reference in 2:26 to Abiathar being High Priest when David took the bread of the presence is awkward — see 1 Sam 21:1-6 where it is Ahimelech that’s mentioned.