Stop 2. The New Testament's own claims

Now the green arcs. A fulfilment formula is a sentence where a New Testament writer stops and says, in effect, that this is what the prophet meant. Matthew uses one more than anyone. "This all happened so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled" (Matthew 1:22).

How many does Matthew have? It depends on what you count. In the NET, ten sentences pair "fulfilled" with "spoken" and a quotation (1:22, 2:15, 2:17, 2:23, 4:14, 8:17, 12:17, 13:35, 21:4, 27:9). Add 13:14, "the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled", and it is eleven. Add the two times Jesus says the scriptures must be fulfilled without quoting one (26:54, 26:56), and it is thirteen. Add 2:5 and 3:3, which say "it is written" or "the one about whom the prophet Isaiah had spoken" without the word fulfil, and it is fifteen. (Calculated from the NET text.)

This chart draws the ones with a single Old Testament text at the other end. Matthew 2:23, "that Jesus would be called a Nazarene," is a real fulfilment claim, but no one Old Testament verse says it, so it is in the list of links considered and not drawn.

Look at how many green arcs land in the first chapters of Matthew. The birth, the flight to Egypt, the move to Galilee: Matthew wants the reader to see that Jesus' life is already written in Israel's scriptures.

Record check (judgment). Matthew 27:9 says, "Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled." The closest words are Zechariah's: "So I took the 30 pieces of silver and threw them to the potter" (Zechariah 11:13). Jeremiah buys a field (Jeremiah 32:6–9), and in chapter 19 he buys a clay jar from a potter and breaks it in a valley where innocent blood had been shed. Many readers think Matthew combined the two and named the senior prophet. The arc is drawn from Zechariah and labelled pattern.

Picture: the green arcs into Matthew. Layer: band 2.