Jesus, Paul, and perspicuity

As to Scripture, Jesus himself constantly appeals to the OT as the measure of what is true and right, and he evidently does so "not only with the expectation that this testimony will be accepted by faithful Jewish men and women, but that it will be intelligible to them. What use would there be in quoting texts no-one was able to understand?" When he quotes Hos 10:8 in Lk 23:28, for example, he appears to believe that "the images of this OT text would be both recognizable and intelligible" to his hearers. 

The apostles appeal to the OT Scriptures in the same way as Jesus, and what is initially striking here is that "the appeal is not reserved for Jewish audiences where some familiarity with the Scriptures…might be fairly assumed." It is also made in respect to Gentiles audiences. Paul, for example, displays "general confidence in the accessible meaning of the OT" so far as the church of Rome is concerned, I. Provan, The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture (Baylor 2017), 308-9.

Given that they were writing in Greek to an audience in which knowledge of Greek was widespread (see below), the apostles unsurprisingly used the LXX as a major source in citing the OT Scriptures. There is no e evidence that, like Philo, they believed the LXX to be inspired in itself. Paul, for example, appears to translate directly from the Hebrew on at least six occasions where the LXX does not agree with it; on at least twenty-eight occasions his citations reflect neither the MT nor the LXX. He and the other apostles were not bound to the LXX, I. Provan, The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture (Baylor 2017). 234.