Use of the OT in the NT

“…A very conservative count discloses unquestionably at least 295 separate references to the Old Testament. These occupy some 352 verses of the New Testament, or more than 4.4 percent. Therefore one verse in 22.5 of the New Testament is a quotation.” When you take OT allusions into account “it can therefore be asserted, without exaggeration, that more than 10 percent of the New Testament text is made up of citations or direct allusions to the Old Testament…278 different OT verses are cited in the New Testament: 94 from the Pentateuch, 99 from the Prophets, and 85 from the Writings. Out of the 22 books in the Hebrew reckoning of the canon only six (Judges-Ruth, Song, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles) are not explicitly referred to.”

Roger Nicole in Roy B. Zuck ed., Rightly Divided (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996), 183-184.