I have finally been able to figure out what I have had in mind and concisely put it into words. It might be that I have read these things put this way before. If so, I have forgotten where and I apologize. Here it is:
For us, what a quotation says depends upon what its author had in mind. For many Biblical writers, what a quotation says depends upon what the Biblical writer had in mind.
For us, the quotation controls the writer. For the Biblical writer, the writer controls the quotation.
When an author from my culture uses a quotation, I should try to understand what it says. In this case, the quotation now means what it then meant.
When a Biblical writer uses a quotation, I should first try to understand the writer’s train of thought. In this case, the quotation then meant what it now means.
Each way of doing things is as good as the other as long as we keep this cultural difference in mind.
My degree of confidence in this is high because it helps me understand me why so it seems to me that a Biblical quotation doesn’t say what the Biblical writer who quoted says it does.
“Of course,” I can now imagine a Biblical writer saying. “I am using the quotation’s words or ideas to make the point I am making and not using them to make the point the quotation’s author made. Why should I tell you what you already know, or can know?”
This helps me understand how Jesus helped his walking companions on the road to Emmaus to see things in their scriptures that they had not seen that way before. I now think that maybe in this way Philip helped the traveling Ethiopian to see things he was missing.