The three global monotheistic faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—all have their Scriptures: the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Old and New Testaments, and the Koran. The Koran famously refers to Jews and Christians as the “People of the Book.”(cf. Suras 9:29; 29:46), and, indeed, all three faiths are known for their devotion to their Scriptures.
What is clear, however, is that both Judaism and Islam have a different relationship with their respective Scriptures than do Christians with theirs. Both Islam and Judaism focus explicitly on that actual text of their respective Scriptures such that the Masoretic text is well known for its scrupulosity in passing down the exact text of the Hebrew Bible, and Islam does not even acknowledge any versions of the Koran as being the Koran but are considered commentaries (by translation) on the Arabic text.
Christian Scriptures, on the other hand, though handled with reverence and fidelity, and though focused attention was given to the faithful transmission of the actual text, were nonetheless not handled with the same sort of scrupulosity. The Christian Scriptures are rich with varying text-type traditions, and the Christian Old Testament varies in the translation methods of the various Hebrew and Aramaic (in most cases) originals from quite loose paraphrase to wooden word-for-word translation. The Septuagint also contains noticeable differences from the Hebrew Bible's Masoretic text not just in the canon (including texts excluded by Jews after the advent of Christianity) but even in including portions of canonical books not included in the Masoretic text, and excluding verses included in the Masoretic text.
Furthermore, from the very beginning of Christianity, the translation of the original texts were considered as authoritative as the originals themselves. Thus the Latin Vulgate took hold in western Christianity, and various translations became the Bible for their respective language groups, such as Slavonic for Russia. Christian children memorized the Scriptures in their native languages, whereas Jewish boys had to learn to read and chant Hebrew for their bar mitzvah, and Muslims memorize the Arabic original.
That is to say, Christians have always viewed the essence of Scripture to be the meaning and not the words. Indeed, the Christian hermeneutical key for the Old Testament has never been what the original audience of Jews would have understood, however helpful this may be, but rather the interpretive key to the Old Testament has always been for Christians Christ himself.
As St. Paul writes in his epistle to the Corinthians:
Ye are our epistle, which hath been inscribed in hour hearts, known and read by all men, since it is manifest that ye are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, which hath not been inscribed with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in stony tablets, but in fleshy tablets of the heart.And we have such trust through Christ toward God: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to reckon anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, Who also made us fit ministers of a new covenant [diathekes], not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter killeth, but the Spirit maketh alive. . . .
But their [i. e., the Israelite's] minds were hardened: For until this day, the same veil remaineth upon the reading of the old testament [diathekes], it not being revealed that in Christ the veil is being abolished