Why do the New Testament Authors Favor the Prophets?

[Wycliffes_Shillelagh]

In Acts 2, Peter gives the sermon of his life to the assembled Jews who are at Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost.  In verses 29-30, he says something I found peculiar - that David was a prophet.

Now, we know David as a king.  And David was also a priest - he claims so in Psalm 110.  But David a prophet?  And that got me to thinking... WHY?  David is already the most important king of Israel and one of only 3 members of the prestigious Order of Melchizedek (with Melchizedek and Jesus Himself).  Why single him out as a prophet, too?  Do the prophets hold some special status that would put them above kings and priests?

The answer seems to be yes.

I found a survey of places where the New Testament quotes from the Old Testament and did a little number-crunching.  It turns out that the New Testament authors heavily prefer the books of prophecy:

Author                                                Number of Times Quoted
Moses (Genesis - Deuteronomy)        68 (+27 duplicate quotations)
David (Psalms)                                     55
Isaiah                                                   45
Other Books of Prophecy                    33
Books of History (Joshua - Esther)       12
Solomon (Pro, Son, Ecc)                        6
Job                                                        3

Even discounting the duplicate quotations for Moses (Exodus & Deuteronomy overlap a lot), that means the New Testament authors quote the prophets nearly 10x as often as non-prophets (201 - 21).

But wait, it gets worse... I looked up those 12 citations from the non-prophetic books and... half of them are from prophets.  4 from Samuel and 2 from Elijah.

So... why DO the New Testament authors quote the prophets almost exclusively?

It seems to me that the NT authors regarded the prophets as more authoritative than the other books.

[Jaime]

Since prophecy and history are like a hand in a glove it only seems logical that the end portion (the Second Testament) of God's ONE story would quote prophecies from the first part of God's ONE story to lend credence to the second part.

[3 Resurrections]

Why do the NT authors favor quoting the prophets almost exclusively?  Peter told us the reasons in Acts 3:20-24 and 1 Peter 1:9-12.

Peter said on the day of Pentecost that ALL the prophets since the world began - as many as had spoken - ALL had something to say about those first-century days in the early church.  They spoke about the "times of restitution of all things" that would be brought about by the ultimate prophet Christ Jesus.  Anyone of the people of Israel who did not listen to that prophet Christ Jesus would be "destroyed from among the people".

All the prophets had inquired and searched diligently to know the time of the fulfillment for Christ's suffering and the glory that would follow His sacrificial death - in other words, Christ's bodily resurrection and inauguration as our Great High Priest. 

The reason for the NT authors quoting the OT prophets almost exclusively was to show the ethnic Israelites that the change to the realities of the New Covenant in Christ's blood was truly the fulfillment of all the OT prophecies.

A remnant of ethnic Israelites did come to believe this.  The majority didn't, and earned that predicted destruction for themselves before that generation had passed away. 

Jaime said the same thing in much simpler terms.