[x5452]

One wonders why the apostles and Christ would quote from books that have no scriptural authority (not to mention what a slipery slope varying degrees of authority introduces)

[redgolum]

It is done by both the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholics to a degree. The decrees in Exodus on the various rituals (Passover, harvest festival etc) were not continued into the Christian tradition, even though the Exodus decrees were "for all time". Even the Apostles (in the first council in Acts) agreed with that (that the old law could not be binding on Gentile converts).

There were quite a few among the early church fathers who wanted the OT books to have strictly a symbolic interpretation, which in part they obviously do. The problem was that if you remove the possibility of any literal meaning, you can draw anything out of the text you want. Fortunately, the over all view was that the Scriptures have both a literal and a symbolic meaning.

You are right that it leads to confusion and problems though. In North America, it has also led to problems with the local synods with the parent synods.