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     In the previous article we considered the authenticity of the New Testament, but is the Old Testament also authentic?   Is the 21st century Old Testament the same as when it was originally written?  The original Old Testament was written in Hebrew from about 1400 B.C. to 445 B.C.  In the last 150 years critics railed against the authenticity of the Old Testament, in part because the earliest Hebrew manuscript was dated to 1000 A.D.  This notion was dispelled by the Dead Sea Scrolls discovery at Qumran in Israel in 1947.  Among the scrolls were a complete Hebrew text of Isaiah and fragments of every Old Testament book except Esther (dated to between 30-250 BC).  The Isaiah scroll proved to be 95% identical to the standard Hebrew text of today.  The 5 percent of variation consisted mainly of grammatical errors and spelling alterations.  Further, there were no doctrinal differences between the later Hebrew text and Qumran texts.  This shows the reverence the scribes had for the Hebrew scriptures, thus giving us a reliable Old Testament.
     Part of establishing authenticity of ancient documents is that they be found in a place normally associated with the documents.  The Dead Sea scrolls would logically be found in a religious context.  They were found in Qumran, the location of the Essenes, an ascetic Jewish sect, which had isolated itself from society.
     The New Testament accounts of Jesus’ ministry in the first century A.D. show that the Old Testament was revered and studied as God’s word in the Jewish synagogues (e.g. Luke 4:16-21).  Jesus of Nazareth quoted from the Pentateuch (the earliest Old Testament writings) and attributed the quotes to Moses’ writings.  Further, not only do New Testament writers not challenge the authenticity of the Old Testament, they quoted 320 times from 24 of the 39 Old Testament books.  In the New Testament context, these quotes reflect the Old Testament as authoritative, thus implicitly acceptance of its authenticity and its credibility.
     Origen, an early church theologian, referred to the existence of the “Old and New Testaments,” “the ancient and new scriptures,” at least showing the existence of both testaments, that they have a close relationship to each other and pointing to a common origin.  Further he gave a list of the Old Testament books (A.D. 240).  (Documents from the first several centuries A.D. give us over a dozen lists of the Old Testament books.)
     Marcion, a Christian heretic (A.D.150), who considered the Old Testament as coming from an inferior deity, rejected it and any passages in the New Testament that reflected the Jews religion.  He never charged that the Old Testament was a forgery, implicitly recognizing that they were authentic.  What is certain is the Old Testament was in existence and recognized as the authentic Jewish scriptures.  Even enemies of the Old Testament did not question its authenticity.
     We can be assured that both the Old and New Testaments are authentic.  However are they credible and further, are they inspired of God?

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