Hebrew Old Testament Unavailable?
“The present Hebrew Old Testament is translated from a Greek translation, while the original Hebrew is not available.”
Zakir Naik has outrageously claimed,
“The Old Testament, the original Hebrew is not available. Do you know that? The Hebrew translation of the Old Testament is from the Greek. So even the original Old Testament, which in Hebrew is not present in Hebrew.1
Naik’s claim that the original Hebrew Old Testament is unavailable is absolutely false. There are hundreds of scrolls of the Hebrew Old Testament from centuries before Christ, called the Dead Sea Scrolls or Qumran scrolls. These represent the oldest manuscripts of the Old Testament. Before this discovery, the oldest manuscripts were a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament called the Septuagint, which is still referenced by scholars. Even then there did exist hundreds of Old Testament Hebrew manuscripts in the Masoretic tradition which are, remarkably, the same as the more ancient Qumran manuscripts. As archeology reveals more ancient Hebrew scrolls, we find more remarkable consistency. It is absolutely false to state that the present Hebrew text is translated from the Greek.
- Zakir Naik, The Qur’ān and the Bible in the Light of Science. (Adam Publishers, New Delhi, 2008) p.118.
give solid proof
The original Hebrew texts were said to have been destroyed in the fire at the library of Alexandria. Before this tragedy, God had inspired 72 scholars to translate the original Hebrew texts into Greek (the international language of that time) in order to preserve the original Hebrew writings. The Greek translation was called Septuagina (meaning Seventy) because it was written by the seventy (72). The Masoretic texts were written by Jews who were uncomfortable with the many references to Jesus Christ in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint) and they altered their Masoretic text to exclude Him. The validity of the Septuagint Bible is evident because it was from this book that the Apostles often quoted Old Testament scripture.