OT trust-worthyness?

[CeT-To]

How trust worthy is the OT?

What are some evidence for its historicity?

God bless!

[neo-x]

archaeological evidence is the best, plenty of conclusive evidence. prophecies, and things like that.

And from the scriptures, 2 Tim 3:16

All Scripture is God-breathed...

and also

2 peter 1: 16-21
16 For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” 18 We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.

19 We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus quoted the O.T hundreds of times in the N.T, that alone makes it authenticated, so did apostle Paul and the early saints.

if however you are searching for a stamped version approved by today's critics then of course it is a subjective debate.

[CeT-To]

Any reliable archaeology study done?

[Danieltwotwenty]

What about the dead sea scrolls? they provide some proof the 150bce versions are just about identical to the OT now.

Daniel

[Byblos]

What about the dead sea scrolls? they provide some proof the 150bce versions are just about identical to the OT now.

Daniel

If you're referring to the LXX then yes.

[B. W.]

Yes the OT has been proven trustworthy thru the following...

++Dead Sea scrolls – older than previously used translations. The LXX also verified in some of these scroll as well too.

++Archeology – biblical archeology has verified that places and people of the OT existed. For example, King David’s name was found on a tablet in 1993:
See this Link

Also just search casually on the internet and see what biblical archeology has uncovered for other details

Also the use of imagery, symbols found in old temple sites verify how the ancient Israelites strayed into paganism during the era of the prophets…

++Grammar, syntax, word imagery, words, used in the OT connect to other parts of the OT that point to future events such as Isaiah 11:11 NKJV and Amos 9:14, 15c

Such usages of the Names used for God such as Elohim, El, Elyon, Ya, haElohim, Yahovah or Yahveh, all point to the Christian orthodox doctrine of the Trinity as true… thus verifying that there is truly none like the Lord as Isaiah 46:9 NKJV- Jeremiah 10:6 states…
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[narnia4]

I find it interesting, the number of figures that many once thought didn't exist with evidence eventually being found to prove that those figures did exist. There are plenty of examples. I hear the phrase used all the time, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". It makes sense if we don't have archeological proof for every single event or that absence of evidence is somehow damning.

The accuracy of the OT over the centuries has been pretty amazing to see.

I actually view it sort of how skeptics might (mistakenly I say) view "God of the gaps". It starts with lots of gaps, but discoveries have been made to confirm the historicity of OT figures. So now those hiding in "the gaps" have less and less excuse to try to say that some of these guys are mythological figures or that these events didn't happen.

[B. W.]

I find it interesting, the number of figures that many once thought didn't exist with evidence eventually being found to prove that those figures did exist. There are plenty of examples. I hear the phrase used all the time, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". It makes sense if we don't have archeological proof for every single event or that absence of evidence is somehow damning.

The accuracy of the OT over the centuries has been pretty amazing to see.

I actually view it sort of how skeptics might (mistakenly I say) view "God of the gaps". It starts with lots of gaps, but discoveries have been made to confirm the historicity of OT figures. So now those hiding in "the gaps" have less and less excuse to try to say that some of these guys are mythological figures or that these events didn't happen.

Writer S.L.A Marshall in his book, Crimson Prairie, page 16, Hardback edition wrote this quip concerning the topic of his book:

…While there are definite limits to human wisdom, there is none to human stupidity…

This can apply to biblical critics, scoffers, skeptics, etc and etc too…

[PaulSacramento]

Historically the OT has a pretty good record fore the genre of writing.
As for the OT prophets, that is always a "subjective" call because one can always argue that the writings were written AFTER the events ( which I disagree with).
I certainly don't think ALL of the OT was inspired by the HS, nothing insipired about chronicles for example.
Some books were just "overviews", like kings, and the make reference to other books were one can, one assumes, get more info.
Many times the genre of writing CAN lead one to make an interpretation that leads one to an error or misunderstanding ( number of people in exodus, the reed sea as opposed to red sea, etc).
The prophet Jeremiah himself warned that the scribes had, at times, written "false words" of God, so one must always be careful about that too.

8 “aHow can you say, ‘We are wise,

And the law of the Lord is with us’?

But behold, the lying pen of the scribes

Has made it into a lie.

[Murray]

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[Murray]

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[Murray]

World war I, British Captain is fighting ottomans. Reads a story about Johnathon and his sword barrer taking a goat path to attack the enemies rear to make them believe a large force was attacking their rear, when they committed large levels of soldiers to attack the "force" that was assaulting them from behind, the main Israelite force attacked their front. Captain Finds the exact same goat path using the directions from the bible, sends a small special forces unit to attack the enemies rear, ottomans think large force is attacking their rear, main force attacks from front.

Note :Bible passage is 1 Samuel Chapters 13 and 14

Source: history channel

I would suggest the show "bible battles", great re-inactments of bilical battles.

There is a reason historians consider the OT a historical factual document you know

[Murray]

I'm sure you'll love this as well

Recently, the tradition that Kohanim (the Jewish priesthood) are actually descended from a single patriarch, Aaron, was found to be apparently consistent with genetic testing.[42] The majority of Jewish men with the tradition of being Kohanim, but not all, share a direct male lineage with a common Y-chromosome, and testing was done across sectors of the Jewish population to see if there was any commonality between the Y-chromosomes of Kohanim. The results were found to cluster rather closely around a specific DNA signature, found in the Semitic Haplogroup J1, which the researchers named the Cohen modal haplotype, implying that many of the Kohanim do share a distinctive common ancestry. This information was also used to support the claim that the Lemba (a sub-Saharan tribe) are in fact descended from a group of Jewish priests.

[Amalric]

I'm sure you'll love this as well

Recently, the tradition that Kohanim (the Jewish priesthood) are actually descended from a single patriarch, Aaron, was found to be apparently consistent with genetic testing.[42] The majority of Jewish men with the tradition of being Kohanim, but not all, share a direct male lineage with a common Y-chromosome, and testing was done across sectors of the Jewish population to see if there was any commonality between the Y-chromosomes of Kohanim. The results were found to cluster rather closely around a specific DNA signature, found in the Semitic Haplogroup J1, which the researchers named the Cohen modal haplotype, implying that many of the Kohanim do share a distinctive common ancestry. This information was also used to support the claim that the Lemba (a sub-Saharan tribe) are in fact descended from a group of Jewish priests.

If you go to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohen_Modal_Haplotype
you will discover that having the Semitic Haplogroup J1 may not mean that a person is descended from Aaron but that just you are have a common ancestor with other Semitic groups including Arabs, Kurds, Armenians and Bedouins. Also only about 46% of people with the surname Cohen have it.

I am not so convinced that everything in the Old Testament is reliable. Thank you Paulsacramento for Jer 8:8. Archaeology is problematic; in the past it was used as proof of the Old Testament; now there are lots of unanswered questions.

The Dead Sea scrolls do support the Hebrew text against the Greek text of the LXX. Unfortunately New Testament writers usually quote the incorrect Greek text so their quoting of it can’t really be used for it being reliable.

B. W. I went to the link about the tablet found in 1993. From the inscription it is not clear which kings were defeated. It is suggested they are Jehoram king of Israel, son of Ahab and Ahaziahu son of Johoram of the House of David. There is Jehoram (son of Ahab) King of Israel c 852-841 BC and Ahaziah (son of Jehoram) King of Judah c 841 BC. This does not mean there is evidence that there was a David King of Judah, but only that there was a ruling family who called themselves the House of David.

[neo-x]

I am not so convinced that everything in the Old Testament is reliable.

like???