The meaning of "authentical"

In seventeenth-century theological discourse, “authentical” carried a specialized meaning distinct from its modern colloquial sense of merely “genuine.” Protestant scholastics designated the Hebrew Old Testament manuscripts as the “authentic” text—not because any single copy was flawless or because they possessed one authoritative edition, but because the Hebrew manuscripts collectively, taken as a whole, constituted the authoritative textual foundation.[1]

The theological weight of this term becomes clear through its connection to scriptural authority. Edward Leigh defined the “authentic” text as that “which of itself hath credit and authority, being sufficient of itself to prove and commend itself, without the help of any other Edition.”[1] This definition reveals that “authentical” functioned as a technical term denoting textual self-sufficiency—a text that required no external validation or correction.

Critically, calling the Hebrew text “authentic” did not mean theologians believed it was infallible, inspired, or entirely free from scribal errors.[1] Rather, they were making an epistemological claim: the Hebrew copies served as the self-attesting principle by which Christian doctrine could be established, and if the Septuagint could correct the Hebrew text, this would undermine the Hebrew text’s status as self-authenticating and leave human reason as the ultimate arbiter of scriptural meaning.[1]

The term thus encapsulates a defensive theological posture against Catholic arguments that Greek and Latin versions could amend the Hebrew original. For these Reformed thinkers, “authentical” meant the text possessed inherent authority within the church’s interpretive community—not perfection, but irreplaceable foundational status.

[1] Levi Berntson, “A Reformation-Historical Approach,” in The Authority of the Septuagint: Biblical, Historical, and Theological Approaches, ed. William A. Ross and Gregory R. Lanier (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2025), 126–128.