Was Greek the original language of the Old Testament?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1988.

In answer to your enquiry I can say that no one that I have ever met believes that Greek was the original language of the Old Testament. All agree that the Septuagint was only a translation. That translation did not exist before the third century BC; but all the Old Testament existed in Hebrew long before that time. The original language was Hebrew. Sir Lee Brenton did not believe that the original language of the Old Testament was Greek, as you will see if you read again his words ‘The Septuagint will be welcomed not indeed as the rival, but the handmaid of the Hebrew Scriptures’ (p.xi). And again ‘. . . the translation, whatever its excellence, comes into our hands as the work of fallible man’ (p.ix).¹

When our Lord referred to ‘one jot or tittle of the law’ (see Matthew 5:18), he was referring to the Hebrew Old Testament. A jot is the Hebrew letter ‘yodh’ and a ‘tittle’ is a small projection on some Hebrew letters which distinguishes them from other Hebrew letters. There are no such tittles on Greek letters.

It is not true that ‘the excavated biblical texts of Qumran are mostly Greek’. The vast majority are Hebrew, with only a few in Greek.

I am delighted to see that you believe that all Scripture is inspired by God. I believe that too.

With Christian greetings,

¹ See Brenton, Lee (1844), The Septuagint Translation of the Old Testament, Preface. Available here: https://www.scribd.com/document/84673199/Septuagint-Old-Testament