Psalm 22:17, Hebrew Text, "Like A Lion". Who's Lion?

[JoeWallack]

Good work rakovsky. I sometimes wonder why good religious people come to forums to discuss utter trivia.

The Judaism of Moses is nothing like the Judaism of today. The Masoretic text was compiled around 700 A.D. and it is a heavily edited text.


https://theorthodoxlife.wordpress.com/2 ... al-hebrew/

Thanks Iskander.
For me some years ago it was a real question whether the old testament predicted whether the idea of a Messiah who was killed and resurrected, because it was a stage in my life where I wanted to verify religious claims. Psalm 22 is one of the places that discusses this prediction.

The issue with v. 17 about "like a lion" Vs "pierced/gouged" is that pierced /gouged bears an uncanny resemblance to Christ's killing. That is, it tells us to look to a Messiah whose hands and feet were gouged.

Spin, in his writing above, is saying that when looked at alone, the word in question looks like it is written as dug, ie. karu, but that the u in karu is not certain because he says that in other lines the y are drawn long and look like u. But this claim that the y elsewhere are drawn long still does not look clear to me or deal with the fact that the y in the same line are not drawn long. I invite him to vis it my webpage where I discuss Psalm 22.

JW:
rakovsky, first of all I want you know that I'm breaking Peter Kirby's oldest rule here by arguing on the same side as spin. Secondly, I think even "Mark's" Jesus would be sore amazed that regarding an issue that it is about what the actual offending fragment shows you have presented as evidence every supposedly related picture except the actual picture. The actual picture has been published, is available and has been reproduced by me ad nazorean. So in addition to asking yourself if you feel lucky arguing against me/spin you need to ask yourself why you have made a conclusion about what the actual fragment shows without apparently looking at the actual fragment. spin would say that's "naughty". I would say something else.


Joseph

Psalm 22:17, Hebrew Text, "Like A Lion". Determining Who's Original And Who's Lion? Nahal Hever Fragment

[rakovsky]

First, I drew one possible length of Yod Waw Yod in the line you are referring to in purple.[/b] Isn't the scribe putting the bottom left end of the aleph with the bottom of the Waw in question?

This is simply bogus. The arm of the ALEF is crossed by your fallacious purple line.

Thanks for replying, Spin.
To me, the diagonal arm of Alef looks like it touches the bottom of the yod, like what sometimes happens in cursive. This is why my purple line is drawn down through that diagonal.

Be serious. Here your original touched up image again, this time retuched by me:


At the moment I can't find a copy of this fragment online that hasn't been crapped on by people desperate to force the text into reading "dug" so they can pretend it actually means "pierced" for some strange reason.

Earlier in this thread I posted a black and white image that was not highlighted, and it still shows karu.
Also I think the Israeli Antiquities Association might have posted the Nahal Hever online. I know they posted a Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah that I was able to view and learn that in Isaiah 53 the Dead Sea Scroll says that the Servant will see LIGHT, which is what the septuagint and Christian Bibles have been saying.

I had a copy once, but that was an earlier iteration of this issue.

So my retouch-up...

In your retouchup you say "misleading touch up" in black. But based on the black and white original I posted above, the highlighting does not look misleading to me.

1. Note the purple lines. They show the differing heights of letters on the line. Something made the scribe scrunch the letters upwards. The second YOD of YDY has been wrongly touched up, now too short, perhaps the first as well. Whatever the case all the letters on the left have been shortened and are of no easy significance to the discussion.

Supposing you are right and the purple line on the left is scrunched, you still have the fact that the YODs within that scrunch are still written well above the purplease line and the lines next to them.

YODs are supposed to be scrunched small anyway, because they are written like apostrophes, high and small. So when you say " The second YOD of YDY has been wrongly touched up, now too short", your statement does not make sense, because yod is supposed to be a short letter. In relation to the surrounding letters yod is supposed to be drawn short. Ok, you are saying that in the original the yod is drawn long here, but it isn't clear to me that he did, and anyway why would he draw it long when he knows it's supposed to be short?


The easy significance to the discussion of the letter on the left of KARU is that the yod drawn directly to the left of the u in karu is far shorter than the u, but the scrunch you are talking about is not far higher.

The u in karu is drawn definitely long dark black in the Black and white original I posted, right next to the long dark black R in KARU.

I understand that you are claiming that this scribe wrote his yods long sometimes. But that claim is not clear. Going to the black and white original, the first yod of the next word that you say is scrunched is still shorter and higher than the second letter. At most one can argue that in the b&w image I posted the second YOD in that word is dark and thick at the top and faintly traces long and to the bottom. But such a claim looks unlikely to me as the 2nd and 4th letters in that word are drawn long, thick, and black below that second yod in question, which is not drawn down thickly and clearly like them.

[rakovsky]

JW:
rakovsky, first of all I want you know that I'm breaking Peter Kirby's oldest rule here by arguing on the same side as spin. Secondly, I think even "Mark's" Jesus would be sore amazed that regarding an issue that it is about what the actual offending fragment shows you have presented as evidence every supposedly related picture except the actual picture. The actual picture has been published, is available and has been reproduced by me ad nazorean. So in addition to asking yourself if you feel lucky arguing against me/spin you need to ask yourself why you have made a conclusion about what the actual fragment shows without apparently looking at the actual fragment. spin would say that's "naughty". I would say something else.


Joseph

Psalm 22:17, Hebrew Text, "Like A Lion". Determining Who's Original And Who's Lion? Nahal Hever Fragment

Hello, Joseph.

The image from your website is here posted by me below and if you have been following the discussion, you would know that earlier I posted a black and white version that I found to be not highlighted or touched up. Yours to me does not show KARI but KARU:


You say you expect that eventually apologists and scholars will agree on LIKE A LION as the right reading and you and spin are saying that the DSS are ambiguous.

Here is your problem. Typically the scholars don't check just one manuscript only. When the manuscripts diverge, the scholars make a footnote. So there will always be someone making a footnote about the LXX and the couple of masoretic texts saying KARU and dug. And then someone who wants to read up on the issue will come across what you consider to be the "worse than naughty" information on this topic.

[rakovsky]

2. Look at the sample ALEP on the bottom right. It shows the normal shape of the letter, which has been misrepresented by the touch-up, as its last arm is totally wrong and the RESH is too long as a consequence. This leads us to the ALEP half circled below the touch-up line. I indicate the last arm of the ALEP in red. It cuts off the possibility of length of the following WAW, such that it is shrter than the two YODs.

I see the sample ALEP on the bottom right and see how its last arm extends far to the left
I also see how the half circled ALEP you refer to has a long diagonal going to the left, but I don't see it as cutting off the " possibility of length of the following WAW". Rather, I see them overlapping, with the bottom of the Waw starting at the left end of the alep.

[rakovsky]

3. Further down you can see a WAW and a YOD marked and the YOD is slightly longer.

4. On the right is a rather long YOD (cut off by the foot of the TAW), but is still longer than any WAW.

It would be helpful to me if you could write more about this, like use different colors in 3 and in 4 so I would see easier which ones you mean.

Yes, the Second yod after KARU in yod delta yod looks like it might be drawn long downwardly, and so I can understand the claim that there is ambiguity in the document, although to me it looks clear that the u in karu is drawn long and the first yod in the next word is drawn short. The u in karu looks like one of the longest, thickest, clearest letters within a serious distance of itself. So you would need to be claiming that "Yes the scribe did write KARU, but sometimes he wrote his yods like waws, so that we can't tell which he intended here."

[JoeWallack]

JW:
rakovsky, first of all I want you know that I'm breaking Peter Kirby's oldest rule here by arguing on the same side as spin. Secondly, I think even "Mark's" Jesus would be sore amazed that regarding an issue that it is about what the actual offending fragment shows you have presented as evidence every supposedly related picture except the actual picture. The actual picture has been published, is available and has been reproduced by me ad nazorean. So in addition to asking yourself if you feel lucky arguing against me/spin you need to ask yourself why you have made a conclusion about what the actual fragment shows without apparently looking at the actual fragment. spin would say that's "naughty". I would say something else.


Joseph

Psalm 22:17, Hebrew Text, "Like A Lion". Determining Who's Original And Who's Lion? Nahal Hever Fragment

Hello, Joseph.

The image from your website is here posted by me below and if you have been following the discussion, you would know that earlier I posted a black and white version that I found to be not highlighted or touched up.

JW:
If you think that the black and white photo you posted here has not been touched up than I'm wasting my time arguing with you. Also, why go Peter regarding confessing Christianity? Own it.

For the objective Readers note that trying to make the Nahal Hever (NH) Fragment the only/dominant issue is Apologetics. rakovsky claims that the "pierced" in 22:17 made him the Christian he is today. So that is the primary issue. [sarcastic]What is the evidence that 22:17 says "pierced"?[/sarcastic]. Actually, since there is nothing in the original Hebrew that says "pierced" and the early Greek translations do not support "pierced" either, the better question is is there any evidence to support a Hebrew original of "pierced".


Joseph

Psalm 22:17, Hebrew Text, "Like A Lion". Determining Who's Original And Who's Lion? Nahal Hever Fragment

[rakovsky]

JW:
If you think that the black and white photo you posted here has not been touched up than I'm wasting my time arguing with you.

I presume that the black and white image I posted from your website is one that you endorse?
As for the first black and white one, it looks to me like it was not touched up and the touched up one is the colored one, and it was only touched up in the line that says KARU.

The topic is an interesting one for me. I suppose that sometimes people get so locked into one way of looking at things that the discussion does not become constructive anymore except to learn new points of debate. Probably in a lot of topics like politics or religion there are gray areas, and it really takes some strong evidence to get someone to change their mind. I thought that Stalin's mass killings of innocent Russians was well proven, but I've even come across Russians who deny that the deceased were innocent. I think in the case of the Old Testament prophecies, for some people you would need to transport them back in time and get them to hear from David, Zechariah, Daniel, and Isaiah in person "Yes, we intended to portray the Davidic Messiah as getting killed". But even then it might not work, because there are people who claim that texts say something different than what their author intended.

Also, why go Peter regarding confessing Christianity?

Can you please explain what you mean by that?

My opinion based on the way the word karu is used elsewhere in the Tanakh is that it refers to gouging, in a way analogous to the way that a staff can be used to gouge the earth.

For the objective Readers note that trying to make the Nahal Hever (NH) Fragment the only/dominant issue is Apologetics. rakovsky claims that the "pierced" in 22:17 made him the Christian he is today.

Psalm 22 was one component showing me that the Tanakh predicted the idea of the Messiah's killing.
The pierced part is an uncanny resemblance to Jesus, and I think it is evidence in favor of Jesus being the killed and resurrected Messiah.

However, here is an interesting question, Joseph. Let's say that the mainstream apologists were right in their interpretation of the passages in the Tanakh regarding the Messiah getting killed in the 1st c. AD and resurrecting. Would this affirmative conclusion make it more likely than not that indeed in the 1st century the Messiah was killed and resurrected?

I understand that from your perspective, the verses do not say this. But since from my perspective they do, should my conclusion about the passages require me to accept that the Messiah did come and get killed in the 1st century?

[JoeWallack]

First, I drew one possible length of Yod Waw Yod in the line you are referring to in purple.[/b] Isn't the scribe putting the bottom left end of the aleph with the bottom of the Waw in question?

This is simply bogus. The arm of the ALEF is crossed by your fallacious purple line. Be serious. Here your original touched up image again, this time retuched by me:


At the moment I can't find a copy of this fragment online that hasn't been crapped on by people desperate to force the text into reading "dug" so they can pretend it actually means "pierced" for some strange reason.

JW:
Thanks for posting this spin so I can give the appearance of arguing against you. Even with a Waw as the last letter of the offending word it will still not be "dug".

This issue should be an event at the Special Apologetics Olympics, navigating the obstacle course to get from "like a lion" in Hebrew to "pierced" in English =

• 1) Near unanimous Hebrew of "Like a lion".
  
  2) The NH word with a Waw at the end would be unknown.
  
  3) At the time of NH Waws vs. Yods were known to be ambiguous.
  
  4) NH fragment badly faded.
  
  5) Support of "like a lion" in the only related language (Aramaic).
  
  6) "Like a lion" fitting context very well.
  
  7) Exorcising NH Aleph gives Hebrew for "dug". In the Jewish Bible this word always has a context of a positive/creative meaning such as digging a well and never a negative/destructive meaning.
  
  8) The multiple Hebrew words which do have a meaning of pierced have completely different spellings.
  
  9) "Pierced" does not fit the context as there is a primary theme of threat, the Psalmist is never actually physically harmed.
  
  10) Early Greek translations not supporting "pierced".
  
  11) Subsequent Latin translations not having a primary meaning of "pierced".
  
  12) Known mistranslations of Christian English translations.

Joseph

Psalm 22:17, Hebrew Text, "Like A Lion". Determining Who's Original And Who's Lion? Nahal Hever Fragment

[iskander]

Good work rakovsky. I sometimes wonder why good religious people come to forums to discuss utter trivia.

The Judaism of Moses is nothing like the Judaism of today. The Masoretic text was compiled around 700 A.D. and it is a heavily edited text.


https://theorthodoxlife.wordpress.com/2 ... al-hebrew/

Thanks Iskander.
For me some years ago it was a real question whether the old testament predicted whether the idea of a Messiah who was killed and resurrected, because it was a stage in my life where I wanted to verify religious claims. Psalm 22 is one of the places that discusses this prediction.

The issue with v. 17 about "like a lion" Vs "pierced/gouged" is that pierced /gouged bears an uncanny resemblance to Christ's killing. That is, it tells us to look to a Messiah whose hands and feet were gouged.

Spin, in his writing above, is saying that when looked at alone, the word in question looks like it is written as dug, ie. karu, but that the u in karu is not certain because he says that in other lines the y are drawn long and look like u. But this claim that the y elsewhere are drawn long still does not look clear to me or deal with the fact that the y in the same line are not drawn long. I invite him to vis it my webpage where I discuss Psalm 22.

It is of no importance whether or not the OT predicted the coming of the Messiah as he was understood then by the locals. Moses lost the battle for the hearts and minds of the people.
The OT was used by Jewish sectarians in an effort to persuade other religious Jews to join them . Christianity is a different religion from Judaism . Islam says that Moses was a Muslim !
What is important is that the Messiah was expected and therefore he was welcome. See attached file



Is God to be bound by the OT as in the binding of Isaac?

What is important is that the Messiah was expected and therefore he was welcome. See attached file

[rakovsky]

JW:
Thanks for posting this spin so I can give the appearance of arguing against you.

Why do you want that?

This issue should be an event at the Special Apologetics Olympics, navigating the obstacle course to get from "like a lion" in Hebrew to "pierced" in English =

Dr. Michael Brown recounts a debate he had where the issue came up: