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

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

Post by Ulan »

spin wrote:Think of a modern example: "he's simple in the head". A literal translation, word-for-word, into German "Er ist einfach im Kopf" means nothing. You can only give a non-literal translation, a functional equivalent in the target language that does basically the same thing.
Not the best example. You could use the literal translation "Er ist simpel im Kopf". Yes, German has the same word, with "less than intelligent" being one of the possible meanings.
http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/simpel (3rd meaning)

This doesn't change anything about the gist of your answer though, even if the example doesn't fit.
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rakovsky
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Re: Psalm 22:17, Hebrew Text, "Like A Lion". Who's Lion?

Post by rakovsky »

Ulan wrote:
spin wrote:Think of a modern example: "he's simple in the head". A literal translation, word-for-word, into German "Er ist einfach im Kopf" means nothing. You can only give a non-literal translation, a functional equivalent in the target language that does basically the same thing.
Not the best example. You could use the literal translation "Er ist simpel im Kopf". Yes, German has the same word, with "less than intelligent" being one of the possible meanings.
http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/simpel (3rd meaning)

This doesn't change anything about the gist of your answer though, even if the example doesn't fit.
Yes, it goes to the gist of the answer because it shows that literal translations can often be understood in the target language.
When they aren't understood, I still prefer the literal translation, accompanied with a footnote explaining the expression, instead of a paraphrase. This is my personal preference when I want to do a close analysis.

If I am just reading for fun and don't care about the exact meaning, I like paraphrases.
I liked to read the story of David's life in the Good News Bible for ease of reading over the KJV. The reading goes a lot quicker to get the narrative and tell the story. Reading technical translation can bog you down a bit.

Even there though, if I had to pick ONLY one Bible translation and exclude the others, I would still prefer the literal one over a paraphrased one.

If we do pick "KRU", and the enemies armed with swords, "teeth" and "horns" KRU the narrator, then the literal meaning is they "dig" and "gouge" him, and a paraphrase translation is they pierce him.

Same thing with the same verb Karah in Job 40. They "make a banquet of him" is a paraphrase translation, "dig" and "gouge" is the literal one. I prefer the latter.

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

Post by Ulan »

rakovsky wrote:Yes, it goes to the gist of the answer because it shows that literal translations can often be understood in the target language.
No it doesn't. It was just a bad example because spin probably forgot that German has the word "simpel". And even though German has the word "simpel", it's not automatically sure that it also has the same spread of meanings as the English equivalent. Unfortunately for the example, it has.

As a German who had been living in the US for a long time, I can tell you that German and English have many words where literal translations will give rather unintended results because the word meanings don't overlap. One example from my school time:

A German at a hotel comes down to the front desk with a complaint: "There's a train in my room. If I don't become another ceiling, I will undress."

There's one "false friend" in the line-up (become), but the rest illustrates the dangers of literal translations.
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rakovsky
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Re: Psalm 22:17, Hebrew Text, "Like A Lion". Who's Lion?

Post by rakovsky »

Ulan wrote:A German at a hotel comes down to the front desk with a complaint: "There's a train in my room. If I don't become another ceiling, I will undress."

There's one "false friend" in the line-up (become), but the rest illustrates the dangers of literal translations.
Too bad we aren't using Russian. My guess just from hearing your example is that some or each of those words you listed has a known second meaning in the original language. The context would demand using that second meaning, if such exists.

Example: Kindergarten could literally mean a "Garden of Children", but it also has a known second meaning of pre-school.
When I say I prefer the literal meaning, I am saying I prefer using the known meanings, not literal to excess or paraphrasing things, especially not into non-dictionary meanings. (Even if pierce is actually one dictionary meaning of dig).

If a German text says "Kindergarten", I don't want it overliterally translated into Garden of Children, nor do I prefer it paraphrased into "pre-school", since Kindergarten is itself a known meaning in English. Did I explain that well enough?

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

Post by rakovsky »

Textual symmetry demands a gouging attack in vv. 16-17.

On the Ancient Hebrew forum, Dan Black brought up a good issue:
the ancient hebrew language(ahl) authors delighted in, and populated the ahl, with literary symmetry and parallelism.

3. so, psalm 22:20-21 lists four images, in the following order:

a. sword;

b. dogs;

c. lion;

d. ox/bull.

4. and, psalm 22:12, 13, 16 lists the same four literary images in the reverse order:

a. ox/bull;

b. lion;

c. dogs;

d. sword.

Read more: http://ancient-hebrew.proboards.com/thr ... z4YUikziR1
D.Black is right. Here is what the JPT says:

13. Great bulls have surrounded me; the mighty ones of Bashan encompassed me.
14 They opened their mouth against me [like] a tearing, roaring lion.
15. I was spilled like water, ...
16. ... and You set me down in the dust of death.
17. For dogs have surrounded me; a band of evildoers has encompassed me, like a lion, my hands and feet. [or “they gouged my hands and feet”in the Septuagint]

21. Save my soul from the sword, my only one from the grip of the dog.
22. Save me from the lion's mouth, as from the horns of the wild oxen You answered me.

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

Post by rakovsky »

Yalkut Shimoni includes interpretation(s) of a gouging attack in Psalm 22:16-17


D. Black cited to me Yalkut Shimoni:
Yalkut shimoni on Nach, section 687.2
this excerpt contains quotations from, and interspersed commentary about, psalm 22:16 (17):


כי סבבוני כלבים אלו בניו של המן

for - surrounded they me - dogs - who - sons of him - belonging to - haman

* * * *

עדת מרעים הקיפוני אלו אוכלוסי אחשורוש

assembly of - ones doing evil - circled(bored) they me - who - soldiers(population) of - ahasuerus

* * * *

כארי ידי ורגלי

as lion - hands of me - and feet of me

* * * *

רבי יהודה אומר עשו לי כשפים חוברי כארי ידי ורגלי לפני אחשורוש

rabbi(teacher of me) - yehuda(yahu is praised) - saying - made(did) they - to me - sorceries(spells, charms) - ones joining (tying magic knots) - as lion - hands of me - and feet of me - to face of(before) - ahasuerus

* * * *

רבי נחמיה אומר הוכרו ידי ורגלי לפני אחשורוש

rabbi - nehemyah(comforts ya) - saying - recognized they - hands of me - and feet of me - to face of(before) - ahasuerus.

Read more: http://ancient-hebrew.proboards.com/thr ... z4YUlGmov9
D. Black comments about the first word used in the above rabbinical commentary:
הקיפוני
" "bored" means "dug" or "pierced" but a very secondary/infrequent/lesser meaning/usage."

D. Black says about the second word:
הוכרו
"a possibility, and that is the hebrew expression הוכרו was interpreted [by Dr. A. Shor] as a conjugation of the root verb כרי or כרה meaning "dig." "

Aavichai comments: "The הוכרו is root נכר huphal"


D. Black followed up:
כרה represents the root meaning "dig;" or more precisely: "he dug;"

and

הוכרו represents the hophal stem conjugation; or third person; plural number; masculine gender; past tense; passive voice; causative mood; or .... in english: "were caused dug they." note: this particular stem does not witness in the hebrew text of the bible.

* * *

another example:

נכר represents the root meaning "recognize;" or more precisely: "he recognized;"

and

הוכרו represents the hophal stem conjugation; or third person; plural number; masculine gender; past tense; passive voice; causative mood; or .... in english; "were caused recognize they." note: this particular stem also does not witness in the hebrew text of the bible.

Read more: http://ancient-hebrew.proboards.com/thr ... z4YVEbLGH2
Last edited by rakovsky on Sun Feb 12, 2017 11:59 am, edited 6 times in total.

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

Post by rakovsky »

KARU turns out to be a known form of Mishnaic Hebrew & Aramaic KRI (dig):

D. Black writes:
in the halakhot gedolot, a medieval hebrew commentary on the talmud, and published approximately the same time as the oldest surviving hebrew bible manuscripts, the hebrew/aramaic verb כרי , meaning "dig" or "pierce," spells as כארי .

[It's in the halakhot gedolot on] page 395, third line above the footnote.

books.google.com/books?id=gotBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA395&lpg=PA395&dq=%D7%9B%D7%90%D7%A8%D7%99+%D7%92%D7%A8%D7%92%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%90&source=bl&ots=5lfM2dd06e&sig=Iebi37LsMBqJTNFgXU4S3iQUvoE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjN0d3CjovSAhWEJiYKHeUTBxoQ6AEIHjAB#v=onepage&q=%D7%9B%D7%90%D7%A8%D7%99%20%D7%92%D7%A8%D7%92%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%90&f=false

Read more: http://ancient-hebrew.proboards.com/thr ... z4YUzOIyIi
See also Strong's Dictionary:
Original Word: כָּרָה
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: karah
Phonetic Spelling: (kaw-raw')
Short Definition: dig

Mishna כרי
http://biblehub.com/hebrew/3738.htm

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The Strange Chapter of Dr. Jewkyll and Mr. Hymn

Post by JoeWallack »

"Pierced" through the hands (and feet), Jews to blame, you give love one another, a bad name

JW:
The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently Kindle Edition by Amy-Jill Levine

[wrong]
This reference to piercing is also at home in Psalm 22, where verses 16–17 can be translated, “They have pierced my hands and feet—I can count all my bones.”
[/wrong]


Joseph

EDITOR, n. A person who combines the judicial functions of Minos, Rhadamanthus and Aeacus, but is placable with an obolus; a severely virtuous censor, but so charitable withal that he tolerates the virtues of others and the vices of himself; who flings about him the splintering lightning and sturdy thunders of admonition till he resembles a bunch of firecrackers petulantly uttering his mind at the tail of a dog; then straightway murmurs a mild, melodious lay, soft as the cooing of a donkey intoning its prayer to the evening star. Master of mysteries and lord of law, high-pinnacled upon the throne of thought, his face suffused with the dim splendors of the Transfiguration, his legs intertwisted and his tongue a-cheek, the editor spills his will along the paper and cuts it off in lengths to suit. And at intervals from behind the veil of the temple is heard the voice of the foreman demanding three inches of wit and six lines of religious meditation, or bidding him turn off the wisdom and whack up some pathos.

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The Original Lion King

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUuYroXn22M

JW:

New Revised Standard Version
The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is an English translation of the Bible published in 1989 by the National Council of Churches. It is a revision of the Revised Standard Version, which was itself an update of the American Standard Version.[2]
Psalm 22:16
NRSV RSV ASV
For dogs are all around me;
a company of evildoers encircles me.
My hands and feet have shriveled;[a]

Footnotes
Psalm 22:16 Meaning of Heb uncertain
Yea, dogs are round about me;
a company of evildoers encircle me;
they have pierced[a] my hands and feet—

Footnotes
Psalm 22:16 Gk Syr Jerome: Heb like a lion
For dogs have compassed me:
A company of evil-doers have inclosed me;
[a]They pierced my hands and my feet.

Footnotes
Psalm 22:16 So the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Syriac. The Hebrew text as pointed reads, Like a lion, my etc.

Nota Ben = Note that the best Christian translation has yet to make it all the way to "like a lion" as likely original but has made progress the other way in reducing the amount of likely wrong conclusions:

ASV
1. "Pierced" is not supported by the Textual evidence.
2. There was no official Greek translation of the Jewish Bible. Early Greek translations had a variety of translations for the word in question, none of them were "pierced". It's also difficult to tell whether these translations were Jewish or Christian.
3. The Vulgate is relatively late here and had "pricked" (still not pierced).
4. The early Syriac is unclear.
5. Saying Hebrew "pointed" text implies a later recension but there is no quality evidence that the Hebrew textual tradition ever had a recension.

RSV
1. Same wrong conclusion but the evidence for it has been toned down.
2. "Septuagint" is downgraded to Greek.
3. Vulgate is downgraded to Jerome.
4. Confession that the Hebrew tradition is simply "like a lion".

NRSV
1. Change of translation to "shriveled", one of the early Greek guesses and recognition that none of the early Greek guesses include a meaning of "pierced".
2. Exorcism of questionable evidence.
3. As the only footnote claims that the original Hebrew is uncertain the implication is that the English translation is too. Note that this type of comment, "meaning uncertain", is traditionally a Jewish type comment, not a Christian one.


Joseph

Mahmoud Abbas does Dylan Thomas:

"Do not resist gently into that good fight.
Old age should burn and rave (and stash billions) at close of sixteen year and counting term.
Rage, rage, against, against, well against whatever the news of the day is."


They have pierced my hands and my feet
cora
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Re: Psalm 22:17, Hebrew Text, "Like A Lion". Who's Lion?

Post by cora »

Pierced is just a forgery by Justin Martyr (died 165), he is the first one that wrote it, to suggest Jesus being nailed to a cross. The cross he had invented before, from exodus. One false representation, one forgery. In the ensuing gospels from 185, psalm 22 was indeed used to describe the crucifixion. Justin was taken over by Irenaeus.
In fact there was no cross. The death penalty was on a stake, possibly a T. Stauros (greek) means stake. Crux (latin) also means stake. Crucifixion means originally putting someone on a stake.
Fooled by Justin and Irenaeus. I think it is a disgrace to discuss the original jewish words (like a lion). They will know themselves what is in their own scriptures. There are many faults and many Christian forgeries in the LXX. The most famous is the "virgin" that is not there, even recognised by the catholic church. For everything concerning the old testament, you should consult the jews.
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