Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

lion is King David, lion is John 2

Here is a very different photo of the Nahal Hever fragment with Ps 22:16.

The very first words at the top right is (letters right to left) [AYIN]-TSADE-MEM-WAW-TAW-YOD. Compare the YOD and the WAW.

spin,

The Septuagint translates the word in Psalm 22 as a verb "to pierce" or "dig" (I don't know Greek) and an old fragment has the alef in it, but they are both from around a thousand years after the original Psalm 22. Isn't it possible that during those thousand years that some people thought it was a verb and some people thought it said "like a lion", so you might find both versions. Just because one copy is older doesn't mean it is the original. I think this psalm was confusing people for a long time and not just after Christianity started. People say that Jewish people changed it to cover up a messianic proof quote, but it is possible that the controversy over this quote started long before Christianity existed.

I have my own alternative translations and explanations on my site http://www.hebrewbiblequotes.com/

Kenneth Greifer

JW:
Now let's get some of that evidence in here regarding ancient confusion between Waws and Yods:

Great Isaiah Scroll All written files by Fred P Miller copyright 1999

Two frequent variations will NOT be cited in this review. The addition of waw and yod to words as pronunciation helps to indicate vowels is very frequent and corresponds to the pointing to indicate these vowels, which was added by later Masoretic scholars. The addition of aleph in the same way is less frequent and will be cited. The second variation is the scribe's interchange of waw and yod. This is frequent. Where one expects to find a yod a waw is written and where one expects to find a waw a yod is written. We will not cite these but these occurrences, because of their frequency, can be seen by a general reading of the text.

Isaiah scroll

Pieces of the Isaiah Scroll have been carbon-14 dated at least four times, giving calibrated date ranges between 335-324 BC and 202-107 BC; there have also been numerous paleographic and scribal dating studies placing the scroll around 150-100 BC.[2]

Here we have evidence that a fellow Textual Tradition outside of the official Jerusalem Scribal system was inferior to it with Waws and Yods often mistakenly switched. This is hundreds of years before the NH fragments but suggests the NH fragments may have had exemplars/tradition with switched Waws and Yods.


Joseph

Skeptical Textual Criticism

kennethgreifer wrote:...

The Septuagint translates the word in Psalm 22 as a verb "to pierce" or "dig" (I don't know Greek) and an old fragment has the alef in it, but they are both from around a thousand years after the original Psalm 22. Isn't it possible that during those thousand years that some people thought it was a verb and some people thought it said "like a lion", so you might find both versions. Just because one copy is older doesn't mean it is the original. I think this psalm was confusing people for a long time and not just after Christianity started. People say that Jewish people changed it to cover up a messianic proof quote, but it is possible that the controversy over this quote started long before Christianity existed.

I have my own alternative translations and explanations on my site http://www.hebrewbiblequotes.com/

Kenneth Greifer

Yes, it was from the beginning only a difference between the foreign educated Alexandrians and the Palestinians, and that different understanding of psalm 22 precede the arrival of Jesus. See file attached
Lion is king David

John2 wrote:Yay, rakovsky's back and stirring things up again with his friendly but no holds barred tone. My favorite religious Russian. I like what you're saying about the Ps. 22 issue, particularly the extra aleph thing (in other words in the OT) and the dug/pierced translations in the LXX and Peshitta. Let's say you are right. In my view then it would not be a prophecy about Jesus (or anyone) but cherry picked imagery that was seen by Christians as pertaining to Jesus after he was crucified (like Is. 53).

Yes , Esther and Jesus, among other suitable candidates, were later honoured with psalm 22.

The Greek translation of the Septugint was the work undertaken by Jews to allow emigrant Jews who spoke only Greek to remain Jewish . It was a work performed to avoid those emigrants to disappear down the same hole that had swallowed the ten Israelites tribes of the Northern Kingdom .

The Septuagint kept the Diaspora Jewish. The Septuagint should be worshipped by modern Jews as a calf made of diamonds, --and diamonds are forever!

A challenge to all those people desperate to read the text of Ps 22:16 differently from the Massoretic text: here are five letters from the document called 5/6 HevPs fragment #9; without consulting an image of the full fragment can you discern which letters are which?



These letters show that the scribe was not consistent in his writing of the letters YOD and WAW for there are short YODs found on the fragment, but there are also long ones and these are not clearly distinguishable from WAWs, so anyone stating with certainty that the letter that has inspired much of this thread is a WAW is reality-challenged. (For those who want to know and have eyes to see, the letters are YWYXW where X is the letter in question.)

spin wrote:A challenge to all those people desperate to read the text of Ps 22:16 differently from the Massoretic text: here are five letters from the document called 5/6 HevPs fragment #9; without consulting an image of the full fragment can you discern which letters are which?

One of the issues I noticed was how far down the vavs or yods were drawn compared to the letters next to them. You also pointed out sometimes letters were scrunched. So if the letters in a word are scrunched, naturally a long waw could end up being scrunched too. So it's like comparing apples to oranges if you don't have the rest of the text to see the size of the words the lines fit in.

Imagine if l in English was only a bit longer than a ' . You would really need to look at the whole word next to it in order to tell if it was a ' or l in a letter that was written freehand on unlined paper.

rakovsky wrote:

spin wrote:A challenge to all those people desperate to read the text of Ps 22:16 differently from the Massoretic text: here are five letters from the document called 5/6 HevPs fragment #9; without consulting an image of the full fragment can you discern which letters are which?

One of the issues I noticed was how far down the vavs or yods were drawn compared to the letters next to them. You also pointed out sometimes letters were scrunched. So if the letters in a word are scrunched, naturally a long waw could end up being scrunched too. So it's like comparing apples to oranges if you don't have the rest of the text to see the size of the words the lines fit in.

Imagine if l in English was only a bit longer than a ' . You would really need to look at the whole word next to it in order to tell if it was a ' or l in a letter that was written freehand on unlined paper.

If you look at the previous image I posted, ie this


you'll see a WAW and a YOD used in the challenge image in the post you have responded to.

Psalm 22

6 But I am a worm,
14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint
16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: _________ my hands and my feet.

1. Why does he compare himself to a limbless worm?
2. How did his bones get out of their joints?
3. How does the relationship of the enemies, armed with horns and swords to, the arms/hands explain that the bones are out of joint?

Considering the Hebrew use of chiastic structure, it's poetically interesting also how the passage forms an structure of "jaws". The top part of the passage about enclosing the narrator is the top "jaw", and the bottom part about enclosing the narrator is the bottom "jaw", with the physically suffering narrator "bitten" in between.

---

12 Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.
13 They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.



14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax;

it is melted in the midst of my bowels.

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.



16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: kari/karu/kru my hands and my feet.

---

1. How does the narrator pour out if his body was unharmed?

2.(A) Isn't the "Dust of death" a reference to a body's state of being physically dead?
(B) Isn't V. 29 of this chapter contrasting those who are fat on the earth with those who go down to the dust, as a comparison of the living with the dead?

All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul.

3. The melting of the heart is the center of the chiasm above. If a heart melts into the bowels, isn't it experiencing collapse, softening, and death?