This is an interesting commentary by someone who is a Jew (Dr Seth Postell) but believes in Jesus and also comments on Tovia Singer and what he says about Christian interpretations and translations.
This next site is interesting and actually says that it is the Jews who changed "pierced" in Psalm 22 to "like a lion" (just by changing one little mark in the word) and also gives reasons to think that--namely that texts older than the Masoretic text (Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls) show that Psalm 22 had "pierced" in it.
It also shows that Psalm 22 was Messianic to many Rabbis of the past and showed a suffering Messiah as does Isa 53.
Psalm 22: Possibly the most famous prophetic psalm about the Messiah! Much like Isaiah 53, it describes the Messiah’s torment, rejection and death: “To the choirmaster: according to The Doe of the Dawn. A Psalm of David. My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving...
www.oneforisrael.org
The apologist in One for Israel is just saying apologetics and is a fundamentalist who is completely bias.
Here is an apologist who is at least a professor and takes a fair look at the issue
Listen to this article I like Rabbi Tovia Singer. He’s a winsome, intelligent, and charming man and a fabulous teacher. As my Jewish friends would say, he’s a mensch! I’ve not met him in person (yet), but I’ve watched a lot of his teachings online. One thing I love about his style is how he […]
rlsolberg.com
He also mentions Tovia Singer and thinks he is incorrect about the motive for changing the text.
First of all, many modern Bibles recognize the original Hebrew probably did not say pierced, note the footnotes they all include.
NKJV
“For dogs have surrounded Me; The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They* pierced My hands and My feet”
* So with some Heb. mss., LXX, Syr., Vg.; MT Like a lion instead of They pierced
NIV
“Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce* my hands and my feet.”
* Dead Sea Scrolls and some manuscripts of the Masoretic Text, Septuagint and Syriac; most manuscripts of the Masoretic Text me, / like a lion
CSB
“For dogs have surrounded me; a gang of evildoers has closed in on me; they pierced* my hands and my feet.”
* Some Hb mss, LXX, Syr; other Hb mss read me; like a lion
ESV
“For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet.*”
* Some Hebrew manuscripts, Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac; most Hebrew manuscripts like a lion [they are at] my hands and feet
" the proverbial cat has been let out of the bag; the record has been updated."
He concluded - "And given the alternate modern translations of this text that we looked at above, it seems to me much more plausible that what we see in
Psalm 22:16 is the result of a scribal error, rather than the product of malicious editing for theological purposes."
There are two sources:
There are two primary early sources; the
Masoretic Text,
4 which is universally accepted as the authentic Hebrew Bible and translates the Hebrew phrase in Psalm 22 as “like a lion,” and the collection of Greek texts known as the
Septuagint,
5 which render the phrase in question as “they pierced.” Most Hebrew scholars will say "dug"
Summary - scribal error in Greek Version
It strikes me as odd that the early church translators would swap out the phrase “like a lion” for the phrase “they pierced” in verse 16, yet leave the other Messianic passages from Psalm 22 intact. Rather than malfeasance on the part of early Christian translators, I believe the weight of the evidence suggests a scribal error is at the root of this discrepancy. Thus, the way most modern translations acknowledge the alternate interpretations of this verse in the footnote is appropriate.
Now this is an apologist who ultimately thinks this there is still messianic references to Jesus in Psalms. He's even impressed that the crucifixion narrative quotes Psalms verbatim, because he's bought into this story. He doesn't grasp the obvious, Mark used Psalm when constructing his fiction about a Greek style savior undergoing a passion, which they all did. Over 1 billion people believe the Quran is a message from an angel and billions believe Krishna appeared on a battlefield to talk with Prince Arjuna. So it's not surprising, it's what people do.
The Wiki page says the SAME
en.wikipedia.org
The original Hebrew says "they bite like a lion my hands and my feet". The Septuagint says "they dug my hands and feet", and pologists seem to think "dug" can be swaped out with "pierced". It really can't but since it makes it more of a Christological interpretation they want it to say that. But it also could say pluck, bore, pick clean.......
"This verse, which is Psalm 22:17 in the
Hebrew verse numbering, reads in most versions of the
Masoretic Text as: כארי ידי ורגלי, which may be read literally as "like a lion my hands and my feet". The full verse of the Masoretic Text reads: כִּ֥י סְבָב֗וּנִי כְּלָ֫בִ֥ים עֲדַ֣ת מְ֭רֵעִים הִקִּיפ֑וּנִי כָּ֝אֲרִ֗י יָדַ֥י וְרַגְלָֽי (
Kî sĕḇāḇûnî kĕlāḇîm 'ăḏaṯ mĕrē'îm hiqqîp̄ûnî kā'ărî yāḏay wĕraḡlāy). The syntactical form of this Hebrew phrase appears to be lacking a verb. In this context the phrase was commonly explained in
early Rabbinical paraphrases as "they bite like a lion my hands and my feet".
The
Septuagint, a Jewish translation of the Hebrew Bible into
Koine Greek made before the
Common Era, has "ὤρυξαν χεῗράς μου καὶ πόδας" ("they dug my hands and feet"), which Christian commentators argue could be understood in the general sense as "pierced". This reading was retained by
Jerome in his translation from the Greek
Hexapla into the Latin of his Gallican Psalter (
Foderunt manus meas et pedes meos) which was incorporated into both the Vulgate and the
Divine Office."
This article uses some good reference sources and sums it up well
The translation "they have pierced" is preferred by many Christian commentators for its
christological implications. For example,
Craig Blomberg, commenting on the allusions to
Psalm 22 in the
Gospel of Matthew, includes "he is surrounded by wicked onlookers (22:16a) who pierce his hands and feet (22:16b)" among "an astonishing number of close parallels to the events of Jesus' crucifixion".
[9] However, the phrase is not quoted directly in the
New Testament, despite the Septuagint Greek reading "dug" that might be thought to prefigure the piercing of Jesus' hands and feet. This translation is brimming with problems, not least of which is that there is no such Hebrew root as כאר and there is not a single instance of aleph being used as an infix in the Hebrew language, thus the form כארו is completely meaningless in Hebrew. The form as presented in the Masoretic Text, i.e. כארי, however, is perfect grammatical Hebrew for "like a lion" or "as a lion."
[10]
The only people looking for it to say "pierced" are some form of apologist/theologian who go on to talk about how Jesus rose again, yay! in every article.
The apologist I used above gets around this by saying there are enough messianic references to keep his bias satisfied, so he will admit it doesn't say pierced. The bias is soooooooo obvious? They cannot write an article without going full evangelist?
biblearchaeology.org
www.asor.org
www.nationalgeographic.com
