Christians- How do you know Jesus and the Bible are true?

[YoursTrue]

Yes, I’m familiar with the tale of the “New Jerusalem”. I was once a Christian, remember. Frankly, even when I was Christian, most of Revelation seemed to me like it was written by Jerry Garcia after a particularly good acid trip. I always found it to be fairly inaccessible literature.

My take on this is that many religions and sects have serious difficulties in interpretation and understanding. I mean even before I was a Christian I was seriously afraid of any group that spoke in "tongues." I'll leave it at that.

 

[Brian2]

I’m not making up what happened. I’m just more realistic when I read it. Samuel clearly resented the monarchy. The judges were the authority and it’s not like they were all awesome. Samson didn’t do anything but use his position to get into many positions with Philistine chicks. I’d want to rethink the government too.

You are interpreting what happened, and that is what we do with stories, we look at the characters and decide who is the bad guy and who is the good and who is in control and try to see why the author wrote the story as he did. BUT you take out one of the characters, God, and interpret the story as a true story but without that character. This is making up your own story imo.

 

[joelr]

I posted a video of the same scholar (RL Solberg) and the same talk and note that (as in the link you give) he does express surprise that Singer (a Hebrew scholar) did not mention the close similarity of "pierced" and "like a lion" and just says that the Christians have raped the Hebrew scriptures and changed them.
But as you can see above in the translations and footnotes, the Dead sea scrolls have "pierced" and some Masoretic texts have "pierced" and some LXX manuscripts.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are much older than the Masoretic texts.
Dug, made a hole in, bored as with an awl might be better translations instead of pierced, but pierced looks closer than "like a lion" when you look at the manuscripts. Dug, made a hole in, bored as with an awl etc are probably more appropriate to what happened to Jesus than "pierced" I suppose. Maybe it was a clean piercing, maybe not.




No the original Hebrew does not say "they bite like a lion my hands and my feet" and your scholar, RL Solberg seems to agree that "pierced" is an OK translation, as you can see below.

In actuality (and I would be surprised if the Hebrew-speaking Rabbi Singer did not know this), the difference between the phrases like a lion and they pierced in Hebrew is a single letter. In Hebrew, the phrase “like a lion” is ka’ari, as Singer pointed out, while the phrase “they have pierced” is ka’aru. These two words are nearly identical. The only difference is that ka’ari (lion) ends with the Hebrew letter yod, and ka’aru (pierced) ends with the Hebrew letter vav.

Your entire post is wrong.
The apologist you source concludeds this :

"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. "

Psalm 22: Pierced v. Lion — R. L. Solberg

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

This link uses many sources, Rabbis and scholars


Original Text based on other uses of the words in scripture:

Frencch Rabbi Rashi follows the Masoretic Text and paraphrases the phrase as "like lions (they maul) my hands and my feet."[3] Rashi bases his translation of Psalm 22:16/17 on the other uses of the phrase (כָּ אֲרִי) ka'ari throughout the biblical text. Rashi cites Isaiah 38:13, in which translators uniformly render כָּאֲרִי as “like/as a lion”.
The Masoretic Text points כָּאֲרִי as a phrase: the prefix כָּ denotes "like" or "as", and ארי "lion". A variant form of the word for lion ( אריה ) arie occurs twice in Psalm 22, in verses 13/14 and 21/22.

Several scholars say the Septuagint says "dug" and can be written as mined, excavated, pluck, pick clean...Derivitives of the word lion appear many times in Psalm and every Hebrew manuscript.

"
To explain how divergent translations from the biblical text came about, Gregory Vall, a Christian professor of Religious Studies at Trinity Western University, speculated that the Septuagint translators were faced with כארו; i.e. as in the Masoretic text, but ending with the longer letter vav (ו) rather than the shorter yod (י), giving כארו ka'aru. This is not a word in the Hebrew language, but without the aleph it becomes כרו, "dug", "mined", or "excavated".[4] Biblical and Hebrew scholars, such as Brent Strawn, support the Masoretic Text reading of כארי ("like a lion"), based on textual analysis (i.e. derivatives of the word "lion" appear numerous times in the psalm and are a common metaphor in the Hebrew Bible), as well as its appearance in virtually every ancient Hebrew manuscript.[5] An exception to this is a Psalms fragment from Nahal Hever, where the word in question is written as כארו, karu, which becomes "dug" when omitting the aleph, as Vall had previously speculated. This finding is called into question by the Nahal Hever scribe's other numerous misspellings, such as one in the very same sentence, where ידיה is written instead of the correct ידי, making the Hebrew word ידי yadai "my hands" into ידיה yadeha, “her hands".[6]

In Peter Craigie's view, "MT’s כָּאֲרִי ('like a lion') presents numerous problems and can scarcely be correct." Reading the consonantal text כארו or כרו, he says that the Septuagint “they pierced my hands and feet” (ὤρυξαν) "may perhaps presuppose a verb כרה, 'to dig,' or כור, 'to pierce, bore'." Craigie notes alternative possibilities for the verb אָרָה (“to pluck, pick clean”), or כרה, “to be shrunken, shriveled”, but follows E. J. Kissane's proposal of an original text כלו, “consumed”, changed to כרו (noting the occasional interchange of ל and ר), with the nuance "my hands and my feet were exhausted".[7] Gregory Vall proposes that the text originally read אסרו (’asaru), which means “they have bound” before ס and א got inadvertently swapped, resulting in the meaningless סארו, which was later changed into כארי (ka'aru); this could explain why Aquila of Sinope, Symmachus, and Jerome all translated it the word as “to bind”.[8]"



Pierced is preffered by Christians because of it's christological implications. The version in the Masoretic Text makes more sense

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]

And from the article again:

So which interpretation is correct? In the end, whether we interpret it pierce or lion does not really matter in terms of the overall scriptural case for Jesus’ Messiahship. There are hundreds of other passages and prophecies that reveal His messianic attributes, so the Christian case does not stand or fall based on Psalm 22:16. Personally, I think either interpretation fits the context of the psalm as a whole. And on that note, I will leave you with a compelling point made by Dr. Michael Brown (whose doctorate is in Near Eastern languages and literature), who notes:

I said he was an apologist whos beliefs won't allow him to see the obvious. Despite the fact that Mark USES Psalm verbatim and clearly uses Elijah and Moses in the Jesus narrative (which means he's read the OT) so he's constructing a savior demigod FROM THE OT, at least in part.
So the things that match up are not prophecy? Mark is writing a sequel.
PArt 2 of movies were not prophecies being fulfilled, they are continuations of a story begun in part 1. It's fiction. The Persians moved in, they had their own predictions of a virgin born world savior as well as the end of the world myth and we see it begin to show up in late OT, Daniel and Isaiah. Then the NT takes that and the GReek myths and does the same thing every nation invaded by the Greeks did, combine their local religion with Hellenistic theology. Jesus is the Jewish version.

 

[joelr]

For you the whole Bible is made up of conspiracies to fool people into thinking things happened when they did not.

Completely wrong. The Bible is a religion. Religions are mythologies. Is the Quran, Hindu text and all other religions conspiracies to fool people into thinking things happened when they did not? No. People in those times automatically believed they were ruled by Gods. Laws, morals, ethics were learned through myths featuring deities. Judaism is no different. Genesis is a Mesopotamian re-write. The Mesopotamians used the same stories to give people an origin of the world and humans and a deity to pray to and give laws.
Same with Islam and Hinduism. Those are not real either. But people didn't have a legal system and logical thinking, empirical evidence and modern philosophy were not a thing.

Personally I think to point out that there is major disagreement amongst archaeologists and "real evidence" points to the Biblical maximalist side of things is not to live by one conspiracy theory after another.
Archaeology is not always a matter of knowledge but is a matter of opinion and so your "with actual knowledge and evidence" is false.

Once again you just make stuff up.
The evidence that Israelites came from Canaan is very certain. There are thousands of goddesss figurines found at many Israelite temple finds with goddess imagery drawn in temple doors. You don't actually know the evidence for either. You probably didn't even listen to Hebrew scholar Joel Baden or ever listen to an archaeologist like William Dever. So your opinion on this isn't an opinion, it's pure conjecture based on how you want things to be. You do not care about what is actually true.

You are right, the Bible tells us about Israel worshipping idol as well as Yahweh. The Temple finds as well as shrine finds etc just agree with what the Bible tells us. Archaeology is actually confirming the Bible about all this, and it is said as if it is a big revelation of archaeology.
What the Bible does not say is that it was written in 600BC. That is speculation based on the opinions of the Biblical minimalists.

What the Bible doesn't say is the majority of Israelites were in this folk religion. OF course some historical aspects of scripture will be true. Some historical aspects of Hindu scriptures, Greek mythology, and many religions are based on real events and happenings. That doesn't mean any Gods and angels are actually flying around.

The 600 B.C. is speculation, again, you are just guessing. You haven't bothered to ever understand the evidence. There are references to events of the time, the writing style was late, there is even dating:
"Researchers have analyzed 18 ancient texts dating back to around 600 BCE from the Tel Arad military post using state-of-the-art image processing, machine learning technologies, and the expertise of a senior handwriting examiner, and concluded that the texts were written by no fewer than 12 authors, suggesting that many of the inhabitants of the kingdom of Judah during that period were able to read and write."

Study confirms widespread literacy in biblical-period kingdom of Judah

Researchers have analyzed 18 ancient texts dating back to around 600 BCE from the Tel Arad military post using state-of-the-art image processing, machine learning technologies, and the expertise of a senior handwriting examiner, and concluded that the texts were written by no fewer than 12...

www.sciencedaily.com

Why historical scholarship is such a problem for you is beyond me?

When Was the Bible Written?​

If only today's scribblers had as few typos as folks did back in 600 B.C. Today's New York Times article, "New Evidence on When Bible Was Written: Ancient Shopping Lists" tells us "they wrote well, with hardly any mistakes." The "they" here appear to be a half dozen authors of ancient biblical texts, and the proofreader is Israel Finkelstein, Jacob M. Alkow Professor of the Archaeology of Israel in the Bronze Age and Iron Ages at Tel Aviv University.

 

[joelr]

No, scripture does not paint a false picture that says all along just Yahweh was worshipped. You speak like someone who has never read the Bible. And it does not matter what it is called. Israel after the Exodus was set up to be monotheistic and warned not to worship the idols of the Canaanites and for much of the time it was not monotheistic. Yes we have known that for a couple of thousand years and you make it sound like big news. The only thing you are adding is that it is a made up history. You are turning the history of the Jews into the speculations of the minimalists.

It's called "evidence". Archaeologist William Dever, leading Biblical archaeologist, " Bible written centuries later by elites and not representative of mainstream Israelite religion. "
Outside of fundamentalism no one believes those stories are true? Genesis is Mesopotamian mythology.


Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel
William G. Dever,

17:30 - Bible written centuries later by elites and not representative of mainstream Israelite religion. Bible is reconstruction of what elites believed religion should have been in Israel. Last 20 years of archaeology presents this picture.

25:50 Israelite figurines, male and female
28:00 Female figurine

29:00 mold for female figurine, Dever and “most” scholars take this for Ashera. Female holding cake, Bible mentions females baking cake for queen of heaven

30:55 Israelite arrows read “servant of lion lady” and Bin Anat.
Anat, Ashera and Astarte are the 3 female deities worshipped by Canaanite religion.

32:50 Tell el-Farah site, female goddess figurines
33:42 model of temple (palm trees on side) find with goddess symbol crescent moon

34:30 Temple model find with goddess in doorway and window
Temples were considered house of gods

35:46 examples of Ashera and temple in Egypt

52:46 drawing - may X be blessed by Yahweh and his Ashera
54:35 tomb inscription 8th century belonging to a governor “may x be blessed by Yahweh and his Ashera”
101:28 8th century female figurines from Jerusalem and 103:57
Many examples of Ashera/Astarte in Egypt/Canaan with similar features, lion theme, big wig

Based on the false Biblical timing for the Conquest (1200BC) and because of that, not being able to find evidence for it.

Face palm. Do you think archaeologists set their "detection machines" for "1200 BC"??? So it only looks for things from that time?

Hint, they do digs at Canaanite sites, they find no conquest EVER. They find emerging proto-Israelite tribes around 1200 BC in the hills.
The video I linked with Dr Baden goes over some of this.

Based on a seemingly on purpose misunderstanding of the settlement in Joshua and Judges, where Israel settled down in the same cities that they kicked the Canaanites out of and most of Canaanites remained there (as the Bible tells us) and were only defeated and removed gradually until Saul and David's time. And the Israelites get wives from the Canaanites at times and worshipped their gods.

Israel never kicked Canaanites out of anything.

Again it's all there in the Bible and all that Biblical minimalists do is to deny the first 5 books and therefore come up with a need for no conquest in Joshua and Israel having to be Canaanites all along and the Pentateuch and other parts of the Bible having been written in 600BC.

There is no minimalist or maximalist. There is just the evidence. No one doubts it except fundamentalists who need the legends to be true for personal reasons. Society and scholarship have moved on. Muslims can believe the Quran is the true word of God, Mormons can say the gold plates are the new updates, whatever. The Pentateuch was written after the exile.
Fundamentalists cannot go along with evidence because it doesn't back up what scripture says. Evidence is more important. The fact that you ignore it tells me everything.

The composition of the Torah (or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) was a process that involved multiple authors over an extended period of time.[1] While Jewish tradition holds that all five books were originally written by Moses sometime in the 2nd millennium BCE, leading scholars have rejected Mosaic authorship since the 17th century.[2]

Scholars frequently use these newer hypotheses in combination with each other, making it difficult to classify contemporary theories as strictly one or another.[11] The general trend in recent scholarship is to recognize the final form of the Torah as a literary and ideological unity, based on earlier sources, likely completed during the Persian period (539-333 BCE).[12][13][14]

Date of composition​

Classical source criticism seeks to determine the date of a text by establishing an upper limit (terminus ante quem) and a lower limit (terminus post quem) on the basis of external attestation of the text's existence, as well as the internal features of the text itself.[15] On the basis of a variety of arguments, modern scholars generally see the completed Torah as a product of the time of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (probably 450–350 BCE),[12][13] although some would place its composition in the Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE).[16]

Composition of the Torah - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

External evidence​

Manuscripts and non-biblical references​

Elephantine papyri​

Ketef Hinnom scrolls​

Linguistic dating​

Historiographical dating​

Arguments for a Persian origin​

Possibility of a Hellenistic origin​

Virtually all scholars agree that the Torah is composed of material from multiple different authors, or sources. The three most commonly recognized are the Priestly (P), Deuteronomist (D), and Yahwist (J) sources.

Each source can be linked to certain time periods as well.

No Israelites until 1000 BC even when the Mernephtah Stele of about 1200 BC tells us of Israel? Hmmm.

Yes this confirms Israel came from Canaan because that was IN THE CANAANITE NATION?????????
"Most of the text glorifies Merneptah's victories over enemies from Libya and their Sea People allies, but the final two lines mention a campaign in Canaan, where Merneptah says he defeated and destroyed Ashkelon, Gezer, Yanoam and Israel."

 

[joelr]

It's a matter of, "We can't accept what it says, so we'll make up our own story and believe that instead".

Make up a story??? FACE PALM!!!!! It literary styles and other evidence suggests otherwise. Also the author who prophecized the fall of Babylon gets it correct and when it gets to the actual point he is writing from EVERY PREDICTION IS THEN WRONG!!??!??!??!??!???!
There is undeniable Persian influence as well, which John Collins points out in a Yale Divinity lecture. 3 different authors and 3 different times.
Evidence.


The Book of Isaiah (Hebrew: ספר ישעיהו, [ˈsɛ.fɛr jə.ʃaʕ.ˈjaː.hu]) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament.[1] It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BCE prophet Isaiah ben Amoz, but there is extensive evidence that much of it was composed during the Babylonian captivity and later.[2] Johann Christoph Döderlein suggested in 1775 that the book contained the works of two prophets separated by more than a century,[3] and Bernhard Duhm originated the view, held as a consensus through most of the 20th century, that the book comprises three separate collections of oracles:[4][5] Proto-Isaiah (chapters 1–39), containing the words of the 8th-century BCE prophet Isaiah; Deutero-Isaiah (chapters 40–55), the work of an anonymous 6th-century BCE author writing during the Exile; and Trito-Isaiah (chapters 56–66), composed after the return from Exile.[6] Isaiah 1–33 promises judgment and restoration for Judah, Jerusalem and the nations, and chapters 34–66 presume that judgment has been pronounced and restoration follows soon.[7] While virtually no scholars today attribute the entire book, or even most of it, to one person,[4] the book's essential unity has become a focus in more recent research.[8]

Structure​

The Isaiah scroll, the oldest surviving manuscript of Isaiah: found among the Dead Sea Scrolls and dating from about 150 to 100 BCE, it contains almost the whole Book of Isaiah and is substantially identical with the modern Masoretic text.[15]
General scholarly consensus through most of the 20th century saw three separate collections of oracles in the book of Isaiah.[4] A typical outline based on this understanding of the book sees its underlying structure in terms of the identification of historical figures who might have been their authors:[16]

• 1–39: Proto-Isaiah, containing the words of the original Isaiah;
• 40–55: Deutero-Isaiah, the work of an anonymous Exilic author;
• 56–66: Trito-Isaiah, an anthology of about twelve passages.[17]

While one part of the general consensus still holds, this perception of Isaiah as made up of three rather distinct sections underwent a radical challenge in the last quarter of the 20th century.[18] The newer approach looks at the book in terms of its literary and formal characteristics, rather than authors, and sees in it a two-part structure divided between chapters 33 and 34:[19]

• 1–33: Warnings of judgment and promises of subsequent restoration for Jerusalem, Judah and the nations;
• 34–66: Judgment has already taken place and restoration is at hand.

Authorship[edit]​

While it is widely accepted that the book of Isaiah is rooted in a historic prophet called Isaiah, who lived in the Kingdom of Judah during the 8th century BCE, it is also widely accepted that this prophet did not write the entire book of Isaiah.[9][23]

• Historical situation: Chapters 40–55 presuppose that Jerusalem has already been destroyed (they are not framed as prophecy) and the Babylonian exile is already in effect – they speak from a present in which the Exile is about to end. Chapters 56–66 assume an even later situation, in which the people are already returned to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple is already under way.[24]
• Anonymity: Isaiah's name suddenly stops being used after chapter 39.[25]
• Style: There is a sudden change in style and theology after chapter 40; numerous key words and phrases found in one section are not found in the other.[26]

The composition history of Isaiah reflects a major difference in the way authorship was regarded in ancient Israel and in modern societies; the ancients did not regard it as inappropriate to supplement an existing work while remaining anonymous.[27] While the authors are anonymous, it is plausible that all of them were priests, and the book may thus reflect Priestly concerns, in opposition to the increasingly successful reform movement of the Deuteronomists.[28]

 

[joelr]

There were schools/groups of prophets and there was probably an Isaiah school. There is no real problem with different parts of Isaiah being written by different people. The only reason you don't accept that is because you are committed to the idea that the supernatural and prophecy is not true and so the prophecy of Cyrus had to have been written after Cyrus conquered Babylon.

Isaiah is broken down into 3 parts, discussed later. Again it's about evidence. But there is no evidence of prophecy and Isaiah gets things correct up until the authors time and then they all turn into nonsense. If you can overlook that you just do not care about what is really true.

If the Quran did it or Hindu scripture you would probably assume it was written after the fact.
Here are 250 things Yahweh said that did not happen.

Skeptic's Annotated Bible / Quran / Book of Mormon

skepticsannotatedbible.com

some are trivial but some are not.

Deuteronomy,
God says that the Israelites will destroy all of the peoples they encounter. But he was unable to keep his promise. 7:1, 7:23-24, 31:3

Joshua -

• God promises to give Joshua all of the land that his "foot shall tread upon." He says that none of the people he encounters will be able to resist him. But later we find that God didn't keep his promise, and that many tribes withstood Joshua's attempt to steal their land. 1:3-5, 3:10, 15:63, 16:10, 17:12-13, 17:17-18, 21:43-45

Isaiah​

1. These verses falsely predict that Babylon will never again be inhabited. 13:19-20
2. This verse prophesies that Damascus will be completely destroyed and no longer be inhabited. Yet Damascus has never been completely destroyed and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities. 17:1
3. The river of Egypt (identified as the Nile in RSV) shall dry up. This has never occurred. 19:5
4. "The land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt." Judah never invaded Egypt and was never a military threat to Egypt. 19:17
5. This verse predicts that there shall be five cities in Egypt that speak the Canaanite language. But that language was never spoken in Egypt, and it is extinct now. 19:18
6. These verses predict that there will be an alliance between Egypt, Israel, and Assyria. But there has never been any such alliance, and it's unlikely that it ever will since Assyria no longer exi

 

[joelr]

1:50 No the Canaanites and Jews were related through the Abraham and Isaac. Ishmael and Esau went on to begin the nations in the area for a start. Then the Jews intermarried with the Canaanites also.

Abraham is a literary creation. Did you just say "no" to a Harvard PhD in Hebrew Bible? Wow. You live in a conspiracy theory.

If the Jews were Canaanites the DNA would be the same, but it is just a bit like.

DNA evidence confirms they came from Canaanites

The DNA agrees with the Bible account of things. (I though you said Baden is a good scholar)

Jews and Arabs Descended from Canaanites​

DNA analysis, from bodies found at several sites, explains more than half of ancestry
After examining the DNA of 93 bodies recovered from archaeological sites around the southern Levant, the land of Canaan in the Bible, researchers have concluded that modern populations of the region are descendants of the ancient Canaanites. Most modern Jewish groups and the Arabic-speaking groups from the region show at least half of their ancestry as Canaanite.

In the study, published in Cell in May, 2020, the researchers explain that they used existing DNA analysis of 20 individuals, from sites in Israel and Lebanon, and then added 73 more, taking DNA from the bones of individuals found at Tel Megiddo, Tel Abel Beth Maacah and Tel Hazor (Northern Israel), Yehud (central Israel) and Baq’ah (central Jordan). By first eliminating individuals closely related to other individuals in the sample, then comparing the remaining 62 DNA samples against a dataset of 1,663 modern individuals, they were able to establish the genetic link to the modern populations. The ethnic groups either still living where Canaan once dominated, or from that area prior to moving elsewhere, are largely descended from the Canaanites.

your fundamentalism is played out.

4:10 What? First presumes that the Pentateuch is made up of different sources and that the Exodus happened in different ways in the Bible. What different ways? What is he talking about? He gives examples of what he means but those examples do not match what the Bible tells us. Is he reading another Bible? There is only one Exodus story. Is he really a scholar?

Textual variants in the Book of Exodus concerns textual variants in the Hebrew Bible found in the Book of Exodus.

Frequently used sigla (symbols and abbreviations) of Hebrew Bible manuscripts and editions include:[1]

א: Codex SinaiticusA: Codex AlexandrinusB: Codex Vaticanus (Roman Septuagint)C: Codex Ephraemi RescriptusABP: Apostolic Bible PolyglotAC: Aleppo CodexBHS: Biblia Hebraica StuttgartensiaBrenton: Brenton's Septuagint Translation 1879LC: Leningrad CodexLXX: Septuagint (list)LXXRahlfs: Rahlfs' Septuagint 1935LXXSwete: Swete's Septuagint 1930K: ketivKennicottx: Kennicott's Vetus Test. HebraicumMAM: Miqra according to the Masorahm.: MishnaMT or : Masoretic TextMTGinsburg: C.D. Ginsburg's Masoretic TextOL or : Old Latin / Vetus Latina (list)Q: qerexQx: Dead Sea Scrolls (list)S: Pe****taSP: Samaritan PentateuchTg: TargumTgBe: Targum Berlin Orientalis 1213TgJ: Targum JonathanTgO: Targum OnqelosTgN: Targum NeofitiTgPJ: Targum Pseudo-JonathanVg: Vulgate (list)VgClement: Clementine Vulgate 1592VgColunga&Turrado: A. Colunga & L. Turrado's Vulgata 1946Vgneo: Nova Vulgata 1979WLC: Westminster Leningrad Codex


The sources are the Documentary Hypothesis, it's over your head. Fundamentalists don't do that.

It is so easy to see his thinking about Josiah and the finding of the ancient books. He does not believe Joshua Judges Kings etc and the Moses story and the giving of the Law so he and others make up the story of those books and the Law being written by Josiah or at that time and given a divine background to the stories.

Jewish and Christian tradition viewed Moses as the author of Exodus and the entire Torah, but by the end of the 19th century the increasing awareness of discrepancies, inconsistencies, repetitions and other features of the Pentateuch had led scholars to abandon this idea.[19] In approximate round dates, the process which produced Exodus and the Pentateuch probably began around 600 BCE when existing oral and written traditions were brought together to form books recognizable as those we know, reaching their final form as unchangeable sacred texts around 400 BCE.[20]


The composition of the Torah (or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) was a process that involved multiple authors over an extended period of time.[1] While Jewish tradition holds that all five books were originally written by Moses sometime in the 2nd millennium BCE, leading scholars have rejected Mosaic authorship since the 17th century.[2]

The archaeology of Yahweh seems to be associated with Israel all the way through however.

Ancient Israelite & Judean Religion

Ancient Israelite & Judean Religion

As early as the 10th century BCE, Israelite and Judean religion began to emerge within the broader West Semitic culture, otherwise known as Canaanite culture. Between the 10th century and 7th centuries...

www.worldhistory.org

As early as the 10th century BCE, Israelite and Judean religion began to emerge within the broader West Semitic culture, otherwise known as Canaanite culture. Between the 10th century and 7th centuries BCE, ancient Israelite and Judean religion was polytheistic. The polytheism, though, was counterbalanced by devotion to one or two primary deities, a practice known as henotheism (van der Toorn, 2047). Henotheism is recognition and worship of many deities; however, the primary worship revolves around a single deity. Within Judean and Israelite communities, primary devotion was oftentimes towards Yahweh. As both Judah and Israel were emerging states, Yahweh was the national deity, an idea which finds its origins in religious practices from the Bronze Age.





Between the 10th and 7th centuries BCE, ancient Israelite and Judean religion took place in cultic and temple contexts. Although the many Jewish and Christians traditions suggest that Yahweh was the main and only deity through all Israelite and Judean religious history, archaeology, inscriptions, and the Hebrew Bible itself indicate otherwise. Even so, the deity being worshiped, usually Yahweh, was understood to be physically present in the temple, have a body, and be a personal god with emotions and willpower.

 

[joelr]

As you have done before, you really haven't answered the question. Maybe it is because you don't know so let me help you.

No I did, I just didn't follow the script you like so you thought this was a good chance to sound smug. Considering the number of straightforward questions I have asked to which you ultimately ignore, it didn't work. But we will figure this out.

The Leningrad Codex is the oldest complete manuscript of the Tanakh, the 39 books of the Bible. Written in Cairo on parchment in the year 1009.

Blah blah, I know about the Masoretic Text. We will use that.

The Septuagint was based on documents before the oldest complete manuscript of the Tanakh existed.

Unless you can be more specific, you haven't supported the position that the Septuagint is translated wrong. It could be the Leningrad Codex was translated wrong since it is after the Septuagint.

For starters here is a page that uses several good sources and defines the proper text as follows:

They have pierced my hands and my feet - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Original Text based on other uses of the words in scripture:

Frencch Rabbi Rashi follows the Masoretic Text and paraphrases the phrase as "like lions (they maul) my hands and my feet."[3] Rashi bases his translation of Psalm 22:16/17 on the other uses of the phrase (כָּ אֲרִי) ka'ari throughout the biblical text. Rashi cites Isaiah 38:13, in which translators uniformly render כָּאֲרִי as “like/as a lion”.
The Masoretic Text points כָּאֲרִי as a phrase: the prefix כָּ denotes "like" or "as", and ארי "lion". A variant form of the word for lion ( אריה ) arie occurs twice in Psalm 22, in verses 13/14 and 21/22.

Masoretic Text = "like lions (they maul) my hands and my feet."


Several scholars say the Septuagint says "dug" and can be written as mined, excavated, pluck, pick clean...Derivitives of the word lion appear many times in Psalm and every Hebrew manuscript.
"
To explain how divergent translations from the biblical text came about, Gregory Vall, a Christian professor of Religious Studies at Trinity Western University, speculated that the Septuagint translators were faced with כארו; i.e. as in the Masoretic text, but ending with the longer letter vav (ו) rather than the shorter yod (י), giving כארו ka'aru. This is not a word in the Hebrew language, but without the aleph it becomes כרו, "dug", "mined", or "excavated".[4] Biblical and Hebrew scholars, such as Brent Strawn, support the Masoretic Text reading of כארי ("like a lion"), based on textual analysis (i.e. derivatives of the word "lion" appear numerous times in the psalm and are a common metaphor in the Hebrew Bible), as well as its appearance in virtually every ancient Hebrew manuscript.[5] An exception to this is a Psalms fragment from Nahal Hever, where the word in question is written as כארו, karu, which becomes "dug" when omitting the aleph, as Vall had previously speculated. This finding is called into question by the Nahal Hever scribe's other numerous misspellings, such as one in the very same sentence, where ידיה is written instead of the correct ידי, making the Hebrew word ידי yadai "my hands" into ידיה yadeha, “her hands".[6]

In Peter Craigie's view, "MT’s כָּאֲרִי ('like a lion') presents numerous problems and can scarcely be correct." Reading the consonantal text כארו or כרו, he says that the Septuagint “they pierced my hands and feet” (ὤρυξαν) "may perhaps presuppose a verb כרה, 'to dig,' or כור, 'to pierce, bore'." Craigie notes alternative possibilities for the verb אָרָה (“to pluck, pick clean”), or כרה, “to be shrunken, shriveled”, but follows E. J. Kissane's proposal of an original text כלו, “consumed”, changed to כרו (noting the occasional interchange of ל and ר), with the nuance "my hands and my feet were exhausted".[7] Gregory Vall proposes that the text originally read אסרו (’asaru), which means “they have bound” before ס and א got inadvertently swapped, resulting in the meaningless סארו, which was later changed into כארי (ka'aru); this could explain why Aquila of Sinope, Symmachus, and Jerome all translated it the word as “to bind”.[8]"


Pierced is prefered by Christians because of it's christological implications. The version in the Masoretic Text makes more sense

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]



Part 2 -

 

[joelr]

As you have done before, you really haven't answered the question. Maybe it is because you don't know so let me help you.

The Leningrad Codex is the oldest complete manuscript of the Tanakh, the 39 books of the Bible. Written in Cairo on parchment in the year 1009.

The Septuagint was based on documents before the oldest complete manuscript of the Tanakh existed.

Unless you can be more specific, you haven't supported the position that the Septuagint is translated wrong. It could be the Leningrad Codex was translated wrong since it is after the Septuagint.

Now, let's use a Christian apologist who is a scholar, not a Hebrew scholar, but a scholar.
First, demonstrating what a known Rabbi says as well as Jewish Bibles IS AN ANSWER to your question. Maybe not what you were expecting?

Psalm 22: Pierced v. Lion — R. L. Solberg

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

R.L. Solberg, author, professor, apologist, weird hair

The Hebrew Says…​

In Psalm 22:16 the author, King David, is describing evil encircling him on every side. Singer points out that its the last three Hebrew words in this verse that are critical: ka’ari yadai v’ragelai. He then helps us define these Hebrew words:

1. Ka’ari means “like a lion” (The word ari means “lion”)
2. Yadai means “my hands”
3. V’ragelai means “my feet”

NOTE, many Bibles now recognize the original Hebrew!

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

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





His summary, it's a mis-translation in the Septuagint


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.

Summary​

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.


AND AGAIN, it doesn't really matter. Mark is constructing a fictive narrative and pulling from the OT. It's no secret he's using Psalm
Mark 15.24: “They part his garments among them, casting lots upon them.”

Psalm 22:18: “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon them.”

Mark 15.29-31: “And those who passed by blasphemed him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘…Save yourself…’ and mocked him, saying ‘He who saved others cannot save himself!’ ”

Psalm 22.7-8: “All those who see me mock me and give me lip, shaking their head, saying ‘He expected the lord to protect him, so let the lord save him if he likes.’ ”

Mark 15.34: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Psalm 22.1: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

so if it said pierced he's using it in the story. Doesn't seem to but Mark is using Psalm anyways to construct his crucifixion.

 

[joelr]

“Israelites” were simply the Canaanite faction which accepted a new god (YHVH) in place of the traditional Canaanite gods. They grew out of and separated from the greater Canaanite population. All “Canaanite” ( כְּנַעֲנִיים , K’na’anim) means in Hebrew is “lowlanders” (referring specifically to “lowland Northwest Semites”, especially as juxtaposed to Aramim “highlanders”/“ highland Northwest Semites”). The k’na’anim included those who became the Israelites, those referred to as “Philistines”, the “Phoenicians”, and other small groups of “lowland” Semites in the Levant.

Tell that to Brian2.
What are you sourcing?

 

[Kenny]

Blah blah, I know about the Masoretic Text. We will use that.

Before I deal with your compendium that tends to deviate from the point that I am making, the reality is that there are many interpretations of the same.

I actually think this would be a correct informative site:

"The oldest surviving manuscript of the psalm comes from the Dead Sea Scrolls, first discovered in 1947. Significantly, the 5/6 H. ev–Sev4Ps Fragment 11 of Psalm 22 contains the crucial word in the form of what some have suggested may be a third person plural verb, written כארו (“pierced/dug”). This may suggest that the Septuagint translation preserved the meaning of the original Hebrew. This rendering is present in a minority of manuscripts of the Masoretic text.[1]"

but other positions are also posted including yours.

They have pierced my hands and my feet - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Balthazzar]

Christians today have never met Jesus physically yet believe in Him. Why?

If you say you believe in Christ because of the Bible then how do you know the Bible is true?

How do you know Christ and the Bible are true?

What makes you so sure?

I suppose that has more to do with wanting it to be than knowing it is. Going into it, I believed it was true, after which I had my doubts, which led to a deeper study of, after which led to a deeper appreciation of. Having said that, I approach the texts and attempt to understand the scenes, then utilize a more practical analysis of. The reason being is its long-standing lifespan and number of cultures who honor it as being true. My views may be somewhat removed from the common adherent, but this does not negate its content. I could read a text book on quantum physics and call myself a quantum physicist but I wouldn't be. I'm fairly sure before we can truly claim a title like quantum physicist, we need to understand the content. I'll suggest the same is true for any other title that involves a need to study and understand something, including religious texts. It started making sense to me after a practical approach, so I understand the bible to be true due to being able to understand how it might be from what I've learned through my studies, which include far more than just biblical text. True is true, so science and astrology, physics, sociology, etc. all relevant to my stance as a student and laymen theologian and/or Christian.

 

[Brian2]

Your entire post is wrong.
The apologist you source concludeds this :

"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. "

I don't think that he said whether the scribe was Christian or Jewish.

I said he was an apologist whos beliefs won't allow him to see the obvious. Despite the fact that Mark USES Psalm verbatim and clearly uses Elijah and Moses in the Jesus narrative (which means he's read the OT) so he's constructing a savior demigod FROM THE OT, at least in part.
So the things that match up are not prophecy? Mark is writing a sequel.
PArt 2 of movies were not prophecies being fulfilled, they are continuations of a story begun in part 1. It's fiction. The Persians moved in, they had their own predictions of a virgin born world savior as well as the end of the world myth and we see it begin to show up in late OT, Daniel and Isaiah. Then the NT takes that and the GReek myths and does the same thing every nation invaded by the Greeks did, combine their local religion with Hellenistic theology. Jesus is the Jewish version.

The quote I used is from the article you posted to me.
It was the video I originally posted to you (Dr Seth Postell) that you said to be from an apologist.
Personally I agree with both of them (I think they both said this) that it really does not matter to the Christological content whether the word was meant to be "like a lion" or "dug" or "pierced", or bored.

 

[Zwing]

I suppose that has more to do with wanting it to be than knowing it is.

Yep, precisely. The standard is Pauline “faith”, defined as “confidence in what one hopes to be true”. This standard allows the Christian to avoid having to think critically about the objects of his faith.

 

[Balthazzar]

Yep, precisely. The standard is Pauline “faith”, defined as “confidence in what one hopes to be true”. This standard allows the Christian to avoid having to think critically about the objects of his faith.

I view this quite a bit different than you suggest. This type of faith is evidenced daily through our actions and are typically substantiated when the hope has been met ... like sitting in a chair, or making it to the gas station, or having food to eat, etc. Sometimes they're not met, but this doesn't negate that fact that faith is based on our substantiated hopes. To go further, creating a great recipe is similar or even cooking a great meal. We typically act through this type of faith in our daily lives. "The substance of things hoped for - the evidence of things not seen."

 

[Brian2]

Completely wrong. The Bible is a religion. Religions are mythologies. Is the Quran, Hindu text and all other religions conspiracies to fool people into thinking things happened when they did not? No. People in those times automatically believed they were ruled by Gods. Laws, morals, ethics were learned through myths featuring deities. Judaism is no different. Genesis is a Mesopotamian re-write. The Mesopotamians used the same stories to give people an origin of the world and humans and a deity to pray to and give laws.
Same with Islam and Hinduism. Those are not real either. But people didn't have a legal system and logical thinking, empirical evidence and modern philosophy were not a thing.

So are you saying that people made up stuff about gods and passed it off as the truth? or do you think that the members of the religions knew it was made up?
You certainly see to think this is the case in every religion and that angels or demons could not have been involved in some religions.

Once again you just make stuff up.
The evidence that Israelites came from Canaan is very certain. There are thousands of goddesss figurines found at many Israelite temple finds with goddess imagery drawn in temple doors. You don't actually know the evidence for either. You probably didn't even listen to Hebrew scholar Joel Baden or ever listen to an archaeologist like William Dever. So your opinion on this isn't an opinion, it's pure conjecture based on how you want things to be. You do not care about what is actually true.

As I said, the Bible tells us about Israel's worship of idols and archaeology shows it to be true. Great, the Bible is proven by archaeology.

What the Bible doesn't say is the majority of Israelites were in this folk religion. OF course some historical aspects of scripture will be true. Some historical aspects of Hindu scriptures, Greek mythology, and many religions are based on real events and happenings. That doesn't mean any Gods and angels are actually flying around.

The Bible does actually say that at some times in history the majority of Israelites were into idols.

The 600 B.C. is speculation, again, you are just guessing. You haven't bothered to ever understand the evidence. There are references to events of the time, the writing style was late, there is even dating:
"Researchers have analyzed 18 ancient texts dating back to around 600 BCE from the Tel Arad military post using state-of-the-art image processing, machine learning technologies, and the expertise of a senior handwriting examiner, and concluded that the texts were written by no fewer than 12 authors, suggesting that many of the inhabitants of the kingdom of Judah during that period were able to read and write."

Study confirms widespread literacy in biblical-period kingdom of Judah

Researchers have analyzed 18 ancient texts dating back to around 600 BCE from the Tel Arad military post using state-of-the-art image processing, machine learning technologies, and the expertise of a senior handwriting examiner, and concluded that the texts were written by no fewer than 12...

www.sciencedaily.com

Why historical scholarship is such a problem for you is beyond me?

When Was the Bible Written?​

If only today's scribblers had as few typos as folks did back in 600 B.C. Today's New York Times article, "New Evidence on When Bible Was Written: Ancient Shopping Lists" tells us "they wrote well, with hardly any mistakes." The "they" here appear to be a half dozen authors of ancient biblical texts, and the proofreader is Israel Finkelstein, Jacob M. Alkow Professor of the Archaeology of Israel in the Bronze Age and Iron Ages at Tel Aviv University.

The article you posted shows nothing about when the Hebrew scriptures were written unless you go to it fully convinced that the Pentateuch and other parts of the OT were written a long time after the times suggested in the Bible.

 

[Zwing]

So are you saying that people made up stuff about gods and passed it off as the truth?

You have distilled “Theism for Dummies” into a single sentence. Good show old chap!

 

[Brian2]

It's called "evidence". Archaeologist William Dever, leading Biblical archaeologist, " Bible written centuries later by elites and not representative of mainstream Israelite religion. "
Outside of fundamentalism no one believes those stories are true? Genesis is Mesopotamian mythology.


Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel
William G. Dever,

Yes archaeologists find evidence for what the Bible tells us happened.

Face palm. Do you think archaeologists set their "detection machines" for "1200 BC"??? So it only looks for things from that time?

Hint, they do digs at Canaanite sites, they find no conquest EVER. They find emerging proto-Israelite tribes around 1200 BC in the hills.
The video I linked with Dr Baden goes over some of this.

The truth is that Canaanite archaeology for around 1400 BC confirms the Book of Joshua, the conquest story.

Israel never kicked Canaanites out of anything.

In the end Canaan was made up of just Israel so they kicked the Canaanites out.

There is no minimalist or maximalist. There is just the evidence. No one doubts it except fundamentalists who need the legends to be true for personal reasons. Society and scholarship have moved on. Muslims can believe the Quran is the true word of God, Mormons can say the gold plates are the new updates, whatever. The Pentateuch was written after the exile.
Fundamentalists cannot go along with evidence because it doesn't back up what scripture says. Evidence is more important. The fact that you ignore it tells me everything.

I see that the evidence confirms the Bible.

The composition of the Torah (or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) was a process that involved multiple authors over an extended period of time.[1] While Jewish tradition holds that all five books were originally written by Moses sometime in the 2nd millennium BCE, leading scholars have rejected Mosaic authorship since the 17th century.[2]

Scholars frequently use these newer hypotheses in combination with each other, making it difficult to classify contemporary theories as strictly one or another.[11] The general trend in recent scholarship is to recognize the final form of the Torah as a literary and ideological unity, based on earlier sources, likely completed during the Persian period (539-333 BCE).[12][13][14]

Date of composition​

Classical source criticism seeks to determine the date of a text by establishing an upper limit (terminus ante quem) and a lower limit (terminus post quem) on the basis of external attestation of the text's existence, as well as the internal features of the text itself.[15] On the basis of a variety of arguments, modern scholars generally see the completed Torah as a product of the time of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (probably 450–350 BCE),[12][13] although some would place its composition in the Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE).[16]

Yes I know the hypothesese and what their ideas are based on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compo...ite_note-FOOTNOTEGreifenhagen2003224_n._49-16

Virtually all scholars agree that the Torah is composed of material from multiple different authors, or sources. The three most commonly recognized are the Priestly (P), Deuteronomist (D), and Yahwist (J) sources.

Each source can be linked to certain time periods as well.

I know of the hypothesese and why they have developed.

Yes this confirms Israel came from Canaan because that was IN THE CANAANITE NATION?????????
"Most of the text glorifies Merneptah's victories over enemies from Libya and their Sea People allies, but the final two lines mention a campaign in Canaan, where Merneptah says he defeated and destroyed Ashkelon, Gezer, Yanoam and Israel."

Israelite tribes in the hills agrees with the Bible.

 

[Zwing]

Israel never kicked Canaanites out of anything.

Well, what would happen in those heady days, was that one faction or “army” would cause the capitulation of a city, then they would kill most of the men, raise the children to have their own particular tribal cosmology and ideology, and keep the women for breeding. So, “kicked out” might not be the best characterization, but “absorbed” might just do it.