Rick Sumner

Emmanuel Tov has suggested, more than once, that he thinks they should be termed the "Israel Scrolls" or "Israel Manuscripts" for exactly that reason--not all the scrolls were found in the caves near Qumran.

I'm not aware of any question of the placement of the Nahal Hever fragments in the Qumranic library, though I'm probably wrong, it seems that everything about the scrolls gets questioned.

Vermes' book, and Wise, Abegg and Cook's book, don't translate any of the biblical texts, and give little information on them, because that isn't the focus of their work.

Regards,
Rick

brighid

Here is some good information about crucifixion:

http://www.uncc.edu/jdtabor/crucifixion.html


Something from our own library:

www.infidels.org/library/modern/ peter_kirby/tomb/roman.html

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion

Brighid

Doctor X

ricksummer:

So much for Vermes being "complete."

I think this expresses it:

having a little bit of Textual Criticism for Trees course, the prof. demonstrated that even the "Big Editions" which claim scholarly rigor will choose a "traditional" variant over what the textual evidence says. They almost cannot help it--they grew up with these readings.

From my misbegotten youth . . . I remember the Psalm sung as a direct reflection of Junior-on-a-Stick [Stop that!--Ed.] This was tradition.

To "solve" the problem, frankly, someone has to look at the LXX texts and see what is actually written and compare them to what is actually written in the MT and the DSS! Based on what I see above, I would not be surprised if the ALL argue for "lions and tigers oh my!" and the "pierced" is just a traditional translation carried over!

--J.D.

Soul Invictus

See this is some garbage. It's errors like this that have people believing and reiterating misconceptions. I would think of the egg on my face if I hadn't known this and someone used this scripture as a reference. I guess I should get a new Bible. Which is the least biased to the translation agenda that prone throughout them all?

Apikorus

My take on Psalm 22:

I prefer the reading karu = "they pierced" (they dug?) rather than the Masoretic Text (MT) ka'ari = "like a lion". Scribal errors are hardly uncommon in the MT, and "like a lion" makes little sense in the passage.

What's more, the MT reading wrecks a fairly obvious chiasm. (I can hardly believe that I am the first to have noticed this - calling DrJim! - but I haven't found any other discussions of this point.) Here's the MT of the section in question, with the alternate reading in verse 17 included. (Non-Jews are advised that the MT verse numberings are slightly different than those you'll find in a Christian "Old Testament.")

13: I am surrounded by BULLS aplenty; strong ones of Bashan have encircled me.

14: They opened their mouths against me; a lion ravening and roaring.

15: Like water I am spilled; separated are all my bones. My heart has become like wax; it is melted in the middle of my innards.

16: Dried up like clay is my strength, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws, and into the dust of death you have brought me.

17: For I am surrounded by dogs; a gang of wicked ones have encircled me. {Like a lion} / {They have pierced} my hands and my feet.

18: I can count all my bones; they look and gloat over me.

19: They divide my clothes among them; and on my apparel they cast lots.

20: But you YHWH, do not be distant! My strength, help me with haste!

21: Rescue from the sword my soul, from the power of the dog my dearest one.

22: Save me from the mouth of the lion, and from the horns of the WILD BULLS answer me.

(I try as best I can to preserve work order in translation, and the unfortunate result is that it reads like a speech by Yoda.)

OK, what do we have here? The BOLD ITALIC CAPS, bold, and bold italic terms are all repeated, and in reverse order. This is an example of chiasmus, or concentric parallelism. In this case we have A-B-C-C-B-A, with A=bulls, B=lion, and C=dogs.

Clearly the MT reading, ka'ari = "like a lion," won't do in verse 17b, because this third mention of lion would spoil the chiasm. The word "lion" is already paired up. (The form A-B-C-X-C-B-A is also chiastic, but in such cases the central element X is distinct from A, B, etc.)

Furthermore, notice the parallelism between mouth/mouth and pierced/sword. This is perhaps weak, but it does reinforce somewhat the reading karu = "they have pierced." (An admittedly odd way of saying it, though.)

As to the meaning, this psalm was of course written centuries before Jesus was born, and while many Christians are apt to seize on the imagery of oppression, and can scarcely contain themselves over the "they have pierced my hands and feet" thang, it is abundantly clear that the author of the psalm does not consider himself/his subject (David?) to be divine in any way. Rather, he is a worm whose only salvation is Yahweh.

Apikorus

Why is it I always seem to enter these discussions after everyone else has lost interest.

{Sigh}

CJD

Well, that's simple, Apikorus. "Chiasmus" for some folks is like hearing "fire!" yelled from the back of a movie theater.

At least nobody is suspicious of what you write (even though we often make the exact same points) . . .

Amlodhi

So you know, not everyone has lost interest.

I too prefer the reading "karu" for this verse and found your discussion of the chiasmus in the contextually relevant text to be very enlightening.

Thanks.

DrJim

Apikorus is definitely onto something here in noting the chiasmus.

But lets look at the problem in another way. I think we have a deliberate ambiguity and a bit of alliteration that may have been more important to the scribe than preserving a single chaistic structure. Here is what I think, I hope everyone can follow along. (I don't know if we have a standard transliteration scheme on the forum. I'm using > to represent the consonant aleph)

First of all in vs. 17 (16 in most English Bibles), the word lion/pierced is a bit odd. Like a lion" fits the spelling best, but not really the grammar, and it seems to break the neat structure Apikorus described. (Something is a little weird, however, since lions in 17 [Engl. 16] is a short form with 3 letters, >RY ,whereas vv. 14 and 22 [engl. v. 13 + 21] have the longer form, >RYH).

Verse 17 seems to demand a verb of some sort, so we have the frequent attempt to derive K>RY from roots like KWR or KRH which have the sense of "to bore".

I don't see why we have to choose between the alternatives. Lets consider a more localized structure, with K>RY as "like a lion", but lets forget about the line and verse divisions usually understood in most translations

Ps 22:17-18 (engl. 16-17)
For dogs surround me,
A gang of evil-doers encompass me LIKE a LION.
My hands and my feet I count (take acount of?) all my bones
They glare, stare at me.

If we move K>RY up to the previous line it makes a lot of sense as "like a lion", except that one might expect the plural "lions": it is hard to be encircled by one! (theh New Jewish Publication society translation has "closes in", which would make sense with a single lion as a simile for the whole gang). If we accept the difficulty of the possibly missing plural for the time being, we can see how 'like a lion' completes the image of entrapment, and the reference to hands and feet is completemented by the later reference to one's bones. "Counting" then, operates on both the previous "hands and feet" and the following "bones".

A recent study has indicated that in ancient Hebrew prose, difficult grammar was tolerable to make a word-play. One could imagine that in poetry, the same would be true, indeed, more likely. So we can offer a second translation with K<RY as "to pierce", as is often done.

For dogs surround me,
A gang of evil-doers encompass me.
THEY HAVE PIERCED my hands and my feet,
I count (take acount of?) all my bones
They glare, stare at me.


What I would propose is that K>RY is a kind of "pivot" word which operates with two meanings, one related to what has just been said (encircles/ closes in LIKE A LION) while the second meaning "to pierce hands and feet" make a whole lot of sense given the subsequent discussion.

This sort of pivot pattern is increastingly regognized in a whole lot of different specific forms in poetry and prose, some of which are amazingly complex.
It is hard to fit deliberate ambiguity into the old model of the biblical writers as having a specific "message" which was intended to be understood, and almost impossible to translate, especially if you wanted the resulting translations readable by a layperson or in a ritual context! There is sometimes a tremendous reluctance to accept the possibility of ambiguity among conservative Jewish and Christian interpreters and even among more secular historical-critics (who seem to insist that all writers should be as rational as they think they are). Attacks on that perception is part of the massive paradigm shift that is going on. Part of the so-called Minimalist program is to attribute most of the Hebrew Bible to a scribal institution, sometimes writing propaganda, other times writing for the sheer joy of it. Of course, most of their audience are other scribes. Under this new conception, recognition of word play is common-place, as one could expect the scribes to pour all their talents into the writen word.

One book anyone with some interest and a bit of Hebrew would be fascinated to read is Scott Noegle, Janus Parallelism in Job" (Sheffield Academic Press, really expensive...). Noegle (not a minimalist, himself, I don't think) finds some 70 cases of very creative word play of a spefic kind that is not simply there just because some scribe wanted to show off. (Somting like this sort of word-play is sort of what we may have in Ps. 22) The use of crafty and slippery words plays into the structure of the debate between poor Job, his friends and finally God. Noegle finds such word-games in a number of other ancient Semitic literatures too and a whole host of related kind of literary devices.
He has a paper in Journal of Biblical Literature, 115 (1996) on the same subject for those with access to an academic library (bring your Hebrew with you...): it is available online if you can find a library that subscribes to Academic Search Premier database, or a friend with a membership in the Society of Biblical Literature.


On difficult grammar as permitting word play, see the online paper by G. Rendburg

Confused Language as a Deliberate Literary It is in vol. 2, 1999.


Noegle has a full bibliography on academic work on Hebrew word play etc, see Bibliography on Word Play in the Hebrew Bible and Other Ancient Near Eastern Literature

Another thing in Ps. 22 that needs to be looked at is the alliteration. notice in v. 17 K>RY where as in the very next verse "they stare/gloat" which is from the root "to seewhich has the same consonants: YR>. also notice that there is somethign of a visual game since those consonants appear in reverse order the second time round. I doubt whether an anceint scribe reading this would have missed it.

Anyway, I should see if anyone else has thought of it first and if not write it up all proper-like and try to get it published...

JR Linville
U of Lethbridge
Lethbridge AB Canada.

Apikorus

Interesting possibility of a dual use of k'ry in verse 17, though rather subtle.

I wanted to emphasize a point I touched on in my first post, which is that along with the animals (bulls, lion, dogs) comes an associated weapon (horns, mouth, sword).

Horns are not mentioned explicitly in verse 13, but one possible threat of being surrounded by bulls is that one will be gored (or trampled, I suppose). In verse 22b, horns are associated with the "wild bulls" (note parim in vs 13 but the somewhat obscure reimim in vs 22b).

In vss 14 and 22a we have both the agent "lion" as well as the weapon, "mouth(s)."

In vss 17a and 21b we have mention of dogs. The weapon wielded in vs 21a is a sword. This supports correcting k'ry in vs 17b with krw, i.e. we associate "sword" with "pierced."

Anyone buying it?