spin

Now, praxeus, would you like to tell us all what exactly you are doing? You have shown very convincingly that you are incapable of dealing with the issue in this thread on the necessary philological level, which has always been what you have been asked to do. Instead you have felt the need to seek aid in your old-fashioned apologetic sources and kindly rehashed them for us. Though I appreciate your efforts, I wonder why you are posting such stuff while avoiding all responsibility to deal with the subject asked of you, ie to defend your preferred reading, "pierced"?


spin

Steven Avery

Api, not only is that a circular response, it doesn't address the issue.

My sharing is as follows - if there a verb indicating any type of digging or boring or piercing in Psalm 22 (and I appreciate that you are willing to take the unpopular view on this forum that a verbal form has good support) by either literal or metaphorical dogs or lions, then based on the usages in Tanach the Zecariah DQR would not be a good fit. Since it is a term used for a sword-thrust-through. By your response-wording (a tad evasive) I am concluding that you accept that this as a valid, or at least reasonable, point.

And I think you may also share with me the view that when you have a word that is used consistently multiple times in the Bible, in various books, there is little to gain by going all over the map outside the Bible to consider various cognate usages of different words. (Since you haven't jumped on that bandwagon). That such an exercise may be interesting but not primary.

Although granted even in this regard there would be a heirarchy, DSS usage would generally be more significant than Talmud, Talmud more than millenium-later rabbinics.

We can get into the semantic range of KRW a bit later. I do appreciate that you make an effort to stay on the discussion and are willing to answer most questions.

Api, I did ask you if any of the papers you have studied discuss the Mesorah. If you dunno, don't remember, that is ok, but please a response.

That is actually more interesting than my earlier question to you about other rabbinics. I doubt there is much there of great significance after Rashi and Ibn Ezra.

Yigal Levin on b-hebrew did some checking on that and wrote..
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b...er/016815.html
I found two differnt interpretations among "classical" Jewish commentators, all of course based on the MT k)ry "like a lion": most understand "like a lion [they bite] my hand and feet". Rashi even adds a reference to Isaiah 38:13. On the other hand, Abraham Ibn-Ezra understands the k)ryto be a part of the previous phrase: "a company of evildoers encircles me LIKE A LION; my hands and feet [are bound so I can neither fight nor escape]".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apikorus KRH means "to dig." As spin pointed out, this meaning was supplied by the LXX (wruxan).

I'm not sure what you mean by "supplied" here. Please clarify.
Do you mean more in the sense of 'translated' or 'originated' or what ?

Shabbat Shalom,
Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Hi Folks,

First, I have never claimed to have any Hebrew beyond phonetic reading hebrew-school and bar-mitzvah stuff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgibson000 This is what you should be doing to back up your case.

Jeffrey, please
I find such lectures quite humorous from a person who on ..

1 Timothy 3:16 -- "God was manifest in the flesh .. "

1) made unsubstantiated claims on a forum
.. the primary ones being Origen and Epiphanius
2) was asked to substantiate the claims
3) left the forum in a huff
4) had actually made an effort to check the Latin of Origen to try to see if the argument was strong and sensible (kudo up to a point)
5) has stonewalled any actual response or defense of the claim or giving of the actual texts

With that history you cannot expect to be taken as credible.

On DQR as for why I consider non-Tanach references as secondary I have gone into that in multiple posts. Its various consistent usage within Tanach being the principle point. One can always claim other supposed (less-consequential) evidences to be analyzed. Every Akkadian and Ugaritic usage of a potential cognate could be claimed as significant. Maybe this would be the one exceptional usage in Tanach if such a word relates to this other word in this other dialect, language, time, place. Such gamesmanship is nothing.

So if Spin or you or others have an actual counterpoint that you really think overrules or even modifies the consistent Tanach usage of the verb DQR - simply share away for consideration.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

jgibson000

But you have claimed -- if only implicitly -- not only that we should take what you say about Hebrew words and the readings of Hebrew texts as the indisputable truth but that we should listen to you as one who speaks with authority on these matters. Moreover, you've shown inexplicable disdain for those with Hebrew expertise who dare to question what you have to say. So you certainly have been posing as an Hebrew expert.


Leaving aside the question of whether what I wrote was a "lecture", I fail to see how your finding something I said "humerous" does anything to change the fact that what I said was your job is your job. Indeed, how can you excoriate me for allegedly not backing up my claims without admiiting that you are wrong when you do not back up your own when called upon to do so?

If there's anything humorous here, it's how you work from a double standard.

Again, the issue isn't whether or not I'm "credible" (let alone whether you've represented what I did on the fundebate forum accurately), but the fact that you have not done the job that is yours.

Yes -- all of them red herings, since it's not DQR that is the point at issue.

Why should they since this is not a part of the issue under discussion?

JG

Apikorus

Steven, DQR is perfectly appropriate for describing a nail piercing a hand or a foot. On what linguistic basis would you say otherwise?

Incidentally, yet another problem for you is the fact that if K)RY is to be corrected to a verb (e.g. KRW), and if YDY WRGLY is the object of that verb, then apparently a direct object marker )T- has been lost as well. See, for example, Num 25:8: WYDQR )T-$NYHm = "and he pierced both of them".

Thus, KRW YDY WRGLY does not mean "they dug(?) my hands and feet" but rather "my hands and feet dug". YDY WRGLY is the subject of the phrase and not the object. One could make a case for the coherence of this possibility -- the persecuted subject of the psalm resorts to burrowing in the earth in a frantic attempt to evade his tormentors.

In order for "my hands and my feet" to be the subject of the phrase, it should be written KRW )T YDY WRGLY = "they dug(?) my hands and my feet". Aside from the obvious point that this makes no sense given the apparent semantic range of KRH, no manuscript I know of contains the direct object marker here.

In order to impose a "christological" meaning on Psa 22:17c, you thus need to do three things. First, you must discard the overwhelming manuscript tradition and replace K)RY with KRW, the latter occurring in only two known mss. Second, you must deform the meaning of KRH to include "pierce" -- a meaning unattested in any usage, biblical or rabbinic. Third, you must presume that a direct object marker )T- has been dropped and reinsert it, in order to make YDY WRGLY the object of the verb KRW.

None of these is impossible, of course. However, the combination strikes me as extremely unlikely.

Note: some Biblical Hebrew grammar books (Jouon/Muraoka, Seow) mention that the direct object marker is sometimes omitted in poetry. In the examples I am aware of, there is little ambiguity, e.g. Psa 18:22 KY-$MRTY DRXY YHWH remains unambiguous since the verb is in the first person. In Psa 22:17c, if the MT's K)RY is replaced by any third person verb, there would be ambiguity without the direct object marker. It also goes without saying that there are many instances of )T- throughout the psalter -- far too many to enumerate.

The LXX has wruxan = "they dug" where the MT has K)RY. This could mean that the LXX translator's Hebrew exemplar differed from the MT in Ps 22:17c and instead read KRW or, more likely, K)RW. The translator, trying to make sense of K)RW, opted for wruxan. Another possibility is that the Hebrew exemplar read K)RY but the LXX translator rejected that as nonsensical and guessed at a verb.

Greek question for spin: in the LXX, are the hands and feet the subject or the object of the verb?

jgibson000

The object. Both nouns are in the accusative case.


Jeffrey

spin

Both accusative.

wruxan cheiras (<- cheir) mou kai podas (<- pous)


spin

Chris Weimer

When did spin start getting the Greek questions?

Steven Avery

All a bogus complaint. I am quite meticulous in referencing my sources. In this case I showed every Tanach usage of DQR. full verses in the thread. So if there is something I said with which you disagree just point that out.

The Hebrew experts often disagree on these very issues so a lot of times the best path for good understanding is research, weighing and comparing and common sense.

Level playing fields, sound logic, examination of paradigms, solid research and common sense all seem to be lacking on some subjects on various expert forums. A good example would be discussions of 1 Timothy 3:16 on textcrit-oriented forums. Another example would be a lot of the ranting on this thread although it is in a sense apropos for a Psalm 22 discussion.

My claim was that the Hebrew Bible is consistent in its variety of uses by multiple authors of DQR and that this is the primary issue in the consideration of whether DQR would fit well as the verb in Psalm 22. And I backed that up very well, thank you. Nobody on two email lists has contended otherwise with a significant counter-reference. A case has only been made that a scholarly source seems to indicate that cognate nouns in extra-biblical writings in unknown times might offer a base for a wider semantic range for DQR. Even if true that hardly trumps the consistent Tanach usage. Such a new and unusual usage would still be Bible-exceptional.

On the other hand you made a very specific claim that Origen and Epiphanius were evidences against "God was manifest in the flesh...". Not only did you not post a response when the lack of a primary source reference was pointed out, you also never gave the results of any research you did. In fact you actually left the forum in a huff. Even a year or more later you still stonewall.

Incidentally Jeffrey it might be good for you as well to be "admiiting" that careful proofreading and spellchecking is helpful for all posters.

Shalom,
Praxeus

jgibson000

Even assuming you do, referencing sources isn't the issue. It's whether your claims about Hebrew syntax, grammar, and lexicography are not only relevant to the issue at hand, but are any good and/or are worth considering.

How about the fact that a discussion of DQR is irrelevant to what Ps. 22: 17 says?

Even assuming that this is true (how would you know if you don't read Hebrew?), it's irrelevant, since you haven't shown that the Hebrew experts do disagree on the particular point under discussion (whether the Hebrew text of Ps. 22:17 reads "pierced"). So appealing to what Hebrew experts "often" do is a red herring.

Moreover, as you yourself admitted with respect to Jastrow, you really haven't done the sort of research that you claim should be done and that would equip you with what needs to be weighed and compared; and with respect to Hebrew, you have admitted not only that you are incapable of doing the evaluating of scholarly opinion on matters Hebrew that you say is the best path for coming to an informed conclusion (how can you evaluate what you can't read?), but that your sense of "common sense" is so lacking in what is necessary to render it "sensical" that any judgement you might make on the basis of it is by definition unsound.

So why should we trust your judgement on matters Hebrew?

OK. But so what? Even assuming that your claim about DQR is true, the question of it whether it would fit well in Ps. 22 is as irrelevant as the idea of that DQR was originally in the text of vs. 17 is agenda driven and a classic example of petitio principii (from whence is your criterion of "fit well" derived? what is the criterion itself? why should we accept it as valid?).

The issue is what the MSS evidence tells us the wording of Ps. 22:17 is and what that wording means.

How this is relevant, even assuming it is an accurate report of the facts, and, more importantly, how this shows (1) that you are not arguing irrelevancies in this thread or avoiding what you've been asked to produce, and (2) that your claims about Hebrew syntax and grammar and lexicography are well informed, have any weight, and should be taken seriously, is beyond me.

JG