An Account of My 2015 Email Debate with Two Jewish Apologists, Jared and May – Part 1 on the Correct Translation of Psalm 22

On 7 Apr 2015, I replied to a question from a man named Jared in regard to a post I had made in AskthePastors:
Yes, I have studied Hebrew. Didn’t think answering that in the blog would make sense to readers.

–On Tue, Apr 7, 2015, Jared wrote:
Thanks Randall and thanks for getting in touch – my messages come in peace and My friend May and I both have a passion for scripture and would love to discuss this with you respectfully. While we clearly may not agree on certain things – we certainly bear no ill feeling. We were both a little puzzled by some of the views in your piece about Jews going to hell by not accepting Jesus – but that’s ok we can certainly discuss this over email instead. I’m here in Australia and am about to go to bed (it’s almost 11:30pm) but I’ll write again to you tomorrow.

With warm regards, Jared

On 7 Apr 2015, Randall Johnson wrote:
I look forward to that.

–On Wed, Apr 8, Jared wrote:
Hi Randall,

As a starting point: I was wondering if you believe if Psalm 22 is the crucifixion psalm. From what I understand many Christian teachings link this psalm with Jesus. I know this is probably an odd place to start a discussion but I’m curious to know your views on this particular passage before I move on to other theological questions. Thanks

On 9 Apr 2015, Randall Johnson wrote:
Psalm 22 is what I would call a typical-messianic psalm. The psalm is one by David and as such is truly about him and a situation of attack from enemies he experienced. However, in Hebrew perspective there was always a sense in which the experience of one of Israel’s kings or other leaders was expected to be re-experienced by the Messiah, the ultimate king of Israel. Abraham, Moses, Joseph, David and others were types of Christ. They were like the molds that shaped what Messiah would be like as Yahweh worked in and through their lives. This concept is sometimes referred to as corporate solidarity. The corporate body can represent the individual and vice versa. So, for example, when Achan stole bounty from Jericho God says, “Israel, my people, has sinned,” and the nation suffers defeat at Ai. When Achan is judged victory is assured. The action of the one man affected the entire body. In Genesis 3:15 when Yahweh foretells that the seed of the woman will bruise or crush the head of the serpent, what unfolds is many instances of humans bringing a defeat to the enemies of God (see Numbers 24:17) but the ultimate defeat coming from the hands of Messiah.

So, in regard to Psalm 22, the Davidic king experiences a temporary forsaking by God at the hands of his enemies before the king experiences God’s deliverance and gives testimony to that. Thus, we should expect that Messiah will experience something similar, and when Jesus does indeed seem to be forsaken by God on the cross, the type (David) is fulfilled by the anti-type (Jesus) and the language of the Psalm is compellingly applicable to Jesus’ experience, with some differences. David says, for example, that his hands and feet are pierced by the dogs, his enemies, but this is metaphorical (it is as if his enemies are dogs who bite his hands and feet). But for Messiah, the metaphorical becomes literal. There are several psalms that have this same kind of application (e.g., Psalm 34:20).

You see the same kind of typology outside the psalms. In Hosea 11:1 Yahweh speaks of calling Israel, His son, out of Egypt. Hosea immediately has in mind the exodus of the nation from bondage in Egypt. But the history of the nation is also the history of the Messiah. Jesus too is called out of Egypt after fleeing with his parents to escape Herod.

Now there are direct prophecies about the Messiah, as we would expect, in the Old Testament, but many of the prophecies of the Old Testament about Messiah are these typical kind. From a hermeneutical perspective I would argue that though David or Hosea might not have been attending to the possibility that their words might apply to Messiah, their overall mindset as Hebrews steeped in corporate solidarity thinking and typical prophetic fulfillment, would, if asked, say, “Yes, what I have written must have some fulfillment in Messiah’s life.” In other words, though not in their consciousness at the time of writing it must be in their shared meaning. Jesus and the New Testament authors are not making up some foreign meaning and imposing it on the original author’s intent. It was part of the original author’s “intent” because of his shared meaning about Messiah generally.

–On Wed, Apr 8, 2015, Jared wrote:
Thanks for your response. You say that Abraham, Moses, David and Joseph were types of Christ – but I feel you say this with the frame of mind of looking for Jesus as the end game. To me the examples mentioned (particularly the first three) were all leaders of Israel, they were all righteous but none of them were divine or to be worshiped. In fact, what they all had in common was the ability to both observe and teach Gods law.

Anyway, later in your response you talk about David having his hands and feet ‘pierced’ by the dogs. The reason if I asked you if you understood Hebrew was related to verses like this that have been unfortunately mistranslated in Christian literature. The verse you refer to in hebrew is as follows:

יזכִּי סְבָבוּנִי כְּלָבִים עֲדַת מְרֵעִים הִקִּיפוּנִי כָּאֲרִי יָדַי וְרַגְלָי:

The key word here is ka’ari – י כָּאֲרִי. If you go ask any person fluent in Hebrew, or any Israeli they will tell you this word means “like a lion.” So the verse really reads: “For dogs have surrounded me; a band of evildoers has encompassed me, like a lion, they are at my hands and feet.” A Christian bible will translate this verse the same way – only they subtly change the word ka’ari to mean pierced. Why change this word? Clearly because it’s to draw a link to the crucifixion.

The truth is, King David is pleading with God for salvation from his relentless foes. Throughout the 22nd chapter David characterised his enemies as lions, dogs, and bulls. The violent animal motif is a common theme in the verses before and after the one mentioned above. Psalm 17:11-12 and 35:17 are sister passages to this verse and Christian Bibles correctly render the hebrew word lion in those parallel verses. I understand what I’m presenting here would be very hard to accept or read – why would the church translate a word one way in several places and then deliberately mistranslate that word in another? It’s a difficult concept to accept.

Unfortunately, this happens several times and I have plenty of other examples like this one I could share. It’s why I asked if you had learned Hebrew. Given these texts were written in Hebrew I feel that it’s only fair that people reading them have a true understanding of what they are reading. I welcome your thoughts on any of the above and would happily site several other examples at even more pivotal biblical moments where words have been mistranslated.

Warm Regards, Jared

On 10 Apr 2015, Randall Johnson wrote:
I would say you have awakened me to a translation controversy that I was unaware of previously. In consulting the standard lexicon for Biblical Hebrew (modern Hebrew cannot be the standard), the Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament by Brown, Driver and Briggs (published by Oxford) I discovered that the word you refer to, כָּאֲרִי, admits of several different possible meanings in this text because of the difficulty that “like a lion” creates, not for consistency with the New Testament, but for general meaning. The first consonant, כָּ, can be the preposition “like”, but the word could be a derivative of cur or cara, both of which can be rendered “pierce.” The Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, rendered the Hebrew with the meaning “pierce” and it appears that the apostles were using this translation of the Psalms, though, of course, they had access to the Hebrew Scriptures as other references they make to Old Testament passages make clear. However, they do not claim that this part of Psalm 22 was fulfilled in Jesus’ crucifixion. Were they aware that there was a textual/translation issue in this passage? Probably. They were more in tune with the multiple translations of the Old Testament than we give them credit for often.
Attached is an article I found online that makes a strong argument for the original Hebrew being the basis of the Septuagint translation, a newly discovered Hebrew manuscript being at the heart of the argument. Let me know what you think.

–Jared April 10, 2015, to me, May
Thank you for your response and providing the reference attached.

I have read it in its entirety and have several issues still.

1) Had David wished to write the word pierced he would never have used the Hebrew word Ka’ari – instead he would have used the word ‘daqar’ or ‘ratza’ which are common hebrew words in the Jewish scriptures. These common words mean to stab or pierce.

2) Why would the exact same word in psalm 22 (ka’ari) be correctly translated in Christian bibles for Isaiah 38:13? In the immediate context of this verse, King Hezekiah is singing a song for deliverance from his grave illness.

In the midst of his supplication he exclaims in Hebrew

יגשִׁוִּיתִי עַד בֹּקֶר כָּאֲרִי

Notice that the last word in this phrase (moving right to left) is the same Hebrew word Ka’ari that appears in Psalm 22:17. In this Isaiah text however, the King James Version correctly translates the words “I reckoned till morning that, as a lion”. As mentioned above psalm 22:17 is the only place in all of the Jewish Scriptures that any Christian bible translates ka’ari as pierced. The obvious question here is why did the King James Version translate the word ka’ari correctly in Isaiah 38:13, “like a lion”, yet deliberately mistranslate the same word as pierced in psalm 22:17.

I realise I am posing a very challenging question and mean to cause no offence. If looking this purely at face value without the undercurrent of playing who is wrong and who is right… You would be entitled to feel a little puzzled and deceived by these conflicting translations as a Christian. Maybe not? I don’t know. There are other examples like this which pose many problems with some key words in most Christian bibles. Happy to explore these in the same depth as I have above. If referencing the Torah it’s only fair you are given a true understanding of what you are reading.

Warm regards, Jared

Randall, to Jared, May
The article I attached did a commendable job of explaining the issue in Psalm 22. There is not and never has been any intent to deceive with the translation “pierced” as he explained. Translating “like a lion” (which the Massoretic text has) does not make sense as it is (something has to be supplied and the translations that do take that as the correct text do supply what they think is missing to make sense of the verse). The LXX (Septuagint or Greek translation of the Old Testament) has “pierced” and our Gospel writers used this translation. The author of the article shows there is ample evidence that the original Hebrew word in Psalm 22 was one for digging or piercing and strongly suggests that the Massoretic text was an error (the words for “like a lion” and for two other Hebrew words that are verbs, cur and carah, are very similar looking and easily mistaken for each other but both render the translation “pierced”). The LXX got it right, using whatever Hebrew manuscripts they had for the Greek translation.

The article’s author also rightly notes that the New Testament writers never use Psalm 22:16 as an evidence of Christ fulfilling the psalm by his death, but do use other portions of the psalm as such. When they talk about Christ’s hands being pierced, they reference Zechariah 12:10 and Isaiah 53:5. Psalm 22 is a typically fulfilled prophecy, the Zechariah and Isaiah passages are more direct prophecies about Messiah.

–Jared April 10, to me, May
You seem to avoid my point of using the correct translation of the same word elsewhere.

Please see the attached [Jarod attaches a picture from a book that includes a photo of a Hebrew scroll scrap found at Nachal Hever of Psalm 22:17. The text from the book reads, in part:
“Unlike other ancient texts, the writing on this script found at Nachal Hever is not sharp or uniform. If, for argument’s sake, we conclude that the debated word written in the Nahal Hever script is כָּאֲרִי (ka’aru), as Rosen and Flint argue, it is obvious that this anomaly is the result of the scribe’s poor handwriting or spelling mistake. There is clear evidence, in fact, from an abvious spelling mistake in the script itself, the the second centry scribe was not meticulous. The very next word afte the debated word is “my hands.” The Hebrew word in Psalm 22:17 is ידי (yadai). The Nahal Hever scribe, however, misspelled this word [as well] by placing an extra letter ה (hey) at the end of the word. Thus, the Nahal Hever 5/6HevPs reads ידיה instead of the correct ידי. The Hebrew word ידיה (yadehah) means “her hands,” not “my hands.” Moreover, as explained above, there is no verb in the Hebrew languages as כָּאֲרִי (ka’aru). In order to create the word “dig” or “excavate” in the Hebrew language, the א (aleph) would have to be removed from the word כָּאֲרִי as well. Again, כָּאֲרִי (ka’aru) is Hebrew gibberish.]

It is universally conceded and beyond doubt that the rabbis who created the original Septuagint translated ONLY the five Books of Moses and nothing more. This undisputed point is well attested to by the Letter of Aristeas, the Talmud, Josephus, the Church fathers and numerous other critical sources. In other words these ancient 72 rabbis did not translate the book of psalms – the books of psalms belongs to the third section of the Jewish scriptures called the Ketuvim – the Writings. This is an entirely different segment of Tanach from the Torah, which was the only section translated by the 72 rabbis. In other words the articles point is based on a fabrication.

It’s late now and I will get to Isaiah 53 and Zechariah later – unless of course May does so before.

Have a good day

Randall Johnson April 10, to Jared, May
I am not intentionally avoiding your point. I understand that many current manuscripts of the Hebrew text contain the word “like a lion” but I am suggesting that translators were influenced to translate “pierced” because the words as such made little sense contextually and because the Greek tradition used “pierced”, along with the fact that similar appearance to Hebrew words that did mean “pierced” could easily have caused the scribe to incorrectly write “like a lion.”  It may be fairly argued that should a translator make this decision there should be a note to that effect.