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Zechariah 12:10 -- Can
God be pierced?
I have had for some time in my possession your work concerning "et
asher". I found it to be well explained and researched.
The piece grew out of a series
of email discussions with Rabbi Dr. Uri Yosef, a writer with Messiah Truth
and referred to me by my friend Rabbi Aaron Parry.
I myself studied Biblical Hebrew years ago. However, I do not know Greek
(of any kind). It is because of this that I am addressing you. You
mention in your work that the LXX agrees with the MT in Zech 12:10.
Actually, that's not
exactly what I say. See page 35, table row number 159, column 6, which
says that the Greek is a relative pronoun modifying the active verb "to
thrust through"; i.e., the man (LXX abbreviated ANTHropos) whom they
thrust through. The Greek then, says "they will look upon me, the man whom
they thrust through" and the MT reads "they will look upon me, whom they
thrust through" The non-Christian LXX adds the word "man", which is not in
the MT. Some see the word ANTH as an ellision for ANTI, which means "in
place of" or "as a substitute for", but in my view making ANTH into an
ellision rather than an abbreviation for ANTHropos doesn't make sense.
My question to you is, why do the available English translations of the
LXX differ so much from the general Christian English translations, and
also, why does it contain the phrase "because", which is what most Jewish
English translations use (i.e. "because they pierced him" or "because of
the one they pierced")?
The point of our piece was to
examine the original languages, not the English translations, except with
respect to how they render Zechariah 12:10. Not to be exclusivist, but we
weren't interested in what the English renderings of the LXX have to say.
We're interested in the Greek of the LXX and the Hebrew of the MT.
It would seem that if the English translations of the LXX are correct,
they are either irrelevant or at worst support the Jewish position
concerning "et asher".
The point of our essay was to
deal with original languages, not English translations. What an English
translation says isn't all that relevant to the point of the essay, I'm
afraid.
It has been
pointed out to me by a Jewish friend, that the new Oxford Press Septuagint
translation also contains this rendering.
So? Then it's incorrect, as
incorrect as JPS 1917's rendering of Zechariah 12:10. Have your Jewish
friend look at column two of all 159 rows. EVERY JPS English
rendering of et asher -- all of them! -- except Zechariah 12:10 translate
et asher with relative force. Zechariah 12:10 in the JPS is the only
Jewish rendering to translate the phrase with causal force.
Therefore, I would like to know on what basis do you assert that the LXX
agrees closely with the Christian understanding of Zech 12:10.
Because the Greek grammar of
Zechariah 12:10 agrees with the "Christian" understanding. Please
understand that the premise of this question is incorrect. The LXX of
Zechariah 12:10 is not a Christian text. It's a text produced about
130-135 BCE by Jewish scholars who knew Greek. The writer of John 19:37
claims the verse is a prophecy fulfilled at the crucifixion.
Perhaps I have misunderstood your assertion?
You have misunderstood it if
you think I assert that the LXX was a Christian document. It isn't.
If possible, and if you have the documentation, I would like to know the
position of other scholars, such as FF Bruce.
My point was to analyze the
original grammar. To cite FF Bruce, and anybody else for that matter,
would be to go to a secondary resource. I was interested in the primary
source material. That's why I don't cite other sources, except the text
itself in the original language, which speaks for itself if you know the
language. I find it interesting that Dr. Yosef proved himself unable to
refute my grammatical argument. He could only reduce himself to denying
the historicity of the LXX text (a common method of begging the question)
or reducing the text to being dependent upon the dash that exists after
et asher. In short, he couldn't deny the grammar; he could only cite
Talmud and Targumim.
If you're looking for
grammatical arguments, I suggest you examine a few commentaries. Also, I
suggest you look at your Hebrew grammars regarding et asher. As to the
Greek, I'm afraid you'll have to learn it if you want to see what it says
on a grammatical level. Or look at a few commentaries. Dr. Walter Kaiser,
former President of Gordon-Conwell and one of the evangelical world's
foremost authorities on biblical Hebrew, read the essay and pronounced it
excellent.
One final point: the LXX of
Zechariah 12:10 a remarkably problematic addition of an abbreviation of
the Greek word "anthropos". Generally, Jewish scholars only abbreviated
the name of God in sacred texts. See, for example, the NT (written by
Jews!) Greek uncials in which the name Jesus and the word God
are written in abbreviations to signify the tradition of not pronouncing
HaShem (the Name) of God. See our comment at
this URL for an
illustration of Greek abbreviations of these names. The LXX spelling of
ANTH instead of anthropos may be a textual hint that the
pre-Christian writer saw the individual who is pierced as having to be
human, since only bodies can be pierced, but also God, since HaShem has
been speaking since the first verse of Zechariah 12. We therefore may have
a pre-Christian hint of the incarnation of God in mortal flesh that can be
pierced with a fatal wound, and therefore there may also be a hint of the
subsequent resurrection of the man who was pierced and is look upon as God
by the Jews mentioned in Zechariah 12.
Modern English language renderings of
Zechariah 12:10b produced by the Jewish community differ radically from the
Christian tradition. For example, the Jewish Publication Society’s 1917
translation of Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures renders Zechariah 12:10b
like this:
“…and they shall look unto
Me because they have thrust him through; and they shall mourn for him, as
one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one
that is in bitterness for his first-born.” (JPS)
The fundamental difference
between the Christian and Jewish renderings involves how the Hebrew formula
אֵ֛ת
אֲשֶׁר
is to be translated. Should
אֵ֛ת
אֲשֶׁר be
translated as a relative pronoun and the verb "to pierce" in the active
voice (i.e., “the one whom they pierced”), as does the pre-Christian
Septuagint (LXX) and virtually all English language translations produced by
Christians, or should
אֵ֛ת
אֲשֶׁר
rendered with causal force and the verb "to pierce" as in the passive voice
(i.e., “because they have thrust him through” or "because of the ones
pierced") as does the JPS translation and four other renderings produced by
scholars from the Jewish community? In this paper we present
evidence that the JPS rendering of Zechariah 12:10b is not only incorrect
from a grammatical standpoint, it stands inconsistent with how JPS handles
the
אֵ֛ת
אֲשֶׁר formula
and the verb "to pierce" in every other instance of its
occurrence throughout the JPS Tanakh: The
Holy Scriptures. We conclude with our suggestion as to how the JPS
should recast the verse to reflect a rendering that is more consistent, not
only with the Hebrew text of the passage (and of the Greek LXX), but with
the Jewish community’s own English translations of the
ֵ֛ת אֲשֶׁר
formula in other contexts.
Click here to download this paper in Microsoft Word DOC format.
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On the
Jewish Community’s Rendering of
אֵ֛ת
אֲשֶׁר
(Et-Asher) Formulae in the Tanakh
(JPS 1917, et al.)
by William P. Welty, Ph.D.
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here or on the
Adobe PDF logo to the right in order to download this paper in Adobe Acrobat PDF format, or
read the online version by
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