Well now, at least your view
about being less interested in supporting one view or another than in being
correct in the translation is our motivation as well.
Perhaps we should begin our
observations about Psalm 22:16 by pointing out that how we've rendered Psalm
22:16 in the ISV is one of the best usages we've been able to apply to the
exemplary work of Dr. Peter Flint of the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute at
Trinity Western University.
But first some background
information on the Hebrew Old Testament is in order.
It usually comes to a
surprise for Christian readers of the Bible to discover that even though
there are literally thousands of extant manuscripts of the New
Testament, there are only two copies of the Hebrew Old Testament in
existence from which all modern copies of the Hebrew Scriptures descend.
First is the
Aleppo Text.
Originally discovered in Aleppo, Spain and now stored in Jerusalem's
National Hebrew University, this text was written by a scribe named Salomon
and edited by Aaron Ben Asher. This text contains vocalization and
cantillation marks, as well as annotations from the Masoretes. And then
there's Codex
Leningrandensis (from Leningrad).
Both date 50 years either way of
1,000 AD. Here's the Hebrew reading of the Masoretic Text of Psalm 22:16:
כִּי סְבָבוּנִי כְּלָבִים עֲדַת מְרֵעִים הִקִּיפוּנִי כָּאֲרִי יָדַי
וְרַגְלָי
(By the way, this verse is verse 17 of Psalm
22 in the MT.) And here's how the ISV translates this verse in its current
release v1.4.9:
16 For dogs have
surrounded me;
a gang of evil-doers has encircled me.
They gouged
my hands and my
feet.
22:16 So LXX, Syr, DSS 5/6 HevPS, XHev/Se4; the MT reads Like a
lion
22:16 So MT; the LXX lacks my
The Septuagint (LXX) renders the
first phrase of line three as "they gouged" (ὤρυξαν,
a third person aorist active indicative of the verb
ὀρύσσω,
which means "to dig"). The full text of the final pericope of the Greek LXX
of Psalm 22:16 reads as follows:
ὤρυξαν
χεῖράς μου καὶ πόδας.
It translates as "They gouged my
hands and feet." This LXX reading dates from the mid-third to mid-second
centuries before the birth of Jesus the Messiah. Despite what you'll hear
from certain members of the Jewish community of scholars, the LXX is not a
Christian book. Instead, it reflects the understanding of the pre-Christian
community of Greek-speaking Jews.
The MT rendering "like a lion"
is not supported by the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are
contemporary to—or even earlier than—the LXX. The DSS Hebrew supports the
LXX reading that we've rendered as "They gouged my hands and my feet".
The MT reading "like a lion"
appears in texts that date to about 1,000 AD, and as best as we can tell,
this reading reflects the opinion of the Talmud, a collection of
Torah commentaries and oral traditions compiled from the time of the
Babylonian captivity to the fifth century of the Christian era. In our view,
much of the anti-Jesus polemics in the Talmud date to the mid-fourth
century, and appear to reflect a defensive and apologetic response to the
Nicene Council.
One reason that we adjudge the
"like a lion" reading of the MT to be problematic is that the MT uses a
single noun "like a lion" instead of the plural noun ("like lions") that the
grammar of the MT Hebrew would be requiring if the "like a lion" reading
were correct. Single nouns ("lion") do not modify dual nouns ("feet") or
plural nouns ("feet"). So the MT reading, if it had any chance of being
accurate, should have read "like lions are my hands and my feet". But then
again, that's not what the MT says, either!
And the next question that
should follow is to ask "What in the world does 'like a lion is my hands and
my feet" mean? The statement is non-sensical. In the ISV, we've opted for
the LXX and DSS renderings, not just because they reflect the older and
non-anti-Jesus bias of the MT, but because they make sense logically.
