Edith, Archie and the (falsified) 22nd Psalm

The following is a true story.

I am working on a book, Jesus vs. Christianity, wherein I hope to share the truth as given me through my life experiences, through prayer and through whatever one can feel as the voice of God, that Jesus, while being God’s most clear light about how we should live to do “on earth as it is in Heaven,” is not God, but God’s most enlightened child, indeed one of the world’s first secular humanists. I have been praying to really know whether this be the truth, and regardless, to know truth, whatever it is.

And so …

Tonight I awoke around 2 am, went to the den, fired up the laptop, turned on the television, and watched All in the Family, which I had loaded in the DVD player.

I was doing some research for another project when this particularly funny episode came on, the one where Edith buys eleven cans of peaches in heavy syrup because it was on sale; the cart gets away and slams into a car. Honest Edith leaves a note and Archie is furious as he assumes they’ll be taken to the cleaners.

Turns out the car owner is a Catholic priest, but Archie thinks he’s a fraud, so he devises a test, asking the priest about the words to the 23rd Psalm. The priest struggles for a minute, and then says, “Oh, your 23rd is the Catholic’s 22nd Psalm.”

Now I did not know if this was true (turned out it was part of the priest’s joke on Archie) so I researched it by Googling “Catholic 22nd Psalm.” I could not believe what I found next: The site, Outreach Judaism http://www.outreachjudaism.org/like-a-lion.html, where rabbi Tovia Singer answered a Lutheran Christian who had asked the rabbi why he did not accept Jesus as the messiah, for “Jesus came not only for the gentiles, but for the Jews as well.”

The Lutheran then said, “Because you are a rabbi, I am particularly perplexed as to why you have not willingly accepted Christ. You surely have read the 22nd Psalm which most clearly speaks of our Lord's crucifixion. Read verse 16. It states, "Dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked has enclosed me; they pierced my hands and my feet." Of whom does the prophet speak other than our Lord? This Old Testament prophecy could only be foretelling Jesus' unique death on the cross. What greater proof is needed that Jesus died for the sins of mankind than this chapter which was written a thousand years before Jesus walked this earth?”

Rabbi Singer first reviewed the long history of Christian animus towards Jews (the Lutheran had said that those who persecuted Jewish people were not “real Christians” to which the rabbi asked if that meant Martin Luther was therefore not a Christian, for he was one of the most vocal anti-semites).

Then he got to the crux of the 22nd Psalm. The early Christians, it turns out, intentionally mis-translated the original Hebrew Psalm in order to bolster their claim that the Old Testament foretold of Jesus, and only Jesus, as the Messiah. The true, original text, written in Hebrew, the language of David, the author of the 22nd Psalm verse 17, is: “Dogs have encompassed me. A company of evildoers has enclosed me; like a lion, they are at my hands and my feet,”NOT “Dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me; they pierced my hands and my feet.”

Said Rabbi Singer, “Notice that when the original words of the Psalmist are read, any allusion to a crucifixion disappears. The insertion of the word "pierced" into the last clause of this verse is a not-too-ingenious Christian interpolation that was created by deliberately mistranslating the Hebrew word kaari as "pierced." The word kaari, however, does not mean "pierced," it means "like a lion." The end of Psalm 22:17, therefore, properly reads, "like a lion they are at my hands and my feet." Had King David wished to write the word "pierced," he would never use the Hebrew word kaari. Instead, he would have written either daqar or ratza, which are common Hebrew words in the Jewish scriptures. Needless to say, the phrase "they pierced my hands and my feet" is a Christian contrivance that appears nowhere in the Jewish scriptures.”

Just think about this a moment. Much of the Christian foundation was built upon not only the words of Jesus and work of his followers, but also the high authority of Old Testament prophesies. When a so-called prophecy like the 22nd Psalm is found to be anything but that, the foundation begins to crack. But hey--no problem! To the extent it allows the light of truth to break through, let the sledgehammer of reason and reality pound away.

I tell you, God works mysterious ways to show me truth. Well, maybe not so much mysterious as…freakin’ uncanny, incredible “get your tukus out of bed and watch your tv and I am going to blow your ever-loving mind my son!”

I now want to learn what else in those ancient texts may have been changed for I care not where truth leads, just that it is the truth.

Richard F. Dawahare