Orthodox Rabbi claims Psalms 22 in the Hebrew Bible "was raped the Church" in the 2nd Century AD!

Psalm 22 is quoted in the New Testament as a Messianic prophecy about the Crucifixion. The Septuagint (LXX) matches the New Testament's quotation and yet the Masoretic Text (MT) of the Hebrew Old Testament has a totally different rendering. 

This orthodox Jewish rabbi claims it was the early Christians who changed Psalm 22 - Here's the link:

Rabbi Tovia Singer claims that Hebrew Bible "was raped" by Christians

What Rabbi Singer may or may not know, this is EXACTLY what the earliest Christians claimed the Jewish rabbis had done with the Hebrew Bible in the late 1st and early 2nd century!

A number of the early Christian leaders accused the 2nd Century Jews of tampering with their Hebrew Scriptures, but none more detailed than Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho (the Jew) - Link: Dialogue with Trypho

Let's look at Psalm 22 (21 LXX) and see what the issue is. Then we will see who is right, Rabbi Singer or the earliest Christians.

Matthew 27:35 quoting Psalm 22 (21) 

 

“and when they had crucified him, 

they divided his garments among them by casting lots”

Psalm 21 - Septuagint (LXX) - Greek Old Testament (3rd century BC)

¹⁷ For many dogs encircled me.  A gathering of those doing evil surrounded me. 

They pierced my hands and feet…

¹⁹ They distributed my garments among themselves, and they cast a lot for my clothing. 

 

Hebrew Bible - Masoretic Text (MT) - canonized AD90-110

 

¹⁶ like a lion my hands and my feet…

¹⁸ they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots

 

So, who is right? Clearly, the Hebrew Bible today that is used by Talmudic Judaism is different than what the New Testament is quoting, which was the Septuagint.

Rabbi Singer believes that the Christians in the 2nd Century changed, or to use his term, "raped" the Septuagint, which was the Old Testament of the Early Church. Interestingly, the Septuagint, which had been the Greek Old Testament used by ALL JEWS for the previous 400 years, was discarded in the 2nd Century! They rejected their own translation of their Hebrew Scriptures. 

At that time, the Septuagint was spread throughout the entire Greek-speaking parts of the Roman Empire. It was in ALL the Jewish synagogues. But somehow, the Christians were able to gather all of those manuscripts and change them?

The rabbis so rejected the Septuagint that they commissioned another translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, done by Aquila in AD128. This was followed by 2 other translations into Greek, one by Symmachus and another by Theodotion, that were completed by AD200.

By the time Jerome translated the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate) around the year AD400, he chose to use the Hebrew Bible that the 2nd-century rabbis "canonized". He was advised by no less a man than the great St. Augustine to also use the Septuagint, but Jerome did not. 

No pre-Christian era manuscripts of the Septuagint exist any longer. A couple exist from the 4th Century. The earliest manuscripts of the Masoretic Text today date from the 10th Century.

What was the ORIGINAL rendering of the Hebrew text in Psalm 22? Would we ever know? 

Did the early Christians corrupt it in the 2nd Century? 

Did the Jewish Rabbis alter it in the late 1st/early 2nd Centuries?

In 1947 and the years following, the answer to this question would come as they found the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). What was discovered? Biblical fragments and scrolls IN HEBREW (and also in Aramaic) from before the time of Christ - some fragments as early as 300BC!

Would Psalm 22 even be found amongst the fragments and scrolls discovered in the Qumran caves?

The verdict????

Psalm 22, IN HEBREW, was found in 2 different scrolls

1900+ years after the debate began we finally had the answer.

 

Psalm 22 - Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) - Hebrew - 1st or 2nd Century BC

 

¹⁶ For dogs have surrounded me. A company of evildoers have enclosed me. 

They have pierced my hands and feet

(no v. 18)

 

¹⁶ For dogs have surrounded me. A company of evildoers have enclosed me. 

They have pierced my hands and feet 

¹⁸ They divide my garments among them. They cast lots for my clothing.

What we now know is that the New Testament and the Septuagint were correct and the Masoretic Text is wrong. 

The early Christians were right. The Jewish rabbis corrupted their own Scriptures to remove one of the clearest Messianic prophecies in the entire Old Testament.

The original Hebrew of Psalm 22 speaks about Christ's Crucifixion. This prophecy was so effective at convincing 1st and 2nd century Jews, who were reading it in their Greek Old Testaments, that Jesus was Messiah, that the rabbis changed it.

Thankfully every English translation of Psalm 22 renders it according to the original Hebrew and do not follow the Masoretic Text. This is not always the case. The Masoretic Text is used as the basis for most of our English Old Testaments still today which means that many other Messianic prophecies and the other things the rabbis changed in the 2nd century remain in our Old Testaments today.

Thankfully translations like the ESV and the NET Bible amongst others will use BOTH the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint to correct Old Testament passages that the rabbis tampered with. For example, Deuteronomy 32:8. 

To see what Biblical manuscripts were contained in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and where they correct the Masoretic Text, check out this website: http://dssenglishbible.com/ 

And to use the same offensive language the Jewish rabbi used, 

we now know "who raped" the Hebrew Bible...and it was NOT the Christians, not the Church. 

Rather it was the 2nd-century rabbis who gathered at the Council of Jamnia (Yavne) from AD90-AD110 who changed their Hebrew Bibles. They knew they couldn't collect all the copies of the Septuagint, but they could commission a new Greek Bible. And of course, the Christians couldn't have changed the Septuagint either!!!

The rabbis' conspiracy almost worked. But today, Jews all over the world can now discover what their original Psalm 22 in Hebrew says thanks to Hebrew fragments that ancient Jews preserved at Qumran in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

And I am grateful for Jewish scholars such as Emmanuel Tov who are honest, who have academic integrity, and who want to know and publish THE TRUTH about the text of the original Hebrew Bible.

Will Rabbi Singer repent? For his willful deception and offensive false accusation and slander? Probably not. His entire worldview and faith rests upon a Judaism "invented" in the 2nd Century. He would have to discard a 1900-year-old false narrative.