Quote:
So you originally made a broad-based accusation against the Masoretic Text of tampering. You have reduced that accusation to one verse, and that one verse is seen to be very difficult to accuse of deliberate tampering.


I did not say or mean that the tampering happened in the Masoretic text. As far as I can make out, the Masoretes did not change known errors. I believe that some tampering of prophecies as applied to Jesus Christ was already done in an early period, somewhere near to the time of the fall of Jerusalem. Even though the word "lion" may be like the word "pierced" in Hebrew (I am no Hebracist), it would was Calvin and Hill's opinion that at least this place, and I conject probably others as well, that such tampering had occured, (perhaps in translations like Aquila's too).

I think you are putting Jewish scholarship in a too-good light. Paul said that he counted such things as dung. Even if Hills was wrong, I would be in the clear since I have not purposefully spread misinformation. I find that Hills is quite a good guide, and find no reason to especially excuse Jewish wrongdoing (Romans 2:1, 17).