Hi Folks,

Matthew, Aquila's Greek translation has virtually no relevance to an accusation of tampering in the Hebrew Bible. The irony is that Aquila contributed to the corruption and confusion within the Greek OT textline that you have been defending. As did "Christian" copyists who did horrible tampering like putting a section of Romans 3 into Psalm 14.

Also you 'conject' other accusations about Messianic prophecies tampered in the Hebrew Bible yet you defacto admit your whole accusation is based on one verse. Is that the integrity way to accuse the copyists and scribes of the Hebrew Bible ? And if your accusation of tampering is not against the Hebrew Bible, including the Masoretic Text, then what significance is your line of argumentation ?

As I showed, the discovery of the DSS Isaiah should have been the death knell to these broad-based accusations. Not even Isaiah 53 was changed an iota for Jewish anti-Messianic-Christian sensibilities ! The respect for the text was very high and whatever their doctrinal problems, the Hebrew scribes maintained their fealty to the scriptures.

Also, please note that I showed you specific factual misinformation in the argument against Psalm 22.

Hills may not have known it at the time, and you may not have known it the first time you quoted Hills. However now you should check what I shared and then acknowledge the error, that there is a split reading within the Masoretic Texts, with a minority reading of "pierced". And then you should avoid using the Edward Hills statement as a wedge against the Hebrew Bible without including the correction.

Now, Matthew, let us speak straight. Is your whole accusation against the messianic prophecies in the Hebrew Bible Psalm 22, the very small difference of the letter that determines lion or pierced ?

Are there any other messianic prophecies involved ?
Or is your whole accusation based on that one verse, one letter ?

If there is no other verse, you have no right to 'conject' others.
That is not a proper way.

Please consider, too, that you would have to show the King James Bible as variant to the Masoretic Text on whatever verse you so conject, otherwise the King James Bible would not be perfect, accepting the Hebrew Bible tampering. This makes your task very difficult, since the King James Bible is incredibly faithful to the Masoretic Text. With Psalm 22 afaik being the only verse related to Messianic prophecy where the King James Bible uses a minority Masoretic Text reading.

You earlier asked :

"I wonder if there are any extant Greek fragments of the OT other than the five books of Moses from the DSS/other BC or First Century sources."

This information is on the web:
ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak...plist.html
Chronological List of Early Papyri and MSS for LXX/OG Study
collected by Robert A. Kraft (University of Pennsylvania)

Shalom,
Steven