TonyN asked:

Let's concentrate on just one verse at a time, shall we?

We could do that, but it's a trap. In fact, it's a trap that christians use a LOT.
It's called, "Taking a thing (word, verse, whatever) out of context." (We might abbreviate that as "TOOC" [Taken Out Of Context] for the sake of saving space in the future.)

Tony said:

You sure are paranoid there njc. Just tell us, oh wise one who has all the hoary history behind you, is it concerning David?

I'm not Jewish, and don't claim to know all there is to know about the Jewish Holy Scriptures, so I don't know why you are asking me when you could simply have guessed I might have just dodged the question with some sound advice: "Consult your local Orthodox Rabbi."
But, it's apparently a "miktam of David." It is possible that means David wrote it, however, for all I know it could have been written to David, or for David. I suppose it could be "concerning" David.

I think you realize you are in very hot water and dare not give a direct answer for it would be your death knell sounding, and you know it.

How is it possible that whether a Psalm of David concerns David or not could result in my death? I don't get that.

Here's one for you: What makes you think it's got to be "fulfilled" by David or by anyone else, for that matter? Is it your impression it's prophetic? If so, I'd like to see why you think it's a prophecy.

Here's another one: The same Psalm says that "drink offerings of blood I will not offer." The christian's false prophet made a drink offering of blood. How do you reconcile the apparent contradiction?

I'm not Jewish, and don't claim to know all there is to know about the Jewish Holy Scriptures, so I don't know why you are asking me when you could simply have guessed I might have just dodged the question with some sound advice: "Consult your local Orthodox Rabbi."

NOJC:

Maybe this will help.

Michtam is related to the Hebrew word Katam which means engraved, carved etc.  Generally speaking it means the original.  And when read in the Hebrew, it is obviously a Hebrew poem.  So using the most simplest of explainations, it means it is an original work. In other words, once might conclude David didn't seek assistance, as he may have with other works.  That brings up another point you hinted at.  A number of the Psalms were written for David - not by David, and must be read with that understanding.  Or they were written by David, then given over to the Levites who modified it into a song sung at Temple. This one however would seem to be recorded as originally written.

A couple more comments.

It is obvious from the start, David is talking about himself and the protection he has from G-d.  To the verses in question.

16:9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth; my flesh also dwelleth in safety;

David describes both his emotional and physical security.

16:10 For Thou wilt not abandon my soul to the nether-world; neither wilt Thou suffer Thy -g-dly one to see the pit.

Key words (underlined above):

Nether-world:  Hebrew = Sheol.
Thy g-dly one:  Hebrew = Chasid (same root word used for the Hassidic Jews; the men in black. It means righteous, g-dly. It does not mean Holy.  Holy in Hebrew is Kadosh - a totally different word.
pit: Hebrew word = Shachat.  It means a hole - a pit to capture animals etc.

To me it is very simple.  Verse 10 is a confirmation, a justification if you will of verse 9.   I read the same trust expressed in Psalm 139.

Shalom

Tony wrote:

Let's just stick with the program here njc rather than getting off on another of your famour rabbit trails of "drink offerings of blood." LOL!

Again, I remind you that the work is of a whole, not piecemeal. Taking a line out of context is not going to help us understand the line, nor the whole.

Try to concentrate njc . . .
Psa 16:10 For You shall not forsake my soul in the unseen; You shall not allow Your benign one to see corruption.

"Sheol" is "the pit," that is (aiui) 'the grave'. I don't know the Hebrew word for "benign", but the word used in the psalm (chassid) means "righteous" I think.
What are you, a body or a soul? I would hold that you are both, and yet possibly more. (OFF TOPIC: Jews have "more" than just the one "soul." CYLOR.)
Therefore, David is saying that he did not expect that his soul would remain in the grave with his body; apparently, he expected [his soul] to go to heaven. But I could be wrong.

Was David's soul forsaken in the unseen

Setting your weird "translation" aside, I'd have to say, "no; his soul did go to heaven after he died."
"All Israel have a portion in the World to Come." -- Pirkei Avot, passim; in fact, it appears in every chapter of the book.  

and in so being forsaken in the tomb, did David's body see corruption?

Who says anybody's body did/does/would escape corruption? [Well, actually, there IS one fellow, maybe two, possible even three who went up to heaven alive, and thus escaped corruption in the grave: Eliezer, known to Abraham Avinu; Enoch, ancestor of Abraham Avinu; and Elijah. But again, I could be wrong.]

The LXX which the Hebrew scholars translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek uses "diaphtohoran" which stands for "corruption."

The LXX was widely rejected by Observant Jews, in no small part because of the unreliability of the translation.
Besides, we have the Hebrew from which is was (allegedly) translated, and we have the Jews to whom they were given, and by whom they were written, and in whose language they were written. This being so, NO TRANSLATION trumps the ORIGINAL, and NO TRANSLATION is to be preferred over that promoted by the Orthodox Jews.
Therefore, the LXX is worth only the paper it's written on, and no more.

The Hebrew people of the New Testament used the Greek Septuagint and trusted it as the word of God.

That should be, "SOME of the Jews used the LXX AS A SUPPLIMENT to the Original Hebrew Masoretic, but not in favor of the Masoretic."
But even so, So what? The Psalm was written by King David, whose deciples explained what he meant by what he wrote.
And it ain't what you want to suppose we should accept.

Act 2:27 For Thou wilt not be forsaking my soul in the unseen, Nor wilt Thou be giving Thy Benign One to be acquainted with corruption (diaphthoran)."

Now that you've diverted from the subject of the Psalm and King David and branched off into common trash like the new testament, I repeat my question,
"How can Psalm 16 possibly apply to that sinner, jesus, who offered a drink offering of his blood?"

The Hebrew word "shachat" is sometimes translated "pit" and "grave" in the Old Testament.

The "Old Testament" is not a Jewish book; it's a perversion of a Greek translation. ("Perversion" because the Books of the Hebrew Holy Scriptures, the "TaNaKH", were generally arranged in a different manner, and contained different renderings of some of the words, and some of the passages in the LXX are completely missing from the Masoretic Text. Since the Hebrew Original Masoretic still exists, there is no higher Source than that same Hebrew Masoretic. "Translation" because that's all the LXX is; it's NOT to be trusted as the word of God.)

Both "pit" and "grave" are places where ones body goes and becomes corrupted by decay. So "corruption" is a proper translation.

FWIW, I disagree. It MIGHT be a "logical inference," but it is NOT a "translation."

Those Hebrew scholars knew their Hebrew and their Greek languages.

Not as well as you might think. Nor were they (the translations) as well respected as you might wish us to believe.

So was David's body acquainted with decay? You bet it was. Since this is not talking about David, who is it talking about? I already know, I just want to see if you do.

Your premiss is wrong, so your conclusion is also wrong. It DOES apply to David.
And what makes you think it's a prophecy to speak of someone to come in the future? Where is it written in the Psalm that it's a prophecy?

Now, jumping ahead of ourselves, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that your position is that you think this Psalm refers to the christians' false messiah, jesus. If that's your position, you've got your work cut out for you, because you're going to have to PROVE

• that Psalm 16 is a prophecy, (which it doesn't say it is),
• that Psalm 16 is a messianic prophecy, (which it doesn't say it is),
• that the verse that says, 'drink offerings of blood I will not offer," somehow does NOT apply to that sinner, jesus,
• that he ever lived, (it's no use saying it's a prophecy and that it refers to a specific person if you can't prove that person lived in the first place),  and
• that he crawled out of his tomb (it's no use saying a specific person fulfilled a "prophecy" if you can't prove that specific person actually 'fulfilled' that 'prophecy').

Good luck with all that.

Concentrate. No, really. Hear me now and believe me later.
Taking a verse out of context in no way leads to better understanding of the verse nor of the whole.
The rest of your post will remain unread until you deal with it. I don't care how you do it.
So.
Deal with it.

Tony N Posted:

That's just it, njc, I took nothing out of context.

Ah, that explains a lot. You see, that's just it, you did so. Obviously, you don't know what the word means.
Grab a dictionary, look up the word, "context", and then look at the focus of your thread here.
You're asking about a single line in a Psalm, and doing it at the exclusion of all of the other verses in that same Psalm.
That's called, "taking a thing (in this case, a verse) out of context."

David's soul was forsaken in the unseen and he did see corruption. The one the psalm was written about was not forsaken in the unseen nor did His body see corruption.

There's the second classic move of a christian: make up one's own meaning for the words of the text, or simply make up the very text.
The Psalm doesn't say what you claim it does. This has already been explained to you.
So it is no wonder it doesn't conform to what you think David's life and/or death was or was not like.

Psa 16:10 For You shall not forsake my soul in the unseen; You shall not allow Your benign one to see corruption.
Therefore it is prophetic and is about Christ.

Then, that means Psalm 16 shows that jesus was not the christ, because jesus did offer a drink offering of blood, whereas the subject of the Psalm (who, according to you, is to be the christ) was NOT supposed to make such an idolatrous offering.

You see, if verse 10 applies to the christ, then so does verse 4.

Now that you have dealt with my objection, I have gone back and read your previous post. In it, you wrote,

Not only could you be wrong, you are wrong.

That's another thing: you don't get to decide if I'm right or wrong about Judaism, Jewish history or myths, or about the Hebrew Holy Scriptures, neither oral nor written.
Not only are you not an Orthodox Rabbi (a shofet) or a Levite, you're not even an ordinary Jew with what Rabbi Noach Weinberg called "Jewish consiousness," nor are you an expert in any of the above areas, baced upon examination of your stated opinions on many or all of these topics.
But nice try.
Zvi Feiddler wrote:
"Not knowing Hebrew doesn't make you stupid.
The stupid people are the ones who don't know Hebrew, but think they know the Hebrew scriptures better than people who do know Hebrew."

TonyN said:

Who says that "the World to Come" is "heaven"? It isn't. The Jew never thought of going to heaven.

I think you're right on the first point.
The World to Come is this world during the messianic era, according to the last Rabbi I heard comment on the subject.
The Jew DOES, however sometimes think about going to Heaven, but has little reason to fear Hell.
For a Jew, the focus is not Heaven or Hell later, but the Here and Now.

Where is your source the LXX was widely rejected?

"The Greeks were people who valued education and intellectual pursuits - something the Jews also valued and very much admired. The Greeks spoke a beautiful language, which the Jews appreciated very much. (The Talmud says that Greek is the most beautiful language in the world, it's the only language you can write a kosher Torah scroll besides Hebrew.)

"Indeed, the Torah was promptly translated into Greek (in the 3rd century BCE) - the first such translation in Jewish history. This translation was called the "Septuagint" after the 70 rabbis who did it.

"(This translation is considered a national disaster for the Jewish people. In the hands of the non-Jewish world, the now accessible Hebrew Bible has often been used against the Jews, and has been deliberately mistranslated. Most Christian Bibles in English today depend on the Greek translation which was then translated into Latin, the language of the Roman Empire, and from there into English. You can just imagine how many interpretations and mistakes were made along the way.)

"However, it was inevitable that the Hebrew Bible would be translated into Greek because Greek became the language of the ancient Mediterranean world. It was as common everywhere as English is today! And the Jews who were mostly speaking Aramaic thanks to their foray in the Babylonian exile become conversant in Greek as well. (Hebrew was then a language primarily of prayer and of study.)

[...]

"This is how the ancient historian Josephus in his Contra Apion explains the beliefs of the Jews at this time:

   The Pharisees [who are considered most skillful in the exact explication of their laws and are the leading school] ascribe all to fate and to God and yet allow that to do what is right or to the contrary is principally the power of men, although fate does cooperate in every action. They say that all souls are imperishable but that the souls of good men only pass into other bodies while the souls of evil men are subject to eternal punishment.

    But the Sadducees are those that compose the second order and exclude fate entirely and suppose that God is not concerned with our doing or not doing what is evil. They say that to do what is good or what is evil is man's own choice and that the choice of one or the other belongs to each person who may act as he pleases. They also exclude the belief in immortality of the soul and the punishment and rewards of the afterworld.

    Moreover, the Pharisees are friendly to one another and cultivate harmonious relations with the community, but the behavior of the Sadducees towards one another is to some degree boorish, and their conversation with those that of their own party is barbarous as if they were strangers to them.

"You can see how the Sadducees were influenced by Greek thought. They are part of the reason that the High Priesthood and the Temple service became so corrupt (as many of the priestly class, an upper class at that time, became Sadducees). And this is why the Talmud says that so many High Priests died during the service of Yom Kippur."

A Crash Course in Jewish History, pt. 28
http://www.aish.com/literacy/jewishhistory/Crash_Course_in_Jewish_History_Part_28_-_Greek_Persecution.asp

Please, njc, give us numbers. How many households had the LXX

I again cite the Jewish History article above:
"And the Jews who were mostly speaking Aramaic thanks to their foray in the Babylonian exile become conversant in Greek as well. (Hebrew was then a language primarily of prayer and of study.) "

Most Jews spoke Aramaic, and Hebrew was still being used for study and prayer. Since the TaNaKH was written in Hebrew, there's a certainty that there were copies of the Tanakh in Hebrew around, so ANY translation would be supplemental at best, and could in no way supercede the Hebrew Masoretic in importance.

Psa 16:4 "Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips" is prophetic.
Clarke writes: "As applicable to our Lord, here is an intimation that their libations and sacrifices should cease. None of these should exist under the Christian dispensation; Jesus Christ's offering upon the cross being the accomplishment and termination of all such sacrifices."

This "Clarke" person was being disingenuous, and you cite him for the same reason.
It wasn't the supposed sacrifice on the cross that I was referring to, it was the drink offering of blood he offered to his disciples during the last supper.
"This is my blood, take it and drink." Matt 26:27, 28; Mark 14:23, 24; Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 10:16; 11:25-27.
Since jesus offered a cup of his blood for a drink, he is not the subject of Psalm 16.

The writers of the NEW TESTAMENT believed the LXX was inspired and good enough to quote.

How much you want to accredit the n.t., the book bears no weight with me. It was, after all, mostly written by pagan Greek-speaking people, and probably only the book of James was written by a Jew.
Therefore, the LXX bows before the Masoretic Text, which is the Standard.

Bong! Wrong! If it applied to David he wouldn't be in a tomb rotted away with his soul forsaken in the unseen.

Bong! Wrong. You made up the translation as you wanted it to read, making it impossible for it to apply to David and lead us to believe it applies to your candidate.
There's a word for that, but I don't recall what it is at this moment.
I do recall a story of the man who was an expert marksman with the bow and arrow. When asked how it was that he always got a bull's eye, he replied, "First I shoot an arrow, and then I go draw the target around the arrow where it sticks."
It's easy to "prove" jesus was the subject of the "prophecies" of the "Old Testament" when you get to decide what editions of the text will be used, which translations to follow, and what definitions will be followed.
But you don't know what a messiah is, don't realize that the messiah the Jews were expecting has nothing to do with a 'christ' whatever that is, and can't prove jesus fulfiilled the "prophecies" anyway, because you have no evidence he ever lived!

The empty tomb.

It's really easy to show an empty tomb if there never was a person to put into it. Since you want to assume the tomb had been occupied, you need to prove the person lived. You haven't done that.
We could accept the report of the n.t. that the disciples stole the body away in the night. The "temple guard" that was allegedly placed to guard the tomb could easily be a late addition to cover the tracks of the disciples. But the story has some serious flaws and problem with it.
Then, we could assume that the body was placed into another tomb altogether.
So I see no reason to be impressed with an empty tomb.

TonyN said:

Who says that "the World to Come" is "heaven"? It isn't. The Jew never thought of going to heaven.

njc's reply:
I think you're right on the first point.
The World to Come is this world during the messianic era, according to the last Rabbi I heard comment on the subject.
The Jew DOES, however sometimes think about going to Heaven, but has little reason to fear Hell.
For a Jew, the focus is not Heaven or Hell later, but the Here and Now.

Tony's reply:
I guess I should have asked: Where in the "Old Testament" do the Jews ever say they are "going to heaven" after they die? That subject is never broached in the Hebrew inspired literature.

Tony asked:
Where is your source the LXX was widely rejected?

njc's reply:
"The Greeks were people who valued education and intellectual pursuits - something the Jews also valued and very much admired. The Greeks spoke a beautiful language, which the Jews appreciated very much. (The Talmud says that Greek is the most beautiful language in the world, it's the only language you can write a kosher Torah scroll besides Hebrew.)

"Indeed, the Torah was promptly translated into Greek (in the 3rd century BCE) - the first such translation in Jewish history. This translation was called the "Septuagint" after the 70 rabbis who did it.

"(This translation is considered a national disaster for the Jewish people. In the hands of the non-Jewish world, the now accessible Hebrew Bible has often been used against the Jews, and has been deliberately mistranslated. Most Christian Bibles in English today depend on the Greek translation which was then translated into Latin, the language of the Roman Empire, and from there into English. You can just imagine how many interpretations and mistakes were made along the way.)

"However, it was inevitable that the Hebrew Bible would be translated into Greek because Greek became the language of the ancient Mediterranean world. It was as common everywhere as English is today! And the Jews who were mostly speaking Aramaic thanks to their foray in the Babylonian exile become conversant in Greek as well. (Hebrew was then a language primarily of prayer and of study.)

Tony's reply:
Why quote all of the above? I asked Where is your source the LXX was widely rejected? And you give me, instead, a lesson on languages they spoke in Christ's day?

njc wrote:
[...]

"This is how the ancient historian Josephus in his Contra Apion explains the beliefs of the Jews at this time:

   The Pharisees [who are considered most skillful in the exact explication of their laws and are the leading school] ascribe all to fate and to God and yet allow that to do what is right or to the contrary is principally the power of men, although fate does cooperate in every action. They say that all souls are imperishable but that the souls of good men only pass into other bodies while the souls of evil men are subject to eternal punishment.

    But the Sadducees are those that compose the second order and exclude fate entirely and suppose that God is not concerned with our doing or not doing what is evil. They say that to do what is good or what is evil is man's own choice and that the choice of one or the other belongs to each person who may act as he pleases. They also exclude the belief in immortality of the soul and the punishment and rewards of the afterworld.

    Moreover, the Pharisees are friendly to one another and cultivate harmonious relations with the community, but the behavior of the Sadducees towards one another is to some degree boorish, and their conversation with those that of their own party is barbarous as if they were strangers to them.

"You can see how the Sadducees were influenced by Greek thought. They are part of the reason that the High Priesthood and the Temple service became so corrupt (as many of the priestly class, an upper class at that time, became Sadducees). And this is why the Talmud says that so many High Priests died during the service of Yom Kippur."

A Crash Course in Jewish History, pt. 28
http://www.aish.com/literacy/jewishhistory/Crash_Course_in_Jewish_History_Part_28_-_Greek_Persecution.asp

Tony's reply:
And your point for bringing all of that up concerning the Pharisees and Sadducees? Is it to prove the Septuagint corrupted anyone who came into contact with it?  

Tony wrote:
Please, njc, give us numbers. How many households had the LXX

njc's reply:
I again cite the Jewish History article above:
"And the Jews who were mostly speaking Aramaic thanks to their foray in the Babylonian exile become conversant in Greek as well. (Hebrew was then a language primarily of prayer and of study.) "

Most Jews spoke Aramaic, and Hebrew was still being used for study and prayer. Since the TaNaKH was written in Hebrew, there's a certainty that there were copies of the Tanakh in Hebrew around, so ANY translation would be supplemental at best, and could in no way supercede the Hebrew Masoretic in importance.

Tony's reply:
What? That's your "proof" that the LXX was hardly used by anyone in the time of Christ? Why didn't you talk about the lonely life of the squid. It would have been as much "proof" for your case! All of the new testament writers and speakers quoted the Septuagint. Their listeners were conversant with the Greek Septuagint. When anyone spoke in Aramaic (which is very rare) in the NT it was clarified as to what was said in Greek. If Jesus and the disciples spoke their words in Aramaic, how come there are no writings left to us in that language of the New Testament from the 1st century? How come all we have from the 1st century are MSS written in Greek? It is because Greek was the what the Jews spoke.
Being that Greek was the business language of that known world and being that Jews were the best business people in the world, it stands to reason they knew Greek and were masters at that language.

Tony wrote:
Psa 16:4 "Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips" is prophetic.
Clarke writes: "As applicable to our Lord, here is an intimation that their libations and sacrifices should cease. None of these should exist under the Christian dispensation; Jesus Christ's offering upon the cross being the accomplishment and termination of all such sacrifices."

njc's reply:
This "Clarke" person was being disingenuous, and you cite him for the same reason.
It wasn't the supposed sacrifice on the cross that I was referring to, it was the drink offering of blood he offered to his disciples during the last supper.
"This is my blood, take it and drink." Matt 26:27, 28; Mark 14:23, 24; Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 10:16; 11:25-27.
Since jesus offered a cup of his blood for a drink, he is not the subject of Psalm 16.

Tony's reply:
God was no longer accepting the Jew's libation offerings. God brought His own offering in the giving of His own Son. Jesus did not have a real cup of real blood. It was figurative of His real sacrifice on the cross. It was the new covenant.
 

Tony wrote:
The writers of the NEW TESTAMENT believed the LXX was inspired and good enough to quote.

njc's reply:
How much you want to accredit the n.t., the book bears no weight with me. It was, after all, mostly written by pagan Greek-speaking people, and probably only the book of James was written by a Jew.
Therefore, the LXX bows before the Masoretic Text, which is the Standard.

Tony's reply:
I don't know where you get this "pagan" stuff.  Neither Jesus, the apostles nor Paul and his group were pagans. Paul was a Pharisee of Pharisees.
The Qumran texts found do not suppor your idea that the LXX bows to the Masoretic text. Rather, the LXX proves the Masoretic text to be the one that is corrupt. Not the other way around based upon what the Jews found at Qumran.

Tony wrote:
Bong! Wrong! If it applied to David he wouldn't be in a tomb rotted away with his soul forsaken in the unseen.

njc replied:
Bong! Wrong. You made up the translation as you wanted it to read, making it impossible for it to apply to David and lead us to believe it applies to your candidate.

Tony's reply:
Sorry, but it wasn't me. I didn't live over 2000 years ago and neither did Christians. The Jewish scholars who knew Hebrew perfectly and knew Greek perfectly translated the Hebrew texts into Greek and it was they who translated it the proper way.

There's a word for that, but I don't recall what it is at this moment.
I do recall a story of the man who was an expert marksman with the bow and arrow. When asked how it was that he always got a bull's eye, he replied, "First I shoot an arrow, and then I go draw the target around the arrow where it sticks."
It's easy to "prove" jesus was the subject of the "prophecies" of the "Old Testament" when you get to decide what editions of the text will be used, which translations to follow, and what definitions will be followed.
But you don't know what a messiah is, don't realize that the messiah the Jews were expecting has nothing to do with a 'christ' whatever that is, and can't prove jesus fulfiilled the "prophecies" anyway, because you have no evidence he ever lived!

Tony's reply:
But I do know what a Messiah is and realize that the Messiah the Jews were expecting has everything to do with a 'Christ' and can prove Jesus fulfilled the "prophecies" because I do have evidence he lived (Josephus, the Jewish historian said he live as well as others).

Tony wrote:
The empty tomb.

njc's reply:
It's really easy to show an empty tomb if there never was a person to put into it. Since you want to assume the tomb had been occupied, you need to prove the person lived. You haven't done that.
We could accept the report of the n.t. that the disciples stole the body away in the night. The "temple guard" that was allegedly placed to guard the tomb could easily be a late addition to cover the tracks of the disciples. But the story has some serious flaws and problem with it.
Then, we could assume that the body was placed into another tomb altogether.
So I see no reason to be impressed with an empty tomb.

Tony's reply:
Historically it is a proven fact that Jesus lived.

njc did you answer this or skirt the issue?

TonyN said:

God was no longer accepting the Jew's libation offerings.

There's no evidence for this claim.
But now you're expectingn us to accept you as a spokesman for God?!
And here you were recently accusing me of pretending to be an expert!
LOL!

njc, laugh all you want but all one need do is see that, umm, how shall I say this politely, that there hasn't been a temple for around 2000 years in Jerusalem to accept libation offerings? How much evidence to you want? That should suffice.

nice skirting the issues njc.