Psalm 22:16 is one verse where the standard Jewish translations
differ from the translations most Christians use. Here's why.
In Hebrew, the phrase "they have pierced" is kaaru
while "like a lion" is kaari. The words are
identical except that "pierced" ends with the Hebrew
letter vav and "lion" with yod. Vav
and yod are similar in form, and a scribe might easily
have changed the text by inscribing a yod and failing
to attach a vertical descending line so that it would become
a vav. The evidence suggests that this may be what happened,
since the Greek version of the Scriptures, known as the Septuagint,
rendered in Egypt before the time of Jesus, preserves the reading
of "pierced."
Unfortunately we don't have the "original text"
to check whether that was a vav or a yod. What
we have is the Septuagint translation which translated the Hebrew
text as "pierced" and the Masoretic or standard text
which has it as "like a lion."
Notice that the translation of the Hebrew is "pierced"
in the Greek Septuagint which was completed in the centuries
before Jesus was crucified. Therefore the charges made by some
counter-missionaries, that fundamentalist Christian interpreters
"twist" the meaning of the Hebrew Bible, rings hollow.