Out of Bounds?
In answer to Miller's item #7, Till advanced the following argument:
" We should keep in mind that Hosea said that Yahweh would soon avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu. In other words, Yahweh's vengeance would come down on the house of Jehu because of "the blood of Jezreel." However, some of the atrocities in Miller's list above include massacres that were done outside of Jezreel...these 42 princes were not killed at Jezreel, which was located north of Samaria."And so, Till tells us, because this massacre was not at Jezreel, then this event cannot be considered part of the "blood of Jezreel." But is this truly the case?
Significantly, Till does not quote the text of 12-14 itself, which offers us some answers:
Jehu then set out and went toward Samaria. At "Beth Eked of the Shepherds," he met some relatives of Ahaziah king of Judah and asked, "Who are you?" They said, "We are relatives of Ahaziah, and we have come down to greet the families of the king and of the queen mother." "Take them alive!" he ordered. So they took them alive and slaughtered them "by the well of Beth Eked"--forty-two men. He left no survivor.
This massacre of 42 princes, then, took place at a very specific location: Beth Eked. The usual designated site of Beth Eked is Beit Qad, about 4 miles from the city of Jezreel, close enough to Jezreel and probably literally dependent upon the larger city for its survival (within the bounds of a tribal military/protection covenant alliance), so that Hosea could easily include it within the parameters of his supposed Jezreel condemnation. Yes, the skeptic quibbles; but it is still not Jezreel the city. Four miles could be seen as a long way. Why should we include it in these parameters?
Till:
This is that I'm not going to spend a lot of time on, and the reason
why may
surprise Turkel. I consider his response to this part of my article to
be a reasonable
possibility. The context of the story of Jehu will show that Jezreel
was used to refer to
the city. Before Jehu received his "mandate," Joram (king of Israel)
was wounded in a
battle with the Syrians at Ramoth-gilead, so he "returned to Jezreel to
recover from the
wounds" (2
Kings 8:29). King Ahaziah (of Judah) who was fighting in an
alliance with Joram, then "went down to Jezreel to visit Joram" (v:29).
I doubt that the writer intended for us to understand that Joram and
Ahaziah just went somewhere into the valley of Jezreel. This is
confirmed by
9:16,
which tells us that
after being anointed by the "son of the prophets," Jehu "mounted his
chariot and drove to
Jezreel, for Joram was lying ill there." The verse just before this
reminds readers that
"King Joram had gone back to Jezreel to recover from the wounds." Both
of these statements
suggest that the city of Jezreel and not the valley was where Joram was
recovering and
where Jehu went in his chariot.
The next verse states that a "watchman was standing on the tower in Jezreel and spied the company of Jehu as he came." Since it's unlikely that the tower this watchman was on was out in the valley somewhere, this is sufficient to assume that the action was taking place within the city. As the story continues, the context clearly infers that the city of Jezreel and not the valley was being referred to. The heads of the sons of Jehoram, for example, were "sent to Jezreel" (10:7) and put into two heaps "at the entrance of the gate" (10:8), so it is unlikely that this was a reference to a gate elsewhere in the valley and not in the city of Jezreel. Furthermore, there are biblical texts that clearly specified the "valley of Jezreel" when that region and not just the city was intended (Josh. 17:16; Judges 6:33), so the evidence certainly favors interpreting Jezreel in reference to Jehu's actions in the royal massacre to be the city proper. The word Jezreel appears 36 times in the Old Testament, and 17 of those references are in the accounts of the massacre carried out at Jezreel by Jehu. Nevertheless, as I stated above, Turkel's insistence that Jezreel could have been a term intended to include the region around the city is a reasonable possibility, so I won't engage in quibbling on this issue, because I don't have to. As I have shown, the evidence is sufficient to show that the killing of Ahaziah, a kinsman and a biblically recognized member of the "house of Ahab," would not have exceeded Jehu's "mandate."
Turkel:
I submit that such argumentation is a desperate type of quibble of the "close only counts in horseshoes" variety, but for those of a more nitpicking bent, here is an answer: Beth Eked is part of a larger geographic entity called Jezreel. "Jezreel" is a name not only for a specific city, but also a valley and a rather large region - one that extends from the Jordan Valley to Mount Carmel. This was an extensive territory - and Beth Eked was within the designated Jezreel Valley and in the heart of the wider Jezreel region. It is significant in this context that Hosea would mention that Israel will be defeated in the Valley of Jezreel, which would indicate (assuming, for the sake of argument, Till's interpretation of Hosea 1:4) that the city alone was not considered the single focal point of judgment.
Till:
My comments above cover Turkel's statement immediately above, and I
separated it from the
section before this just to make two points: (1) Turkel is a fine one
to accuse me of
quibbling, because he has shown himself to be an expert in it. All of
his talk about
Hebrew "nuances" has been quibbling of the crassest kind. (2) The story
of Jehu mentions
Jezreel over and over, and as I showed above, the contexts in which the
name appears makes
it rather obvious that the city proper was being referred to. Turkel
has claimed that it
could have referred to the valley or region, and I have acknowledged
that this is a
possibility. However, it does seem strange that after having used
Jezreel so many times
in the story in reference to the region and not just to the city (as
Turkel is claiming), as
soon as the action of the story obviously shifted to localities that
were outside the city
of Jezreel, the writer stopped using Jezreel in this regional sense and
used other place
names like Beth Eked. Why would he have done that if he had been using
"Jezreel" to refer
to a general region rather than to a specific city?
Turkel:
Furthermore, Hosea had his own motive for selecting Jezreel as the focal point: Jezreel means "God sows" - and thus the point emerges from Hosea that what he describes are a result of what God sows. (In line with the above notion of "paqad" as "visit," the sowing could be good or bad - depending on how the house of Jehu behaves in response to the oracle.)
Till:
Yes, I have repeatedly pointed this out, and I have clearly
demonstrated that the context
in which paqad was used was sufficient to show where its
meaning was "good or bad."
All of the evidence that I have cited, which Turkel, of course,
considers "superficial"
because it relied heavily on how dozens of translations rendered Hosea
1:4, has clearly
shown that the prophet used paqad to convey the idea of
vengeance or retribution.
Turkel:
Hosea [sic] naming his child "Jezreel" was much the same as naming a child today "Vietnam" or "Watergate" [Crai.12P, 11] - neither of which by any means requires pinpointing of/restriction to an exact geographic location for all of the events concerned!
Till:
Let's just suppose that a modern prophet--and there are always prophets
who think they know
God's will--should name a child Vietnam or Watergate and then give this
as his reason for
so doing: "For yet a little while, God will visit on the American
people the blood of Vietnam
[or the iniquity of Watergate]." Would there be much doubt that this
modern prophet
disapproved of Vietnam or Watergate? The disapproval is the point of
inconsistency, and
Turkel can't seem to understand this as he quibbles his way along. The
writer of
2 Kings
10:30 obviously
approved of Jehu's actions in what he did to the house of Ahab, but the
prophet Hosea
disapproved of it. So whether the "blood of Jezreel" referred to just
the city or to a
broader area is besides the point. Turkel cannot claim perfect harmony
and consistency in
the Bible if it says in one place that Jehu did to the house of Ahab
"according to all that
was in [Yahweh's] heart" but says in another place that what Jehu did
at Jezreel was such
that Yahweh was going to avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of
Jehu and bring the
kingdom of Israel to an end.
Turkel:
Indeed, since "Beth Eked" means "house of shearing" [sheep!], there wasn't much punch in arranging something involving that particular name! Added punch in selecting "Jezreel" is the fact that in the Hebrew, a punning reference is made with "Israel" that further emphasizes the point that it is Israel that will be the subject of the "sowing." [Morr.PPH, 79] In light of this, we might well expect Hosea to restrict his comments to the central and seminal geographic entity with which Jehu's actions were associated - even in regards to what he did elsewhere and later on in the same general effort.
Till:
Well, yes, we have noticed many times that Turkel "might well expect"
many things, but he
always seems to be a bit short on evidence to support his
"expectations." After all that
he has said, the fact still remains that the prophet Hosea said that
Yahweh would visit on
the house of Jehu the blood of Jezreel, and the meaning of that should
be as obvious as
the texts I cited earlier where Yahweh said that he would "visit" upon
people the sins and
the iniquities they or their "fathers" had committed.
Turkel:
However we look at it, then, the massacre of the 42 princes thus remains within the geographical parameters of disobedience for Jehu and of the supposed condemnation from Hosea, and thus offers no solace for Till's argument. (Moreover, to use Till's logic, is it really credible that Hosea would condemn the house of Jehu for the massacre in the city of Jezreel proper, yet have nothing to say regarding an incident in such close proximity, or of events in Samaria, where another great slaughter by Jehu took place?)
Till:
However we look at it? I have conceded to Turkel the possibility that
Jezreel could have
been inclusive enough to include the surrounding area, so there is no
need for me to comment
on this further. After all, I see no disgrace in conceding a point to a
debating opponent.
As for whether the massacre of the 42 princes exceeded what Jehu had
been ordered to do,
there are other reasons sufficient to include them in what Turkel
refers to as Jehu's
"mandate." These "princes" were called "brethren" in
2 Kings
10:13; in
2
Chronicles 22:8, they
were called "princes" and "sons of the brethren of Ahaziah." Since the
Bible record states
that all of Ahaziah's brothers had been killed in a raid by the
Arabians
(2
Chron. 21:16-17), the
writer probably didn't mean that these were literal brothers of
Ahaziah, so the expression
"sons of the brethren of Ahaziah" could have meant nephews or some
other kinsmen. So this
brings us back to a point that I made earlier. Ahaziah was a grandson
of Ahab, and so,
unless Jehoram of Judah had had other wives besides Athaliah (Ahab's
daughter), Ahaziah's
"brothers" would have been Ahab's "kinsmen" too, and so would their
sons. At any rate, as I
continue my replies, I will show that the "umbrella" mandate that was
given to Jehu was broad
enough to cover anyone who was in any way associated with
kinsmen of Ahab. These 42
"princes" were found "ministering" to Ahaziah
(2
Chron. 22:8), so that
certainly would have made them associates or servants or friends, and
as we will see, any
such association with the member of a "house" was sufficient cause for
extermination when
Yahweh went on a rampage and ordered the extermination of that house.
Till (introductory comment to what was part 20 in
the alt.bible.errancy exchanges):
Turkel has argued throughout his article that (1) "commentators of all
stripes" are in
agreement with his position in the matter of what the prophet Hosea
meant in 1:4, and (2)
my reliance on what various translations say in Hosea 1:4 is
"superficial scholarship" that
does not carry nearly the weight as his references to Bible
commentaries, because (he
claims) the scholarship that goes into the writing of a commentary is
far superior to that
of Bible translators. I have shown in my previous responses that this
is an untenable
position, and on the alt.bible.errancy list, I was joined by Henry
Neufeld (in an
unsolicited posting) in exposing the falsity of this claim. Neufeld's
posting was
redirected to the Errancy list and sent to Turkel also. Those reading
my responses to
Turkel who missed seeing Neufeld's posting may contact me if they would
like to have a copy
of it. Meanwhile, readers are asked to keep in mind, as I continue,
that Turkel's comments
about his "commentators of all stripes" and superior references have
been shown to be
untenable.
[Addendum July 2005: I inserted Neufeld's comments earlier, in the section where Turkel had made the claim that the scholarship of commentaries was superior to that of Bible translators.]
Turkel:
"Who's in the House?" By far the most significant argument by Till is that related to item 6, recounting Jehu's obliteration of the house of Ahab's "great/chief men, close friends, and priests." It is also the place where Till makes his most incredible blunder - and thereby proves the folly of merely comparing English translations in one's studies.
Till:
Comments like this one are the reason why I appended the introductory
comment above. Turkel
has really presented nothing in this debate except constant ad
hominem harangues and
appeals to "authorities" in agreement with him, whom he arbitrarily
calls superior scholars.
It is as if Turkel seems to think that if he attacks me personally and
says that his
scholarship is superior to mine often enough, someone may believe him.
There is, however, no
substitute for logical argumentation, and we have seen very little of
this from Turkel.
His belittlement of my comparison of English translations is farcical,
because he has no
linguistic skills or credentials in Hebrew, so he too has to rely on
English translations.
[Addendum July 2005: The fact that the scholarship that produced the previously cited thirty-six translations, which I quoted in this section of Part One, all agreed that Hosea 1:4 was pronouncing impending punishment on the house of Jehu "for the blood of Jezreel" easily trumps the recent "nuances" that a handful of biblical inerrantists claim that they have found in this verse. The translators merely sought to express in English the equivalent meaning of the Hebrew text; Turkel's "commentators of all stripes," who turned out to be primarily two Bible fundamentalists, were looking for a way to explain a long-recognized discrepancy. So just who has made the "incredible blunder"? Can there be any bigger blunder than believing that writers living in prescientific, superstitious times, who believed in a god named Yahweh and incinerated animals in homage to him, just as the people around them believed in gods named Dagon, Chemosh, Baal, Bel, etc., and incinerated animals to them, were completely inerrant in what they wrote?]
Turkel:
The question at hand is: Are these three parties - chief men, close friends, priests - to be considered part of the "house of Ahab"?
Ti;;:
As I respond to Turkel's quibble on this point, everyone should bear in
mind that Yahweh had
told Jehu to "smite the house of Ahab" and that the "whole
house of Ahab" was to
"perish" (2 Kings
9:7-8). The passage went on to present Yahweh as saying, "I will
cut off from Ahab every male both bond and free, and I
will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam the son
of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah"
(vs:8-9).
In other words, the
orders were very inclusive and were an almost exact repetition
of the original
pronouncement of doom that the prophet Elijah had presented in person
to Ahab
(1
Kings 21:21-23). In
Elijah's statement, Yahweh had even said that he would "utterly sweep
away and cut off every
male both bond and free from Ahab"
(v:21).
So as I continue to
rebut Turkel's quibble, everyone should keep in mind the thoroughness
and completeness of
the instructions that Jehu had allegedly received from Yahweh.
Turkel has quibbled that Ahaziah of Judah could not have been considered a part of the house of Ahab, but in prior postings, I have shown the following: (1) Jehu was told to make the house of Ahab like the house of Baasha, and when Zemri destroyed the house of Baasha, he "smote all the house of Baasha" and "left him not a single male, neither of his kinfolks nor of his friends." (2) Ahaziah was the son of Athaliah, a daughter of Ahab (2 Chron. 22:2), and so Ahaziah was certainly a "kinsman" of Ahab. (3) Biblical writers attributed Ahaziah's "evil in the sight of Yahweh" to the fact that he was "of the house of Ahab" (2 Kings 8:27) and that he was "counseled to do wickedly" by his mother and others of the house of Ahab (2 Chron. 22:3-4). In view of all of these biblical claims, it is completely unreasonable to think that any biblical writer thought that Jehu had exceeded his "mandate" by killing Ahaziah and that Yahweh was so angry that this had been done that he brought both the house of Jehu and the kingdom of Israel to an end. Certainly, Yahweh took his good sweet time deciding to destroy the house of Jehu for the excesses of its founder, because almost a hundred years intervened between Jehu's massacre at Jezreel and the assassination of Zechariah, the last descendant of Jehu to reign in Israel. So if we can reasonably conclude anything in this matter, it would surely be that the extensiveness of the "umbrella" commandment that Jehu received from Yahweh to make the house of Ahab like the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha would certainly have exonerated Jehu from any divine blame for having killed a grandson of Ahab, who walked in Ahab's ways under the counsel and directions of his mother and other advisors from the house of Ahab. Turkel's position on this point is a desperate quibble that needs no further refutation.
[Addendum July 2005: I read all of Turkel's so-called "replies" to my rebuttals, but I saw no attempt to reply to my rebuttal point in the paragraph above. I even searched through his "replies" by using key expressions like "good sweet time," "counseled to do wickedly," "exonerated Jehu," "kinfolks," and "assassination of Zechariah," but nothing turned up. As I have repeatedly pointed out, Turkel always selectively quotes his opponents when he "replies" to them. If, however, he cannot explain to us why a grandson of Ahab would not have been considered a member of the "house of Ahab," then his "argument" that Jehu exceeded his "mandate" will suffer irreparable damage.]
As I continue responding to this part of Turkel's article, I will show that his attempt to distinguish (through "nuances" in Hebrew) between the "friends" of Baasha (whom Zemi killed) and the "friends" of Joram of Israel (Ahab's son), whom Jehu killed at Jezreel, is also another desperate quibble intended to make the Bible not say what it obviously does say.
Turkel [quoting Till]:
Let us first look at how Till seeks to begin addressing the matter:
"What these inerrantist quibblers have apparently never noticed is that verse 9 states that the "house of Ahab" was to be abolished in the way that the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and the house of Baasha, the son of Abijah, were destroyed. I will give details of that later, but first, let's notice two things: (1) What this "son of the prophets" said upon anointing Jehu was the same as Elijah's pronouncement of doom upon the house of Ahab. (2) The word "house" as used in expressions like "the house of Ahab" or "the house of Jehu" carried a broader denotation than just the descendants of the head of the house. It also included those who were servants or associates of the head of the clan."
Till follows with examples of places where someone other than a blood relation was a member of a "house": Sarah as part of Pharaoh's house, Abraham's 318 servants in his house, etc. He concludes:
"If inerrantists would read what a good Bible dictionary or encyclopedia says about the meaning of house as it was used in the situations mentioned above, they would not have made the mistake of assuming that Jehu had been ordered to kill only those who were male descendants of Ahab."
Let's notice a few things here:
1) First of all, I find it hilarious that Till, who has previously objected to the citation of the "Semitic mindset" and nuances in the original language, here, when it serves his own purposes, willfully adopts a viewpoint derived from such mindset/nuances! This broad use of "house," though known in a way in some of our Western monarchies (i.e., "the house of Windsor"), nevertheless reflects a uniquely ancient practice. Why is Till here so willing to adapt explanations to the sociological and linguistic facts, but not elsewhere when it might be injurious to his case?
Till:
Turkel seems to think that he knows all about my works on the subject
of biblical errancy,
enough so that he repeatedly talks about my "superficial scholarship,"
but those who have
really followed my writing on this subject know that a very common type
of rebuttal that I
use against the inerrantist who pretends to know that the Bible doesn't
really mean what it
obviously says is to examine how writers used key words and expressions
in passages where
inerrantists attempt to deny the face-value meaning of language. So
when I examined how
"house" was used in the Old Testament, I was doing nothing that I
haven't done many times
before. What I oppose is the biblicist who attempts to explain away an
obvious discrepancy
by arbitrarily asserting that to the "Hebrew or Semitic mind," such and
such language would
have implied or suggested a meaning that will save the day for the
inerrantist. When this
is done, the biblicist rarely presents any substantial evidence to
support his claim; he
simply asserts that it is true. This is essentially what Turkel has
done in the matter of
what paqad meant to the "Semitic mind." He presented brief,
fragmented quotations
from authors of commentaries who were struggling just as desperately as
he is to resolve a
serious inconsistency in the Bible, but neither he nor his sources have
presented any real
evidence that the passages in question did contain "nuances" that prove
that all major
translations of Hosea 1:4 erred in the way that they rendered the
passage. On the other
hand, I did present textual evidence from the Old Testament to show
that the expression
"house of" was used to denote not just an immediate family but a much
broader group that
would have included the immediate family, descendants of the "house's"
namesake, friends,
and relatives, and in doing this, I didn't rely on what certain authors
may have thought
about this. I used the Bible itself to show that the expression "house
of" had this broad,
extensive meaning. Turkel, on the other hand, quotes articles and books
written by writers
urgently wanting to defend the traditional view of the Bible when there
is no information
in the Bible to support his case. I cited Bible dictionaries and
encyclopedias, because
they say the same thing about "house of" as my quotations from biblical
passages showed.
In other words, Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias confirm what my
analyses showed about
how the word house [bayith] was used in the Bible, and that is
quite different from
what Turkel is trying to do. He is quoting "scholars" who have
allegedly discovered within
the past 5-7 years that the Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias are
all wrong about the
meaning of PQD in Hosea 1:4. That isn't just a difference; it
is a huge difference.
Turkel:
2) As for the rhetoric re: consulting a "good Bible dictionary," etc. -
there would be no
need. I am well aware of this usage of "house" (Hebrew: "bayith") - and
that is why I am
also aware that Till's argument here is a sham. Only a reckless
neophyte would make such
an abominable error as Till has in this instance.
Till:
"Reckless neophyte"? Hmmm, I wonder why Turkel called me that if he is
"well aware" of how
"house" was used in Hebrew? As for whether my "argument here is a
sham," why don't we just
wait to see if Turkel is able to make that charge stick? We have
already seen him accuse me
of "superficial scholarship" only to have himself exposed as the one
whose scholarship is
shallow. If he is "well aware" of how bayith was used in Hebrew
with reference
to "the house of David" or "the house of Ahab" or "the house of
whoever," then he has to
know that what I said above is true, so how did anything that I said
about the usage of
"house of" make my argument "a sham"? Turkel doesn't seem to understand
that nothing is
true just because he asserts it.
Turkel:
What of the definition of "house"? It does indeed have a broader
meaning: It may refer to
an actual building, of course, but about a quarter of the OT usages
imply something different
or more abstract. "Building a house" means the same thing as "raising a
family." "House" is
even used to refer to a spider's web
(Job 8:15).
While there is indeed
a broader meaning available, Till, regrettably, does not tell us what
"Bible dictionary or
encyclopedia" he gets his source material from.
Till:
Gee, why should I name any specific Bible dictionary or encyclopedia in
this matter when just
about any that one may consult in this matter will agree that "house
of" in the Old Testament
conveyed not just an immediate family but a much broader group of
relatives, servants, and
associates? Also, if Turkel agrees that the expression "does indeed
have a broader meaning,"
why is he making such an issue of this? I can only assume that he has
done so only as
another opportunity to launch an ad hominem attack that might
possibly influence some
of his "adoring flock" to believe he is right in saying that my works
on biblical inerrancy
aren't worth commenting on. He says this and then turns around and
devotes over 80K of web
space to responding to something that he doesn't think is worthy of
comment. I'll let the
readers reach their own conclusions about what this tells us about what
Turkel really
believes in this matter.
[Addendum July 2005: I should have taken the time here to give Turkel what he asked for. If he wants to know what Bible dictionaries define bayith extensively enough to include grandsons, bond servants, and others who are not genetically related to the founder of the "house," I am going to recommend to him two conservative sources, even though he himself admits below that I am right in saying that a "house" could extend beyond relatives. Here is how Eerdmans Bible Dictionary defined the term.
The extended family or father's house, the basic social unit of ancient Israel (so RSV, JB; KJV "house"; NIV "family"). A patrilocal residential unit, it was headed by the eldest male of the lineage and might comprise as many as five generations of the family. In addition to the family head and his spouse, it included unmarried children, sons, and their wives and children. Moreover, it encompassed dependent persons such as adopted sons (cf. Gen. 15:2), servants or enlisted personnel (14:14), and resident aliens (1987, p. 506).
If Eerdmans isn't conservative enough for him, Turkel can take a look at New Bible Dictionary, published by Inter-Varsity Press, which says that house "can designate both persons (including slaves) and property" (p. 497), but since Turkel admits below that he checked "no less than a dozen such sources" and found that I am right, there is no need to pursue this any further. I guess he will have to look for something else to quibble about.]
Turkel:
However, having consulted no less than a dozen such sources, and a
variety of others -
ranging in persuasion from the liberal Interpreter's Dictionary of
the Bible to the
conservative Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary - I find,
yes, references to
servants being part of a "house," along with slaves (as household
property), foreign guests
(in line with Eastern rules of hospitality), concubines (as Sarah would
have been considered
in Pharaoh's house), adopted orphans, and sojourners.
Till:
So if Turkel consulted "no less than a dozen such sources and a variety
of others" and found
that they all confirmed that "house of" denoted this broader sense,
exactly what is his beef
in this matter? Why spend so much time complaining about something I
have said that he
himself finds all major references works in agreement with. I would
suspect that if we had
a listing of all of the sources he checked in this matter, we would
find represented in
them "commentators of all stripes," and isn't that supposed to
determine accuracy and
truth?
Turkel:
What I do not find is this peculiar word that Till uses, "associates".
Associates? What
are these? Is this a specific socio-economic class from the Ancient
Near East? For someone
who denigrates others for "vagueness" Till has certainly chosen a
weasel-word that
practically screams "vague" in our ears!
[Addendum July 2005: I am going to alert everyone here to look for Turkel's attempt below to put a special spin on the Hebrew word rea’ to try to show that the "friends" who were killed during the massacre of Baasha's house were not the same kind of "friends" of Jehoram whom Jehu massacred at Jezreel. He will cite Strong's definition of this word, which is the following.
7453. rea’, ray’-ah; or reya’, ray’-ah; from H7462; an associate (more or less close):--brother, companion, fellow, friend, husband, lover, neighbour, X (an-) other.
I emphasized "an associate" to call attention to it. When we come to the place where Turkel tried to argue that Jehoram's "friends" were not the same kind of friends as Baasha's, I will insert another notice to look for what is coming up. Everyone will see there that suddenly Turkel is able to see associates included in Jehu's massacre. This guy cranks his hackwork out so fast that he can't even remember from one paragraph to another what he has said.]
Till:
Ah, so Turkel finally comes to the point and ends his tirade in this
matter with another
quibble. I used the word "associate" in explaining the inclusiveness
that the expression
"house of" connoted in the Old Testament, and he apparently can't find
this term in the
Bible. Possibly, it didn't occur to him that I am writing in English,
and in so doing, I
will quite often use words that can't be found in translations of the
Hebrew text, but that
doesn't mean that the ideas or concepts they denote are not taught in
the Old Testament.
Turkel can't find "nuance" or "Semitic mind" or "collocation" or
"linguistic details" or
any of dozens of other expressions that he has used throughout his
article in reference to
what he obviously thinks is taught in the Old Testament, but I'm sure
he thinks that his
usage of those expressions was justified on the grounds that the
concepts that they convey
are found in the Bible, yet he finds fault with me for having used the
word "associate" in
reference to those who would have been included in the Hebrew concept
of "house." If there
is any doubt left in the minds of inerrantists following this
discussion that Turkel has
done very little in his article but try to quibble his way through a
response, his comments
on this point should remove that doubt.
If Turkel would consult a basic dictionary--and I hardly need to specify one by name--he will find that "associate" can convey the sense of "companion" or "comrade" or "colleague" or "friend." Well, heck, he may complain at this point because I am saying that "associate" can mean "friend," which is going to recur as a key word as my rebuttal continues, so perhaps I should tell him specifically what dictionary to consult to find that "friend" is used in the definition of "associate," so if he will consult Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, he will see that it defines "associate" as "a friend; a partner; a colleague; a fellow-worker." Hence, if "friends" were killed in the destruction of the house of Baasha, as we have already noted, then it would be appropriate to say that associates of Baasha were killed in the massacre. If not, why not?
At any rate, as I respond to Turkel's quibble about the different words that were used to denote Baasha's and Joram's "friends" who were killed in the respective massacres, we will see that, given the meaning of the word "associate" in English, it was entirely appropriate for me to use the word "associate" in discussing the inclusiveness of the word "house" in Hebrew. I will show that the killing of any who were "associated" with the house of Ahab in official or friendly senses were fair game for a man who was carrying out an allegedly divine command to destroy every male both bond and free in a "house."
Turkel:
That said, Till embarks upon a skein of blatherskeit destined to prove
his point that a
"house" consisted of more than just blood relatives.
Till:
If Turkel wishes to see blatherskite, he should review his
lengthy quibbles about my
failure to cite sources when I gave a definition of house that
he afterwards admitted
he agrees with, his constant ad hominem attacks, and his
incessant references to
"scholars" who say this or that but never give any textual reasons to
support "this and
that." Someone sent a posting to alt.bible.errancy that said he was
stripping Turkel's
"arguments" of all self-praise, ad hominem attacks on me, and
appeals to authority
and was posting below what was left. Below, there was nothing but blank
space, and that
pretty well sums up what we have seen from Turkel. Nothing but
self-praise, ad hominem
attacks and insults, and incessant citations of writers and books in
agreement with his
position--that has been the extent of Turkel's attempts to explain away
the inconsistencies
in the biblical references to Jehu's massacre at Jezreel, but we have
seen very little
attempt at logical argumentation.
Anyway, why is he still raging about my claim that "house of" in the Bible meant more than just the person's blood relatives, because he said that he was aware that it did mean this.
Talk about blatherskeit!
Turkel:
He cites examples of slaves, of which there is no question in fact, but
of which there is
also no relevance for the Jehu case. We are not arguing that Jehu was
condemned for killing
slaves; we are arguing here that his condemnation was in part the
result of his killing of
the house of Ahab's "great men, close friends, and priests."
Till:
Here is another example of Turkel's quibbling, and when an opponent
resorts to this kind of
quibbling, you can tell that he is hurting. I never implied or meant to
imply that Jehu
killed slaves of Joram of Israel. I was simply defining the word house
as it was
used in the Old Testament to show that the word was used to include not
just an immediate
family but the extended family, including servants and slaves, and
associates, but Turkel
wastes our time with a quibble like this (actually a straw man) as if
it was relevant to
anything I have said relative to the house of Ahab.
Turkel:
Till tries to slip in this trio under the rubric of the "house" along
with the slaves, but
no dice: The direct questions need to be asked. What of these parties?
Were they part of
the "house" of Ahab?
Till:
Why wouldn't they have been? If "kinsmen" and "friends" were a part of
the house of Baasha
(1
Kings 16:11), and if the
destruction of Jeroboam's house was so extensive that nothing was left
to Jeroboam "that
breathed" (1 Kings
15:29), and if all that was done to the house of Jeroboam was
"according to the saying of Yahweh which
he spoke by his servant Ahijah"
(1
Kings 15:29), and if Jehu
was to make the house of Ahab like unto the houses of Jeroboam and
Baasha, then why would
the killing of Joram's "great men, close friends, and priests" have
exceeded Jehu's mandate?
Is Turkel unaware that priests were a part of the king's inner circle
or entourage of
advisors? He seems to be, because we will later see him arguing that
priests were members
of the "house of the Lord." When we reach that point in his article, I
will say more about
this, but for now I will suggest that Turkel review the reign of David
as recorded in
2 Samuel and notice the king-advisor relationship that existed between
David and Abiathar.
After the rebellion led by his son Absalom was over, David instructed
Abiathar and Zadok
(another priest) to deliver a reprimand to the elders of Israel for not
acting quickly to
have him restored to his house in Jerusalem from which he had had to
flee temporarily
(2
Sam. 19:11-15).
Second
Chronicles 18:14-17
listed those who had positions of importance in David's court.
14 So David reigned over all Israel; and he administered justice and equity to all his people. 15 Joab son of Zeruiah was over the army; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was recorder; 16 Zadok son of Ahitub and Ahimelech son of Abiathar were priests; Shavsha was secretary; 17 Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and the Pelethites; and David's sons were the chief officials in the service of the king.
The parallel account in 2 Samuel 20:23-25 listed Zadok and Abiathar as the priests, and with good reason. Abiathar was the son of Ahimelech, not the other way around, and by this time in David's reign, Saul had killed Ahimelech for aiding David in his flight from Saul (1 Sam. 21:1-6; 22:11-19), but this is just another biblical inconsistency that I will let Turkel try to work out if he wishes. Perhaps he can find some "nuance" in Hebrew that will show us that a text that says that Ahimelech was the son of Abiathar didn't really mean that Ahimelech was the son of Abiathar but that Abiathar was the son of Ahimelech. At any rate, the text above shows that the Israelite kings had priests in their inner circle of advisors, and Zadok and Abiathar or Ahimelech (take your pick) filled this position during the reign of David. Upon David's death, one of Solomon's first acts after murdering his half-brother Adonijah (who had tried to claim the throne) was to "thrust out Abiathar from being priest to Yahweh" (1 Kings 2:27), because Abiathar had supported in the power struggle (1 Kings 1:7). Solomon put Zadok into the "room of Abiathar" (1 Kings 2:35), so the kings of Israel took their priests very seriously and chose those who could be trusted to be loyal to them as their advisors. Does Turkel think for one moment that in those barbaric times one who was seizing control of a government by force would not have exterminated those who had been close advisors and ministers of the king? After all, Jehu's massacre at Jezreel was nothing but a usurpation of the throne that was done under the guise of having been ordered by the national god, but Turkel is stuck with how the Bible tells the story, and the massacre was first told as something that was entirely pleasing to Yahweh but then later was presented in another light by Hosea.
One more comment is necessary here. If Turkel were just a bit more familiar with the Bible, he would understand that usually when coups such as Jehu's took place, no one who was in a position to pose any threat to the usurper was spared. When Jehoram of Judah (Ahaziah's father) became king upon the death of his father Jehoshaphat, he had six brothers whom "he killed with the sword," as well as "divers also of the princes of Israel" (2 Chronicles 21:4). In other words, Jehoram eliminated all possible competition. The Bible claims that even after the massacre of Ahaziah and his entourage, a power play took place in Jerusalem. His infamous mother Athaliah (Ahab's daughter), seeing that her son was dead, "killed all the royal seed of Judah" (2 Kings 11:1; 2 Chron. 22:10), took control, and "reigned over the land." The power of the priesthood was demonstrated in this story, because Jehoshabeath, the sister of Ahaziah, took her nephew Joash, and hid him and his nurse in her bedchamber. Later, with the assistance of the priests, Joash was hidden "in the house of God six years" (2 Chron. 22:12). Then in the 7th year, Jehoiada (the high priest) organized a rebellion in the royal guard that overthrew Athaliah and put Joash on the throne. Athaliah was in the palace (1 Chron. 22:15).
I could relate other examples of coups that were carried out with the assassination of not just the king but also his complete entourage. Any rebel worth his salt at that time would have understood that priests loyal to an overthrown monarch would not be desirable persons to have around, but I will be saying more about this when I come to Turkel's quibble on this point. As the situation now stands, Turkel has certainly not shown that Jehu "overstepped his bounds" by killing friends, officials, and priests who were in Joram's inner circle, and especially not if Jehu had received a "mandate" to utterly sweep away the whole house of Ahab and to kill every male both bond and free.
Turkel:
The fact that the Kings writer separates this group from the "house of
Ahab" grouping should
indicate to us that the men/friends/priests group was not considered to
be part of the house
of Ahab -
Till:
Well, let's just see how this line of argumentation holds up. We
noticed above that when
Solomon succeeded David as king, he ordered the death of his
half-brother Adonijah and
removed Abiathar as the king's priest. Before David died, he had
allegedly reminded Solomon
that the faithful general Joab had killed Abner and Amasa, and so
Solomon was told not to
let Joab's "hoary head go down to Sheol in peace"
(1 Kings
2:6). Verses
28-33
tell of Solomon's
execution of David's orders.
28 Then tidings came to Joab: for Joab had turned after Adonijah, though he turned not after Absalom. And Joab fled unto the tabernacle of Yahweh, and caught hold on the horns of the altar. 29 And it was told king Solomon that Joab was fled unto the tabernacle of Yahweh; and, behold, he is by the altar. Then Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, saying, Go, fall upon him. 30 And Benaiah came to the tabernacle of Yahweh, and said unto him, Thus saith the king, Come forth. And he said, Nay; but I will die here. And Benaiah brought the king word again, saying, Thus said Joab, and thus he answered me. 31 And the king said unto him, Do as he hath said, and fall upon him, and bury him; that thou mayest take away the innocent blood, which Joab shed, from me, and from the house of my father. 32 And Yahweh shall return his blood upon his own head, who fell upon two men more righteous and better than he, and slew them with the sword, my father David not knowing thereof, to wit, Abner the son of Ner, captain of the host of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jether, captain of the host of Judah. 33 Their blood shall therefore return upon the head of Joab, and upon the head of his seed for ever: but upon David, and upon his seed, and upon his house, and upon his throne, shall there be peace for ever from Yahweh. 34 So Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went up, and fell upon him, and slew him: and he was buried in his own house in the wilderness.
Notice that Solomon allegedly said in verse 31 that killing Joab would take away the innocent blood he had shed from "me and from the house of my father." Now according to Turkel's logic, the separation of "me" and "the house of my father" would mean that Solomon was not a part of David's house, but that would be a ridiculous twist to put on the passage, because 2 Samuel 7:12-17 and 1 Chronicles 22:6-12 show that Solomon was not only a part of David's house but that he was the specific "seed" through whom the throne and house of David were to be established forever. Furthermore, verse 33 above has Solomon saying that the killing of Joab would return upon his head and his seed the blood that Joab had shed but there would be peace forever upon "David, and upon his seed, and upon his house." According to Turkel's logic, the separation of David's seed from his house would mean that David's seed was not considered a part of his house, but that too would be a ridiculous interpretation. What we have in these verses is a clear example of repetitive emphasis, and there is no reason to think that the same was not true in 2 Kings 10:11, where it was said that Jehu struck all that remained of the house of Ahab, all his great men, his familiar friends, and his priests until he [Jehu] left him [Ahab] none remaining. The separate listing of the groups serves to emphasize the extent of the destruction of the house of Ahab. It was so thorough that Jehu had left "him none remaining." The writer said that Jehu struck A, B, and C, until he had left Ahab "none remaining." In other words, it was necessary to strike A [all of Joram's great men] and B [Joram's familiar friends] and C [Joram's priests] in order to leave Ahab "none remaining." If not, why not?
Turkel claims to be so knowledgeable in "the Semitic mind," but in this matter, he is showing a colossal ignorance of ancient Near Eastern customs.
Turkel:
and is in fact the closest thing to a "condemnation" of excess that we
can expect from the
Kings writer in his dry, analytical style.
Till:
So Turkel has come full circle to quibble again that the reason why
there is no clear
condemnation of Jehu's excess was because it just wasn't the writer's
style to do so. Here
Turkel calls it a "dry, analytical style." Well, pardon me, but I would
think that an
"analytical style" would be one that would go into details, but that
obviously isn't what
Turkel, the master linguist meant. He earlier referred to it as a "dry
and monotonous"
style that wasn't interested in passing judgments: "It is not his
nature to comment, except
for the monotonous, summary repetition of whether a king did good or
evil in the eyes of the
Lord which was applied to all of the kings evaluated, and he generally
lets the data speak
for itself [sic] without need for further explanation." That was
quoted in
this
section of
Part One of my response to Turkel, and readers may review it to see
that I completely
demolished this claim by showing that the writer of 2 Kings was very
specific and impassioned
in his denunciation of Manasseh's wickedness (and others) and equally
specific in praising
Josiah for his righeous reforms. A review of this section of the
article will show that I
listed several specific offenses of Manasseh, so Turkel can't get by on
this issue by claiming that
the writer of 2 Kings was so dry and impassioned that he just didn't
bother to list specific
wrongs that kings committed. The writer didn't condemn Jehu, because,
as
10:31
shows, the writer
thought that Jehu had done to the house of Ahab according to all
that was in Yahweh's
heart. All is all, so if Jehu did all that was in
Yahweh's heart pertaining to
the house of Ahab, he could hardly have improved on that. If Yahweh had
wanted only
Jehoram and his immediate family to be killed, that would have been
something that was in
Yahweh's heart, so, in that case, if Jehu had killed more than
Jehoram's immediate
family, then Jehu did not do all that was in Yahweh's heart. If
not, why not?
[Addendum July 2005: I have emphasized several times that the so-called mandate that Jehu received ordered him to kill every male both bond and free in the house of Ahab (2 Kings 9:8), which was the same denunciation that Elijah had pronounced on Ahab in person (1 Kings 21:21), but blood relatives of Ahab would surely not have been bond servants; therefore, in ordering Jehu to kill every male, including even bond servants, in the house of Ahab, the "dry and disconnected" Kings writer had to have meant that this so-called mandate extended beyond just family members and relatives. Furthermore, since the "mandate" said that Jehu was to make the house of Ahab like the house of Baasha, whose massacre had included "friends" (1 Kings 16:11), there is no reason at all to think that Jehu's inclusion of Joram's "great men, familiar friends, and priests" in the massacre had exceeded the mandate and especially not since 2 Kings 10:30 clearly said that Jehu had done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in Yahweh's heart. I have read Turkel's so-called replies and even searched through them with the key word bond, but I have found no attempt that he made to explain why bonded servants were included in the "mandate" if Yahweh had intended for Jehu to kill only Ahab's blood relatives. This is typical of Turkel's selective debating. What he cannot answer, he will just skip.]
Turkel:
Nevertheless, let us pursue the matter further. Till says nothing at
all about the great
men or priests; and it is just as well, for there is no indication that
these were part of
Ahab's house, or part of any king's house.
Till:
As I have shown above, those within an inner circle of advisors were
indeed considered part
of a king's house. Accordingly, when Zemri abolished the house of
Baasha, he included in his
massacre all of the king's kinsmen and friends, and when coups
were executed, the
usurpers were often inclusive enough to kill anyone who had been
associated with the deposed
king. How could Jehu have made the house of Ahab like the house
of Baasha, as his
so-called mandate stipulated (2
Kings 9:9 unless he had... well, unless he had made the house of
Ahab like the house of
Baasha? In destroying the house of Baasha, Zemri had killed his family,
his kinfolks, and his
friends (1
Kings 16:11. Turkel
is trying to launch a quibble that just won't float.
Turkel:
Let's consider some relevant data:
Of particular notice - and something Till fails to notice, even though he uses the material as evidence (see below) - is the story of Zemri eliminating the house of Baasha in 1 Kings 16. Note that Zemri was one of Baasha's "officials" and that he killed Baasha's "whole family" (NIV - the word is the Hebrew "bayith," as noted, equalling "house"). Obviously, though he served Baasha's house in an official capacity (he had charge of half of King Elah's chariots), Zimri was not part of Baasha's "house" - or else his rule would have been considered a continuation of Baasha's house! The evidence here indicates that a king's house did not include those who were not blood-related but were serving in an official capacity, such as Zemri.
Till:
A reasonable person, which Turkel certainly isn't, would recognize that
in the books of
Samuel and Kings we are reading "history" as interpreted by a
superstitious writer who
thought that his national god had had a hand in everything that
happened in political struggles,
and so when kings rose to power, he saw this as the will of Yahweh, and
when kings fell, he
thought this was due to Yahweh's displeasure with them, usually for
having "done that which
was evil in the sight of Yahweh." Thus assassinations and coups
d'etat like those
we have already noted were always interpreted as events that happened
under the direction of
Yahweh. The possibility that such events happened as just the normal
course of political
power struggles was probably incomprehensible to the mind of such a
writer, but only a
gullible person living in our enlightened times could so interpret
history. Just a bit of
common sense will show that ancient superstition was behind the
interpretation of these power
struggles. The writer(s) of Kings repeatedly noted that such and such a
king would do evil
in the sight of Yahweh, yet some of these kings enjoyed lengthy reigns.
Jeroboam, for
example, did such evil in the sight of Yahweh that, so the "historian"
said, Yahweh vowed to
cut off from Jeroboam ever male both bond and free in his house and to
utterly sweep away
his house (1 Kings
14:10), yet Jeroboam reigned for 42 years and "slept with his
fathers"
(1
Kings 14:20). It wasn't
until Nadab his son had succeeded him that Baasha executed Yahweh's
promise to utterly
destroy the house of Jeroboam
(15:27-30).
The same was true of Baasha. After destroying the house of Jeroboam, he
became the king, but he too did that which was evil in Yahweh's sight
(1
Kings 15:33), so, lo and
behold, Yahweh announced that he would make the house of Baasha like
the house of Jeroboam
(16:1-3),
but Baasha reigned
for 24 years and slept with his fathers
(15:33).
Nothing is said in
the biblical account to suggest that Baasha suffered any kind of
violent death in retribution
for the evil he did. It wasn't until Baasha's son Elah had succeeded
him that Yahweh's
punishment was presumably executed on the house of Baasha, but it was
Elah who bore the
brunt of it, not Baasha. The writer alleged that Elah had also done
that which was evil in
Yahweh's sight (16:13),
but
he got to reign for just two years before Yahweh's wrath fell upon him,
whereas Baasha
reigned for 24 years, doing that which was evil in Yahweh's sight.
I could cite other examples (including even Ahab), but these are sufficient to show the silliness of thinking that some omniscient, omnipotent deity was pulling the strings on all of these events. For one thing, why would Yahweh have chosen Baasha to "exalt out of the dust" and to "make a prince over Israel" if Yahweh knew that Baasha was immediately going to turn into just another bad egg who would do that which was evil in his sight. It just doesn't speak well for Yahweh's alleged omniscience, but that's what we are asked to believe. Jeroboam was so evil in Yahweh's sight that Yahweh selected Baasha to destroy Jeroboam's house but didn't have him do it until Jeroboam had lived a long life and Nadab was reigning as the successor king, and then Baasha immediately turned so evil that Yahweh had to pronounce a curse of destruction on his house too, which wasn't executed until Baasha had reigned for 24 years, died an apparently natural death, and his son Elah was reigning.
What is a more likely explanation for what happened here? It is far more reasonable to think that Jeroboam was recognized as a bad king, but as history has shown time and time again, being a bad ruler doesn't necessarily bring any kind of cosmic retribution down upon the guilty monarch. Thus, it was probably recognized that Jeroboam did some things that were displeasing to his subjects, especially to the Yahwistic worshipers, but he nevertheless lived a full and complete life. Then after Nadab became king and reigned for just two years, Baasha pulled a bloody coup and seized control of the kingdom before Nadab had had time to solidify his hold on the kingdom. In the mind of the "biblical historian," such an event had to have an explanation, and so the writer reasoned that this event had to be punishment on the house of Jeroboam for the sins that Nadab's father had committed. In the matter of Baasha's house and its destruction, the writer put the same slant on it. Like Baasha, Zimri led a coup against Elah (Baasha's son) within two years of Elah's succession to the throne, so in all probability he too had decided to usurp the throne before Elah could cement his control over the kingdom. To the "biblical historian," however, there had to be another explanation: Yahweh was behind it all, executing judgment against the "houses" of predecessor kings who had done evil in Yahweh's sight.
If, however, we concede for the sake of argument that all this business of executing vengeance on the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha was actually willed and directed by an omniscient, omnipotent deity called Yahweh, it would nevertheless be true that Yahweh would have needed an instrument to execute his will in such matters (since this always seemed to be the way that Yahweh destroyed "houses" in those days), so if Yahweh selected Zimri to execute his judgment against the house of Baasha, we would hardly expect him to have Zimri fall on his sword and commit suicide so that it could be said that the house of Baasha in its entirety had fallen. As it was, however, Zimri had control of the government for only seven days when Omri, the captain of the host, led an expedition against Zimri in Tirzah, and Zimri burned the castle down around him to keep himself from falling into the hands of Omri (16:15-18), so we could say that if Zimri, as a servant of Elah (v:9), should have been considered a member of his house (according to my definition), that wouldn't really matter, because he too was killed in the coup that destroyed the house of Baasha. Hence, even Zemi, the captain of Baasha's chariots, was included in the destruction of the house of Baasha.
[Addendum July 2005: I also used various key words and expressions from the paragraphs above to see if I had missed Turkel's reply to this rebuttal. I could find nothing that he said in response to it. "Smorgasbord" debating is his stock-in-trade.]
Turkel:
Similarly, Omri, the man who overthrew Zimri 7 days after he took charge, is listed as the "captain of the host." (1 Kin. 16:16) Obviously Omri was not part of the house of Baasha either, since Zimri was already have supposed to taken care of them. (That is, unless we'd like to suppose that Zimri appointed Omri, sent him some 30-50 miles away to Gibbethon...and he gained the confidence of the host enough to lead them back to Tizrah against Zimri...all within that 7-day span! Needless to say, it is far more likely that Omri was already captain of the host under Baasha - and that this therefore indicates that officials of the king were not considered part of his "bayith.")
Till:
If there is any accuracy in this tale--and where the Bible is concerned
that's always a
question mark--I would be inclined to agree that Omri was the captain
of the host when Elah
was king and probably even when Baasha was king. However, we should
note that Zimri was
described as a "servant" of Elah
(v:9),
who was apparently in
charge of half of Elah's chariots. I can't find any reference to Omri
that described him as
a "servant" of Elah. As the "captain of the host," he was undoubtedly a
field commander, and
that would explain why he was "encamped against Gibbethon," which would
mean that he was
away from Tirzah, the capital, at the time of the coup and hadn't yet
had time to become one
of Zemri's insiders. As a matter of fact, Baasha (Elah's father) had
led his coup against
Nadab (Jeroboam's successor son), while "Nadab and all Israel were
laying siege against
Gibbethon," so evidently some effort was put into trying to capture
this Philistine city.
If Omri was still involved in this endeavor, which
16:15-16
suggests, then he would have been away from Tirzah during Zemri's coup
and certainly would not have had time
to be associated with him well enough to have been considered a member
of his house. The
same would be true of Elah, whom Zemri assassinated. Elah had reigned
for only two years,
so he probably had had no time to make changes in his father's chain of
command. So if Omri
had been involved in a siege of Gibbethon during Elah's short reign,
that would have kept
him from becoming a part of Elah's inner circle. Turkel is trying to
press this point to
force my broader definition of "house" to include just anyone who was
serving in the king's
army, and I have certainly not indicated any such belief. If Turkel
can't see the difference
in considering all of a king's "great men, familiar friends, and
priests" as a part of his
house and considering men like Zemri and Omri members of the house of
Baasha, he has some
serious comprehension problems. At any rate, Omri did that which was
evil in the sight of
Yahweh (1
Kings 16:25), but
he died an apparently natural death after a reign of 11 years, and Ahab
his son reigned in
his stead. Needless to say, Ahab also did that which was evil in the
sight of Yahweh, but
like his father Omri, he got away scot free, and Yahweh brought down
upon Ahab's son Joram
all of the evil done by Ahab and Omri. It was just Yahweh's way.
A final comment on this point is in order. Turkel seems to have lost sight of what he is arguing. He has argued that Jehu went beyond his "mandate" and killed those who weren't really a part of Ahab's house, but he can't prove this by arguing that if a "house" included every single servant and soldier in the king's service, then Baasha, Zemri, and Omri didn't go far enough in exterminating the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha because they should have killed themselves too. Such a quibble needs no further comment.
[Addendum July 2005: I should have done this in 1998, but I am going to put to rest Turkel's quibble that a person's "house" could not be extended to include servants and friends. The following texts should show to any reasonable person that the word carried this extended meaning in biblical times.
Genesis 14:14 And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan.
Genesis 15:3 And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.
Genesis 17:12 And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.
I could fill a page with scriptures that included servants as part of the house of whomever they served, but a couple of more examples should suffice.
2 Samuel 3:1 Now there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of David: but David waxed stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker.
At this time, Saul and his sons were dead (1 Sam. 31:1-3), so the "house of Saul" must have been inclusive of more than just Saul's immediate family. In the first place, how could "the house of Saul" have waged a war without fighting men and commanders of those men?
2 Samuel 3:6 And it came to pass, while there was war between the house of Saul and the house of David, that Abner made himself strong in the house of Saul.
Who was Abner? He was the commander of Saul's army.
1 Samuel 14:50 And the name of Saul's wife was Ahinoam, the daughter of Ahimaaz: and the name of the captain of his host was Abner, the son of Ner, Saul's uncle.
So a person's "house" was extensive enough to include cousins, but Abner's military rank and service no doubt accounted for his inclusion in the "house of Saul" more so than his fairly distant relationship to Saul. If relationships were the only factors that determined what house one was a member of, Abner would have been a member of the house of Ner.
The most conclusive example, however, is one that has been referred to several times already.
2 Kings 10:11 So Jehu slew all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men, and his kinfolks, and his priests, until he left him none remaining.
This verse clearly identified Jehoram's "great men," his kinsfolk, and his priests as part of Jehoram's house. Not until Jehu had killed all of Joram's "great men" and "kinfolks" and "priests" did the "dry and disconnected" Kings writer consider that "all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel" had been killed, so I will just let Turkel argue with his inspired "word of God."]
Turkel:
Similarly, note within the text of our concern in 2 Kings, that in verses 1-2, Jehu writes a letter to "the officials of Jezreel" (or some manuscripts read, "the city" - more likely, since Jehu is in Jezreel already! - Jone.12K, 2/465) and to "the elders and to the guardians of Ahab's children." He tells them, "As soon as your master's sons are with you and have chariots and horses, a fortified city and weapons, choose the best and most worthy of your master's sons and set him on his father's throne. Then fight for your master's house." Note here: The king is referred to as the "master" ('adown) of these elders and guardians that Jehu writes to. A reply comes from "the palace administrator, the city governor, the elders and the guardians" deferring to Jehu's power. They acknowledge themselves as Jehu's "servants" and that they will do his will.
Now note in verse 9 that Jehu tells the people of the city of the killing of the 70 sons, "It was I who conspired against my master ('adown) and killed him, but who killed all these?" Jehu refers to Israel's now-dead king as having been his "master" using exactly the same Hebrew word as used to describe the elders, guardians, etc. in their relation to the king. As with Zimri above, this demonstrates the existence of a class of people who served the king yet were not of his "house" - otherwise, we are left with the same sort of situation in which Jehu himself, having had the king as his "master" in his role as a commander in the Israeli [sic] army, was himself a member of the very "house" he was commissioned to destroy! Clearly, though these people served the king of Israel, they were not considered to be of the "house" of the king.
Till:
First of all, I have to wonder if Turkel would argue that what Jehu
said was "inspired truth."
That seems to be the thrust of his argument, because he strains to make
a point out of
Jehu's use of the same word adown as the "inspired writer" used
in narrating this part of
his story, but an important hermeneutic principle recognizes that only
what an inspired
writer said was inspired truth but that what a character in the
inspired writer's narrative
may have said wasn't necessarily truth. In other words, this
hermeneutic principle states
that the inspired writer's account of what a character said is a
truthful representation of
what the character said but that what was said may not itself have been
truth. So if it is
going to be Turkel's position that what Jehu said to the leaders in
referring to Joram as
his "master" was "inspired truth," then why wouldn't he have to argue
that everything that
Jehu said in this speech was also "inspired truth"? Let's have a look
at the entire speech.
2 Kings 10:9 Then in the morning when he [Jehu] went out, he stood and said to all the people, "You are innocent. It was I who conspired against my master and killed him; but who struck down all these? 10 Know then that there shall fall to the earth nothing of the word of Yahweh, which Yahweh spoke concerning the house of Ahab; for Yahweh has done what he said through his servant Elijah." 11 So Jehu killed all who were left of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, all his leaders, close friends, and priests, until he left him no survivor.
In other words, Jehu was claiming that he was doing only that which Yahweh had said through Elijah would be done. Accordingly, the "historian" went on to say, Jehu killed all who were left the house of Ahab in Jezreel... until he left him [Ahab] no survivor. No survivor of what? The statement hardly makes sense unless it is understood to mean no survivor in what could rightly be considered the house of Ahab whom Yahweh had said through Elijah would be utterly swept away. Furthermore, the most likely meaning of "all his leaders, close friends, and priests," which the writer inserted between "house of Ahab" and "until he left him no survivor" was that it was an emphatic repetition intended to communicate what Jehu and the "historian" considered to be the full extent of the "house of Ahab." Hence, if Turkel is going to consider Jehu's words as "inspired truth" when he referred to Joram as his "master," he will have to consider the rest of the statement inspired truth too. That statement from Jehu was that nothing of the word of Yahweh, which Yahweh had spoken through Elijah concerning the house of Ahab, would fall to the earth. All of it would be done! Accordingly, Jehu killed all who were left at that point in the house of Jehu, and that included all his great men, close friends, and priests. If not, why not?
What is really amusing is to see Turkel, who spent so much space trying to show us that paqad was an almost incomprehensible word in Hebrew, now trying to put a very narrow meaning on the word adown, which in addition to meaning "master" also carried the sense of lord or sovereign, and it was frequently used in the Old Testament in reference to kings and those in positions of political importance. When so used in the KJV, the word lord was the translators' choice to convey its meaning, but the context would clearly show that it was used in the same sense that an English speaker would use "my lord" when referring to royalty. In 2 Chronicles 2:14, Huram, the king of Tyre, sent to Solomon a skilled worker to assist in the building of the temple, and Huram described him as a skillful man like "the skillful men of my lord [adown] David, your father." Certainly, Huram (a sovereign king) didn't intend to convey the idea that David was his master who had owned him. In 1 Chronicles 21:3, Joab addressed David as "my lord [adown] the king." In 2 Samuel 19:18-19, Shimei twice addressed David as "my lord the king." There are too many such examples in the Old Testament to notice even a fraction of them, but these are sufficient to show the colossal inconsistency of Turkel to present an argument like this after his lengthy attempt to show that paqad was a word so difficult to define that we can't really be sure what Hosea 1:4 meant. If the word adown could have meant "lord" in the sense of a sovereign, and if that word would fit into the context of Jehu's speech to the leaders of Jezreel, then Turkel's quibble has gone down the drain. The fact is that "lord" was actually used in 2 Kings 10 in some translations.
Hendrickson's Interlinear also used "lord" [adown] in both the word-for-word and the marginal translations. Segond's French translation used the word seigneur, which means "lord."
Turkel must now admit that all of his quibbling about the meaning of paqad was invalid or else acknowledge that his "argument" based on the use of 'adown in 2 Kings 10 proves nothing.
[Addendum July 2005: Turkel did try to reply to this in "Jehu: Black Hat or White Hat? and it was one of his typical say-nothing "replies." Those who want to wade through the entire section can use prong as a key word in the search window, but I am quoting the part below in order to show how Turkel will deliberately distort an opponent's rebuttal arguments and then try to keep the distortion from his readers by not linking them to the full context of whatever he is claiming to answer.
But Skeptic X has a second prong ready for the word 'adown. He says that he finds it "really amusing" that I "spent so much space trying to show us that paqad was an almost incomprehensible word in Hebrew," and I was "now trying to put a very narrow meaning on the word ''adown,' which in addition to meaning 'master' also carried the sense of lord or sovereign, and it was frequently used in the OT in reference to kings and those in positions of political importance." Yes, it was, and that is the sense in which Jehu uses it: To refer to a king, the one Jehu just killed, and we say that quite precisely. Skeptic X somehow manages to get the idea that I am applying the word in the sense of the "master" of a slave, but where he gets this is anyone's guess - perhaps there was a little something in that Big Mac he ate the night before. But in terms of the rest of this objection, Skeptic X here sets up the straw man of excess: I was not showing that paqad was "almost incomprehensible" but that it required more than just a bit-of-bait thinking of the sort Skeptic X regularly engages. Moreover, the comparison is not apt, for there is a difference in our comparisons: The use of paqad across several books, applied to a variety of situations, versus for 'adown a comparison internal to the books of Kings (indeed, internal to a single episode in Kings) and used to apply to a specific and small set of people - Jehu and the elders. Skeptic X once again wastes a great deal of energy addressing a point that simply does not exist.
No, I didn't "manage" to get the idea that Turkel was applying the word ‘adown in the sense of the master of a slave, and misconceptions that he thinks I have of his position on this word couldn't have come from a Big Mac, because I rarely eat meat and never red meat. [This is just one more of many things that Turkel doesn't know about me.] If he hadn't selectively truncated the quotation from my paragraph above, his readers would have seen that my intention was not to say that he was using the word ‘adown in the sense of the master of a slave. Anyone who strikes the "page up" button on his/her computer three times, will see that I was saying only that ‘adown wasn't necessarily being used in 2 Kings 10:9 to mean royalty or nobility, and if Turkel had bothered to show his readers the rest of the paragraph (from my article that he did not link his readers to), they would have seen that I went on to cite several examples where this same word was used in contexts where it implied only a term of polite address. I won't rehash those examples here, because they can be seen again by just scrolling up a few paragraphs.
Turkel said that he was making a comparison of ‘adown as it had been used "internal[ly] to the books of Kings" and used in application to a "specific and small set of people," but that is no way to determine a writer's probable meaning of a word if it is a word with a wide range of meanings. A broader comparison would yield more likely results, so if Turkel really wanted to see how this word was used internally in Kings, he would have looked a little further and found such examples as these.
There is no reason at all to think that Jehu was using [‘adown] to mean anything beyond a polite address when he referred to the elders of Jezreel as "masters" [‘adown]. As usual, Turkel is reading into the text what he wants it to say.]
Turkel:
Let us turn now to the account in 2 Kings, and the groups under
scrutiny. "Great men"
refers to the nobles of the kingdom [Jone.12K, 2/467].
Till:
Well, if Jones said this, it must be true, but we notice, as usual,
that all Turkel has done
is to cite an authority without even including in the quotations the
reason that the
authority gave for concluding this. I suspect that Turkel didn't quote
Jones's reasons for
saying this, because the statement is actually a secondhand reference
that Turkel derived
from some book he read. I think it likely that Turkel doesn't even have
the full context of
Jones's statement, which incidentally was published by Eerdmans in
Grand Rapids, MI, and we
all know what a bastion of unbiased scholarship is found in books that
come out of Grand
Rapids.
[Addendum July 2005: Turkel did comment on this paragraph in Part 2 of "Jehu: Black Hat or White Hat."
After the expected complaint about my use of a citation, and a charge that the source is biased (Memo to [X?]: Jones is a moderate/liberal, and you're thinking of that other company in Grand Rapids!)
Although Eerdmans Publishing Company is more moderate than Baker House, it is certainly no bastion of liberalism. On its Young Readers' website Eerdmans has a header to assure readers that "(i)n all our books, we seek to nurture children's faith in God and help them understand and explore the wonder, joy, and challenges of life." I scrolled through its listing of books in religion and found categories in Bibles, Bible Studies, Biblical Studies, Christian Belief, Christian Living, Church & Ministry, Devotional & Inspirational, Jesus Studies, and Jewish Studies, but a scroll through the books available in these categories will show that everything relates to Christianity and occasionally to Judaism. I found nothing about Islam or Hinduism or Mormonism, and the one book that I found on the subject of science and religion, Galileo, Darwin, and Hawking: The Interplay of Science, Reason, and Religion by Phil Dowe, explored views of science that are "antagonistic" to the Bible, another that considered the two unrelated, and then at the end a third one that sees science and religion as "complementary," which Dowe concluded was "the most historically and philosophically compelling." What a surprise! I was sure that he was going to conclude that science and religion are diametrically opposed.
A search of the website for Gwilym Jones's book on 1 and 2 Kings received no hits, but it doesn't really matter. Jones published this book in 1984, so whatever he may have said in it would have been before the startling research 5-7 years ago that discovered hitherto unknown "nuances" in Hosea 1:4.
Skeptic X offers the indication that, in spite of all of his conspiracy yammer, he is inclined to think "nobles" would be included in this subset - "but that the expression would not have been limited to nobles." All right then - so who else is included? Skeptic X alludes to the elders of Jezreel in chapter 10 who took care of Joram's sons, and that's very nice, but these were city officials (not national ones), so that the applicability of this example is rather questionable, and Skeptic X has no cause to suppose that the Kings writer thereby considers "great men" to be more inclusive that [sic] just "nobles", [sic] although even then I see no way that including "elders" on the national scene would help him.
Well, I didn't include the elders; the biblical text did when it said that Jehu sent to Samaria letters "to the rulers, even the elders," and told them to either fight or else deliver the heads of Joram's sons in a basket (2 Kings 10:1-6). The word translated elders twice in this passage was zaqen, which meant "old, ancient, elder." By putting it in apposition with "leaders" in verse 1, the writer was indicating that the leaders were elders and the elders were leaders, and if Turkel doesn't know that elders were the rulers of towns and cities in biblical times, he should stop touting himself as an expert in ancient Neareastern and Semitic cultures. There are too many biblical examples illustrating this for me even to bother quoting any of them.
Beyond that, Skeptic X offers no further suggestion for defining "great men" but instead hearkens back to his explanation regarding usurpers, which in no way proved that these people were part of the king's "house". [sic]
Turkel himself pointed out that the word for "great men" was gadowl in Hebrew, and this is the same word that was used twice in Esther 9:4 in reference to Mordecai's being "great" or a "great one" in the king's house.
Esther 9:4 For Mordecai was great [gadowl] in the king's house, and his fame went out throughout all the provinces: for this man Mordecai waxed greater and greater [gadowl].
Mordecai was a "great one" in the king's house, so if this great man was considered to be part of a king's house, Turkel needs to explain why the "great men" whom Jehu killed in 2 Kings 10:9, in a context that describes how Jehu killed "all that remained of the house of Ahab," could not have also been considered part of a king's house. Turkel seems to be arguing that they were "princes" and therefore not a part of the king's house, but Micah 7:3 clearly distinguished between princes and great men.
Micah 7:2 The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net. 3 That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up.
Micah, who raged against corruption in his time, said that the prince, like the judge, asked for rewards or bribes, whereas "the great [gadowl] man" uttered his mischievous desire; hence, Micah distinguished between princes and great men. That the "great men" in 2 Kings 10:9 were probably not the same as the "rulers" in verse 1 is really irrelevant, however, because I have shown that the biblical story of Jehu clearly "mandated" him to kill every male both bond and free in the house of Baasha and make it like the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha, and the destruction of the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha included not leaving to Jeroboam "any that breathed" (1 Kings 15:29) and killing in Baasha'a house "all of the males, to leave him "not a single male," either of his kinfolks or of his friends (1 Kings 16:11), and this destruction of every male was to include both bond and free males (1 Kings 14:10; 1 Kings 21:21; 2 Kings 9:8). Furthermore, by identifying the "great men," the "familiar friends," and the "priests" whom Jehu killed as his [Ahab's] great men and his familiar friends and his priests, the writer was showing that he considered all of these to be part of Ahab's house. Turkel has conspiculously avoided commenting on these aspects of Jehu's execution of his so-called mandate.]
I would be inclined to think that "nobles" would have been included in the "great men" but that the expression would not have been limited to nobles. We have already noted that the 42 men whom Jehu killed for ministering to Ahaziah after he was wounded were called "princes" (2 Chron. 22:8) and that when Ahaziah's father Jehoram succeeded to the throne of Judah, he killed all of his brothers and "divers princes" with the sword. These "princes" were undoubtedly nobles, so I would consider this an exclusive term and "great men" a broader one that could have included nobles but others too. Turkel likes to look for nuances in Hebrew, so perhaps he should consider that the word for "great" in this passage was gadol, which could also convey the sense of older or elder. Turkel referred to the letters that Jehu sent to the leaders of Jezreel whom he ordered to kill the sons of Joram, but 10:1 refers to them as "the rulers of Jezreel, even the elders." We could hardly think that these were all nobles, yet the "biblical historian" referred to these rulers (elders) as "the great men of the city" who had "brought up" Joram's sons. In all probability, then, the writer meant for "great men" to be more inclusive than just "nobles." Let's assume, however, that the term did mean only nobles. So what? We have already noted that usurpers had a habit of killing everyone, even "princes," who might stand in their way of seizing control of the country. Why would Jehu's massacre have been any different, and would the "historian" have viewed it any differently from the way he had interpreted the massacres of the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha, which he considered ordained by Yahweh and which had included wholesale massacres of everyone who had had any affiliations of importance with the kings being wiped out? If Jehu had been told to make the house of Ahab like unto the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha, then how could he have exceeded his "mandate" by killing some "great men" or "nobles"? The destruction of the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha had included the same.
Turkel:
We have seen above that such people were not considered to be members
of the royal household;
the OT and anthropological data offers [sic] no evidence for
such a position.
Till:
Let Turkel explain to us just why Jehu's speech to the rulers (elders)
of the city of Jezreel
could not be considered "data" that offer evidence that the associates
of a king (great men,
close friends, and priests) were not considered fair game when a
usurper had received a
divine "mandate" to utterly sweep away the king's house and let nothing
of his survive. I've
been over this so often that there is no need to rehash it here. I'll
just quote Jehu's
words again.
2 Kings 10:10 Know then that there shall fall to the earth nothing of the word of Yahweh, which Yahweh spoke concerning the house of Ahab; for Yahweh has done what he said through his servant Elijah." 11 So Jehu killed all who were left of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, all his leaders, close friends, and priests, until he left him no survivor.
The word so at the beginning of verse 11 ties the statement it introduces back to verse 10. Since Jehu swore that nothing of the word of Yahweh spoken through Elijah concerning the house of Ahab would fall to the earth and then immediately killed all who were left of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, including all his leaders, close friends, and priests, and left Ahab no survivor, that is clear evidence that Jehu considered the leaders, close friends, and priests to be among those whom Yahweh had commanded him to utterly sweep away. If I go over this often enough, even Turkel might actually see the obvious meaning of the statement.
Well, let me retract that statement. Turkel will never see the obvious meaning of the statement, because the obvious meaning of the statement is in direct conflict with an arbitrary assertion that Turkel must cling to in order to save his precious inerrancy doctrine.
[Addendum July 2005: Turkel tried to reply to this in the same section of his black/white hat article linked to above.
Skeptic X's meaning is obvious, but his burden on the word "so" here is pretty darned heavy, not to mention that it is countered by the repetitive use of "and" that we have shown exists in this verse and serves to separate the latter groups from the house of Ahab and from each other.
Turkel, who talks ad nauseam about Hebrew idioms and nuances, shows a remarkable ignorance of what he claims to be such an expert in. Anyone with enough knowledge of Hebrew to recognize the conjunction and, which was just the letter waw prefixed to whatever it was connecting, will see that it was used extensively in Hebrew, far more than we use its counterpart and in English. Some of the "ands" were left out in some English translations, because their overusage became awkward when representing in English what the Hebrew text had said. This conjunction was also used at times for emphatic reasons and also to join together statements that repeated the same idea, which was a familiar stylistic usage in Hebrew. In English, we use appositives to achieve the same effect. Just a few examples of where the waw conjunction was so used should convince reasonable people that Turkel has no point here.
Leviticus 1:2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto Yahweh, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock.
Although even was italicized in the KJV, there was an equivalent word in the Hebrew text, and that was the conjunction waw prefixed to "of the herd." Literally, then, this text was saying, "Ye shall bring your offering of the cattle and of the herd." The waw conjunction was often used in this sense, and the KJV translated it even, as in the example below.
Leviticus 14:9 But it shall be on the seventh day, that he [the cleansed leper] shall shave all his hair off his head and his beard and his eyebrows, even all his hair he shall shave off: and he shall wash his clothes, also he shall wash his flesh in water, and he shall be clean.
According to Turkel "all his hair" mentioned after the word even [waw conjunction] would be separate or different from the "hair off his head and his beard and his eyebows," but the obvious intention of the waw conjunction here was to emphasize that all meant all, and so the leper was to be sure that he shaved off all the hair on his body.
There are too many examples of this usage to quote even a fraction of them, but one more will show that the Kings writer also used this same style of emphasis. In the power struggle that took place while David was on his deathbed, Bathsheba wanted his assurance that their son Solomon would inherit the throne. After she approached David about this, he gave her the assurance she wanted.
1 Kings 1:29 And the king sware, and said, As Yahweh liveth, that hath redeemed my soul out of all distress, 30 Even as I sware unto thee by Yahweh God of Israel, saying, Assuredly Solomon thy son shall reign after me, and he shall sit upon my throne in my stead; even so will I certainly do this day.
If Solomon reigned after David, then he would sit on David's throne; hence, the two expressions "reign after me" and "sit upon my throne" meant the same thing. Joining them with the waw conjunction was just an emphatic device that was used often in Hebrew. When we look at 2 Kings 9:10, we see that the same emphatic device was used to emphasize how extensive Jehu had been in destroying the house of Jehu.
So Jehu slew all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men, and his kinsfolk, and his priests, until he left him none remaining.
The part of this verse introduced with the waw conjunction, translated and here, was treated in several translations as an appositive to "house of Jezreel," which would mean that the great men, the familiar friends, and the priests were the same as "all that remained of the house of Ahab."
These translations have all omitted the first and, which was a prefixed waw conjunction in Hebrew, in recognition that the probable meaning of this verse is that "all the great men," "the familiar friends," and "the priests," were all those who had remained in the house of Ahab in Jezreel after the initial massacre. Hence, these groups were really in apposition to "all those who remained of the house of Ahab at Jezreel." They were the same, i. e., survivors of the house of Ahab up until this point. In killing them, Jehu had left no survivors of the house of Ahab in Jezreel. I have checked three French translations available to me, and all three of them translate this verse in the same way.
I realize that many readers don't know French, but to see that these translations considered "the great men, the familiar friends, and the priests" to be in apposition to "all those who remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel," all they need to do is look at the word Jizreel or Yizreel, in the Jerusalem version, and notice that the French conjuncion et [and] does not appear after Jezreel. Its omission means that the translators saw the waw conjunction in the Hebrew text as an example of where it was being used emphatically, as in the examples I quoted above. A sensible analysis of the story of Jehu through 11:10 will support this translation. Jehu killed Joram, who had ridden out in a chariot to meet Jehu (9:21-26), he then killed Ahaziah, the king of Judah, who was Ahab's grandson (9:27-29), and then he killed Ahab's wife Jezebel (9:30-37). In chapter 10, Jehu ordered the beheading of Ahab's 70 sons (10:1-8), which for some strange reason Turkel seems to think was an act that exceeded Jehu's mandate, although he has never been able to explain how Jehu could have made Ahab's house like the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha if he had left 70 direct descendants of Ahab alive. Anyway, at this point in the story, Jehu had killed Ahab's son Joram of Israel, Ahaziah, Ahab's grandson who was reigning as king over Judah, Ahab's wife Jezebeel, and 70 of Ahab's sons. One would think, then, that the devastation of the house of Ahab was now complete, but look at what Jehu said the morning after the beheading of the 70 sons.
2 Kings 10:9 Then in the morning when he [Jehu] went out, he stood and said to all the people, "You are innocent. It was I who conspired against my master and killed him; but who struck down all these? 10 Know then that there shall fall to the earth nothing of the word of Yahweh, which Yahweh spoke concerning the house of Ahab; for Yahweh has done what he said through his servant Elijah." 11 So Jehu killed all who were left of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, all his leaders, close friends, and priests, until he left him no survivor.
This passage is saying that even though Ahab's son Joram, his grandson Ahaziah, his wife Jezebel, and 70 other sons had been killed, there still remained some in the house of Ahab, so Jehu killed all those who remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, but in listing the remaining members of the house of Ahab whom Jehu killed, the writer named no sons or wives or grandsons, because these had already been killed. He listed only Ahab's great men, familiar friends, and priests, so clearly the Kings writer was identifying these groups as members of the house of Ahab who had remained after his initial massacre described in the preceding verses. This is the only sensible interpretation of the verse, and it is more than just a little strange that Turkel, who talks so much about his knowledge of ancient Neareastern cultures and Semitic idioms and nuances, will look the other way when the idioms and nuances don't support whatever spin he is trying to put onto a text. As I have noted before, Turkel likes to talk about "bottom lines," so I will give him a bottom line to think about. He claims that all the house of Jehu had been killed before the great men, familiar friends, and priests of Ahab had been killed, but the inspired, inerrant "word of God" says that some of the house of Ahab were left or remained after Ahab's son, grandson, wife, and 70 sons had been killed, that Jehu killed those who remained, and that those who remained were Ahab's great men, familiar friends, and priests. That is a bottom line that Turkel would like to ignore, but I won't let him.
When all of this is added to the facts that the Kings writer nowhere said that Jehu had done wrong in killing any of those who had been massacred at Jezreel but did say that Jehu had "done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in [Yahweh's] heart," there is no other conclusion to reach except that this writer put his stamp of approval on Jehu's action at Jezreel and condemned nothing except Jehu's subsequent failure to stamp out "the sins of Jeroboam," i. e., the worship of the golden calves. There is no textual support at all for Turkel's claim that Jehu had exceeded his "mandate."]
Turkel:
The move was politically astute, since any one of these men could have
done as Jehu himself
did and risen up against him, but it was still outside the bounds of
his commission.
Till:
Then are we to assume that Yahweh, who omnisciently knows all things,
would have given Jehu
a "mandate" to utterly sweep away the house of Ahab but would have
limited it only to those
who were direct descendants of Ahab, a limitation that would have left
alive men who could
have risen up against Jehu and returned the kingdom to what it was
under the rulership of
the house of Ahab? If so, Yahweh could have used a refresher course in
military strategy.
Besides that, I have clearly shown above that making the house of Ahab like the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha (2 Kings 9:9) could not have been done unless Jehua had killed also Jehoram's kinsfolk and friends (1 Kings 16:11).
Turkel:
Priests, of course, were of the "house of the Lord" (cf. Jer. 29:26,
Zec. 7:3), of their
own familial households (cf. Aaron), and were state officials. Thus
there are places in the
OT where it is indicated that a king has appointed a priest or given
orders to one, but there
is no indication whatsoever that this degree of loyalty or duty
indicated membership in the
"bayith" of the king.
Till:
Turkel admits that priests were "state officials," but despite evidence
to the contrary, he
denies that they were considered a part of a king's house or "friends."
Before Turkel would
give on this quibble, one would have to find a place where the Bible
says, "Priests were
members of a king's house." Off hand, I don't know where the Bible
directly says that wives
were members of the king's house, but surely no one would deny that
they were. I have already
been over this, but I guess I will have to run it by Turkel again. The
following passages
certainly show that priests were considered an important part of a
king's inner circle of
advisors.
2 Samuel 20:23 Now Joab was in command of all the army of Israel; Benaiah son of Jehoiada was in command of the Cherethites and the Pelethites; 24 Adoram was in charge of the forced labor; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the recorder; 25 Sheva was secretary; Zadok and Abiathar were priests; 26 and Ira the Jairite was also David's priest.
Whether the word in verse 26 should be nagyid (ruler or minister) or kohen (priest) is a matter of textual dispute. The NRSV (quoted above) accepts priest as the correct reading, as do the RSV, NASV, NAB, REB, Hendrickson's Interlinear, the Jerusalem Bible, and others, including even the version of the Jewish Publication Society. Hence, this text presents evidence to dispute Turkel's claim below that there are no biblical examples of anyone's having had his personal priest, except for Micah of Ephraim in the days when every man did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 17 & (18). This text indicates otherwise.
As also noted earlier, (2 Chronicles 18:14-17 listed those who had positions of importance in David's court, and priests were included in the group.
14 So David reigned over all Israel; and he administered justice and equity to all his people. 5 Joab son of Zeruiah was over the army; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was recorder; 16 Zadok son of Ahitub and Ahimelech son of Abiathar were priests; Shavsha was secretary; 17 Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and the Pelethites; and David's sons were the chief officials in the service of the king.
Solomon's inner circle of advisors was listed in 1 Kings 4:1-6.
4:1 King Solomon was king over all Israel, 2 and these were his high officials: Azariah son of Zadok was the priest; 3 Elihoreph and Ahijah sons of Shisha were secretaries; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was recorder; 4 Benaiah son of Jehoiada was in command of the army; Zadok and Abiathar were priests; 5 Azariah son of Nathan was over the officials; Zabud son of Nathan was priest and king's friend; 6 Ahishar was in charge of the palace; and Adoniram son of Abda was in charge of the forced labor. 7 Solomon had twelve officials over all Israel, who provided food for the king and his household; each one had to make provision for one month in the year.
The word for "palace" in verse 6 was bayith (house), the very term under discussion. Bayith was also the word for "household" in verse 7, so we have a list of "high officials" in Solomon's government, and in listing them the text twice used the word bayith (house). Included in the list were priests.
Another problem in this text is that it states that Zadok and Abiathar were priests among the "high officials" in Solomon's government, but we have already noticed that 1 Kings 2:27 stated that when Solomon succeeded to the throne, he "thrust out Abiathar from being priest to Yahweh," but this is just another of those problems that we will leave to inerrantists like Turkel to explain. Did Solomon "thrust out" Abiathar or not? I'm sure Turkel will have no problem finding "nuances" in Hebrew that will explain that there was no problem.
[Addendum July 2005: In commenting on this section of my reply, Turkel said that "this proves absolutely nothing in terms of whether a priest was, in his official capacity, part of a king's house, no more so than showing that Janet Reno is attorney general proves that she is part of the family of Bill Clinton," and this remark comes from someone who constantly accuses his opponents of looking at ancient Neareastern cultures through modern glasses. The servants in the Clinton house would not be considered part of his family either, because this is the 21st century in the United States, which has entirely different customs from the ancient Neareastern cultures of biblical times--maybe Turkel has heard about apples and oranges--but even he has admitted that servants in biblical times were members of whatever household they served. He then went on to say that priests were no more a part of a king's house than were his "great men."
Skeptic X cites this as a counter to my assertion that there are no other examples of a personal priests (aside from Micah), though he admits that there is a textual dispute over the word, and cites (argument by authority?!) those translations that accept "priest" as the proper word. But does this, or that Dave and Solomon had priests as officials (which we indicated, that they were officials) indicate that this priest was part of David's, etc.'s "house"? Not at all - no more so than it does before regarding the "great men". [sic]
I just showed above, however, that the three groups in 2 Kings 10:11--his [Ahab's] great men, his familiar friends, and his priests--were grammatically in apposition to "all that remained of the house of Ahab at Jezreel," which means that they were the same: those who remained of the house of Ahab at Jezreel were Ahab's great men, his familiar friends, and his priests, and Ahab's great men, his familiar friends, and his priests were all who remained of the house of Ahab at Jezreel. The additional fact that all three groups were referred to as his [Ahab's] is further proof that these were all considered part of Ahab's house. The text plainly says that after Jehu had killed Jehoram, Ahaziah, Jezebel, and 70 of Ahab's sons, some of the house of Ahab still remained, so Jehu killed his great men, his familiar friends, and his priests until--until, until, until--he [Jehu] had left him [Ahab] "none remaining." Jehu killed until none were remaining in the house of Ahab, and the killing of the great men, friends, and priests took place before the until was realized. Another one of Turkel's quibbles has sputtered and fizzled.]
Turkel:
The only possible exception to this rule is found in Judges 17-18,
where Micah hired his own
Levite who tended the family shrine. This Levite had his own house
(Judg.
18:15) and may
have been considered part of Micah's own house - but note that this
priest was hired
by Micah, and that this story is told as part of a book that collects
stories exemplifying
its theme: The people of Israel in that time each did as they [sic]
saw fit! Clearly
Micah's actions are intended to be seen as a deviation from the norm -
and in any event, the
Levite, if he was a member of Micah's house, likely would have been so
as a sojourner rather
than as a priest.
Till:
Well, as I just showed above, there are passages in the Old Testament
that indicate that
kings, such as David and Solomon, had their own priests, so Turkel's
attempts to prove that
Jehu's killing of Joram's priests went beyond his "mandate" is an
assertion that he has yet
to prove. In view of the praise that the writer of the story of Jezreel
heaped upon Jehu,
Turkel's efforts to prove this quibble have fallen far short of the
mark. This "historian,"
contrary to Turkel's uninformed assertion, didn't hesitate to condemn
in detail the offenses
committed by Manasseh, Ahab, and others, so there is no reason to think
that his style was so
"dry and monotonous" that he just didn't express disapproval of obvious
"excesses" that Jehu
committed in carrying out his "mandate." This is something that Turkel
read in a commentary,
thought that it provided a way to "explain" the blood-of-Jezreel
problem, and so he took
it up and parroted it without bothering to see how accurate it was. By
now, he has seen
that it wasn't at all an accurate judgment of the literary style of the
Kings' writer.
[Addendum July 2005: I will insert another reminder here to point out that Jehu killed Joram, Ahab's son; then killed Ahaziah, Ahab's grandson; then killed Ahab's wife Jezebel; and then ordered the beheading of 70 of Ahab's sons. After all of this bloodshed, the house of Ahab had not been completely exterminated, because some members of Ahab's house remained. Jehu then killed "all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel," and those who remained belonged to three groups--his great men, his familiar friends, and his priests. Jehu killed until none were left remaining in the house of Ahab. My grammatical analysis of 2 Kings 10:11, above, shows that this was the obvious meaning of the verse.]
Turkel:
Then what of Jehu's obliteration of the priests in 2 Kings? Jehu's acts
against the priests
had political motives, since a priest could effect a coup (cf.
(2
Kings 11:4-20) by citing
improper worship practices. This has specific application here: A king
or a usurper needed
priestly support for their own political ends. Although it was obvious
trickery on Jehu's
part and probably not a sincere sacrifice, the priests that had served
under the previous
kings of Israel could have cited Jehu's apparent sacrifice to Baal as
an improper practice
and used it as an excuse to depose him! In killing off these priests,
Jehu was simply using
the means of political murder to head off any trouble from that
direction.
Till:
If the massacre at Jezreel happened, it would have been, beyond a
reasonable doubt, a simple
political maneuver on Jehu's part to remove any potential opponents to
the usurpation of the
throne of Israel. However, that is besides the point. Turkel is stuck
with whatever
interpretation the "inspired" writer put on the story, and he obviously
thought that Yahweh
wanted Jehu to do what he did. Jehu, whose very words Turkel seems to
think had to be
inspired truth (as we have previous noted), said to his servants after
the son of the prophet
had anointed him king, "Thus and thus he [the son of the prophet] spoke
to me, saying, Thus
says Yahweh, I have anointed thee king over Israel"
(2 Kings
9:12). Turkel's slant
on this story again makes Yahweh look like an absolute nincompoop. He
sent a "son of the
prophets" to anoint Jehu king over Israel and to command him to utterly
sweep away the house
of Ahab and make it like the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha, but the
all-knowing Yahweh
selected for the task another man whom this god in all of his
splendorous omniscience had to
know would turn out to be just another bad egg. The omniscient Yahweh
just didn't have any
luck with his kingly choices. He exalted Baasha out of the dust, as we
have already noted,
and made him prince over Yahweh's people of Israel
(1 Kings
16:2), but almost
immediately Baasha turned bad and did that which was evil in Yahweh's
sight. Then he
selected Jehu to execute another massacre, but even before the job was
done, Jehu (so Turkel
claims) botched the job and went beyond his "mandate." It seems that
Yahweh just didn't
have much luck with his selections of kings. Of course, it just might
be too that since
the writer of 2 Kings heaped praise on Jehu for doing all that was
right in Yahweh's sight
concerning the house of Ahab, this "historian" just didn't share
Turkel's opinion that Jehu
had exceeded his "mandate." The readers have their choice. They can let
the text that this
historian wrote speak for itself, or they can let Turkel find imagined
"nuances" in it that
make it not mean what it obviously says.
[Addendum July 2005: I searched through Turkel's attempts to reply to my rebuttal of his article, but I could find nothing that he said about the paragraph above. It was apparently one of those points that he felt should be left alone.]
Turkel:
So what have we learned?
Till:
Well, we have learned that Turkel can deny the obvious meaning of a
text and find far-fetched
meanings that no one would ever think of except those bent on denying
that discrepancies
exist in an ancient text written in prescientific times by
superstitious men. We have also
learned that he can cite commentaries that agree with his position, but
there is nothing
exceptional or scholarly about this, because anyone can do the same, no
matter what a
person's religious position may be, he can always find books and
commentaries that agree
with it. If it is an inerrantist position, one need look no further
than Grand Rapids, MI,
to find books to quote in support of his belief. We have also learned
that Turkel can fill
a page with fragmented quotations from books and commentaries but that
he rarely bothers to
give the substance of what these commentators said in support of their
positions.
And we have learned that Turkel calls this kind of "apologetics" scholarship.
Turkel:
Neither of these two parties comes under the roof of the "house of
Ahab" nor of any royal
household, literally or figuratively.
Till:
The many biblical quotations that I have given in support of my
position show otherwise.
[Addendum July 2005: My grammatical analysis of 2 Kings 10:11, above, also shows otherwise. After the initial massacres, those who remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel were "his [Ahab's] great men, his familiar friends, and his priests, so "his [Ahab's] great men, his familiar friends, and his priests" were "all those who remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel." Jehu killed them--the great men, the friends, and the priests--until none remained in the house of Ahab.]
Turkel:
In killing these people, Jehu clearly exceeded the demands of his
commission and destroyed
those outside the house of Ahab.
Till:
No doubt that was why the "historian" who recorded this story claimed
that Yahweh had
praised Jehu for his actions and told him that he had done to the house
of Ahab according
to all that was in Yahweh's heart and that as a reward, his
sons for four generations
would sit on the throne of Israel
(2
Kings 10:31). Yes, indeed,
it was probably because Jehu had "clearly exceeded the demands of his
commission" that
caused the "historian" of the Jezreel massacre to heap this kind of
praise on Jehu.
Doesn't Turkel wish that he had a biblical statement as direct as this that he could cite in support of his position?
Turkel:
That leaves only the matter of "close friends." Here alone does Till
take up the gauntlet:
"In the case of Yahweh's destruction of the house of Baasha, there can
be no doubt at all
that those who were not male descendants of Baasha were included in the
destruction of
Baasha's house," Till writes.
Till:
So that everyone can get an uninterrupted review of Turkel's quibble on
this point, I am
going to post his entire "counterargument" with only very brief
comments occasionally
inserted and then respond to it in detail at the end. You will see that
his "argument" is
that the Hebrew word for "friends" in the account of Zimri's
destruction of the house of
Baasha was different from the word for "friends" in
2 Kings
10:11, which tells of
Jehu's massacre of "friends" of the house of Ahab. In other words, the
argument (as I will
show) is as ridiculous as if someone should claim that if one English
speaker said that his
"friends" were killed in a car crash, his meaning would be different
from that of another
English speaker who said that his "pals" or "buddies" or "comrades"
were killed in a car
crash. Such a quibble would be obvious to those who speak English,
because we would
understand that both speakers had intended to convey essentially the
same relationships
between the speakers and the ones who had died in the accidents.
Turkel:
For relevant proof, he cites 1 Kings 16:11 -
"As soon as he began to reign and was seated on the throne, he killed off Baasha's whole family. He did not spare a single male, whether relative or friend."
Of this, he writes: Verse 11 is clear enough. Zimri killed "all the house of Baasha," and in doing so he didn't leave alive "a single male of his kindred or his friends."
Till:
Everyone should keep in mind that Ahaziah of Judah was certainly a
"relative" or a kinsman
of Ahab, because his mother was Ahab's daughter, so Jehu didn't exceed
his "mandate" by
killing Ahaziah, because he was a kinsman of Ahab. After all, if a
grandson is not a
kinsman, then what is he?
Turkel:
Thus does Till find that Jehu destroyed the house of Ahab with the same
thoroughness as the
house of Baasha was destroyed. The match is perfect - or is it? In
fact, what we have here
is Till's most enormous blunder of all, and startling proof that one
cannot simply consult
the stark English translations for answers.
[Addendum July 2005: I am interrupting here to point out that Turkel, who often makes comments like the one immediately above, used the family of Bill Clinton to try to argue that officials, like Janet Reno, would not be considered members of his family, so whenever Turkel considers it advantageous to his position, he too will refer to modern examples and "stark English translations" for answers. In this section of Part One of this series, I showed that Turkel won't hesitate to quote "stark English translations" when he thinks that they will support his position. He will do this when he can find only one translation that agrees with his position, as he did in citing the NIV in the section just linked to.]
Turkel:
Aside from totally ignoring the matters of the great men and priests,
Till commits an error
that would have been avoided had he done so much as consult a Hebrew
concordance. It turns
out that both Zimri and Jehu were similar in that they were acting
politically - but the
fact is that they were getting rid of two different kinds of people.
[Addendum July 2005: My grammatical analysis of 2 Kings 10:11, which I have now referred to five or six times, clearly shows that I have not ignored "the matters of the great men and priests." Why would I ignore something that very clearly supports my position?]
Till:
It is at this point that Turkel begins his quibble, i. e., two
different "kinds" of
people were killed by Zimri and Jehu, and this can be known by virtue
of the fact that the
Hebrew text used different words to denote "friends." We will soon see
just who has
committed an "enormous blunder." If Turkel had taken his own advice and
used a concordance
to study how these words were used throughout the Old Testament, he
would never have made
the blunder of claiming that the words denoted "two different kinds of
people."
Turkel:
Let's get behind the English and expose the error in Till's data. In
1 Kings
16:11, what is killed
are "ga'al" (next of kin/kindred) and "reya." This latter word
translates out to brother,
companion, lover, neighbor, etc. as shown in the Strong's exposition:
7453. rea', ray'-ah; or reya', ray'-ah; from H7462; an associate (more or less close):--brother, companion, fellow, friend, husband, lover, neighbour, X (an-) other.
Till:
An associate? Does everyone remember how Turkel accused me of
sloppy scholarship when
I used the word associate in describing those whom Jehu
slaughtered at Jezreel?
[Addendum July 2005: Readers can scroll up toward the beginning of this article to find where Turkel made an issue over my saying that the friends killed in the massacre of Baasha's house were "associates," but to assist them in finding it, I will just quote it below.
What I do not find is this peculiar word that Till uses, "associates". [sic] Associates? What are these? Is this a specific socio-economic class from the Ancient Near East?
So Turkel's inconsistency shines again. When he can't answer my argument that utterly destroying the house of Baasha required the killing of his associates as well as relatives, Turkel bellowed, "Associates? What are these? I do not find this peculiar word [in the text]," but then when he makes his appeal to what Strong said about the meaning of rea', the word associate suddenly becomes appropriate. As I have said before, inconsistency is about the only consistency in Turkel's articles.]
Turkel:
Note the level of affiliation expressed: These are people of rather
close relationship. The
word is used elsewhere in this sense; here are some citations of places
where it appears:
Gen. 38:12, 20 - When Judah had recovered from his grief, he went up to Timnah, to the men who were shearing his sheep, and his friend ("reya") Hirah the Adullamite went with him... Meanwhile Judah sent the young goat by his friend ("reya") the Adullamite in order to get his pledge back from the woman, but he did not find her.
Note here: This is a person whom Judah trusts with his property and his personal affairs!
Ex. 22:7 - "If a man gives his neighbor ("reya") silver or goods for safekeeping and they are stolen from the neighbor's house, the thief, if he is caught, must pay back double."
Note: Are you going to give silver or goods to someone you are not close friends with?
Till:
When I respond to all of this nonsense in detail later on, please
notice how Turkel gets
creamed on this "argument."
Turkel:
Deut. 13:6 - If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend ("reya") secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods," gods that neither you nor your fathers have known...
Note: Here this kind of person is classified with family members as someone so close that they might have a certain power to persuade you.
Till:
I wish that Turkel had quoted the complete text here so that readers
could have seen that the
merciful, benevolent Yahweh ordered the killing of one's own brother,
son, daughter, wife,
or "closest friend," if they advocated the worship of gods other than
Yahweh.
[Addendum July 2005: Turkel claims that reya meant "close friend," but if that is so, why did the writer of Deuteronomy modify this word with closest? Literally, in Hebrew this was a friend "who is as your own soul," an expression that would have conveyed the meaning of "closest." In so modifying the word, the writer was indicating that the word reya itself would not connote the closeness that Turkel is attributing to the word, and so he supplied the modifying phrase to let his readers know that even one's closest friend was to be killed if he advocated the worshiping of gods other than Yahweh, who seemed not to have much use for freedom of religion.]
Turkel:
2 Ki. 7:3 - Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, "Why stay here until we die?"
Till:
What on earth does Turkel mean here? Transliteration occurs when a word
in one language is
spelled in the alphabetic characters of another language, so certainly
transliteration was
not involved in the translation that he is quoting. However,
translation was certainly
involved, because the homograph "reya" sometimes denoted the sense of
"other" or "another."
There are even some versions that translate "reya" as "neighbor." Hendrickson's
Interlinear, for example, so translated it--"they said each man to
his neighbor." At
any rate, please follow carefully when I comment below on this passage
that Turkel presented
as a proof text.
Turkel:
Prov. 3:28 - Do not say to your neighbor ("reya"), "Come back later; I'll give it tomorrow"-- when you now have it with you.
Note: Here the word specifies someone who lends things to you. In the next verse after the above it refers to someone who lives near you.
Till:
Well, not exactly. A reya in this passage was instead a
neighbor to whom things were
lent. In other words, the reya in this verse was the one who
received the thing that
was lent and not the one who did the lending. Turkel does get confused
at times.
Turkel:
Prov. 14:20 - The poor are shunned even by their neighbors ("reya"), but the rich have many friends.
Note: Here there is a distinct difference made between "reya" (neighbors) and "'ahab" (friends). The latter is an even stronger word indicating affection.
Prov. 17:17-8 - A friend ("reya") loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. A man lacking in judgment strikes hands in pledge and puts up security for his neighbor ("reya").
Note: Here is a very precise description of what a "reya" was all about - and a description of how far foolish people take this relationship because of trusting overmuch! (By the way - the word "loves" above is that [sic] Hebrew "'ahab"!)
Conclusion: Clearly some close associational link is implied by this word, and in many cases we see relationships that fit in under the parameters of the broad definition of "house" in the OT context.
Till:
This is far enough for readers to understand the essence of Turkel's
argument. His
contention is that the "friends" killed in Zimri's massacre of the
house of Baasha were
what Hebrews called reya, and by selectively choosing just a
few of the many passages
in the Old Testament where reya was used, he has attempted to
prove that a reya
was a person with whom someone had a very close personal relationship,
but just because
these particular verses concerned especially close relationships in no
way means that
reya was used exclusively by the Hebrews to convey that meaning.
To see this, all
we need do is look at some other passages in which reya was
used. All of the
following passages used reya where indicated by brackets.
Exodus 20:16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor [reya]. 17 You shall not covet your neighbor's [reya] house; you shall not covet your neighbor's [reya] wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor [reya].
If, as Turkel claims, reya always denoted someone with whom a person had a close personal friendship, then he would have to say that the commandment above did not forbid one's bearing false witness against a person just as long as the person was not someone with whom he had a close relationship. Likewise, one could covet another person's wife just as long as that person wasn't a close friend.
Leviticus 19:13 You shall not defraud your neighbor [reya]; you shall not steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a laborer until morning.
Since Turkel claims that a reya was a person with whom someone had an especially close relationship, I suppose he would say that one could defraud a person just as long as he was not a close personal friend.
Proverbs 3:29 Do not plan harm against your neighbor [reya] who lives trustingly beside you.
Just because someone lives beside another person doesn't necessarily mean that they are close friends. In such cases, then, Turkel's logic would make it all right for one to plan harm against such a neighbor, just as long as there was no especially close feeling for this person.
Turkel accused me earlier of blundering, but readers are about to see that in his effort to present himself as a linguist who can find "nuances" in Hebrew that escape the notice of most other people, he has committed the king of all blunders. This happened when he quoted [2 Kings 7:3], which I will copy and paste below so that readers won't have to scroll backwards to find it.
2 Ki. 7:3 - Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, "Why stay here until we die?"
Turkel's comment on this verse was the following:
Note: The word is not transliterated here, but is used to refer to the four lepers outside the gates of the city - men with a common bond.
I have already commented on Turkel's misuse of the word transliterated, a strange error for someone who prides himself on his linguistic abilities, but now I want to notice how the application that he made of this passage shows an incredible linguistic stupidity on his part. I have already noted that languages have homographs, i. e., different words that are spelled and pronounced alike, such as bear and bear and mean, mean, and mean in English. In Hebrew, the homograph reya sometimes conveyed the sense of "another" or "each other." The KJV rendition of 2 Kings 7:3 uses "another" in translating reya and says that the lepers were saying "one to another." Since the four men in this group were lepers, Turkel concludes that reya (translated another) was a word in Hebrew that conveyed the idea of "common bond," but this is as ridiculous as if someone should say that in a statement in English that speaks of people in a group speaking "one to another," the word another conveys a sense of "common bond." What if the group were obviously rivals or adversaries as in, "The cops and robbers were yelling one to another"? Would this mean that the cops and robbers shared a common bond? Certainly not.
To see that there was no essential difference in the way that reya was used in Hebrew when it conveyed the sense of another or other, we have only to examine a few passages.
Exodus 21:18 When individuals quarrel and one strikes the other [reya] with a stone or fist so that the injured party, though not dead, is confined to bed, 19 but recovers and walks around outside with the help of a staff, then the assailant shall be free of liability, except to pay for the loss of time, and to arrange for full recovery.
The word reya was used here in reference to individuals who quarrel to the point of coming to blows or even wielding stones as weapons. If I used Turkel's logic, then, I could argue that the word reya connoted people who had feelings of strong hostility for each other. In other words, this passage by Turkel's logic would show that the word means the exact opposite of what he is claiming.
Exodus 18:5 Moses said to his father-in-law, "Because the people come to me to inquire of God. 16 When they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another [reya], and I make known to them the statutes and instructions of God."
So again we see that the word reya was used in reference to people who are disputing with each other, and so the word here certainly does not denote the sense of close personal relationship or "common bond" that Turkel has tried to claim by deceptively choosing passages that used the word where such relationships were involved. The gullible may fall for this ploy, but those who have reserved judgment on Turkel's apologetic abilities can now clearly see that his quibble has no merit.
Judges 6:28 When the townspeople rose early in the morning, the altar of Baal was broken down, and the sacred pole beside it was cut down, and the second bull was offered on the altar that had been built. 29 So they said to one another [reya], "Who has done this?" After searching and inquiring, they were told, "Gideon son of Joash did it."
In this passage, reya was used in the sense of townspeople speaking "to one another." Although theoretically possible, we could hardly imagine that all the people in a town had close personal feelings for one another of the type that Turkel is trying to claim was inherent in the meaning of this word; hence, we have another example, among many that I could cite, where reya was used only in the sense of "another" without connoting special closeness. If there is still any doubt that Turkel is grasping straws in this matter, the next example should convince even the most stubborn biblicist.
Genesis 15: Then he said to him [Abraham], "I am Yahweh who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess." 8 But he said, "O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?" 9 He said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon." 10 He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other [reya]; but he did not cut the birds in two. 11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
In this passage the word reya, used in the sense of "other," referred to pieces of dead meat that Abraham had laid on a sacrificial altar. I wonder how much close friendship these chucks of meat felt for each other.
I could cite many other examples to show the absurdity of the slant that Turkel is trying to put on the word reya, but it is time now for the coup de grace. If Turkel is willing to trust his personal savior Jesus, then he will have to admit that the word reya had a much broader meaning than the one that Turkel has tried to give it through his selective quotations above. The following passage shows that Jesus thought that reya went far beyond conveying the narrow definition that Turkel is trying to put on the word.
Luke 10:25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there? 27 He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."
The New Testament was written in Greek, of course, but in the last part of his answer to the lawyer's question, Jesus quoted Leviticus 19:18, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am Yahweh." The word translated "neighbor" in this passage was reya, the same word that was used in the passages above that referred to bearing false witness against a neighbor or coveting the wife of one's neighbor. As the following verses show, the lawyer who was questioning Jesus on this occasion, asked him to explain what "neighbor" meant.
28 And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live." 29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
The answer that Jesus gave to the question was the well known parable of the good Samaritan.
30 Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took are of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, 'Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.' 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?" 37 He said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."
So in this story, Jesus clearly taught that a neighbor (reya) was not just a person for whom one had close personal feelings but just anyone, even a stranger, who needed help. It is obvious then that Turkel's selective quoting of Old Testament passages in which reya was used has backfired in his face and that there is no basis at all for his contention that the word in 1 Kings 16:11 was referring only to very close personal friends of Baasha, whom Zimri had killed.
Turkel's quibble on this point continued as he tried to prove that the "friends" of Joram, whom Jehu killed in 2 Kings 10:11, were an entirely different kind of "friend," but I will now address this quibble to show that reya and yada were sometimes used interchangeably.
[Addendum July 2005: In his reworking of his original article (from which he omitted many of the blunders I have identified, such as his use of the word transliterate in the sense of "translate"), Turkel hopped, skipped, and jumped over most of the examples that I used in analyzing the usage of reya in the Old Testament, but he did try to dance around my examples that showed that this word just meant "neighbor," and so the spin that Turkel is trying to put onto it would mean that one would not have to respect or love neighbors or refrain from coveting the property of neighbors that he was not very "close" to. Turkel's quibble is quoted in blue print below.
To which I say: Yes, he's right - it does not forbid these actions in terms of someone who is not a reya, but that is not quite the same thing as permitting such actions on a non-reya! Does Skeptic X suppose that someone could come to this rule and seriously and legitimately suggest, "Oh, yeah, we can go and lie, covet, etc. about that guy, because he's not our reya?" Sure they could - if they made the object of the offense the focus rather than the offense itself! This is nothing more than the same sort of shameful manipulation Dan Barker used to prove that the Golden Rule could be used by masochists to ply their trade on the unwilling! (And we will see later that this type of interpretation, which did come up in a sense much later in Israel's history, is explicitly rejected elsewhere in the Bible!)
So Turkel's extreme position on this forces him to say, "Yes, the passages that prohibited misconduct toward one's neighbor [reya] would not forbid these actions against someone who wasn't a really close friend, but that doesn't mean that these commands would have permitted the mistreatment of neighbors who weren't close friends. When someone has to resort to this kind of quibbling, you can know that he realizes that his position has been clobbered. He went on to labor the quibble at length.
Skeptic X perhaps fails to understand that the command above is given (as were all commands in this section) in the context of a community-oriented covenant. These were "in-house" rules for the people of Israel to follow, and thus specific mention was made to the people of Israel who would be expected to be an exemplary community of God and be reya amongst themselves (this will relate to other entries below, re a broader use of reya). That, of course, did not happen; but the point is that this no more allows coveting, etc. regarding those outside the community than a rule banning prostitution within the city limits constitutes an endorsement of it outside of the city limits. The city council doesn't make the rule because they think another area is more geographically appropriate for prostitution; they create the rule foremost because they think that prostitution is immoral.
Actually, the word reya in Hebrew denoted those who were related by nationality, so a neighbor was a countryman; hence, the commandment that prohibited coveting the property of a "neighbor" referred to the property of fellow Hebrews. The intention of the entire decalogue, in fact, was to regulate intra-Hebraic conduct, so the command not to kill meant that one Hebrew should not kill another. What Hebrews were not allowed to do to one another, however, didn't necessarily mean that they could not do these things to those who weren't Hebrews. A Hebrew could not charge interest for money loaned to a "brother," but interest could be charged to a foreigner (Deut. 23:19-20). A Hebrew could not eat animals that had died on their own, but he could give or sell the meat to non-Hebrews (Deut. 14:21). If a man killed a neighbor, who would have been another Hebrew, he was to be put to death (Ex.21:14), but if he killed a servant, he was only to be "punished" and that was only if the servant died immediately (Ex.21:20-21), but if the injured servant lingered for a day or two, the owner was not to be "punished." Clearly, then, the decalogue decreed double standards for crimes committed against other Hebrews as opposed to those committed against non-Hebrews, so I agree with Turkel's view that all of the commands in the section under consideration were in "a context of a community oriented covenant." Turkel's problem is that he can't seem to understand that in a society of some 2.5 to 3 million Israelites, no one could have had the close friendship with everyone in that culture that he claims the word reya conveyed. Therefore, the command not to covet the property or wife of a reya would have necessarily included everyone in that populous society. Hence, the law would have applied to "neighbors," who were not personally known.
In his comment about the banning of prostitution by a city council, Turkel conveniently ignored the fact that the authority of the city council in his example ended at the city limits. Does he think that those who oppose prostitution would not extend the restriction farther than the city limits if they had the power to do so. As for his "in-house" quibble above, I have a simple question for Turkel: If reya did indeed have the limited meaning that Turkel claims and if the restrictions on coveting the property of one's neighbor was really intended to cover all people in general, why didn't the omniscient Yahweh "inspire" his chosen writer to use a more inclusive word? Yahweh didn't seem to have any problem communicating the extensiveness of his restrictions when he uttered such commands as the one that said, "Thou shalt have no gods before me," or, "No soul of you shall eat blood" (Lev. 17:12). Yahweh could have easily inspired his "chosen one" to write that one should covet no man's wife or property, but to hear Turkel tell it, he seemed to prefer ambiguity. He could "inspire" the apostle Paul to command the Galatian Christians "to do good to all men," but for some reason he just couldn't tell his "chosen people" that they should respect the property of all men. This is the sort of silliness that Turkel has to resort to in order to defend his idiotic claim that "friends" in 1 Kings 16:11 didn't really mean friends.
I showed above that the word reya was used in reference to men who fight each other, and what was Turkel's reply to this?
This doesn't help Skeptic X, either: People who quarrel can either be close friends (even to the point of such violence) or not know each other at all; this verse therefore offers no indications for Skeptic X that this could not have been a close friend in the sense that we argue.
As I pointed out, however, this wasn't just a case of friends "quarreling," because they came to blows and one hit the other with a rock. With friends like that, one wouldn't need any enemies. What this amounts to is that Turkel is dead wrong in trying to distort the word reya into meaning an especially close friend. The story of the good Samaritan, which I referred to above, showed that a "neighbor" was just anyone in need, whether he was personally known or not.]
Turkel:
What, then, of the "friends" of Ahab's house in 2 Kings, who were
killed by Jehu? These
were not "reya" at all, but "yada" - an entirely different Hebrew word,
with an entirely
different connotation!
Till:
Having clearly failed to establish that reya in Hebrew connoted
especially close
personal friendships, Turkel now turns to yada, the kind of
"friends" whom Jehu
killed in
2 Kings
10:11, to try to show
that this word had an entirely different meaning from reya.
Later, I will show that
the words were used interchangeably in the Old Testament in reference
to the same
relationships and associations, but first let's look at Turkel's
quibbles on this point.
Turkel:
Let's look at the exposition from Strong's:
3045. yada', yaw-dah'; a prim. root; to know (prop. to ascertain by seeing); used in a great variety of senses, fig., lit., euphem. and infer. (including observation, care, recognition, and causat. instruction, designation, punishment, etc.) [as follow]:--acknowledge, acquaintance (-ted with), advise, answer, appoint, assuredly, be aware, [un-] awares, can [-not], certainly, for a certainty, comprehend, consider, X could they, cunning, declare, be diligent, (can, cause to) discern, discover, endued with, familiar friend, famous, feel, can have, be [ig-] norant, instruct, kinsfolk, kinsman, (cause to, let, make) know, (come to give, have, take) knowledge, have [knowledge], (be, make, make to be, make self) known, + be learned, + lie by man, mark, perceive, privy to, X prognosticator, regard, have respect, skilful, shew, can (man of) skill, be sure, of a surety, teach, (can) tell, understand, have [understanding], X will be, wist, wit, wot.
Till:
Now let's look at Strong's definition of reya so that we can
make some comparisons.
7453. rea', ray'-ah; or reya', ray'-ah; from H7462; an associate (more or less close):--brother, companion, fellow, friend, husband, lover, neighbour, X (an-) other.
First, we notice that the homograph yada had a much broader range of meanings, so common sense should tell us that it would be more inclusive than reya, to which Turkel attempted to assign the limited meaning of "close personal friendship," but we notice that Strong parenthetically limited reya in the sense of "an associate" with the qualifying expression "more or less." Hence, Turkel's own primary authority seems to disagree with his claim that reya clearly conveyed the sense of "closeness." To Strong, it was merely closeness "more or less." At any rate, one of Strong's definitions of yada was "familiar friend," which was the expression used to translate the word in the ASV, but wouldn't a "familiar friend" be a "close personal friend"? I point this out only to call attention to the flagrant quibbling that we have seen in Turkel's article. He argued that a reya was a close personal friend and then claimed that this somehow connoted a different relationship than a yada, which at times meant a "familiar friend." Obviously, Turkel is splitting hairs to try to find "nuances" that simply didn't exist in the Hebrew language, and when I show that reya and yada were sometimes used interchangeably in the Old Testament, his entire house of cards will collapse on him. But first let's look at enough of his "argument" to get the drift of it.
[Addendum July 2005: I emphasized in bold print three sentences in the paragraph above, because Turkel in his hit-and-miss way of "replying" to opponents, cut and pasted this section in Part Two of his so-called rebuttal article. What he said about it was typical of his quibbling way of answering his opponents.
Would a "familiar friend" be a "close personal friend"? No - a familiar friend would be a familiar friend, and a close personal friend would be a close personal friend.
Isn't that precious? It is about as profound as saying that a companion is a companion, and a friend is a friend or that a pal is a pal and a buddy is a buddy. This is the type of silliness that Turkel has to resort to in order to save face, but he doesn't seem to realize that instead of saving face, he makes himself look even sillier.]
Turkel:
Who are these people? Since "yada" occurs some 932 times (!) in the OT,
and is usually
transliterated as the word "know,"
Till:
So once again, Turkel, the linguistic expert who claims the ability to
find subtle nuances
in Hebrew, shows us that he doesn't even know what the word transliterate
means.
Transliteration occurs when a word in one language is spelled in the
alphabetic characters
of another language. Yada, for example, is an English
transliteration of a Hebrew
word, and "know" would be an English translation of this word.
If Turkel doesn't
know this rather simple linguistic fact, how can we trust him to be the
expert in Hebrew
"nuances" that he claims he is?
[Addendum July 2005: In Turkel's so-called replies to my rebuttal of his original article, he omitted all references to his misuse of the word transliterate. Those omissions, however, will not remove the fact that Turkel had originally misused this linguistic term in an article where he was claiming to have the ability to recognize "nuances" in Hebrew scholars had not noticed until 5-7 years ago. This linguistic boo-boo reminded me of the time when Turkel, while claiming to have the ability to see "nuances" in Greek, incorrectly stated that the word anistemi, which meant rise was used twice for emphasis in some New Testament passage to convey the idea of "rising again." This link will take readers to one of my replies to Turkel, who has removed this linguistic blunder from his own article. Since my replies quote everything that he said, readers can see here exactly what he said and see for themselves that Turkel is not at all the expert in Greek and Hebrew that he claims to be.]
Turkel:
rather than cite verses here we will call upon the explication of
Coogan [Coog.2K, 114], who
cites an example of an Akkadian concept of "friend of the king" - a
person who paid a tax for
this designated status and was able to pass it on to his children, much
as in modern times
someone who donates to a political campaign may be designated as a
"friend" of the politician.
(As in modern "friends" of Bill Clinton!) While "yada" Is not precisely
in line with this
idea, and has a wide number of other nuances (including "kinsman/folk"
- not the likely
meaning in the Jehu matter, since these people are clustered with
non-family [sic],
and the Kings writer, as we have seen, uses the more specific word for
"kinsman/folk," "ga'al,"
elsewhere), it is obvious that the Baasha account and the Jehu account
refer to two entirely
different types of people, thus making Till's argument re: "friends" in
2 Kings irrelevant.
Not that he even needed to know definitions: The fact that two entirely
different Hebrew
words are used is more than sufficient to demolish his pretenses. In
any event, the matter
is clear: Till has failed to do his homework, and has fallen upon the
same blunders (and
far worse) than those he alleges were committed by Miller and myself [sic].
Till:
Okay, this is the extent of Turkel's argument on the meaning of yada,
and so now I can
put it on the chopping block. I will do that by demonstrating that the
words yada,
reya, and also ahab were often used interchangeably in
the Old Testament in
passages that used the Hebrew literary device known as parallelism. A
major characteristic
of Hebrew poetry was its frequent use of parallelism or repetition of
the same idea in
different terminology. As a matter of fact, parallelism was widely used
even in Hebrew prose
but was especially prominent in poetry. There is no need to waste time
analyzing the Old
Testament to point out examples of parallelism, so I will cite just a
couple of cases to
show what the literary device was. Zechariah 7:1 says, "And it came to
pass in the fourth
year of king Darius that the word of Yahweh came to Zechariah in the
fourth day of the
ninth month, even in Chislev." The ninth month was Chislev, and
Chislev was the ninth
month. The two are the same. Notice that when parallelism is used the
two terms or
expressions in the parallel could be switched without altering the
meaning of the sentence:
"(T)he word of Yahweh came to Zechariah in the fourth day of Chislev,
even in the ninth
month." In 12:6, Zechariah said, "And they of Jerusalem shall yet again
dwell in their own
place, even in Jerusalem." Their own place was Jerusalem, and Jerusalem
was their own place.
Parallelism was very prominent in Hebrew poetry. Psalm 85:1 says, "Yahweh, you have been favorable to your land; you have brought back the captivity of Jacob." The second clause simply repeats the idea of the first but in more specific terms. Verse 2 says, "You have forgiven the iniquity of your people; you have covered their sin." Covering the sin of the people merely repeats the idea of the first clause, i. e., the forgiving of the people's iniquity. Verse 3 says, "You have turned away all your wrath; you have turned from the fierceness of your anger." Again, we see a verse consisting of two clauses, the second of which repeats the idea of the first. The two could be reversed without altering the meaning of the verse. Anyone can read the psalms and easily see that parallelism (repetition of the same idea) was a prominent characteristics of Hebrew poetry.
With that in mind, let's look at an entire psalm, which I will later analyze to show (1) the consistent use of parallelism, and (2) the interchangeable use of yada, reya, and ahab to communicate the same relationships.
Psalm 88:1 O Yahweh, God of my salvation, when, at night, I cry out in your presence, 2 let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry. 3 For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol. 4 I am counted among those who go down to the Pit; I am like those who have no help, 5 like those forsaken among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand. 6 You have put me in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep. 7 Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah 8 You have caused my companions [yada] to shun me; you have made me a thing of horror to them. I am shut in so that I cannot escape; 9 my eye grows dim through sorrow. Every day I call on you, O Yahweh; I spread out my hands to you. 10 Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise you? Selah l1 Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon? 12 Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness? 13 But I, O Yahweh, cry out to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you. 14 O Yahweh, why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me? 15 Wretched and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am desperate. 16 Your wrath has swept over me; your dread assaults destroy me. 17 They surround me like a flood all day long; from all sides they close in on me. 18 You have caused friend ['ahab] and neighbor [reya] to shun me; my companions [yada] are in darkness.
We can see immediately in Psalm 88 (quoted above) serious problems for Turkel's quibble that reya, 'ahab, and yada were significantly different words in meaning. First, let's notice the obvious use of parallelism throughout this poem.
V:18 You have caused friend ['ahab] and neighbor [reya] to shun me; my companions [yada] are in darkness.
Here in his final example of parallelism, in references to "friends" or "companions" or "neighbors" or "acquaintances" who were distressing him by shunning him, this psalmist used all three Hebrew words that Turkel quibbled about. Turkel cited Proverbs 14:12 in an effort to show that reya and 'ahab are not to be considered as synonymous, although both are sometimes translated as "friend." I won't argue that point with him now, because the psalmist here used both 'ahab and reya in his first clause above, so they could have referred in this context to different associates or friends. In the second clause, however, which repeats the idea of the first, the psalmist used the word yada, which indicates that he thought that yada could accurately describe both a reya and an 'ahab. Obviously, then, biblical writers sometimes used 'ahab, reya, and yada interchangeably, a fact that casts serious doubt on Turkel's claim that the "friends" of Baasha who were massacred were somewhat different from the "friends" of Joram whom Jehu massacred. To say the least, this quibble is tenuous at best, and I'm not even through with this point yet. Let's look now at another psalm.
[Addendum July 2005: Turkel tried to quibble around the clear implications of the last verse of Psalms 88, which clearly shows that ahab, reya, and yada were used interchangeably in the Old Testament.
Skeptic X claims that this causes "serious problems" for my argument that these three words were "significantly different words in meaning", and from there goes on to explain the above in terms of a parallelism - thinking that, apparently, the "shunning" of the friends in the first phrase is equal to their having been put "in darkness" in the second phrase. Well, there is a parallelism here, all right, but it is not the one that Skeptic X thinks exists here. There is an interesting "cover-up" of his own that Skeptic X does, one that shows that his interpretation of this verse is a sham, because this is how another version, the NIV, reads that verse:
You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend.
I assume that everyone caught the irony in this. When I quoted 36 translations, which all agreed that Hosea 1:4 was declaring that the house of Jehu would be punished for the blood of Jezreel, Turkel said that it is shoddy scholarship to quote the "stark English" of various translations to try to prove a point, but, as we noticed once before, he thinks that if he quotes the NIV, which is just one English translation, this is sufficient to make his case. As I have said before, inconsistency is about the only consistency in Turkel's articles.
I am not going to argue about which translation of Psalms 88:18 is correct, because even the rendition of the NIV clearly shows that ahab, reya, and yada were used interchangeably in this verse. In this rendition, the psalmist was saying that Yahweh had taken from him his companions ['ahab] and his loved ones [reya] to leave the darkness as his closest friend [yada]. The writer could have said that darkness was now his ['ahab] or his [reya], and his meaning would have been the same. Turkel claims to know all about Hebrew "nuances," but he apparently doesn't know that parallelism in Hebrew poetry would often repeat the same idea several times in different but synonymous language, as in verses 4-5 of this psalm where the writer, as noted above, repeated the same idea five times, each time in different language that meant the same as the other repetitions of the same thought.
Turkel's quibbling, however, rambled on. After quoting the "stark English" of the NIV to try to prove his quibble, he then said...
Would this suggest that those three words are interchangeable? It would seem that if there is any "parallelism" at all, it is not in the meaning of those three words, but in, on the one hand, the writer's having his close-by folks taken from him, and on the other hand, his becoming "friends" with the darkness - so that it seems the version Skeptic X quotes is saying, that the Psalmist finds his companionship "in" darkness, to say that "darkness" is itself the companion that he has without his best friends and beloved around! Parallelism there is indeed here, but it actually proves the opposite of what Skeptic X wishes to argue - for it is the loss of 'ahab and reya that is actually equated with "making yada" with impersonal, fearsome darkness - and it seems to me that the latter doesn't involve anything we would call pleasant! Bottom line: The parallelism does not make the terms interchangeable at all; if anything, it points up the vast difference between them!
Turkel's problem is that he doesn't understand the poetic technique known as parallelism in Hebrew literature. In using this form, the poets would make statements and then repeat them in different words, but readers were to understand that the intended meaning was the same. It was a poetic device, just as rhyming and metric patterns are poetic devices in English, and that device would have been lost completely if the psalmist, in this case, had said, "You have taken my friends [reya] from me and my friends [reya] from me, and now darkness is my closest friend [reya]." To achieve the poetic effect, the poets had to repeat their parallelisms in different words that had the same meaning. Turkel is trying to put a 21st-century spin on Psalm 88 by looking at it through the glasses of "stark English," and that is rather ironic for someone who slings the term "Hebrew nuances" about as if it were some kind of sacred mantra. I doubt that any Hebrew reading verse 18 in its original language would have thought that the psalmist was making any distinction at all in the meanings of ahab, reya, and yada. What the psalmist said here is as simple as if I would say in English, "My friends have forsaken me, my buddies are all gone, and now loneliness is my only comrade." What English-speaking person reading this would think that there was any significant difference in the meanings of friends, buddies, and comrade?
If Turkel weren't so serious about his "apologetic" talents, he would be downright comical. He is about as expert in Hebrew "nuances" as I am in Chinese literature.]
Psalm 55:12 It is not enemies who taunt me--I could bear that; it is not adversaries who deal insolently with me--I could hide from them. 13 But it is you, my equal [`erek], my companion ['alluph], my familiar friend [yada], 14 with whom I kept pleasant company; we walked in the house of God with the throng.
The word `erek has not come up yet, but Strong, Turkel's chief Hebrew authority, defines it as "equal" or "estimation," so according to Turkel's logic, already discussed and discredited, which he used to determine that reya was a friend to whom one would entrust his personal property and management of personal affairs, we could conclude from verse 13 in this psalm that a "familiar friend" [yada] was one's "equal," someone with whom a person kept "pleasant company," someone considered a "companion" ['alluph]. Strong defines this word (#441) as "familiar friend, governor, guide, or ox." The KJV renders the word "guide," so then a yada would be not just an "equal" but also someone who guides. Or I suppose we could use Turkel's logic and even argue that the psalmist in this verse was simply saying that he was a familiar friend to an ox ['alluph], which was also his equal.
[Addendum July 2005: Turkel tried to quibble his way around this too.
From here, Skeptic X also cites some verses from Psalm 55, but none of the verses cited involve both reya and yada, which makes the citation totally irrelevant. At best he shows that yada is equitable to two other Hebrew words, neither of which ('erek or 'alluph) express the closeness of the firm-identity usage of reya.
Turkel either missed the point here or else he was being intentionally deceptive, because my purpose in this section of my reply was to show that there were obviously many words in Hebrew that synonymously conveyed the idea of friendship. In the example quoted above, yada was used in a poetic parallelism with two other words to convey the idea of friendship. The fact that the psalmist said that it wasn't his enemies who taunted him but his equal ['erek], my companion ['alluph], my familiar friend [yada] who treated him insolently shows that he was contrasting enemies with those who were friends, and by using these three terms in a statement of poetic parallelism, the poet was indicating that he considered all three to convey the same essential idea of friendship; hence, if yada was paired with reya elsewhere in poetic parallelisms, that would indicate that the poets who so used them considered yada to convey the same meaning as whatever words were in the parallelisms. As noted above in Psalm 88, reya wasn't grouped just with yada but also with 'ahab, so Hebrew poets obviously considered these three words to be basically synonymous. I suspect that Turkel understood my point but chose to ignore it by quibbling that yada was used in Psalms 55:12 with words other than reya and 'ahab. If Turkel can't answer a rebuttal argument he will tap dance around it.]
But I'm still not through. Examples of parallelism in the poetry of Job also indicates that yada was a word used to denote friendships as close as what Turkel has claimed for reya.
Job 19:6 Know then that God has put me in the wrong, and closed his net around me. 7 Even when I cry out, 'Violence!' I am not answered; I call aloud, but there is no justice. 8 He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths. 9 He has stripped my glory from me, and taken the crown from my head. 10 He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone, he has uprooted my hope like a tree. 11 He has kindled his wrath against me, and counts me as his adversary. 12 His troops come on together; they have thrown up siegeworks against me, and encamp around my tent. 13 "He has put my family far from me, and my acquaintances [yada] are wholly estranged from me. 14 My relatives and my close friends [yada] have failed me; 15 the guests in my house have forgotten me; my serving girls count me as a stranger; I have become an alien in their eyes. 16 I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer; I must myself plead with him. 17 My breath is repulsive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own family. 18 Even young children despise me; when I rise, they galk against me. 19 All my intimate friends [math] abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me. 20 My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth. 21 Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends [reya], for the hand of God has touched me!
In verses 13-14 of this text, Job deplores the estrangement of his relatives and "close friends." The word for "close friends" was yada, as noted in brackets, but as Job continued his lament, he used math to refer to all of his "intimate friends" (v:19) and concluded his lamentation by crying for his friends reya (v:21) to have pity on him, as if reya was inclusive of all the words Job used in this passage to convey the idea of friendship. Apparently, then, the Hebrew language was like the English language, which can used words like friend, comrade, companion, pal, etc. without necessarily denoting distinctive nuances like those that Turkel has claimed for reya, yada, and 'ahab.
[Addendum July 2005: Turkel's quibbling continued, of course. He would be lost if he couldn't resort to quibbling evasions. My point above was summarized in the last sentence, i. e., the passage confirmed, as I have repeatedly shown throughout my rebuttals, that Hebrew like English contained synonyms that conveyed the idea of friendship. Here is how Turkel tried to tap dance around it.
Skeptic X tries to pull in the word math as well, but again, this has no relevance for our two words. But what is his case? He insists as follows:
In verses 13-14 of this text, Job deplores the estrangement of his relatives and "close friends." The word for "close friends" was yada, as noted in brackets, but as Job continued his lament, he used math to refer to all of his "intimate friends" (v:19) and concluded his lamentation by crying for his friends reya (v:21) to have pity on him, as if reya was inclusive of all the words Job used in this passage to convey the idea of friendship?Aside from the fact that this would be a stretch to describe as a "parallelism", [sic] there is a big problem with this one as well, and in this case, it happens to be where Skeptic X stops his quote, at verse 21. Let's look at verses 21 and 22 together:
Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me. Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?Wait a moment - who is it that Job is talking to, who have been "persecuting" Job as God, and are not satisfied with his flesh? It is Job's three friends sitting with him - the superfluous Howard Cosells who have been saying to him, "Hey, Job, let me give you some sage advice," rather than sympathizing with him or comforting him as they should have been doing, and as they were doing before they started running their mouths! In other words, there is no parallel or inclusive reference here to the yada (or even the math) who deserted/abhorred Job. The reya were the friends who did not or [sic] abhor desert him - though by this point perhaps Job wished they would, eh!
My, my, it is hard to believe that even Turkel could be desperate enough to resort to this kind of quibbling. Certainly, the ones who had been condemning Job were his friends, but they had been doing so only because they honestly thought that Job's tribulations had been brought upon him as punishment for his wrongdoings. Turkel claims to know all about ancient Neareastern cultures, so he should know that people of that time generally believed that disasters and calamities were sent upon people to punish them for conduct displeasing to the gods. If he doesn't know this, he should take down his apologetic shingle until he learns a bit more about what he is trying to defend. In the passage that I quoted, Job was addressing this belief of his friends by cataloging all of the woes that had come upon him.
After cataloging all the grief that God had sent upon him, he then turned to what God had done to his personal relationships.
The cataloging of Job's grievances continued, but this is far enough to make the point. Turkel seems to be arguing that Job's critics were not really his friends or else they would not have been condemning him. Well, let's suppose that I am accused of a crime that I didn't commit and that my best friends believe that I am guilty and begin to say so in the community. Would this mean that my friends had not been my friends, or would it simply mean that my best friends wrongly believed that I was guilty? If my own relatives should join in that condemnation, as Job's relatives had joined in condemning him, would their condemnation cause them to cease being my relatives? I ask that question, because one of Job's laments was that his relatives [kinfolks] had failed him. Did the failure of Job's relatives to support him in his time of adversity make them no longer related to him? Certainly not; they were his relatives before Job's hardships began, and they were still his relatives afterwards. As for Job's acquaintances [yada], whom Job said had become "estranged" from him (19:13), they were referred to as friends [reya] when they were first introduced in the story of Job.
Job 2:11 Now when Job's three friends [reya] heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.
So when these three were first introduced in the story, they were called "friends" [yada], so why would that not prove that reya and yada were Hebrew synonyms. Hence, if Zemri killed Baasha's friends [reya] (1 Kings 16:11) and if Jehu killed Ahab's "friends" [yada] at Jezreel, both massacres included people who bore essentially the same synonymous relationships to the "houses" that were being exterminated. Turkel claims that reya and yada did not denote the same kind of friendship, but the native speakers of Hebrew who wrote the Old Testament apparently didn't know that.
Ah, I love it when a quibble backfires in an inerrantist's face, but why not keep Turkel hanging onto the ropes? In trying to quibble around the evidence that yada also signified a close friendship, Turkel said that I had stopped quoting too soon, because if I had quoted verses 21 and 22, I would have seen that Job was addressing his three friends. Well, yes, I knew that, but Turkel apparently didn't know that reya was the Hebrew word used here to refer to these three as Job's "friends." In the final chapter of Job, even God referred to them as "friends" [reya] when he upbraided Eliphaz for "not having spoken the thing that is right" (42:7). In verse 14, yada was the word used to describe Job's "familiar friends" who had forgotten him, and in verse 21, which Turkel thought that I should have quoted, Job begged his "friends" to have pity on him. The word used for friends here was reya, so yada and reya were used interchangeably in the Old Testament, as this passage and others I have quoted clearly show.]
Because Judah sent Hirah the Adullamite to deliver a kid from his flock to Tamar for payment of her sexual favors, Turkel argued that reya was a word that denoted a very close special trust and relationship that was not conveyed by yada, the word used to denote the friends of Joram whom Jehu killed, but look at how the word yada was used elsewhere in Job. We all know how this book ended with Job's wealth being restored, his honor regained, and his last state better than the first. The occasion called for the celebration described below:
Job 42:10 And Yahweh restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and Yahweh gave Job twice as much as he had before. 11 Then there came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known [yada, rendered "acquaintances" in KJV, NKJV, ASV, and others] him before, and they ate bread with him in his house; they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that Yahweh had brought upon him; and each of them gave him a piece of money and a gold ring.
On the basis of Exodus 22:7, Turkel argued that reya was a word that denoted a friendship so close that one would entrust his valuables to him, but notice above that Job's acquaintances [yada] gave him "a piece of money and a gold ring." I would say that anyone who would give me money and a gold ring would very likely be someone who is a close friend.
[Addendum July 2005: Turkel never knows when to stop quibbling. In reply to the passage from Job 42, which I quoted above to show that yada was used in reference to those who brought gifts of gold to Job after his adversities were over and his latter state was better than his former, Turkel tried another tap-dance routine.
Of this, Skeptic X says, "I would say that anyone who would give me money and a gold ring would very likely be someone who is a close friend." Skeptic X would; those who know the social rules of the day would not. Job, as a powerful tribal chieftain and man of some wealth (indeed, twice what he had before!), would be expected to receive tribute in the form of money or a gold item upon recovery of his personal prestige and wealth. These yada aren't "trusting" Job with the loot; they are giving it to him to keep as a tribute! In fact, this passage is right in line with our identification of yada as "political friends" of the ruler who offer support to the ruler to gain favor!
Amazing! Amazing! Where did I say that these "acquaintances" [yada] were "trusting" Job with the gold? Turkel, who knows all about Hebrew "nuances," apparently can't understand plain English. Look again and see if I didn't say that I thought that anyone who would give--GIVE, GIVE--money and a gold ring to Job were likely to be someone who was a close friend. Turkel tried to make these gifts tribute that was paid to a tribal chieftain, but where did he get the idea that Job was a "powerful tribal chieftain"? In chapter 29, Job deplored the loss of public esteem that he had suffered and said that he had once sat as a chief, but this simile no more meant that he was literally a chief than the simile in the very next sentence meant that he was a king when Job said that he had "dwelt as a king in the army." He was simply speaking of the esteem and respect he had once enjoyed, which he no longer enjoyed. The fact that Eliphas, Bildad, and Zophar came to Job and openly accused him of having committed sins that were the cause of all of his troubles casts serious doubt on Turkel's assumption that Job was a chieftain receiving tribute from his subjects. Would the subjects of a chieftain have dared to say some of the things that Eliphas, Bildad, and Zophar said to Job? Furthermore, the text that I quoted in Job 42 said that Job's brothers and sisters and all who had been his "acquaintances" [yada] came to him to eat bread in his house and to comfort him. This was obviously a social occasion of celebration. Each man who came gave a piece of money and a gold ring to Job, so just where does Turkel get that these were subjects of a chieftain paying tribute to him? They were his relatives and friends, who had come to celebrate his change of fortunes.
But Turkel's quibbling continued.
Skeptic X, then, offers absolutely nothing of the sort needed to counteract the differentiation between reya and yada in the books of Kings. All we have here is shameless manipulations of the texts, full-fledged misinterpretations, and finally, woeful ignorance of the social context within [which?] the texts were written - in other words, a litany of all the usual skeptical bumbles.
I have shown in several passages, especially in the ones just reviewed in the book of Job, that reya and yada were used interchangeably throughout the Old Testament, so the only "shameless manipulations of the texts" and "full-fledged misinterpretations" took place in Turkel's quibbling attempts to reply to my rebuttals. As for "woeful ignorance of the social context within which the texts were written," the only woeful ignorance of this that I see is coming from Turkel's end. As I have shown repeatedly throughout my rebuttals, he is all for "social context" and Hebrew "nuances" until they work against whatever doctrine du jour he is trying to defend.
I will say again that this man is an apologetic joke.]
Baasha's "friends" [reya] were killed when Zemi, presumably acting as Yahweh's agent of vengeance, destroyed the house of Baasha. When Jehu received his commission to do to the house of Ahab what had been done to the house of Baasha, Jehu killed Joram's "familiar friends" [yada]. To argue that the two words denoted significantly different types of friendships is merely a quibble of desperation. For one thing, many translations have rendered yada as "familiar friends" in 2 Kings 10:11, as it also has been translated in Job 19:14, so, if anything, yada expressed a closer friendship than reya. Obviously, Turkel's argument has failed miserably, and I haven't even finished dismantling it.
Turkel:
Till closes one section of his diatribe with the remark that he expected my reply to him to pose "perhaps still another solution to this problem." As we have seen, the solutions previously offered remain standing, unbattered by Till's dilettante exegesis. There is no need for new explanations.
[Addendum July 2005: The red sections that I have added to this debate in order to reply to Turkel's "reworking" of his original replies clearly show that Turkel's solution has failed. Since this debate occurred seven years ago, which is almost within the eight-year limit that Turkel appeals to when he is caught saying something that contradicted a position he had taken in an earlier article, he may say, "Oh, well, I wrote that article eight years ago, and I no longer hold that position." If not now, maybe at least in another year or so, then, Turkel will say that he no longer holds the positions that he took in this debate about Jehu's massacre at Jezreel.]
Till:
Well, the facts in this matter tell a different story. If I said that I
have completely
demolished or pulverized Turkel's defense of inerrancy in the matter of
Jehu's massacre at
Jezreel, that would certainly not be an overstatement. Here is a list
of Turkel's failures
in this debate.
[Addendum July 2005: In citing his sources, Turkel almost always just "cites" them. He doesn't quote enough of what they say to give readers the opportunity to consider the citations in any context broad enough to decide whether the opinions of his sources are justified by supporting evidence. I suspect that there are two reasons why Turkel just "cites" rather than quotes his "sources": (1) He is using secondary sources that were cited by his major "sources" who didn't themselves give any broad contexts of what Hobbs or McCominsky or whoever may have said. (2) He doesn't want to give a broad enough context for his readers to see that his sources don't really have any real evidence to support their opinions. Turkel may say what he wants to about me, but readers of my articles can see that I obviously give detailed evidence to support my positions. A complaint that I sometimes get from my readers is that I often give too much detailed evidence.]
By coincidence, something happened recently to show Turkel's colossal hypocrisy in this matter. On the Errancy list, a subscriber from England had run into repeated difficulties in his efforts to defend biblical inerrancy, and so he formed a special list called CCBE (Christians Combating Biblical Errancy), limited it to Christians only, and undertook to put their collective heads together to formulate responses to postings that were appearing on the Errancy list. I found out that none other than Robert Turkel became one of the subscribers to this list. When the group was discussing a problem that I posted to the list, i.e., how the magicians of Egypt could have done "in like manner with their enchantments" after that Moses and Aaron had changed all of the water throughout all the land of Egypt into blood. Their answer was that the magicians went to the river, dug along the bank, found ground water, filled some pots, and changed that into blood. In reply to this, I pointed out that they are reading into the text something that is not stated, and then I quoted the 1st century Jewish writer Philo Judaeus, who stated the following about the plague of blood:
"The brother of Moses, by the divine command, smote with his rod upon the river, and immediately, throughout its whole course, from Ethiopia down to the sea, it is changed into blood and simultaneously with its change, all the lakes, and ditches, and fountains, and wells, and spring, and every particle of water in all Egypt, was changed into blood, so that, for want of drink, they digged round about the banks of the river, but the streams that came up were like veins of the body in a hemorrhage, and spurted up channels of blood like springs, no transparent water being seen anywhere" (The Complete Works of Philo, Hendrickson: Peabody, MA, 1993, p. 468, emphasis added).
It turned out that Turkel sent the CCBE list a response to this in which he said the following:
That's nice, but Philo is simply reading into the text what is not there. So if I find a Jewish commentator of equal worth that says the opposite, is it a draw? If I find two, do I win? Remember that Philo is trying to promote Moses and Aaron here and would maximize their feat to the greatest extent possible.
First, it's rather ironic that Turkel would accuse Philo of reading into the text what is not there, when Turkel is reading into the text that the magicians dug for water along the banks of the river, when clearly there is nothing in the biblical text that even implies that this happened. I suppose that in Turkel's opinion the validity of what one reads into a text depends upon whether the person agrees with biblical inerrancy. At any rate, the latter part of his statement is what I wanted to focus on. Turkel wondered if he could tie or win by finding one or two Jewish commentators of "equal worth" who took the opposite opinion of Philo's. Well, first of all, let him find other Jewish commentators of equal worth to Philo who expressed an opposite view, and then we can talk about it. The primary thing in this statement, however, is Turkel's own recognition that what writers think doesn't settle anything. If this is true of Philo, then why wouldn't it be true of Provan, McComiskey, Jones, et al whom Turkel has cited throughout his article? If I can find an equal number of writers who disagree with their position, does the discussion about the blood of Jezreel turn into a draw? If I can find more writers who disagree with Turkel's sources, do I win? I predict that Turkel will regret the day that he ever made this statement, because he has chopped off at the knees one of his primary methods of "argumentation," i. e., the citation of writers who agree with him. It is a very amateurish method of argumentation, but now Turkel doesn't even have that.
[Addendum July 2005: I searched all through Turkel's so-called "replies" in his reworked article, but I could find nothing that he said about his position stated above that if a debater can cite two sources that disagree with the source quoted by an opponent, then the two sources "win" over the one source. In "Pathological Literalism, he did, however, try to save face on his quotation about Philo when I referred to it in another article and again called his cite-the-sources approach amateurish. Notice that in his long, rambling statement that I am quoting below, Turkel spoke in obscure abstractions and never gave any specific information that would show his cite-the-sources method is a sound one.
I am glad Skeptic X agrees that it is amateurish, because the big secret is in two guffaws. First, there is a world of difference between citing someone like Philo -- an intelligent man, to be sure, but one with much less access to the level of data we have in terms of literary, social, and other aspects of Biblical study -- and a modern scholar equipped with all of those tools. That leads to the second point, which I note in the paragraph above. Skeptic X in his ribald ignorance thinks it is simply a matter of quoting scholars back and forth. It isn't, and it's not at all like quoting Philo. Put it this way: I am not merely citing writers who agree with me; I am citing experienced and qualified writers who make arguments based on data and these arguments offer answers to positions that Skeptic X needs to deal with. If Skeptic X says A, and I have a writer who takes position B in response to A, and position B is claimed to be grounded in firm contextual data and is reasonably responsible (i.e., not, "because aliens did this" but for example, "because this word better means X as shown by these examples"), Skeptic X's responsibility then is to find a writer who says "No, B is wrong (and maybe, 'A is actually right'), because C," or else try to argue it himself (which he will do below, and fall on his face in the process, because he can't find a writer that does provide C). If he goes out and finds 100,000 people who say A, that makes not a whit of difference if they don't address B. If he just sits in his easy chair and burps that he could find people who say non-B, he does no more than burp and doesn't answer B at all. If he throws smokescreens demanding that we "prove B" or use "logical argumentation" he also does not answer B. It's nothing but a cheap debate game by Skeptic X, who is trying to shimmy his way out of the embarrassment that when it comes to addressing B, his most intelligent response would be to turn and run like a wet game hen.
I hardly know where to begin replying to this hodgepodge of rambling attempts to save face in this matter. Does Turkel really believe that a "modern scholar," who is equipped with what Turkel calls tools "of literary, social, and other aspects of Biblical study," would know more about the beliefs of ancient Hebrews than someone like Philo, who was born a Jew and grew up in a Jewish milieu? His time and place of birth would have given him the advantage of a familiarity with oral traditions that Turkel's modern scholars would not have, and anyone who reads much on Turkel's website will see him constantly extolling the advantages that familiarity with oral traditions would have given biblical writers. Here are just a few of probably hundreds of examples I could quote from his articles.
There is no need to continue this, because Turkel's insistence on the reliability of oral traditions in biblical times echoes like a mantra in his website. Anyone who doubts this can verify it by going to his website and typing "oral tradition" into his encyclopedia search window. You will get a list of 441 articles that referred to oral tradition, and many of the articles had five, six, or more references to it. You will see that he thinks oral tradition was "reliable" and that he appealed to it repeatedly to "explain" biblical discrepancies while insisting that inconsistencies in oral traditions were not really discrepancies. [He has never been able to explain his oddball idea that inconsistencies are not discrepancies when they are due to variations in oral tradition.] Despite this belief of his, in 1998 he didn't want to grant that Philo's direct access to oral traditions would give him any advantage over "modern scholars" who have access to "tools" and "data" that Philo didn't have. [Apparently, Turkel was referring to books and commentaries here. If not, I have no idea what "tools" and "data" he meant.] Turkel ran us through the alphabet, talking about position A, which a skeptic may take, that is countered with postion B, by a "modern scholar," who presumably had access to the "tools" and "data" that Turkel was referring to, but I have to ask why he didn't just cite a specific, concrete example like this: Skeptic X says that reya and yada were essentially Hebrew synonyms that conveyed the sense of friendship, but Ira A. Biggskollar, who has three Ph Ds, one in Hebrew, one in Semitic idioms, and one in Ancient Neareastern Cultures, and has taught at ten major theological seminaries, said in his commentary on the Books of Kings that the words reya and yada conveyed entirely different concepts of friendship, that reya conveyed the idea of close, personal friends, whereas yada described those who were friends only in a political sense. Anyone who has read this debate carefully can see that Turkel never did any such thing; instead he would simply say, "Hobbs thinks..." or "McCominsky believes..." or "Stuart said..." and so on ad nauseam. Turkel never gave any credible reason why we should believe any of his "scholars" over what the Bible plainly says, and after the debate was over I took the time to research the religious backgrounds of Turkel's "commentators of all stripes" and found that they were just traditional Christians trying desperately to explain away a discrepancy in the Bible.
Another problem in Turkel's claim that modern scholars had access to books, articles, commentaries, and data that were not available to earlier writers like Philo is the regrettable fact that so-called Christian data has been polluted by writers just like Turkel who have pet theories and doctrines to defend, and so they have written articles, books, and commentaries in which they twisted and manipulated biblical texts to try to make them mean what would be supportive of their individual views. Turkel talked about Postion A, Position B, and so on, but whatever doctrine he wants to make Position A or Position B, and however many scholars he wants to list who say A and B, I guarantee him that I can find just as many scholars who argue not-A and not-B. That in a nutshell is what is wrong with his primary "apologetic" method of stating a position and then citing "scholars" who agree with it.
I will close this with a challenge to Turkel. If I can find an equal number of "modern scholars," who have had access to the same "tools" and "data" that he thinks his "scholars" have had but who disagree with Hobbs, McCominsky, Stuart, et al on the meaning of paqad in Hosea 1:4, will he post a notice on his website that the matching of his scholars with scholars who disagree means that, in accordance with his statement about Philo in 1998, the opinions of his "commentators of all stripes" prove nothing at all? How many think that Turkel will agree to do this?
How many think that pigs will fly someday?]
Turkel:
We close with a recounting of a reflection passed on to me, one that
purportedly originated
with one of Till's many admirers, but is now deliciously ironic:
This is the first time Turkel directly responded to Farrell Till. I think Turkel has put his foot in a wrong mouth this time. :-) Farrell Till never ignores any response to him. I have seen Till debate on the mailing lists many, many times. He responds so quickly that the opponent thinks, as Till says, "lightening (sic) had struck him." When it comes to the debating skill (sic), none (either skeptic or theist) equals Farrell Till...
Till:
I don't know who said this about me, but I appreciate the vote of
confidence. My delay in
responding to Turkel happened only because of a pressing schedule that
keeps me busy about
12 to 14 hours in my office each day, weekends included.
Turkel:
Turkel is on his way down the hill. Trust me, I know what I am talking about.
[Addendum 2005: In Turkel's reworking of his original article, He commented further on this message that he had allegedly received from a source that he didn't identify.
First, this writer is in error: I have previously responded directly to Skeptic X regarding his article on Mara Bar-Serapion (which included Skeptic X's ludicrous suggestion that Mara was referring not to Jesus, but to the Essene "Teacher of Righteousness"). As yet, that has not been responded to, and still has not been many years later; indeed, Jeff Lowder has removed reference to it in his own article! It is Skeptic X who has gone down the hill on that issue!
Turkel said that he had replied "directly" to Skeptic X (his evasive designation of me so that he will have an excuse not to link his readers to my articles that he claims to be answering), but those who click his link above and read the article will see that he made no direct reference to me, not even by his Skeptic X designation. The only mention of me that I could find was an indirect one, where he referred to me as "one skeptic."
And so we may ask: Who else could Mara Bar-Serapion be referring to, if not Jesus? One skeptic has suggested the Essene "Teacher of Righteousness" as a candidate. However, the actual identity of the "Teacher of Righteousness," who is referred to significantly in the Habakkuk Commentary (1QpHab), has never been ascertained, although specific guesses have included Onias III, Judah the Essene (who lived under John Hyrcanus) - and Jesus Himself! [Pfef.DSS 72-77] (It has also been supposed that the varied references, particularly outside the Habakkuk Commentary, actually refer to an office, not a specific person - Chars.JDSS, 39) Judah the Essene was the candidate of choice for the scholar Carmignac, but his choice is not considered viable. [ibid., 42n]
If this is Turkel's idea of a "direct" reply to my article and any kind of effective rebuttal of my suggestion that Bar-Serapion could have been referring to the Essene "Teacher of Righteousness," he has a strange idea of what constitutes direct responses and effective rebuttals. I urge everyone to read my original article "The 'Testimony' of Mara Bar-Serapion" and judge for themselves whether Turkel's article replied "directly" to mine. Those who read my article and then Turkel's will see that aside from its obviously not being a "direct" reply to mine, his article left many of my points unaddressed.
I will present Turkel with another challenge. I will take the time to reply to his article about Bar-Serapion if he will post my article on his website with a link to it at the beginning of his. Needless to say, I will post both articles on my site with an agreement to leave them there as long as the sites are maintained. Turkel will probably say that it would be a waste of space to put both articles on our sites when links would be sufficient, but Turkel has a habit of removing material that becomes embarrassing to him (as he did in the case of his initial article on the Jehu issue), so an agreement to post both articles and keep them there would make it harder for Turkel to keep his readers in the dark about what his opponents have really said on the issues he is "answering."
Will Turkel accept this challenge? Heck, no, he won't even link his readers to the articles he is "answering" and will rarely even mention the names of his opponents. Don't any of his readers ever wonder why Turkel omits links to what he is "replying" to, whereas his opponents usually link their readers to Turkel's articles? I link my readers to everything of Turkel's that I am replying to, because I want them to see just how fallacious and downright idiotic his explanations of discrepancies often are.]
Till:
It would now appear that with the exception of my quickness in
responding to Turkel, this
person accurately predicted the outcome of Turkel's encounter with me.
To say that I have
sent Turkel sliding downhill would be an understatement. He has been
thoroughly exposed
as an amateurish "apologist" who talks a good game but fails to deliver
on the field. My
personal opinion of Turkel is that he is the weakest debating opponent
I have ever faced with
the exception of Norman Geisler, and I doubt if I will ever encounter
his equal.
As for Turkel's downhill descent, I don't really follow his activities, but I understand from comments that are going around that Turkel has fallen out of favor with some of his former admirers to the extent that his webpage was moved to another site.
[Addendum July 2005: A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. As explained earlier, I have experienced vision problems and a minor disabling stroke, from which I am still recovering, so I am unable to put the time into exposing biblical errancy that I was able to invest even when I was working as a full-time college instructor. I also took six months of my time last year to work at trying to keep a nincompoop from returning to the White House. Despite all this, I have been able to post several thorough, detailed replies to many of Turkel's cite-the-scholars articles. I reply to him in detail, and he replies to me in a selective manner that leaves most of my rebuttals unanswered. I have no doubt at all that experts in debating who read our exchanges would say that my performance has been far better than his.]
Turkel:
A few comments here:
First, this writer is in error:
Till:
If I am, Turkel has certainly failed to establish it. Every
counterargument he presented in
his article has been taken and replied to point by point. In so doing,
I have exposed
colossal flaws and false assertions in his articles.
Turkel:
I have previously responded directly to Till in AJINOD Chapter 5,
regarding his article on
Mara Bar-Serapion (which included Till's ludicrous suggestion that Mara
was referring not to
Jesus, but to the Essene "Teacher of Righteousness"). As yet, that has
not been responded
to, but I do not doubt that it soon will be, since I have deigned to
bring it once again to
attention.
Till:
Turkel knows that when his response to my article was posted, he did it
anonymously under his
"Holding" pseudonym. Turkel presented an absolutely ridiculous
justification for his
anonymity, which in a nutshell amounted to a claim that he worked in a
prison and feared for
his life if he should make his real identity known. Yeah, right!
Prisons are filled with
Christians, and non-Christian prisoners are constantly bombarded with
conversion efforts
by prison "ministries," yet for some reason, Turkel thought that his
life would be in
jeopardy if he should write pro-Christian articles under his own name
when pro-Christian
activities probably go on each day in the prison where he works (if
indeed he does work in a
prison). At the time that Turkel's response to the Mara Bar-Serapion
article appeared, I
was teaching at a college that provided educational services for a
local prison, and I knew
from this experience that none on the staff considered their lives in
jeopardy. I rejected
Turkel's excuse for anonymity and offered him free publishing space in
my bimonthly paper
The Skeptical Review on the condition that he would publish
under his real name. He
refused to do it, and if he denies that this happened, he is a liar.
His memory just can't
be that bad.
[Addendum July 2005: The offer to publish Turkel's articles under his real name were coincidentally made when he contacted me about wanting to reply to my article about Mara Bar-Serapion's letter. He gave me the sob story about threats on his life that he felt made it necessary to publish under a pseudonym. I remember that he referred specifically to a fear that his grandmother, who had the same last name might be in jeopardy if he published under his real name. I informed him that I would publish his articles only under his real name, which I didn't know at that time. He refused the offer, and that temporarily ended the matter.]
I started replying to Turkel only after I had learned his real name, and by that time, he had hacked out so many disorganized, cite-a-scholar-who-agrees articles that replying to all of them would have taken more time than I had available. His way of selectively quoting me in his articles is a flagrant evasion of rebuttals that he cannot satisfactorily answer, and he knows it.
[Addendum July 2005: Anyone who takes the time to compare my articles to Turkel's should see that much more time and effort goes into mine than he puts into his. I provide readers with links to all of his articles, but he links only to material favorable to his position. I, in fact, will link readers directly to the sections of articles where I replied to particular points of his. His links, which are always to material that agrees with him or to other articles he has written, will be the here, here, and here kind, which will take readers to lengthy articles, which they would have to read through and try to figure out what points he was referring to. His articles show signs, clearly recognizable to someone with my background in teaching writing, of having been hastily thrown together. They are poorly organized, and have grammatical, spelling, and typographical errors that indicate that he spends little time in proofreading and editing. He obviously doesn't understand basic principles of American punctuation. In a word, his articles are sloppily written cut-and-paste jobs that show little pride and even less respect for readers. I refuse to crank out this kind of hackwork.
If, however, Turkel thinks that I have not replied to some of his articles because of irrefutable arguments in them, I will present another challenge to him. If he will inform me of specific articles pertaining to biblical inerrancy that he thinks I have avoided answering, I will reply to them point by point if he will agree to reply in kind and to publish both of our articles and replies on his website and keep them there. Needless to say, I will gladly post them on mine.]
Turkel:
Second, and more consequential, this: Till is lauded here for his
"debating skill" and
prompt rejoinder intervals.
Till:
Turkel's Christian cronies, whose knowledge of the Bible is even less
than his, also laud
him for his debating skill, but after they see my responses to his
trivial quibbles, they
may want to reevaluate their opinion of him.
Turkel:
I do not suspect his deftness in this domain. The arena of informal
debate by all means
favors those with the most thunderous and the swiftest riposte,
notwithstanding the
circumstance and/or measure of their erudition. However, it has become
quite plain that
Till's "lightening" reflexes are of no service to him when it comes to
the minutia of a
particular issue. Till manifestly has neither the forbearance nor the
restraint to check
his work thoroughly. Arguments are shot from the hip, and thrown down
like beef on a BBQ
grill; accusations of collusion and conspiracy are bandied about with
the frequency of an
Erich von Daniken monograph.
Till:
This is rather humorous coming from one who claimed to know so much
about Hebrew "nuances,"
a claim that has now been shot down. (So that he won't forget it, I
will renew my challenge
for him to submit to a test administered by someone who is
knowledgeable in Hebrew so that
we can determine just how accurate his claim is.) He tried to put a
very limited meaning on
the Hebrew word reya and claimed that it connoted very close
personal friendships, but
his claim was shot full of holes when I showed that it was sometimes
used in the Old
Testament in reference to those who were opponents in physical combat
and that it was even
used once in reference to pieces of dead meat that Abraham had laid on
an altar. So to dump
his insult back into his lap, "Turkel manifestly has neither the
forbearance nor the
restraint to check his work thoroughly." Superficiality pervaded
Turkel's work, and that
was why it was so easy to demolish. In all probability, his
Superficiality resulted from a
naive confidence that he has in the books of authors who have written
in defense of biblical
accuracy. Perhaps his experience in this exchange has taught Turkel a
lesson he will
remember.
Turkel:
This kind of dialogue may serve to instill awe in the skeptical masses,
but the strategy
becomes rather diluted when challenged by diligence and brute fact.
Till:
In reply to this, I will say only that Turkel's kind of dialogue may
serve to instill awe in
the gullible Christian masses, but the strategy become rather diluted
when challenged by
diligence and brute fact. And the brute fact in this case is that
Turkel has utterly failed
to show that the writers of
2 Kings
10:30 and
Hosea 1:4
were not in
disagreement over the moral acceptability of Jehu's massacre at
Jezreel. The former clearly
said that Jehu had done according to all that was in Yahweh's
heart concerning the
house of Ahab; the latter said that Yahweh would avenge the blood of
Jezreel upon the house
of Jehu. These are hardly statements that show a perfect unity in the
Bible, as McDowell
claimed in the chapter of ETDAV that I responded to.
I must say that I am flattered. After assuring his readers that I was not worth any further comment from him, Turkel has posted a 240K article in reply to my rebuttal of his attempt to reconcile the approval of Jehu's massacre at Jezreel (2 Kings 10:30) with Hosea's condemnation of it (Hosea 1:4). The time required to give due attention to Turkel's latest in this matter has delayed the 28th part of my response, which I had hoped to post last week. [Editor's Note: The original 28 parts have been reformatted to three parts with the "28th part" being this concluding postscript.]
There was nothing in Turkel's latest on this subject but more of the same. His opening paragraphs, of course, attacked me personally, as did many sections throughout the article. At one point, he even implied that I had an affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, and that alone speaks volumes about his desperation to discredit me. Apparently he thinks that if he can't discredit me by logical argumentation, he can do so by insult and innuendoes. In his attempts actually to reply to my counterarguments, he did exactly what I predicted in Part Twenty-Seven that he would do: He used the old smorgasbord approach, so characteristic of inerrantist "apologetics," which consisted of skipping sections of my responses and replying only to what he thought he could rebut with at least a semblance of logical argumentation, and even when he did pick a counterargument to rebut, he used the smorgasbord approach here too. For example, in my refutation of his analysis of the word reya, in which he attempted to show that it had the limited meaning of a close, personal friend, he cut out chunks of what I had said. He didn't mention, for example, the section where I showed that, contrary to his claim, reya was sometimes used in reference to those engaged in physical combat with each other and even once to pieces of dead meat lying on a sacrificial altar. He gutted the section of my reply in which I showed that reya and yada were used interchangeably and replied only to part of the examples that I gave. In other words, Turkel is still Turkel. He controls the information that his readers are allowed to see and lets them see only that which he thinks will make him look much better than he would if he allowed them to read everything his opponent has said.
[Addendum July 2005: This time around, I have given even additional information about reya and yada that shows unequivocally that these two words were used interchangeably in the Old Testament to denote friendship.]
In my 27 replies, I have included everything that Turkel said in his article that I was replying to. I edited out nothing that he said, for the simple reason that I didn't see any need to, because he has said nothing that cannot easily be answered. My responses to him were posted on my Errancy list and on alt.bible.errancy another internet site that I post to, and I have been informed that those in charge of the secular web have posted my responses in their entirety. In a word, my skeptic associates and I have made sure that our readers have the opportunity to see everything that Turkel has written on this subject so that they can evaluate the quality of the arguments on both sides. Turkel does not do this, and I seriously doubt that he will publish my responses on his web site. As long as he manages the information his readers see, he minimizes the risk of looking bad in front of his admirers.
[Addendum July 2005: Needless to say, Turkel still manages the material on his website to keep his readers from seeing all of the arguments and rebuttals of his opponents. He provides no links to the articles he is answering, although he puts frequent links to other articles he has written and to materials favorable to his position, and he rarely even identifies his opponents by name. The only plausible explanation for these secretive tactics on his website is that he doesn't want his readers to see that his opponents have logical, plausible replies to his cite-some-scholars method of "debating."]
In my rebuttals of Turkel's article, I pointed out indications that betrayed his claim to be knowledgeable in Hebrew. That he is unskilled in the language was evident from the fact that he relies on Strong's concordance for definitions of Hebrew words, but Strong's is a reference work that would be used by someone whose knowledge of Hebrew is somewhere on my level. A real expert in the language would hardly rely on it, so I take no bows for having exposed Turkel's phoniness in his many attempts to present himself as a Hebrew linguist, because he had made it too easy for me to do this. At any rate, I challenged him to submit to a test that would determine just how much he really knows about Hebrew, and what was his response? He challenged me to send him three questions about Hebrew and if he could not obtain from his "sources" correct answers to at least two of them, he would stop writing for two months if I would agree to stop writing for the same period of time if he should be able to find correct answers to at least two of the questions.
Is this guy for real! Does he think that I am so stupid that I don't know that he could use the internet or some other communication means to send questions to real experts in Hebrew and obtain the right answers? My challenge that he submit to a test was a challenge that he submit to a real test in a situation where he would be on his own, with no possibility to get the right answers from outside sources, and I suspect that he knew that all along. The kind of acceptance that he posted in his article was just another face-saving effort, because he isn't about to accept a testing situation that requires him to prove that he has an ability in Hebrew that is advanced enough to recognize "nuances," which was one of his primary defenses in the matters of what paqad and reya meant. My challenge, then, is that he allow himself to submit to a test in which he would be required to translate passages of biblical Hebrew on his own, with no means of getting information from the outside. A real expert in Hebrew would be able to do this. I will certainly admit that I can't do it, but, of course, I have never boasted of any ability to recognize Hebrew "nuances" that biblical translators somehow overlooked. We will see if Turkel has enough confidence in his skills in Hebrew to accept this kind of challenge.
[Addendum July 2005: Turkel has avoided this challenge like the plague, yet he continues to talk about Hebrew idioms and "nuances" in his articles, as if he is expert enough to know what a nuance is in a language that he can neither speak nor read.]
So far this is what has happened in my exchanges with Turkel. I wrote a reply to the first chapter of Josh McDowell's ETDAV, and Turkel posted an 80K reply to it on a web site. I then wrote 28 short replies to this article, and Turkel wrote a 240K reply to these even before my 28th part was posted. So if I write a series of replies to Turkel's latest, will he then write, say, a 700K response to these, and so on? If so, there will be no end to this, and along the way, Turkel's readers will see only the parts of my replies that he wants them to see, because I have no reason to suspect that the leopard will suddenly change his spots and that he will begin to use the full-disclosure policy that I use on both the internet and my bimonthly paper The Skeptical Review.
[Addendum July 2005: Although the comments in red that I have inserted throughout all three parts of this series did not follow my usual point-by-point method of replying to Turkel, I have tried to reply to every major point in his "reworked" articles. If he thinks that I missed some points, I will gladly reply in detail to whatever he wants to call to my attention, if he will agree to post my replies on his website so that his readers can see everything that I have written on this issue, but if he simply posts another "reply" in which he selectively quotes me and skips major points, without even linking his readers to my rebuttal articles or even mentioning me by name, I will see no need to invest time in further replies that his sycophants would probably never see anyway.]
So I am presenting another challenge to Turkel, and that challenge is that he and I debate the Jehu matter on internet sites like Errancy or alt.bible.errancy, which has a format that will allow readers to see everything that he posts and everything that I post. (I would expect the Christian side to provide a site too so that the debate will be seen by more than just primarily a skeptical audience.) We could agree on a point-by-point format, which would limit both of us to the posting of a single point or argument (with proper supporting details, of course) and the opponent's reply to that point. In this way, nothing will become lost or forgotten in a maze of 240K texts, and Turkel won't be able to use his smorgasbord approach, because if he skips something or evades a point, this evasion will become painfully obvious to our readers. In other words, if I showed that Turkel's claim that reya always meant a very close personal friend is not true because the word was sometimes used in references to opponents in quarrels or fights and even in reference to dead pieces of meat on a sacrificial altar, Turkel's evasion of this point would be obvious to the readers. The same, of course, would be true if I should skip or evade anything, so such a format would give both sides equal advantage.
[Addendum July 2005: I close with a renewal of my challenge that Turkel and I debate the alleged discrepancy between 2 Kings 10:30-31 and Hosea 1:4 in a one-point-at-a-time format, which would limit the discussion to just a single point of the many we have discussed in these lengthy exchanges--which, as I noted above, would make evasion painfully obvious to our readers--and would be posted on both of our websites. I am perfectly willing to engage in such a debate, but I doubt that Turkel will accept the challenge. He doesn't want his readers to know that his opponents have said much more than what he is allowing them to see.
Go to the
follow-up
article, which exposes the falsity in Turkel's claim that his view
of Hosea 1:4 is shared
by "commentators of all stripes."
