[Editor's Note: In "The Paper Shortage," I exposed the utter silliness of Robert Turkel's attempts to excuse biblical inconsistencies resulting from ambiguity on the grounds that the cost and scarcity of scroll materials required writers to leave out information that would have eliminated confusion and/or discrepancies if they had only had enough scroll space to include it. I have posted "The Paper Trail Resumes" to reply to Turkel's pick-and-choose response to my rebuttals of his paper-shortage quibble. In typical fashion, he selectively quoted my article and skipped far more than he tried to "answer," but as readers who click the links will see, I replied to him point by point. In this article, I will reply point by point to an earlier, farcical response, linked to in the title above, which he posted as a "reply" to my original article.]
Turkel:
Yes, he's back again, after 5 months of hiding under his futon. Skeptic
X has now replied to
an entirely new item of ours, apparently having ditched attempts on
preterism, the Land
Promise, Abiathar, the men with David, etc etc etc. [sic]
Till:
Turkel seems to delight in the quantity of hackwork that he cranks out,
so he can't seem to
understand why someone with a little more intellectual pride would deem
quantity more
important than quality. In the "Contact"
portion of
my website, as well as in other articles posted there, such as
"Turkel Rides--Er--Stumbles
Again," and "Matt Green's
Land-Promise Doubts," among others, I have explained that health
problems related to
having reached the age of 72 have required me to reduce substantially
the time that I can
spend working at my computer. If Turkel can't understand that, it
speaks volumes about the
kind of Christianity that he practices, which seems to place more
importance on sarcasm,
ridicule, insult, and deprecation than on Christian charity, which the
apostle Paul deemed
one of the three highest virtues
(1 Cor.
13:13) that
Christians should strive to attain, but I don't need to tell readers of
his
website that Turkel obviously
attaches little important
to the inward matters of the religion he claims to believe in.
Even if I didn't have to accommodate the impediments of age, I would never try to equal Turkel's "output," which is characterized by disorganization, poor grammar, atrocious punctuation, confusing syntax, and the abstraction and ambiguity that invariably result from hasty writing. As suggested above, I consider quality more important than quantity, and that is why I take my time to do research and review relevant biblical passages while I am writing my articles. Rather than post an article right away, I prefer to keep it in my computer for days and sometimes even weeks and months, so that I can give proper attention to proofreading, editing, and revising. This work ethic all but eliminates the apparent embarrassments that Turkel experiences when he is made aware of blunders that he committed in haste, such as when he said that the Greek word anestimi was used twice when New Testament writers wanted to convey the idea of "rising again" or when he said that the Bible had never recorded any cases of people using restrooms. When he is made aware of blunders like these, they soon disappear from the articles in which they appeared and sometimes even the entire articles are deleted from his website. Despite having been caught making many such blunders, some of which could no doubt have been prevented by investing more time in the writing of his articles, Turkel continues to crank out hackwork.
I make no apologies for holding to higher standards of writing.
As for my articles on preterism, the land-promise issue, and Jesus's mistake in naming Abiathar as the priest who helped David during his flight from Saul, these articles can be accessed on either the debate index or the articles index pages on the TSR Online website. Those who take the time to read them--and it would take weeks or possibly even months to do so--will see that I hammered Turkel flatter than a cow patty on those issues with detailed point-by-point replies to his "solutions" to the discrepancies that I had identified. In my debates with him, Turkel's tactic has been to quote me selectively and quickly recycle material that I have already rebutted in detail, as if saying something again will make it right even though it has already been answered. Then if I don't crank out replies to his recyclings as quickly as he threw them together, he hurls accusations like the hiding-under-his-futon crack above. I really don't know of a single point of any significance that Turkel has made on "preterism, the land-promise, Abiathar, [and] the men-with-David" issues that I have not responded to. In another forum, a former admirer of Turkel wondered when I was going to complete the land-promise debate and cited arguments by Turkel that he would like for me to answer. In "Matt Green's Land-Promise Doubts," I took the time to show in detail where every issue that Green had been wondering about had been answered in my articles, whereas Turkel's replies had only quoted selectively from my articles and evaded many of my major rebuttal points, while just superficially "replying" to others. Reading these articles will show that Turkel was throughly trounced on the issues he identified above, and if he wants to deny this, I will renew a challenge that I have posted several times. If he will identify any of his "arguments" on these issues that he thinks I have evaded, I will reply to them point by point if he will agree to reply in kind and to post all of our exchanges on his website AND KEEP THEM THERE. Needless to say, I will gladly agree to post on my website all exchanges made under these conditions, but this isn't going to happen, because he will never agree to do it.
Turkel:
To remind all the good folks out here of why X is a walking rant in
need of an editor, we'll
here revert to our occasional practice of inserting commentary in his
text. Most of the time.
Till:
In this section of
"A Good Answer But Not a Good Question - Part One," I documented
Turkel's inconsistency in his
complaints about skeptics who want to debate with what he calls "sound
bites," and his "reply"
below to my article "The Paper Shortage" shows that he is still as
inconsistent as ever. He
seems to think that it is wrong for skeptics to reply with "sound
bites" but okay if he does
it. I am reminded of what the apostle Paul said in Romans 2:21-22.
[Y]ou, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?
Turkel preaches against skeptics who debate in "sound bites," but then he debates in sound bites. That's pretty typical of his habitual inconsistency, isn't it?
Anyway, since all of Turkel's paper-shortage quibbles have been answered in detail in my articles "The Paper Shortage" and "The Paper Trail Resumes," I will reply in kind by inserting red-print comments after his bold-print insertions.
Turkel:
We'll delete, actually, the first two rambling paragraphs....
Till:
See what I mean when I say that Turkel quotes selectively in his
"replies" to me? Those who
want to read those "first two rambling paragraphs," which I will say
more about later, can
click here. Those who
do so will see that the paragraphs didn't ramble at all but
comparatively summarized the
apologetic methods of would-be apologists like Turkel with those used
by respected inerrantists
like John Haley, William Arndt, R. A. Torrey, Gleason Archer, and
Norman Geisler, who actually
tried to explain biblical discrepancies rather than to excuse them with
speculations about
paper shortages that caused inconsistencies to result from necessary
brevity and ambiguity or
ma besay-il rantings about customs of the time that put more
importance on central
meanings rather than consistency, etc., etc., etc. What I said in those
"first two rambling
paragraphs," which Turkel deleted, was directly relevant to my analysis
of his paper-shortage
quibble and the rebuttal arguments that followed it.
Turkel:
[We'll delete, actually, the first two rambling paragraphs] where X
tucks in his corncob pipe
and tells us all about the "good old days" before apologists did
contextual study and used
McDowell as a prime source.
Till:
We have just seen another of Turkel's familiar tactics. He seems to
think that he has answered
an opponent if he fires derogatory, insulting remarks at him. To
Turkel's credit, I will say
that he understands the critical thinking level of his choir members.
They lap up this kind
of stuff. "X tucks in his corncob pipe and tells us all about the 'good
old days,'" they no
doubt chortle. "Isn't J. P. a riot! I think I'll hit him again with a
few more PayPal
bucks."
I assume that Turkel wanted his readers to understand that he is one of those new apologists, who do "contextual study," but I have seen few would-be apologists who ignore contexts as much as he does. This is a charge that I am fully prepared to document by putting together from his "replies" to my articles examples of where he flagrantly ignored the contexts of biblical passages relevant to the isssues in question. Furthermore, I will gladly organize these examples into an article, which goes beyond the examples I cite below, if Turkel will agree to publish it on his website, reply to it point by point, and keep all exchanges posted there. He isn't going to do that, of course, so I won't be writing this article.
Turkel;
Times were easier then; now, decontextualizers like X whose education
is limited to courses
like Screaming at the Top of Your Lungs at Harlots 201 at Bam
Bam Bible College,
Till:
There are two points to address here: (1) the claim that I am a
"decontextualizer" and (2) the
derogatory comment about "Bam Bam Bible college." Anyone who takes the
time to compare
analytically Turkel's articles and mine will surely see that he
frequently depends on just
citing biblical passages, whereas I usually quote the full contexts of
the ones that I use as
textual evidence. I quote the full contexts, because I want readers to
see that I am not
distorting or misapplying any textual evidence I decide to use. On the
other hand, he
cites--without quoting--mainly because he knows that he is making
claims that cannot be
supported by whatever he is citing, and he doesn't want his readers to
know this. Hence, he
tries to hide the broader contextual meanings of his biblical proof by
just citing the
passages. He wants his readers to think that the Bible must really
teach what he is claiming
because he periodically cites a scripture or two.
Bam Bam Bible College, of course, is my alma mater Harding University. As I noted above, Turkel's brand of "apologetics" relies more on insults and sarcasm than logical argumentation, so he will often refer to Harding University as "Bam Bam Bible College." It is his way of saying, "Till attended a Bible college, so the quality of his education has to be suspect." In this section of "The Zigzagging Stripes of Bobby Turkel," I took the time to squash this misguided attempt at humor by quoting from an article announcing that Harding University had been listed for the 11th consecutive year in the America's Best Colleges issue of U.S. News & World Report as one of the top-25 universities in the South. Certainly, Harding didn't achieve this distinction by being the academic buffoon that Turkel has often tried to depict it. I knew about the academic quality that students are exposed to at this university, because I obtained both my undergraduate and graduate degrees there. In my educational career, I earned 90+ postgraduate hours in universities in France, Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky, and I have often said that with the exception of the Sorbonne and L'Université de Nancy, which I attended in France, Harding University had the most demanding academic standards of all of them. Although I disagree now with the traditional views of the Bible that it teaches in Bible and religion classes, high demands were made of the students who attended this university when I was a student there, and the honors repeatedly bestowed on it by U.S. News & World Report indicate that it still maintains high academic standards, so when Turkel makes disparaging remarks about "Bam Bam Bible College," he is actually saying that my education had to be substandard because I earned my degrees from one of the top universities in the South. For him, that kind of reasoning is about par for the course and is typical of the way that he writes before he bothers to research.
I can't help wondering how many times Florida State University has been ranked among the top universities in the South. Perhaps Turkel can tell us.
Turkel:
[now, decontextualizers like X whose education is limited to courses
like Screaming at
the Top of Your Lungs at Harlots 201 at Bam Bam Bible College,]
have discovered many
aspects of the experience of frustration from those of us who actually
come to the Bible on
its own terms.
Till:
I have repeatedly exposed Turkel's ignorance of biblical content, such
as when he shoved his
foot into his mouth by saying that the Bible had never recorded any
cases of
people using
restrooms or when he took as absolute gospel truth the claim of
two
"social-science"
commentators--who couldn't possibly have had any way of
knowing--that feelings of guilt
didn't exist in biblical times or when he said that Gibeah was
Saul's
old hometown," when
in reality Saul lived there during his reign as king or when he....
Well, there is no need
to continue this. The articles on my website have documented the many
times I have pointed
out Turkel's biblical ignorance. I don't know what he
meant when he referred to "those of us who actually come to the Bible
on its own terms," but I do know that he often exhibits a profound
biblical ignorance for someone who considers himself a topnotch
biblical
apologist. When the plain language of the Bible presents a
discrepancy, he is always Johnny
on the spot to declare that the language was symbolic or metaphorical
or figurative or
hyperbolic or hypothetical or that the inconsistency just doesn't
matter
[ma
besay-il]--just anything to deny the discrepancy. I have yet to
see him say, "Yep,
this is no doubt a discrepancy." Such an approach to biblical
interpretation is not "com[ing]
to the Bible on its own terms"; it is coming to the Bible on his
terms, and those
"terms" are a preconception that the Bible is in some sense inerrant.
Turkel:
We'll see the usual tricks of course...let's get right to it after
those first two paras of
golly gosh from the rocking chair. Oh. What does X reply to? Basically
points scattered in
a couple of essays. But the thing is, he missed one essay where I
already
answered, months
ago,
Till:
I explained above why I am often unable to reply to Turkel's articles
until weeks or months
after he posts them, so there is no need to rehash that information
here. Anyway, his "essay"
where he "already answered" [me] "months ago" has been replied to point
by point in
Part
One of this series.
Turkel:
some of the very objections he brings up now, because I saw them on his
fuddy duddy list.
Till:
That "fuddy duddy" list has been online for about 10 years now, and I
wouldn't even try to
estimate how many former Christians have written to tell me that it was
instrumental in
convincing them that the Bible is not at all what they were taught to
believe. I doubt that
very many skeptics and atheists have contacted Turkel to tell him that
they had been
skeptics/atheists until they discovered his internet site and now they
believe that the Bible
is the inspired, inerrant "word of God."
Turkel:
Yeesh. If X is not going to keep up with what I'm doing, he may as well
go back under the
futon again with the dust bunnies.
Till:
As I noted above, Turkel often plays to the gallery by hurling insults
and sarcasm at his
opponent, because he knows that his choir members will consider this
kind of stuff
satisfactory "replies." The proof of the plum is in the pudding, and
the "pudding" I have
made from what Turkel tries to pass off as "apologetic plums" will show
any reasonable person
that I have... well, as I said above, hammered him flatter than a cow
patty.
Beyond this point, there will be no Turkel and Till headers. My original article will be in the ordinary size-4 print, Turkel's inserted "sound-bite" comments will be in bold print, and my comments on his sound bites in red-print. To help readers follow the changes from speaker to speaker, I will enclose Turkel's inserted comments in parentheses.
Within recent years, we have also seen a "new apologetics" that argues such absurdities as a biblical inconsistency or contradiction is not a discrepancy if the people of that time thought that such statements were true. (Not that new, really. More like, getting back to the old -- the original context. New only to neophytes.) Conspicuously absent is any evidence to support Turkel's claim that this is an old position that had been around before the apologetic methods of inerrantists like Haley, Archer, Geisler, etc. In typical fashion, Turkel replied by unsupported assertion and then rushed on his merry way. Those who want to see evidence I have previously posted that disputes Turkel's claim that his position on this isn't new at all but just a "getting back to the old" can read this section of "It Doesn't Matter?" to see that people in biblical times had grave concerns about discrepancies in their sacred literature and struggled to resolve them. Robert "No Links" Turkel (See that issue addressed here)--My article "Where Are the Links? will show that Turkel (1) pledged before the land-promise debate began that he would link his readers to my articles, (2) promptly reneged on this pledge when it had become obvious that he could not reply to my textual proof that Yahweh's land promise to Abraham and his descendants had failed, (3) fills his articles with links to materials written by him and other writers sympathetic to the biblical-inerrancy view, but (4) consistently refuses to link his readers to the articles of biblical skeptics that he is "replying" to or even to identify them by name. In a word, Turkel has proven himself to be an intellectual coward who wants to preach to his choir without giving them the opportunity to consider opposing views. who parades under the pseudonym James Patrick Holding (As if this ever has a thing to do with any argument.) Turkel rarely posts anything that even could be considered logical argumentation, because he prefers to string together unsupported quotations from articles and books that agree with whatever position he is "defending," as if quoting writers who agree with him "ever has a thing to do" with proving his position. Certainly, his phony name has nothing to do with the truth or falsity of anything that he writes, because the truth or falsity of propositions is always independent of their sources. However, when someone writes for public consumption under a phony name, one can't help wondering what he is trying to hide. I think I know what Turkel has tried to hide behind his phony name. During some private e-mail exchanges with him, I expressed my belief, based on the number of articles he was posting on the internet, that he was writing some of them on the job (while he was employed as a prison librarian in Florida) and that the phony name was being used just in case any of his superiors happened onto them and wondered how he was finding the time to write so much. His reaction to this indicated that I had struck a sensitive nerve, so that is one of the primary reasons why I have refused to refer to him by his phony name. I honestly believe that the name originated out of a desire to hide his use of time on the job for his personal projects. has become an advocate of this position. (Have been for years, actually.) Because of the time that has passed since Turkel's paper-shortage quibble first surfaced, he could correctly say now that he has been advocating this position "for years," but I would be interested in seeing him document his earliest usage of it so that we can see just how long he has been a proponent of it. Regardless of how long he has advocated it, however, it is nevertheless a silly "apologetic" quibble, as I have abundantly shown in my replies to it (linked to above). As I pointed out in "It Doesn't Matter?" (linked above), (And see here my response.) And see here my response to his "response." he will often speak of "idioms," "subtle nuances," and "metaphorical" meanings in the original biblical texts (as if he were linguistically qualified to speak with any authority on the dead languages in which the Bible was written (Watch the dishonest shift of focus. It is not "me" that has the qualifications, but my sources, scholars like Caird, Malina and Rohrbaugh, and others whose bootstraps X is unworthy to as much as lick.) As I have said more times than I could possibly estimate, to other amateurish "apologists" as well as Turkel, who seem to believe that citing or quoting writers who agree with them is equivalent to proving whatever positions they are defending, there is no such thing as a religious belief that has not been written on favorably by others, many of whom have Ph. D. degrees or other impressive academic credentials. For every such "scholar" whom Turkel can quote in support of his doctrines du jour, I can quote just as many, if not more, who disagree with them. This is an academic fact that Turkel's head seems too hard to absorb. In "No Guilt in Biblical Times?" for example, I showed that, contrary to the claim of Malina and Rohrbaugh that personal feelings of guilt didn't exist in biblical times, the Bible contains several passages that, properly interpreted, conveyed intense feelings of personal guilt on the part of David, Peter, the people who heard Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost, and other biblical characters. To assert that feelings of guilt did not exist in biblical times is to affirm a universal negative, and Turkel has never been able to explain just how Malina and Rohrbaugh could possibly prove this universal negative. So much for Turkel's scholars whose boopstraps I am "unworthy to as much as lick." which made the Bible at times not mean what it clearly says. (What it "clearly says" in English. Note our look at X's pathological literalism here, another of about 500 billion articles he has yet to respond to.) And notice this section of "the Jehu Debate - Part Three" to see where I nailed Turkel's hide to the wall for claiming that I had "blundered" in using "the stark English translations" to find "answers" in the Bible. Then go to this section of Part One of that debate to see where I exposed his crass hypocrisy by showing where he often quotes the "stark English" of the NIV to "resolve" discrepancies. (These are part of about 500 billion rebuttal arguments of mine that he has yet to respond to.) As I have said before, about the only consistency in Turkel's articles is his inconsistency. As for his skill in biblical languages, it is practically nonexistent, as I showed when I exposed his blunder in saying that the Greek word anestimi was used twice when New Testament writers wanted to communicate the idea of "rising again." That Turkel would even try to pass himself off as knowledgeable in Hebrew is too ridiculous to warrant further comment. My article just mentioned discussed in detail Turkel's it-doesn't-matter theory (meaning that biblical contradictions and inconsistencies don't matter), which he has appropriated from Abraham Rihbany's ma besay-il, i. e., it doesn't matter, position that he expounded in The Syrian Christ. (A native Syrian, BTW, who ought to know darned well about his own culture and language.) A modern native Syrian should be considered an expert in ancient Hebrew culture? Why? Rihbany Was an Arab-American, who immigrated to the United States in 1891 and died here in 1944, so I fail to see any reason why he should be considered the final word on Hebrew language and customs of biblical times. Turkel often refers to what Rihbany said in The Syrian Christ, but I have never seen on the Tektonics website any mention of Rihbany's career as a Unitarian minister, which as much as his ethnic origin would probably explain the don't-care attitude that he had about biblical inconsistencies. As a biblical skeptic, I have been asked to lecture at Unitarian Churches, and my experience with their members has shown me that most are biblical skeptics and some even downright atheists. They just don't care about discrepancies in the Bible, but their not caring about the discrepancies does not mean that there are no discrepancies in the Bible. Hence, when Turkel appeals to Rihbany's views on biblical discrepancies, he is essentially saying, "Yeah, there are discrepancies in the Bible, but so what?" The "so what" is that there are discrepancies in the Bible, and my primary goal ever since I became a biblical skeptic has been to prove this, so all of Turkel's talk about ma besay-il and such like has proven nothing except that I have been right all along: discrepancies are in the Bible. Rihbany's idea seemed to be that if one biblical writer said that an event happened when Jesus was entering a city but another one said that it happened as he was leaving the city, this would not have been an inconsistency to the people of that culture, because they were more interested in knowing about the event that Jesus was involved in than they were in details about exactly where it happened. (More or less correct, though that example was not used. Now watch X blow it out of proportion as a straw man:) No, watch "X" simply point out the obvious: if two biblical writers said that Jesus healed blind men when he was leaving Jericho (Matt. 20:29; Mark 10:46), but another writer said that this happened when Jesus "drew near" to Jericho (Luke 18:35), then someone made a mistake about when this miracle happened. Whether Syrians don't care about the "when" doesn't keep it from being a mistake any more than the don't-care attitude of Unitarians about mistakes in the Bible can keep the mistakes from being mistakes. According to Rihbany's rationalization, ("rationalization" = "according to his expertise in his own language and culture") What I just said applies here too. No matter how much Syrians may not have cared about inconsistencies in the Bible does not change them to consistencies. Anyone with the intelligence of a sack of rocks should be able to see that. [According to Rihbany's rationalization] if a history book said that Custer's battle at the Little Bighorn was fought in the territory of Nebraska, this would not be an error to people who were more concerned about what happened during this battle rather than where it happened. Such a position, of course, is absurd, because the interests of readers cannot make errors in a written document not be errors. (It is absurd, and it is a farce of Rihbany's argument. Note that X just arbitrarily jumped from "in or out of a city" -- which is not far from Rihbany's examples of, whether a conversation was on a rooftop or in a house -- to "Nebraska" instead of Montana, a difference from "the same house, but a different place in the house" to "a different state hundreds of miles away." X is either a [sic] exceptionally poor analogist or a blatant liar. At this stage we'll believe either.) Well, why would someone who doesn't care about inconsistencies in the Bible care whether I am a "poor analogist" or a "blatant liar"? To someone who isn't as concerned with "where" as much as "what," would a poor analogist be a blantant liar as long as his analogy was close to the truth? Anyway, let's just move Custer's last stand from its location in Big Horn County in Montana to the adjoining county of Powder River. If a history book said that Custer's battle took place in Powder River County instead of Big Horn County, would that be an error? Let's put the battle even closer to its original site. Having twice visited the site, I remember that the battle took place on the east side of the Little Big Horn, so let's suppose that a history book said that the battle happened on the west side of this river? Would that be an error, even to someone who was more interested in what happened than in where it happened? To ask the questions is to answer them for those who are familiar with the geographical location of Custer's last stand. Turkel's problem is that he just doesn't know what an error is. If bank robbers got away with only $2,000 but a newspaper article said that they had stolen $200,000, I suppose Turkel would say that this wasn't an error, since the primary interest of readers would be to know that the bank had been robbed.
I need not comment anymore on this theory of biblical apologetics, because I rebutted it in detail in my article "It Doesn't Matter?" (linked above). (And I rebutted his pitiable, decontextualized rebuttal at my link above.) In my comments above, I linked readers here and especially here to sections of my articles in which I demolished Turkel's attempts to reply to my rebuttals by claiming that I was "decontextualizing" biblical passages. Readers can go there to see his quibbles about "decontextualizing" dismantled, so I don't need to reinvent the wheel here. Those who read it will see that this theory is completely contrary to what the Bible teaches about the process by which prophets and apostles were inspired to report "all truth" and that it stands in direct opposition to cases in biblical times that show that the people of that era cared very much about inconsistencies and contradictions in their sacred writings. (Those who read our rebuttal will see that X is just reading the Bible with his usual decontextualized hyperliteralism, and will also see links to a forum where X was thoroughly embarrassed by two seminary students.) The only "link above" that I could find for this to refer to would be "Paper Pushers," which I replied to point by point in Part One of "The Paper Trail Resumes." I could not find there any links to "a forum" where I was "thoroughly embarrassed by two seminary students," and I have no memory at all of what Turkel is referring to, probably because his idea of "thorough embarrassment" is much different from mine. What I would consider a thorough trouncing of an opponent of mine, he would no doubt call a "thorough embarrassment" of me. As for my "usual decontextualized hyperliteralism," I have already linked readers above to sections of articles where I "thoroughly embarrassed" him in his attempts to use "decontextualization" as a viable explanation of biblical discrepancies. I will focus instead on another harebrained "apologetic" ("contextualized scholarship") Like what? His? Malina's and Rohrbaugh's? I have already shucked his claims of "contextualized scholarship" down to the cob and found nothing there, so on with the show. excuse ("I don't understand") No, I don't. It's too bad I wasn't born in Syria. If I had been, everything in the Bible would have been crystal clear to me. I would be able to understand that saying that an event happened as Jesus was going into Jericho was not a mistake even if it had actually happened while he was going out of Jericho. that Turkel has dreamed up ("taken from scholars and natives who know their business") Who often disagree with "scholars and natives" who also "know their business." Poor Turkel just isn't ever going to understand that finding "scholars" who agree with a religious position is as easy as spending a little time at a library or on the internet. to "explain" ("confuse me") Could I possibly be more confused than someone who thinks that a mistake is not a mistake just as long as Syrians didn't care whether they were mistakes? biblical discrepancies. One of his latest (Latest? About a year latest by now, while X was picking his toes with someone else.) As I said above, Turkel thinks that if he tosses a few insults and sarcasms at an opponent, he has satisfactorily replied to his points. Does he think that if a year passes before his silliness is replied to, that will somehow make his position right? is to argue that some biblical discrepancies resulted from incomplete details in biblical accounts but that this was only to be expected in documents that were written in times when paper was scarce. Well, there is certainly no doubt that "paper" was scare in biblical times. It was, in fact, nonexistent, but I will assume that Turkel knew this and really meant "metaphorically" for paper to refer to whatever materials were available at the time to make scrolls. (How generous of X not to inflict upon us his sadistic hyperliteralism.) I try to accommodate. Those who want to see my exposures of Turkel's "hyperliteralism" can go this section of "The 'Goofy-Gaffe' Exchanges on the Theology Web" and read where I exposed his ignorance in trying to argue "hyperliterally" that when Joshua 10:41 said that the Israelites struck the Canaanites "from Kadesh-barnea even unto Gaza," this meant that Joshua had pursued them only up to the border of Gaza but not into Gaza itself. In this section of "Matt Green's Land-Promise Doubts," I analyzed Turkel's hyperliteral claim that I had erred in saying that Gibeon was "about five miles north of Jerusalem," because, as Turkel quibbled, Gibeon was, in reality, northwest of Jerusalem. I could cite other examples, but these two are sufficient to show that when Turkel calls me a hyperliteralist, it is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black, because no one's "hyperliteralism" can exceed his when he needs to assign strictly literal meanings to words like unto in the example referred to above. As for whether biblical passages should generally be interpreted literally or figuratively, he apparently doesn't realize that most language is used with literal intention, so that when a speaker uses words like dog, cat, tree, man, etc., he generally means for them to be understood in their literal senses, and that no doubt accounts for the basic principle of literary interpretation that says that the words in a written text should be interpreted literally unless there are compelling reasons to assign figurative meaning. I know of no principle of literary interpretation that says that the words of a written text should be interpreted literally unless their literal meanings contradict opinions and beliefs that are emotionally important to the readers, but this is exactly how Turkel reads the Bible. If the plain reading of a text disagrees with his personal beliefs, he instantly begins to talk about metaphorical or figurative meaning or ancient idioms and customs or paper shortages or ma besay-il--just anything that he can dream up to keep from admitting that the Bible contains errors. (I do clearly say, though, "You're not going to be writing on paper," so I don't know what X thinks he's alluding to.) I think I recognized above that Turkel was undoubtedly using the word paper metaphorically, so that should be rather self-explanatory. If that wasn't what he meant, he can clarify his position for us. (Or X can take some reading lessons.) Or Turkel could take some badly needed writing lessons. If he would do this, maybe his articles wouldn't be filled with so many grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors and wouldn't be nearly as disorganized and confusingly written as they are in places. (Given that "pay for 90% of the website" bit, we know the option needed.) This must be the 500 billionth time that Turkel has wagged this into our exchanges. Those who may so desire can go here and here if they want to see that the reason for my misunderstanding of what he meant in this matter was directly traceable to his inability to write with reasonable clarity, which undoubtedly results from his desire to produce quantity rather than quality. If he would just slow down a bit and actually take the time to (gasp!) proofread, edit, and revise his articles, maybe he wouldn't be misunderstood so often. At any rate, Turkel seems to be arguing that a deity who could part the waters of a sea in order to let his "chosen ones" cross on dry land to escape an advancing army and who could send down "manna" from heaven to provide them with food in their desert wanderings and such like somehow could not provide his "inspired" writers with enough parchments and/or papyri to enable them to explain themselves fully, (Nothing beats this sort of answer for sheer humor value, but I'll give the deserving answer: X is essentially asking why God doesn't kiss our butts.) Well, I guess I am going to have to tell Turkel for the umpteenth time that each time he makes this comment, which has obviously become one of his favorites, he is begging the questions of "God's" existence and whether "God" had anything to do with the writing of the Bible. As I have said before, if Turkel were discussing with a Muslim problematic passages in the Qur'an, how impressed would he be if his opponent tried to explain identified textual problems by saying, "Turkel is essentially asking why Allah doesn't kiss our butts"? Of course, Turkel seems to be so logically impaired that I doubt that he will even understand why such comments as these commit the fallacy of question begging. Suffice it to say that I have presented to Turkel a perfectly legitimate question: if an omniscient, omnipotent deity did indeed inspire the writing of the Bible, why could he not have used the powers that he demonstrated so often in Old Testament stories to make sure that his chosen writers of New Testament books had sufficient scroll space to write everything that needed to be said to make their accounts coherently complete? Obviously, Turkel doesn't want to deal with this question. (Next he'll wonder why God doesn't brush his teeth for him in the morning, tie his shoes, or press the button on his remote. End of issue. See here for more details.) And go to this section of "Turkel Rides--Er--Stumbles Again - Part One" to see where I dismantled the "more details" in his "here," which is an article in which he attempted to analogize Old Testament accounts of Yahweh's dealings with non-Hebraic ethnic groups with the fictional "prime directive" on Star Trek that presented "noninterference" in the activities of alien cultures as a virtue that was rigorously respected by those in the "Star Fleet" when they had contacts with alien worlds. Those who take the time to read Turkel's article should immediately see the glaringly false analogy in it, because Yahweh's policy toward non-Hebraic cultures was far from one of "noninterference" in that he, so the Bible says, directly ordered the Hebrews to interfere in those cultures by utterly destroying them. My "Not a Good Answer" series, which begins here, shows the absurdity of trying to defend the morality of Yahweh's orders to utterly destroy non-Hebraic tribes and nations to the point of killing even children and babies. As for Turkel's claim about the "[e]nd of [the] issue," the issue has ended only in his wishful-thinking mind. No rational reader of the Bible is going to see any merit in his paper-shortage quibble until he can satisfactorily answer the question I have repeatedly raised: why couldn't an omniscient, omnipotent deity, who worked so many miracles in matters far less important, have used his powers to make sure that New Testament writers had sufficient scroll materials to tell everything that needed to be told in the matters that they wrote about? and so confusion resulted to a degree that has led some to think that there are discrepancies in the Bible when really the "discrepancies" wouldn't be there if the "inspired ones" had only had access to sufficient "paper" to give more details. (Cheese with that whine?) And this attempt at humor explains what? (The charge of "confusion" here comes from the mouth of the grossly miseducated, who is too lazy to fix it.) The grossly miseducated? Turkel forgets that I am a graduate of "Bam Bam Bible College," which for 11 consecutive years has been listed in U. S. News and World Report's top-25 colleges and universities in the South. I think that the grades that I earned at this institution and the 90+ postgraduate hours, all but six of which were "A" grades, in six other universities cast serious doubts on Turkel's accusation that I am "grossly miseducated." (Savor the irony.) Or rather savor the supidity of someone who would try to cover his ass with insults and sarcasm instead of trying logical argumentation.
As the syndicated humorous [sic] Dave Barry would say, I caught this mistake and corrected it in my article long before I had seen Turkel's "sic" in his hacked-out paper-pushers "reply." I am not making this up. (Hmm. X reads Dave Barry? He probably thinks he writes narratives.) Why would I think that a syndicated newpaper columnist writes narratives? By the way, if Turkel doesn't read Barry's columns, he should. They might give him some tips on how to write real humor. I have seen Turkel resort to this quibble several times. An actual example of it can be found in his attempt to explain the New Testament inconsistency concerning who carried Jesus's cross to Golgotha. (Funny thing. I wrote this one over 8 years ago, long before the things X is answering now.) So Turkel wrote it eight years ago. Does this mean that he no longer considers it true? Apparently so, because my link just given will no longer work. [Webmaster's note: This article was recovered from Internet archives. You can see it here.] This seems to be another article that Turkel has deleted from his website, as he often does when he gets caught with egg on his face. The synoptic accounts (Matt. 27:32; Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26) say that Simon of Cyrene was "compelled" to carry the cross, but John 19:17 says that Jesus carried the cross for "himself." At one point in Turkel's explanation, he resorted to the usual apologetic "solution" to this problem: (The one that is of the sort also used by secular historians, too. Click the link for an essay X will never address.) This is a link to an article by Glenn Miller, who Turkel seems to think is a biblical expert whose word should be considered final in any issue he addresses, but my detailed seven-part series written to reply point by point to Miller's attempt to justify the morality of the many Yahwistic massacres in the Old Testament will show that, far from being an expert, Miller is just another would-be apologist like Turkel, who, despite having only superficial knowledge of biblical content, is trying to sell a discredited bill of biblical-inerrancy goods to his readers. Turkel said that I would never address this article by Glenn Miller, so I will make him an offer. I will write a reply to this article as detailed as my point-by-point seven-part series linked to above, if both he and Miller will agree to post it on their respective sites and keep it there. I won't be writing this article, of course, because they are not going to agree to let their readers see informed replies to their biblical inerrancy nonsense. Jesus started out carrying the cross, but along the way, he became physically unable to continue carrying it, and so Simon of Cyrene was impressed to carry it the rest of the way.
[From an article by Turkel]:There is ample evidence to support this explanation. Matthew says that Simon was met "as they were going out" (Matt. 27:32). Mark says Simon was just "passin' by," and they forced him to carry the cross (Mark 15:21). Luke says Simon was drafted "as they led (Jesus) away." Luke 23:26) Finally, it is well-established that it was the custom of the Romans to have the prisoner carry his own cross, and that they would have no compunction about forcing bystanders to do whatever they pleased.
The obvious implication is that Simon was drafted at some point after the procession to Golgotha began, probably from among the massive crowd of Passover pilgrims, and the scenario above about John gives us a reasonable explanation for him not mentioning Simon: If John stayed behind to plead with the high priest, the last thing we would have seen was Jesus leaving the area, carrying the cross. (It is McDowell's title, however, that is misleading in this regard; the cited OT type applicable to Jesus refers to one who is weak, and becomes a reproach to others. This probably is better applied to Jesus' general condition throughout the trip to Golgotha, and during the Crucifixion, rather than a specific episode of falling under the cross.)
I am not going to spend a lot of time discussing this traditional "explanation" of the discrepancy, because my purpose is to show the absurdity of Turkel's "paper-shortage" approach to "solving" biblical discrepancies. (In that case, why discuss it at all?) Because the "implications" that Turkel claimed in his speculative spiel quoted above relate to his belief that ambiguities in the Bible--and especially the New Testament--resulted from restraints like paper shortages that wouldn't permit writers to tell enough to remove the need for readers to look for implications that weren't directly stated in their books. Also, we will see further along that Turkel actually used his paper-shortage quibble in another article to "explain" why "John" didn't mention Simon, so is that reason enough to "discuss it at all"? (Hello? Can we keep on focus, here?) I can certainly understand why Turkel would want to divert attention from my focus on his silly paper-shortage quibble, which used an eight-year-old "explanation" of an alleged biblical discrepancy, which he now admits was an incorrect one. However, I think a few comments are in order. Turkel said that "(t)he obvious implication is that Simon was drafted at some point after the procession to Golgotha began" (emphasis added), but Luke clearly said that Simon was drafted as the procession was beginning.
Luke 23:26 As they led him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, and they laid the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus.
This certainly doesn't sound as if Jesus carried the cross "halfway" (which, as we will see below, Turkel claimed) (No, I don't. I don't even use the word "halfway" in that article. X is confusing this with another article, where the word is used only hypothetically.) But Turkel did use the word halfway in the other article, which he has now deleted from his website. Apparently, Turkel's biblical pronouncements aren't as definitive and infallible as he would like for his readers to think, because they become obsolete after eight years and are replaced by new ones. Who knows what he will be saying eight years from now? Oh, I forgot; he was just using halfway "hypothetically" in that other article, wasn't he? As I noted above, when he gets caught in an inconsistency, it invariably turns out that key language in his inconsistency was being used either metaphorically or hyperbolically or hypothetically or, even better, it was written "eight years ago." How silly of me to forget! and then collapsed so that it was necessary to draft someone else to carry the cross. If Jesus collapsed, then, according to Luke, he would have done so "as [the soldiers] led him away." How correct would it be to say that Jesus "bore the cross for himself to Golgatha" if in reality he had collapsed "as they were leading him away," so that Simon of Cyrene was actually the one who carried the cross to Golgotha? (Uh, hello? At what point in the procession were the soldiers "leading" Jesus "away"?) Well, the text quoted above says that the soldiers impressed Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross "as they led [Jesus] away." The verse before this one says that Pilate released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder [Barabbas] and "surrendered Jesus." Then the next verse begins with, "As they led him [Jesus] away..." and goes on to say that they seized Simon of Cyrene and made him carry the cross. "As they led him away" is an adverbial subordinate clause that modifies the verb seized to denote when they seized Simon of Cyrene. They seized him as they were leading Jesus away. Turkel said something above about my taking reading lessons, but we can see here that he needs to take his own advice. (What? Not through the whole journey from Pilate to Golgotha?) Nope, the language of the text won't allow for this quibble. It says that they seized Simon of Cyrene as they led Jesus away from the scene in which Pilate had just released Barabbas to appease the crowd. Matthew added more details and told about a scourging that the soldiers administered to Jesus, after which he said, "As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross" (Matt. 27:32). "As they were going out," they met Simon of Cyrene--what is so hard to understand about that? Yes, I do think that Turkel could profit from his own advice about taking a reading course. (Did the soldiers disappear to leave Jesus to be led by dancing bears? Did they get lost outside Pilate's door and ask Jesus to lead the rest of the way to Golgotha, since he knew the neighborhood?) So once again, we see that Turkel will try to hide behind pathethic attempts at humor when he is unable to resolve a textual problem. One "inspired writer" said that the soldiers met Simon of Cyrene "as they led [Jesus] away," and another said that they met Simon "as they were going out." If Turkel can't understand these texts, he should take down his apologetic shingle until he learns a bit more about how to interpret plain language. (One more point of note. It's pretty tenuous to suggest that Simon went all the way up the hill to the crest of Golgotha.) Why? Just wait till you see Turkel's why. (If the Romans had any sense of security in them, they would have ditched Simon at the base of the hill and given the cross back to Jesus, or taken it themselves.) Turkel hasn't lost his ability to speculate, has he? Let me give him a lesson in basic linguistics. The rule of pronoun-antecedent agreement, which I remember from my studies in biblical languages at "Bam Bam Bible College" were the same in Greek as in "stark English," will show that Simon of Cyrene did go with the crucifixion procession all the way to Golgotha. Pay attention to the pronoun they in the "stark English" of the version that I quote below, which is Turkel's favorite "modern" translation--the NIV.
Matthew 27:32 As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross. 33 They came to a place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull).
Once that Simon had been impressed to carry the cross, he became a part of the they who subsequently came to a place called Golgotha. This interpretation is not only linguistically sound but entirely consistent with other statements in the gospel accounts that clearly dispute Turkel's claim that for security reasons, the Roman soldiers "would have ditched Simon at the base of the hill and given the cross back to Jesus, or taken it themselves." The passages that I will quote below just might teach Turkel that he needs to acquire a bit more knowledge of biblical content before he issues speculations like the security reasons that he tossed out above.
Luke 23:26 As they led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. 27 A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him.
What's that? A large number of people followed him? Yes, that is what it says. The soldiers must have thrown caution to the wind and let a crowd of people follow them to Golgotha. And look at what is said in the rest of this context.
28 Jesus turned and said to them, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For the time will come when you will say, 'Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!' 30 Then "'they will say to the mountains, "Fall on us!" and to the hills, "Cover us!"' 31 For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?"
So the Romans didn't just forget about security and let a crowd follow them, they even paused to let Jesus, who only moments before had been beaten to an inch of his life by the soldiers who scourged him, preach a sermonette to the crowd. Before Turkel tries to argue that the crowd was turned back here, but Luke just didn't have enough paper to include that detail, he needs to read the rest of the context. Notice that pesky little pronoun they.
32 Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals--one on his right, the other on his left.
Before Turkel tries to argue here that the pronoun they that begins verse 33 didn't include the crowd that Jesus had turned to speak to, he should notice what Luke said just two verses later: "The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One" (vs:35). So "people" and "rulers" were on the scene watching and scoffing, and Luke indicated 12 verses later that this wasn't just a small crowd: "When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away" (v:48). Turkel may try to argue that these were people watching from a distance, but to see through that possible quibble, all we have to do is to juxtapose the verse just quoted with the one that immediately followed it.
48 When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. 49 But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.
Notice the but that begins verse 49. In contrast with "all the people" who had gathered at the crucifixion scene to witness it, those who were disciples of Jesus "stood at a distance." Is Turkel still not convinced? Well, let's take a look at Mark's account, which clearly put people besides the Roman soldiers at the scene of the crucifixion.
Mark 15:27 They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left.... 29 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30 come down from the cross and save yourself!" 31 In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! 32 Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe." Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
So Mark also claimed that there were both people on the scene and others passing by who mocked Jesus as he was on the cross. To argue that these scoffers were passing by at a distance and shouting their insults from afar would strain the credulity of those who have no inerrancy axes to grind. Furthermore, "John" claimed that the disciples of Jesus didn't just watch from afar but were "standing nearby," close enough for Jesus to speak to his mother and "the disciple whom he loved": "Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, 'Dear woman, here is your son' 27 and to the disciple, 'Here is your mother'" (John 19:25-27). So much for Turkel's quibble about "security reasons," or perhaps he will now quibble that the Roman soldiers were court martialed later for having been so lax about security, but the gospel writers just didn't have enough scroll space to record it. Anyway, would somebody who lives in the general area of Ocoee, Florida, go by 2609 Greywall Avenue and pull Turkel's foot out of his mouth?
Young's Literal Translation of this verse [Luke 23:46] is, to say the least, very interesting. (And very appealing to a hyperliteralist who just wants "plain English" and not social informing context.) I assume that everyone noticed that Turkel made no attempt at all to show that there was anything incorrect about the "plain English" of Young's translation or to explain what "social informing context" would contradict or discredit Young's translation.
And as they led him away, having taken hold on Simon, a certain Cyrenian, coming from the field, they put on him the cross, to bear it behind Jesus.
Young was a stickler for literalism in his translation, so his use of the perfect participle "having taken hold" indicates his understanding that this text was saying that as they were leading Jesus away, the Romans had already impressed Simon into service. (And as noted, when was this? It stopped at Pilate's door???) I just showed above that the three synoptic accounts very clearly communicate that the "seizing" of Simon of Cyrene occurred when Jesus was being led away from where his "trial" and scourging occurred. If Turkel disagrees, let him explain to us what is wrong with the "plain English" in the translations I have quoted. Both Hendrickson's literal and marginal translations also use the same perfect participle to indicate when Simon was impressed into service. This is a problem in the traditional "solution" that could hardly be explained by Turkel's "paper-shortage" theory, because no significant difference in the space that would be used would be affected to any appreciable degree by a writer's choice of verb tenses. (That's nice. But X has missed the boat in an event, as noted. This one I don't attribute to paper shortage -- I attribute it to John's emphasis against docetism, which can be answered by showing that Jesus did carry a cross, not like an intangible docetic Jesus who couldn't.) In typical fashion, Turkel gave no link here to the article in which he had presumably attributed the carrying of the cross to "John's" desire to debunk the Docetic heresy, and a Google search of his website showed no articles that contained any such references to Docetism. Perhaps Turkel was referring to one of the outdated, eight-year-old articles that he has deleted from his site. Anyway, Docetism was an early Christian belief that Jesus had no real tangible existence but had existed only as an illusion, sort of like a "hologram," which went about doing the things attributed to him in the gospels, so I fail to see how "John" could have been exposing this heresy by having Jesus carry his cross, which Turkel says that a "docetic [sic] Jesus couldn't [have done]." Just how would that have exposed this heresy anymore than dozens of other events attributed to Jesus in the gospels? If people experiencing a sort of mass hallucination could have imagined a Docetic [illusionary] Jesus eating with publicans and sinners or his disciples or being scourged by Roman soldiers, why couldn't they have imagined seeing a "hologram" carrying a cross? Turkel's reference to Docetism here really explains nothing.
One thing about Turkel's apologetics is that he can never be accused of consistency. (Oh boy, watch this, from X, whose one-dimensional thinking sees "inconsistency" in someone who uses the word "tree" to refer one day to a plant, the next day to a rack for holding shoes:) I love it when Turkel puts his foot into his mouth. If my thinking is as "one-dimensional" as he just depicted it, perhaps he can explain why on December 17, 2000, I posted the following message on my Errancy list in reply to a member who thought that he saw a discrepancy in the apostle Peter's speech in Acts 10:39 when he said that Jesus had been killed by "hanging him on a tree."
I find it hard to work up enthusiasm for commenting on issues that have been discussed repeatedly, but I realize that newcomers to the list can't know what has and hasn't been discussed. If McClure will check, he will find that the word translated tree in Acts 10:39 is xulon, which meant an object made from wood, just as tree even in English can convey the same meaning. If McClure will check an English dictionary, he will find that tree can mean a wooden beam, a pole, a club, a stake, a gallows, etc. Of course, old-timers like me who grew up on farms when horses were still used as draft animals are familiar with terms like "single tree" and "double tree," which were simply wooden devices used to hitch horses to wagons.
If McClure will check, he will find that xulon was also used in Acts 5:30 and 13:29; Galatians 3:13; and 1 Peter 2:24 in reference to Jesus hanging on a tree (xulon). This is not a defendable example of a biblical contradiction. Knowledgeable inerrantists will shoot it down immediately.
Notice that I made reference to the number of times that I had previously opposed attempts to make this usage of tree a biblical discrepancy. On March 28, 2003, the same "discrepancy" was brought up on the old alt.bible.errancy list, to which I posted the following reply.
I advise you not to present this as an example of error in the Bible. As we have pointed out several times before on this list, the Greek word for tree in the passages you cited was xulon, which meant a timber, club, staff, stock, etc. If you will check an English dictionary, you will find that we use the word tree in the same sense. I remind those who bring this up that I grew up on a farm when horses were still used for draft animals, and we used double trees and single trees to hitch horses to a wagon or plow. A double tree was a wider, heavier beam of wood than a single tree, but both had to be used to hitch the traces of a team of horses to a wagon or plow. Your dictionary will also tell you that tree in English can mean "gallows."
In other words, just as tree in English can refer to items made of wood and not just to maples, oaks, willows, etc., the same was true in Greek. A xulon could be items that were made from heavy wooden beams; hence, a cross would be a tree.
If you use this against an informed inerrantist, you'll regret it.
Only a week later, someone else posted the same "error," which I replied to by quoting my previous post. I concluded with this admonition: "This is a bad example of a biblical discrepancy, because an informed inerrantist can easily reply to it."
I wouldn't even estimate the number of times that I have pointed out to biblical skeptics that they are distorting the texts referred to above when they try to find a discrepant reference to the way that Jesus died, and those who have subscribed to my Errancy forums know that I have vigorously exposed the overzealous attempts of errantists like Dennis McKinsey and Joe Wallach to find biblical contradicions where none really exist. Hence, Turkel's accusations about my "one-dimensional thinking" and "hyperliteralism" are simply ad hominems not supported by the facts of my actual experiences in debating biblical inerrancy. He resorts to such attacks when he cannot satisfactorily "explain" discrepancies I identify.
Whatever "explanation" comes to mind when he is "refuting" humanist or skeptical examples of discrepancy in the Bible is the one that he will use regardless of what he may have said elsewhere on the same subject. Of course, inconsistency shouldn't be surprising in the writing of an amateur apologist who thinks that inconsistencies in the Bible aren't discrepancies, and inconsistency is what we find in Turkel's "apologetics." Before the quotation above, he had argued earlier in the same article that John stayed behind to plead with the high priest, an assumption that he made from John 18:15, which said only that another disciple "was known to the high priest." Turkel assumes that this other disciple was "John." (Nothing wrong with that. It's a hypothesis many scholars adhere to: John as the beloved disciple. Not that X can more than "soundbite" at it.) I am certainly aware of the traditional view that sees John as this disciple, but why should I waste time replying with more than "sound bites" to an assertion that Turkel himself had only "sound bited"? Notice in the quotation below from Turkel's article that he simply strung together a series of assumptions, "may haves," and "ifs" for which he included no supporting evidence at all, as if to say that whatever he says should be accepted without question.
John just says Jesus carried His cross, but doesn't say that no one else helped. John may not have known of Simon's assistance; since he was known to the high priest (John 18:15) [,] he may have tried to use his acquaintance with the high priest to get Jesus released, and thus missed the trip to Golgotha....
If John stayed behind to plead with the high priest, the last thing we [sic] would have seen was Jesus leaving the area, carrying the cross.
Hence, Turkel was arguing that John didn't mention that Simon carried the cross part of the way, because he was pleading with the high priest, and so the last thing that he saw was Jesus leaving the area carrying the cross. Hence, Turkel speculates that John just didn't know that Simon had been impressed somewhere along the way to carry the cross. That anyone would resort to such an "explanation" as this merely underscores the ridiculous extremes that would-be "apologists" are willing to go to in order to deny that discrepancies are in the Bible. Just look at the problems in this John-didn't-know "explanation." (Just look at the excuses and speculations X will manufacture to criticize my "speculation". [sic]) When we get there, look even closer at Turkel's failure to reply to them except to hurl insults, such as his reference to my "spittle-drenched fans." (Of course, I wrote this article referenced over 8 years ago; these days I would not take a "John didn't know" approach as the best one) Hmmm, so Turkel is saying that he was wrong? That is a refreshing admission from him, but I can't help wondering how much of his hackwork he will be disavowing after eight more years. (and X and his spittle-drenched fans would call such development based on further research an "inconsistency,") See what I mean? When Turkel can't satisfactorily resolve biblical discrepancies, all is not lost. He can always hurl insults to try to hide his failures under barrages of sarcasm. (because in their circles, it is impossible to ever learn anything new,) My reply above to Turkel's attempt to depict me as a "one-dimensional thinker" who would see inconsistency in using tree to refer to a plant and then later using it in reference to a device that holds shoes revealed just how little he knows about the way that I interpret biblical passages, so he is hardly qualified to talk about what is "impossible ever to learn" in my circles. Such comments are his way of trying to distract the attention of his readers from his inability to defend his biblical positions. (and dead languages like Latin and Koine Greek and ancient Hebrew can never have any new insights found about them) When have I ever said this? New insights into dead languages can certainly be made, but I find it rather surprising that the "new insights" that inerrantists come up with are almost invariably the kind that will make discrepancies in the Bible not be discrepancies. I have yet to see an inerrantist present a "new insight" that shows errancy in the Bible, so I have always found their "new insights" a little too convenient to be credible. (but let's look at these anyway:) As we look at them, notice that Turkel's "replies" to them consist primarily of hurling insults.
That the "other disciple," who may or may not have been John, stayed behind to "plead with the high priest" is a crass assumption, because John 18:15 says only that this "other disciple" was "known to the high priest." The text nowhere says that this "other disciple" stayed behind to plead with the high priest after Jesus was taken away. ("Crass assumption" = "It is a sensible assumption in the context of the disciple as the one most beloved by Jesus, and who knew the high priest." Yep. Forget deductive reasoning, it's a ticket to Hades. Ulansey's thesis on Mithraism is full of such "crass assumptions" but for some reason religious scholars think Ulansey is brilliant.) If Turkel had given any specific examples of Ulansey's "crass assumptions" about Mithraism, I would have something to address, but I can hardly be expected just to guess what "brilliant deductions" Turkel had in mind. I assume that Turkel was referring to David Ulansey's book The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World, but anyone who consults reviews and commentaries on Ulansey's theories in this book, especially his view that the depictions of the bull-slaying by the god Mithras were intended to convey the end of the age of Taurus, will see that some experts didn't consider his assumptions to be the "brilliant deductions" that Turkel claims. No doubt, Turkel saw a book or article, perhaps written by Ronald Nash, that presented this view, and so gobbled it up as the general opinion of "religious scholars."
After he had been questioned by the high priest and his council, Jesus was led away to the Praetorium to appear before Pilate, at which time Pilate came out to meet them and told them to take Jesus and judge him themselves (John 18:28-31). At this time, it was still "early" in the day (John 18:28). (Yes, and...? What's the problem? X actually does not have a "reason 2" here;) Why don't I have a "reason"? If Turkel will go back and read by introduction of this list, he will see that I was explaining "problems in this John-didn't-know 'explanation,'" which Turkel was trying to sell. The intention of this list was to show the length of time that would have necessarily passed from when "the other disciple" [John?] stayed behind until Pilate delivered Jesus to be taken away and crucified. Everything that I listed from numbers 1 through 7 would have required "the other disciple" to have stayed with the high priest for a very unlikely length of time--from "early in the day" until the sixth hour [noon]. Turkel's problem seems to be that he can't read plain language and understand it. (this and his next several are the same suggestion, divided down to make the list look longer.) Yes, they were essentially the same, because they were all intended to show that considerable time was passing from 1 through 7, and so Turkel's claim that John probably didn't know that the soldiers had made Simon of Cyrene carry the cross because John wasn't present when Simon was "seized" is highly unlikely. (I'll give some leeway and allow that X's incompetent webmaster MAY have done this inadvertently.) Uh, no, I did it, and if Turkel will look at my first statement after this list of seven, even he should understand what I was doing. I was showing that "a considerable length of time" had to have passed from 1 to 7, and so it wasn't very likely that "the other disciple" had stayed back with the high priest through it all. Turkel really should give some consideration to enrolling in a class to improve his reading ability.
The Jews rejected Pilate's suggestion on the grounds that it was not lawful for them to put a man to death (v:31). What? No comment from Turkel? Not even a slight insult?
Pilate then went back into the Praetorium and called Jesus before him for interrogation (vs:33-38). Still no comment? As we go along, I think everyone will notice that Turkel sometimes went for long stretches without saying anything.
After this interrogation, Pilate went out again to tell the Jews that he could find no fault in Jesus and to ask them what prisoner should be released to them in commemoration of the Passover (vs:38-40).
When the Jews screamed for Barabbas to be released to them, Pilate ordered Jesus to be scourged, after which the soldiers made a crown of thorns, put it on Jesus's head, dressed him in a purple garment, and then mocked him and struck him with their hands (John 19:1-3).
Pilate then went before the Jews again and repeated that he could find no fault with Jesus, and brought him out to let the Jews witness his humiliation (v:5).
Are we to assume that through all of this, which would have required a considerable passage of time, John was still back at the home of the high priest pleading on behalf of Jesus? That requires more credulity than any reasonable person could muster, besides the fact that the biblical text lends no support to it, for if "John" was at the home of the high priest and could therefore report only what he had witnessed, how was he able to report the events numbered 1 through 7 above? (Uh, X? I don't say that John was at the HP's house through ALL of this; all I say is that as Jesus was getting ready to be led away, John went back for one more try -- not to the house of necessity, but to wherever the HP or his reps were -- to get a call from the governor at 11:59, so to speak. Where X gets the idea that I think John was at the HP's house through ALL of this, I cannot say,) Where did I get the idea that Turkel thinks that John was at the high priest's house "through all this"? Well, I will just quote again what Turkel said above. Notice the parts that I underline.
So that's where I got it. Those reading lessons mentioned above are looking more and more advisable for Turkel. (but it's likely due to X's usual problems with basic reading comprehension) What I just showed above entitles me to say, "Look who's talking." ("90% of the website???").) I will just refer everyone again to my previous replies to the 90% matter here and here, which clearly show that the misunderstanding resulted from Turkel's inability to write clearly. (X goes on to blah blah blah for several more lines with his bad self not comprehending properly; so once again we'll spare the dignity of the reader and skip to where he gets off this hobby horse ride into the sunset, and on to:) See what I mean? When Turkel can't reply satisfactorily to an opponent's arguments, he hurls a few sarcasms, like his blah, blah, blahs above, and skips it. Just to bug him, I will quote those skipped paragraphs here. The parts that Turkel deleted actually begin with the final sentence in the last paragraph that he quoted above in his "reply." To lead into that deleted sentence, I will quote from the sentence that preceded it.John just says Jesus carried His cross, but doesn't say that no one else helped. John may not have known of Simon's assistance; since he was known to the high priest (John 18:15)[,] he may have tried to use his acquaintance with the high priest to get Jesus released, and thus missed the trip to Golgotha....
If John stayed behind to plead with the high priest, the last thing we [he?] would have seen was Jesus leaving the area, carrying the cross.
[I]f "John" was at the home of the high priest and could therefore report only what he had witnessed, how was he able to report the events numbered 1 through 7 above? And what about what was said in the verse below?
John 19:5 So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, "Here is the man!" 6 When the chief priests and the police saw him, they shouted, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves and crucify him; I find no case against him."
Turkel's quibble would require us to believe that the chief priests were present at this time, which was before Jesus was led away to be crucified, but that the high priest was not with them because he was back at his home listening to John plead on Jesus's behalf.
After the chief priests had yelled for Jesus to be crucified, Pilate took Jesus back into the Praetorium for further interrogation, after which he brought Jesus out to the judgment seat and tried again to reason with the Jews, but the chief priests (absent the high priest?) cried out again to demand Jesus's crucifixion (v:15), at which time Pilate delivered Jesus to be crucified. At this time, it was the "sixth hour" (v:14), so Turkel apparently expects reasonable people to believe that John had stayed behind "early" in the morning (18:28) to plead on Jesus's behalf before the high priest and that the high priest had sat to listen to John's pleading through at least the sixth hour of the day. Only someone with a very gullible mind could accept such an unlikely scenario, but there are many who read Turkel's absurd speculations and swallow them hook, line, and sinker. That is a sad commentary on the critical skills of Turkel's choir members. Anyone with that kind of mindset is going to believe what he wants to believe no matter how much evidence may clearly indicate that his belief is wrong.
So it isn't hard at all to understand why Turkel blah, blah, blahed this section and deleted it from his "reply." The information that he deleted is incompatible with his claim that "John" didn't refer to Simon of Cyrene, because he was back talking to the high priest when Simon entered the picture. Here is a word of advice to any of Turkel's choir members who may by chance read this article: You have to watch this guy, because he will try to dance around what he can't reply to and justify deleting it on the grounds that it wasn't worth replying to. Now at this point, Turkel resumed quoting my article that he claimed to be "answering."
Aside from this, there is the monkey wrench that divine "inspiration" throws into Turkel's apparent belief that a person who was inspired of God to write a book was not able to include information that he had not experienced in person. How does Turkel explain the many passages of scripture in which writers reported things that they had not witnessed personally? Was the apostle John present on the scene, for example, when the Jews sent representatives to John the Baptist to ask him if he was the Christ (John 1:19-23)? At that time, Jesus had not yet selected his apostles, so if the apostle John was not present to witness this exchange between John the Baptist and the Jewish emissaries, how did he know what they asked and what John the Baptist had said in reply? (X acts as though John had to be selected before he could witness any of Jesus' history. How about: John was a disciple of John the Baptist before he was a disciple of Jesus?) How about some textual evidence to support that speculation? There is a tradition that John was a disciple of John the Baptist before Jesus "called" him to lay down his fishing nets and follow him Matt. 4:21. That tradition is based largely on John 1:35-42, which tells the tale of two disciples who were with John the Baptist as Jesus walked by. The passage later identified one of these disciples as Simon Peter's brother Andrew, but the other one was not identified. The tradition that made this other disciple John is just that--a tradition. Even if Turkel could prove beyond all doubt that the apostle John was once a disciple of John the Baptist, that would not affect in the least the point that I was making. The gospel of "John" is filled with information that he could not have known about from what he had personally witnessed, and, as anyone can see by reading the quotation above from his article, that is Turkel's excuse for "John's" omission of Simon of Cyrene from the crucifixion possession. He claims that "John" didn't know about Simon because he was not present when Simon was impressed to carry the cross. However, John wasn't present when at the feast of the Jews, before Jesus went up to the temple, the people in the crowd were debating among themselves whether Jesus was a good man or a deceiver (John 7:11-13), so how did he know what they had said? "John" wasn't present during the conversations that took place between the temple guards and the Pharisees and chief priests (John 7:45-52), so how did he know what was said during these exchanges? "John" wasn't present when Jesus had the conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:4-25). The text, in fact, specially says that the disciples returned as the conversation ended, and they were surprised ro see him talking to the woman (John 4:27). How, then, did "John" know what was said during this conversation? "John" didn't go back to the village with this woman, so how did he know what she said to the people living there (John 4:28-29)? Turkel, of course, will say that Jesus told him what was said in the conversation and will explain the others by claiming that "John" heard about what the woman had said in the village and what the temple guards and Pharisees had talked about, etc. etc., etc. If so, then he will need to explain to us why "John" was told just about every piddling little detail about Jesus that happened "off stage" when he wasn't present except for a rather important matter like a man named Simon of Cyrene's having been impressed to carrying the cross. If Turkel resorts to this kind of rationalization, I will leave it to rational readers to decide just how credible it is. (How about: He got the data from Peter (but didn't get the Simon info, because he didn't see a need to ask about it)?) Well, duh, if "John" didn't know about it, he wouldn't very well have seen a need to ask about it, would he? It just seems strange that "John" knew to ask about such mundane matters as what had been said in conversations between rather minor characters when he wasn't present but didn't bother to ask what had happened at the crucifixion procession while he was back jawboning with the high priest. (Can we think in more than one dimension here?) I wonder the same thing about Turkel. Just why does he think that "John" reported in his gospel only the things that he knew from having been present when they happened, whereas other biblical writers, as I showed in my three-part series on the biblical-inerrancy doctrine, claimed that they were reporting the very words that God or the Holy Spirit had given to them. The apostle Paul, for example, said that the gospel he had preached to the Galatians was not something he had "made up" or had "received from any man" or had been "taught" to him but had been received "by revelation from Jesus Christ" (Gal. 1:12). I guess, then, that the apostle Paul was more favored by the deities that be than were the other biblical writers and especially "John." Paul received his information by divine revelation, but "John" could write about only what he had personally witnessed or some other human being had told him had happened. I can't help wondering how "John" was able to know that what all of those people told him was accurate reporting of what had happened. Pssst, everybody, lean in while I whisper a prediction to you. If Turkel replies to this article, he will skip over what I just said above. (X then harks back to his same poor reading above, so we have more to skip to:) There he goes again, skipping that which he can't answer satisfactorily. Why don't we take a look at what "hark[ed] back to [my] poor reading above?
Furthermore, if the apostle John was back at the home of the high priest pleading on Jesus's behalf and therefore could not report what he didn't personally see, how did he know what had happened between 18:28 [when the unnamed disciple, presumably John, remained with the high priest] and the time that Turkel surmises that John finally made it to the crucifixion scene, apparently somewhere midway in chapter 19? All of the events listed above (Pilate's interrogation of Jesus, the scourging, the mocking, etc.) happened during that interval, when Turkel speculates that the apostle John wasn't present, so how did John know that they had happened? There are more holes in this silly quibble than one could ever find in a sieve.
See why Turkel deleted this and justified the deletion by some lame reference to my "poor reading"? Everyone will see in the next part of this series that there was nothing wrong with my reading ability. I said that Turkel used his paper-shortage quibble to try to "explain" why "John" failed to mention Simon of Cyrene, and I will be quoting from an article where he said exactly that.
So that the parts of my point-by-point replies to
Turkel's farcical attempt to
defend his paper-shortage quibble won't become tediously long, this
will be a good place to
conclude this section. I will continue my reply in the next
part.
