Turkel:
We waited almost 5 weeks beyond a promised deadline, but eventually, I noted that the buzzards were circling the mailbox, and sure enough, there it was, the issue of The Skeptical Review in which C. Farris McTill gives us all his skinny on preterism in response to our item.

Till:
I told Turkel that I would finish my reply to his "Olivet Discourse" the first week in August, and I did.  I don't maintain the TSR site; I write the articles and send them to someone else who puts them on this site.  This person has a job that he must go to each day.  He doesn't make his living by begging for money on a website, so there will usually be a delay between my completion of articles and their posting. At the time, he was also having computer problems that had to be fixed before he could post my reply. As I write this, there are three additional parts to my land-promise reply being processed for posting.  Also, I might add that I put substance into my replies to Turkel, a feature that is missing in Turkel's work, so I necessarily take more time to complete my articles.  I also spend quite a bit of time proofreading and editing my articles, which are processes obviously unknown to Turkel, so that too requires more time.  In a word, I don't crank out hackwork, and he does.  It's a simple difference in quality and quantity.

Turkel:
I purposely challenged McTill on this one some time back, first because it was just too easy, knowing how his comprehension of Biblical scholarship approached that of a box of rocks, when he opened that cavern he calls a mouth and dissed preterism, to say, "Oh yeah? Put your money where your mouth is, and don't miss any change!"

Till:
As I have pointed out in other replies to Turkel, I never said anything even remotely similar to what he said above.  I simply said in a message to him that I didn't agree that the New Testament taught the preterist position, and asked him to send me the URL of an article that he said he was writing on the subject.  He has since turned this into a dare to debate the subject with him.  I have corrected this misrepresentation enough that if Turkel keeps repeating it, I can only conclude that he is intentionally lying.  If he claims otherwise, I defy him to produce any message I ever sent to him that contained a challenge to debate preterism, which, as far as I am concerned, is essentially a doctrinal matter that Bible believers dispute among themselves and is not directly related to biblical inerrancy beyond its being a strained attempt to explain away the failed prophecies of Jesus's imminent return.

The truth is that this debate on preterism is Turkel's idea.  He challenged me to debate preterism, and I suspect that his reasons for doing so were to (1) detract attention from  the beating he was taking on the land-promise issue and other "rebuttals" of his that I have replied to and (2) to detract attention from his refusal to debate issues more directly related to biblical inerrancy, such as prophecy fulfillment.  If he can keep me busy on the subject of preterism, which, as I just noted, is actually a doctrinal dispute more than an inerrancy matter, this will minimize the reminders his readers will see of his refusal to defend a very fundamental issue concerning biblical inerrancy.  Were biblical prophecies fulfilled with the exactness that pulpit preachers constantly claim?  Turkel's readers will never know, because he isn't going to touch this issue with a ten-foot pole.

I am, nevertheless, happy to accommodate Turkel in this matter, because it gives me another opportunity to expose his biblical ignorance to his readers.  Reciprocation would be in order, so now that I have debated a subject of interest to Turkel, he should be willing to debate an issue like prophecy fulfillment, but readers shouldn't hold their breaths until he agrees to do that.  He has looked bad enough already.  He doesn't want to make matters worse.

I'm dropping these comments again so that Turkel's readers will be reminded that he is running scared on the subject of biblical prophecy.  If I drop enough reminders, maybe Turkel will get busy and gather enough "data" to take a stab at defending biblical prophecy fulfillments.

Turkel:
Second, because I think it will serve as a perfect example of how McTill the fundaliteralist gets himself gigged by what Wright calls "the folly of trying to fit the hurricane of first-century Jewish theology into the bottle of late-modern western categories."

Till:
Oh, did "Wright" say this?  Then it must be true, because all it takes to make a statement true is for Turkel to quote it.  I assume everyone noticed that Turkel only quoted the statement but made no effort to prove that it contained any truth, that is, any proof that there was anything taking place in the first century that could be validly compared metaphorically to a hurricane.

Turkel:
 McTill is standing out in this hurricane; his clothes blew off hours ago, his hair is all missing, his glasses are now in Yokohama, and he's still trying to spit hard enough so that the gob won't go backwards and dribble into his ear. Seeing this happen was worth the time.

Till:
As I said above, Turkel has presented no evidence of first-century events that would justify their metaphorical comparison to a hurricane.  As for my glasses, I don't wear glasses, thanks to the results of lasik surgery.  At the moment, I have 20/20 vision, which, for reasons that I will explain later, I will not enjoy indefinitely.  My hair?  It's all here.  Thanks to the laws of genetics, which passes baldness through the mother's side, and a mother who came from a family in which baldness was unknown.

Turkel:
It's worth beginning with some comments McTill burbles out in an article that was actually mostly about how the paper-rag ed. of TSR is going the way of the dodo -- further, that is -- to be replaced by the sterling aluminum can of the online version.

Till:
This "rag" that Turkel talks about was published for 13 years, and it has enough material in it to convince any person whose mind isn't rusted shut that biblical inerrancy is a fantasy that can't be defended.  I wouldn't try to estimate the number of letters, phone calls, and e-mail messages I have received from people who expressed appreciation for the help that The Skeptical Review gave them in throwing off the fetters of biblical fundamentalism.  I seriously doubt that Turkel has ever had a biblical skeptic or atheist write to him and say that he/she at one time had no belief in the divine origin of the Bible but after reading Turkel's website, they became convinced that God did indeed inspire this book.

Turkel's comment above is another example of his stock in trade.  He thinks that he can discredit persons, arguments, or in this case a paper, by hurling insults at them.  He doesn't have the slightest idea what constitutes valid debating.

Turkel:
Feeling pretty put on, McTill took the chance to waste paper and render thousands of small, furry animals homeless with a bit of well-poisoning.

Till:
Turkel actually has the gall to accuse me of "well-poisoning"?  I will remind him again, as I have done many times, of the old adage about the pot calling the kettle black.  What did I say in my article or in any article that even comes close to matching the venom and hatred that spews forth from his articles?

As much as possible, I will ignore his insults except to note that whenever I read one of Turkel's articles, I always feel the opposite of king Agrippa, who said after hearing an impassioned speech by the apostle Paul, that he was almost persuaded to become a Christian (Acts 26:28).  If ever I have seen anyone whose personal character epitomizes that which a Christian should not be, that would be Robert Turkel, who seems unable to write a paragraph without hurling insults at whoever happens to be the author of what he is "answering."  I understand his problem, however, because it must be frustrating for someone aspiring to be a full-time internet "apologist" to see the fallacies in his "arguments" shattered to pieces.

Turkel:
To begin, he describes preterism as the belief that "Jesus returned rather inconspicuously in 70 AD..." Inconspicuously? McTill must miss it when that phalanx of Hell's Angels drives through his living room every morning. The 70 "return" ("advent" would be a better word) was vastly conspicuous, involving the destruction of a people (nearly) and a nation, the end of the "age of the law" by Christian understanding, and the ushering in of the age of the Messiah. McTill must be some kind of anti-Semite if he brays off the events of 70 as "inconspicuous".

Till:
Turkel's preterist claim that AD 70 marked the "end of the age of law" is completely contrary to New Testament teachings that are clear enough to understand by anyone who doesn't have a pet theory to defend.  I assume that Turkel would agree that the epistles of the apostle Paul were written before AD 70, so if he thinks that they were "inspired" and "inerrant," he will have to agree that the "age of the law" ended well before AD 70.

Colossians 2:13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, ¹⁴having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. ¹⁵Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

Ephesians 2:11  For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, ¹⁵having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.

The New Testament teaches that the "law of commandments" was abrogated by the death of Jesus on the cross.  It is a silly doctrine, of course, which I believe about as much as I believe in the Tooth Fairy, but I'm not responsible for what the "inspired, inerrant word of God" teaches, and it clearly teaches that the death of Jesus on the cross abrogated the law of Moses.  The continuation of the passage cited above in Colossians 2 makes it doubly clear that Paul was talking about law of Moses when he referred to "the handwriting of requirements" that was nailed to the cross.

¹⁶So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, ¹⁷which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. ¹⁸Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, ¹⁹and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.

Under the law of Moses one was judged--and rather severely at times--in respect to food and drink, festivals, new moons, and sabbaths, because the law of Moses had required a strict observance of these.  With the death of Jesus, however, these were nailed to the cross, or so the apostle Paul said.

Turkel spoke disparagingly above about my understanding of biblical scholarship, which he compared to a "box of rocks," but if Turkel doesn't know that the New Testament teaches that the first covenant, i. e., the law of Moses, was abolished with the death of Jesus and replaced with a new covenant, then he should try to find himself a box of rocks and try to measure up at least to their level of intelligence as he considers this very fundamental New Testament doctrine.

Romans 7:1  Or do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? ²For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. ³So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. ⁴Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God. ⁵For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. ⁶But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

Paul could have used a little help in making his analogy, because he compares the freeing of a wife to marry again by reason of her husband's death to a wife's becoming "dead to the law" so that she could be married to another.  The analogy would have been more parallel if Paul had had the law dying so that the wife could be married to another; however, the meaning of the passage is clear enough.  The law ended [died], and so "we" were delivered from the law.  Since Paul wrote this around AD 57, over a decade before AD 70, he could not have meant that the "end of the age of law" had happened when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem.

If Turkel can find himself a box of rocks, maybe they will tell him to read the book of Hebrews in order to gain a better understanding of when the new "advent" began.  First, let's notice that the Hebrew writer said that a second covenant had replaced a flawed first covenant. 

Hebrew 8:7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.

It's difficult to understand how the first covenant could have been flawed if Yahweh, the perfect one, had given it to the Hebrews, but as I have often said, I didn't write the Bible.  I just quote it and point out its flaws.  Anyway, after saying that there had been a need for a second covenant to replace the flawed first covenant, the Hebrew writer explained when the second covenant was instituted.

Hebrew 9:11 But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. ¹²Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. ¹³For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, ¹⁴how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? ¹⁵And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

Although I was once dumb enough to take such stuff as this seriously, it is now difficult for me to talk with a straight face about ancient superstitions concerning blood sacrifices, but my task is to show that the New Testament clearly disagrees with Turkel's--er, DeMar's--claim that the "end of the age of law" came with the destruction of Jerusalem.  The passage above, for example, claimed that just as the first tabernacle was sanctified with the sprinkling of the blood of bulls and goats, so the second tabernacle was sanctified with the blood of Jesus, which he took with him into the "Most Holy Place" to obtain "eternal salvation" with just one offering of his blood to make obsolete the annual requirements of blood sacrifices.  Notice that verse 15 then said, "And for this reason [the eternal efficacy of the one sacrifice of the blood of Jesus], he is the mediator of the new covenant by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant."  In other words, as preachers love to say, the blood of Jesus flowed in two directions, back to the time of the first covenant to wash away the sins of the those who had lived under the law of Moses, and forward to wash away the sins of those who live under the new covenant.  It is a silly, superstitious belief, but, as I have said, I am not responsible for what the Bible says, and it clearly says what I have just quoted and explicated. What it says obviously conflicts with the preterist  position that the "age of the law" ended in AD 70.  The New Testament claims that it ended long before this.

The passage just quoted also says that Jesus became the mediator of the new covenant by means of death; hence, this is a verification of what the apostle Paul said in the passages previously quoted: the death of Jesus ended the era of the law of Moses, the so-called first covenant, and instituted a new one.  The death of Jesus occurred about four decades before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, so Turkel's preterist theory--which isn't his theory, of course, but only one that he is parroting--is about 40 years too late in dating the end of the first covenant.

Is Turkel still not satisfied?  Well, let's just read on in Hebrews 9.

¹⁶For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. ¹⁷For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives.

So the Hebrew writer was stating just a simple legal fact: wills or testaments take force after the deaths of those who made them.  Hence, if the "new testament" or "new covenant" is the new testament or covenant of Jesus, it took force well before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

But let's read on.

¹⁸Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood. ¹⁹For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, ²⁰saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you."  ²¹Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. ²²And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.

²³Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. ²⁴For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; ²⁵not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another—²⁶He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. ²⁷And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, ²⁸so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.

Is Turkel still not convinced?  No, he isn't.  Even if I found a New Testament text that said Jesus did not come in his kingdom when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, he still wouldn't budge an inch on his position.  All I can do is just bombard readers with passages that clearly taught that the "age of the law" ended with the death of Jesus on the cross, well before the destruction of Jerusalem.

Galatians 23-25 But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

Did "faith" come before AD 70?  If so, then according to the apostle Paul, "we" were not under the law at the time that the Romans destroyed Jerusalem.

Galatians 4:21-26 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar--for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children--but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.

I will emphasize again that such doctrines as these are based in ancient superstitions that rational people should find hard to accept, but the passages say what they say, and they say that the antitypes of those things symbolized by the first tabernacle were purified with the blood of Jesus, which he took with him into the second tabernacle after he had become the mediator of his new or second covenant.  Perhaps Turkel thinks that Jesus sat around for 40 years drumming his fingers and keeping his blood on ice, waiting for the destruction of Jerusalem to end the "age of the law" [first covenant] before he entered into the antitype of the first tabernacle and sprinkled his blood around.

Turkel:
(He's actually probably confused about what preterism teaches, and with a heretical variation of it; see below.)

Till:
Actually, preterists are the confused ones, because they don't even agree on major points of this attempt to explain away the New Testament passages that obviously taught an imminent return of Jesus.  Some teach a doctrine known as "full preterism," and others teach a version they call "partial preterism."  Turkel, who hasn't been at all clear in explaining  what exactly he is defending, appears to be a partial preterist.  He said that I was confused with a "heretical version of it," but why is "full preterism" a heretical version?  Well, my goodness, it is a heretical version, because Turkel says that it is. Keep in mind that he is the Humpty Dumpty of biblical apologetics, so words mean what he arbitrarily declares that they mean, and that applies to doctrines too.  When Turkel accepts one version of two variations of a goofy doctrine, then the one that he doesn't accept automatically becomes a heretical version.

Heresy is a religious concept, so I won't say that either version of preterism is "heretical."  I'll leave it to the preterists to decide which is the heretical camp. They are both goofy attempts to explain away a serious problem in the New Testament that has resulted from the failure of Jesus to return in the lifetime of his generation, as many New Testament passages said that he would do.

Turkel:
And speaking of cheap smears, he offers one on Gary DeMar as a "preterist with ties to Reconstructionism" which McTill says is a movement that want to return us all to biblical principles like "execution by stoning for violations of Mosaic laws." To McTill the Smearician, this "speaks volumes about the kind of mindset that Turkel relies on to try to make another goofy religious belief sound respectable." Of course this comes from a guy who thinks I wanted him to pay for 90% of my website and spreads misinformation about me being "laid off," so I wouldn't take for granted that he got any of his readings right and is reporting them accurately here, either.

Till:
Well, if Turkel didn't stipulate as a condition for debating me that I pay 90% of the cost of space for my article on his website, then I'm unable to understand what he meant below, which I have quoted directly from his site.  In his acceptance of my challenge to debate in an open internet forum, he stipulated three ridiculous conditions.  The one below was his second condition.

2  I pay for this site, so correspondent with the 90% fluff ratio I demand that Till pay for 90% of the costs of hosting any item he submits -- whether he meets challenge #1 above or not. Obviously the amount would have to be determined based on going rates for server space and the length of the article written. I also want payment for 8 years in advance (about the time I have the tektonics.org name reserved). Based on Till's behavior I am not so sure he'll be around that long before giving himself a coronary, and I think the security is a good idea.

Since it would not have been possible to determine how much I might write in our debates over an eight-year period or even if I would live that long, I could conclude only that he was demanding that I pay the 90% for eight years in advance.  If Turkel didn't mean this, he should pay a little more attention to quality and not so much to quantity in what he posts on his site.  If he does this, maybe he will be able to express himself more clearly. 

As for being laid off from his prison library job, is it not true that Turkel was once a librarian at Lake Correctional Institute near Clermont, Florida, but lost this job when the state cut the number of prison librarians?  Turkel has told me that he magnanimously volunteered to give up his job so that someone else could retain his/hers, but he will excuse me if I don't necessarily believe this.  Compassion and generosity are not traits that I have seen in Turkel's writings, and one's writing reflects the person's personality.  Readers who think that such a financial sacrifice would likely be made by Turkel should go and read Tektonics' main page to get an idea of how much emphasis he puts on money.  This page shows such an obsession with getting money from his readers that Turkel's eyes must have dollar signs for pupils.

Turkel:
McTill also knows we'll nail his shimmying hiney for such a ridiculous genetic fallacy,

Till:
If Turkel could nail my "shimmying hiney," he would have done so long ago, but all he can do is spit and sputter over the detailed refutations of his "arguments" that I have been posting.  I have noticed that the fervor with which he hurls insults at me seem to increase exponentially with the number of rebuttals that I post. 

From my perspective, the only one whose "shimmying hiney" has been nailed is Turkel's.  About all Turkel can do when his has been nailed to the wall is quote some "scholar" who agrees with him, as if that settles the matter.  Anyone with a lick of sense knows that finding some book that agrees with one's religious belief is as simple as sitting on a wall and taking a great fall, as Humpty Dumpty has done.

Turkel:
so he cautiously and hurriedly adds that this "doesn't disprove [DeMar's] preterist beliefs [yet I will bring it up anyway for effect]"

Till:
No, I didn't "cautiously" add this.  I added it because it is a simple fact of logic.  The truth or falsity of a claim is always independent of its source, so the fact that DeMar is a preterist doesn't automatically make anything he says on the subject wrong.  That is not to say, however, that the credibility of Turkel's main source is not automatically suspicious because of DeMar's well publicized position in this matter.  Would one consider Charlton Heston, for example, to be a credible source to quote in a debate over the issue of gun ownership?  Even a person who could see through a keyhole with both eyes at the same time would know that Heston would not take any position in this matter except the one that favors the general ownership of guns.  Does Turkel seriously expect us to think that an established preterist would say anything but that preterism is taught in the New Testament?

Turkel:
and snidely tacks on that use of DeMar is like "quoting the National Enquirer to try to prove that alien beings are visiting the earth in UFOs."  Ha ha! You can tell when McTill has his back against the wall and his hackles raised.

Till:
Snidely?  Turkel has the gall to accuse me of being snide?  There is the pot calling the kettle black again.  I love it.

Speaking of raised hackles, I see no raised hackles except those down in Florida, and that is evident from his failure to write a sentence in this part of his article that didn't drip with sarcasm and insults.  He is the one who is using derision like "McTill," which is supposed to mean what, by the way? If my name were really McTill, what would he do, call me "Tilly" or "Till-Willy"?  I'm just writing my replies and resisting the temptation to call him "Turkey," because such antics don't really contribute anything to the debate.  They do, however, show very clearly that Turkel is suffering from the frustration of having to confront an informed opposition instead of preaching to the choir on his closed website, where he was always assured of garnering oohs and aahs from his admirers.  Not always getting that kind of adulation seems to be taking a toll on him.

My reference to the National Enquirer was a sound analogy in my opinion.  When someone has established himself as a confirmed preterist, as Gary DeMar has done, quoting him or citing books by him to support one's preterist position is a tactic about as credible as if an advocate of alien UFO visits should quote the National Enquirer as proof that such visits are real.  The reason for this is as obvious as what Ralph Waldo Emerson said in his famous essay "Self-Reliance."

If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument.  I hear a preacher announce for his text and topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church.  Do I not know beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous word?  Do I not know that, with all this ostentation of examining the grounds of the institution, he will do no such thing?  Do I not know that he is pledged to himself not to look but at one side--the permitted side, not as a man, but as a parish minister?  He is a retained attorney, and these airs of the bench are the emptiest affectation.  Well, most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars.  Their every truth is not quite true.

That is the situation with Turkel's primary source, Gary Demar.  He is a committed preterist, so anyone with common sense knows in advance that whatever DeMar has to say about scriptures related to the return of Jesus will favor the preterist view.  If Turkel were debating some aspect of biblical inerrancy with someone else, how impressed would he be if his opponent quoted me as evidence that errors exist in the Bible?  If he were debating the existence of "God," how impressed would Turkel be with quotations from the writings of a known atheist or books published by Prometheus or American Atheist?  The fact that Turkel can't see that quoting confirmed preterists to try to prove preterism is a seriously flawed method of argumentation speaks volumes about his inability to think logically.

Turkel:
It's times like that when he scratches for any loose association he can. DeMar's "ties with" Reconstructionism are about the same as McTill's "ties with" C. Dennis McKinsey, in that both promulgate biblical errancy.

Till:
My opposition to McKinsey's extremist approach to identifying errors in the Bible is a well known fact among skeptics, but I guess Turkel hasn't heard about this yet.  McKinsey and I are both biblical errantists, however, so if I quoted anything from McKinsey's Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy in order to try to prove that there are errors in the Bible, how would Turkel react to that?  If he will answer this and explain why he wouldn't be impressed with anything I quote from McKinsey's works, then he just might understand why I am not impressed when he quotes writers who are dedicated to whatever position he is trying to prove.  Unless Turkel is as dumb as a "box of rocks," he should see the force of what I am saying.

Turkel:
If I work hard enough I can prove that McTill has "ties to" the Skinheads because one of his third cousins once shook hands with someone who, in a crowd, inadvertently brushed against Tom Metzger. Try wiping the tar off of THAT brush.

Till:
Here is an example of Turkel's inability to think rationally.  Brushing against someone who has bigoted views is nowhere close to being equivalent to someone who has written extensively on a subject that he has come to be closely identified with.  If readers want to know just how much DeMar has written on preterism and Christian Reconstruction, they should go to the internet and type his name into a search window.

Turkel:
At any rate, to the main article, and as a maintenance note, McTill says he has more to come online. We'll see how many eons that takes to put together.

Till:
I replied to this section of Turkel's tirade in the November/December 2002 issue of The Skeptical Review in which I included a more detailed explanation of health reasons that have required me to discontinue publication of the paper edition of TSR. One of those reasons is the beginning stage of macular degeneration, which requires me to curtail the time I spend staring at a computer screen.  Until I learned about this, I was spending 12-14 hours per day at my computer, but I now have to cut that time significantly.  As I said in my reply to Turkel in TSR, if a 34-year-old jerk can't understand why I can no longer put in as much computer time as he does, then that will be in keeping with the "Christian" character that we see day in and day out in the articles he writes, where his primary goal seems to be to see how insulting he can be.  Just what you would expect of a follower of Jesus!

As it is, I am giving Turkel fits in the rebuttals to his articles that I am able to write on my shortened work schedule. His raving tirades are proof that I am getting under his skin. I would ask readers to read carefully to see how I made a complete fool of Turkel in Part Two of this reply when I showed clearly and undeniably that if the New Testament is indeed the "inspired, inerrant word of God," the Greek word oikoumene can mean and did at times mean the entire world.

Will Turkel admit this when he sees my rebuttal arguments?  Will pigs fly someday?

Go to Part Two