Till:
Part Four consisted almost entirely of a tangent that Turkel led us into as he cut and pasted an article he had written several years ago in an attempt to explain that Jeremiah 7:22 did not conflict with other biblical passages that claimed Yahweh had commanded sacrifices of the Israelites when they came out of Egypt.  That issue had nothing to do with preterism, which Turkel is supposed to be defending.  Readers should have no difficulty seeing that Turkel never really gets down to trying to answer my rebuttal arguments in "The Humpty Dumpty of Biblical Apologetics," which I published in The Skeptical Review (September/October 2002) in reply to his--er, DeMar's--"Olivet Discourse," but at least he comes back to the issue in this section long enough to restate his position that prophetic references to falling stars, the darkening of the sun and moon, and such like were just "apocalyptic" language.  We will see that his proof consists of citing "scholars" like Caird and DeMar <snicker, snicker> who said that such language was apocalyptic.  I hope readers will be alert to notice that the sources he cites merely assert but offer no textual explications to try to support their assertions. 

Now watch Humpty Dumpty take the biggest tumble of his latest fall.

Turkel:
Third, there is more to Till's chauvinism. Once again remarking upon the "Semitic mindset," he writes:

...we have to wonder about the intelligence of a deity who would reveal his word in a way that could be understood by only a tribe of desert nomads who had 'Semitic minds,' and the rest of the world would just have to wonder what he meant.

Till:
What exactly is Turkel replying to here?  He is supposed to be answering my rebuttal arguments in "The Humpty Dumpty of Biblical Apologetics," which was a reply to his/DeMar's preterist spin on Matthew 24, but I made no such statement as this in my article.  I have checked "The Uniqueness of the Bible," which was my article of several years ago that he used as an excuse to get off on the Jeremiah 7:22 tangent, but I have found no statement like this in it.  I know that I have made statements like this in past articles, but if Turkel is going to quote me, it would be nice if he identified the source of the quotation.  It isn't as if I have written only two or three articles and will be able to remember everything that I have written in them.

I like for readers to evaluate quotations from my writings in the context in which I put them, so I took the time to do a search-and-find of all files in my computer.  I found that the truncated quotation above was written in my reply to Turkel's attempt to prove that there is no inconsistency between the praise heaped on Jehu in 2 Kings 10:30 for the massacre of the royal family of Israel and Hosea's condemnation of it in Hosea 1:4.  Turkel wagged Jeremiah 7:22 into that debate too, and tried to resolve everything by saying that "commentators of all stripes" agreed with his position and that I just didn't understand the "Semitic mind."  In response to that, I wrote the following.

So once again we have Turkel to tell us what "commentators of all stripes" think, but he would impress us more if he would give us a simple explanation for why Yahweh couldn't have inspired Jeremiah to say exactly what the divine position was on sacrifices. Look how easy it would have been for Jeremiah to write the passage to say clearly what Turkel says he really meant: "Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I spoke to them and commanded them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I didn't mean that they should think that just the outward act of offering sacrifices was all I wanted. I wanted them to offer their sacrifices with the right attitude, to be mindful of the importance of honesty, mercy, and justice. This is why I also gave them another command:  'Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you'" (1 Till 7:22).

Now if I, as fallible as I am (which Turkel apparently thinks is quite fallible), can write the passage that clearly, why couldn't an omniscient, omnipotent deity have done just as well? Oh, but I forgot; I don't have a "Semitic mind," and so that would account for the difference.  To the Semitic mind, so biblicists say, a written text didn't always mean what it said; it sometimes meant something else that only a Semitic mind could figure out. If this is true, we have to wonder about the intelligence of a deity who would reveal his word in a way that could be understood by only a tribe of desert nomads who had "Semitic minds," and all the rest of the world would just have to wonder what he meant. If Turkel is so interested in how "minds" think, he should do a study of the fundamentalist mind.  Now there's a real challenge.

As for Turkel's claim that he has "commentators of all stripes" on his side in the Jeremiah 7:22 matter, I showed rather conclusively in Part Four that this is not the case.  Many commentators think that Jeremiah 7:22 meant what it plainly said and that Jeremiah was one of several prophets who were opposed to the sacrificial system instituted by corrupt priests.

Turkel:
Scraping the mud from this crass display of chauvinism, we have these observations:

Till:
Excuse me, but does Turkel even know what chauvinism means?  The word had its origin in the name of Nicholas Chauvin, a Napoleonic soldier who became noted for his extreme devotion to the lost cause of the imperialism of his time.  The word has since been used to denote those who are belligerently or fanatically patriotic or unreasonably devoted to lost causes, and it has been secondarily used to apply to those who show unreasonable devotion to their race or sex.

I think it is easy, then, to see who is chauvinistic, because Turkel has set himself to the defense of an absurd position, i. e., the inerrancy of a collection of ancient documents written in prescientific, highly superstitious times when people believed in talking animals, routine visits from gods and angels, floating axeheads, divine revelations via dreams, resurrections from the dead, and other absurdities too numerous to mention.  Turkel fanatically (chauvinistically) defends these tales.  I don't.  My position is that some material in the Bible is true, but all of it?  Only a fanatical chauvinist would claim that it was.

As for scraping the mud away from what I said, what is so "chauvinistic" about saying that an omniscient, omnipotent deity should be able to "inspire" his chosen authors to write in language that would clearly communicate the omni-one's revelations?  As I showed in my example above, I could easily have written Jeremiah 7:22 to make it communicate in language too clear to be misunderstood what Turkel claims the omni-one meant for it to say.  Is it unreasonable then to think that if Jeremiah had really meant what Turkel is claiming, the inspiration of an omni-max deity should have enabled him to communicate that idea in clear language?

Here is an alert for readers.  Turkel doesn't like to talk about the clarity that an omniscient, omnipotent deity should have been able to "inspire," so watch him hop, skip, and jump over this in any "reply" that he may write.  Oh, he may hurl a "McTill" or two at it and bless us with another phone call from "Hyper the Literalist," but he will not try to reconcile his "Semitic-mind" spin on Jeremiah 7:22 with the logical necessity of clear communication in a book presumably inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity. Watch the pooh-poohs fly.

Turkel:
Re: "only a tribe of desert nomads" and "the rest of the world" - here again Till displays his abundant ignorance of basic anthropology and sociology. This sort of thinking and language I have described was also familiar to other ANE cultures:

Till:
Yes, I completely forgot that in his 34 years, Turkel somehow managed to become an expert in ancient Near Eastern cultures and languages while he was working as a prison librarian.  How stupid of me!  I should have remembered that in matters of anthropology and sociology, he is the cat's meow. 

Turkel:
The Babylonians, the Assyrians, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, etc. would have understood quite clearly the point being made once informed of the particulars.

Till:
We have Turkel's word for this, so we can be sure that he is right, because Turkel knows everything there is to know about Babylonia, Assyrian, Moabite, Ammonite, and Edomite cultures and languages.  Why, I'll bet that we could even throw in Canaanite, Philistine, Phoenician, and Egyptian languages and cultures for good measure.

There is no doubt a kernel of truth in what he is saying.  Language families share similarities in vocabulary, morphology, syntax, semantics, and grammatical features, but Turkel is either missing the point or else sees it and is pretending that he doesn't.  Those who see the Bible as "the word of God"--and Turkel would be in that group--believe that God had a "plan."  That plan entailed selecting a "chosen people" through whom Yahweh could eventually send a Messiah to redeem the world from "sin" (as if God couldn't have selected a "Mary" from just any tribe of people at any time and sent his "son" into the world through her or just simply declared that he had forgiven mankind).  The Bible was presumably "inspired" of God to give the world an account of the unfolding of his redemptive plan, so that all nations, all over the world, could read and learn of God's love for humanity.  People like Turkel ask us to believe this, yet we are simultaneously told that we need to know the "Semitic mind" and Hebrew "nuances" in order to understand God's "inspired word."  A person born in, say, 20th-century AD China will read this "inspired word" and not fully understand it, because he/she isn't familiar with the "Semitic mind" and Hebrew "nuances" and idioms.  Turkel would say that the failure to understand is the modern person's fault for not speaking a language that is "colorful" in its idioms.

The point that I keep hammering home to Turkel is that such claims as this are completely incompatible with the claim that the Bible was "inspired" by an omniscient, omnipotent deity, for if such a deity had really inspired those who wrote the Bible, this deity, in its omniscience and omnipotence, could have guided the writers to communicate the ideas in the Bible with a clarity that could be understood by people born in China, India, Japan, Russia, Iceland, etc., etc., etc., as well as those who were born in Semitic cultures.  If Turkel is correct in his claim that the Bible was written in a sort of secret code that cannot be understood unless one spends years of his life researching ancient Semitic languages and cultures, then the omnibenevolence of this omniscient, omnipotent deity has to be doubted.

The fact is that for all of his talk about understanding the "Semitic mind," Turkel knows no more about this than I do.  He spoke of "colorful idioms" in ancient Semitic languages, so I'm going to throw at him a colorful English idiom.  When he writes about understanding the "Semitic mind" or Hebrew "nuances," he is just shoveling bullshit in hope that his readers will be gullible enough to think he knows what he is talking about.

Now I challenge him to answer my question.  If Jeremiah had meant in Jeremiah 7:22 what Turkel claims he meant, why didn't this omniscient, omnipotent deity "inspire" him to write this in a way that would be understood by all people of all times?  This is a legitimate question, but I predict that he will evade it as he consistently evades questions and arguments that expose the foolishness of his inerrantist beliefs.  I'll bet the "McTills" will fly if he should attempt to reply to this.

Turkel:
Furthermore, generally speaking, negation idioms have a rich history in oral cultures around the world.

Till:
And Turkel, of course, is expert enough in "oral cultures around the world" to speak with authority in this matter.  Folks, you have just had another shovel of bullshit pitched your way.

Turkel:
Socrates was known for a sarcastic type of irony that employed negation idioms. Even today, we use forms of negation idioms, generally in the same sarcastic manner as in the OT. (An example: Someone observing heavy rain and saying, "What nice weather we're having!")

Till:
Well, of course, we use irony and sarcasm idiomatically in our language.  I learned that they do the same in French, so I don't doubt that this is a widespread linguistic feature.  Now all that Turkel has to do is prove that Jeremiah was speaking ironically.  Something that Turkel apparently doesn't know is that there is a huge difference in recognizing irony in conversation and in recognizing it in written text.  If it is pouring down rain, and someone I am talking to says, "This is really nice weather we are having," I would know from the circumstances I was in and the tone in the speaker's voice that he was speaking sarcastically.

Written language, however, is a whole different ballgame.  If Turkel found a text that had obviously been written years or even months ago, how would he know if the writer was being serious or sarcastic if the text said, "We are having really nice weather"? This brings us back to a primary rule of interpretation that Turkel has had all kinds of trouble grasping: the language in a text should be interpreted literally unless there are compelling reasons to assign figurative meaning.  When he rather ignorantly used the horns that Zedekiah used to demonstrate theatrically how Ahab would prevail over the Syrians, I took the time to explain why there is a compelling reason to understand that Zedekiah was speaking figuratively.

Now I would like for Turkel to give his compelling reasons for thinking that Jeremiah was speaking ironically when he said that Yahweh had not spoken to or commanded the Israelites concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices when they came out of Egypt.  If the text means what he claims, he should be able to analyze it to support his interpretation.

More than that, however, I wish Turkel would return to preterism, which he is supposed to be defending.  Does this lengthy tangent that he has led us into tell his admirers anything about Turkel's confidence in his position?  When a biblicist can't answer an argument, all is not lost.  He can always shift the subject to something else.

Turkel:
Re: An "intelligent deity" - if Till wishes to blame anyone here, he needs to look in the mirror. It is precisely his sort of arrogant chauvinism that is responsible for cross-cultural breakdowns in communication, misunderstandings, and armed conflict.

Till:
As I said above, if I am being "chauvinistic" when I say that an omniscient, omnipotent deity should have been able to "inspire" writers to communicate ideas in language too clear to be misunderstood, then Turkel should be able to show what is chauvinistic about it.  He apparently doesn't understand that I am not insulting the ancient Hebrews when I speak about the confusion and ambiguity in their writings.  I am simply making an observation that should be obvious to anyone who can see through a ladder.  Like all languages, Hebrew was satisfactory for the needs of that time, but, presumably, what was happening in the Hebrew culture in biblical times concerned not just them but all people for all times.  If that was really the case and if an omniscient, omnipotent deity really did inspire those who recorded those universally important matters, then why shouldn't the messages in the Bible be as clear as sparkling crystal?  I demonstrated above how simple it would have been for me to write Jeremiah 7:22 to make it say what Turkel claims it meant.  Does this mean that I am more intelligent than an omniscient, omnipotent deity?

This is a legitimate observation.  Turkel needs to address it, but he won't.

Turkel:
Let us put it plainly: The Semites were here before we were, and the message was first imputed to THEM.

Till:
What exactly does Turkel mean?  I'm blond-haired and blue-eyed, of obvious Northern European descent.  These people date back as far as the Semites, so in that sense, the Semites were not here before "we" were.  I know black skeptics and atheists, who are descendants of those who lived in Africa where homo sapiens originated.  Were the Semites here before them?

I suspect that Turkel is begging some questions that he bases on an assumption that the Bible is the "inspired word of God" and therefore true.  How, for example, does he know that "the message [presumably the "message" of the Old Testament] was first "imputed" to THEM."  (I don't think that he really meant imputed, but we all know what he intended to say.)  I challenge Turkel to prove to us, without begging any questions about biblical accuracy, that any "message" was ever revealed to the Semites by a deity.

I said that plainly enough that he should be able to understand it, but watch him evade this challenge too.

Turkel:
It was critical for them, as the initial recipients, to get the message clearly, and our own arrogant presumption did not require God to wait several hundred years for Western civilization to pop up so that His message could be imputed in more  sensible" or "clear" terms.

Till:
Yep, Turkel is begging questions right and left.  His choir may buy his claim that the Semites were "the initial recipients" of some divine "message," but I don't buy the idea.  I want to see him prove to us that any divine entity had anything at all to do with the authorship of the Bible.  My point, which still eludes Turkel, is that if he is right in claiming that the Old Testament was written in an ancient language that cannot be understood in translated form without first embarking on years of study and research to become familiar with Hebrew idioms and "nuances," then that within itself is convincing evidence that an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent deity had nothing to do with the writing of that book.  If the deity was omniscient, then he would have known how to communicate the "message" of that book in a way that would be clear to all people regardless of when or where they were born.  If the deity was also omnipotent, then he would have been able to so inspire the writing of that book.  If the deity knew how to so inspire this book and if the deity had the power or ability to so inspire it, but didn't so inspire the book, then this deity was not omnibenevolent.

Now there is the restatement of a familiar argument, Turkel.  How long are you going to continue to evade it?

Turkel:
We have only ourselves to blame if we find the message of the Bible "unclear": It is we who made our language less colorful and less idiomatic than Hebrew. It is we who choose to look down on other cultures and pronounce them inferior, rather than trying to understand them.

Till:
This has to be the stupidest argument I have ever heard.  I speak English because I was born in a place where English was spoken.  I had nothing to do with the evolution of English from its Germanic forerunners, so I cannot be "blam[ed]" if "less colorful" idioms in English conceal from me some of the "nuances" in Hebrew.  The same is true of a person now living in China or Japan or Norway or India or wherever.

It is time to call a spade a spade.  I cannot believe that even Turkel would be stupid enough to make an argument like this, as if any person is responsible for the language that he learns as he is growing up.  I suppose that on the day of judgment <snicker, snicker> "God" will say to non-Hebraic people, "You are going to hell, and it is your own fault.  You shouldn't have made your language less colorful and less idiomatic than Hebrew."

Really, Turkel, you have outdone yourself.

I noticed on Turkel's homepage yesterday that he still needs 71 people willing to pledge $70 to $80 per year so that his "ministry" can become full time.  I'm sure what he said above will cause a rush of volunteers to pledge their money.

Turkel:
Till, then, merely continues along the same lines. Thus if Farrell Till or any other skeptic) wishes to engage in fruitful exchange on these topics and be taken seriously beyond a tiny circle of like-minded, closed-minded sycophants, then they need to do more than just read the English text and announce their inexpert opinion.

Till:
Inexpert opinions?  Can anyone who read what Turkel just said about our being to blame for having made English "less colorful" than Hebrew really believe that this person has any kind of linguistic expertise?  He doesn't even know what the word impute means, but he expects us to think that he knows all about Semitic idioms and Hebrew "nuances." I suppose he really believes that he is taken seriously outside of his website group, but I have news for him.  Outside of that group, he is considered an apologetic joke.

He has had a hard time grasping fundamental rules of literary interpretation, so I doubt that it will do much good to give him a lesson in fundamental writing rules, but I will give it a try.  A primary rule that effective writers will respect is that they will always write with the background and needs of their audiences in mind.  If a writer is an expert on the subject he is writing about, he will use a different approach if he is writing to an informed audience as opposed to an uninformed audience.  A physician writing to a medical journal that will be read by other physicians or medical technicians will write with an awareness that his audience probably understands technical terms and the specialized vocabulary used in the medical field, but if he writes for an audience with no background in medicine, he will need to adjust his writing accordingly by "writing down" to the level of those in his reading audience.  An English teacher writing to other English teachers could write an explanation of the pronoun-antecedent rule in English grammar that simply said, "Pronouns must agree with their antecedents in person, number, and gender," and the message would be understood; however, if he/she were writing to an audience of typical high school or even college students, the message would have to be adapted to the level of people who probably don't even know what antecedent means and may not even know a pronoun from a hole in the ground.

An example of this writing principle happened just recently in Florida, where counting votes seems to be a biennial problem.  Electronic voting machines were installed in some of the counties that had experienced problems in the 2000 election, but it seems that the instruction manuals could not be understood by local officials because they were written in language too technical for laymen to understand.  In my opinion, this has been a problem that has plagued the computer industry from its inception.  Those who write the instruction manuals write as if their readers will also be computer experts.  The state of Florida had to bear the additional expense of writing and publishing simpler instructions for the election officials.  This expense could have been avoided if those who had written the original manual had just understood this very basic writing principle: a writer should always write not according to what he knows about the subject but what his reading audience knows.

Now why didn't "God" know this simple fact about writing that is known by all experts in the field, which can be found in practically all writing textbooks?  If we are to believe Turkel, "God" didn't know this basic writing rule, and so he "inspired" his chosen authors to write in idioms that would be understood by those who spoke the Semitic dialect in which his "inspired word" was written but would be confusing to those who spoke other languages, unless they devoted years to studying and researching Hebrew culture and "nuances." 

Such a position is completely incompatible with the claim that the deity who "inspired" the writing of the Bible was omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent.  In other words, the information in the Bible is crucial to whether one spends eternity in blissful happiness or whether he spends it in torment, but an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent deity didn't bother to so "inspire" his revelation that people of all cultures and dialects would be able to understand its vitally important messages.  Instead, it is filled with confusion and ambiguities that the Turkels of the world tell us we could understand if we were just as smart as they are in ANE cultures and languages.

This position is patently ridiculous, because if the Bible were indeed the product of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent entity, it would be universally understandable.  I think of the tale in Numbers 22-24 about the Mesopotamian prophet Balaam, whom the Moabite king Balak tried to hire to pronounce a "curse" on the Israelites.  According to this quaint little yarn, each time Balaam spoke, he could say only the words that Yahweh put into his mouth.  Now if Yahweh could do that to protect a band of desert nomads from a <snicker, snicker> "curse," why couldn't he have put some of his omniscient, omnipotent effort into assuring the world a readily understandable revelation of his plan for mankind?  Would it have been too much for this omniscient, omnipotent entity to use the kind of effort that he put into protecting Balaam from error to make sure that the Bible wasn't just "inspired" in its "original autographs" but was also protected from error thereafter, so that any scribe who undertook to copy a manuscript would have been able to write only the words that Yahweh "inspired" him to copy?  Would it have been too much for this omniscient, omnipotent entity to similarly guide the hands of those who translated the Bible into other languages so that all idioms and other linguistic peculiarities would be accurately translated into whatever languages it was being translated into?  Such a divinely guided system as this would have ensured that every copy and translation of the originals accurately represented exactly what was in the first "inspired" copies.

Turkel will scoff at this, of course, because he will have to react in some way to  perfectly legitimate questions.  If he is going to contend that the Bible was "inspired" in its original manuscripts, then he should be prepared to explain to us why "God" would have gone to the trouble to protect the originals from error but then adopted an every-man-for-himself policy toward the transmission of the originals by scribes and translators.

Here is a prediction.  Turkel will hop, skip, and jump over this issue, because neither he nor anyone else has any plausible answers to give to it.

Turkel:
They must rather come to the texts on their own terms. Skeptics who refuse to do this show themselves to be no different than the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan who persists even today in the belief that "n-ggers" should sit in the back of the bus where they belong, or the Nation of Islam fanatic who denigrates "crackers" and "rednecks."

Till:
I'm so glad to see that Turkel may be learning how to use quotation marks with  periods in the American punctuation system.  Otherwise, there is no need to comment on his remarks immediately above, because they are not even close to representing my position on the issue being discussed.  As I said above, when I say that "God" should have done a better job of "inspiring" the writing of the Bible, that is not a slam directed at the ancient Hebrews or the language they spoke but at the omniscient, omnipotent deity who presumably inspired the authorship of the Bible.  For reasons fully explained ahead, Turkel's ANE "explanation" for confusion and ambiguity in the Bible is not a vindication of the Bible but an indictment of his omni-max deity, who he thinks was the ultimate author of the Bible.  If such an entity had truly "inspired" the authorship of a book that was intended to make all humanity aware of the unfolding of a "plan of redemption," the omnibenevolence of this entity would have made the finished product much different from what it is.

Turkel:
McTill has never grown past this bigoted attitude.

Till:
As just explained, the bigotry is Turkel's own creation.  There is no bigotry directed against the Hebrews or any ancient Near Eastern culture or language when I say that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent deity would surely have produced a much better product if he had indeed been responsible for the authorship of the Bible. People living in primitive times, when writing was a relatively new invention, cannot be blamed for faulty written communications, but an omniscient, omnipotent deity, who presumably knew everything there was to know, would be another matter entirely.  Turkel needs to address that issue rather than fight his straw man that he has named bigotry.

Turkel:
Saying nothing about the evidence for such symbols being used in the Biblical text, his sole justification for arguing that Isaiah, et al must have thought that these astral events would literally occur (and pay attention, Farrell, I didn't quote MacArthur as "proof" but as a lesser example of the sort of hyper-literalism you are also victim to, and also try to explain your way out of) is a diatribe on how those stupid ancients thought that stars really were little cinders that could fall to the ground.

Till:
I believe the record will show that I correctly quoted Turkel, who had quoted MacArthur as saying, "(A)lmost no one expects stars to fall to the earth."  What Turkel did was to identify MacArthur as an anti-preterist who had made the statement above but had then gone on to "suggest" that Isaiah 13 "is also a scene of worldwide judgment." Turkel's intention, then, was to use what he considered to be the inconsistency of a "dispensationalist" to support the preterist position that the heavenly signs in Matthew 24:29ff were symbolic. 

We may at long last be getting the debate back on track, because Turkel's--er, DeMar's--claim is that the "astral" signs in Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon were merely "apocalyptic."  In his--er, DeMar's--"Olivet Discourse," Turkel quoted Isaiah 13:10; 34-3-5; Ezekiel 32:6-8; and Amos 8:9, which all contained references to "astral" upheavals that would accompany the destruction of Babylon, Edom, and Egypt, and then argued that since none of these things happened, that shows that these signs were merely "apocalyptic."  In other words, he was trying to prove inerrancy by assuming inerrancy.  If the Bible prophesied that stars would fall and the sun and moon would be darkened when Babylon fell, then whatever the prophet said must have happened, because it is in the book, but since none of these things literally happened, he must not have meant that they would literally happen but would happen only "apocalyptically."

See how it works?  If the plain reading of a text creates a discrepancy, inerrantists solve it by saying, "Oh, well that was figurative [or symbolic or allegorical or apocalyptic]."  I'm really surprised that Turkel would have included Ezekiel 32:6-8 as one of his examples, because this is smack in the middle of Ezekiel's prophecy of the destruction and devastation of Egypt for 40 years.  In my attempt to negotiate a debating agreement with Turkel, I proposed that we debate Ezekiel's prophecy against Egypt, but he declined on the grounds that he had "insufficient data" on the subject.  For that matter, he also declined to debate Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon on the same grounds, but now suddenly he seems to have enough "data" to know that the "astral" signs prophesied in the destruction of Babylon and Egypt were merely "apocalyptic."  You see, it just never occurs to an inerrantist that these prophesied astral signs didn't happened for the simple reason that the prophecies failed.  No, that would never be an acceptable alternative to a believer in ancient Hebrew myths.  They solve the problem by arbitrarily saying that the events happened but the language used to describe them was just "apocalyptic."

As for what the ancient Hebrews understood stars to be, is Turkel actually contending that they knew that stars were actually other "suns" that were billions of miles away?  If so, what is his evidence?  Is it Turkel's position that the ancient Hebrews didn't think that streaking meteorites were "falling stars"?  If so, how does he know?  How does he think that the expression "falling star" originated unless people in prescientific times thought that streaking meteorities were falling stars?  I addressed this in my reply to his/DeMar's "Olivet Discourse."

People today understand that stars are hot luminous celestial bodies, like our sun, which are light years away from us, and so they could not "fall" to earth, because the earth would be completely incinerated before even one star collided with it.  Matthew, however, probably didn't know this, and so there is no reason to think that he did not believe that stars could fall to the earth.  I grew up on a farm in a rural area of Missouri that was miles from the light pollution of cities, and so I can remember that meteorites streaking through the night sky were fairly common occurrences, and we called these "falling stars."  The term no doubt originated in a time when people actually believed that meteorites were stars falling to the earth, so it isn't at all unreason able to think that when biblical writers prophesied that stars would fall to the earth, they thought that this would literally happen during the apocalyptic events that they predicted.  Turkel cannot arbitrarily assign meanings to words on the grounds that the literal meanings of the words scientifically conflict with what is common knowledge today.  Those who read Turkel's website articles know that he frequently tries to resolve biblical discrepancies by talking about the Greek or Hebrew "mind" and  insisting that the language of the Bible must be interpreted in the light of what the people of the time thought, so he can't have it both ways.  Consistency demands that he interpret "falling stars" in terms of what people in biblical times knew about astronomy and not in terms of what is known about it today (TSR, September/October 2002, p. 14).

Turkel waved at this in passing below, but he made no real attempt to reply to it.  I am now asking that he meet his responsibility as a participant in a formal debate and address this issue, which has been presented by his opponent.  How does he know that Hebrew prophets didn't think that stars could fall from the sky?

At any rate, after quoting the prophecies above, Turkel said this in defense of his claim that the language was just apocalyptic.

None of these things literally happened to Babylon, Edom, etc.--and Isaiah, et al. did not think that they would. "These passages all tell a story with the same set of motifs: YHWH's victory over the great pagan city; the rescue and vindication of his true people who had been suffering under it; and YHWH's acclamation as king." [Wr.JVG. 356-7] Matthew 24:29 is symbolic for judgment, for the vindication of the new covenant over the old covenant, and their respective members, and Christ's new reign--and thus fits within the paradigm of a 70 fulfillment. Some points as proof [Dem.LDM, 143; Wr.JVG, 354ff].

So readers can see Turkel's method of "proving" a point.  He quotes a writer, who makes an unsupported assertion, and then that becomes Turkel's proof.  Then he throws in another assertion from another writer for good measure.  Who are these writers?  One of them was  N. T. Wright, the author of Jesus and the Victory of God, and the other was Gary DeMar, the author of Last Days Madness.  Both writers are committed preterists and both books were written in defense of the preterist position.  How is that for objective evidence?  What Turkel has done here would be parallel to my quoting books by Dennis McKinsey or Dan Barker in support of my position. If I did this, it would take Turkel about a second to challenge the objectivity of my supporting evidence.

At any rate, I said the following in my reply to this part of Turkel's "apocalyptic" argument.  Turkel hopped, skipped, and jumped right over it in his "reply" that I am now answering, so I will exercise my right as a participant in what is supposed to be a formal debate and ask him to answer this rebuttal argument.  This time, I will emphasize in bold print parts of it that he needs to answer if he expects anyone to take his "apocalyptic" assertion seriously.

Turkel quoted several Old Testament passages that  prophesied the destructions of Babylon, Egypt, and Edom, which would be accompanied by the darkening of the sun,  moon, and stars, and then concluded that these all had to have been figurative prophecies, because "(n)one of these things literally happened to Babylon, etc."  Because none of these events literally happened, Turkel arbitrarily declared that "Isaiah et al did not think that they would."  Turkel is therefore playing a familiar inerrantist game.  He is trying to prove biblical inerrancy by assuming inerrancy.  In other words, he is arguing that if Isaiah et al prophesied that certain heavenly signs would accompany the destruction of Babylon, Edom, and Egypt, then these events had to have happened, because whatever the Bible says has to be true.  Therefore,  if the stars kept shining at these times and if the sun and moon continued to give their light, then these prophets didn't mean that these signs would literally happen.  They were just speaking  in  "apocalyptic  imagery."  What proof did Turkel offer for his "apocalyptic-imagery" theory?  Exactly none!  He just arbitrarily declared it to be what these prophecies meant, but he didn't even attempt to explain what the "imagery" meant.  If Isaiah didn't mean that the stars would literally "not give their light," what did he mean?  If he didn't mean that the sun would be literally darkened, what did he mean?  If he didn't mean that the moon  "shall not cause her light to shine," what did he mean?  Turkel conveniently left these details unexplained, and that raises a question that he needs to answer.  If such language as this was not literal, how did those who heard or read the prophecies know what to expect?  How would they know that fulfillment was taking place?

Later on in this section, I intend to quote Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon, analyze it verse by verse, and put Turkel's feet to the fire--now there is a colorful idiom--by asking him specific questions about what the "astral" signs meant if they were merely "apocalyptic."

This will give Turkel a chance to get his exercise again by hopping, skipping, and jumping over an opponent's rebuttal arguments.

Turkel:
Why this doesn't mean such events must be interpreted literally even so isn't explained.

Till:
If it isn't explained, then just how does Turkel know that "such events" should not have been interpreted literally?  What is wrong with applying the primary rule of literary interpretation that says that the language of a text should be interpreted literally unless there are compelling reasons to assign figurative meaning?  Since people living in prescientific times thought that stars could fall from the sky, as evinced by usage of the term "falling star," how was Turkel able to determine that when a prophet predicted that stars would fall, he really didn't mean that stars would fall?  Turkel has some explaining to do, but don't hold your breath until he explains it.

The annual phenomenon of the Leonid Meteor Shower gives plenty of reason to assume that people through the ages would have been very familiar with "falling stars."  This spectacle happens every November, when the earth's orbit takes it through a section of meteoric debris thought to be dust that was left by a comet.  The name Leonid Meteor Shower is derived from an appearance that the meteorites are coming from the constellation of Leo.  Some years the "falling stars" are more spectacular than other years, and about every 33 years, it is particular sensational.  On November 13, 1833, the shower of "falling stars" was so spectacular that it created a worldwide panic.  Both Joseph Smith and Ellen G. White declared that the "falling stars" that night were a sign of the end, and White even told her followers that it was a fulfillment of Matthew 24:29.  I don't recall the year, but I remember as a child watching at my maternal grandmother's home a meteor shower that was probably the Leonid Shower.  On November 15, 2001, the South African Astronomical Observatory published in its newsletter that the Leonid Shower would happen on November 18th.  Some readers may remember that the shower was a disappointment last year, but history will undoubtedly give us another treat someday with a spectacle rivaling some of those in the past.

The point of all this is that "falling stars" have been known throughout history, and there is no reason to think that biblical writers were not familiar with phenomena like the Leonid Meteor Shower, if not the shower itself.  This is a very plausible reason to believe that when Matthew and the writer of Revelation spoke of "falling stars," they had in mind this kind of phenomenon, which would be the kind of "sign" that an "apocalyptic" writer would chose to include in his prophecy of the end.  If not, Turkel needs to explain to us his reasons for claiming that the language was figurative, and as he said elsewhere, one's personal bias is not a good enough supporting reason for an interpretation, especially one that runs contrary to the plain language of a text.  Hence, if Matthew 24:29 was "fulfilled" when Jerusalem fell in AD 70, exactly what happened?  Was there a meteor shower?  If so, where is the record of it?  Was there a solar eclipse?  If so, where is the record of it?  Was there a lunar eclipse?  If so, where is the record of it, and how could there have been both solar and lunar eclipses at the same time?

If none of the above, then exactly what did Matthew mean when he said that stars would fall from heaven, the sun would be darkened, and the moon would not give its light?  Is Turkel ever going to tell us exactly what happened in AD 70 that fulfilled this prophecy?

Are pigs ever going to fly?

Turkel:
It's manifest that it is also possible to really and actually get ants in our pants -- ask anyone who sat in the wrong place at a picnic -- but I don't see McTill hoisting cans of Raid all over the place and spraying nervous people with them.

Till:
Yes, of course, that is possible, but Turkel is still showing his incredible ignorance of basic literary principles, one of which is that the meanings of words are to be determined by the context in which the words appear.  Let's imagine the two contexts below pertaining to ants in the pants.

1.  Yesterday I took my family on a picnic.  We had a good time except for the insects.  They were so bad that I actually got ants in my pants.

2.  Johnny is a good student except for his fidgetiness.  He's got ants in his pants.

The context would indicate that number one literally meant that ants got into the speaker's pants.  In fact, one telling this story would probably say, "We had a good time except when ants got into my pants."  Likewise, the context of number two would show that the speaker was simply using the English idiom that meant fidgetiness or restlessness.

Now what Turkel needs to do is analyze the texts he has quoted and show us the contextual reasons why we should think that the writers were speaking figuratively when they referred to falling stars and the darkening of the sun and moon.  Readers should be able to see by now that Turkel is actually saying that the language in those passages was "apocalyptic" because he says so, but he isn't giving any linguistic reasons to support his claim.

Turkel:
When it gets down it, it might be added that the Discourse does not even contain anything that could be called scientifically erroneous (for it does NOT say the stars will fall TO EARTH,

Till:
Here Turkel is again, completely disregarding the contextual evidence.  Matthew 24:29 says, "(A)nd the stars shall fall from heaven."  Surely, Turkel won't argue that heaven wasn't being used here in the sense of the "firmament" that ancient societies believed in, as it obviously was in the following passages.

Matthew 5:18  For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.

Luke 4:25  But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land....

Luke 16:17  And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail.

James 5:18  Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. ¹⁸And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

Unless Turkel wants to say that the place of eternal bliss he is looking forward to will "pass away" or that rain fell on the earth from that place of bliss, then he will have to admit that heaven was used in these places to mean the sky, in which ancient cultures believed that stars were fixed as points of light.  Since Matthew 24:29 said that the stars would fall "from heaven," the context requires the understanding that Matthew was saying that the stars would fall to the earth.  Where else would a writer in a prescientific period have thought that the stars could have fallen "from heaven" if not to the earth?  Does Turkel think that "Matthew" was saying that the stars would fall up "from heaven" to the Andromeda Galaxy or some such?

Another New Testament text that referred to stars falling to the earth should help readers see through Turkel's quibble that Matthew didn't actually say that the stars would fall to the earth.

Revelation 6:12  I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. ¹³And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind.

When figs drop from a tree, they don't fall upward; they fall to the ground, so the simile of the fig tree shows that the writer meant to say that the stars of heaven would fall to earth, just as a fig tree drops its late figs to the ground when it is shaken by a strong wind.

The same imagery was used in another one of Turkel's "proof texts."

Isaiah 34:4  All the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll; all their host shall fall down as the leaf falls from the vine, and as fruit falling from a fig tree.

The two similes of the leaf falling from the vine and the fruit falling from a fig tree again present the idea of the "host of heaven" [stars] falling to the earth.  The imagery of the similes is too clear to be misunderstood [unless, of course, one has a pet theory to defend]. To argue that the writer could not have meant that stars would literally fall to the earth because this is scientifically impossible is to argue from the assumption that the writer was an astronomically informed person who knew all about the nature of stars, but people of this time had many scientific misconceptions (such as their limited knowledge about the size of the earth), so it isn't at all unreasonable to assume that they were also uninformed about the composition, size, and location of stars.  Would Turkel argue that the writer of this text wasn't speaking literally when he said that there would be "a great earthquake"?  If not, then what is his rationale for thinking that the writer didn't literally mean that stars would fall to the earth?  At the very least, a reasonable person will agree that the writers meant "falling stars" in the sense of meteor showers, as described above.

Those of you who are sending money to Turkel so that his "ministry" can become full time, why don't you include a few dollars to pay for his tuition to take some courses in basic literary interpretation?

Turkel:
and that meteorites were called "stars" is irrelevant, for the word "star" did not mean "an enormous, flaming ball of gas; see also, Farrell Till"),

Till:
Well, of course, the ancient Near Eastern "Semitic mind" didn't understand star to mean that. The ancients of that time thought that they were specks of light fixed into the "firmament," so that is why they thought that streaking meteorites were "falling stars."  If they had known that they were flaming orbs several times the size of the earth, they wouldn't have prophesied that "stars" would fall from "heaven." Not knowing that, however, and being familiar with streaking meteorites, they prophesied of "falling stars."  Turkel's problem here is that he just doesn't understand the ancient "Semitic mind."  He is trying to force onto ancient Semitic writings a definition of star as it is known in modern times.  He complains if a skeptic applies a modern meaning to Hebrew words, but when it suits his purpose, he'll do the very thing he so often complains about.

Turkel:
so even on the surface McTill's answer is nothing more than an "Oh, yeah?" that proves zippo.

Till:
Just who is yelling, "Oh, yeah"?  When anyone challenges his assertions, Turkel yells, "Oh, yeah?  Well, just look at what Caird [or Whitney or Demar or whoever] said."  If he wants to talk about what proves "zippo," let him take a long hard long at his stock in trade, which is to argue by quoting what writers who agree with him have asserted.

Turkel:
But if Farrell wants to play the Literalist Lout, we'll play right along and nab him for it...

Till:
Before Turkel "nabs" me with his phone call below from "Hyper the literalist," I'm going to put his feet to the fire--there is that colorful idiom again--and ask "Hyper the figurativist" to justify his claim that the astral signs in Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon were intended to be understood as just "apocalyptic language."  First, I'll give Turkel another basic lesson in literary interpretation.  Even literary texts that have obvious figurative language in them will have some literal language.  I will use a well known poem by the British poet Richard Lovelace to illustrate.  Lovelace lived during the British civil war, and he sided with the royalists and volunteered for the expedition that Charles I led to France.  He was gone for five years.  When war broke out he was seriously involved with a girl named Lucy Sacheverell, who  had married someone else when Lovelace returned home.  He had been wounded at Dunkirk, and Lucy had heard that he had died of his wounds.  To explain why he had volunteered to go to war, Lovelace later wrong his famous poem "To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars."  Lucasta  was a contraction for lux casta (the pure light), and was recognized by those who knew Lovelace as a thinly disguised name for Lucy Sacheverell.

Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more.

There is an obvious mixture of literal and figurative language in this poem.  The first-person singular pronouns (I and me) and the second-person singular pronouns (thee and thy) were literal references to Lovelace and "Lucasta" respectively.  "The nunnery of thy chaste breast" must be interpreted figuratively, because it would not have been possible for Lucasta's "chaste breast" to have been a literal nunnery.  Hence, this was Lovelace's metaphorical way of describing what he believed was Lucasta's exceptional chastity.  War was called a "mistress" in the second stanza, so this was also a metaphor, since it would not have been possible for Lovelace to have had a sexual relationship with war, which he could have referred to as an "inconstancy" in the final stanza.  Mingled with the figures of speech are terms that were literal in meaning.  "A sword, a horse, a shield" were references to the literal instruments of war with which Lovelace would have been involved while in battle, but, of course, "embraced" was used in its secondary sense of accepting or devoting oneself to, because we could hardly imagine that Lovelace meant that he had gone about hugging swords, horses, or shields. 

A second important literary principle to remember if one expects to understand writing that contains figurative language is that writers intend figurative language that they use to have meaning.  As I noted above, when Lovelace spoke of the "nunnery" of Lucasta's "chaste breast," he was obviously speaking figuratively, since it would not have been possible for her breast to be a nunnery.  In saying this, he wasn't just stringing words together; he had an intended meaning. By comparing Lucasta's chastity to that which would typically be found in a nunnery, where the women in it had taken a vow of chastity, he was figuratively communicating what he thought was her high degree of purity.  When Lovelace spoke of "fly[ing]" to "war and arms," he was necessarily speaking figuratively, since it would not have been literally possible for a human to flap his arms and fly off to war.  The intended meaning of the figurative expression was to convey his rush to go to war.   Earlier, Turkel said that my understanding of biblical scholarship approached that of a "box of rocks."  Was he just stringing words together, or did he have an intended meaning here?  I'm sure it was the latter. Surely he didn't expect his readers to say, "Well, this is just figurative language that has no intended meaning."  He obviously meant to communicate a claim that I am profoundly ignorant in matters of biblical scholarship. So it is with figurative language in the Bible.  When writers used figurative language, they used it with the intention of conveying meanings. 

This is all elementary interpretation of secular literature, but the Bible is also literature to which the same principles of literary interpretation should be applied.  Biblical language should be interpreted literally unless there are compelling reasons to assign figurative meanings, and within an extended text in which figurative language obviously appears, there will very likely be some literal language.  With that in mind, I'll walk Turkel through the astral part of Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon and periodically interrupt the text to ask him pointed questions about what the writer intended his readers to understand.  I'll begin with the opening verse that identifies the subject of the prophecy and then, after a few strategic questions, I'll jump to the part that describes the destruction of Babylon, and give Turkel the opportunity to enlighten us on what was literal and what was figurative.

Isaiah 13:1  The burden against Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw. ²"Lift up a banner on the high mountain, Raise your voice to them; Wave your hand, that they may enter the gates of the nobles....

Questions for Turkel: There is an obvious mixture of both literal and figurative language in this part of the text.  I'll be more than happy to give contextual reasons to support the language that I consider figurative, but I want to question Turkel about the parts that I consider literal usages.  Was this a prophecy against Babylon proper, or was Isaiah the son of Amoz simply using Babylon "apocalyptically" to mean Nineveh or Tyre or some other place?  Was Isaiah even the son of Amoz, or was he just speaking metaphorically? Could Isaiah have been the son of, say, Oscar or Elmer?

⁹Behold, the day of Yahweh comes, cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and He will destroy its sinners from it. ¹⁰For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine.

Questions for Turkel: When Isaiah said that the "day of Yahweh" would come against Babylon, did he literally mean that it would be "cruel" and would be a day of "both wrath and fierce anger," or did he just mean that it would be a day with a little bit of discomfort but nothing particularly stressful?  When he said that Yahweh would "destroy its sinners," did he mean that he would destroy them or was he just speaking figuratively?  If the latter, then please explain to us what the intended meaning of the figurative term "destroy" was?

The crucial part of this text, of course, is verse 10.  Turkel's position is already known.  He doesn't think that Isaiah was speaking literally when he said that "the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light" and that "the sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine," but if these were all figurative expressions, they nevertheless had intended meanings.  So what were those intended meanings?  I'd like for Turkel to tell us exactly what happened at the destruction of Babylon that fulfilled these "figurative" references to the stars, sun, and moon.  In other words, what exactly happened that enabled people to say, "Oh, yeah, this is what Isaiah meant when he said that the stars, sun, and moon would not give their light"?

In my original reply, I asked Turkel to do this, but he must have missed the request, because he has said nothing about what the intended meaning of this figurative language was.  I quoted that part of my article above, but I will repeat part of it here for his benefit so that he won't have to scroll up to read it.

What proof did Turkel offer for his "apocalyptic-imagery" theory?  Exactly none!  He just arbitrarily declared it to be what these prophecies meant, but he didn't even attempt to explain what the "imagery" meant.  If Isaiah didn't mean that the stars would literally "not give their light," what did he mean?  If he didn't mean that the sun would be literally darkened, what did he mean?  If he didn't mean that the moon  "shall not cause her light to shine," what did he mean?  Turkel conveniently left these details unexplained, and that raises a question that he needs to answer.  If such language as this was not literal, how did those who heard or read the prophecies know what to expect?  How would they know that fulfillment was taking place?

Let's see if we can get answers out of Turkel this time.  I'll make it easy for him by writing answers that will require him only to fill in the blanks.

1.  The prophecy that the stars would not give their light during the destruction of Babylon was fulfilled when _______________ happened.

2.  The prophecy that the sun would be darkened during the destruction of Babylon was fulfilled when ___________________ happened.

3.  The prophecy that the moon would not cause her light to shine during the destruction of Babylon was fulfilled when _______________________ happened.

Now everyone can sit back and watch Turkel hop, skip, and jump.

¹¹"I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will halt the arrogance of the proud, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. ¹²I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold, a man more than the golden wedge of Ophir. ¹³Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth will move out of her place, in the wrath of Yahweh of hosts and in the day of His fierce anger. ¹⁴It shall be as the hunted gazelle, and as a sheep that no man takes up; every man will turn to his own people, and everyone will flee to his own land.

If the destruction of Babylon was going to be as complete as the description below, then at that time the similes in verse 12 would have been literally fulfilled.  A mortal, or person, would have been more rare than fine gold and the golden wedge [pure gold, ASV] of Ophir.  If the stars in the constellations, the sun, and moon didn't given their light, then certainly the heavens would be shaken.  At any rate, if the language was figurative, as Turkel claims, it still had intended meaning, so what was that intended meaning?   I'll again make it easy for Turkel to answer.

1.  The shaking of the heavens was fulfilled during the destruction of Babylon when ___________ happened.

2.  Moving the earth out of its place was fulfilled during the destruction of Babylon when ________________ happened.

We just want Turkel to explain to us how he knows that Isaiah, living in a time when people thought that their gods rained fire down from heaven and such like, didn't think that these phenomena would literally happen.  If he says that he knows that Isaiah didn't mean that they would literally happen because they didn't literally happen, he will be begging the question of biblical accuracy.  He must show us by linguistic evidence within the text that it wasn't Isaiah's intention for such language as this to be understood literally.

Watch Turkel hop, skip, and jump.

¹⁵Everyone who is found will be thrust through, and everyone who is captured will fall by the sword.  ¹⁶Their children also will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished. ¹⁷"Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who will not regard silver; and as for gold, they will not delight in it. ¹⁸Also their bows will dash the young men to pieces, and they will have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye will not spare children.

Questions for Turkel: Did Isaiah mean that the statements emphasized in bold print would literally happen?  Would everyone be killed as described?  Was Yahweh speaking literally in Deuteronomy 22:16 when he commanded the Israelites to "save nothing alive to breathe" in their conquests of cities in Canaan?  Were the passages in Joshua (10:40; 11:11) speaking literally when they said that the Israelites, in accordance with what Yahweh had commanded Moses, left none to breathe?  If so, why would it be so difficult to assume that Isaiah was speaking literally when he prophesied that everyone in Babylon would be killed?

Was Isaiah speaking literally when he prophesied that Babylonian children would "be dashed to pieces" before the eyes of their parents?  If not, why not?  Did Yahweh not inspire a psalmist to pronounce a blessing upon the person who would dash "the little ones" of the Babylonians against stones (Psalm 137:8)?  With such examples of Yahweh's mercy and love toward children, why should we not believe that Isaiah was speaking literally as he prophesied the destruction of Babylonian children?

Question: If Isaiah did not mean that Babylonian children would literally be dashed to pieces, what did he mean?

Were the wives of the Babylonians to be ravished literally?  Didn't Yahweh say to David in the matter of Uriah the Hittite, "I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun" (2 Sam. 12:12)?  If Yahweh would consider doing this to David, a man after his own heart, who always did that which was right  except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite (1 Kings 15:5), why is it so hard to believe that Isaiah literally meant that the wives of the Babylonians would be ravished?

Question: If Isaiah did not mean that Babylonian wives would be ravished, what did he mean?

We just want Turkel to explain to us what all of this "apocalyptic" jargon meant.

What about the young men who would also be dashed to pieces?  Did Isaiah mean that this would happen literally?  If not, what did he mean?  And the "fruit of the womb" that "they [would] not have pity on"--was this intended literally?  If not, why not?  Did Yahweh not say that he would kill "the beloved fruit of the womb" of the Ephraimites (Hosea 9:16)?  Did Yahweh not say that he would "dash in pieces" the infants and rip open the wombs of Samaritan women (Hosea 13:16)?  If he would do this to his own "chosen people," why should we think that he didn't literally mean that he would not have pity on the "fruit of the womb" of Babylonians?

¹⁹And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ²⁰It will never be inhabited, nor will it be settled from generation to generation; nor will the Arabian pitch tents there, nor will the shepherds make their sheepfolds there. ²¹But wild beasts of the desert will lie there, And their houses will be full of owls; ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will caper there ²²The hyenas will howl in their citadels, and jackals in their pleasant palaces.  Her time is near to come, and her days will not be prolonged."

Nothing literal here?  Did Isaiah mean that Babylon would be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah only in an "apocalyptic" sense?  If so, please tell us exactly what happened that fulfilled this "apocalyptically."  What about the habitation of Babylon?  Did Isaiah mean that Babylon would never be inhabited only in an "apocalyptic" sense?  If so, exactly what happened that brought about this fulfillment?  In other words, how are we able to know that this was fulfilled?

Oh, just one more thing--as I mentioned above, when I tried to get Turkel to debate the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon, he declined on the grounds that he had "insufficient data."  Apparently this has changed, because Turkel now has enough data to know that all of the prophetic language about the stars, sun, and moon not giving their light, and so on, during the destruction of Babylon was just "apocalyptic."  So maybe now he will agree to defend the fulfillment of this prophecy in a formal debate.

What about it, Turk?

Go to Part Six