Till:
When Turkel can't answer an argument, he will hurl an insult, call me "McTill" or some such, or bring in "Hyper the Literalist," as if he thinks that insults and amateurish attempts at humor can substitute for logical argumentation.  At this point in the "debate," he called on "Hyper the Literalist" again, and in so doing, as we will soon seen now, he exposed his colossal biblical ignorance.

Turkel:
Oh, boy. We seem to have a call from Hyper the Literalist. Where are you today, Hyper?

"Hey, Turkel. I'm at the C. Dennis McKinsey School of Ping-Pong. Great place. Can I say something?"

You know you can, Hyper.

"Well, it's another one of those things where Till shows he's losing it when it comes to biblical errancy. In the biblicist's hip pocket, as usual. Can you quote, um, Daniel 8:20-21?

Sure. "The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king." Okay, what's the point?

"The point, Holding, is that this is just ridiculous. Daniel is saying here that animals ran these kingdoms. Why Till missed this one I can't say, but I'd guess it means he's missing his vitamins."

Um -- well, Hyper, I think Till would say that that is obviously figurative. After all, animals can't really rule a country, so-

Till:
No, Till wouldn't have to say that this is obviously figurative, because the writer of Daniel took care of that.  All I have to do is read what the writer said to know that the language was figurative.  Daniel is an unusual prophetic book in that it frequently took the time to explain the meanings of  symbols and figures of speech used in its prophecies. The interpretation of symbols began with the famous dream of Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 2, when Nebuchadnezzar had dreamed about a great image that was made of different types of metal.  The mere fact that Nebuchadnezzar called upon the wise men in his kingdom to interpret the dream is compelling textual evidence that the dream was not to be understood literally.  However, when Daniel revealed the interpretation, he clearly established that symbolism was intended in the text.

Daniel 2:36 "This is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king.

If the dream had been literally intended, there would have been no need for an interpretation.

³⁷You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory; ³⁸and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all—you are this head of gold. ³⁹But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. ⁴⁰And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others.

Delving into the total interpretation of the dream is not relevant at this point.  I just wanted to show that intended symbolism in this text is clearly evident, because the writer said so.  He even explained that the head of gold on the image symbolized Nebuchadnezzar and that the other metals in the image symbolized kingdoms that would follow his. As Daniel's "visions" continued, the interpretations of the symbols in the visions also continued.  In chapter 7, Daniel saw the vision of the four great beasts that came up from the sea.  After the vision, Daniel asked "one of those that stood by" to explain the visions to him..

Daniel7:15  "I, Daniel, was grieved in my spirit within my body, and the visions of my head troubled me. ¹⁶I came near to one of those who stood by, and asked him the truth of all this. So he told me and made known to me the interpretation of these things: ¹⁷'Those great beasts, which are four, are four kings which arise out of the earth. ¹⁸But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever.'

Daniel asked the "one who stood by" to tell him the truth about the visions, and he [the one who stood by] told Daniel and made known to him the interpretation of the visions.  In giving the interpretation, the one who stood by told Daniel that the "great beasts" were four kings that "arise out of the earth."  The language of the text is clear enough, then, to show that the "beasts" were not intended literally but metaphorically (figures of speech in which one thing is called another).  This brings us back to the literary principle that Turkel seems unable to grasp.  The language of a text is to be interpreted within the context of the words, and figurative meanings are to be assigned to the text if there are compelling reasons to reject literal meanings.  If the text flatly says that the "great beasts" were "four kings," that settles the question of whether the language was intended to be figurative.

I wonder if any of this is sinking into that brick that Turkel calls a head.  I suspect that even if it does sink in, he is so committed to the defense of biblical inerrancy that he would never admit it.

This brings us to the text that "Hyper the Literalist" called about.  If Turkel had bothered to read it in context, he would have noticed that after Daniel had seen the vision of the ram and goat, he was also given an interpretation of it.

Daniel 8:15 Then it happened, when I, Daniel, had seen the vision and was seeking the meaning, that suddenly there stood before me one having the appearance of a man. ¹⁶And I heard a man's voice between the banks of the Ulai, who called, and said, "Gabriel, make this man understand the vision." ¹⁷So he came near where I stood, and when he came I was afraid and fell on my face; but he said to me, "Understand, son of man, that the vision refers to the time of the end."

¹⁸Now, as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep with my face to the ground; but he touched me, and stood me upright. ¹⁹And he said, "Look, I am making known to you what shall happen in the latter time of the indignation; for at the appointed time the end shall be. ²⁰The ram which you saw, having the two horns—they are the kings of Media and Persia. ²¹And the male goat is the kingdom of Greece. The large horn that is between its eyes is the first king.

The text clearly stated that Daniel was given an interpretation of his "vision," and the interpretation identified the horns on the ram as the kings of Media and Persia and the male goat as the kingdom [king] of Greece.  Hence, we have compelling reason to understand that the basic components of this text were not intended to be understood literally.

Now Turkel needs to cite to us textual evidence in Isaiah 13 and the other texts he quoted that would indicate that the astronomical signs [the falling stars, the darkening of the sun and moon] were only "apocalyptic" and were not intended to be literal.  I suspect that we will be waiting a long time to see any such evidence.

Turkel:
"Hogwash! The ancients were stupid, you know that, and there's proof that they thought animals could hold political office. The Emperor Caligula had his horse elected to the Roman Senate.

[Editors Note: You'll have to scroll down a bit to find the section on Caligula, but if you're hoping that it will clarify whatever point Turkel is trying to make, I'm afraid you'll be dissapointed.]

Turkel:
Yeah, he was nuts, of course, but so was Daniel and Jesus.

Till:
I'll resist the temptation to comment on the stupidity of "Daniel and Jesus," because characters who probably didn't exist couldn't have been stupid.  Their creators may have been stupid--superstitious would probably be a more appropriate term--but fictional characters could be no more than what their creators made them.  As for what "Daniel" meant about animals, I have shown by linguistic analysis of the text that Daniel meant for readers to understand that the animals in his prophecy were metaphorical symbols.  Now if Turkel could just show us textual evidence that Isaiah meant for the astronomical signs in his prophecy against Babylon to be understood as just "apocalyptic" language....

Turkel:
And if the Bible says snakes and donkeys can talk, they sure could run for political office. Till is just too ignorant to keep the torch alive.

Till:
"Says" is the key word here.  The Bible says that snakes and donkeys could talk, but rational people--which apparently excludes Turkel--have enough sense not to believe something just because it was written in a collection of ancient superstitions that has Holy Bible embossed on the cover.

Turkel:
So bottom line, Daniel obviously meant that animals would literally rule the kingdoms. There's no way around it."

Till:
No, the real bottom line is that the context--a word that Turkel has trouble grasping--shows that Daniel meant only that animals were visionary symbols of kings, who were the real rulers of kingdoms.  There is no way around what the text clearly says.

Now if Turkel could only show us textual evidence that Isaiah meant for the astronomical signs in his prophecy against Babylon to be understood as just "apocalyptic" language....

If he could only show us textual evidence that Jesus meant for the astronomical signs in the prophecy of his return to be understood as just "apocalyptic" language....

Turkel:
Um, thank you, Hyper, please say hi to Dennis for us. At any rate, it comes down to that Farrell thinks the language of stars and stripes was meant literally rather than as apocalyptic imagery.

Till:
No, it comes down to Farrell thinks that primary rules of literary interpretation should be applied to written language if one has any hope of understanding what the writer intended the language to mean.  For reasons I have explained above, I see no reason to assign figurative meaning to prophetic allusions to falling stars and the darkening of the sun and moon.  At the end of Part Five, I gave Turkel the opportunity to show us linguistic reasons why we should think that Isaiah's allusions to such phenomena should be interpreted "apocalyptically," so he will have an opportunity to show us his stuff by going through the text and pointing out the linguistic proof.  Maybe by now he understands that rational people don't give a rat's ass what he or DeMar or Whitney or others with preterist axes to grind think about the meaning of Isaiah's astronomical signs.  We want to see sound linguistic evidence, and that is going to be hard to produce for someone who often has trouble just writing coherent sentences.

Before I pass on to the next point, I will remind Turkel that we want to know exactly what Isaiah meant when he said that the stars, sun, and moon would not give their light, so I hope he won't forget to fill us in on that.  In other words, exactly what happened at the fall of Babylon that made people familiar with Isaiah's prophecy say, "Oh, yeah, Isaiah said that this would happen when Babylon was destroyed"?

Do try to be specific, Turkel, when you give us this information.

Turkel:
Well, excuse me for coming to the defense of those dumb ancients McTill says he's smarter than (though I bet none of them ever would have read what I wrote as "pay for 90% of my website")

Till:
Oh, is Turkel still trying to deny that he said what he said about his demand that I pay 90% of the cost of his website.  Well, I guess I'll just have to quote again what he clearly said on his own site.

Well, if Turkel didn't stipulate as a condition for debating me that I pay 90% of the cost of space for my articles 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. 

I'll just let him argue with himself on this matter.

Turkel:
but do you suppose that the Jews didn't look back on these oracles against Babylon, etc. and say, "Huh, that's funny. The sun didn't go black when Babylon fell."

Till:
Well, the fact is that Babylon fell to the forces of Cyrus without a battle.  There is no record of the land having been made desolate (Isaiah 13:9), of men becoming more rare than fine gold (v:12), of infants being dashed to pieces before their parents' eyes (v:16), of Babylonian wives being ravished (v:16), of Babylon becoming uninhabited (v:20), of Arabs being afraid to pitch their tents there (v:20), etc., etc., etc.  Furthermore, the Medes did not overthrow Babylon (v:17), because the Median empire no longer existed when Babylon fell.  In fact, Babylon wasn't actually overthrown.  Basically, Cyrus simply moved in and annexed the kingdom to his Persian empire, and was a rather benevolent monarch afterwards.  Certainly, he didn't engage in a mass extermination of the Babylonians.

I wonder if any of the Jews thought, "Huh, that's funny; Isaiah said that Babylon would be made desolate, that men, women, and children would be massacred, but none of this happened."  The fact is that we don't really know what nonbiblical writers of the time may have thought, because the literature of that period has gone the way of "the acts of Solomon," "chronicles of King David," "chronicles of the Kings of Israel," and other contemporary literature that didn't survive.  To claim that no one questioned the fulfillment of these prophecy claims is to assert that which cannot be known.  If books had been written to challenge the fulfillment of prophecy claims by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other revered prophets, it isn't very likely that they would have survived in a culture dominated by the Yahwist victors. 

I have been waiting to say this: I think Turkel's line of reasoning here is called argument from silence.

Turkel:
No, actually, they wouldn't, because unlike McTill the Fundaliteralist they knew it was symbolic language.

Till:
It's easy to assert, but now we would like for Turkel to stop his asserting and arguing by the fallacy of biased samples and show us some textual evidence that astronomical signs in Isaiah's and others' prophecies were just figurative "apocalyptic" language. What is there, for example, in the text of Isaiah's prophecy to indicate that he was speaking only figuratively when he predicted that the stars, sun, and moon would be darkened?

Try to find "sufficient data" to debate this issue, Turk.

Turkel:
They knew people had been metaphorically compared to stars, as in the cites we gave as parallels and which McTill ignored (see also Is. 14:12, and Hag. 2:6 for more such imagery).

Till:
I have explained umpteen times that my first reply to Turkel was necessarily limited, because his cutting and pasting of truncated references from Gary DeMar and company had taken 10 pages, so I had only five pages left to reply.  Since then I have replied in detail to his various "proof texts," so we will see if he will answer my rebuttals.  Of course, he won't, because he has shown over and over again that he doesn't know how to reply to an opponent.  He is completely lost unless he can find something to cut and paste from a reference book that agrees with his position.

I'll now look at his "see also cites"--he still doesn't know the difference in a verb and a noun--which he didn't even attempt to explicate.  He cites and hastens on, of course, because he is just parroting what he sees in the works of DeMar and others who agree with him.  It is commonplace for them to put a "see also" reference in brackets without explicating it, so Robert "The Parrot" Turkel thinks that this is the way to debate.

Isaiah 14:12 "How you are fallen from heaven, o Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! ¹³For you have said in your heart: 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; ¹⁴I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.' ¹⁵Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit.

Well, I really don't see anything to discuss in this passage, because Turkel said above that people were metaphorically compared to stars and then cited this text, so all I need to say is that I agree with him.  Lucifer [hêylêl] meant "the morning star," so the king of Babylon was metaphorically called a star.  Here, however, is the point that Turkel still is having trouble grasping.  We know that figurative language was used in this text because there are compelling reasons to assign figurative meaning.  In the first place, it isn't possible for a person to be a literal star, and a human king could not "ascend into heaven" and "exalt [his] throne above the stars of God."  Neither could he "ascend above the heights of the cloud."  Since these are expressions that cannot possibly be literal, we have a compelling reason to assign figurative meaning to the terms and understand them to mean that the king of Babylon had  become haughty and arrogant.

Now here is another question for Turkel to evade: What compelling reason do we have to think that Isaiah was speaking figuratively when he said that the stars, sun, and moon would be darkened at the time of Babylon's destruction?

Because these things couldn't literally happen?  Is that what you are going to say, Turkel?  If so, then please show to us evidence that would prove that Isaiah was sufficiently informed scientifically to know that they could not happen literally.

Now let's look at Turkel's second "cite."

Haggai 2:6  "According to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remains among you; do not fear!" ⁶"For thus says Yahweh of hosts: 'Once more (it is a little while) I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land; ⁷and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory,' says Yahweh of hosts.

In the passages previously quoted and analyzed, Turkel must show us why writers who lived in prescientific times, who had seen the darkening of the sun and moon via solar and lunar eclipses and the darkening of the stars via cloud coverings at night during the time of the old moon when there was no light to show the clouds, would not have thought that Yahweh's retribution on the enemies of Israel would have been accompanied by literal astronomical signs like those stated in Isaiah 13.  Now he must explain to us why Haggai, being familiar with such tales as fire raining from heaven when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, plagues of hail, darkness, and such like falling on Egypt, and the sun standing still in the sky, etc., would not have thought that Yahweh would "once more" shake heaven and earth literally.  Let him point to the language in this context that gives us compelling reasons to believe that Haggai meant for all this to be understood figuratively.

Oh, by the way, Turkel, do you think that Yahweh literally rained fire and brimstone down on Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:24), or was this just another case of "apocalyptic" language?  Do you think that Lot's wife was literally changed into a pillar of salt (v:26), or was this also just figurative language?  If you say that it was all figurative, please quote the linguistic evidence in the text that shows that this was the writer's intention.

Now you won't forget to answer these questions, will you, Turk?

Turkel:
They knew they weren't to take this as literal just as Ahab knew he wasn't supposed to take Zedekiah's horns and go out goring people.

Till:
I have already addressed this, but as long as Turkel keeps referring to it, I will keep repeating my rebuttal.

Turkel forgets a primary rule of literary interpretation: the language of a written text is to be interpreted literally unless there are compelling reasons to assign figurative meaning.  To think that Ahab could have routed the Syrians with the horns that Zedekiah was using to dramatize his prophecy of victory is too absurd to believe that this was what he meant, and so that becomes a compelling reason to assign figurative meaning to the statement.   I do wish I had had Turkel in one of my literature classes.  Maybe he wouldn't be so literarily ignorant today.

There is a very compelling reason why we should understand that Zedekiah was not speaking literally in 1 Kings 22.  Now Turkel's task is to show us compelling linguistic reasons why we should think that Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon was speaking figuratively when it said that the event would be accompanied by astronomical phenomena.

Turkel:
McTill will bark back, "Yeah, but to go out and take the horns like that would be actually impossible. There would be a good reason to see that as symbolic."

Till:
By golly, Turkel may finally be seeing the light.  It's a simple matter of compelling textual evidence.  Now is he ever going to cite his compelling evidence for saying that the astronomical signs in Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon were figurative?  What about Jesus's prophecy in Matthew 24:29ff?  Is Turkel ever going to show us compelling reasons why these astronomical signs should be interpreted figuratively?

Don't count on it.  He cannot cite that which is not in the text.

Turkel:
And we have "good reason" to see it as symbolic as well:

• No one, obviously, looked back on these prophecies, and said, "Hey, the moon didn't turn bloody that day Babylon went kaput!"

Till:
So once again, we find Turkel trying to prove inerrancy by assuming inerrancy.  He is arguing that Isaiah's astronomical signs didn't literally happen when Babylon fell, and so he knows that these signs were figurative.  How does he know it?  Well, you see, the Bible is inerrant, and so if the Bible said that the stars, sun, and moon would be darkened but this didn't literally happen, the signs had to be figurative; otherwise, the Bible is not inerrant.

See how it works?  Turkel, like many inerrantists who argue the same way, have no sense of logic, because they can't even recognize basic fallacies like begging the question and circular reasoning.

Anyway, I addressed this earlier, so in keeping with my custom of repeating my rebuttals when Turkel repeats an argument, I will quote it below.

Well, the fact is that Babylon fell to the sources of Cyrus without a battle.  There is no record of the land having been made desolate (Isaiah 13:9), of men becoming more rare than fine gold (v:12), of infants being dashed to pieces before their parents' eyes (v:16), of Babylonian wives being ravished (v:16), of Babylon becoming uninhabited (v:20), of Arabs being afraid to pitch their tents there (v:20), etc., etc., etc.  Furthermore, the Medes did not overthrow Babylon (v:17), because the Median empire no longer existed when Babylon fell. In fact, Babylon wasn't actually overthrown.  Basically, Cyrus simply moved in and annexed the kingdom to his Persian empire, and was a rather benevolent monarch afterwards.  Certainly, he didn't engage in a mass extermination of the Babylonians.

I wonder if any of the Jews thought, "Huh, that's funny; Isaiah said that Babylon would be made desolate, that men, women, and children would be massacred, but none of this happened."  The fact is that we don't really know what nonbiblical writers of the time may have thought, because the literature of that period has gone the way of "the acts of Solomon," "chronicles of King David," "chronicles of the Kings of Israel," and other contemporary literature that didn't survive.  To claim that no one questioned the fulfillment of these prophecy claims is to assert that which cannot be known.  If books had been written to challenge the fulfillment of prophecy claims by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other revered prophets, it isn't very likely that they would have survived in a culture dominated by Yahwist leaders.

I have been waiting to say this: I think Turkel's line of reasoning here is called argument from silence.

Now maybe Turkel will tell us how he is able to know that no one in biblical times ever questioned the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon.

And maybe pigs will fly someday too.

While he is on this point, maybe he will finally rise to the occasion and tell us exactly what happened at the fall of Babylon that fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy that the land would be made desolate, the stars, sun, and moon would be darkened, men [in Babylon] would become as rare as pure gold, infants would be dashed to pieces before their parents' eyes, etc., etc., etc. 

Please be specific, Turkel, and let us know exactly what happened that fulfilled this "apocalyptic" language.

Turkel:
It's especially a goofy assumption for McLiteralist McTill to make since by this reckoning such events would have happened some 4-5 times in literal history, and no one, especially the Jews who should have been having to deal with the failure of such literal predictions over and over again, ever saw a need to explain the failure.

Till:
Turkel has refused even to consider defending the fulfillment of biblical prophecies, such as Ezekiel's prophecy against Egypt and Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon.  In a private letter to him, I asked him to affirm these propositions:

RESOLVED: Ezekiel's prophecy against Egypt was fulfilled in all of its details.

RESOLVED: Isaiah's prophecy against Tyre was fulfilled in all of its details.

RESOLVED: Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon was fulfilled in all of its details.

In his reply Turkel declined without comment to defend these propositions.  When I asked him the reason for his refusal, he sent a terse reply on 4/29/02: "Insufficient data to warrant a conclusion."

Does anyone else see the irony of it?  Turkel claims that he has "insufficient data" to reach a conclusion about the fulfillment of the three prophecies identified above, yet one of them (Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon) has become a major "proof text" in his attempt to prove that the astronomical signs in Matthew 24:29 were "apocalyptic."  He doesn't have enough "data" to prove that Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon was fulfilled, yet he seems to have enough data to know that crucial language in the prophecy was "apocalyptic."

Folks--those of you who send your money so that Turkel's "ministry" can become full time--keep in mind that you get what you pay for.  If you pay for an incompetent apologist, then you get incompetent apologetics.

Turkel said again that no Jews who would have had to deal over and over with prophecy failures ever saw a need to explain the failures, but I addressed that above.  How does he know that there were never any voices in ancient Judaism that questioned the fulfillment of prophecies that had obviously failed?  As I pointed out above, various literary works of that period didn't survive, and those are just the ones that were mentioned in Old Testament books.  There is no way that we can know how many other literary works of the time didn't survive.  The winners always write history, so in the struggle between Yahwism and other Canaanite deities, the Yahwists won.  How likely is it that they would have allowed the works of those who may have challenged Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, et al to continue circulation?  Turkel cannot possibly know that no one of that time ever challenged these prophecies.  The book of Jeremiah told of prophetic competition that occurred in the time when Jerusalem was struggling for its survival against Babylonian forces.  These rivalries were recorded in detail in 23:9ff; 27:9ff; and 29:24ff.  If Shemaiah had won the prophetic struggle of this time, he would have been the hero and Jeremiah would have been the goat.

At any rate, I am not the least bit reluctant to say that Old Testament prophecies failed and that the ones referred to above are glaring examples of failures.  I defy Turkel to put some starch in his spine and undertake to prove that these were prophetic successes, but if he isn't going to do that--and he isn't--he should at least stop using "proof-text" statements from biblical prophecies that he is too chicken to defend.  If he doesn't have enough "data" to defend Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon, then how can he have enough data to know that the astronomical signs in that prophecy were just "apocalyptic"?

Finally, on this point, I am going to surprise him and say that I too agree--and always have--that such language as this is apocalyptic, but apocalyptic doesn't necessarily mean figurative.  The word apocalyptic is simply the adjectival form of the noun apocalypse, which is a word that means "to uncover or reveal," and it is most often used with reference to revelations concerning the end of the world or the end of a civilization or era. To say that the world will end in fire, as knowledgeable astronomers all agree that it will unless something destroys it before the burnout of the sun, would be an apocalyptic statement, but it wouldn't be figurative.  When the sun exhausts its fuel, it will expand and engulf the orbit of the earth.  Hence, the world will literally end in fire.  To think in terms of the end of an empire or a civilization or the world is quite naturally to think in terms of chaos and upheaval.  How likely is it,  then, that  prophetic mystics who prophesied the end of an empire or civilization or world would have thought that it would end with a whimper rather than a bang?

Daniel 12:1ff is an example of an apocalyptic prophecy, and I'm sure that even Turkel would agree with that.

¹"At that time Michael shall stand up, the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time. And at that time your people shall be delivered, every one who is found written in the book. ²And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.

This is apocalyptic language, but is it necessarily figurative--all of it?  This time of trouble "such as never was since there was a nation"--was this just a figurative way of saying that there would be a bit of trouble and turmoil but nothing to get excited about?  Those sleeping in the dust of the earth, who shall awaken to everlasting life?  Those who would awaken to everlasting contempt?  Was this all just figurative? Sleep, of course, did not mean literal sleep, but if Turkel wants to make an issue over this, I would be very glad to explicate passages in the Bible where "sleep" was used to denote death.

I'll just ask Turkel point blank.  Was this apocalyptic passage not prophesying a general resurrection from the dead?  If so, was all the language in the prophecy figurative?

Turkel:
But of course McTill is always ready to hypothesize stupidity in others when convenient, so no doubt he doesn't see this as a problem.

Till:
This "argument" is probably as old as belief that the Bible is inerrant.  Those who resort to it claim that X cannot be a biblical discrepancy, because if it were, it would have been noticed long ago.  That is what Turkel is "arguing" here.  The astronomical signs in prophetic language had to be figurative, because these signs didn't happen during the destruction of Babylon or whatever, but if the signs were meant to be literal, the prophecy failed, and people would have noticed this and would have  pointed out the prophecy failure. Since no one pointed out a prophecy failure, this means that the signs were intended figuratively and were so understood by the people.  In so arguing, as I noted above, Turkel is assuming that because Old Testament literature mentioned no dissenting opinions about the prophecies of Isaiah and others, there were therefore no dissenting opinions, but as I have already asked, how does he know that no one ever questioned these prophecies?  Does Turkel actually think such dissension would have survived the editing of those who selected the "inspired" books?  If, for example, someone in a Muslim country should write a book exposing errors in the Qur'an, how likely is it that such a book would survive to receive any substantial attention?  The author would probably be killed, and the book would be destroyed.

Aside from this, there is the simple fact that people who want to believe that a "holy book" is the "word of God" aren't likely to notice discrepancies, or if they notice them they are likely to rationalize them.  Turkel himself either cannot see glaring errors in the Bible or else he rationalizes them because of his blind desire to believe that the Bible is "the word of God."  How likely would it have been in superstitious biblical times that people who believed that gods were intricately involved in daily affairs would have spent much time questioning what was in writings that were supposed to be sacred?  I wonder if Turkel would say that a general failure of Muslims to find problem areas in the Qur'an is sufficient reason to believe that no real problems exist in it.

I doubt that he would.  Like most biblicists, he can see a stupid argument when it is advanced by someone who is trying to defend the Qur'an or the Avesta or the Book of Mormon, but he can't seem to apply the same standards to his own "holy book."

Turkel:
As a matter of course, even liberal Biblical scholars recognize that such rampant stupidity is unlikely, and their usual tack is to say that the mundane parts of Isaiah's Babylon prophecy (for example) were what Isaiah or some other person only wrote, and the apocalyptic imagery was inserted by a later redactor who thought these things would literally happen.

Till:
Notice the word liberal here.  That is supposed to mean that if "liberal biblical scholars" agree with Turkel on this point, then he must be right, but I wonder if he will be willing to apply the same principle to preterism, the issue we are supposed to be debating.  If I can find "conservative" biblical scholars, who fervently believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God but also believe that preterism is a false doctrine, will that prove that Turkel's position on preterism is wrong?

How many such "conservative" scholars would I have to quote, Turkel, before you would admit that your preterist position is wrong? 

This brings us back to the very principle that Turkel himself stated on the CCBE internet board when he replied to my quotation from Philo Judaeus, which I had cited in support of my position that Aaron and Moses had changed all the water in Egypt to blood.  My intention in quoting it was to show that a respected Jewish writer who lived in biblical times thought that all of the water in Egypt had been changed into blood, but Turkel summarily dismissed the quotation as an appeal to authority that didn't prove anything.

That's nice, but Philo is simply reading into the text what is not there. So if I find a Jewish commentator of equal worth that says the opposite, is it a draw? If I find two, do I win? Remember that Philo is trying to promote Moses and Aaron here and would maximize their feat to the greatest extent possible.

So how many "conservative" scholars will I have to quote, Turkel, before you will admit that Jesus meant that the stars would fall from the sky and the sun and moon would be darkened upon his return?  One?  Two?  Ten?  Twenty?

Turkel:
Caird [114] noted the insanity of such a position by those infected with "pedantic literalism"

Till:
Turkel is so forensically ignorant that he can't see that he has nothing here except an assertion that Caird made.  If Caird "noted" the insanity of those infected with "pedantic literalism," did he explain why it is "pedantic literalism" to think that when prophets spoke of falling stars and the darkening of the sun and moon, they meant exactly what they were saying?  If so, why didn't Turkel quote Caird's argument?  As it is, Turkel quoted no argument that Caird made but merely quoted the assertion made immediately below.

By the way, just where did Caird note "the insanity of such a position"?  There is evidently a page number in brackets, but in what book can this be found?  Turkel complained earlier that I had not cited the page number in a reference that I made to a lexicon by Arndt and Gingrich, which would be a reference that someone as expert in Greek as Turkel claims to be could easily find, but he has been putting bracketed page numbers throughout this article without indicating what books they are in.

Oh, I know what's up. We are just supposed to accept Turkel's word that Caird said this--as if it would prove anything if he did--but as I will show below, Caird either quoted some incorrect information about Vergil or else Turkel garbled Caird's reference.  One way or the other, Caird's reference, as everyone will soon see, wasn't very reliable.

Turkel:
(Caird [114] noted the insanity of such a position by those infected with "pedantic literalism") [like McTill] for like most charges of incongruous editing, this still forces us to "reckon with the editor who saw nothing incongruous in bringing them together. The application of surgery to a biblical text is more often than not an admission on the part of the surgeon that he has failed to comprehend it as it stands."

Till:
We have no way of knowing exactly what "surgery to a biblical text" that Caird was referring too, because Turkel is too forensically ignorant to know that a truncated quotation like this really doesn't explain anything except that Caird thinks that some "editors" perform "surgery" on biblical texts.  What "editor" was Caird referring to here?  What biblical text was Caird referring to?  We don't know, because Turkel is too forensically ignorant to understand that fragmented quotations like these cannot communicate clear ideas.

Was Caird referring to Isaiah 13:1ff, or was he referring to Matthew 24:29?  Again, we don't know, because Turkel simply didn't tell us.  At times, I find it hard to believe that even Turkel could be as ignorant as he shows himself to be in his writing, but, then, I remember that his approach is to cut and paste and crank out as much as he can, hoping that the gullible will be impressed with bracketed references to Caird or Whitney or DeMar.  Haste like this will invariably result in sloppy writing.

At any rate, if Caird was referring either to Isaiah 13:1ff or Matthew 24:29, he is a fine one to be talking about "editors" who perform "surgery" on biblical texts, because if Turkel is accurately representing him, Caird is the one performing the surgery, because he is the one who is claiming that when Jesus said that the sun and moon would be darkened and the stars would fall from the heaven, he really didn't mean this but was just speaking figuratively.  If that is Caird's position, let Turkel quote to us Caird's rationale for so claiming.  We don't really give a squat what another writer who believes that the Bible is the "word of God" thinks unless he is able to support his position with argumentation, so I challenge Turkel to post Caird's arguments.  When he does that, I will answer them.

Now as for Caird's "liberalism," I recommend that readers who think that the assertion of a "liberal" scholar necessarily proves anything to look into Caird's position on the Bible.  They will find that he believes that the Bible is "the word of God," so even if he may be more "liberal" than other biblical scholars, he has a desire to vindicate the Bible. By Turkel's own standard, noted above, Caird's opinion isn't reliable, because he was trying to "promote" the Bible.  After all, if Philo's desire to "promote" Aaron and Moses made his opinion unreliable, why wouldn't Caird's desire to promote the Bible make his opinion unreliable?  Since Caird was an advocate of the word-of-God view, it isn't surprising at all that he would undertake to "explain" a glaring problem like unfulfilled prophecies.  What better way to do that than say, "Well, this wasn't literal; it was figurative"?  Furthermore, I have repeatedly pointed out that even so-called liberal scholars almost always have some kind of belief that the Bible is divine in its origin, so they will try to reconcile problems in the text.  They also have an audience to keep in mind.  If they point out too many problems in the biblical texts, their potential market could be affected.

Turkel:
Caird could just as well have been giving McTill his vitamins.

Till:
Or more likely, he was trying to vindicate the Bible.

If I can quote "conservative" scholars who disagree with Caird's position on figurative astronomical signs, will I match you, Turkel?  How many would it take to win?

Turkel:

• The Jews (and other oral cultures) USED symbolic imagery to express literal ideas, and had a specific genre (apocalyptic) within which it was used.

Till:
Instead of just stringing together assertions about "symbolic imagery" and "apocalyptic" language, why doesn't Turkel get specific and list and explicate some examples for us, so that we will know that he is right in claiming that prophetic references to astronomical signs (falling stars, darkening of the sun and moon, etc.) were indeed figurative signs that were not meant to be understood literally?  A good place to begin would be Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon, one of his major "proof texts."  Instead of doing this, he expects us to roll over and play dead when he does nothing but assert that such language was figurative.

Turkel:
In contrast McTill is a low-context hyperliteralist in a logocentric culture, separated by thousands of years.

Till:
Of course, we are supposed to believe that Turkel, who has all kinds of problems trying to communicate clearly in his native language, is an expert on ancient languages, idioms, and nuances.  Since he keeps wagging in his high/low-context nonsense, I will just cut and paste my previous reply to this in the men-with-David debate.  My first rebuttal of Turkel's high/low-context quibble was made here.

I guess I will also have to take the time to comment on Turkel's  low-context/high-context diversion, which is obviously a cultural theory that he knows little about.  In the first place, this is a relatively new theory, which was just beginning to find its way into textbooks before I retired.  The theory applies primarily to oral communication rather than written communication, so "high-context" cultures depend on body language, gestures, voice inflection, and other nonverbal types of communication more than "low-context" cultures do.  If Turkel would just think a moment about the terms low context and high context, he would know that they refer primarily to oral communication, because if the terms referred only to written language, a technological society like ours would be more accurately described with "high context."  Turkel seems to think that ancient or primitive culture = high context and modern culture = low context, but that isn't at all what the theory supposes.  France, for example, is considered to be a high context society,  whereas the United States is thought to be primarily low context.  Language itself, however, is neither low nor high context; it is the way it is used that makes the determination.  Some so-called primitive languages, for example, have grammatical complexities that would baffle people who are accustomed to speaking a language like English, which has a comparatively simple grammar that has "leveled" many grammatical features like the inflected forms in Greek and Latin that make them comparatively complex.

Thomas Field of the Center for the Humanities at the University of Maryland in answering a letter directed to "Ask a Linguist," explained what is wrong with Turkel's attempt to pigeon hole Hebrew as a "high context" language and English as "low context."

It's really not very useful to refer to languages as "high-context"  or "low-context," and even the classification of cultures in this way is probably a bit  misleading. What you are referring to is the distinction discussed most prominently in the works of Edward T. Hall (Beyond Culture, The Hidden Dimension, The Silent Language,  etc.). He contrasts cultures like that of the U.S., in which people seem to encode much of their meaning in the words themselves, with cultures like that of Japan, where much more meaning is implicit and has to be inferred. In a "high-context" culture, presumably, the listener has to do more work digging out presuppositions, accessing shared elements of context, interpreting indirect speech acts, etc.

The contrasts that Hall uses to illustrate his point are valid, but, of course, all of this is really a question of degree. At home with one's family, a lot of communication among Americans is very high-context and would be incomprehensible to someone from the outside. Similarly, a Japanese speaker among strangers whose  backgrounds he does not know would certainly use somewhat more "low-context" discourse style.

In any case, the language itself cannot be said to be either "high-context" or "low-context."

Fields' references to "listeners," "interpreting indirect speech acts," and family communications among members show that the theory of low-context/high-context culture applies more to oral communication than to written.  Now if Turkel has some explication of the chapters in 1 Samuel,  which narrated David's flight from Saul, that will show that the narrative was "chock full" of high-context implications, he should present it and spare us his bald assertions about linguistic theories that he knows very little about.  By using his same logic, I could argue that because the narrative of David's flight did not say that David didn't take flight on a camel, we can by "inferential  reasoning" conclude that he had the camel with him, or that because the narrative didn't say that David  did not encounter a lion and kill it with his bare hands, we can by "inferential reasoning" conclude that he did kill a lion, or because the narrative did not say that David didn't take his harp with him, we can by "inferential reasoning"  conclude that he took the harp with him.  There would be no end to the "inferences" one could derive from a written text if it were a valid principle of literary interpretation that the reader could "infer" the inclusion of anything that the text did not say wasn't present in the details of a narrative.

Turkel has yet to learn that the meaning of a written text must be determined from what the language of the text says and not from what it does not say.

Later when Turkel kept referring to high-context/low-context language, as if he even knew what he was talking about, I posted an additional rebuttal. 

So then maybe Turkel will explain to us why the writer of 1 Samuel consistently referred "specifically" to the men who were with David before his flight from Saul began and why he consistently referred to men who were with David after men had joined David at the cave of Adullam.  Was the writer just needlessly cluttering his narrative in these places with unnecessary information that a "high-context" society couldn't have cared less about?

How many times do we read in the narratives of this "high-context culture" such needless clutter as in the examples below.

2 Samuel 23:1  Now these are the last words of David:  The oracle of David, son of Jesse....

Why bother telling readers that David was the son of Jesse, as if readers of the "high-context" Hebrew culture by this time would not have known this.  Such clutter!

And what about the clutter in this passage?

Joshua 13:1  Now Joshua was old, advanced in years. And Yahweh said to him: "You are old, advanced in years, and there remains very much land yet to be possessed."

Now why the clutter of this kind of repetition?  Why would this "high-context" society that Turkel talks about have needed this kind of repetition?

As expert as he is in Hebrew, Turkel should know that a form of repetition called "parallelism" frequently occurred in Hebrew writing, as we see in the following examples. 

Zechariah 9:9  Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!  Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Genesis 35:13-15  Then God went up from him in the place where He talked with him. So Jacob set up a pillar in  the place where He talked with him, a pillar of stone; and  he poured a drink offering on it, and he poured oil on it. And Jacob called the name of the place where God spoke with him, Bethel.

Why this kind of repetition in this "high-context" culture that Turkel talks about?  Wouldn't a "high-context" culture, as Turkel perceives it, have easily understood that the king was coming on a donkey?  Why repeat the concept with "colt" and "foal"?  Look how many times the passage in Genesis 35 repeated "the place where he [Jacob] talked."  Wouldn't Turkel's "high-context" culture have understood without all this repetition?  Wouldn't this "high-context" culture have understood that the pillar Jacob built was made of stones?  Why clutter the text by repeating pillar to note that it had been made of stones?

Well, the fact is that this "high-context" culture is mainly in Turkel's mind,  because the Bible is filled with examples of tedious repetition of rather mundane information.  Anyone who has studied the Bible much at all knows this, so it isn't necessary to give additional examples.  Turkel thinks that the men with David were there by implication and that this "high-context" culture would have recognized that they were, but this "high-context" culture had to have things repeated as they were in the examples quoted above.

I have already commented on this high-context/low-context theory and noted that it is a new theory that applies primarily to spoken language and not written language, so we have another example here of Turkel spouting off about things that he really knows little about.

These quotations show that I have ripped to pieces Turkel's low-context/high-context "explanation" for insufficient information in biblical texts crucial to his position, but he still persists in parroting it.  What happened is that Turkel saw some biblicist using this to try to explain a biblical problem, and he thought, "Hey, that sounds good; I think I will use it," but as usual he is spouting off about things that he has no expertise in.  His time would be much better spent trying to find contextual information to support his--er, DeMar's--claim that the astronomical signs in Matthew 24:29 were figurative.  He won't even attempt to do this, however, because there is no such evidence.

Turkel:
Why believe him to begin with when he thinks it should be taken "literally"?

Till:
Why believe Turkel to begin with when he thinks that obviously literal language should be taken figuratively?

Everyone should be aware now of Turkel's tactics.  When a text does not say what he needs it to say to have proof for his explication du jour, he will assert that the information is actually there, because the text was written for a "high-context" culture that would have figured it out by reading between the lines, but when a text obviously states information that is damaging to his position, he will say, "Oh, well, that was figurative."  Any believer in any kind of "holy book" could use the same tactics and make his/her "holy book" inerrant.

Turkel:
Caird notes that passages like Is. 11:1-9 and 66:22-24 (which use such language in a positive vein) match the same sort of language used aming [sic] Eastern people even today.

Till:
Wouldn't it have been nice if Turkel had quoted Caird's explication of these passages to show that they did indeed mean what he was claiming?  As it is, Turkel quoted no arguments, so there is nothing to answer here.  Turkel is apparently too forensically ignorant to recognize that such references as these amount to nothing more than the fallacy of argumentation by assertion.  He is evidently so used to getting by with stuff like this on his website when he was preaching just to his choir that he doesn't realize that those who don't have preconceived notions that the Bible is "the word of God" will demand that assertions quoted from Bible-believing writers be supported with logical argumentation.  They will insist that more is needed than just a Bible-believing writer's claim that text so and so means thus and so; they will actually demand textual analysis to show linguistic reasons why the text means what the writer claims.

In this kind of forum, Turkel is completely lost, because he doesn't know how to present such evidence.  He started a website that he directed to Bible believers, and he became accustomed to hearing them say, "Hey, man, you're good," so he mistakenly thinks that he can get away with this kind of fallacious "argumentation" in a forum where people know far more about the Bible than he does.

Hey, folks--those of you who think Turkel is the cat's meow--keep your dollars flowing into him at Tektonics.Org, because I want as many as possible to see just how superficial this guy's "apologetic" ability is.

Turkel:
We have an example of this which we recently used as part of a tongue-in-cheek Skeptical quiz:

You walk into the home of a friend in the Ancient Near East. He says, "You have extremely honored me by coming into my abode. I am not worthy of it. This house is yours; you may burn it if you wish. My children are also at your disposal; I would sacrifice them all for your pleasure." What do you do?

Burn down his house and kill his children, just like the man said.

Call the police and the mental hospital to pick up this obviously sick man.

Run screaming from the house.

Reply, "I am unworthy of your honor and of being a guest in your home."

Till:
Is this one of Caird's examples of the "same sort of language" that is still used "aming [sic]" Eastern people even today?  No, of course, it isn't.  This is just more of Turkel's nonsense in the same vein as his "Hyper the Literalist" phone calls.  When Turkel can't reply to arguments, he resorts to this kind of stuff.

Anyway, when Turkel finds an "Eastern person" who makes such a statement as this, we can then talk about it.  Until then, we'll just consider it more of his nonsense.

Turkel:
By McTill's fundaliteralist reading, we would have to pick either A, B or C, because it is "clear" that such events can be fulfilled literally.

Till:
Well, I have some questions for Turkel. 

1.  When Lot proposed to send his two daughters, who had never "known man," out to the mob in front of his house demanding that the "angels" be sent out so that the men could "know them," what did he mean?  Was he offering to let the men have sexual access to his daughters?  If not, how do you know?

2.  Did the men outside Lot's door really mean that they wanted to "know" the "angels" who were in Lot's home?  If not, what did they mean?  How do you know?

3.  When the host of the Levite and his concubine (Judges 19:24) proposed to the men outside his house [demanding that the Levite be sent out to them so that they could "know" him] that he send out his virgin daughter and the concubine to let them do to them "what seemed good [to the men]," did the host actually mean that he was offering to let the men have these women for their sexual use?  If not, what did he mean?  How do you know?

Turkel:
Wiser and better read scholars like Caird note that the language of hyperbole is no different than a passage from Vergil's Fourth Ecologue [sic], which speaks of "summers of snakeless meadow, unlaborious earth and oarless sea" as expected benefits of the imperial rule of Augustus.

Till:
I wonder if Caird referred to this as the "Fourth Ecologue" rather than the "Fourth Eclogue." Apparently, Turkel doesn't know what an eclogue is (a short pastoral poem).  At any rate, I love it when Turkel puts his foot into his mouth.  Although I am not at all familiar with Roman literature, I do have an academic background in American and British literature and 30 years of experience teaching college literature.  My emphasis was on American literature, but I did happen to know enough about British literature to recognize that the quotation that Caird allegedly attributed to Vergil was in fact a quotation from a poem by Alfred Tennyson, a 19th-century British romantic poet.  Here is Vergil's Fourth Eclogue, entitled "Pollio," which, as readers will see, contains no reference at all to "summers of snakeless meadow, unlaborious earth, and oarless sea."

Muses of Sicily, essay we now
A somewhat loftier task! Not all men love
Coppice or lowly tamarisk: sing we woods,
Woods worthy of a Consul let them be.
Now the last age by Cumae's Sibyl sung
Has come and gone, and the majestic roll
Of circling centuries begins anew:
Justice returns, returns old Saturn's reign,
With a new breed of men sent down from heaven.
Only do thou, at the boy's birth in whom
The iron shall cease, the golden race arise,
Befriend him, chaste Lucina; 'tis thine own
Apollo reigns. And in thy consulate,
This glorious age, O Pollio, shall begin,
And the months enter on their mighty march.
Under thy guidance, whatso tracks remain
Of our old wickedness, once done away,
Shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear.
He shall receive the life of gods, and see
Heroes with gods commingling, and himself
Be seen of them, and with his father's worth
Reign o'er a world at peace. For thee, O boy,
First shall the earth, untilled, pour freely forth
Her childish gifts, the gadding ivy-spray
With foxglove and Egyptian bean-flower mixed,
And laughing-eyed acanthus. Of themselves,
Untended, will the she-goats then bring home
Their udders swollen with milk, while flocks afield
Shall of the monstrous lion have no fear.
Thy very cradle shall pour forth for thee
Caressing flowers. The serpent too shall die,
Die shall the treacherous poison-plant, and far
And wide Assyrian spices spring. But soon
As thou hast skill to read of heroes' fame,
And of thy father's deeds, and inly learn
What virtue is, the plain by slow degrees
With waving corn-crops shall to golden grow,
From the wild briar shall hang the blushing grape,
And stubborn oaks sweat honey-dew. Nathless
Yet shall there lurk within of ancient wrong
Some traces, bidding tempt the deep with ships,
Gird towns with walls, with furrows cleave the earth.
Therewith a second Tiphys shall there be,
Her hero-freight a second Argo bear;
New wars too shall arise, and once again
Some great Achilles to some Troy be sent.
Then, when the mellowing years have made thee man,
No more shall mariner sail, nor pine-tree bark
Ply traffic on the sea, but every land
Shall all things bear alike: the glebe no more
Shall feel the harrow's grip, nor vine the hook;
The sturdy ploughman shall loose yoke from steer,
Nor wool with varying colours learn to lie;
But in the meadows shall the ram himself,
Now with soft flush of purple, now with tint
Of yellow saffron, teach his fleece to shine.
While clothed in natural scarlet graze the lambs.
"Such still, such ages weave ye, as ye run,"
Sang to their spindles the consenting Fates
By Destiny's unalterable decree.
Assume thy greatness, for the time draws nigh,
Dear child of gods, great progeny of Jove!
See how it totters- the world's orbed might,
Earth, and wide ocean, and the vault profound,
All, see, enraptured of the coming time!
Ah! might such length of days to me be given,
And breath suffice me to rehearse thy deeds,
Nor Thracian Orpheus should out-sing me then,
Nor Linus, though his mother this, and that
His sire should aid- Orpheus Calliope,
And Linus fair Apollo. Nay, though Pan,
With Arcady for judge, my claim contest,
With Arcady for judge great Pan himself
Should own him foiled, and from the field retire.
Begin to greet thy mother with a smile,
O baby-boy! ten months of weariness
For thee she bore: O baby-boy, begin!
For him, on whom his parents have not smiled,
Gods deem not worthy of their board or bed.

Vergil wrote romantically of an idyllic time when the 'she-goats" would come home with udders swollen with milk, the serpent would die, prosperity would come when an "untilled" earth would bring forth abundance, and mariners would no more have to "ply" the sea, since all lands would bring forth alike, but the exact language that Turkel says that Caird attributed to Vergil is not in his Fourth Eclogue.  That language is in the fifth stanza of "To Virgil," a poem that Tennyson wrote to commemorate Virgil's 19th centenary.

Chanter of the Pollio, glorying
in the blissful years again to be,
Summers of the snakeless meadow,
unlaborious earth and oarless sea....

So what happened in Turkel's reference above?  Did Caird actually attribute this quotation to Vergil?  If so, that doesn't speak too well of his scholarship that Turkel has been touting so highly.  Actually, I suspect that the mistake was not made by Caird but by Turkel who read a reference only superficially and then rushed to dash off an allusion to Vergil for the benefit of his readers who would gape in awe and say, "Wow, Turkel is even using Vergil as a source!"  Now that this glaring mistake of his has been exposed, perhaps some of his readers will begin to question whether his "research" is what he cracks it up to be.

I will now present an offer to Turkel.  If he will reciprocate by explicating the language in Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon and Matthew 24:29ff to show why the astronomical signs should be interpreted figuratively, I will be glad to explicate either Vergil's Fourth Eclogue or Tennyson's poem to show why the contexts of the poems give compelling reasons to assign figurative meaning to much of the language.

What about it, Turkel?

At any rate, Turkel gave me nothing to reply to in Caird's alleged quotation from Vergil, because he presented no proof that Vergil actually said this.  On the other hand, I have presented evidence that this was a quotation from a 19th-century British poet, who was neither "ancient" nor Near Eastern; hence, there is nothing in the statement that gives any support to Turkel's claim that astronomical signs in ancient Near Eastern prophecies were to be understood figuratively.

Turkel:
According to McTill the Fundaliteralist, then, Vergil thinks that Augustus was going to go on a nationwide snake extermination campaign, spread a lot of fertilizer to make agriculture easier, and invent the boat motor. This is the absurdity we are reduced to if we insist upon reading ancient hyperbole with pedantic literalism.

Till:
No, I wouldn't even think that Tennyson intended to do this, because the contexts--a word that Turkel is still having trouble grasping--give very compelling reasons to interpret much of the language in both poems figuratively.

Are you going to accept my proposal above, Turkel?  Agree to reciprocate, and I will be happy to explicate the language in these poems.  This would all be right down my alley, because it would relate directly to my academic field and decades of teaching experience.

Turkel:

• An important point which McTill slides right over is the observation of Caird that the advice given doesn't make a lot of sense if this is an "end of the world" scenario, but makes perfect sense if it is a matter of a real military and political upheaval.

Till:
What advice is Turkel talking about?  Is he still ranting about Vergil's Fourth "Ecologue [sic]"?  If so, the quotation he ascribed to this has already been exposed as an incorrect attribution that was actually written by a 19th-century British poet and not a first-century BC/first-century AD Roman poet.  Or was Turkel referring to Caird's alleged reference--I say alleged, because one can never know how accurate Turkel's attributions are--to "surgery" on biblical texts?  If so, then Turkel needs to quote to us whatever arguments Caird presented to establish that literal interpretation of astronomical signs is a distortion of the intended meaning of the text.  If Turkel can't present that kind of supporting evidence, then his references to Caird simply represent another of his assertions.

Turkel:
McTill must be the guy who told Wile E. Coyote that those little parasols would protect him from falling boulders.

Till:
I wonder who told Turkel that the fifth stanza of Tennyson's poem "To Vergil" had been written by Vergil?  More than that, I wonder who told Turkel that he could be an apologist.

Turkel:

• Now let's stress a point to force McTill to get consistent.

Till:
I wonder if it would be at all possible for me to stress a point that would force Turkel to answer an argument.  I'm approaching the end of my point-by-point rebuttal of his so-called reply to my first-round response to his/DeMar's "Olivet Discourse."  When I complete it, I'm going to do an additional part to wrap up Turkel's article and point out my arguments that he hopped, skipped, and jumped over.

Turkel:
The oracles we listed as examples are clustered around and printed with other language that McTill would be dread embarrassed to take as literal, even if we hit him with a McKinsey ugly stick:

Till:
I have already pointed out a literary principle that any competent teacher of literature would tell Turkel is true: in extended passages that contain figurative language--poetry would be a notable example--there will always be some literal language in the text.  If Turkel knew anything at all about principles of literary interpretation, he would know that.

Turkel:

Is. 13:6-9 Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt: And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.

Is. 34:6-10 The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea. And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness. For it is the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.

Ezek. 32:3-5 Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will therefore spread out my net over thee with a company of many people; and they shall bring thee up in my net. Then will I leave thee upon the land, I will cast thee forth upon the open field, and will cause all the fowls of the heaven to remain upon thee, and I will fill the beasts of the whole earth with thee. And I will lay thy flesh upon the mountains, and fill the valleys with thy height.

Each of these passages are in oracles

Till:
No, Turkel, each of these passages is in oracles.  Do you know that subjects must agree with their verbs in correct English grammar?  Do you know that each is a singular pronoun?  Since each is the subject of the clause--and not passages, as you incorrectly thought--its verb needs to be singular.

I am calling attention to this and other linguistic problems that Turkel has simply to point out that someone who has difficulty with his own native language isn't very likely to be the expert in biblical languages that he continually pretends to be.  If he doesn't know fundamental rules of English grammar, how likely is he to have all of those amazing insights that he claims in ancient Near Eastern languages and idioms?

Turkel:
[Each of these passages are in oracles] that mix language that not even a McLiterlist could take literally with language that represents literal events and can be taken literally to some extent.

Till:
As incoherently written as this sentence is, if I understand what he means--and I'm not sure I do--the key word here is mix.  As I have already said--twice now--extended passages that contain figurative language will always contain some literal language.  In his first example, for instance, was the word LORD not intended literally?  The word in Hebrew was Yahweh, so was not Isaiah here making a literal reference to his god Yahweh?  When he said that men would be "afraid," did he not mean that they would literally be afraid?  If not, why not?

Other terms in the passage are obviously figurative.  The hearts of men cannot literally melt, for example, so this becomes a compelling reason to assign figurative meaning to the expression.  The writer said that the men would be "in pain," and that would be a word intended to convey its literal meaning.  However, a simile (as a woman that travaileth) was used to figuratively describe the extent of the pain.

The more Turkel writes, the more he shows his colossal literary ignorance.  Try to read this very carefully, Turkel.  I can go through all three of your passages, verse by verse, and give contextual reasons why words should be understood figuratively or literally, because the context always determines how words are used.

Now what is Turkel's contextual reasons for asserting that astronomical signs in biblical prophecies were to be understood figuratively?

He isn't going to answer that question, because he has no answer except to say that he assigns figurative meanings to such language because it is necessary to a doctrinal belief that he is trying to defend.

Turkel:
The burden is then on a McTill to show why the specific passages at issue warrant a literal interpretation,

Till:
Well, excuse me, but I have done that repeatedly.  In so doing, I have pointed out a 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.  If there is an absence of compelling reasons to assign figurative meanings to words, the literal meanings are more likely to be the intended meanings.  Since this is a primary rule of literary interpretation, the burden is actually on Turkel to show why the specific passages at issue--Isaiah 13:1ff; Matthew 24:29ff--warrant a figurative interpretation.

I had an additional comment to add, but Turkel saved me the trouble immediately below.

Turkel:
and his biases are not a sufficient answer.

Till:
Turkel is absolutely right.  My biases are not a sufficient reason to assign literal meanings to textual language.  The reason why I assign literal meaning is the absence of any compelling evidence to assign figurative meaning.  If there is no such compelling evidence, then the literal meanings of words are more likely to be the ones intended in a written text.

The principle that Turkel just stated, however, cuts both ways.  His biases are not a sufficient reason to assign figurative meanings to astronomical signs that were prophetically attributed to apocalyptic events.  So what are Turkel's reasons for claiming that the astronomical signs in Matthew 24:29ff were not intended literally?  He has yet to make any attempt to explain why figurative meanings should be assigned to these passages.

Turkel:
(And we DID explain what these meant, despite McTill's missing it, so he can go back and read it again.)

Till:
No, no, no, Turkel did not explain what these meant.  He merely asserted what they meant, but he has yet to take the relevant texts to explicate them and show why the astronomical signs must be understood figuratively.  If he claims that he has explained them, then I say that he is either intentionally bluffing in hopes that some will think that he has indeed explained them, or else he has mistaken asserting for explaining.  I know that he probably thinks that anything he says should automatically be accepted as the final word, but debating doesn't work that way. If he makes an assertion, he has the obligation to support the assertion with evidence.  He hasn't done that in this matter.

I defy him to show us where he has ever explicated any of these texts to show compelling linguistic reasons why these astronomical signs should be understood figuratively.

Turkel:
He cannot bellow about "consistency" when the language of the oracles is mixed. He has a lot more work to do before he can even step on that magic carpet.

Till:
Is it possible for anyone to be as literarily ignorant as Turkel appears to be?  I will say again that I have a strong professional background in literary interpretation, so I know that the language in literature can be a mixture of both the literal and the figurative, but it is the context that determines the meaning.  Therefore, I can "bellow" that unless Turkel has compelling textual evidence to assign figurative meaning to the astronomical signs in the disputed prophetic passages, then he has nothing to support his position but his own assertion and the assertions of likeminded writers whom he has quoted.

Turkel:
McTill tries to salvage some decency out of his embarrassing hyperliteralism by asking snidely, if this was just apocalyptic imagery, then what was the darkness at the crucifixion? It was recorded, McTill, in a narrative format; these oracles were recorded in a poetic format.

Till:
Oh, come on, Turkel, even you can't be this linguistically ignorant.  Are you actually claiming that Matthew 24:29ff is poetry?  Are you claiming that Luke's reference to the ascension of Jesus in a cloud [Acts 1:9] was just a poem?  More than that, are you actually claiming that poetry is necessarily figurative?  Do you actually think that poetry cannot contain literal language?  If so, your literary ignorance is more profound than I thought.

Turkel:
That makes it prima facie inarguable that they were intended to be read metaphorically unless it was clear they were meant to be taken literally

Till:
Did Turkel even notice what he said?  Poetry is to be inarguably read metaphorically unless--notice the word unless--it was clear that it is to be taken literally.  Well, in the first place, figurative language in poetry isn't necessarily metaphorical.  Longfellow's poem "Nature" is an extended simile that contains no metaphorical language in the "commonplace"--a literary term that Turkel won't understand.  Not until the "application"--another term that he won't understand--is metaphorical language used.  The language in the commonplace part of the poem is very literal.  Words like mother, day, hand, child, bed, led, playthings, floor, and door were all obviously intended to be understood literally.

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,
Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
Half willing, half reluctant to be led,
And leaves his broken playthings on the floor,
Still gazing at them through the open door,
Nor wholly reassured and comforted
By promises of others in their stead,
Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;

As the "application" of the commonplace begins, metaphorical language begins to appear, and then words like playthings, hand, lead, rest, and sleep were used figuratively.

So Nature deals with us, and takes away
Our playthings one by one, and by the hand
Leads us to rest so gently, that we go
Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,
Being too full of sleep to understand
How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

Now playthings are not literal but metaphorical toys, i. e., the things in life that adults enjoy.  The "hand" that nature takes us by is not a literal but a metaphorical hand, which refers to the gradual aging process that leads us toward the end of our lives, and so on.

This is all just the application of elementary principles of literary interpretation, and it illustrates two points I have already made: (1) Figurative language is indicated by the context in which words are used.  (2) Figurative language has intended meaning.  Obviously, Longfellow wasn't just stringing words together with no intended meaning when he used metaphors in the "application" of the poem above.  He used them with the intention of conveying meanings about the aging process and the eventual death that it brings.

If, then, the language in biblical prophecies was figurative, it nevertheless had intended meaning, so if Turkel's understanding of these prophecies--which he understands but doesn't have enough "data" to debate--is as certain as he has been claiming throughout this debate, he should be able to tell us what the intended meaning of the figurative language was.  When Isaiah said, for example, that the "stars of heaven" would not give their light at the destruction of Babylon, what did this allegedly figurative language mean?  Specifically what happened at this time that would have caused those familiar with the prophecy to say, "Yes, that is what Isaiah said would happen."

When Isaiah said that the sun would be darkened at this time, what did this allegedly figurative language mean?  Specifically what happened at this time that would have caused those familiar with the prophecy to say, "Yes, that is what Isaiah said would happen"?

When Isaiah said that the moon would not cause its light to shine at this time, what did this allegedly figurative language mean?  Specifically what happened at this time that would have caused those familiar with the prophecy to say, "Yes, that is what Isaiah said would happen"? 

I've asked Turkel to do the same for the key prophetic statement in Jesus's "Olivet discourse."  When he said that the sun would be darkened and the moon would not give its light, what did this allegedly figurative language mean?  Specifically what happened when Jerusalem was destroyed that would have caused those familiar with Jesus's prophecy to say, "Oh, yes, this is what Jesus said would happen"?

When Jesus said that the stars would fall from heaven, what did this allegedly figurative language mean?  Specifically what happened when Jerusalem was destroyed that would have caused those familiar with Jesus's prophecy to say, "Oh, yes, this is what Jesus said would happen"?

If Turkel has all the answers to what this so-called "apocalyptic" language meant, then he should be able to answer these questions.  If he can't answer them, then we can only assume that he can't answer them.  That he cannot answer them is apparent from the fact that I asked him these questions in my reply to his/DeMar's "Olivet Discourse", and he hopped, skipped, and jumped right over them. 

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?

So Turkel made no attempt in his original article to explain why he knew that astronomical signs like these were figurative, and he flagrantly ignored a specific request in my reply that he supply this information.  In other words, he has evaded these questions twice.

Those of you who have fawned over Turkel--there is your hero, folks.

Turkel:
(and even the "literal" elements can be assumed to have hyperbolic elements, when we get down to it),

Till:
That is true, but unlike Turkel I'm going to give some examples.  In the poem by Richard Lovelace, which I quoted earlier, he said that he had embraced "a sword, a horse, a shield."  Literally, these were instruments of war during the time in which Lovelace had lived, but by extension they would also have symbolized anything else that was used to make war, such as spears, armor, battleaxes, etc.  In Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon, he said that wolves and jackals would cry in the palaces.  The words wolves, jackals, and palaces would denote their literal meanings, but by extension, they would figuratively represent any other wild animals that would cry in the "palaces," which would likewise figuratively include other abandoned buildings that would be taken over by wild animals. Consequently, if no wild animals ever took over buildings in Babylon after its destruction, then this part of the prophecy failed.

This all indicates another literary principle that Turkel apparently doesn't understand: the meaning of figurative elements in words that are used literally would be inclusive of the literal meanings of the words.  In other words, sword, horse, and shield, although containing figurative references to other instruments of war, would include the literal meanings of the words.

With this in mind, I will call Turkel to task again.  He said that the "poetic format" of the language in the disputed prophetic passages made it "prima facie inarguable that they were intended to be read metaphorically."  A metaphor is a figure of speech in which one thing is figuratively called another thing. "John is a pig" would be an example of a metaphor.  When we read a statement like this, we understand that the writer didn't mean that John is literally a pig but that he has piglike characteristics or habits.  (This is all elementary, of course, but Turkel apparently needs some elementary lessons in literary interpretation.)  Therefore, if Turkel is correct in arguing that stars, sun, and moon in Isaiah's prophecy of Babylon's destruction and Jesus's prophecy of his return were being using metaphorically, then these literal objects (stars, sun, and moon) were being called something else or at least being used to symbolize something else.  So what did the stars mean "metaphorically"?  What did the sun mean "metaphorically"?  What did the moon mean "metaphorically"?  If these terms were intended figuratively, how does Turkel know that the figurative usage of stars, sun, and  moon was not also inclusive of the literal meanings of these words?  If inclusion of the literal meanings was intended, then what happened to the stars, the sun, and the moon when Babylon fell?

In other words, we are back to square one, to the questions that Turkel evaded in my first reply to his/DeMar's "Olivet Discourse"?  What did Jesus mean when he said that the stars would fall from heaven?  What did he mean when he said that the sun would be darkened?  What did he mean when he said that the moon would not give her light?  As I asked in the section of my article quoted above, exactly what happened during the destruction of Jerusalem that caused those who knew of Jesus's prophecy to say, "Yes, this is what Jesus said would happen when he returned"?

If Turkel cannot explain what this allegedly figurative language meant, then he cannot know that the language was really figurative.

Turkel:
and applying his literalist biases isn't going to make the case.

Till:
Likewise, Turkel's application of his preterist biases isn't going to make his case for figurative language in a rather clearly worded prophecy.  He claims that the language in Matthew 24:29ff was figurative for no other reason than his desire to make the Bible inerrant by putting a preterist spin on plain language.  That isn't a good enough reason to think that the astronomical signs were intended to be interpreted figuratively.

At this point, Turkel made a halfway attempt to reply to my section on 2 Peter 3:1ff, where the second coming was described in very catastrophic terms.  I will reply to this in Part Seven, in which I will also point out arguments that Turkel has hopped, skipped, and jumped over.  If space doesn't permit this, I will list his evasions in Part Eight.