Till:
Actually, Hosea, who lived in the time of "Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and
Hezekiah of Judah,"
wrote his prophetic book before 2 Kings was written. This dates Hosea
to at least the last
quarter of the 8th century BC, but the writer of 2 Kings recorded the
fall of Jerusalem to
Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC (2 Kings
24:10-20), so Hosea condemned Jehu's massacre at Jezreel, and then
some years later, the
author of 2 Kings praised it.
Jayawardena
Outline of the Solution: The solution to this apparent
contradiction consists
mainly of a proper analysis and interpretation of two key verses
involved: 2 Kg 9:6-10 and
10:30. These two verses should be examined to determine the following:
Till:
I am pleased by the quality of Leonard Jayawardena's attempt to solve
the discrepancy in
Hosea's denunciation of Jehu's massacre, which received the praise and
approval of another
Bible writer. He expresses himself well in writing and will obviously
be a more
knowledgeable opponent than those defenders of biblical inerrancy, seen
so often in internet
forums, who claim to know all of the answers and solutions to alleged
Bible contradictions
but can't even write coherent English or spell relatively simple words.
I am also glad to
see that he recognizes that there is a real inconsistency in the Bible
if a writer (Hosea)
faulted Jehu for just carrying out a command of Yahweh, which another
writer praised him
for doing. Mr. Jayawardena's "solution" to the alleged discrepancy
follows below, where
for convenience I will be referring to him as LJ.
LJ:
It will be shown that the message delivered to Jehu by a prophet was
most definitely not a
command but simply a statement of the will of God concerning certain
future events comparable
to the prophecy given by the prophet Elisha to the Syrian king Hazael
in the previous
chapter (8:10-12).
Till:
So, in a nutshell, here is LJ's solution to the problem. Jehu was not
commanded to massacre
the house of Ahab. The "son of the prophet" who anointed Jehu to be
king over Israel had
merely prophesied that Jehu would commit this massacre.
LJ:
I hope to expand on the above in a series of exchanges with FT in the debate that starts today, beginning with the point numbered (1) above.
Till:
Exodus 20:3-5,
of course, is
the passage where Yahweh said that he will "visit" the sins of the
fathers upon the third
and fourth generation. As we will see, this passage is not the
quick-fix solution to the
problem of Hosea's denunciation of Jehu that LJ apparently thinks it is.
LJ:
Is 2 Kg. 9:6-10 a command or simply a prophecy of future events?
According to the account of 2 Kg., the prophet Elisha sends "one of the sons of the prophets" to deliver the following prophecy to Jehu, a captain of the army of Israel:
Till:
Before we look at the alleged "prophecy," I will remind everyone that
LJ is just claiming
that this was a prophecy rather than a command. To have a case, he must
prove that this was
merely a prophetic statement, and I predict that he will have major
problems doing that.
LJ:
And he [Jehu] riseth and cometh in to the house, and he [prophet] poureth the oil on his head, and saith to him, `Thus said Jehovah, God of Israel, I have anointed thee for king unto the people of Jehovah, unto Israel, and thou hast smitten the house of Ahab thy lord, and I have required the blood of My servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of Jehovah, from the hand of Jezebel; and perished hath all the house of Ahab, and I have cut off to Ahab those sitting on the wall, and restrained, and left, in Israel, and I have given up the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and as the house of Baasha son of Ahijah, and Jezebel do the dogs eat in the portion of Jezreel, and there is none burying;' and he openeth the door and fleeth (2 Kg. 9:6-10, Young's literal translation.)
Now let us look closely at the language of the prophecy delivered to Jehu. The reader will note in the literal translation above that the verbs "I have anointed thee," "thou hast smitten," "I have required," etc. are all in the past tense, which is used here to affirm the certainty of these events happening in the future. Compare Gen. 17:5: "...for a father of many nations have I made thee," the fulfilment of which even in type (in a literal sense) took many centuries. "And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon; the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him" (Jeremiah 27:6). The anointing of Jehu which preceded the pronouncement of the prophecy was a symbolic act to indicate God's intention. The Lord instructed Elijah to "anoint Hazael king over Aram" (1 Kg. 19:15). The persian king Cyrus, a pagan, is called the Lord's "anointed" (Is.45:1), even though he did [not] know the Lord (vs.4)!
Till:
LJ didn't need to comment on the use of the past tense in Hebrew to
express futurity. This
is commonly known by those who have studied Hebrew or even just engaged
in Old Testament
research. As we will soon see, however, the fact that the past tense
was used does not
within itself prove that the "son of the prophet," who spoke these
words, was merely
prophesying that Jehu would massacre the house of Ahab. The same verb
structure in Hebrew
was also used in situations where obvious commands were given.
Before I cite such examples, let's look at LJ's "parallels," which in my opinion he has greatly stretched to make them parallels. Later, I will be introducing my own parallels to show that futurity (past tense in Hebrew) was used in the giving of clear commands.
LJ:
The prophecy of judgement delivered to Jehu parallels the prophecy
given to the Syrian king
Hazael by Elisha in 2 Kg.8:12-13:
"...I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel:
their strong holds wilt
thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword,
and wilt thou dash their
children, and rip up their women with child.... The Lord hath showed me
that thou shalt be
king over Syria."
Till:
This is hardly a parallel to the statement made to Jehu, who received a
visit from a "son of
the prophets" and was anointed to be king over Israel: "Thus says
Yahweh the God of Israel:
I anoint you king over the people of Yahweh, over Israel"
(2 Kings 9:6).
In the same
breath, this "son of the prophets" then said (immediately), "You shall
strike down the house
of your master Ahab, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my
servants the prophets,
and the blood of all the servants of Yahweh." One has to stretch
imagination to the limits
to make this statement a prophecy rather than a command that was
delivered on the heels of
the anointing ceremony.
When Jehu's anointment is compared to the example that LJ cited, we see that there really is no comparison. The context shows that the example of Hazael was just a case of the prophet Elisha coming to the future king and making a clear prophetic statement without in any way even implying that the actions prophesied were what Yahweh wanted Hazael to do.
2 Kings 8:7 Elisha went to Damascus while King Ben-hadad of Aram was ill. When it was told him, "The man of God has come here," 8 the king said to Hazael, "Take a present with you and go to meet the man of God. Inquire of Yahweh through him, whether I shall recover from this illness." 9 So Hazael went to meet him, taking a present with him, all kinds of goods of Damascus, forty camel loads. When he entered and stood before him, he said, "Your son King Ben-hadad of Aram has sent me to you, saying, 'Shall I recover from this illness?'" 10 Elisha said to him, "Go, say to him, 'You shall certainly recover'; but Yahweh has shown me that he shall certainly die." 11 He fixed his gaze and stared at him, until he was ashamed. Then the man of God wept. 12 Hazael asked, "Why does my lord weep?" He answered, "Because I know the evil that you will do to the people of Israel; you will set their fortresses on fire, you will kill their young men with the sword, dash in pieces their little ones, and rip up their pregnant women." 13 Hazael said, "What is your servant, who is a mere dog, that he should do this great thing?" Elisha answered, "Yahweh has shown me that you are to be king over Aram." 14 Then he left Elisha, and went to his master Ben-hadad, who said to him, "What did Elisha say to you?" And he answered, "He told me that you would certainly recover."
In this case, there was no anointing of Hazael in the name of Yahweh. Elisha simply made a prophetic statement: Hazael would become king of Aram (Syria) and would commit the atrocities specified. Let's suppose, however, that the text read like my revision below.
Elisha poured oil on Hazael's head and said, "Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel: I anoint you king over Syria. You shall do evil to the people of Israel; you shall set their fortresses on fire, you shall kill their young men with the sword, dash in pieces their little ones, and rip up their pregnant women. For the whole house of Israel shall perish; I will cut off from Israel every male, bond or free. I will remove Israel out of my sight and cast off this people whom I have chosen."
If such a scene as this had occurred, would LJ think for one moment that the prophet Elisha was just making a prophecy, or would he understand that as this account was reported, the writer understood that Elisha was an emissary of God sent to anoint Hazael king over Syria (Aram) and to give him specific instructions on what Yahweh's will was in choosing him to be his emissary in eliminating Israel?
LJ cannot say that Yahweh would never have issued such a command as this against his own people Israel, because the Bible specifically states that Israel's destruction by Assyria had been the work of none other than Yahweh himself. The statement below was made to explain why Yahweh would not forgive Judah after the reforms instituted by king Josiah.
2 Kings 23:27 Yahweh said, "I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel; and I will reject this city that I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there."
To have a real "parallel" to what the "son of the prophets" said upon his anointing Jehu to be king over Israel, LJ will have to find a situation like the one that I presented in my hypothetical revision of Elisha's visit to Hazael.
LJ:
Thereafter Hazael proceeded to fulfil this prophecy. He assasinated the bedridden king and usurped the throne. He also warred against Israel as predicted as reported in 1 Kg. 9:14-16; 10:32; 12:17-18.Till:
LJ still has no parallel to Jehu's massacre, because the story of Hazael was written as an example of a prophet visiting a future king of Syria and prophesying that he would commit certain atrocities so terrible that the thought of them had caused Elisha to cry (according to the story). I parenthetically added "according to the story," because if anything like Hazael's atrocities actually happened, it is far more likely that Elisha's prophecy was written after the fact than that he had actually looked into the future and seen these acts. At any rate, I have shown above that the case of Hazael is not at all parallel to Jehu's, because the account of Hazael gives no indication that Yahweh had selected Hazael to be king and then anointed him to commit the acts that followed. Elisha had merely prophesied that they would happen, and the Bible being the Bible, we find nothing spectacular in the claim that a prophet visited a man, predicted that certain events would happen, and then the events happened. Where in the text can LJ find any indication that Yahweh wanted Hazael to commit the atrocities prophesied by Elisha?LJ:
Now clearly Hazael didn't murder his master and proceed to war against Israel because he thought he received a command from the God of Israel.Till:
I agree. There is nothing in this story (if it happened as recorded) that would have given Hazael any reason to think that a god had selected him to be king and had commanded him to commit certain atrocities. As I have shown above, however, that was not the case with Jehu. He had ever reason to think that Yahweh had given him a mandate to carry out.LJ:
Neither did Jehu. He certainly was conscious that he was fulfilling Elisha's prophecy as he destroyed the house of Ahab, just as Hazael must have been conscious that he was fulfilling the prophecy given to him by the same prophet as the events predicted unfolded.
Till:
The difference, however, is that Elisha did not tell Hazael that Yahweh had anointed him king and then in the same breath tell him that he would do this and that. The fact that the orders to eradicate the house of Ahab were given in the Hebrew equivalent of the future tense does not change these orders to mere prophecies that Jehu would commit acts so offensive to Yahweh that he would later punish Jehu's descendants. Such a view is absurd, because it depicts Yahweh as having chosen a king who he knew would commit atrocities that Yahweh would disapprove of. Why would an omniscient god have done that? I'll say more about this later.LJ:
Jehu was 10 that he was fulfilling an earlier prophecy given by the prophet Elijah (read 9:25-26, 36-37; 10:10).Till:
Let's look at these verses.2 Kings 9:25 Jehu said to his aide Bidkar, "Lift him out, and throw him on the plot of ground belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite; for remember, when you and I rode side by side behind his father Ahab how Yahweh uttered this oracle against him: 26 'For the blood of Naboth and for the blood of his children that I saw yesterday, says Yahweh, I swear I will repay you on this very plot of ground.' Now therefore lift him out and throw him on the plot of ground, in accordance with the word of Yahweh."
2 Kings 9:36 When they came back and told him, he said, "This is the word of Yahweh, which he spoke by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, 'In the territory of Jezreel the dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel; 37 the corpse of Jezebel shall be like dung on the field in the territory of Jezreel, so that no one can say, This is Jezebel.'"
2 Kings 10:10 Know then that there shall fall to the earth nothing of the word of Yahweh, which Yahweh spoke concerning the house of Ahab; for Yahweh has done what he said through his servant Elijah."
LJ is here engaging in question begging that we find to be so typical of those who undertake to defend biblical inerrancy, because he assumes the accuracy of the biblical account. It would be more accurate to say that as this story was written, Jehu was aware that he was fulfilling prophecy. Whether these events actually happened, however, is another matter entirely, or if they did happen, whether they happened as recorded is also another matter. Nevertheless, this story was obviously written to convey that Jehu thought he was fulfilling prophecy, but that is certainly no help to LJ's solution to this discrepancy. There are two problems with what LJ is claiming here. First, as the story is told, Jehu had a natural reason for thinking that prophecy was fulfilled in the killing of Jezebel, because he said, in the passage quoted above, that he and his captain (Bidkar) had been present when Yahweh had "uttered an oracle" that Ahab would be repaid on the very plot of ground where Naboth had been murdered. How Jehu and Bidkar had been present when Yahweh "uttered [this] oracle" is not explained, but such "utterances" from Yahweh were common in those days, and I don't doubt that LJ thinks that in some way such an oracle had been uttered and that Jehu and Bidkar had somehow heard it.
Let's suppose for the sake of argument that Jehu and Bidkar had in some way been present when such an oracle had been uttered. If so, this would have been a case of contrived fulfillment, because Jehu deliberately caused the fulfillment of the prophecy by knowing what the prophecy had said and then giving orders to bring about the fulfillment. He had heard the oracle, he lived in superstitious times when people put a lot of stock in oracles, and so when Joram (Ahab's son) was killed, Jehu gave orders to cast Joram's body into the same field where Naboth had been murdered. If that were the case, then a prophecy was "fulfilled" but only in the sense that Jehu deliberately caused it to be fulfilled.
The second problem with the importance that LJ is attaching to the claim that Jehu knew he was fulfilling prophecy is that, if the story happened anywhere close to the way the writer recorded it, there is no reason why Jehu would not have thought that he was fulfilling prophecy. As noted above, Jehu claimed that he was on the scene when Yahweh had uttered oracles {prophecies) of the fate of Ahab's house. From the experience of having been present when a prophecy was uttered, he would therefore have been aware that such prophecies had been made. In addition to that, the "son of the prophet" who anointed Jehu king had informed Jehu that he would be the instrument Yahweh would use to bring about the fulfillment of this prophecy. The original prophecy was made in 1 Kings 21:17-23.
1 Kings 21:17 Then the word of Yahweh came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying: 18 Go down to meet King Ahab of Israel, who rules in Samaria; he is now in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone to take possession. 19 You shall say to him, "Thus says Yahweh: Have you killed, and also taken possession?" You shall say to him, "Thus says Yahweh: In the place where dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, dogs will also lick up your blood." 20 Ahab said to Elijah, "Have you found me, O my enemy?" He answered, "I have found you. Because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of Yahweh, 21 I will bring disaster on you; I will consume you, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel; 22 and I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah, because you have provoked me to anger and have caused Israel to sin. 23 Also concerning Jezebel Yahweh said, 'The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the bounds of Jezreel.' 24 Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat; and anyone of his who dies in the open country the birds of the air shall eat."
LJ is absolutely right in saying that the massacre of Ahab's house had been prophesied, but his confusion results from not understanding that the anointing ceremony made clear that Jehu had been selected by Yahweh as the instrument to carry out Yahweh's desire to have the house of Ahab experience the fate that Elijah had predicted in the passage above. In that sense, Jehu had received a command from Yahweh to bring about all that Elijah had prophesied against Ahab.
Elisha (Elijah's successor), whom the writer would certainly have considered a spokesman for Yahweh, made it clear to the person who was sent to Jehu that this was a divine mission to anoint a king whom Yahweh had selected.
2 Kings 9:1 Then the prophet Elisha called a member of the company of prophets and said to him, "Gird up your loins; take this flask of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth-gilead. 2 When you arrive, look there for Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nimshi; go in and get him to leave his companions, and take him into an inner chamber. 3 Then take the flask of oil, pour it on his head, and say, 'Thus says Yahweh: I anoint you king over Israel.' Then open the door and flee; do not linger." 4 So the young man, the young prophet, went to Ramoth-gilead. 5 He arrived while the commanders of the army were in council, and he announced, "I have a message for you, commander." "For which one of us?" asked Jehu. "For you, commander." 6 So Jehu got up and went inside; the young man poured the oil on his head, saying to him, "Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel: I anoint you king over the people of Yahweh, over Israel.
As I have noted, the prophet then immediately spoke to Jehu what he was to do as the newly anointed king.
2 Kings 9:7 You shall strike down the house of your master Ahab, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of Yahweh. 8 For the whole house of Ahab shall perish; I will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel. 9 I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah. 10 The dogs shall eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel, and no one shall bury her." Then he opened the door and fled.
What the prophet said here repeated most of the things that Elijah had said in his prophecy to Ahab, but the way that they were put into the context of the anointment of a king ostensibly selected by Yahweh must be seen as evidence that the prophet anointing Jehu was telling him that he was to carry out the provisions of Elijah's prophecy against Ahab. To argue otherwise is to say that Yahweh selected a man to be king who immediately went and committed atrocities that Yahweh didn't approve of. If that were the case, then why did Yahweh choose such a king?
That's a problem that LJ will have to explain.
LJ:
Doubtless Hazael, too, would have told someone in Syria as the prophecy given to him came to pass something to the following effect: "By the way, when I was in Israel to consult a seer named Elisha (at such and such a time) concerning (such and such a matter), he prophesied that just what you see happening/saw happen would come to pass"!Till:
Let's suppose that Hazael did say this to someone. LJ needs to give consideration of the superstitious times in which these events allegedly occurred. If a man thought to be a prophet of a mighty god had indeed said to Hazael that he would commit such acts, he would superstitiously have thought that this was his mission in life and would have deliberately acted to bring about the fulfillment. That, however, does nothing to make the case of Hazael parallel to Jehu's. In the former, there was no anointing of Hazael, no claim that he had been divinely chosen to become king, but that was not true with Jehu. A prominent prophet in Israel sent another prophet to anoint Jehu and tell him that he had been selected by Yahweh to be king over Israel. In the anointing ceremony, the prophet told Jehu that he would massacre the house of Ahab. Why would this not be perceived as a command? Why should we not perceive it as a command?I will show later that there are biblical examples of explicit commands (which cannot be perceived as anything but commands) that were delivered in language parallel to what LJ is trying to make into just a prophecy but not a divine command, but to keep the posts relatively short, I will look at these examples in a follow-up reply.
The Follow-Up: Leonard Jayawardena's solution to the Jehu problem is that Yahweh did not command Jehu to massacre the royal family of Israel but merely sent a prophet to him who prophesied that he would commit the massacre. LJ's delineation of his argument was presented and replied to in Part 1 in which I showed that the example of Hazael that he called "parallel" to 2 Kings 9:6ff was not actually a parallel, because it lacked the all-important element of a statement from the prophet Elisha that Yahweh had selected Hazael to be anointed king over Syria for the purpose of doing the atrocities that Elisha predicted Hazael would commit against Israel. That element, however, is very obviously in 2 Kings 9:6ff, where the "son of the prophets" sent by Elisha poured oil on Jehu, declared him to be Yahweh's anointed king over Israel, and specifically stated that he was to obliterate the house of Ahab.
Because of the length of my reply, I stopped before completing my discussion of other examples that LJ presented as parallels to Jehu's selection. I'll now answer those and then give my own parallels, which will be clearly stated commands that were expressed in the Hebrew past tense, the same tense that was often used in prophetic statements. These examples will show that the Hebrew past tense did convey prophetic meaning but not necessarily. The same linguistic structure was used to present obvious commands.
LJ:
The prophet Ahijah the Shilonite conveyed a prophecy to Jeroboam the son of Nebat that he would one day be king of Israel (1 Kg. 11:29ff).Till:
I won't bother to quote the entire context of the prophet Ahijah's statement to Jeroboam, because it isn't necessary. I'm not at all in agreement with LJ's belief that this example was a "parallel" to Jehu's selection to be king of Israel. To me, the account conveys the writer's belief that Yahweh had selected Jeroboam to be king over the northern part of the kingdom, which was about to split at the end of Solomon's reign. It's rather clear that the writer thought that Ahijah had been sent to tell Jeroboam he had been chosen by Yahweh to reign over the 10 tribes of the north when the split became final, and in making that announcement Ahijah said nothing that could be construed as instructions or commands except that retention of the northern kingdom would be conditioned on Jeroboam's obedience to Yahweh's commands. After telling Jeroboam that 10 tribes would be separated to form another kingdom but that the other tribe would rule over Jerusalem in order to keep Yahweh's promise to David, Ahijah stated the conditions that Jeroboam would be expected to comply with.1 Kings 11:34 Nevertheless I will not take the whole kingdom away from him but will make him ruler all the days of his life, for the sake of my servant David whom I chose and who did keep my commandments and my statutes; 35 but I will take the kingdom away from his son and give it to you--that is, the ten tribes. 36 Yet to his son I will give one tribe, so that my servant David may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city where I have chosen to put my name. 37 I will take you, and you shall reign over all that your soul desires; you shall be king over Israel. 38 If you will listen to all that I command you, walk in my ways, and do what is right in my sight by keeping my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did, I will be with you, and will build you an enduring house, as I built for David, and I will give Israel to you. 39 For this reason I will punish the descendants of David, but not forever."
How LJ can see this as a parallel to what the "son of the prophet" said to Jehu when anointing him to be king of Israel is a mystery to me. Ahijah made no "prophecies" of what Jeroboam would do after being given the northern kingdom. He merely stated that keeping the kingdom was contingent on keeping Yahweh's commandments. There is no way that Jeroboam could have left this scene (which probably never happened) thinking, "Well, I have to do this and that, because Ahijah said that I should (would) do these things." The only thing Jeroboam could have thought he had to do was be obedient to Yahweh's command after the division of the kingdom had become a reality.
LJ:
In none of these cases did the prophets either sanction or command the recipients of the prophecies to execute them.Till:
I agree, because the statements of Elisha and Ahijah contained nothing to leave the impression that Yahweh was issuing commands that needed to carried out. What, for example, was in Ahijah's statements to Jeroboam that could possibly have left with him the impression that there were divine commands that he should execute? Ahijah had simply said that Jeroboam would become king over the 10 tribes of the north and that he could retain this kingdom by keeping Yahweh's commands. Hazael had seen a prophet moved to tears because of scenes of atrocities against Israel that Elisha had allegedly seen in the future. Why would Hazael have thought that there were divine commands in this that he had to execute?The case was entirely different with Jehu. He was anointed king of Israel by a "son of the prophets," who then made statements that clearly left expectations of divine punishments against the house of Ahab that he was expected to carry out. The fact that Jehu acted immediately to leave Ramoth-gilead (where the anointing ceremony occurred) and go to Jezreel to massacre the royal family has to be seen as evidence that, as this story was written, Jehu understood that he had received a mandate from Yahweh.
LJ:
They were simply prophetically describing future events, and at least in the cases of Hazael and Jehu, they were fully aware that the prophecies would be acted upon, and there may have been even an "invitation" to do so but no divine command.Till:
I have already said enough to show that there was no parallel at all in the anointing of Jehu and the examples of Hazael and Jeroboam that LJ has cited, and in a moment, I will be showing examples of clear commands that were expressed in the Hebrew past tense on which LJ has based his case that the prophet who anointed Jehu had merely prophesied what Jehu would do.LJ:
On the other hand, God commanded king Saul through the prophet Samuel, "go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not..."(1 Sam.15:3). Note that the verbs "go," "smite," etc. are in the imperative. The Amalekites were national enemies of Israel and they harassed Israel when they came out of Egypt. Later, we are told that God was displeased with Saul for not obeying his command properly.Till:
Yes, the command to Saul was structured linguistically differently from the one that was issued to Jehu, but LJ has an unusually good command of English, so he should be linguistically gifted enough to know that orders and commands can be structured in different grammatical ways.Let's imagine that a person hires a hit man to assassinate someone named John Doe. The order to kill Doe could be stated in different ways.
- 1. Here is $10,000. Go kill John Doe.
- 2. Here is $10,000. I want you to kill John Doe.
- 3.Here is $10,000. You will kill John Doe.
If the hit man were wearing a wire in scenario # 2, I doubt that the person who had hired him would be able to convince a jury that he didn't order the killing of John Doe but had merely expressed the desire that Doe be killed. Neither do I think that the one hiring the hit man would have any success in scenario # 3 convincing a jury that he was merely predicting that the hit man would kill Doe. All three statements are structured differently, but they would all be understood as commands or orders.
LJ:
Let us now look at the purpose clause of 2 Kg. 9:7 ("that I may avenge the blood of My servants the prophets...at the hand of Jezebel"). We have seen that this verse is not a command to Jehu but a simple statement of the will of God for the future. Therefore the purpose clause states God's purpose for the predicted event. Compare John 19:24: "They [the soldiers who crucified Christ] said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose shall it be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did." The Greek conjunction introducing the purpose clause above is hina (in order that), which normally introduces a clause stating the purpose of the performer of the action described in the verb. Compare also 2 Kg. 22:17 ("Because they have forsaken Me, and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might provoke Me to anger..."); Jer.25:7 ("Yet ye have not hearkened unto Me, saith the Lord; that ye might provoke Me to anger...").Till:
If LJ has a point here, I fail to see it. Certainly, the word "that" (in English versions) in the statement to Jehu expresses the reasons for the order to "strike down the house of Ahab." This order was given to Jehu SO that (or in order that) Yahweh could avenge the blood of the prophets. What does that do to help LJ's case? Is he arguing that if someone who gives a command to commit an atrocity or a murder or some such gives a reason for issuing the command it ceases to be a command and becomes a "prophecy." I'm sorry, but I just don't see it.Let's go back to the example of the hit man, and this time we will suppose that the one hiring the assassin had a brother who was killed by John Doe. In that case, the commands given above could have been stated like this...
- 1. Here is $10,000. Go kill John Doe in order to avenge my brother's death.
- 2. Here is $10,000. I want you to kill John Doe in order to avenge my brother's death.
- 3. Here is $10,000. You will kill John Doe in order to avenge my brother's death.
These still remain orders to kill even though the purpose of the orders had been included. Surely, LJ can see that.
At this point, I have to wonder why LJ did not quote from Young's Literal Translation as he did when he first introduced the statement the "son of the prophet" made to Jehu. Had he done that, he would have seen that there was no "that" (which he calls a "purpose clause") in the Hebrew text. Here again is how Young rendered the passage.
And he [Jehu] riseth and cometh in to the house, and he [prophet] poureth the oil on his head, and saith to him, `Thus said Jehovah, God of Israel, I have anointed thee for king unto the people of Jehovah, unto Israel, and thou hast smitten the house of Ahab thy lord, and I have required the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of Jehovah, from the hand of Jezebel; and perished hath all the house of Ahab, and I have cut off to Ahab those sitting on the wall, and restrained, and left, in Israel, and I have given up the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and as the house of Baasha son of Ahijah, and Jezebel do the dogs eat in the portion of Jezreel, and there is none burying;' and he openeth the door and fleeth (2 Kg. 9:6-10, Young's Literal Translation).
I have emphasized in uppercase letters LJ's "that clause" to show that in Hebrew there was no that. The conjunction and was used. Idiomatically, the meaning was the same. The prophet was just saying to Jehu that he should smite the house of Ahab, and in so doing Yahweh would be "requiring" the blood of the prophets whom Ahab had killed. In English, we would say, "You will smite the house of Ahab that I may avenge the blood of the prophets," and it is so translated in most English versions. Literally, however, the text was saying, "(T)hou hast smitten the house of Ahab thy lord, and I have required the blood of my servants the prophets." There is no that, which LJ made such an issue over.
If he had checked the Hebrew text, he would have found that this same grammatical structure was often used in Hebrew to give the reason for a previously issued command. Here are just a few examples.
Exodus 28:35 Aaron shall wear it [a golden bell] when he ministers, and its sound shall be heard when he goes into the holy place before Yahweh, and when he comes out, so that he may not die.
The parallel to LJ's imaginary "that clause" in 2 Kings 9:7 can be seen by juxtaposing Young's version of this verse.
And it hath been on Aaron to minister in, and its sound hath been heard in his coming into the sanctuary before Jehovah, and his going out, and he doth not die.
I had a dual purpose in quoting Young's version of this verse. First, I wanted to show that "in order that" was idiomatically expressed in Hebrew by using the conjunction "and." Clearly, this verse contained a divine command that was incumbent on Aaron. He had to wear the golden bell or else violate a commandment given by Yahweh. The commandment was structured to include a purpose statement. Aaron was ordered to wear the bell so that he would not die, but the inclusion of the purpose statement did not keep the commandment from being a commandment. Second, I wanted readers to see that in English this is a "shall" statement, which is obviously a divine command: "Aaron shall wear it [a golden bell] when he ministers, and its sound shall be heard." What LJ is calling the prophetic past tense in Hebrew was used in this verse, so by the logic that LJ has applied to what the "son of the prophet" said to Jehu, this was not a command for Aaron to wear the golden bell but only a prophecy that he would. I'll have more to say about this structure later as we look at other obvious commands in Hebrew that used the past tense (prophetic future), but first let's look at other commands that included what LJ calls a "purpose clause."
Exodus 30:17 Yahweh spoke to Moses: 18 You shall make make a bronze basin with a bronze stand for washing. You shall put put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it; 19 with the water Aaron and his sons shall wash wash their hands and their feet. 20 When they go into the tent of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to make an offering by fire to Yahweh, they shall wash with water, so that they may not die. 21 They shall wash their hands and their feet, so that they may not die: it shall be a perpetual ordinance for them, for him and for his descendants throughout their generations.
Notice again that we have in this passage a series of "shall" statements that are obviously commands. All doubt that they were commands is removed by the last verse, which says that this "shall be a perpetual ordinance for them [the Aaronic priests]... throughout their generations." An ordinance is a command. It also included a "purpose clause," which stated the reason for the ordinance (so that they may not die), but the inclusion of the "purpose clause" did not keep this from being a command.
If we look at this passage in Young's Literal Translation, we will see that LJ's "prophetic past tense" was used, along with the conjunction and, which idiomatically introduced what LJ calls a "purpose clause."
And Jehovah speaketh unto Moses, saying, 'And Thou hast made a laver of brass (and its base of brass), for washing; and thou hast put between the tent of meeting and the altar, and hast put water there; and Aaron and his sons have washed at it their hands and their feet, in their going in unto the tent of meeting they wash with water, and die not; or in their drawing nigh unto the altar to minister, to perfume a fire-offering to Jehovah, then they have washed their hands and their feet, and they die not, and it hath been to them a statute age-during, to him and to his seed to their generations.
Notice the past tense of the verbs that are "shall" or future statements in the English translation. LJ has talked about "parallels," and here we have a true parallel to the statement the "son of the prophet" made to Jehu. The past tense was used to denote that which was clearly a command. The statement above was not a matter of choice for Aaron and the priests. It was a command that they had to obey so that they would not die. The inclusion of a "purpose clause," introduced idiomatically with and in Hebrew, did not keep this from being a command, and neither did the use of the past tense (which LJ argues was a prophetic tense) keep it from being a command. By LJ's logic, however, this was not a command that the priests had to obey; it was just a prophecy that they would go through these washing ceremonies. The warning that they had to do this so that they would not die leaves no doubt that this was a command and not a prophecy.
I would unnecessarily bore readers if I should undertake to quote other examples of where clearly stated commands used the "and" purpose clause, but readers can check for themselves and find "that they die not" clauses attached to clear commands in Leviticus 8:35, Numbers 4:15, and Numbers 18:3. These are just a few of many examples that could be quoted, and in each case, the "purpose clause" was introduced with and in the Hebrew text. We can conclude, then, that there is no merit at all to LJ's argument that the inclusion of a "purpose clause" ("that I may avenge the blood of my servants the prophets") in what the "son of the prophet" said to Jehu is proof that this was not a command but just a prophecy.
Now, finally, here are some examples of other passages where the Hebrew past tense (which on occasions was used in a prophetic sense) was used in the issuance of clear commands.
In 1 Kings 1:32-35, David gave a death-bed command to anoint his son Solomon as king over Israel.
32 King David said, "Summon to me the priest Zadok, the prophet Nathan, and Benaiah son of Jehoiada." When they came before the king, 33 the king said to them, "Take with you the servants of your lord, and have my son Solomon ride on my own mule, and bring him down to Gihon. 34 There let the priest Zadok and the prophet Nathan anoint him king over Israel; then blow the trumpet, and say, 'Long live King Solomon!' 35 You shall go up following him. Let him enter and sit on my throne; he shall be king in my place; for I have appointed him to be ruler over Israel and over Judah."
Young's Literal Translation shows that the English "shall" statements were in the Hebrew past tense.
And the king said to them, 'Take with you the servants of your lord and ye have caused Solomon my son to ride on mine own mule, and caused him to go down into Gihon and anointed him there hath Zadok the priest--and Nathan the prophet--for king over Israel, and ye have blown with a trumpet and said, Let King Solomon live; and ye have come up after him, and he hath come in and hath sat on my throne, and he doth reign in my stead, and him I have appointed to be leader over Israel, and over Judah.
Obviously, David was giving a command for Solomon to be crowned king and even specifying the manner in which it was to be done, but this command was issued in the Hebrew past tense that LJ claims was prophetic in nature. According to his logic, David was not giving a command to crown Solomon king but was merely prophesying that Solomon would be made king.
Again, there are just too many examples to cite, without resorting to overkill and boredom, where the Hebrew past tense was used in the issuance of clear commands, so I will finish by giving only the English translation of some of them. Where I put the English future tense in bold print, you will find the past tense in Hebrew, a fact that can be easily confirmed by consulting Young's Literal Translation.
Joshua 6:2 Yahweh said to Joshua, "See, I have handed Jericho over to you, along with its king and soldiers. 3 You shall march around the city, all the warriors circling the city once. Thus you shall do for six days, 4 with seven priests bearing seven trumpets of rams' horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, the priests blowing the trumpets. 5 When they make a long blast with the ram's horn, as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and all the people shall charge straight ahead."
According to LJ's logic, Yahweh was not telling Joshua what he and the Israelites were to do but was simply prophesying that they would march around Jericho, they would blow on the trumpets, and the walls would fall down. Such an interpretation, however, would be absurd, because obviously this text was written to convey that Yahweh had issued specific commands that the Israelites were to carry out in order to take Jericho.
According to the story, the Israelites began to encompass Jericho as Yahweh had ordered them, at which time Joshua issued a clear command to the people that he conveyed in the Hebrew past tense.
Joshua 6:10 To the people Joshua gave this command: "You shall not shout or let your voice be heard, nor shall you utter a word, until the day I tell you to shout. Then you shall shout."
Obviously, this was a command to the people that they were not to shout until they were told to and not just a prophecy that they would not shout. Passages such as these in the Old Testament show that the Hebrew past tense was often used to convey commands. In the very next chapter of Joshua, there is another example, which tells of Joshua's anguish when Israel lost the first battle to take Ai because Achan had taken some of the booty in the battle of Jericho and hidden it in his tent.
Joshua 7:10 Yahweh said to Joshua, "Stand up! Why have you fallen upon your face? 11 Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant that I imposed on them. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have acted deceitfully, and they have put them among their own belongings. 12 Therefore the Israelites are unable to stand before their enemies; they turn their backs to their enemies, because they have become a thing devoted for destruction themselves. I will be with you no more, unless you destroy the devoted things from among you. 13 Proceed to sanctify the people, and say, 'Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow; for thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, "There are devoted things among you, O Israel; you will be unable to stand before your enemies until you take away the devoted things from among you." 14 In the morning therefore you shall come forward tribe by tribe. The tribe that Yahweh takes shall come near by clans, the clan that Yahweh takes shall come near by households, and the household that Yahweh takes shall come near one by one. 15 And the one who is taken as having the devoted things shall be burned with fire, together with all that he has, for having transgressed the covenant of Yahweh, and for having done an outrageous thing in Israel.'"
As this story was written, Yahweh was, of course, issuing a command to burn with fire whoever was found guilty of stealing devoted things. He was not just prophesying that the guilty party would be burned with fire.
After Achan was found guilty of stealing the devoted things and his family and livestock in typical Yahwistic fashion were stoned to death and burned, another assault on Ai was made, at which time Yahweh gave the following instructions to Joshua.
Joshua 8:1 Then Yahweh said to Joshua, "Do not fear or be dismayed; take all the fighting men with you, and go up now to Ai. See, I have handed over to you the king of Ai with his people, his city, and his land. 2 You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king; only its spoil and its livestock you may take as booty for yourselves. Set an ambush against the city, behind it."
The English future tense (shall do) in verse 2 was literally "hast done" (Young), or in other words, it was the Hebrew past tense, on which LJ has based his argument that the prophet's statement to Jehu was really a prophecy and not a command. Surely, LJ would not argue that in the text above Yahweh wasn't telling Joshua what to do but was just prophesying that he would attack Ai and do to it what he had done to Jericho.
After the conversation with Yahweh (however that conversation may have occurred), Joshua conveyed the attack orders to his army.
3 So Joshua and all the fighting men set out to go up against Ai. Joshua chose thirty thousand warriors and sent them out by night 4 with the command, "You shall lie in ambush against the city, behind it; do not go very far from the city, but all of you stay alert. 5 I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. When they come out against us, as before, we shall flee from them. 6 They will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city; for they will say, 'They are fleeing from us, as before.' While we flee from them, 7 you shall rise up from the ambush and seize the city; for Yahweh your God will give it into your hand. 8 And when you have taken the city, you SHALL SET the city on fire, doing as has ordered; see, I have commanded you."
Obviously, Joshua was not prophesying here that his army would do all these things; he was issuing orders to destroy the city in the manner he described.
During the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, king Zedekiah had Jeremiah brought to him secretly in order to secure his prophetic opinion on the outcome of the siege. After the two had conversed, Zedekiah issued a clear command to Jeremiah, which he expressed in the Hebrew past tense.
Jeremiah 38:24 Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, "Do not let anyone else know of this conversation, or you will die. 25 If the officials should hear that I have spoken with you, and they should come and say to you, 'Just tell us what you said to the king; do not conceal it from us, or we will put you to death. What did the king say to you?' 26 then you shall say to them, 'I was presenting my plea to the king not to send me back to the house of Jonathan to die there.'" 27 All the officials did come to Jeremiah and questioned him; and he answered them in the very words the king had commanded. So they stopped questioning him, for the conversation had not been overheard.
Zedekiah was obviously ordering Jeremiah to lie if the officials asked him what was discussed at his meeting with the king. Zedekiah was not just prophesying that Jeremiah would lie to them.
There is no need for me to continue with more examples of commands that were issued in the Hebrew past tense, because I would have to write a book. The ones I have cited are sufficient to show that LJ's premise is flawed. The mere fact that a statement directed to another person was stated in the Hebrew past tense did not make it a prophecy. Commands were often structured in the Hebrew past undoubtedly to convey the certainty that this was a command that had to be carried out. The context of 2 Kings 9:6ff is sufficiently clear to show that the prophet sent to Jehu was telling him that Yahweh expected Jehu to destroy the house of Ahab. LJ's "solution" to the inconsistency in 2 Kings 10:30 and Hosea 1:4 has therefore failed, because he cannot claim a solution until he has proven beyond reasonable doubt that the "son of the prophet" had merely made a prophetic statement to Jehu. The textual evidence just won't support that speculation.
In a follow-up posting, I will discuss reasons why LJ's claim of prophecy in 2 Kings 9:6ff is too unreasonable to accept as a satisfactory solution to this problem.An Interim Reply from Jaywardena
LJ:
I have read your replies to my opening argument of the debate, and
append below an interim
reply to your postings. I will send my full return-reply after what you
referred to as a
"follow-up posting." On the other hand, if by the time you receive this
you have already
posted the follow-up, I will incorporate the interim reply in my full
return-reply.
The Interim Reply to FT's Reply to My Opening Argument: First of all, I wish to make corrections to the following errors in my opening argument, which, I hasten to add, do not in any way damage the first part of my solution to the alleged contradiction under debate, i. e., 2 Kg. 9:6-10 is only a prophecy, not a command, and I still stand by that and will say more on that next time.
After quoting Young's literal translation of 2 Kg. 9:6-10, I wrote, "The reader will note in the literal translation above that the verbs 'I have anointed thee,' 'thou hast smitten,' 'I have required,' etc. are all in the past tense, which is used here to affirm the certainty of these events happening in the future."
What I meant was that the Hebrew verbs underlying these verb phrases (which in the literal translation I quoted are in the perfect tense) were in the past tense, which is not correct because, actually, Hebrew has no such thing as a "past tense" (an error shared by FT).
Till:
This wasn't so much a "shared" mistake on my part as a matter of
convenience. As Young
himself noted in his discussion of Hebrew tenses in the introduction to
his literal
translation, "The Hebrew has only two tenses, which for want of
better terms, may be
called past and present." Since there are really no exact
equivalents in English tenses,
discretion (depending on context and modifiers) has to be used to
determine English
equivalency. It is therefore appropriate to say that futurity in Hebrew
was often conveyed
by using the "past" tense, and I had no quarrel with LJ on this point.
In fact, I will
probably continue to use "past," because this is a simple tense concept
to understand.
LJ:
Unlike Greek, my knowledge of Hebrew is very basic--my studies thus far in that language not having progressed much beyond learning to read and write its script and the tricky vowels! However, I have now checked with my Hebrew grammar books and this is what I have found. The Hebrew verb, while it has no tense in the conventional sense of that word, has two "states": the Perfect and the Imperfect.
Till:
Yes, that is also my understanding. I can remember my Hebrew classes as
an undergraduate
student almost 50 years ago. The Hebrew concept of tenses was a major
difficulty for
students.
LJ:
"The Perfect describes an action which is complete or conceived to be
complete, while the
Imperfect expresses an action which is incomplete. Each has a wide
range of meaning."
"Sometimes in Hebrew future events are conceived so vividly and so
realistically that they
are regarded as having virtually taken place and are described by the
perfect.
Till:
Yes. So?
At this point I am wondering why LJ based an argument on Hebrew tenses if his knowledge of the language is no better than mine.
LJ:
This usage is very common in the elevated language of the prophets,
whose faith and
imagination so vividly project before them the event or scene which
they predict that it
appears already realized.
Till:
I strongly suspect that LJ is recycling ideas that he found in the
books he consulted on
Hebrew grammar. I find it very inappropriate for would-be apologists to
base arguments on
the original biblical languages when they don't have the expertise to
speak with any
authority on the subject.
LJ:
It is part of the purpose of God,
Till:
Here LJ is begging a question that he needs to prove. I won't let him
just assume that when
Hebrew prophets spoke they were doing so in accordance with some
"purpose of God."
LJ:
and therefore, to the clear eyes of the prophet, already good as
accomplished (prophetic
perfect)." Therefore, I should have said that these verbs are in the prophetic
perfect, not in the past tense.
Till:
But by LJ's own admission he isn't knowledgeable enough in Hebrew to
speak with any authority
on when the perfect "tense" in Hebrew had prophetic intentions. I have
already shown several
examples where the same verb constructions found in Hebrew "prophecies"
were also used to
convey clear commands. Thus, LJ will have to do more than just point
out the use of the
perfect "tense" in 2 Kings 9:6ff before he can make any kind of case
for his belief that
the "son of the prophets" merely uttered a prophecy here instead of
issuing a command.
LJ:
One of the first drafts of my solution was based on a normal English
translation (NASB)
of 2 Kg. 9:6-10 and hence the reference to a "purpose clause," which in
fact, as FT has
correctly pointed out, does not occur in the Hebrew, the purpose being
expressed by a clause
introduced by "and": "And I have required the blood of my servants the
prophets...." This,
again, is a reflection of my poor knowledge of Hebrew. I consulted
Young's literal
translation at a later stage. It was an omission on my part not to have
checked with the
Young's literal translation on this point too. However, as FT has
acknowledged, this clause
"I have required the blood...," though technically not a purpose
clause, functionally it is
still that; and so even with this correction, the point that I was
trying to make stands,
but since it is not crucial to my argument, I will not pursue it to
avoid using up
unnecessary kilo bytes and boring readers. Please treat the paragraph
containing this error
as having been withdrawn.
Till:
Well, no, the point does not still stand, because my second rebuttal pointed out several examples of where the same "and" conjunction was used to state the reason why clear commands were given. I'll cut and paste some of those examples below.
[Editorial note: Since the section that was originally cut and pasted here can be see by scrolling up to the section where the examples of hiring a hit man to kill John Doe were presented, that part is being omitted here. The section deleted here began immediately after the John Doe examples.]
LJ:
Finally, one other matter raised in FT's replies.
FT wastes a lot of KBs in demolishing an argument that I nowhere advanced or a premise I do not hold! He misrepresents me in saying that I based my case for 2 Kg. 9:6-10 being a prophecy rather than a command to Jehu on the use of the Hebrew-Perfect in this passage (which we both have hitherto erroneously referred to as the Hebrew "past tense" as the readers are now aware).
Till:
Well, if I misrepresented LJ, I certainly apologize for it, but anyone
who reads his first
defense of his position can clearly see that he began his first
argument by quoting
2 Kings 9:6ff from Young's Literal Translation after which he made the
following comments on
the "tense" used in the statement.
Now let us look closely at the language of the prophecy delivered to Jehu. The reader will note in the literal translation above that the verbs "I have anointed thee," "thou hast smitten," "I have required," etc. are all in the past tense, which is used here to affirm the certainty of these events happening in the future. Compare Gen. 17:5: "...for a father of many nations have I made thee," the fulfilment of which even in type (in a literal sense) took many centuries. "And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon; the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him" (Jeremiah 27:6).
In LJ's original submission directed to me, he had used styled text that contained italics, bold print, and different font sizes, all of which came out as plain text only when I forwarded it to errancy and alt.bible.errancy. In quoting Young's version of the passage, LJ had put all of the Hebrew perfect "tense" forms in bold print, so he was obviously emphasizing the tenses to make the point quoted above. If I misrepresented him, I think the mistake was understandable, so he now needs to explain to us what he believes the "tense" used in the passage signified. Why did he bring the matter up and emphasize it as he did if he doesn't think that the tense used supported his position that this was a prophetic statement?
LJ:
As FT has rightly pointed out with many examples, the Perfect is used
in the OT to express
what are clearly commands. If FT carefully re-reads what I have
written, he will see that
nothing in it excludes this use of the Hebrew Perfect.
Till:
But nothing in the use of the Hebrew perfect in this passage would
prove that it was a
prophecy and not a command. Since LJ admits that commands could be
issued in this "tense"
as well as prophecies, he needs to give us much more in order to prove
that the "son of the
prophets" was merely prophesying in this passage.
LJ:
After quoting Young's literal translation of 2 Kg. 9:6-10, I wrote,
"The reader will note in the literal translation above
that the verbs 'I have anointed thee,' 'thou hast smitten,' 'I have
required,' etc. are all
in the past tense, which is used here to affirm the certainty of these
events happening in
the future." Note that I wrote "which is used here," i. e.,
in this
passage, not simply "which is used," which could suggest that I
restricted the use of the
Hebrew Perfect only to the Prophetic Perfect.
Till:
I'm trying to keep this debate above personal remarks, but I honestly
think that LJ is
quibbling here to try to cover a mistake that he now realizes he made.
In saying that the
past tense was used "here," LJ surely thought at the time that the use
of this "tense"
here (in the disputed passage) was an indication that the
statement was prophetic.
Otherwise, why did he make it? If his intention was to "[restrict] the
use of the Hebrew
Perfect only to the Prophetic Perfect," then he needs to explain to us
why the use of the
Hebrew perfect here made it a "Prophetic Perfect" here.
Since the Hebrew
perfect could be used in issuing commands (a fact that LJ now admits),
if 2 Kings 9:6ff was
prophetic in its intention, there must have been other indictors of
this intention in the
text. What were they? LJ has yet to tell us.
LJ:
Later, I quoted
1 Sam. 15:3,
where I pointed
out that the verbs there are in the imperative, which necessarily
expresses a command. The
verb forms used in 2 Kg. 9:6-10 cannot settle the question of whether
this passage is just a
prophecy or a command.
Till:
Yes, but this shows only that the imperative was sometimes used to
convey commands in Hebrew.
The many examples that I cited (and quoted) in my second rebuttal show
that the perfect was
often used to convey commands. If the perfect was often used to convey
commands and if the
perfect was used in 2 Kings 9:6ff, how does LJ know that the statement
was prophetic in its
intention? That's what we want to know.
LJ:
The verb forms used in 2 Kg. 9:6-10 cannot settle the question of
whether this passage is
just a prophecy or a command.
Till:
Good. Then shall we consider this matter settled? If so, we will wait
to see whatever other
reasons LJ may have for thinking that 2 Kings 9:6ff was a prophecy and
not a command.
Till:
Leonard Jayawardena has argued that the apparent inconsistency in 2
Kings 10:30 and Hosea 1:4
can be resolved by simply understanding that the "son of the prophets"
who anointed Jehu king
over Israel did not deliver to him a divine command to go and destroy
the house of Ahab but
had merely prophesied that he would commit this massacre. LJ therefore
sees no inconsistency
in the praise and approval of Jehu expressed in 2 Kings 10:30...
30 Yahweh said to Jehu, "Because you have done well in carrying out what I consider right, and in accordance with all that was in my heart have dealt with the house of Ahab, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel."
and the prophet Hosea's pronouncement of punishment on the house of Jehu for having committed the massacre of the royal family of Israel at Jezreel.
Hosea 1:3 So he [Hosea] went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son. 4 And Yahweh said to him, "Name him Jezreel; for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. 5 On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel."
If I have understood him, LJ's position is that 2 Kings 10:30 was neither praising Jehu nor approving of Jehu's actions at Jezreel but was merely saying that Yahweh had wanted the house of Ahab to be destroyed, so since Jehu had brought about Yahweh's desires in this matter, even though Yahweh did not specifically command him to, he was going to reward Jehu by allowing his descendants to sit on the throne of Israel for four generations before he destroyed them and thereby punished Jehu for having committed a massacre that he was not commanded to do. Hence, all that Hosea did in the passage above was to pronounce that the time had come for the house of Jehu to be punished for what Jehu had done to the house of Ahab.
The usual track that inerrantists take to "explain" the Jehu problem is to argue that Jehu had exceeded his mandate and killed more people than Yahweh had commanded him, and so it was for Jehu's excesses that Yahweh sent Hosea to declare that the time had come for the house of Jehu to be punished for their ancestor's having gone beyond what Yahweh had commanded him. Those who read the exchanges between me and Robert Turkel on this issue will recall that this was Turkel's position, for which he was unable to make a credible case. In his original correspondence with me, LJ said that "(t)he explanation offered by some for Hos[ea] 1-4, that Jehu exceeded his 'mandate,' is unacceptable." I was glad to read that LJ can see the inadequacy of the usual inerrantist explanation of this problem, but I must say that I find his explanation just as unsatisfactory as the one that he finds unacceptable. There are too many problems in LJ's explanation to see it as a way out of a problem that has long troubled believers in biblical inerrancy.
The first of these problems has been exposed and discussed in Part 1 and Part 2 of my reply. To make his case, LJ must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the words spoken by the "son of the prophet" while anointing Jehu were merely prophetic and were not intended to be a command. LJ made his case for prophecy by arguing that the Hebrew past tense was used throughout this passage and that biblical prophecy was usually expressed in this way. I showed in Part 2, however, that there are many examples in the Old Testament of obvious commands that were spoken in the same linguistic structure, so it is evident that statements in Hebrew were not always prophecies just became they were written or stated in the past tense. To make his case, then, LJ will have to show us more than the mere fact that the Hebrew past tense was used in the statement that the "son of the prophets" made while he was anointing Jehu to be king. Perhaps LJ has other supporting evidence that he will be able to give us, but while we are waiting to see any additional evidence he may have, I will list and explain some reasons why it is unlikely that the statement spoken to Jehu was only prophetic in its intention.
First, LJ's solution has the same problem that we find in so many inerrantist "explanations" of biblical discrepancies. It makes the omniscient, omnipotent Yahweh look like an incompetent nincompoop. Surely, LJ would not argue that Elisha, who was Yahweh's chosen successor to Elijah (1 Kings 19:16), just acted on his own in sending Elisha to anoint Jehu. The passage just cited, in fact, specifically stated that Yahweh ordered Elijah to anoint Jehu king of Israel, so Elisha (in 2 Kings 9) was merely executing this commandment. Thus, it is evident that the writer(s) of the books of Kings thought that the anointing of Jehu was Yahweh's will. LJ's "solution" to the Jehu problem, therefore, makes Yahweh so incompetent that he would select a king whom he knew would do deeds so heinous that he would have to suffer the punishment of having his "house" (descendants) eradicated (assuming that there could ever be any moral justification for punishing people for what had been done by their ancestors). There just can't be much credibility in a solution that makes an omniscient deity look so mentally incompetent.
Second, LJ's solution results in a situation that has the Yahweh violating his own decree that says that people should not be punished for the sins of their ancestors.
Deuteronomy 24:16 Parents shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their parents; only for their own crimes may persons be put to death.
Ezekiel 18:20 The person who sins shall die. A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent, nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own.
LJ's solution creates a situation where Yahweh did exactly what he said in his own decrees should not be done: he punished the descendants of Jehu for something that they didn't do. Readers should expect LJ to argue that Jehu's descendants were also immoral, but that is besides the point. If they were immoral, they should (according to Yahweh's own decree) have been punished for their own sins, not the sins of an ancestor. Hosea's pronouncement, however, was quite clear in saying that punishment on the house of Jehu would be rendered because of the "blood at Jezreel."
Hosea 1:4 (F)or in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.
Jehu was the one who had shed blood at Jezreel in his massacre of the royal family of Israel, so Hosea's statement clearly fixed punishment on a family for something that had been done by an ancestor who was long dead.
What we actually have in this story is an example of ancient barbarity when people thought that punishment should be brought upon not just the one guilty party but upon everyone who could potentially extend the family lineage. Achan's entire family, for example, was stoned and burned for a crime that Achan had committed in keeping booty for himself during the sacking of Jericho (Josh. 8:25-26). When Ahab and Jezebel plotted against Naboth to kill him so that Ahab could have Naboth's vineyard, Yahweh sent Elijah to tell Ahab that his whole house would be destroyed for this sin (1 Kings 21:17ff), and as the story of Jehu's massacre at Jezreel was told, it was ostensibly done to punish Ahab for the murder of Naboth. Ahab was dead at the time of Jehu's massacre, but the barbarians of ancient times had the peculiar belief that a dead person could be punished by killing his descendants. It was a barbaric belief that modern society has progressed beyond, but it is a sad commentary that we still have people like LJ who are so determined to see the writings of those barbaric times as "the word of God" that they will go to whatever extremes necessary to defend such barbarity.
The fact is that the Old Testament account of Jehu's massacre praised what he did at Jezreel.
2 Kings 10:30 Yahweh said to Jehu, "Because you have done well in carrying out what I consider right, and in accordance with all that was in my heart have dealt with the house of Ahab, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel."
I would urge LJ to take particular notice of the fact that the text above clearly says that Yahweh said to Jehu that he had "done well in carrying out what [he] consider[ed] right" and that Jehu had done in accordance with all that was in Yahweh's heart in Jehu's dealings with the house of Ahab." Clearly, this passage is saying that Jehu did exactly what Yahweh had wanted him to do. In his initial draft to me, LJ said, "(T)he judgements [sic] of God are, of course, always 'right'--they can never be otherwise!" This statement puts LJ in the peculiar position of arguing that the judgments of God are always right and can never be otherwise, but a person deserves to be punished by having his family lineage exterminated if he should do that which is always right and never wrong.
Absurd inconsistencies like this one are common in the efforts of biblicists to find inerrancy in the Bible. In that respect, although his efforts have shown a lot better linguistic and argumentation skills than we have seen from others, LJ is no different from other inerrantists who have debated in these forums.
LJ:
In my last submission, I said, inter alia, that next time I
would add to what I said
in my opening argument concerning 2 Kg. 9:6-10, which I have maintained
is simply a prophecy,
not a command to Jehu. But I am afraid this has to be differed to the
next time since a
certain issue repeatedly raised by FT has necessitated a slight
digression in which I hope
the readers will bear with me. This is his many references to
"inerrantists" with whom he
has (wrongly) lumped me.
Till:
If I have wrongly accused LJ of being an inerrantist, that is certainly
understandable,
because his personal correspondence to me proposed a debate on the
biblical contradictions
and failed prophecies that I had alleged. His proposal seemed inclusive
and sweeping, and at
no time did he indicate that he was also a biblical errantist but
merely thought that I
had made some allegations of errancy that could be explained. He did
remark that he believed
he could satisfactorily explain 90% of the prophecy failures that I had
alleged in
Prophecies:
Imaginary and Unfulfilled, but I certainly didn't see this as
an agreement that the other
10% were prophecy failures. I understood him to mean only that he
personally didn't have
explanations for them. After all, I am accustomed to dealing with
biblicists who argue that
just because they don't have explanations for biblical discrepancies
does not mean that they
are actual discrepancies.
At any rate, LJ could have simply notified us that I had mistakenly assumed that he is an inerrantist and then proceeded to show us his reasons for seeing 2 Kings 9:6ff as a prophecy rather than a command. Instead, he has launched into a 30K analysis of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, which has nothing to do with his claim that there is no inconsistency in the praise and approval of Jehu's massacre in 2 Kings 10:30 and the condemnation of it in Hosea 1:4. And he accused me of fighting a straw man!
LJ:
Though not directly relevant to the current debate, I consider this
topic to be of sufficient
importance to warrant some treatment, especially in view of the fact
that both newsgroups
involved have the word "errancy" in their name.
Till:
No, it certainly isn't relevant to the current debate, and I must
firmly protest that LJ,
who contacted me about debating this particular issue, has already led
the debate into an
irrelevant tangent. As I noted above, if I had incorrectly assumed that
he is a biblical
inerrantist, he could have simply said so, for whether he is an
inerrantist or not, he is
affirming that 2 Kings 10:30 and Hosea 1:4 are consistent statements.
We could have done
without his lengthy tangent into the meaning of the Chicago Statement
on Biblical Inerrancy?
I must note again that LJ has no room at all to accuse me of fighting straw men, and I seriously wonder if this digression has not been perpetrated in order to give him time to recover from mistakes that even he has admitted he made in his attempt to reconcile the passages in dispute.
LJ:
Before that a few other matters.
FT has jumped the gun! He has already presented his counter-arguments to Point 2 of my solution to the Jehu question, which I outlined in the first submission, even before I have had the opportunity of properly formulating it! He even quotes from my private correspondence to him which the readers have never seen! In the first defense, I only introduced Point 1, i. e., 2 Kg. 9:6-10 is only a prophecy, not a command, and I have still not exhausted even this point. In my next posting, I will complete Point 1 and, hopefully, introduce Point 2 formally.
TILL:
I'm really at a loss to understand LJ's complaint that I "jumped the
gun," because his first
defense of his proposition, under point 2, stated, "It will be shown
that
Ex. 20:3-5
is the key that
unlocks 2
Kg.10:30," so all I
did was reply to a statement that he himself had made. Even if he had
not made this statement
in his own posting, there would have been no reason why I should not
have referred to the
Exodus 20 statement. From over 60 Ks of e-mail that LJ sent me, I knew
that he intended to
cite Exodus 20:5 to justify Hosea's pronouncement of punishment on the
house of Jehu for the
massacre at Jezreel, and even if LJ had not mentioned this passage, I
still would have
expected him to use it, because I have debated the Jehu massacre
extensively, so I know what
the stock "solutions" to this discrepancy will often be. I don't
usually anticipate
opposition arguments (as my current debate with Stephanie on the Tyre
prophecy will show),
but I sometimes do cut the opposition off at the pass. Since he himself
had mentioned Exodus
20:3-5, I decided to let him know what my rebuttal would be if he did
decide to base an
argument on the Exodus passage. I know of no debating rule that
prohibits a participant
from anticipating what an opponent may say.
I do wish that LJ would debate the Jehu issue and drop all of his digressions and petty complaints. A debate that showed great promise at the beginning is rapidly deteriorating into just another debate that gets bogged down in tangents and quibbles.
LJ
Moreover, having "illegally" commented on a point yet to be formally
introduced for debate,
he then sets up a straw man!
Till:
As I said above, I know of no debating standard that makes it "illegal"
to anticipate the
opposition's argument, and (as I have shown) I really didn't anticipate
it; he introduced
the text himself. As for his charge that I have set up a straw man,
what would he call his
30 Ks of material on the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy
(CSBI), which he
himself admits is not "directly relevant to the current debate"?
LJ"
That is, he raises the entirely irrelevant and separate issue of the
apparent contradiction
between Exodus 20:5
Till:
Well, if Exodus 20:3-5 is "entirely irrelevant," we will expect LJ to
make no appeals to this
passage to try to justify Hosea's pronouncement of punishment on the
house of Jehu for the
Jezreel massacre. Only time will show whether he really believes that
this passage is
"entirely irrelevant" to this debate.
LJ:
and Deut.
24:16 and
Ezek. 18:20
with a view to
weakening my interpretation for 2 Kg. 10:30.
Till:
Well, I didn't introduce them to weaken LJ's interpretation of 2 Kings
10:30 but rather to
weaken his interpretation of Hosea 1:4. If LJ appeals to Exodus 20:5 to
argue that Yahweh
was justified in destroying the house of Jehu for something done by an
ancestor, then he
will confront the need to show us that this premise is consistent with
Deuteronomy 24:16
and Ezekiel 18:20, which I will quote just to show readers the problem
that LJ will confront
if he appeals to Exodus 20:5 (which says that Yahweh will "visit" the
sins of the fathers
upon the third and fourth generations).
Deuteronomy 24:16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.
Ezekiel 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
LJ:
Whether or not there exists such a contradiction is an entirely
separate issue from whether
Ex. 20:5 provides a satisfactory explanation for 2 Kg. 10:30.
Till:
LJ is upset that I replied to his Exodus 20:3-5 reference, because he
knows that he was going
to base a crucial argument on it. He objects because I have stolen his
thunder, but if this
passage is in any way defensible and important to his position, he
should not object to my
own references to it before he had developed whatever argument he
intended to base on it. The
fact is that he introduced Exodus 20:3-5 himself, so I'm having a hard
time understanding
what he is upset about.
LJ:
The Bible affirms that God has acted in history in accordance with the
principle of Ex. 20:5
and we assume that to be true for the purpose of the present debate.
Till:
Well, LJ may assume that God has "acted in history in accordance with
the principle of
Exodus 20:5," but I don't assume that. I won't allow LJ to assume that
what ancient
barbarians assumed to be acts of God were in fact acts of Gods. To
punish someone for
something done by an ancestor is uncivilized by all standards of modern
morality.
LJ:
If it is felt that there exists such a contradiction, then that is a
topic for a separate
debate.
Till:
Which I suspect will materialize when LJ appeals to Exodus 20:3-5 to
try to justify Hosea's
condemnation of the house of Jehu. We'll just have to wait to see if he
makes this
argument.
LJ:
There are many other instances where FT commits this offence (i. e.,
raising
rrelevant issues), which I will not mention now.
Till:
I hope I didn't raise issues any more irrelevant than LJ's 30 K
analysis of the Chicago
Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.
LJ:
It will be helpful if FT desists from raising such extraneous issues in
the interest of
keeping the debate tightly focused on its original topic and to avoid
misleading and
confusing the readers.
Till:
That's good advice. I do hope that LJ remembers it so that we won't be
subjected to another
30 K posting that even he admits is not "directly relevant to the
current debate."
LJ:
By the way, in the penultimate para[graph] of the last instalment of
his reply, FT implies by
using [sic] that my spelling of the word "judgement" (with an "e" after
the "g"), which
occurs in some material he quoted from my original correspondence to
him, is wrong. In fact
both "judgement" and "judgment" are acceptable. The former is
especially used in British
English, and being a resident of a country which was once a British
colony, I would naturally
use that spelling. FT might object to even the word "instalment" above,
which I have spelt
with only one "l," because its variant form, "installment," is the
usual American spelling.
Tomatoes or... let's call the whole thing off!!
Till:
Yes, I know that judgement is a secondary spelling used even by
some American writers
and that it is the primary choice in British spelling. I'm also aware
that British spelling
uses "s" instead of "z" in spellings like organisation and realisation
and
"-our" instead of "-or" in words like labour, but sic
means thus or
so, and is used to indicate that this is the way the word or
expression was used in
the original. Since the audiences in our internet forums are primarily
Americans, I didn't
consider it inappropriate to use [sic], but I didn't use it to
claim that the word
judgement had been misspelled. In American spelling, root words
that end in "e"
retain the "e" when suffixes beginning with consonants are added (care
+ ful = careful), but
for some reason when the "e" is preceded by "dg," the "e" is dropped in
preferred spellings,
as in judgment and acknowledgment. For that reason, I
considered the [sic]
appropriate for predominantly American audiences.
At this point, LJ began his tedious analysis of CSBI, which I will respond to separately. I should just skip it, because it is irrelevant to the Jehu debate, but I don't want to give him any room to claim that I am evading points. Those who are familiar with the Chicago Statement may want to scroll past this section to where the Jehu debate resumes.
LJ:
And now the digression on inerrancy follows.
Till:
Yes, it is a digression, and I hope that it won't happen again. If LJ
thinks that I am
unfamiliar with the CSBI, in the words of our inimitable president, he
has "misunderestimated"
me.
LJ:
Innerrancy: Biblical Doctrine or Human Invention?
According to the "The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy" (October 1978), the word "inerrant" signifies "the quality of being free from all falsehood or mistake and so safeguards the truth that Holy Scripture is entirely true and trustworthy in all its assertions." I will quote from this Statement more below because I think it fairly represents the doctrine of inerrancy.
FT mistakes me for an "inerrantist," probably as a knee-jerk reaction because the only kind of biblical apologist he has thus far encountered belongs to that category. I am most definitely not an "inerrantist," because inerrancy is an impossible position to defend.
Till:
Why didn't LJ just say this without the needless digression into 30 Ks
of material that many
people in these internet forums will already be familiar with? All he
had to do was say
something like, "I want to correct a misimpression that FT has. He
seems to think that I am
a biblical inerrantist, but I am not. Although I am defending the
consistency of 2 Kings
10:30 and Hosea 1:4, I recognize that there are mistakes in the Bible."
That would have eliminated the need for this tedious digression.
LJ:
Nor does the Bible make such a claim for itself. The apostle Paul wrote
to Timothy, "...the
holy scriptures...are able to make thee wise unto salvation through
faith which is in Christ
Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable
for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man
of God may be perfect,
thoroughly furnished unto all good works"
(2 Timothy
3:15-16). So if
the scriptures are accurate and reliable enough to meet these
requirements, then it is
enough.
Till:
Reliable enough to meet these requirements? If the Bible is errant, how
do we determine what
is true (inerrant) and what is not true (errant)? That's a question
that biblicists of LJ's
genre have been unable to answer. I'll ask him a question that I have
asked of others like
him. If I send him a Bible, will he mark for me the sections that are
errant so that I will
know what is true and what isn't?
LJ:
Where in this passage or any other biblical passage touching on the
subject of inspiration do
you get any claim of inerrancy (in the sense of being free from
mistakes or errors of any
kind)?
Till:
If I can find the time, I will search the errancy archives for an
article that I posted on
this subject (which was lost in my computer crash last summer) in which
I pointed out that
although the Bible does not claim that it is inerrant, the inerrancy
doctrine is a logical
consequence of the belief that the Bible was inspired of God. In my
opinion, biblical
inerrantists are far more logical in their position than those who say
that the Bible
contains errors but is still in some sense "the word of God."
[Editorial Note: A three-part series that shows why inerrancy must logically follow the claim that the Bible was inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity has since been posted on this same website.]
If LJ will get back on the subject of Jehu's massacre, after we have completed the debate on it, I will be glad to affirm that belief in the verbal inspiration of the Bible logically necessitates a belief that the Bible is inerrant in all matters (history, science, chronology, prophecy, etc.).
LJ:
The above-mentioned Chicago Statement (hereafter CSBI convenience)
further states, "We
affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy is grounded in the teaching of
the Bible about
inspiration." The Statement does not explain how.
Till:
If one accepts as truth what the Bible teaches about what happens in
the process of
"inspiration," then logic
will require that the believer in verbal inspiration by an omniscient,
omnipotent entity
also believe in the inerrancy of whatever was inspired.
LJ:
God used human instruments to record his revelation--
Till:
Here is a question that LJ needs to prove. He can't just beg it. I will
accept that the
Bible teaches that "God used human instruments to record his
revelation," but just because
the Bible teaches this does not make it so.
LJ:
he didn't drop it from heaven-- and it is only natural if they were
"guilty" of imperfections
of the sort that we see in the Bible.
Till:
LJ overlooks the consequences that "inspiration" described in the
following passages would
entail.
Matthew 10:16 "See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. 17 Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. 19 When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; 20 for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Luke 12:11 When they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers, and the authorities, do not worry about how you are to defend yourselves or what you are to say; 12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what you ought to say."
There are others that I could cite, but these are sufficient to show that Jesus taught that his disciples would be guided by the Holy Spirit to a degree that what they said would not be what they were saying but what the Holy Spirit was saying through them. If this was true during their preaching ministries, are we to believe that in guiding New Testament authors to write what would be a "revelation" to direct believers through the entire Christian era, the Holy Spirit would have used a less rigid standard of "inspiration" than the one he used when directing the disciples in their oral preaching? If "inspiration" was such that when a disciple of Jesus spoke, he wasn't speaking his own words but words that "the spirit of [their] father" was speaking through them, would they have ever spoken anything under these conditions that was not inerrant? In other words, would the "spirit of [their] fathers" speaking through them have spoken things that were incorrect? If so, what would have been the advantage of having the "spirit of [their] father" speak through them?
Bible believers like LJ take the position that the Bible is errant but nevertheless in some "higher sense" the "word of God, because they can see that the Bible obviously contains errors, but in trying to justify these errors on the grounds of imperfections in the "human instruments," they completely disregard the logical consequence that would have to ensue from the verbal inspiration of the omniscient, omnipotent deity who was presumably "inspiring" them as they wrote. That logical consequence would be inerrancy.
The doctrine of biblical inerrancy is patently absurd, but its absurdity is exceeded by those like LJ who argue that even though the Bible was inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity, it still contains error. This kind of belief in "inspiration" isn't worth a pint of cold spit, because it gives Bible believers no way to know what is truth and what is error in the Bible.
If LJ thinks the Bible is errant, just out of curiosity I would like to know why he would even bother to try to prove that two particular verses in the Bible (2 Kings 10:30 and Hosea 1:4) are inerrant.
LJ:
But God has seen to it that there are no such mistakes or
contradictions as would undermine
its essential truths and in this the hand of God may be seen clearly.
Till
Yeah, right, I've heard this before from LJ's kind of biblicist. I'd
like to know how he
knows that God has seen to it that there are no mistakes or
contradictions that would
undermine the "essential truths" in the Bible. How does he recognize an
"essential truth"
in the Bible? I asked him if he will take the time to mark the parts
that are erroneous if
I send him a Bible, so now I will ask him if he will mark the
"essential truths" in the Bible
if I send him a copy. I would also appreciate his telling us why (and
how he knows) a god
who could "see" that no mistakes or contradictions were made that
undermined "essential
truths" in the Bible wouldn't have gone just a step further and kept
errors of all kinds out
of the Bible.
I respect the fact that LJ recognizes that there are errors in the Bible, but I honestly have more respect for the biblical inerrantist who is able to recognize that belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible necessarily requires a belief that the Bible is inerrant in everything.
LJ:
Such errors or discrepancies as there are in the scriptures usually
entail minor and
inconsequential matters.
Till:
And who decides what is minor or inconsequential? What standard does LJ
use to determine
this? From what I could determine from reading this posting, he has
arbitrarily set himself
up as the standard to determine what is and what isn't minor. He also
needs to explain the
word usually. Does this mean that sometimes errors or
discrepancies entailed
matters that were not minor or inconsequential? If so, what were they?
How does he know?
LJ apparently can't see that his position on inspiration would require each individual to become a sort of "pope," who can rule on what is error and what isn't, what is minor and what isn't, etc.
LJ:
An example would be the alleged discrepancy between the accounts of
Matthew and Luke
concerning the healing of the centurion's servant
(Mt. 8:5-13
and
Lk. 7:1b-10).
The alleged
discrepancy/contradiction is that whereas Mt. has the centurion going
in person to ask Jesus
to heal his servant, Lk. has the centurion staying at home and sending
elders of the Jews to
request Jesus to heal him. Now it is possible that Mt., although he was
aware that the
centurion stayed at home and sent representatives, omitted the
"tedious" details to shorten
the story.
Till:
Why would someone who was being guided by an omniscient, omnipotent
deity have done this? If
the words that the disciples of Jesus spoke were not their
words but the words of the
Holy Spirit speaking through them (as noted above), then why wouldn't
the words being
written by the "human instruments" that God chose have met the
same criterion?
Furthermore, the same "Holy Spirit" that presumably "inspired" Matthew
to write the account
of the centurion also presumably "inspired" Luke to write an account of
the same incident.
Why did the omniscient one chose to have Luke say that the servants
went to Jesus but chose
to let Matthew "omit" this detail?
I'm sure that LJ thinks he has made an important discovery here, but he has obviously failed to analyze this discrepancy critically. If both writers were inspired "instruments" of God, there is no logical reason why the two accounts would be discrepant.
LJ:
(After all, this sort of "short-circuiting" in scripture is not
uncommon. For example, in
one of the very passages relevant to our debate, we are told that "the
Lord said unto
Jehu..." [2 Kg. 10:30], although almost certainly the Lord spoke to
Jehu through a
prophet.)
Till:
Why is that so certain? I can fill a page with citations that claim
that Yahweh spoke to so
and so. Is it LJ's position that whenever this expression was used, it
was actually Yahweh
speaking through a prophet? If so, then how did Yahweh speak to the
prophet to let him know
what he should speak to whomever the prophet then spoke to? And why
would Yahweh speak to
a prophet and then have the prophet go deliver the message instead of
just delivering it
himself directly to its destination. Apparently, Yahweh could have used
the assistance of
an efficiency expert.
LJ:
But more likely, the tradition of this miracle of Jesus as received by
the writer of the Mt.
account had the centurion going in person, so the writer was actually
unaware at the time of
writing or compiling that in fact the centurion sent representatives.
Till:
Why didn't the inspiration of the Holy Spirit take care of this
misunderstanding? I'd just
like LJ to tell us what the purpose of inspiration was? Was its purpose
to give guidance in
any way? If so, how far did it go? How does LJ know?
I'll have to say that LJ is turning into a huge disappointment. After sending me a defense of his position, which was well written and contained only a bit of speculation here and there, he has turned into a debating opponent who makes constant resorts to speculation.
LJ:
But the important point of the story is the healing of the centurion's
servant, and on
this--and even on other details of the story--Mt. and Lk. agree. That
is all that matters.
Till:
And I suppose that LJ is supposed to be allowed to tell us "all that
matters"? If I send
him a copy of the Bible, will he mark it for me to indicate all of the
things that "matter"
so that I will know what is important and what isn't?
In the next vacancy for pope, I nominate Leonard Jayawardena. He would make a good one, because he can make arbitrary declarations with the best of them.
LJ:
There is unity at the core. Is this discrepancy, if there is one, so
serious as to cast
doubt on whether Jesus healed a centurion's servant at all? No sensible
person would say
Yes.
Till:
LJ, however, is setting himself up as the one who has the right to
decide what the "core" is.
My position is that all written accounts of an incident would be
harmonious in every minute
detail (and not just the "core") if all of these accounts were verbally
inspired by an
omniscient, omnipotent deity. If not, why not? Why would two accounts
that were both
inspired by the omniscient, omnipotent Holy Spirit contain
discrepancies? If Matthew was
wrong about who came to Jesus, whether the centurion or the elders of
the Jews, which would
be just an ordinary natural event, then how can we know that he was
right in saying that
an extraordinary event, i. e., the healing of the centurion's
servant, happened?
LJ:
But if there was a passage anywhere in Mt. that would contradict the
claim of Lk.--or vice
versa--that Jesus healed a centurion's servant, that would be serious.
Whether or not Jesus
healed the centurion's servant as claimed has a material bearing on my
salvation, but not
the point about whether the centurion went personally or sent
representatives.
Till:
Why would it be serious? After all, LJ's position is that discrepancies
in minor or
inconsequential details are unimportant. If Jesus did not heal a
centurion's servant, would
that in any way undermine the "core" message of the gospels that he was
the son of God, who
died on the cross as a sacrifice for sin and then rose from the dead?
Biblical inerrantists who have critically evaluated the doctrine of divine inspiration recognize that even trivial mistakes in a book that was supposedly inspired by God would do irreparable damage to that doctrine. LJ obviously hasn't examine the doctrine critically enough to recognize this.
LJ:
As an example of a contradiction/discrepancy that is a little more than
"minor," I can cite
the clear differences that exist between the first two gospels and the
third concerning the
post-resurrection appearances of Jesus to his apostles. The third seems
to be unaware of any
post-resurrection appearances of Jesus to his apostles in Galilee, and
the first two seem to
be unaware of his appearances in Jerusalem to his apostles on the very
day of his
resurrection.
Till:
Yes, they do contain these problems, don't they? Why do you suppose
that the omniscient one
would have guided his chosen writers in a way that allowed these
inconsistencies into their
"inspired" accounts?
Oh, I know! I know! Don't tell me! He wanted the accounts to be inconsistent so that skeptics could not accuse the writers of collusion.
LJ:
However, the fourth gospel reports both and so provides a correction
and ensures that we are
not misled.
Till:
Why would a "correction" have been necessary in accounts that had been
verbally inspired by
an omniscient, omnipotent deity?
LJ:
(Note: Mark 16:9-20 was clearly not a part of the original gospel [my
reasons for it are
beyond the scope of this digression or excursus] and hence could be
excluded from the
discussion.)
Till:
Well, actually, I was beginning to wonder if anything would be
beyond the scope of
this digression. Will LJ ever get back to the matter of Jehu's
massacre? I will notify
him here and now that resurrection inconsistencies and his other
digressions are not the
subjects under debate at this time. I'll be more than glad to debate
resurrection
inconsistencies and his other tangents after we have finished the Jehu
debate, but I will
expect him in his next posting to return to the subject of the debate.
LJ:
Indeed discrepancies of this sort, far from undermining the credibility
of the scriptures,
actually authenticate them.
Till:
They do? If LJ will finish the Jehu debate, I'll be glad to go to the
resurrection
narratives next and debate this with him.
LJ:
For they show that at least there was no concerted effort in the first
century to fabricate
stories about the founder of the new religion to bolster and promote it.
Till:
Well, I was right, wasn't I? Those inconsistencies are in the
resurrection narratives
because the omniscient one wanted to remove the mere appearance of
collusion.
Now I have a question for LJ. Is it at all possible that the inconsistencies were the result of different traditions developing in different localities so that when one author wrote his account, he included traditions he was aware of but the other authors were unaware of, and so on? Why is that not an explanation as likely--if not more likely--than LJ's belief that the inconsistencies were "inspired" so that no one could claim collusion?
LJ:
The OT says, "...at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of
three witnesses, shall
the matter be established" (Deut. 19:15). In the Gospels, we have four
witnesses,
Till:
We do? I'd like to see LJ prove this claim. He needs to understand here
and now that I'm
not going to stand idly by and allow him to argue by assertion and
question begging. What
we have in the gospels are four writers claiming that an
extraordinary event,
i. e., a resurrection from the dead, happened, but there is a
big difference in a
claim and a historical fact. Let LJ prove to us that anyone ever
witnessed the resurrection
of Jesus.
LJ;
the fourth Gospel being based on the direct, personal testimony of an
apostle of Jesus
(John 21:24).
Till:
This is more question begging. I'd like to see LJ prove that the fourth
gospel was based on
"the direct, personal testimony of an apostle of Jesus." I'm familiar
with the verse he
cited. I don't even have to look it up. Is he going to argue that just
because the gospel
of John claims that it was written by a disciple who witnessed the
things written in it,
that claim was necessarily true?
LJ:
Discrepancies, where they exist, are evidence that there was no
collusion between the writers
of the Gospels to present stories perfectly uniform and harmonious even
in details and thus
assure us that we have here sincere, independent and honest witnesses.
Till:
LJ's premise assumes that agreement in multiple testimony means
collusion, but that is an
assumption that you need to prove. Why would witnesses have to conspire
in order to agree to
what they witnessed? If three men enter a bank with guns, wearing black
ski masks, order a
teller to fill a green duffle bag with money, fire shots into the
ceiling, and then flee in
a blue car waiting outside, why would collusion be necessary in order
for the witnesses to
agree in their testimony that there were three men with guns, wearing
black ski masks, who
ordered a teller to fill a green duffle bag with money and then fired
shots into the ceiling,
and fled in a blue car waiting outside?
According to the biblicist way of reasoning, the testimony of the witnesses would be more convincing if some said that there was one man, others that there were two, and still others that there were three. Likewise, the biblicist would say that the testimony of the witnesses would be more credible if some of the witnesses who said there were three men said that the masks were green, while others said that they were red, while others said that the men were unmasked. To make the testimony really convincing, according to biblicists, some witnesses would have to say that the robbers waved hand grenades instead of guns, and that they fled on motorcycles after leaving the bank. Since all of the witnesses would agree on the "core" of their testimony, i. e., a bank robbery occurred, they would all be credible witnesses (according to the biblicist way of reasoning).
Well, excuse me if I don't consider inconsistencies like these to be credible testimony. I'm sure that if LJ were a lawyer defending a client accused of a crime, he would not want his client's own witnesses disagreeing in major points of their testimony as he tried to establish an alibi for the accused, but according to the way he reasons above in the resurrection narratives, he should be delighted if his client's witnesses were inconsistent in their testimony.
LJ's claim that inconsistencies in the resurrection narratives is what makes them so credible is merely a parroting of what he has heard or read in apologetic attempts to defend these inconsistencies, but I doubt that anyone who uses this argument seriously believes that inconsistencies in testimony will make it more believable. There are obvious inconsistencies in the resurrection narratives, and biblicists have had to confront that fact, so they have resorted to the claim that inconsistencies make testimony more credible. If there had been perfect agreement in all details in the narratives, they would be arguing that this proves the resurrection actually happened.
LJ:
Why don't skeptics and critics of the Bible recognize that point
instead of engaging in
nit-picking criticism?
Till:
Well, I've just explained why. It is not nitpicking to point out that
major inconsistencies
in the New Testament resurrection accounts increases doubt that a very
unlikely event
actually happened. The very nature of the claim that a man died
(literally died) and
returned to life is sufficient within itself to reject this claim. The
inconsistencies are
just other good reasons to doubt the claim.
LJ:
Indeed, far from being embarrassed, I am honestly glad that the Bible
contains the sort of
discrepancies it does. Accounts supposedly from different witnesses
which are in perfect
harmony and agreement with one another even on details should attract
suspicion
immediately.
Till:
According to LJ, one should view with suspicion the events recorded in
2 Kings 19
and
Isaiah 37,
because the
narratives are almost verbatimly the same. Do you know what biblicists
will say when the
exactness of these two narratives is pointed out? They will ask why two
divinely inspired
accounts of a story should not be alike, since the same God inspired
them both. Yet when
inconsistencies in the accounts of the same event(s) are pointed out,
they will argue that
the inconsistencies make them more credible, because the variations
show that there was no
collusion. In other words, biblicists try to play both sides of the
street.
LJ:
The pessimist sees the glass half-empty but the optimist....
Till:
And the gullible see what they want to see. If one resurrection
narrative had said that
Jesus was hanged, another that he was beheaded, another that he was
stoned, and another that
he was crucified, and if one had said that he was put to death
in Bethlehem, another
in Jericho, another in Cana, and another in Jerusalem, and if
one had said that he was
buried in a grave, another said that he was buried in a tomb, another
said that he was
cremated, and another that he was thrown into the city dump, according
to LJ's logic, the
accounts would all be credible if they agreed on the "core" issue, i.
e., that Jesus
was afterwards seen alive.
LJ [continuing his tangent]:
On the other hand, where accuracy even in details is important and
necessary, we do see it
in the scriptures. F