Turkel:
Since we are working with the quake and saints of Matthew (QS) as a
template, let's set
that down:
Matthew 27:51-53 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
That the events framed by [bold print] are not found in any other Gospel is the root of the argument encapsulated above. Surely if this had happened, Mark, Luke and John would have written it down in their record? We reply that this is no more than a badly-informed argument from silence. Ahistoricity of the quake and saints may be suggested on other grounds, but we shall see that the silence of the other writers is not one of them.
Till:
As I noted in "The Absence of Evidence," linked to above, the silence
can sometimes scream,
but in this case, Turkel is too deaf to reality to hear it. Let's
suppose that a century or
so from now, a manuscript should be discovered that purported to be a
firsthand account of
events that had happened in New York City on September 11, 2001, but
that this document made
no mention at all of the hijacked airlines that crashed into the twin
towers of the World
Trade Center and caused their collapse. If he were living then and had
a familiarity with
early 21st century history of New York, would Turkel believe that this
document was what it
purported to be?
Let's suppose that a document should be found that purported to be a firsthand account of events that happened in Sainte-Mère-Église, France, on June 6, 1944, but made no mention of the allied assault on the Normandie beaches or of the liberation of Sainte-Mère-Église, which was the first town to be liberated by American forces, or of any other events related to the D-Day invasion. Would Turkel think that it was authentic? Would he try to explain the silence of the document on these events by rationalizing that it just may not have been within the scope of the author's purpose to mention anything related to D-Day or that the assault on the Normandie beaches and the fierce fighting that followed in the town, when 82nd Airborne paratroopers landed in and around it and drove the Germans out, just may have passed unnoticed by the author of the document or that the author's supply of paper could have been so limited that he had to leave out these details? Such speculations would be soundly rejected by sensible people. After all, how could anyone write a firsthand historical account of what happened in Sainte-Mère-Église on June 6, 1944, and not mention events related to D-Day?
I have entitled this reply to Turkel "Crimes of
Speculation," and as readers go on
beyond this point, they will see why I gave it this title.
Central to this assumption is that such an event as the QS could not have been missed by the other Gospels if it had really happened. But this is utterly presumptuous. There is far too much we do not know about the QS to assume that it could not possibly have been missed. Glenn Miller has made some of these points, and we add some of our own:
Till:
I have crossed verbal swords with many biblical inerrantists, so I have
seen quibbling of
every imaginable sort as they twisted themselves into verbal knots to
"explain" discrepancies
in the Bible, but Turkel's quibbling below has to take first prize.
Notice the extremes that
he goes to in order to "prove" that the earthquake in
Matthew
27:51-54 could
have been so slight that John didn't even notice it, so if he didn't
notice it, the "sources"
of Mark's and Luke's accounts of crucifixion day may not have noticed
it either. As I read
Turkel's drawn out quibbling, I couldn't help wondering how Matthew
noticed an earthquake
so slight that everyone else missed it, but I will start Turkel's
quibbles before I comment
further on them.
Turkel:
We do not know:
How strong the quake was. We are only told that it caused rocks to split, but rocks may split under any degree of pressure depending upon such factors as mineral composition, previous stresses (water, previous quakes, etc), original formation, and location relative to the epicenter. We also do not know how many rocks were split and where they were located. Near Jerusalem? Out in the country? Minor quakes can be missed easily be [sic] those who are outdoors,[sic] As most people would have been at the Passover festival during the day.
Till:
All Turkel has done here is show his incredible ignorance
of the effects of earthquakes. Most people associate earthquakes in
this country with California, but I grew up in Pemiscot County in
Southeast Missouri, which adjoins New Madrid County, where the most
powerful earthquakes in North America have been known to happen. An
account of the
earthquakes
from December 16, 1811, through February 7, 1812, which destroyed
the river
town of New Madrid, swept away the peninsula on which Point Pleasant
(Missouri) was located,
and changed the course of the Mississippi River, which flowed backwards
to fill what is now
Reelfoot Lake on the Tennessee side of the river, where hills had
previously existed, tells
how the quake was powerful enough to alarm people within an area of 2.5
million square
kilometers. Homes were toppled as far a way as Cincinnati, Ohio, and
the earth tremors were
felt as far away as Boston, where church bells rang from the shaking.
An unsubstantiated
report claims that President James Madison felt the tremors in the
White House and thought
that intruders were causing them. Seismographs didn't exist then, but
some seismologists think
that the New Madrid quakes ranged from 8 on the Richter scale to above
9. The famous San
Francisco earthquake of 1906 has been assigned an estimated magnitude
of 7.7 to 8.2.
There have been strong earthquakes along the New Madrid fault since then but nothing like those in 1811-1812. This area of the country experiences 150 or more minor to moderate earthquakes each year, so as I was growing up just 40 miles from New Madrid and about 30 miles from present-day Marston (Missouri), located by the epicenter of the 1811-1812 quakes, the moving and shaking of the earth became a routine fact of life that we thought nothing of. It was fairly commonplace to be sitting at home when dishes and windows would rattle or to be in school when desks would quiver and feet pressed against the concrete floor would tingle. These were very minor quakes, but I can assure Mr. Turkel that people living in the area were aware of even the minor ones. I now live in Central Illinois, about 320 miles north of New Madrid, Missouri, but there are times when the earth will quiver and shake here. When it happens in day time when people are awake, they are aware of it, so all of Turkel's quibbling above did nothing but demonstrate his ignorance of the science of earthquakes.
As I read though his quibbles above, I wondered if he had even read Matthew's account of this earthquake, for if he had, I don't see how he could have quibbled that the quake was so slight that others didn't notice it. Here is Matthew's description of that alleged quake. Notice the expressions in bold print.
Matthew 27:50 Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. 51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. 52 The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. 53 After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many. 54 Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, "Truly this man was God's Son!"
Any reasonable person reading this can see the description of what was allegedly a very noticeable earthquake. The text plainly says that the centurion and those with him saw the earthquake and what took place. If they saw it, then they must have seen the effects that earthquakes produce, such as swaying trees and buildings and movements in the earth (such as splitting rocks), so what is Turkel's rationale for claiming that the quake was so slight that the others, besides Matthew, probably didn't notice it. Would the centurion and the other Romans assigned to watch Jesus have been terrified by a little bitty quake so slight that most people there didn't even notice it? No, folks, you are seeing an example of the desperate extremes that some biblicists will go to in order to find inerrancy in the Bible. They allow allegiance to an untenable belief suppress their common sense.
In his quibbling, Turkel asked where the rocks were located that had split during the quake. Were the rocks in Jerusalem or out in the country? Well, I will remind him again that Matthew's text plainly says that the centurion and those with him "saw the earthquake and what took place." So if they saw what took place during the quake and if the splitting of rocks was part of what took place, why wouldn't that bit of information have located the quake close enough to the site of the crucifixion for the Roman soldiers to see the results of it. Are we supposed to believe that they had telescopic vision that enabled them to see rocks splitting somewhere out in the country? No, Turkel is just trying to quibble his way around a serious problem in the biblical text.
Reasonable readers will also see that the description of the quake said that the rocks split and "the tombs were opened," so clearly the intention of "Matthew" was to present this as some kind of intervention from God that ripped the veil in the temple, split the rocks, and opened the tombs. Notice that the passive voice was used in reference to the tombs: the tombs were opened. It does not say that the tombs opened; it says that the tombs were opened, so if they were opened, they had to have been opened by something, and the clear intention of the writer was to convey that they were opened by the earthquake. Does Turkel seriously expect reasonable readers to think that these tombs were opened by the jarring of an earthquake so slight that most people present didn't even notice it? No, folks, this guy is flagrantly quibbling.
I will have more to say about the tombs as I go through Turkel's quibbling efforts to make the resurrection of the "many" saints something so uneventful that it also passed unnoticed by most people present.
Turkel:
How many were raised[?] Matthew says "many" were raised, but how many
is "many"?
Till:
As I will soon show "many" would have been more than just one or two or
two or three, as
Turkel apparently wants his choir members to think.
Turkel:
Matthew's word polus is, like our "many," a vague term for an
unknown, uncounted
number or amount.
Till:
Well, not exactly, as we will soon see.
Turkel:
It is used to refer to "great mourning"
(Matt.
2:18 -- by time? 2
days? 4 days? by level? loud shouts, lots of crying?),
Till:
Well, again we have Turkel trying to dupe his choir members into
thinking that he is informed
enough in Greek to talk about such things as the meaning of individual
words like polus,
and this is coming from a guy who makes such basic errors in his native
language as thinking
that gist is spelled j-i-s-t. This wasn't just a one-time
mistake but one that he has
done several times.
Most of these articles were posted at 11:53 AM on Sunday, February 20, 2005, but some were posted in May and one on August 31, 2005. 11:53 AM on Sunday! Golly, did Bobby skip church that day? At any rate, these quotations from his articles show that misspelling gist wasn't just a one time incident. He who constantly tries to dupe his readers into believing that he is an expert in biblical languages doesn't even know how to spell a very common English word. I could fill a book with examples like these from Turkel's website. His understanding of English punctuation rules, for example, is nothing short of appalling for someone who considers himself a "writer." The irony in the problems that he has with his own native language is that he seems to think that readers should believe that he knows what he is talking about when he says such things as, "The Greek word here is..." or, "The Hebrew word here is...."
Now as for Turkel's question about what "great mourning" meant in Matthew 2:18, whether in time or "level," if I had to guess, I would say that in this case it referred to the intensity of the grief that would have been expressed by crying and wailing, but the best way to nip this quibble in the bud is to show how polus was used in several New Testament examples, but first we should let experts in Greek tell us what this word polus meant rather than an amateur like Turkel who, as the quotation below shows, once thought that "rise again" in Greek was expressed by using the word anestimi twice. Notice the part that I have emphasized in bold print.
First let's understand exactly what is in John here. The words are "rise again from the dead" -- "rise again" is the Greek anistemi used twice for emphasis. In fact this we will see is the key to the whole issue; the word is commonly used for anyone just getting up from their place. (Matthew 9:9 And he arose, and followed him.)
When I exposed this as a colossal error that not even a first-year student of Greek would have made, Turkel immediately edited the mistake out of his article, when he saw my exposure of it, and made the paragraph above read like this:
First let's understand exactly what is in John here. The words are "rise again from the dead" -- "rise again" is a word derived from the Greek anistemi. In fact this we will see is the key to the whole issue; the word is commonly used for anyone just getting up from their place. (Matthew 9:9 And he arose, and followed him.)
Then when Turkel "replied" to my reply, he tried to put the blame for the mistake on his QuickVerse software package, but there was no mistake in the package, which I also have installed in my computer. Turkel simply misunderstood what the program said about the meaning of anistemi, but that is so typical of Turkel. When he is caught in a mistake, he will rework his article to eliminate it and then try to deny that he is to blame for the error.
I can't link to specific sections in Turkel's articles, as I do to my own, but if readers will click the link above and scroll down to the third paragraph, they will see the section where Turkel tried to put the blame for his mistake onto his software program, or they can link to this section of my reply to Turkel's first article and go directly to where I exposed his amateurish appeal to Greek. Hence, readers can be assured that Turkel is no expert in Greek, so that is why I am going to appeal to Arndt & Gingrich's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament to give readers a more authoritative view of how polus was used in the New Testament.
This lexicon defines polus as "many, numerous" and "many, large, great, extensive, plentiful" (University of Chicago Press, 1957, pp. 694-695), so it immediately appears rather inconceivable that Matthew would have used this word to refer to those who were resurrected from the shaken tombs if there had been only one or two or three or four of them. Turkel's quibble can be made even more inconceivable by looking at some actual usages of this word in situations were numerous people were obviously being referred to.
This word was used twice in Matthew 7:21-23.
Are we supposed to believe that in a situation where Jesus was trying to warn his audience that not everyone who said to him Lord, Lord would enter the kingdom of heaven, he used an example of "many" in the sense of just one or two or three or four being turned away from the kingdom while claiming that they had prophesied in his name, cast out demons in his name, and done many powerful deeds in his name? Are we supposed to believe that those on this occasion who claim that they had done "many deeds of power" in the name of Jesus were really claiming that they had done only one or two such deeds?
It was used in Matthew 8:30.
Are we supposed to believe that these "many swine" {KJV, ASV, NASV] that Jesus sent crashing into the sea were only two or three pigs? Would the writer have called just one or two or even ten swine a "whole herd"?
It was used in Matthew 13:17.
We know, of course, that Jesus meant that only two or three prophets and a couple of righteous people had longed to see what the people of Jesus's time were witnessing. We have Turkel's assurance of that.
It was used in Matthew 24:11.
Of course, we know now--thanks to Turkel--that Jesus was telling his disciples that only three or four false prophets would arise to lead his disciples astray.
It was used in Matthew 20:28.
Gee, I had always thought that the New Testament taught that Jesus had given himself a ransom for everyone, but now I find out--thanks to Turkel--that he had given himself a ransom for just two or three or three or four or five or six or ten at the most. You learn something new every day, don't you?
And, what do you know, it was also used in Matthew 4:25.
Silly me, I had always thought that Jesus had preached the sermon on the mount to a large audience, but--thanks to Turkel--I now know that he preached to only two or three or six or seven or ten at the most.
It was also used in Matthew 14:14.
I had always thought that wherever Jesus went huge crowds followed him, but now I know--thanks to Turkel--that this wasn't the case. Only a couple or three stragglers were tailing along behind him. As this story continued, we find that this was the occasion when Jesus fed the "great multitude" with just five loaves and two fish. I had always thought that this was quite a miracle, but now I know that it wasn't, because only a handful of people were fed, and five loaves and two fish would have been plenty enough to feed them.
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I forgot! I forgot! Verse 21 says that this "great multitude" was about five thousand men, besides women and children. I guess that means that polus in this context meant several thousand people, so is it possible that the "many saints" in Matthew 27:52 also numbered in the thousands or at least the hundreds? Nah, that just couldn't be. We have Turkel's word for that.
Another "great [polus] multitude" followed Jesus in Matthew 15:30, and they turned out to number more than four thousand.
Jesus pulled an encore here and fed this "great crowd" too with just seven loaves and "a few fish," and v:38 claims that this "great [polus] crowd" numbered four thousand men, besides the women and children, so the longer we go, the more we are seeing that "many" [polus in Greek] really meant many, so could the "many saints" in Matthew 27 have been... well, many saints?
I had always thought that Jesus had performed another great miracle when he told the disciples, who had fished all night without success, to go out to the deep water and cast their nets into the sea, which afterwards brought in a "great [polus] multitude of fish," which was so heavy that the nets were breaking Luke 5:3-7, but now I know that the disciples had only had some more slim pickings on that day, because many or great didn't really mean "many" or "great." But what about the nets breaking? Wouldn't that indicate that hundreds or thousands of fish had been caught? Nah, not at all. There is an easy, à la Turkel way to explain that. What undoubtedly happened was that the disciples snagged just a couple of whoppers on that day, which were heavy enough to break their nets.
The book of Acts speaks of "a great [polus] number" who believed (Acts 11:21) and "a great [polus] multitude of both Jews and Greeks" who believed (Acts 14:1), and, stupid little me, I had always thought that this meant that the church back then was growing with leaps and bounds but now--thanks to Turkel--I know better. Only a handful here and there were converting.
I just have to call attention to how polus was used in the book of Revelation.
7:9 After this I looked, and there was a great [polus] multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.
I suspect that even Turkel could count a "multitude" of only nine or ten, so if this was a multitude that "no one could count," the word polus had to signify thousands or even millions or more. Well, why continue this? The point has been made. As his quibbles usually do, this one has also backfired in Turkel's face. Matthew said that "many" saints were resurrected and went into the city and appeared to "many," and we have just seen that this word [polus] was consistently used in the New Testament to signify large numbers. What Turkel needs to do now is produce some examples from the New Testament where the word was used to signify just a handful of people.
Common sense would tell most readers that Matthew's motive in relating this story about the earthquake and the resurrection of the many saints was to claim that the hand of God was in the events of that day. Otherwise, why would he have bothered to relate it? The effect that he wanted to achieve was the one that he claimed for the centurion and his troop, who saw the earthquake and the things that "took place" and then said, "Surely, this was the Son of God." That effect would not have been achieved by an earthquake so slight that most people on the scene didn't recognize it and a resurrection of saints who were so few in number that their rising from their tombs had gone unnoticed by everyone but "Matthew."
Turkel's quibbling continued.
Turkel:
the number of Pharisees and Saducees who went to be baptized by John
(3:7 -- how
many of these did there need to be for John to recognize a pattern and
make a judgment? with
what frequency and under what circumstances did they come?),
Till:
Well, since verse 5
says that
"Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region round about
the Jordan" went out to
where John the Baptist was preaching, I suspect that when "Matthew"
said that John saw "many
Pharisees and Sadducees in the crowd," he meant that more than just
three or four, or ten at
the most, Pharisees and Sadducees were there.
Turkel
and the number of false prophets who will arise (24:11).
Till:
I addressed this verse above. It makes no sense at all to think that
Jesus was warning his
disciples to beware of just a handful of false prophets who would seek
to lead them astray,
so when he said that "many false" prophets would come and lead "many
astray," he meant that...
well, many false prophets would lead many [people] astray. Does Turkel
think that when Jesus
said in the verse just before this that "many would stumble," he meant
that only two or three
would fall away? As the word polus was consistently used in the
examples cited above,
we have every reason to think that Jesus was telling the disciples that
numerous false
prophets would try to lead the disciples astray, and we have even
better reasons to believe
that Turkel is just trying to quibble his way out of a huge problem for
those who think that
the Bible is inerrant.
Turkel:
"Many" could mean anything from ten to thousands.
Till:
I assume that everyone noticed that Turkel cited no New Testament
examples where polus
was used to signify only ten. I assume also that readers will
understand that if he knew of
any such examples he would have cited them.
Now Turkel's crimes of speculation turned to quibbling about what kind of bodies the resurrected saints had.
Turkel:
Whether they were in natural-but-mortal bodies (e.g. Lazarus),
natural-but-immortal bodies
(e.g. post-resurrection [sic], pre-ascension [sic]
Jesus), or
supernatural/glorified bodies (e.g. post-ascension [sic] Jesus
in Revelation).
Till:
Are we supposed to believe that someone who doesn't know that post-
and pre- are
English prefixes that should be attached to the root words without
hyphenation, just like any
other prefixes, is an expert on postressurection and preascension
bodies? In the first place,
Turkel is begging the question of whether resurrections and ascensions
have ever happened. I
would love to see him prove these without resorting to question begging
and special pleading.
According to the tales about the alleged postresurrection appearances of Jesus, he claimed that his body bore the signs of his crucifixion.
Luke 24:39 "Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost [spirit] does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have."
John 20:26 26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." 27 Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe."
If these passages do not mean that the writers thought that the [snicker, snicker] resurrected body of Jesus was the physical body that had been crucified, then I would like to know what they mean. All of Turkel's talk about what kind of bodies the resurrected saints had is just a smokescreen to distract attention from the problem posed by the silence of the other gospels on the alleged resurrection of the "many saints," because whatever kind of bodies they presumably had, they were bodies that could be seen and recognized, because verse 53 says that these "many saints" went into "the holy city and appeared to many." How could they have appeared to many, whether these "many" were many or just Turkel's speculative ten, unless they were in bodies that could be seen? The kind of bodies that the saints had when they were resurrected is therefore irrelevant to the issue of why John, who was presumably an eyewitness to the events of that day, did not mention an earthquake that shook open tombs of dead "saints," who were then resurrected.
Besides all of these problems in Turkel's quibbles, there is one very clear statement in Matthew 27:52 that kicks the props right out from under his quibbles about what kind of bodies these "many saints" had after they were resurrected. The verse just cited clearly says that "many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised," so the inspired, inerrant "word of God" says that the bodies were resurrected. If the bodies were resurrected, then that which the spirits [snicker, snicker] of these saints were living in when they died, was resurrected. If not, why not?
Turkel's crimes of speculation continued.
Turkel:
How long they remained on earth (till Jesus ascended? Until they died?).
Till:
What difference does it make how long they were [snicker, snicker] on
earth? If they rose out
of their tombs and appeared to many in the city, then they were
seen and the fact of
their resurrection would have been known to the many who saw them.
Whether they stayed on
earth for one day or one week or one month or one year or even one hour
has nothing to do with
why a phenomenal event like "many saints" coming out of their tombs and
appearing to
many would not have been mentioned by a writer (John) who was allegedly
on the scene at
that time. "Matthew" was trying to make his story more credible by
claiming that divine
intervention had been involved in it, so the obvious purpose of this
fanciful little yarn was
achieved in a time when superstitious readers would have taken such
claims seriously. Why
did John, who wrote in order that his readers might believe that Jesus
is the Christ
(John
21:30-31),
not want to achieve the same? Upon seeing the earthquake and what
took place, the
Roman soldiers said, "Surely this man was the son of God," so Matthew
claims that the miracle
of the quake and what accompanied it had produced the very effect that
"John" said he wanted
to achieve in his gospel, so why did "John" leave out an event that
could have produced in
his readers the very result that he wanted? That is the issue, and
Turkel is trying to lay
down a smokescreen to hide the fact that he has no plausible reason for
these omissions.
Turkel:
If they stayed on earth then there was a real threat, if connection was
made to Jesus, that
they would be targets for assassination (cf. John 12:10) or at least
persecution.
Till:
And what does this have to do with the price of tea in China? In the
first place, Turkel is
begging the question of the accuracy of the book of John, but he has no
way of knowing that a
man named Lazarus was ever resurrected beyond the fact that one biased
document says that he
was, and even if we assume that Lazarus was resurrected, except for one
biased document that
says that they did, Turkel has no way of knowing that the chief priests
had later discussed
killing Lazarus to get rid of the influence he was having on Jews.
Second, Turkel raised
issues about what kind of bodies these resurrected saints were in, so
if he is silly enough
to believe this yarn, how does he even know that a [snicker, snicker]
resurrected person
could even die again? After all, Jesus said that those who rise from
the dead neither marry
nor are given in marriage but are "like angels in heaven"
(Mark
12:25), so if Turkel
thinks that these "many saints"--who were really just a few saints--had
postresurrection or
postascension bodies, he would have to explain why "there was a real
threat" to them if they
stayed on earth. Or maybe Turkel believes that angels in heaven can be
killed.
Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to comment on nonsense about postresurrection, postascension, glorified bodies, when those who talk of such things have no real evidence that they even exist. I will leave this point with a challenge for Turkel to describe to us what postresurrection, preascension, postascension, and glorified bodies look like. Has he ever seen any such bodies? Of course, he hasn't, but he believes in them because he believes in the theological nonsense that has been written about vague New Testament passages that are used to prove the existence of such bodies.
Turkel:
Silence may have been a safeguard until a certain date when Matthew's
Greek version was
written.
Till:
Why? Why on earth why? Turkel is referring here to his belief that
"Matthew" first wrote
his gospel in Hebrew, but even if we grant him this concession, how
would that prove that
"silence may have been a safeguard" until Matthew's Greek version was
written? What does it
even mean anyway? This is just more nonsensical, totally abstract
palaver that proves
exactly nothing about why phenomenal events like midday darkness and
the resurrection of
"many" saints who were seen by "many" would not even have been
mentioned in another allegedly
eyewitness account of events on that day.
This is another part of the smokescreen that Turkel is laying down to try to hide the fact that he has no sensible explanation for silence about extraordinary events in an allegedly eyewitness account of events on crucifixion day. Just look at what Turkel expects us to believe.
I am sure that any sensible person can see that if John really was wanting people to believe that Jesus was the Christ, as he claimed he wanted, none of these events just listed would have compared in importance to the three extraordinary events (the midday darkness, the earthquake, and the resurrection of the saints) that he completely omitted. The Roman soldiers saw the earthquake and what took place and then declared that this man [Jesus] was surely the son of God, but does Turkel think that anyone present on that day saw the sign on the cross and said, "Surely this man was the son of God," or saw the soldiers casting lots for Jesus's coat, and said, "Surely this man was the son of God." Turkel obviously has no sensible explanation for why an eyewitness to events of that day would have omitted all references to these extraordinary events, which, according to "Matthew" had accomplished the very thing that "John" said that he was writing to achieve. The final sentence of my article "The Absence of Evidence" said, "Sometimes the silence of secular history screams, but biblicists just can't seem to hear it." The same is true of silence in parallel biblical accounts, which omit references to extraordinary events included in some of the other parallels, and in Turkel's quibbling, we are seeing that he can't hear the screaming.
Turkel:
Whether they only appeared to believing Jews (cf. Acts 10.40-41) or
anyone. How can
we talk of witnesses if we do not know who they are or how many there
were?
Till:
I love it when Turkel shoots himself in the foot.
We see in these examples something that I have often said about Turkel: inconsistency is about his only consistency. He plays both sides of the street, so when he needs to argue that the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus is supported by "witnesses" who saw him after he had risen, he will cite the 500 unknown brethren with no reservations about appealing to witnesses whose identities were unknown, but when faced with the problem of explaining why John didn't mention many resurrected saints who were seen by many, he will scream, "Hey, how can we talk of witnesses if we do not know who they are?" Yes, indeed, inconsistency is about the only consistency in Turkel's articles. The position that he takes in any given situation will depend on what direction the winds of controversy are blowing.
Here is a problem for Turkel to deal with. Well, let me reword that. He won't "deal" with the problem; he will just ignore it, but if this resurrection of "many"--or even just ten--saints really happened, it had to have happened because of divine intervention, so let Turkel give us a logical reason why "God" would have caused this extraordinary event if it wasn't done to let the people present that day know that he had caused it. In other words, as I noted above, why would "God" have caused this event except for the purpose of demonstrating to the people present what the Roman soldiers allegedly came to realize, i. e., this man [Jesus] was the son of God. Why, then, would God have intervened to cause a puny little earthquake that most people present were not even aware of and why would he have resurrected "many"--or just ten--saints if he was going to keep the event so unobtrusive that for all intents and purposes it amounted to a nonevent?
This is the kind of silliness that would-be apologists like Turkel have to resort to in trying to defend their untenable belief in biblical inerrancy.
Turkel;
how and when Matthew found out about these saints.
Till:
Well, gee, wasn't "Matthew" written by the apostle Matthew? If so,
wouldn't he have been
present that day. If the author wasn't the apostle Matthew, wasn't the
author nevertheless
"inspired"? If he was, couldn't that have been the way that he found
out? If he wasn't
"inspired," then what he wrote wouldn't have been worth a pint of cold
spit, since he was
claiming that a very extraordinary event (typical of the kind of claims
made in the
literature of that time) had happened. If he wasn't inspired, we have
no more reason to
believe that such an event happened than we have to believe that other
extraordinary events
claimed in uninspired literature of that time happened.
This rambling nonsense, folks, is typical of the desperate extremes that Turkel will go to in order to defend his untenable belief in biblical inerrancy. He talks often about "bottom lines," so here is a bottom line for him to deal with. Three very extraordinary events on crucifixion day were not mentioned by the apostle John in his gospel, and two of the events were not mentioned by Mark or Luke. Those omissions are serious enough to cast doubts on the claims about "eyewitness accounts" and divine "inspiration" of those who wrote the gospels. We have seen enough from Turkel to know that he has no plausible explanations for these omissions. And if he screams again that Till is upset because "God" didn't kiss his patoot, as he has been known to do, that may be emotionally satisfying to him and may tickle the fancy of his gullible choir members, but it will not be an adequate response to this problem.
At this point, all that Turkel could do was quibble endlessly, as his crimes by speculation continued below.
Turkel:
Was this information accessible to just anyone?
Till:
Well, it should have been "accessible" to those who were present, and
"John" was presumably
present that day, so unless "John" was so physically and mentally
handicapped that he was
unaware of a three-hour period of midday darkness and an earthquake
that split rocks and
shook tombs open, he would have known about them. For those who were
not present--Mark and
Luke--the information should have been "accessible" to them if they
were indeed "inspired" by
God when they wrote their gospels. Were Mark and Luke inspired? If so,
the information
should have been "accessible" to them, as I showed in
"What the
Bible Says about Inspiration," which shows that verbal inspiration
is a doctrine
clearly taught in the Bible. If Turkel wants to deny that this is a
biblical doctrine, I will
gladly oppose him in a debate on the subject if he will agree to
post all of our exchanges
on his website and leave them there UNEDITED. Needless to say, I
will gladly agree to
post under these conditions on my website.
Turkel, of course, is not going to agree to do this, because he doesn't want his choir members to see how easily he can be taken to the cleaners by informed opposition.
Turkel:
This will depend on the factors above to a great extent (number raised,
what time they were
raised, and where, and in what form).
Till:
I showed above that these "factors" are really quibbles that explain
nothing. If just
one saint was raised at that time, why wouldn't this have been
significant enough to
warrant mentioning in a gospel allegedly written by an eyewitness to
the events of that
day? Where were they raised? Well, the implication is certainly that
they were resurrected
in the general area where the crucifixion took place, because "Matthew"
said that these
"many saints" went "into the holy city and appeared to many,"
so if they went into
the city, they were resurrected somewhere outside the city. The
crucifixion of Jesus took
place outside the city. The "fact" of this was clearly implied in the
synoptic gospels, but
"John," who didn't bother to mention the midday darkness, the
earthquake, or the resurrection
of the saints, somehow found enough space on his scroll to say that
"the place where Jesus was
crucified was near the city" (19:20). If this place was "near"
the city, it wasn't
inside the city, and the writer of Hebrews clearly said that Jesus
"suffered outside the city
gate."
Hebrew 13:11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 Therefore Jesus also suffered outside the city gate in order to sanctify the people by his own blood.
From all this, one can reasonably conclude that "Matthew" meant for his readers to understand that the resurrection of these "saints" happened somewhere outside the city, presumably close enough to the crucifixion site for spectators to witness the miracles that made the Roman soldiers declare that this man [Jesus] was surely the son of God. Why would God have wasted a miracle as extraordinary as the resurrection of "many saints" in a place located on another side of the city where those who might see it wouldn't recognize its significance?
At any rate, the where and when they were raised are irrelevant, because if "many"--or ten--were raised and if these "many"--or ten--went into the city where they were seen by "many"--or ten--this would have created a furor that would surely have attracted enough attention to bring more than just one brief mention in one of the gospels. Is Turkel really so ignorant that he actually believes that if ten people known to have been dead should suddenly appear to ten people, they wouldn't have excitedly told others, "I saw Joe and Bill and Mary and Jane walking about alive in the city"? Turkel's mission, should he accept it, is to explain why "John" who was present at that place and time would have omitted such events as this from his account of what happened that day so that he would have enough space on his scroll to report such trivial things as the location of the crucifixion site somewhere "near the city." And he should keep in mind that yelling, "Till is upset because God didn't kiss is patoot," is still an unsatisfactory explanation for this inconceivable silence.
As for what form the "saints" were in, I showed above that Matthew's text clearly said that the bodies of many of the saints were raised, so their "form" would have been... well, their bodies, just as the New Testament seemed clear in communicating that the body of Jesus and not his spirit was resurrected (Luke 24:39). Turkel might spare himself embarrassment if he would spend a little more time reading the Bible to try to learn what is in it rather than cutting and pasting from DeMar, Keener, McComiskey, Stuart et al, who like Turkel have obvious agendas to pursue.
Turkel:
But we do not know when Matthew received this information, or how, and
from whom.
Till:
Uh, Matthew wasn't there? If this is what Turkel
thinks, he can take it
up with Luke,
who said that "all his [Jesus's] acquaintances, and the women
that followed with him
from Galilee stood afar off, seeing these things"
(Luke
23:49). Was
Matthew an "acquaintance"? If so, then an "inspired" writer said that
he was present, unless
Turkel is going to argue that all didn't mean all--and who
knows what Turkel might say
to keep the PayPal bucks coming in?
If Turkel is going to argue that Matthew wasn't present but got his information from who knows where or whom, he will reduce the gospel of Matthew to just another ancient document that is worth no more than anything else written in that time. Turkel is arguing that he doesn't know where or from whom Matthew got his information but that somehow he knows that the information is inerrant. At the same time, he claims that "inspiration" in biblical times meant no more than we mean when we talk about an inspired "work of art."
What "happened" to it [inspiration]? Nothing. Other than that, it was taken over by Western anachronists like X who thought this meant robotic dictation, rather than what the ancients thought "inspiration" meant (which was more like, the sort of "inspiration" we get for a work of art).
If, however, that is all that divine inspiration was, Turkel, as I noted in the article linked to above, has reduced all biblical books to a collection of ancient writings worth no more than the "works of art" that he referred to.
What Turkel said here reduces the Bible to an absolutely worthless collection of writings of no more importance than an "inspired" work of art like Claud Monet's Water Lilies or Pablo Picasso's Visage de la Paix, and Turkel will never be able to explain to us why we should think that the thoughts of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Ezekiel, "Matthew," "Mark," the apostle Paul, etc., etc., etc., are any truer than what was written by other authors in biblical times. I am sure that the authors of Tobit, Judith, Ecclesiasticus, the books of Enoch, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, etc., etc., etc., were fully inspired by Turkel's definition just quoted, so is he going to claim that there are no inaccuracies in these books either? What about the inscription on the Moabite Stone? Was the author of this inspired too? The author(s) of the Bhagavad-Gita or the Zoroastrian Avesta--were they inspired too? If not, how does Turkel know? If so (in the sense that Turkel claims that ancient societies understood the meaning of inspiration), then what rule of dubious logic does Turkel use to determine that the biblical text is more reliable than the others? Inquiring minds want to know.
As shown by the quotation above taken from Turkel's article, he likes to talk about "robotic dictation" as if the use of this term discredits those who refer to the biblical doctrine of verbal spiration, but if this guy knew diddly squat about the Bible, he would know that the Bible clearly teaches that "inspiration" by God meant to biblical writers that the very words that they wrote were the words of God. Turkel cannot remove the fact that the Bible teaches the doctrine of verbal inspiration by disparagingly using the term "robotic dictation."
Has Turkel never read the tale about the scroll that Jeremiah wrote "from the mouth of Yahweh" and the way that it was replaced after king Jehoiakim had burned it? As I go through the relevant verses in the biblical text, please notice the expressions emphasized in bold print. I will quote from Turkel's beloved KJV.
Jeremiah 36:1 And it came to pass in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, that this word came unto Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, 2 Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spake unto thee, from the days of Josiah, even unto this day. 3 It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin. 4 Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah: and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of Yahweh, which he had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a book. 5 And Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying, I am shut up; I cannot go into the house of Yahweh: 6 Therefore go thou, and read in the roll, which thou hast written from my mouth, the words of Yahweh in the ears of the people in Yahweh's house upon the fasting day: and also thou shalt read them in the ears of all Judah that come out of their cities.
Notice how the text constantly spoke of "words" that Jeremiah was to write, which words were identified as words that had been spoken by Yahweh. Notice that Jeremiah himself didn't write the words but called for the scribe Baruch, who "wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of Yahweh." That certainly sounds like what Turkel disparagingly refers to as "robotic dictation." In fact, the NIV, which Turkel will often appeal to when he finds in it something supportive of whatever doctrine du jour he is defending, says in verse 4 that "Jeremiah dictated all the words the LORD had spoken to him" and that "Baruch wrote them on the scroll." Notice too that the final verse quoted about says that what was in the scroll was "written from [Jeremiah's] mouth" and that these were "the words of Yahweh." The NIV says that these were the words of [Yahweh], which Baruch had written as "I [Jeremiah] dictated."
But the story of this scroll gets worse for Turkel's disparaging comment about "robotic dictation." Baruch took the scroll into the temple and read "the words of Jeremiah" (36:10). One of the people present, Micaiah the son of Gemariah, then went to where the princes were gathered and told them about the scroll, and they sent a messenger to bring Baruch to them. When Baruch read the scroll to them, their reaction brought a comment from Baruch that again supports the "robotic dictation" view of inspiration, which Turkel seems to think that he can make vanish from the Bible by insulting it.
Jeremiah 36:14 Therefore all the princes sent Jehudi the son of Nethaniah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Cushi, unto Baruch, saying, Take in thine hand the roll wherein thou hast read in the ears of the people, and come. So Baruch the son of Neriah took the roll in his hand, and came unto them. 15 And they said unto him, Sit down now, and read it in our ears. So Baruch read it in their ears. 16 Now it came to pass, when they had heard all the words, they were afraid both one and other, and said unto Baruch, We will surely tell the king of all these words. 17 And they asked Baruch, saying, Tell us now, How didst thou write all these words at his mouth? 18 Then Baruch answered them, He pronounced all these words unto me with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in the book.
This sounds again like the "robotic dictation" that Turkel speaks so disparagingly of, doesn't it? The NIV, which is Turkel's second favorite version, has Baruch telling the princes that "he [Jeremiah] dictated all these words to me, and I wrote them in ink on the scroll."
After Turkel has banged his head against these biblical claims about divine inspiration, he can take two aspirins and call an ambulance.But the beat goes on. The princes did take the scroll to the king, who interrupted the reading of it, cut it with a knife, and threw it into a fire (36:20-23). Yahweh reacted with a command for Jeremiah to reproduce the destroyed scroll and add to it some choice words about Jehoiakim.
Jeremiah 36:32 Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah; who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire: and there were added besides unto them many like words.
The NIV, which I suspect that Turkel won't be appealing to in any matter pertaining to the inspiration of Jeremiah, says in the verse quoted above that "as Jeremiah dictated, Baruch wrote on it all the words of the scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire." As I have noted before, the Bible clearly teaches verbal inspiration, a doctrine that Turkel cannot accept without having to surrender his quibbles about paper shortages, oral tradition, strict consistency not mattering to those in biblical times, being right if the people of the time thought it was right, etc., etc., etc., and so he choses to disregard what the Bible clearly says about the "inspiration" process. Once Turkel rejects the biblical doctrine of verbal inspiration, however, he puts himself into a predicament that leaves him with no satisfactory answers to the questions I asked in my reply to his "robotic dictation" comment above. If Matthew wasn't present on the day of the crucifixion and if he was "inspired" only in the sense of those who produce "works of art" were inspired, Turkel can give no logical reason why we should think that Matthew's gospel is inerrant.
I have said it before, and I will say it again: when Bible believers reject the doctrine of verbal inspiration, as Turkel has, they are left with no basis at all to claim biblical inerrancy or even any degree of biblical authority. This is another "bottom line" that he will ignore.
Turkel:
This by itself does not make it unreliable (see
here on the
matter of hearsay)
Till:
This is a link to a rambling article by Turkel in which he tried to
make hearsay admissible
in court and thereby make hearsay in the Bible reliable. I have linked
readers to it so that
anyone who wants to take the time to read it can see that it is just
another desperate
attempt to vindicate the Bible. If Turkel is going to argue that
hearsay in the Bible is
reliable evidence, he will be left with the task of having to explain
why the reliability of
hearsay in the Qur'an, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Avesta, the Book of
Mormon, or even ancient
extrabiblical documents should not also be considered reliable, even
when they make outrageous
claims. He will need to explain why the inscription on the
Moabite Stone should
not also be considered
reliable or why the claims inscribed on the pavement stones in
the temple of Urta
in Nimrud should not also be considered reliable. Just look at this
excerpt from the
prologue of the Code
of Hammurabi.
Notice the parts emphasized in bold print.
When Anu the Sublime, King of the Anunaki, and Bel, the lord of Heaven and earth, who decreed the fate of the land, assigned to Marduk, the over-ruling son of Ea, God of righteousness, dominion over earthly man, and made him great among the Igigi, they called Babylon by his illustrious name, made it great on earth, and founded an everlasting kingdom in it, whose foundations are laid so solidly as those of heaven and earth; then Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak; so that I should rule over the black-headed people [Sumerians] like Shamash, and enlighten the land, to further the well-being of mankind.
Hammurabi obviously thought that he had been chosen by his gods. He also thought that Babylon would be an "everlasting kingdom," which is reminiscent of biblical claims that the kingdom of David would last forever 2 Sam. 7:12-16; Psalm 89:36; 1 Chron. 22:10). Babylon did not become an everlasting kingdom, just as David's kingdom did not endure forever. The similarity in these two claims should convince sensible people--which would, of course, exclude Turkel--that the Bible simply expressed the views of the time, and by surrendering the biblical view of verbal inspiration, Turkel has surrendered any right to claim that what the Bible says is any more true and authoritative than what... well, the Code of Hammurabi says.
Let's go now to the epilogue of the code to look at more of Hammurabi's beliefs about his divine mission.
The great gods have called me, I am the salvation-bearing shepherd, whose staff is straight, the good shadow that is spread over my city; on my breast I cherish the inhabitants of the land of Sumer and Akkad; in my shelter I have let them repose in peace; in my deep wisdom have I enclosed them. That the strong might not injure the weak, in order to protect the widows and orphans, I have in Babylon the city where Anu and Bel raise high their head, in E-Sagil, the Temple, whose foundations stand firm as heaven and earth, in order to declare justice in the land, to settle all disputes, and heal all injuries, set up these my precious words, written upon my memorial stone, before the image of me, as king of righteousness.
There are many more references in this ancient Babylonian document to gods and the favors that they had bestowed on Hammurabi. If one should rewrite this code and substitute Yahweh wherever a Babylonian god was mentioned and substitute David for Hammurabi, one would think that he was reading pages from the Bible. Those who refuse to accept the biblical claims of verbal inspiration and teach instead that the biblical writers received their information from oral tradition and people and other sources that they had contact with, as Turkel repeatedly does in his articles, cannot give any logical reasons why the Bible should be considered any more true and authoritative than the Code of Hammurabi and other ancient documents such as those mentioned above. If Turkel says, "Well, those are obviously tributes to false religions unlike the Bible's advocacy of true religion," he will be caught engaging in special pleading again. If he quibbles that the endurance of the Bible proves that it is true, he will then have to explain why the Bhagavad-Gita and the Zoroastrian Avesta, which are both older than the Bible, are not true.
Those who claim that the Bible is true because it was verbally inspired of God have legs to stand on; those who reject the doctrine of verbal inspiration don't. The matter is that simple.
Turkel:
but it also means that we cannot simply presume that silence by other
writers gives us any
arguable indications.
Till:
This quibble may work with Turkel's gullible choir members, who are
just as desperate as he
is to believe that the Bible is "the word of God," but it certainly
won't work with rational
readers. As I explained above and in
"The
Absence of
Evidence," some events are by their nature so extraordinary that no
reliable historian
writing about the time and place of their occurrence would even
consider omitting them from
any record written about that time and place, and I am not necessarily
talking about
miraculous events. There was nothing miraculous at all about the
airliner assault on the
World Trade Center, but any reliable historian writing about what
happened in New York
City on September 11, 2001, would certainly not omit references to this
event. There was
nothing miraculous about the D-Day invasion of Normandie Beach and the
liberation of
Sainte-Mère-Église on June 6, 1944, but what historian
writing about that time and place
would omit all references to these? There was nothing miraculous about
the bombing of
Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, but what reliable historian writing about
events that happened
there in August 1945 would leave out any references to the dropping of
the first A-bomb?
If we can't conceive of reliable historians omitting references to extraordinary natural events like those above, how much more inconceivable is it that an eyewitness to the events on crucifixion day would have omitted references to miraculous events like a three-hour period of midday darkness and a resurrection of "many saints" whose tombs were shaken open by an earthquake? This would be so inconceivable that any sensible person will see very good reasons to doubt that "John" was an actual eyewitness of what happened on that day. Furthermore, the very nature of these claims makes Matthew's account of them suspect, because it is infinitely more probable that an ancient author writing decades after the alleged facts about darkness at midday and resurrections from the dead was superstitiously exaggerating, transmitting unconfirmed hearsay/legend, or outright lying than that such remarkable events as these actually happened. In a word, Turkel is living in a dream world if he thinks that he can make rational people think that such tales as these are historically reliable. Likewise, by claiming that "Matthew" and "John" were "inspired" only in the sense that those who have produced "works of art" were inspired, Turkel further weakens his claim that these gospel accounts are historically reliable.
Turkel:
By itself, this is enough to dismiss silence in parallel writers as
problematic. It could be
regarded as odd for these things to be omitted, but the answer is
still,
"Yeah, so what?"
Till:
So what? I have shown, at length, above that the omission of
extraordinary claims--like the
midday darkness and the resurrection of the "many saints" who appeared
to "many"--is too
unlikely for reasonable people to believe that these events really
happened but were just not
mentioned by a "historian" who witnessed them. That is "so what."
At this point, Turkel turned to another quibble, so I will drive the final nail on this point into Turkel's hide dangling on the wall by recommending "What Happened to the Resurrected Saints?" an article in which Ed Babinski showed in detail the folly of believing in this ridiculous claim, and also "More About the Resurrected Saints," a follow-up article that I wrote on the subject. These articles and my point-by-point replies to Turkel above have hammered him flatter than a cow patty.
Now prepare yourselves for another effort by Turkel to defend his paper-shortage quibble.
Turkel:
But there are a few more things we can consider.
John 21:25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.
It does not take much to see that each Gospel writer does include things that are unique. Some of these are non-spectacular [sic] events, but both Luke and John are alone in reporting certain miraculous events, especially John.
Till:
I have an initial comment to make about the text that Turkel quoted
above before I reply to
yet another attempt he made to justify the unjustifiable. The Greek
word for many
in John 21:25 was polus, the word that Turkel argued above
could have signified no
more than ten, so if I wanted to be cynical, I could dump his argument
back into his lap and
say that if polus meant only a few in reference to the
resurrected saints, how can
Turkel know that it meant many in the sense of numerous in this
verse. Well, just
look at what the rest of the verse says. If all of the "things" that
Jesus had done were
written about, even the world itself could not contain the books that
would have to be
written, but as we will see below, Turkel recognized that this was a
case of hyperbole, so
how can he make any decision about how many many would have
been in an obviously
hyperbolic statement?
That is the way that Turkel would quibble, but I am not going to play that game. I have shown above that polus was a word used to signify "numerous" of whatever was being reported, so there is no reason to think that it didn't mean that in the verse that Turkel quoted above. Obviously, then, "John" was claiming here that Jesus had done numerous things that weren't included in this gospel account. A more sensible reply to this "argument" would be, to adapt a phrase from Turkel, "Yeah, so what?" After all, what person would be naive enough to think that a biographical account of a person's life would include every piddling little thing that he had done? With this concession, what Turkel needs to do now is prove that those "many" other things that Jesus did, which "John" didn't mention were anywhere comparable to a three-hour period of midday darkness and a resurrection of "many" saints who appeared to "many" and that they were deeds that would have contributed to his purpose of wanting to write the things about Jesus that would cause readers to believe that he was "the Christ" (20:31).
There are a couple of other points to consider about John 21:35, which Turkel quoted above in support of his so-what attitude about "John"s" omission of references to extraordinary miracles that allegedly happened on the day of the crucifixion. First, we have been talking about why "John," who was presumably an eyewitness to the events of that day, would not have mentioned the three hours of midday darkness, the earthquake that shook the tombs open, and the subsequent resurrection of the "many" saints who went into the city and appeared to "many." None of these were "things" that Jesus did; they were miracles that happened independently of anything that Jesus, who was hanging between life and death, did that day. In other words, these three extraordinary events that "John" omitted in his gospel were not "things" that Jesus had done in the sense of healing the deaf, the blind, and the lame or changing water into wine or walking on water or calming storms. "John" said that Jesus had done many other "things" that were not written in his book, so what would "things" be? Would they necessarily have been extraordinary events like a three-hour period of darkness at midday or a resurrection of "many" saints who were seen by "many"? An examination of the book of John will show that its author used some of the scarce space on his scroll--which Turkel is always talking about--to record just ordinary things, like those below, that Jesus had done.
I will ask readers to bear with me, because the purpose of this listing of ordinary events that "John" recorded in the life of Jesus will become obvious when I come to where Turkel recycled his paper-shortage quibble, so let's look at some more ordinary "things" that "John" recorded in the life of Jesus.
I could continue through the rest of "John" to list all of the "things" that Jesus had done (according to John), but these are enough to make my point. Those who take the time to analyze all of the deeds that "John" claimed that Jesus did will find that most of them, like those above, were unmiracuous, ordinary events. The list above takes readers through the first six chapters of John, and in all of those chapters only four miracles had been recorded: (1) changing the water to wine [2:6-11] at the wedding in Cana (2) healing the nobleman's son [4:46-54] in Capernaum (3) healing the lame man [5:6-9] by the pool of Bethesda (4) feeding the five thousand [6:8-13] with five loaves and two fish. So consider what we have here. "John," who according to Turkel's quibbling below, just couldn't spare the space to mention the midday darkness, the earthquake, and the resurrection of "many saints" on the day of the crucifixion, nevertheless had plenty of space to tell all of the ordinary events related above--and many others that were told in chapters 7-21. Just think about it. Turkel expects rational people to believe that "John" didn't mention the three miracles we have been talking about because he just couldn't squeeze them into the limited space on his scroll, but he had plenty of room to tell his readers that Jesus went up on a mountain and sat there with his disciples, and he also had enough space to tell about the feeding of the five thousand, which all three of the synoptic gospels (written before "John") had already recorded.
Before Turkel comes back with a citation of John 20:30-31, which says that Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that were not written in this book, I will head that quibble off at the pass too. "Signs" would have been miracles, and as Turkel himself noted in his "Come Again" attempt to prove preterism, "(t)he word here [Matt. 24:30] is semeion, used by John often to refer to Jesus' miracles; the word itself denotes a token of identification or verification," so let's just take Turkel's own explication of this word and run with it. In 20:30, "John" used semaino, the root word from which semeion was derived, so if Turkel was right about how John used this word, "John" meant that Jesus had performed many "tokens of verification" in the presence of his disciples that were not included in this gospel. That would mean that "John" was saying that many "tokens of verification" that Jesus had done in the presence of his disciples had been omitted from this gospel but that these--the "tokens of verification" that were included in this gospel--were written so that "you may believe that Jesus is the Christ," so we are right back to square one. Turkel must explain to us why "John," if his purpose in writing his gospel was to report the "tokens of verification" that would instill belief that Jesus was "the Christ," omitted all references to the midday darkness, the earthquake, and the resurrection of the many saints, which, according to "Matthew," were proven "tokens of verification," which had caused the Roman soldiers to declare that "this [man] was surely the son of God."
Turkel:
Does this raise doubts as to their veracity? Why should Matthew, Mark
and Luke have omitted
the Cana water-to-wine miracle or the raising of Lazarus?
Till:
That's easy to answer. These could well have been tales that had not
yet developed in the
Christ myth when "Matthew," Mark, and Luke--which all preceded
"John"--were written. In my
opinion, the fact that Matthew was presumably present at the [snicker,
snicker] resurrection
of Lazarus (John 11:16)
is a good reason to believe that this was just another aspect of the
Christ myth that had
developed in the region where "John" lived when he wrote this gospel
but had not yet made its
appearance in the Jesus legends where the other gospels were written.
According to
Bishop Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses, 3:1.1), "John" was probably
written in the
general region of Ephesus sometime between AD 90-100.
John 9:22,
12:42
and
16:2
made anachronistic
references (the last one allegedly prophetic) to expulsions from the
synagogues, which
happened from AD 85-90, for acknowledging Jesus to be "the Christ." The
author, apparently
writing after this had become a policy of synagogues, falsely surmised
that it was also a
danger that confronted the disciples of Jesus during his lifetime. This
policy of the
synagogues toward believers in Jesus probably accounted for the many
comments in this gospel
that expressed suspicion of the intentions of "Jews"
(5:16;
7:1;
10:31;
and
19:12).
Whereas Matthew
and Luke each used the word "Jews" only five times and Mark six, the
writer of "John" used it
64 times, often in uncomplimentary ways to present the Jews as enemies
of Jesus. Furthermore, there is
a scholarly consensus--which doesn't include fundamentalists--that the
book of John was
written by more than one person. In the farewell speech made to his
disciples in
chapter 14,
Jesus ended it
in verse 31 by saying, "Arise, let us go hence," but apparently someone
later added three
more chapters of discourse and again added a concluding wrap-up in
18:1--"After
Jesus had
spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron
valley to a place where
there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered."
In addition to this tip-off to multiple scholarship, scholarly consensus--which again does not include fundamentalists--is that chapter 21 shows a style in Greek that is too different from the rest of the book to have been written by the same author. (I lay no claim to enough expertise in Greek to make this judgment about stylistic difference; I am just reporting what the scholarly consensus is.) The author of this 21st-chapter addition inadvertently betrayed the multiple authorship in verse 24--"This is the disciple [singular] who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we [plural] know that his testimony is true." We is plural, but the writer of this gospel, who first referred to himself in the singular, had also referred to himself elsewhere in the third-person singular: "He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth" (19:35). This may not impress Turkel, who will we-we-we-we himself into the ground in his articles, but the plural reference to the writer of John in 21:24 will give others pause to wonder if there may be some merit to the belief of many scholars that this chapter was a later edition to the gospel.
I have only scratched the surface of reasons why so many scholars doubt that the apostle John was the author of the fourth gospel, but since the authorship is in doubt, I can dump one of Turkel's comments about Matthew back into his lap. If, as Turkel said above, "we do not know when Matthew received this information, or how, and from whom," we likewise don't know when "John" received his information, or how, or from whom. How then can Turkel be so cocksure that the gospel of John is inerrant? If he answers this, we can expect to see a lot of sarcasm and insults, but one thing that we won't see is a logical explanation for how he can know that "John" is inerrant if he doesn't know where or from whom John received his information.
I dare him to say that he can know that "John" is inerrant because the author was "inspired" of God.
Turkel:
Why should John have missed out on the raising of Jairus' daughter?
Till:
Implied in Turkel's question is an assumption that Jairus's daughter
was, in fact, raised
from the dead, so he is engaging in question begging and special
pleading again. He begs the
question that this resurrection happened in the first place, but the
only way that he would
even know about this resurrection claim is through the synoptic gospels
that claimed that it
happened. Hence, he is also engaging in special pleading by, in effect,
saying that if the
Bible said that it happened, then it happened.
Question begging, special pleading, and argumentation by assertion--where would Turkel and his inerrantist cohorts be if they didn't have these logical fallacies to fall back on? At any rate, I will gladly answer the question that Turkel asked above. "John" could have "missed out on the raising of Jairus's daughter" because he was unaware that this miracle was supposed to have happened.
See the predicament that inerrantists put themselves into when they deny the biblical doctrine of verbal inspiration?
Turkel:
We could multiply these examples incessantly and for each note that we
have some (or all) of
the same questions as we do above. But let's just assume for the sake
of argument that all
the information of this sort in the four Gospels was available to all
four authors to report.
Till:
Turkel has missed the point entirely, hasn't he? Those who question the
so-called eyewitness
claims of biblical writers like "Matthew" and "John" don't believe that
they were aware of
the occurrence of stupendous miracles like the midday darkness, the
earthquake that shook
open tombs, and the subsequent resurrection of "many"--or ten--saints
who appeared to
"many"--or ten--but chose not to mention them in their "eyewitness"
account. We rather believe
that they omitted these miracles because they never happened in the
first place, and so the
ones who omitted referring to them were not aware that legends about
these events had
evolved in some places.
Turkel:
How then could they have missed reporting any of it?
Till:
I just explained how they could have missed reporting them. They were
unaware that legends
about them had evolved, and so they reported only the legends that they
were aware of.
Turkel:
The answer to this may be found in two social sub-factors [sic]:
The nature of composition of ancient books
Till:
The "nature of the composition of ancient books" didn't keep Mark,
"Matthew," and Luke from
reporting the midday darkness, so why should it have kept "John," who
was presumably present
when it happened, from reporting it? The "nature of the composition of
ancient books" didn't
keep "Matthew" from reporting the earthquake and the resurrection of
the saints, so why
should it have kept Mark, Luke, and "John" from reporting them?
As we go into Part Three, readers are going to see
Turkel's "crimes of speculation"
multiply as he recycles his ridiculous
paper-shortage quibble,
which I demolished in the article just linked to, so I will be able to
reply to most of
Turkel's quibbles in Part Three by just linking readers to the specific
section of the article
where whatever speculative point he is now recycling was previously
answered. At the end of
the next part, we will see that Turkel claims that he answered my reply
to his paper-shortage
quibble, but I will reserve comment about that until we come to his
claim.
Go to Part Three
