In "The Land That Till Forgot," David Sparrow, an Australian who calls himself "a believer in Yeshua Ha Mashaiach (Jesus the Messiah)," whatever that is, made an attempt to "solve" the 430-year problem, which I have previously discussed here in a five-part series that began with "How Long Were the Children of Israel in Egypt?" and ended with "Finley's Solution." Sandwiched between these two articles was "The 210-Year solution," which dismantled the attempt to solve the 430-year problem presented by Exodus 12:40, which says that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt 430 years, and Exodus 6:14-25, which has a genealogy that doesn't allow for anything near 430 years from the Israelite entry into Egypt till their exodus under the leadership of Moses. Proponents of the 210-year solution claim that Exodus 12:40, which clearly says that "the time that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years," really meant that they had dwelt in Egypt and Canaan for 430 years, because Canaan, before the entry of the Israelites into Egypt, was under the control of the Egyptians and should therefore be considered a part of Egypt. When a discrepancy results from what the Bible clearly says, inerrantists can always be depended on to quibble that the Bible didn't really mean what it said. That is what David Sparrow did in his article linked to above. He took the position that Exodus 12:40 didn't actually mean that the children of Israel had dwelt in Egypt 430 years but had dwelt in Egypt and Canaan for 430 years. The only difference in Sparrow's position and the one that I dismantled in "The 210-Year Solution" is that Sparrow claims that the Israelites were in Egypt for 215 years; otherwise, the two positions are the same. At this point, then, I could just tell everyone to go read "The 210-Year solution," and let this serve as a rebuttal of Sparrow's "solution" to the 430-year problem, but as I explained in my "Editor's Note" appended to his article, he has an arrogant attitude that deserves exposure. I intend to do that here.

As Sparrow did and as I usually do in my rebuttal articles, I will use the labels Sparrow and Till to assist readers in following who is saying what. I will start at the beginning of his article, because it contains information so incorrect that readers will be shown from the start that this fellow doesn't know what he is talking about. Sparrow is Australian, so his punctuation and spelling follow British rules, which I will leave intact. He sometimes makes mistakes that would be considered errors even in countries where the British system is used, so when these are glaringly incorrect, I will mark them with [sic]. Otherwise, I will leave everything as he submitted it to me.

Sparrow:
Farrell Till is the editor of The Skeptical Review, a magazine devoted to the so called “Inerrantist debate”. He was born April 26 1933, and was apparently brought up within the American "Church of Christ" framework, where he became not only a preacher/pastor/minister after attending some form of bible schooling, but also an overseas missionary to France.

Till:
Sparrow told me in an e-mail message that he had posted this article on his website in 1999, so that could account for some of its information not being up to date. I no longer publish The Skeptical Review, for example. It ceased publication with the last issue of 2000 and was replaced by the online version where you are now reading this article. I have to wonder why Sparrow didn't take the time to research his subject and update information like this. Well, I have to retract that statement, because I really don't wonder why he didn't update his information. I learned on the old alt.bible.errancy forum that Sparrow doesn't worry too much about accuracy of details.

By saying that I was a "pastor," Sparrow indicated that he is profoundly ignorant of the structure of what he calls "the American Church of Christ," because I was never a pastor in this church. Preachers in this church are rarely pastors. As a church office, this word was used just once in the New Testament where the writer of Ephesians said that when Jesus ascended on high, "he gave some to be apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers" (4:11). The word translated pastors here was poimenas, the plural of poimen. It literally meant shepherd--Tyndale and Moffatt so rendered it in this verse--and was the word used in Luke 2 several times in reference to the shepherds who were watching their flock the night that Jesus was born. The word was used interchangeably with Bishop [episkopos] in 1 Peter 2:25: "For you were going astray like sheep, but are now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls." The Shepherd and Bishop referred to here was, of course, Jesus, but the point is that this passage used shepherd and bishop synonymously. For this reason, the church of Christ understands the "pastors" in Ephesians 4:11 to be shepherds, and the term "shepherd" was used in the New Testament to denote "bishops" or "elders," which is a clearly defined church office in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. References are made to those who held the office of elder/shepherd (pastor)/bishop in several places (Acts 14:23; Acts 20:17; Acts 21:18; James 5:14; Philippians 1:1). In "the American Church of Christ," then, a preacher or evangelist is not a "pastor" unless he meets the qualifications of that office and is appointed to it by his local congregation. I was never appointed to it, so Sparrow is obviously unqualified to speak about the organization and doctrines of "the American Church of Christ." By pointing out that I had once been a member of this church, he had hoped to discredit me by association, but all that he accomplished was that he revealed his own ignorance.

Sparrow:
After allegedly abandoning "the faith", he swapped his pulpits for lecterns and taught English literature under the umbrella of the American education system,which he continued with until retirement.

Till:
Actually, I taught American literature in college, not English literature. There is a difference. I didn't teach under the "umbrella of the American education system" either. I taught in the state of Illinois, so if I taught under an "umbrella," it would have been under the umbrella of the Illinois education system.

Sparrow:
He currently claims to be "an atheist", and can be found to this day (mid 2003, anyway) still arguing his point of view on things "biblical" in not only online mailing lists like errancy@infidels.org and errancyn@softhome.net,

Till:
Once again, Sparrow's information is way outdated. The Errancy list hasn't been hosted by infidels.org for almost three years. It was relocated to Topica.com in December 2001 and has since changed to Errancy@iierrancy.com. Errancy@softhome.net was the now defunct alt.bible.errancy forum, linked to above, whose owner took it off line in January 2004. This is just another example of how careless Sparrow is in his research.

Sparrow:
but also in public debates. Transcripts of some are posted here.

Till:
Readers can indeed find some of my debates by clicking this link, but Sparrow's article contained an incorrect URL, which I had to correct.

Sparrow:
For information on the American "Church of Christ" and an insight in to [sic] the kinds of doctrines, dogmas, and methods of translation and interpretation that Till was brought up in click here.

Till:
I left this link as Sparrow had it in his article, but those who click it will find that there is no such site. I informed Sparrow of this, but he didn't send me a correction. Just about everything that Sparrow has said so far turned out to be incorrect, so that speaks volumes about his carelessness. As we continue, we will see that his attempt to "solve" the 430-year problem is as flawed as the information he presented above in an attempt to discredit me by association. If I had formerly been a Catholic or a Jehovah's Witness, I suppose that Sparrow would have tried to make this into some kind of blast from my past that disqualifies me to speak with any credibility about biblical errancy. Sparrow seems not to understand that the truth or falsity of a proposition is independent of its source. No matter what I may have believed in the past and no matter what I may believe today does not in any way affect the truth or falsity of my claim that the Bible contradicts itself in the matter of how long the children of Israel sojourned in Egypt, but Sparrow is apparently too logically challenged to understand that.

Sparrow:
Who is derspatz? Nobody really -

Till:
Well, finally, Sparrow has said something that I can agree with. In biblical matters, he has indeed shown himself to be a nobody. He was so ill-informed on the subject of biblical inerrancy that he was chewed up and spat out more times than I can remember in the old alt.bible.errancy forum. I will be demonstrating this below as I quote from Sparrow's posts to this forum, but those who have the patience to do so can go to message 4821 and begin reading there where Sparrow tried to defend the same position that he has taken in his article that I will be answering below. You will see much more of his ignorance than I will be able to expose in this single article.

Sparrow:
I am 33 years sans 13 days Till's junior,

Till:
Those who do have the patience to begin with the link above and read through all of Sparrow's posts will see that he fancies himself as some kind of linguist who likes to bandy about foreign expressions, especially German ones, in his posts. Many of them will be found in places where he seemed eager to impress his readers with his "cutesy" linguistic skills, but quite often, his foreign expressions were used incorrectly. I worked almost five years in France as a missionary for "the American Church of Christ," so I learned how to speak French while I was there. The word sans meant "without" or "free from" and not "less," which seems to be the way that Sparrow was using it above. He should have said that he is 33 moins 13 days my junior, because moins means "less" or "fewer" in French. Actually, then, Sparrow was saying above that he is 33 without 13 days Till's junior.

If Sparrow had said that he is 13 days short of being 33 years my junior, that would have been even better. Why does he seemed so compelled to try to impress people by peppering his writing with foreign expressions (which are often used incorrectly) and "cutesy" puns that often fall flat? An example of this obsession of his can be seen in his insistence on being called "derspatz," which is German for "the Sparrow," but the more that I think about this, the more appropriate I think that this sobriquet [nickname] may be, because the House Sparrow is a nonnative bird in North America, which was brought here in 1850 to help control green inch-worms, which were destroying trees in New York, and to eat the undigested grain in horse manure deposited in streets. Conditions here were so favorable for them that they quickly spread across the continent and threatened the existence of native sparrows. This variety of sparrow has since become a nuisance in North America, and that is the best word that I know to describe Sparrow's tenure on the old alt.bible.errancy forum. His posts became such rambling nuisances that some members of the forum filtered them.

Sparrow:
I have never been to "bible school",

Till:
It's too bad that he didn't attend one. Maybe he would have learned something about the Bible if he he had.

Sparrow:
nor been a "Pastor" or a "foreign missionary". I am a believer in Yeshua Ha Mashaiach (Jesus the Messiah),

Till:
See what I mean? Sparrow couldn't just say that he was a believer in Jesus the Messiah; he had to try to impress us with his linguistic skills by saying it in Hebrew.

Sparrow:
truth-seeker, and empiricist who happens to think that the issues that Till raise, are merely the "same old stuff doing the rounds, and all of it adequately dealt with before I was born".

Till:
If Sparrow were indeed a "truth-seeker and empiricist," he would not still be trying to defend biblical inerrancy five years after he had been presented with clear evidence on alt.bible.errancy that it is riddled with errors. He would have to be in a state of denial to continue clinging to a belief that has been thoroughly discredited.

He is still chirping a song that became familiar to members of alt.bible.errancy. He sings that the "issues" that were being raising in that forum had been "adequately dealt with before [he] was born." The key word here is adequately. Anyone who has done any research at all on the subject of biblical errancy knows that the issues that usually come up in a forum like alt.bible.errancy have been "dealt" with in the past, but any errantist that is truly informed on the subject knows that they have not been adequately dealt with. I have had the apologetic works of John Haley, William Arndt, George DeHoff, and R. A. Torrey in my personal library for longer than I can remember, and I have added to them the works of Gleason Archer and Norman Geisler. I am very familiar with how they have "dealt" with most discrepancies that I have personally written about, so I know that their "explanations" of those discrepancies have been far from adequate. They are, in fact, so ludicrous at times that some former inerrantists have told me that their rejection of biblical inerrancy began with their exposure to books like Archer's Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties. They found his "explanations" of biblical discrepancies so ridiculously far-fetched that they eventually became errantists.

Sparrow had a chance on alt.bible.errancy to show that the 430-year problem is not a discrepancy, but all that he could do was recycle the old 210-year solution, which he changed to a 215-year "solution." He seems to have forgotten the humiliation that he suffered during our first debates on this issue, so he has come back for more. I will be delighted to show him again that his "solution" will not work.

Sparrow:
A most subjective POV [point of view] I realise, but I trust this response will further demonstrate the truth of it, for in fact I am basically presenting a response here that Not Only precedes my birth, But Also Till's by thousands of years for that matter.

Till:
Sparrow also fills his posts with internet acronyms that aren't always decipherable. When I know what they mean, I will spell them out in brackets as I did above. I have had a hard time trying to convince even skeptics that these acronyms should be avoided to ensure clarity of meaning, but Sparrow was one of the biggest abusers of a primary rule of writing, which says that writers should strive first and foremost to be understood.

As for how long his 215-year "solution" preceded my birth, the issue here is not how long it preceded my birth but how sound it is. I have shown already in "The 210-Year Solution" that this "explanation" just won't hold water. In rebutting Sparrow's recycling of this "solution," I will be linking readers back to that article, but I will also quote from my rebuttals of Sparrow in the alt.bible.errancy forum to show that this "solution" that he seems to be so in love with was thoroughly dismantled almost five years ago. Why he has returned with it is beyond my comprehension. He must be a glutton for punishment.

Sparrow:
The essence of this debate that I am responding to is in relation to a view that the Old Testament claims that the children of Israel spent 430 years in Egypt. As Till conclusively shows in this series of posting to the Errancy List, this claim is contradicted by evidence from the genealogical listings found in the Old Testament.

Till:
Well, I must say that I appreciate Sparrow's honesty, because I too believe that I showed conclusively in my posts on the 430-year problem that "genealogical listings," especially those in Exodus 6, contradict the claim in Exodus 12:40 that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt 430 years. I assume that Sparrow carelessly worded this statement. Otherwise, what is he doing here trying to reply to something that I have conclusively shown to be a biblical contradiction.

Sparrow:
From here-on Till’s words shall be in italics and prefixed with Till and mine in standard text and prefixed with Derspatz.

Till:
Okay, if Sparrow thinks that it is cutesy to call himself Derspatz, I'll go along with it when I am quoting where he used the "name" in his article--he can't hide the weakness of his position by hiding it behind a German name--but I will put Sparrow's quotations from my article in ordinary print.

Derspatz:
The Old Testament actually indicates a period of 430 years that the descendants of Abraham were to spend sojourning in land that was not to be taken ownership of by them until certain things had come to pass.

Till:
I will advise everyone to watch Sparrow carefully here, because he is alluding to Genesis 15:13-16, where Yahweh told Abraham [snicker, snicker] that his descendants would be oppressed for 400 years in a land that was "not theirs." We are going to see Sparrow try to make this land that wasn't "theirs" both Canaan and Egypt, but I will show everyone that Sparrow long ago saw evidence that this quibble just won't work.

Sparrow:
In this document, Till has provided a reasonable but not conclusive study into particular ways of deciphering a genealogical record but by the same token has omitted much to achieve his goal.

Till:
Oh, really? Well, I thought that Sparrow said above that I had shown conclusively that the "genealogical listings" contradicted the 430-year claim, so I wish that he would make up his mind. Was my analysis of the genealogy conclusive or not?

Sparrow:
For the sake of the argument, and there are at least three schools of thought on this matter but I am not too interested in presenting them all at this time, I will be mostly assuming that Till is correct in his appraisal of the genealogical record, even though there are many who do not share that view.

Till:
Well, actually, there are more than three schools of thought on this matter, but since sparrow decided to focus only on mine, I will be glad to show that my analyses of the two passages central to this issue are sound and that a discrepancy does indeed exist between the two. I will also show that five years ago, my arguments were presented to Sparrow in the alt.bible.errancy forum and that he could not rebut them.

Sparrow
I am taking this view because the issue raised need not rest on the genealogical record as such.

Till:
Well, I never did rest it just on the genealogical record. If Sparrow had paid attention, he would have known that.

Sparrow:
The issue can be solved by the introduction of a single name to the Exodus 12:40 reference that Till is using as the measuring stick to compare his genealogical argument against, which But [sic] OF Course [sic] "doesn't match", hence his insistence of an error.

Till:
Sparrow has problems with clarity in his written communications, but if I understand him correctly, he is saying that Exodus 12:40 and the genealogical record, but of course, don't match, so if they don't match there is a discrepancy in what Exodus 12:40 and the genealogical record say. If not, why not?

Sparrow:
It will be shown that it is no error that some translations omit the name, and others include it (including Josephus), for regardless of the presence of that name, it will be shown that it is implied anyway, and thus somewhat redundant.

Till:
Hmm, if I understand Sparrow correctly, he is saying that if a later copy of an original work omits a word [name] that was in the original, this would not be an error, but why wouldn't it be? Perhaps he can clarify this matter for us.

Sparrow:
The name is Canaan, which for much of the time in question, had large portions of it under direct Egyptian control and could be deemed to be part of Egypt.

Till:
Sparrow has assumed that my genealogical analyses are correct, so I am going to assume that he is correct about Canaan's having been a part of Egypt at the time in question. It wasn't, but the issue isn't important enough to my argument to waste time discussing. I can show, as I already have in "The 210-Year Solution," that there were no "children of Israel" to reside in Canaan at the time in dispute, so whether Canaan was a part of Egypt then is irrelevant. If "children of Israel" didn't exist until about 50 years before Jacob [Israel] took his family into Egypt, it would not have been possible for "the children of Israel" to have sojourned in Canaan 215 years before they went into Egypt. If Sparrow can't understand that, I suggest that he go to the nearest elementary school and find a student to explain the math to him.

Sparrow:
Incidentally, “Egypt” means “two lands”.

Till:
Oh, it does? I wonder where he got this. The word for Egypt in Hebrew was mitsrayim, which was the dual form of matsowur, which meant "beseiged, bulwark, fortress, or stronghold." English nouns are either singular or plural, but in Hebrew, they were singular, plural, or dual. The dual form indicated two of whatever the noun denoted. Sparrow seems to think that because the Hebrews used a dual form to refer to Egypt, the word must have meant two lands. This is fallacious reasoning, for, in the first place, the word didn't mean "land" but "bulwark, fortress, or stronghold." Hence, the dual form would mean that the Hebrews were referring to two bulwarks or fortresses when they used the word, but what they actually meant was that Egypt consisted of two parts, i. e., Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. Lower Egypt was the northern part, whose capital was Memphis, and Upper Egypt was the southern part. Eventually the word lost its dual meaning and came to be applied to all of Egypt, but none of the territory designated by the name Egypt included Canaan. It was at times inclusive of part of the Sinai region, but Canaan was not considered a part of Egypt or the Sinai. If Sparrow had consulted a reputable Bible dictionary, he could have learned all of this.

Sparrow [quoting Till]:
Because the Exodus-6 genealogy lists only four generations from Levi to Aaron and Moses, this presents several problems for inerrantists.

Derspatz:
Firstly, Till hardly needed the reference about alleged or so called "inerrantists" here

Till:
Well, yes, I did need the reference to inerrantists here, because inerrantists have twisted themselves into verbal pretzels to try to make the four-generation genealogy in Exodus 6 consistent with the claim in Exodus 12:40 that the "children of Israel" dwelt in Egypt for 430 years. Hence, the Exodus-6 genealogy does indeed present several problems for inerrantists.

Sparrow:
(Who are these people? What does Till precisely mean by the term?

Till:
Well, if Sparrow had done something as simple as consult a reputable dictionary, he would have known what inerrantist meant. Webster defines inerrant like this: not erring, making no mistakes.

Now that shouldn't be so hard to understand. An inerrantist, when the term is applied to the Bible, would be someone who claims that the Bible didn't err or make mistakes, but maybe Sparrow doesn't know what the English suffix -ist means and therefore doesn't understand that a purist is one who advocates purism in whatever field that the word is applied to or that a dentist is someone who is knowledgeable in the field of dentistry, and so on. An inerrantist, then, when the word is applied to the Bible, is someone who maintains that the Bible contains no errors or mistakes.

Sparrow harped about the use of this world throughout his tenure on alt.bible.errancy. He apparently is not a biblical inerrantist, and so he didn't like seeing the word applied to those who maintain that the Bible is inerrant in everything it says, in matters of science, geography, history, prophecy, etc., as well as in matters of faith and practice. His problem seemed to be that because he didn't consider himself an inerrantist, then the word should be applied to no one. That is a strange position, but it is typical of the kind of nonsense that Sparrow tried to peddle at alt.bible.errancy.

Sparrow:
Is my understanding of it the same as his, or the same as yours?)

Till:
Well, no it isn't. I understand what the word means, but Sparrow apparently never did.

Sparrow: I bring this up now, for as you are about to see, Till's "Uzziel" document, and indeed virtually all of his subsequent articles in TSR, is liberally sprinkled/coloured with such loaded yet ill/undefined references that have little to do with either honest study, truth seeking or apologetic work at the end of the day.

Till:
Well, as I just showed above, the way I use inerrantist, or errantist too, for that matter, is not "ill defined." Americans familiar with biblical inerrantists in this country know exactly what these words mean, so since my articles are almost always addressed to either biblical inerrantists or biblical errantists or both, I rarely felt the need to define them. My real flagship article in the first issue of The Skeptical Review did take the time to define biblical inerrancy because I knew that this would be a term that I would be using over and over in this journal, so I wanted to make sure that readers understood it. I suggest that Sparrow take the time to go read that article. If he does, he will see the following quotations from well known American biblical inerrantists.

The Bible is the inerrant... Word of God. It is absolutely infallible, without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc. (Jerry Falwell, Finding Inner Peace and Strength Doubleday, 1982, p. 26).

If God had wanted another "i" dotted or another "t" crossed, He would have had it done. The writers did not use one word unless God wanted that word used. They put in every word which God wanted them to put into the Bible (George DeHoff, Alleged Bible Contradictions Explained, p. 23).

There is nothing at all difficult about understanding the meaning of the word inerrantist. If Sparrow would take a little time to research a subject before he wrote on it, he would not make a fool of himself by asking what the word inerrantist means. As Falwell said above, it means "without error in all matters."

Sparrow [quoting Till]:
First, Exodus 12:40 states that the Israelites sojourned in Egypt 430 years.

Derspatz:
Some translations do state that

Till:
Some translations say that? The fact is that almost all translations say this, because these translations have been derived from the Hebrew Masoretic text, and this text says that "the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt four hundred thirty years."

Sparrow:
(while implying more, but Till no where includes this in his document),

Till:
The translations that say that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt 430 years "imply more"? I assume that everyone noticed that Sparrow made no attempt at all to show that these translations "imply more." If this claim is true, why didn't Sparrow show us the implications that he claims are in these translations? Well, of course, he didn't because he couldn't. The Masoretic text simply says in Exodus 12:40 that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt 430 years. There is no implication at all in this passage that the writer meant that they had dwelt in Egypt and Canaan 430 years. This is something that Bible defenders who hold to Sparrow's view read into the text.

Sparrow:
and others state that the sojourning was 430 years "in Egypt and Canaan". Till has failed to bring this fact to the attention of the casual reader,

Till:
As Sparrow noted below, both the Septuagint, a Greek translation that dates from the 3rd century BC, and the Samaritan Pentateuch, a Hebrew version of the first five books of the Old Testament, which dates to the 2nd-century BC, say in Exodus 12:40 that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt and Canaan for 430 years. However, I did not mention this in my article, because I was addressing it to biblical inerrantists, and the versions that they use have almost all been derived from the Hebrew Masoretic text. When the Masoretic and Septuagint versions of the Old Testament are compared, one will find hundreds of variations, which are downright discrepancies. To discuss them all here would take way too much space, but I will cite just a few of them. In the Septuagint, the ages of the descendants of Noah, when they begot the sons attributed to them, are consistently a hundred years older in the Genesis 11 genealogy than they are in the Masoretic text. Septuagint Sala [Shelah] was 130 when he begot Heber [Eber] (v:14), but Masoretic Shelah [Sala] was only 30 when he begot Eber [Heber] (v:14). Septuagint Heber [Eber] was 134 when he begot Phaleg [Peleg] (v:16), but Masoretic Eber [Heber] was just 34 when he begot Peleg [Phaleg] (v:16), and so on. Masoretic Arpachshad [Arphaxhad] begot Shelah [Sala] when he was 35 (v:12), but Septuagint Arphaxhad [Arpachshad] begot Cainan, and then Cainan begot Sala [Shela] (vs:12-14). Septuagint Arphaxhad was 135 when he begot Cainan, and Cainan was 130 when he begot Sala [Shela], so how would it be at all possible for the Septuagint and Masoretic accounts of when Shela was born to be both correct?

Obviously, Sparrow accomplishes nothing by appealing to what the Septuagint says, because this would obligate him to defend hundreds of Septuagint readings that deviate substantially from the Masoretic text. Biblical inerrantists claim that the Masoretic text is the one that Yahweh preserved through zealous scribes who meticulously guarded against copying errors by doing such things as counting the number of alphabetic characters in their manuscripts. Appeals to how the Septuagint may read will destroy the inerrantist argument that Masorete scribes were zealously meticulous in their work.

Sparrow:
and you will also find that although he will use the non-biblical resource known as Josephus further on in his argument, he will fail to make it known to the reader that even Josephus indicates that the 430 years of sojourning was in Egypt and Canaan.

For example, I shall quote Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews, Bk 2, Ch 15 VS 2) or Jos 2:15:2 if you prefer, which reads:

They [the Israelites] left Egypt in the month of Xanthiens, on the fifteenth day of the lunar month; four hundred and thirty years after our forefather Abraham came into Canaan, but two hundred and fifteen years only after Jacob removed into Egypt.

Till:
Attempts by Jewish writers to resolve discrepancies in their "scriptures" is almost as old as their scriptures. In this section of "It Doesn't Matter?" I presented some attempts of ancient Jews to resolve discrepancies in their scriptures, so anyone who doubts that as far back as the postexilic era there were Jewish "apologists" who used the same far-fetched methods as those of modern "apologists" like Gleason Archer and Norman Geisler may be interested in reviewing this section of the article linked to above. Josephus lived centuries after the postexilic era, so it isn't at all surprising that he would have accepted the 215-year solution that had gained wide acceptance by his time. The issue, then, is not whether Josephus claimed that the Israelites were in Egypt for only 215 years but whether that view can be supported by the biblical evidence. I showed in this section of "The 210-Year Solution" that there were no "children of Israel" until about 50 years before Jacob [Israel] took his extended family into Egypt, so it would have been impossible for the "children of Israel" to have dwelt in Canaan for 215 years before they went into Egypt and lived there for another 215 years. Until Sparrow can explain to us how any ethnic group could have lived in a place before that ethnic group even existed, he accomplishes nothing by telling us that the Septuagint translation says that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt and Canaan for 430 years and that Josephus interpreted this to mean that the Israelites were in Egypt for only 215 years. The fact that "children of Israel" just didn't exist 215 years before Israel [Jacob] took his family into Egypt probably never even occurred to the ancient Jewish apologists who saw this as a solution to the problem posed by Exodus 12:40 and the short, four-generation genealogy in Exodus 6.

Sparrow:
The Septuagint (LXX) and Samaritan Pentateuch also reflect the "Egypt and Canaan" direct reference,

Till:
So what? If "children of Israel" didn't even exist 215 years before Israel [Jacob] took his family into Egypt, then the Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch were wrong, unless they are interpreted to mean that "the children of Israel" dwelt in Canaan 50 years and then in Egypt for 380 years, but that interpretation cannot be harmonized with the Exodus-6 genealogy, which would allow for a maximum period of just 350 years even if the chronology in it is stretched to the very limits of possibility. Those who want to read my Uzziel article will see that the Exodus-6 genealogy simply would not allow for an Israelite sojourn in Egypt of even 380 years. (I can't provide the coding to link readers directly to the part of the article that shows this, because it is not posted on my website, but the pertinent chronological analysis can be found in the opening paragraphs of the article.) What we have. then, is a situation where early Jewish apologists presented an explanation to a problem passage that they thought at the time made sense, but careful scrutiny of it has shown that it was ill-conceived. Sparrow's task then is to show us how an ethnic group could have lived in Canaan before that ethnic group even existed. Until he can do that, he accomplishes nothing by referring to what Josephus, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Septuagint translation said about Exodus 12:40.

Sparrow:
which I will show further along in this response is implied in the Masoretic text anyway.

Till:
We will see that the implication that Sparrow has now referred to twice is all in his mind. We will, in fact, see that he made no attempt at all to show that any such implication was in the Masoretic text.

Sparrow:
Thus already Till's argument is proved to be in vain, and his very measuring stick has been mis-represented [sic] to his audience.

Till:
I don't want to sound like a broken record, but until Sparrow can show us how it was possible for "children" of Israel to live in Canaan before "children of Israel" even existed, he has proven nothing of the sort. He seems not to understand that simply asserting that an argument has been "proven to be in vain" is not the same as actually showing that the argument fails.

Till:
Based on Till's own method of arguing demonstrated here, I would be justified in going no further but I must admit to do that would make me just as careless if not dishonest as he in regards to failing to bring other relevant references and resources I am aware of, to the attention of the reader.

Till:
Actually, I am the one who needs to go no further, because I have shown that Sparrow's "solution" to the 430-year problem fails because it requires one to believe that an ethnic group could have lived in Canaan before that ethnic group even existed.

Sparrow:
These references that Till has omitted along with the "other translations" and "Josephus" references I've just pulled him up on, include Genesis 15, Numbers 3, Galatians 3, Acts 7. None of which you will find Till making any inclusion of or reference to in this document of his I am responding to.

Till:
I have to wonder why Sparrow would bring up Numbers 3, because as everyone will soon see, he knows that this passage works against his 215-year theory. Everyone will also see that this complaint is flagrant hypocrisy on Sparrow's part. As we will also see, I actually did refer to Numbers 3 further along, but I didn't make any references to the other passages in my Uzziel article, because I didn't consider them relevant to showing that the Exodus-6 genealogy had only four generations from Levi through Aaron and Moses and that a genealogy this brief was inconsistent with the claim in Exodus 12:40 that the "children of Israel" had dwelt in Egypt for 430 years. I have written extensively on the 430-year problem, so anyone who will go through the five-article series on this subject that I linked to at the beginning of this article will find that all of these passages and many others were included in my discussion of this subject.

Sparrow's hypocrisy is underscored by the fact that he and I debated this issue at length in the old alt.bible.errancy forum, so he knows that our exchanges included references to the passages that he now accuses me of avoiding. Sparrow's entry into the discussions of biblical discrepancies began with post 4731 in which he claimed that, long before any of us had been born, apologists like John Haley had resolved the discrepancies we were debating. I replied to this to inform Sparrow that before he had joined the forum I had discussed John Haley's book and had even summarized Haley's admission that limiting the Israelite sojourn to just 215 years was fraught with serious problems. Despite that notice, Sparrow still persisted in chiming the same tune, so I finally sent him some of my earlier posts and reposted on alt.bible.errancy my earlier discussion of Haley's admission that the 215-year "solution" was problematic at best.

This is message 5383, which I reposted from March 29, 1999. Readers can see that I used in it all of the passages that Sparrow said that I didn't refer to in my Uzziel article. Since this post is one of my exchanges with him on alt.bible.errancy, he had to know that I had cited or quoted all of these passages in reply to his 215-year "solution." Notice, in particular, how detrimental Numbers 3 is to his position.

I have already noted four objections to Sparrow's attempt to make the 430 years of Exodus 12:40 include the time that Abraham and his descendants spent in Canaan before Jacob's descent into Egypt. These objections concerned conflicts that this "interpretation" causes with Yahweh's prophecy in Genesis 15:13-16 that Abraham's seed would be afflicted for 400 years in a land that wasn't theirs and then be brought back "with great possessions" to here (Canaan) in the fourth generation. Three of these objections were acknowledged by Sparrow's own source (John Haley, Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, p. 418-419), and one was my own.

Haley also listed a fourth "weighty objection" to the explanation that Sparrow has appropriated: "On this hypothesis, the grandfather of Moses [Kohath] must have had in the lifetime of the latter 8600 male descendants, of whom 2750 were between thirty and fifty years old." As I discuss this problem with Sparrow's "explanation," bear in mind that he has claimed that the Israelites sojourned in Egypt for only 200 years, so that will prevent any resort on his part to the "skipped-generation" attempts that have been made to explain the problem I am going to outline. On the basis of Sparrow's explanation, which he seems to think has thoroughly trounced me, it doesn't matter if generations were skipped in the Exodus-6 genealogy or not, because he is arguing that the Israelites were in Egypt for only 200 years before they left in the exodus. To show the damage that this position does to Sparrow's smug claims that he has resolved the chronological discrepancy that exists between Exodus 6 and Exodus 12:40, let's notice first some preliminary biblical claims.

1. Only 66 members of Jacob's extended family went into Egypt with him. Their names are listed in Genesis 46:8-25, and verse 26 then states that "all the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, who came out of his loins, besides Jacob's sons' wives, were sixty-six." The next verse states that Joseph and his sons were already in Egypt, so adding them and Jacob to the 66 gave a total of 70 Israelites that went into Egypt.

2. The Exodus-6 genealogy states that Kohath was Levi's son through whom Aaron and Moses descended:

Exodus 6:16 The following are the names of the sons of Levi according to their genealogies: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, and the length of Levi's life was one hundred thirty-seven years. 17 The sons of Gershon: Libni and Shimei, by their families. 18 The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, and the length of Kohath's life was one hundred thirty-three years. 19 The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites according to their genealogies. 20 Amram married Jochebed his father's sister and she bore him Aaron and Moses, and the length of Amram's life was one hundred thirty-seven years.

Notice that verse 18 lists Amram as one of the sons of Kohath, and then verse 20 states that Amram was the father of Aaron and Moses. This means that, according to this genealogy, Kohath was the grandfather of Aaron and Moses.

3. This point is very important. The biblical text states that Kohath was born before Jacob took his family into Egypt, because he is listed in Genesis 46:11 as one of the three sons of Levi who went with Jacob into Egypt. His name must be counted in order to get the 66 "souls" that Genesis 46:26 claims that Jacob took into Egypt with him.

4. The Genesis 46 list contains no names of sons who had been born to Kohath at this time.

With all of these points in mind, let's consider now a census claim that was made in Numbers 3:27-28.

27 To Kohath belonged the clan of the Amramites, the clan of the Izharites, the clan of the Hebronites, and the clan of the Uzzielites; these are the clans of the Kohathites. 28 Counting all the males, from a month old and upward, there were eight thousand six hundred, attending to the duties of the sanctuary.

If you will check the genealogy of Kohath quoted above from Exodus 6:18, you will notice that he had four sons: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. When the census was taken, the male descendants of Kohath were divided into family clans according to the names of his four sons: Amramites, Izharites, Hebronites, and Uzzielites. But the text above claims that there was a total of 8,600 males living at that time who had descended from Kohath.

So consider now the absurdity that we have before us. Kohath was born before the Israelites went into Egypt. The Israelites were in Egypt for just 200 years (according to Sparrow), but within the space of just 200 years 8,600 males had descended from Kohath. If there were that many males, then we can reasonably assume that there would have been an approximate number of female Kohathites, so that would mean that over 17,000 direct descendants of Kohath had been born in Egypt in the space of only 200 years. Biblical inerrantists who accept the Exodus 12:40 claim that the Israelites were in Egypt 430 years have made all sorts of frantic efforts to show how that it would be possible for 17,000 people to descend directly from just one person in 430 years, and even their efforts have been far-fetched and ludicrous. Sparrow, however, doesn't have the luxury of 430 years. He has taken the position that the sojourn in Egypt lasted for just 200 years and has boasted that he has given me a "trouncing" with this claim, so now we will look forward to seeing him show us that it is reasonable to think that Kohath could have had 17,000 descendants living at the time of the exodus, who had been born through just four sons in the space of only 200 years.

In message 5324, I had sent Sparrow an earlier reminded that his 215-year solution was incompatible with Genesis 15:13-16.

I've seen gall before, but this has to take first prize. I sent a series of postings that detailed a chronological discrepancy in Exodus 6 concerning the number of years that the Israelites had sojourned in Egypt, and Sparrow made an effort to reply to it that consisted primarily of a claim that Exodus 12:40 really meant that the Israelites sojourned in Egypt and Canaan for 430 years. I replied to this with an analysis of Genesis 15:13-16, which depicted Yahweh prophesying to Abraham that his seed would sojourn in a land not theirs and be afflicted for 400 years but would then come again to this place in the fourth generation. I listed and discussed four reasons why this prophecy is incompatible with Sparrow's claim that the Israelites were in Egypt for just 200 years.

Sparrow said he would reply to this, and I have been waiting for him to do so. All he has sent are a few postings that in no way relate to this matter, and they were so incoherent at times that I wondered what he was smoking when he wrote them. Now he accuses me of not replying to him.

In message 5363, I discussed this again and reminded Sparrow that his 215-year solution is incompatible with Genesis 15:13.

I can't say what others have noticed, but I noticed that your hide was nailed to the wall on the chronological discrepancy in Exodus 6 and Exodus 12:40. You tried to explain this away by arbitrarily claiming that Exodus 12:40 should have said that the Israelites sojourned in Egypt and Canaan for 430 years. I showed that this theory cannot be reconciled with Yahweh's own prophecy in Genesis 15:13 that said Abraham's seed would sojourn and be afflicted in a land not their own for 400 years but that they would be brought forth to this place in the fourth generation. I took your own source, the pulp apologist John Haley, and listed four difficulties that he himself admitted that this explanation encountered. I challenged you to take those four difficulties and try to reconcile them with your 200-year theory. Since then there has been nothing from you but postings that were written as if you were drunk or spaced out on some drugs. I saw no need to waste time on incoherent nonsense like this. Your "rebuttal" of my Uzziel postings has been thoroughly refuted, and I am still waiting for you to explain away Haley's four difficulties and the one that I added to Haley's list.

What I have quoted from alt.bible.errancy is just a small part of all of my exchanges with Sparrow on the 430-year problem, so I am not going to quote message 5370, but I invite readers to go there and read a detailed reply to Sparrow on this issue in which I quoted or cited every one of the passages that he claims I never referred to. His tactic is a familiar one that inerrantists will use to try to save face. They will withdraw from the discussion of an issue when they have been soundly rebutted and then months or years later, they will return and bring up the same issue again as if it had never been addressed. I had not heard of or from Sparrow for four years, and now he resurfaces with a position that he was previously unable to defend in an internet debate.

Sparrow
This is behaviour that could be deemed understandable of someone with little knowledge of things "biblical", but most questionable of someone of Till's claimed learning and experience.

Till:
Well, I have shown that Sparrow's charge that I dodged Genesis 15, Numbers 3, Galatians 3, and Acts 7 is a misrepresentation of what has really happened in my internet debates with David Sparrow. Readers who were members of the old alt.bible.errancy forum will remember him, so they know that he has misrepresented the facts in this matter. Maybe he didn't realize that even though alt.bible.errancy had ceased to exist, the posts were still in Yahoo's archives, so perhaps he thought that he could get away with his distortions of what had been said in our discussions of the 430-year problem.

Sparrow:
What then is his real aim and desire?

Till:
My real aim and desire was to show that there is a serious chronological discrepancy in Exodus 6:14-25 and 12:40. I think that I have successfully shown in my internet debates of this issue and all of the articles that I have post at The Skeptical Review Online that this discrepancy is real and doesn't just exist in my imagination.

Sparrow [quoting Till's Uzziel article]:
Since Levi was one of Jacob's sons who accompanied him into Egypt (Gen. 46:11) and since Levi's sons Gershon, Kohath, and Merari had already been born at this time and also were in the group that went with Jacob into Egypt (Gen. 46:11), it is inconceivable that in the space of over 400 years just two more generations would have been born in the Levitical branch that Aaron and Moses were born into, yet this is what Exodus 6:18-20 states:

Derspatz (Sparrow):
It has already been shown that it is but 215 years that has [sic] to be accounted for in "Egypt"

Till:
No, this hasn't been "shown"; it has simply been asserted that "it is but 215 years that [have] to be accounted for in Egypt," but I have clearly dismantled this claim by showing that it would have been impossible for an ethnic group [the children of Israel] to have lived in Canaan before that ethnic group [the children of Israel] even existed. Sparrow's task now is to show that it would have been possible for the children of Israel to have lived in Canaan over a hundred years before they even existed. That he cannot do, because he cannot prove that which would have been logically impossible.

Sparrow:
which most indicate should be counted from the time Jacob arrived (some say Joseph), until the time of the Exodus when Moses was about 80 years old.

Till:
Joseph was in Egypt for just about twenty-two years before Jacob [Israel} took his family there, so Sparrow can count from either point. It doesn't matter, because he cannot prove that "children of Israel" had lived in Canaan before children of Israel had even existed.

Sparrow:
One need not wonder too much at the generations required to be born in this period, nor should the word "inconceivable" spring to mind either in light of the Exodus 6 references that Till provides us and his following commentary.

Till:
Just four generations in a 215-year period would indeed not be significant, but claiming that "children of Israel" had lived in Canaan before children of Israel had even existed is quite significant. Sparrow's task is to show us how this could have happened. Just four generations in the genealogy is a problem for those who accept the obvious meaning of Exodus 12:40 and agree that this text claims that the children of Israel spent 430 years in Egypt. Since Sparrow has lopped this period in half, I will concentrate only on showing that what he sees as a wonderful solution to the 430-year problem just won't work.

Sparrow [quoting Till's Uzziel article]:

Exodus 6:18 The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, and the length of Kohath's life was one hundred thirty-three years. 19 The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites according to their genealogies. 20 Amram married Jochebed his father's sister and she bore him Aaron and Moses, and the length of Amram's life was one hundred thirty-seven years.

Notice that Kohath lived to be 133 (v:18) and that his son Amram (the father of Aaron and Moses) lived to be 137. If we assume that Kohath was just an infant in his mother's arms when the Jacobites went into Egypt and if we assume that in the final year of his life, he sired Amram, and then if we assume that Amram sired Moses the last year of his life, this genealogy would allow for an Egyptian bondage of only 350 years. This number is arrived at by adding 133 (the maximum period of time that Kohath could have spent in Egypt) to 137 (the length of his son Amram's life) to 80, the age of Moses at the time of the exodus: "And Moses was eighty years old and Aaron 83 years old when they spoke to Pharaoh" (Ex. 7:7).

Derspatz [Sparrow]:
Well Till's three "if we assume" this and thats, have amply demonstrated far more than 215 years time required, so I don't need to add much to this other than to point out that although the accounts indicate that Moses was born to the fourth generation of Abraham's descendants to leave Canaan for Goshen (Jacob, Levi, Kohath, Amram), other families seemed to have managed more generations in the same time period (eg, research 1 Chronicles), with even Joseph who died at the age of 110, living long enough to see the third generation of Ephraim's (his own son) sons, as per Genesis 50:22-24.

Till:
Sparrow doesn't know this yet, but he wants to be very careful about depending on 1 Chronicles for genealogical information. Those who have followed this issue know that this was a mistake that Travis Finley made in his attempt to solve the 430-year problem. He, of course, accepted the 430-year claim in Exodus 12:40 but tried to explain the problem away by claiming that generations were skipped in the Exodus-6 genealogy. He relied on 1 Chronicles to argue his case, but in "Finley's Solution" I showed that the genealogies in 1 Chronicles, rather than helping his claim that generations were skipped in Exodus 6, raised several genealogical questions that he would have to explain before he could hope to use 1 Chronicles to help his case. This article is detailed and long, but it dismantled Finley's attempts to use genealogies in 1 Chronicles to prove that more than four or five generations passed in Egypt from the time of Kohath till Aaron and Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. Readers can go to this section of my rebuttal of Finley's "solution" and see how his reliance on 1 Chronicles proved to be devastating to his attempt to prove that generations had to have been skipped in the Exodus-6 genealogy. This section of my reply showed very clearly that the Chronicle writer, whoever he was, seemed to have been completely unaware of an extended sojourn in Egypt. I showed, for example, that the Chronicle writer believed that Ephraim, one of Joseph's sons whose children were born before Joseph died, had lived long enough to die in Canaan after the exodus from Egypt. Since Ephraim had been born before Jacob [Israel] took his family into Egypt, the Chronicler's claim that Ephraim had lived long enough to die in Canaan is irreconcilable even with Sparrow's 215-year scenario. This point is fully explicated in the section linked to above, and I invite those who have not yet read it to do so. I challenge Sparrow to make the Chronicler's genealogies compatible with even his 215-year theory.

Finley contacted me to let me know that he had posted his "solution" to the 430-year problem in the letters section of this forum. Months have passed since I posted my reply to it, and I have heard nothing from him. I predict that we will meet with silence from Sparrow too after I have posted this rebuttal of his "solution."

Sparrow [quoting Till's Uzziel article]:
To circumvent this problem, inerrantists will argue that the genealogy of Exodus 6 is not complete, that the writer skipped some generations.

Derspatz [Sparrow]:
Uh, what problem?

Till:
Well, in my Uzziel article, of course, I was discussing the problem of trying to make just four generations cover a 430-year sojourn in Egypt, but since Sparrow has lopped this period in half, he has a different problem. He must show us that it would have been logically possible for "children of Israel" to have lived in Canaan as far back as a century and a half before children of Israel even existed. I predict that we will have to wait a long time before we see him do this.

Sparrow:
What precisely does Till regard to be an "inerrantist" again?

Till:
This quibble was answered and dispatched above. I can't help it if Sparrow is too ignorant to read a dictionary entry and understand it.

Sparrow:
However yes, there are those who do consider there to be some skipped generations (a practice not uncommon in such ancient accounts, as even Till would acknowledge … not for this particular instance though).

Till:
No, in this "particular instance," all that Sparrow must do is show us how "children of Israel" could have lived in Canaan as far back as a century and a half before any children of Israel existed. We will eagerly wait to see him do that.

Sparrow:
As already indicated at the beginning of this response, I am not interested, nor deem it needful, to either pursue or explore the notion of "skipped" or "missing" generations to handle this tired old quibble of Till's.

Till:
Tired old quibble? For once I agree with Sparrow. Claiming that generations were skipped in the Exodus-6 genealogy is a "tired old quibble." It has been blasted to pieces so many times that I would think that no one would use it again, but inerrantists [Sparrow can consult the dictionary to find out what this word means] are slow runners. They persist in recycling that which has been refuted over and over.

Sparrow [quoting Till's Uzziel article]:
Thus, Moses and Aaron weren't necessarily the sons of Amram but could have been his grandsons or even his great-grandsons. They argue this despite the fact that Exodus 6:20 clearly says that "Amram married Jochebed his father's sister and she bore him Aaron and Moses." The father-son relationship of Amram and Aaron and Moses was also claimed in Numbers 26:59, "The name of Amram's wife was Jochebed daughter of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt; and she bore to Amram: Aaron, Moses, and their sister Miriam." So two separate biblical passages clearly state that Amram's wife Jochebed bore to him Aaron and Moses, but when inerrantists are in trouble they never let plain language bother them. In this case, they will still insist that the language of these passages was not intended to be understood literally but that Aaron and Moses were merely descendants of Amram. They have to do this to keep from admitting that the Bible made chronological errors.

Derspatz [Sparrow]:
Remembering that for the sake of the argument that I am agreeing with Till's view of the genealogy, I can but only indicate that his commentary in that regard is accurate but somewhat spoiled by the totally unnecessary ad hominem laden assumptions about alleged "inerrantists".

Till:
Sometimes Sparrow's ignorance leaves me shaking my head in disbelief. Even biblical inerrantists freely apply this term to themselves. It is not an ad hominem. If Sparrow knew diddly squat about conservative Christianity in the United States, he wouldn't make a fool of himself with statements like the one above. He has about as much business writing about belief in biblical inerrancy in American as I have writing articles on theoretical physics.

Sparrow [quoting Till's Uzziel article]:
In this series of postings, which will consist of six or maybe even more rather long analyses of biblical and extrabiblical texts, I will establish that both biblical and extrabiblical writers understood that the relationships expressed in Exodus 6 were literal family relationships. Thus, to these writers, Levi was literally the father of Kohath, Kohath was literally the father of Amram, and Amram was literally the father of Aaron and Moses. In order to do this, I will be focusing on one of the least prominent names in the genealogy quoted above. Exodus 6:18 states that the sons of Kohath were "Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel." Now if this genealogy was a literal, generation-by-generation genealogy, that would mean that the person named Uzziel in verse 18, who was listed with Amram, Izhar, and Hebron as "sons of Kohath," would have been the uncle of Aaron. That would be necessarily true if Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel were the brothers of Amram, for if all four of these were literally the sons of Kohath, then Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel would have been uncles to any children that Amram produced.

Derspatz [Sparrow]:
This may be true of Exodus 6 (not that it matters for the sake of this response), but not always true of all recordings of genealogies.

Till:
I never said that it was true of "all recordings of genealogies." The thrust of my Uzziel article was to show that it unequivocally requires readers to understand that it was a generation-by-generation listing, which skipped no generations, so the four generations identified here and their ages when they died are incompatible with the claim in Exodus 12:40 that the children of Israel sojourned in Egypt for 430 years. The Uzziel article was addressed to biblicists who accept the face-value reading of Exodus 12:40, so why has Sparrow wasted our time chiming over and over that the Israelites were in Egypt for just 215 years? In the first place, that is not what the text says, and in the second place, Sparrow is now confronted with the task of defending his 215-year scenario. Let him explain to us now how "children of Israel" could have lived in Canaan a century and a half before children of Israel even existed.

Sparrow:
There is plenty of Online resources out there that deal with all aspects and POV [point of views] of this topic, of which I will provide ample links at the close of this response, to assist in further "truth seeking" for those interested.

Till:
Sparrow's links, of course, are those who simply parrot the 215-year theory without offering a scintilla of credible evidence to support it. Certainly, none of them explained how "children of Israel" could have lived in Canaan a century and a half before any children of Israel even existed. We will look forward to seeing Sparrow solve this problem.

Sparrow [quoting Till's Uzziel article]
The intent of this series of postings will be to establish that biblical and extrabiblical writers did understand that Uzziel was the uncle of Aaron. Once this is established, it will be hard for inerrantists to argue that generations were skipped in the Exodus-6 genealogy. I will warn the readers in advance that establishing Uzziel's relationship to Aaron will require some rather tedious genealogical analysis. Some people skip over all of the "begats" when they come to genealogies in the Bible, but I find them to be a storehouse of useful information that often spells big trouble for the Biblical inerrancy doctrine.

Derspatz [Sparrow]:
Sorry, but I am going to include all of Till's original postings on this subject in my response, lest he make the claim at a later date that I snipped portions of his efforts that I should not have. Most of the following will not require much in the way of comment, other than to pull him up on all his little ridicules. Something I would like to comment on from the preceding is in regard to what he has called "the Biblical inerrancy doctrine".

What is this "Biblical inerrancy doctrine" exactly?

Till:
I explained and explained to Sparrow on the old alt.bible.errancy forum what the biblical inerrancy doctrine is, and I documented those explanations with quotations from leading biblical inerrantists in America (some of whom were quoted above), so if Sparrow doesn't understand it by now, he should seek some kind of professional help. His problem is that he doesn't believe that the Bible is inerrant, and so for some inexplicable reason, he seemed to object to usage of the term "biblical inerrancy doctrine." That is about as idiotic as a non-Catholic's objecting to usage of the term "the doctrine of papal infallibility." The fact that the non-Catholic doesn't believe in papal infallibility in no way diminishes the fact that most Catholics do. That is so simple to understand that one has to wonder about Sparrow's level of intelligence when he objects to the usage of a term that has wide currency among those who believe in biblical inerrancy.

Sparrow:
Sure, we can come up with quite an array of notions as to what Till might be meaning by this

Till:
No "array of notions" is necessary when one is confronted with the term "biblical inerrancy doctrine," because this is a term that is understood as readily as both Catholics and non-Catholics would understand the term "doctrine of papal infallibility." If Sparrow doesn't have the intelligence to grasp that "biblical inerrancy doctrine" is simply an expression used to identify belief that the Bible contains no errors or mistakes, then he should be concerned about his mental health and not about the fact that I and many others use a term that has widespread currency in places where belief in biblical inerrancy flourishes.

Sparrow:
and we can scoop portions out of various denominational "creeds" and the like and get a fascinating and sometimes quite conflicting collection of declarations and stances on not only what "inerrancy" is but also what the very "bible" is. Till makes it appear that there is some consensually agreed upon, conclusively presented/supported/declared by the very "word" itself, position on "inerrancy" of the same that can be presented as a doctrine by every denomination of belief that holds at least the "Old Testament" as dear.

The truth is that there is no such thing - there isn't even consensual agreement as to what should be called "bible" and what should not!

Till:
Well, of course, there is disagreement over what "the very Bible" is. Some Christian sects accept apocryphal books; others don't. Some radicals think that only the KJV is the Bible and that others are corruptions. However, when one writes to an audience of, say, American Baptists and uses the term "Bible," he won't have to wonder whether readers will understand what he means. Likewise, if he writes an article aimed at Catholics, who accept the apocryphal books, whenever he uses the word Bible, he will understand how this word will be perceived by his audience. The old alt.bible.errancy forum was established to discuss and debate the biblical inerrancy doctrine as it is believed by American fundamentalists, so when we made references to the biblical errancy doctrines, members of that forum understood what we were talking about. Not until David Sparrow signed on from down under was usage of this term ever made an issue. We had members who said that they didn't believe in biblical inerrancy but nevertheless believed that the Bible was still the "word of God," but none of them ever complained about usage of the term "biblical inerrancy," because they understood what it meant.

It took David Sparrow to make this an issue, and, in all honesty, I have to say that I always suspected that he was an inerrantist but just didn't know how to rebut the examples of biblical discrepancies that he was seeing posted in the forum, so he first (as noted above) posted a claim that all of the examples of mistakes that we were posting had been satisfactorily explained long before any of us had been born, but when he was shown that this wasn't so, he then began to complain about usage of the term "biblical inerrancy doctrine." It became a straw man that he kicked around, as he has done in his article that I am answering, to distract attention from his inability to defend the Bible.

Sparrow:
So we are left wondering what Till deems this doctrine to be.

Till:
If Sparrow was left wondering what I "deem[ed] this doctrine to be," then he must be unable to understand plain language, because I took the time, as I have done here, to explain what this doctrine is in American circles.

Sparrow:
Considering his "Church of Christ" origins it seems fair to deem his views to be based upon their dogmas in that regard, in which case, it also seems reasonable to assume that Till's apparent war against his idea of "the Biblical inerrancy doctrine" is in fact a war against the Church of Christ more than anything else. After all, no two denominations seem to tout exactly the same views on what should be deemed inerrant or infallible for that matter. Thus, I think it important that one should always keep Till's origins in mind when reviewing his efforts in things "biblical".

Till:
This, of course, is an attempt by Sparrow to poison the well, because my former demoninational affiliation is irrelevant to the 430-year discrepancy or any other biblical discrepancy that I may identify, because, as I noted above, the truth or falsity of a proposition is independent of its source. Why then does Sparrow keep bringing the Church of Christ into this? The only possible reason I can think of is that he hopes that some of his readers will think that I must be wrong because I used to be a member of "the American Church of Christ." This is the same tactic that some use in interdenominational squabbles over religious doctrines when they try to associate their opponents with Catholicism or Mormonism, as if membership in either of these religious organizations would automatically make the propositions they are defending wrong.

To accuse me of just wanting to wage "a war against the Church of Christ" only underscores Sparrow's ignorance of the biblical inerrancy doctrine. Although the Church of Christ certainly has different doctrinal beliefs than, say, the Baptist Church, both churches have rather parallel views about biblical inerrancy. They would both claim that there are no mistakes or errors of any kind in the Bible, and members of both groups will often rely on the "apologetic" works of writers like John Haley, William Arndt, Gleason Archer, and Norman Geisler to formulate their "explanations" of "alleged Bible discrepancies." Sparrow sorely needs to inform himself on the issue of biblical inerrancy before he undertakes to write on it again.

Sparrow [quoting Till's Uzziel article]:
Let's look at the relevant parts of the Exodus-6 genealogy. I probably won't get to Uzziel in this posting, but my analysis will provide a useful background to build on in follow-up postings on Uzziel that I will send later. Here is the entire genealogy and not just the part that speaks of Aaron's and Moses' descent from Levi:

These are the heads of their fathers' houses. The sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel [Jacob]: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi; these are the families of Reuben. And the sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul, the son of a Canaanite woman; these are the families of Simeon. And these are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari; and the years of the life of Levi were a hundred and thirty and seven years. The sons of Gershon: Lebni and Shimei, according to their families. And the sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, and Hebron, and Uzziel, and the years of the life of Kohath were a hundred thirty and three years. And the sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites according to their generations" (verses 14-19).

I'll interrupt the text at this point to make some observations and then resume the text later (probably in a separate posting). My argument is that the writer of this genealogy was giving what he understood to be a literal father-son genealogy, and the evidence for this is overwhelming.

In support of this claim, let's notice first that this genealogy is in perfect agreement with the listings in Genesis 46:8-11, where the sons and grandchildren of Jacob are listed through Levi's children. Verse 8 says that the sons of Reuben (who is also identified here as "Jacob's firstborn) were Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. Compare this to the beginning of the genealogy quoted above, and you will see that the same names are listed as the "sons" of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel [Jacob]. Were the writers of these two passages being literal in their usage of sons and firstborn.

In telling the story of Jacob's marriage to the daughters of Laban (Leah and Rachel), Genesis 29:31-32 says, "And Yahweh saw that Leah was hated, and he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. And Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben, for she said, Because Yahweh has looked upon my affliction, for now my husband will love me."

That should be convincing enough inerrantists to agree that the writers of these genealogies were speaking literally when they said that Reuben was the "firstborn of Jacob" [Israel].

Derspatz [Sparrow]:
My turn to "interrupt", merely to point out the bleeding obvious, and that is we are dealing with translations to English. Word play can only go so far before we are forced to bring out the study books on the original languages.

Till:
And what in the world does this mean? If the fact that we are "dealing with translations to English" has any special significance in this matter, exactly what is the significance of it? Sparrow didn't say. What "word play" did he have in mind when he said it could go only "so far before we are forced to bring out the study books on the original languages"? He didn't say; he just said it, as if he thought it would sound good to throw out comments about the "original languages" as if he has any expertise to talk about original languages. As I pointed out above, in moments of affectation, he likes to throw out foreign expressions to impress his readers, but quite often uses them incorrectly as he did above with the French word sans. He is about as qualified to talk about the "original languages" of the Bible as I am to lecture on the theory of relativity.

Sparrow [quoting Till's Uzziel article]
But were the genealogists being literal in their usage of the word sons when they said that the "sons" of Reuben were Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, etc. Let's notice what Josephus said in Antiquities of the Jews, Book 2, Chapter 7, Section 4 when he listed the members of Jacob's family that went into Egypt. This section in Josephus is parallel to the listings in Genesis 46: "Now Jacob had twelve sons; of these Joseph was come thither before [meaning that Joseph had already come into Egypt]. We will therefore set down the names of Jacob's children and grandchildren."

Let's pause at this point to notice how specific Josephus was. He said that Jacob had twelve "sons," and I assume that inerrantists will not deny that Jacob literally had 12 sons. (The story of Jacob as related in Genesis makes that too clear to deny.) Furthermore, in the text quoted above, Josephus wrote not in terms of Jacob's "sons," as did the biblical genealogists, but he wrote in terms of Jacob's "children" and "grandchildren." Now let's resume reading in Josephus: "Reuben had four sons--Anolch, Phallu, Assaron, Charmi [the spellings vary because Josephus wrote in Greek, but anyone can see that they are the same names as the biblical genealogies used]; Simeon had six--Jamuel, Jamin, Avod, Jachin, Soar, Saul; Levi had three sons--Gersom, Caath, Merari...." Now since Josephus introduced his list with a very specific announcement (we will therefore set down the names of Jacob's children and grandchildren, we must understand that he meant for his readers to interpret "sons" literally in the above text. Hence, Josephus obviously thought that Gershon [Gersom], Kohath [Caath], and Merari were literally the sons of Levi. We can make this determination even more obvious by continuing our reading in Josephus's listing of Jacob's children and grandchildren: "Judas [Judah] had three sons--Sala [Shelah], Pharez [Perez], Zerah; and by Phares [Perez] two grandchildren--Esron [Hezron] and Amar [Hamul]...." So when Josephus came to names on the list that he understood were not literal children or sons of Jacob, he referred to them with the specific term "grandchildren."

Everything in the biblical text and in Jewish writings point to the obvious fact that Gershon, Kohath, and Merari were understood to be the literal sons of Levi, who was obviously the literal son of Jacob (Gen. 29:31). Everything points to the obvious fact that the writer of the Exodus-6 genealogy intended for his readers to understand that he was speaking literally when he used the word sons. A genealogy from Levi through Aaron and Moses is in 1 Chronicles 6:1-3, and it reads exactly as the listings in Exodus 6 and Genesis 46. A genealogy of Levi through his grandsons is listed in Numbers 3:17-20, and it reads exactly as the listings in Exodus 6 and Genesis 46. Everywhere the Bible lists the descendants of Levi, the listings are exactly as they appear in Exodus 6, Genesis 46, and the work of Josephus.

Derspatz [Sparrow]:
This is where I am having a chuckle to myself while tut-tutting Till's most selective use of Josephus.

Till:
I will have to chuckle too, because as everyone can see, I referred to Numbers 3 above, but earlier in his article, Sparrow said that Numbers 3 was one of the references that I had "omitted." I explained above that in the whole collection of my exchanges with Sparrow on this issue, I did either cite or quote all of the passages that Sparrow said I had omitted, and as everyone can see now, I even referred to Numbers 3 in the very article that Sparrow chose to reply to.

Sparrow:
He has made it clear by all this that he is both aware of the ancient works of Josephus, and able to quote it directly. Now don't you think it strange that in the midst of his study of the issue, he was able to find that which seems to support his view on "father son relationships" specific to the genealogy in question, but was unable to provide the Josephus reference (that I provided towards the beginning of this response) that brings to question his usage of the "measuring stick" text (Exodus 12:40) that he is seeking to show as errant?

Till:
There is nothing at all unusual about quoting a writer on one point when that writer is known to disagree with the quoter on other points. It happens all of the time. I think that Josephus's listing of the names and relationships of those who went into Egypt with Jacob [Israel] agrees with the biblical account, so I was quoting it to show that this Jewish history agreed with the biblical account. However, I can show and have shown that Josephus's claim that "the children of Israel" were in Egypt for just 215 years contradicts the Bible and that neither Sparrow nor anyone else can explain how "children of Israel" could have dwelt in Canaan before any children of Israel even existed.

I didn't quote Josephus in this matter because I saw no need to quote someone whose position was clearly wrong and can easily be shown to be wrong. Now if Sparrow thinks that he can show us how it was possible for "children of Israel" to have lived in Canaan before any children of Israel even existed, I invite him to do so; otherwise, he should be careful about faulting me for not quoting a writer's position that can be shown to be logically impossible.

Sparrow [quoting Till's Uzziel article]:
This posting is long enough, so I will send it now and give inerrantists something to chew on while I am preparing another posting to continue my analysis of the Exodus-6 genealogy. Eventually, I will get to the matter of Uzziel and show that biblical writers understood that he was literally the uncle of Aaron.

Derspatz [Sparrow]:
There he goes again...

Till:
I suppose that Sparrow was objecting here to my use of the word inerrantist, so I will suggest again that he consult a dictionary and spend a moment or two trying to absorb the meaning of this word. If he would do that, he wouldn't look so foolish in trying to argue that it is inappropriate to use a perfectly legitimate word that is understood even by biblical inerrantists who live where this belief is commonplace. I understand that Sparrow lives in Western Australia, which is more sparsely populated than the eastern side of the continent, so maybe the isolation has affected his mental faculties to the point that he now thinks it is incorrect to use a word that denotes a belief that he doesn't personally accept.

Sparrow [quoting Till's Uzziel article]:
The Uncle of Korah: In two earlier postings, I have given very reasonable evidence that biblical and extrabiblical writers considered the Exodus-6 genealogy to be a literal father-son listing. So far, my analysis has gone through verse 20, so I will now resume with verse 21: "And the sons of Izhar: Korah, Nepheg and Zichri...." This is an important verse, because verse 18 said that the sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. (I want everyone to watch Uzziel, because something very interesting is going to happen with him.) Now if verse 18 is a literal father-son listing, as I believe the evidence in my other postings has clearly established, Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel were all brothers, who were the sons of Kohath.

This is important because most inerrantists who want to claim that generations were skipped in this genealogy will point to this verse as a likely place where generations were skipped. Many inerrantists, for example, will take the position that Amram wasn't necessarily the literal father of Aaron and Moses but only a direct ancestor.

This argument, which flies right in the face of the "face-value language of the text, claims that Amram's wife Jochebed could have borne Moses and Aaron only in the sense that she was an ancestor of Aaron and Moses, which, of course, would have made Amram only their ancestor and not their immediate father. In the first two issues of The Skeptical Review published in 1990, an inerrantist took the position that the Amram of verse 18 (listed as a son of Kohath and brother of Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel) was not the same Amram of verse 20 listed as the father of Aaron and Moses. He argued that generations were skipped between these two Amrams.

Since inerrantists will turn to all sorts of linguistic gymnastics to try to deny that this genealogy means what it clearly says, it is very important to establish that biblical writers understood that Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel were brothers and that the Amram who was Kohath's son was the same Amram who was the father of Aaron and Moses.

Derspatz [Sparrow]:
"Inerrantists" this, "inerrantists" that ... Till is seeing them everywhere -

Till:
Well, I don't see them everywhere, but inerrantists are very commonplace in the United States. I have never heard him say so, but I have seen reasons to suspect that the "president" (read usurper) of the country I live in is an inerrantist. If Sparrow would get out of the wastelands of Western Australia and visit the United States, he might find that there is good reason for rational people in this country to be concerned about the influence that biblical inerrantists are having on our government. Until then, those of us who know something about biblical inerrancy in the United States will feel sorry for Sparrow's ignorance of what is going on here.

Sparrow:
is everyone who holds a view that differs from him to be deemed an "inerrantist"?

Till:
No, not at all, and I have never even implied that they should be. I use the term inerrantist only in reference to those who think that the Bible contains no mistakes and is free of all errors. That is what the word means when it is applied to the Bible.

Sparrow:
Obviously Till holds the view that whatever he publishes in his magazine (TSR) is deemed to be inerrant, anyway.

Till:
When have I ever even implied this? If I so "obviously" hold this view, Sparrow should be able to quote where I have said this in The Skeptical Review.

By the way, I will remind readers, and Sparrow, that I no longer publish this journal. It ceased publication almost four years ago. That is how far Sparrow is behind the times.

Sparrow:
Actually, while I'm on the borderline of ad hominem, I do suggest that the reader peruse not only some of the online issues of TSR, but also some of the "letters to the editor" (and his responses to the same) found at the same place. It does provide quite a journey into the psyche of the editor.

Till:
True to fashion, Sparrow didn't explain what one could expect to learn about "the psyche of the editor" if he/she "peruses" some of the letters to the editor at the site linked to above. However, those who take the time to go through the archives of all the letters from readers published there will see many testimonies to the contribution that TSR made to the journeys out of biblical fundamentalism that many readers experienced. By concidence, I received a letter just this week from a former reader who had subscribed to TSR with a dare for me to try to make him a skeptic.

Here is his letter that was published in the "Mailbag" column ot The Skeptical Review in 1995 (issue #3).

Although I am skeptical of biblical skeptics, I shall request a free subscription to The Skeptical Review, as a result of "strong urging" from a foremost biblical skeptic in this neck of the woods, Ralph Nielsen (whom I suppose you are already familiar with since I am to "feel free to mention [his] name").

However, you are hereby forewarned that if you offend my conservative Christian sensitivities I shall be forced to invoke an ancient Hebrew curse upon all of you: "May a camel urinate in your drinking well." And I'm sure you wouldn't want that to happen, would you?

I am the type of "whacko" that actually believes the events in the Bible really happened. You know, the kind who thinks that Daniel really wrote the book of Daniel and there was only one person named Isaiah who wrote a warning to Israel. Yes, I'm the kind of person who believes that Jesus walked on water without it being frozen solid. That the Red Sea parted and the Israelites walked across on dry land. That Sodom and Gomorrah was [sic] burnt to crispy critters for all their deeds in and out of the closet. (But you can breathe easy now because I didn't vote for the Republicans, nor for Clinton for that matter.)

So go ahead, send me your skepticism! I dare you to make me a believer in skepticism!

Now here is the letter that he just sent to me. I am protecting his identity, because he didn't give me permission to use his name, and as the letter below shows, he is now embarrassed at what he said in the letter above.

I just did a google on my own name and some of my asinine comments in 1995 are there on your Skeptical Review online magazine. Not only do I not think that way any more, but I am embarrased that I ever wrote such unadulterated shit. Even worse, my full former address is attached to it. Given that identity theft is so rampant these days, and given that what I wrote was crap, I am asking you to somehow delete my letter to your Skeptical Review, 1995, that is still printed online.

I didn't delete his letter, because the archives are intended to reflect what was published in TSR, but I did tell him that he could post a disavowal of his former beliefs on the present online version. At any rate, I want to recommend that readers take Sparrow's advice and "peruse" the articles and letters that were published in The Skeptical Review. If, however, you are a biblical inerrantist, I issue this recommendation with a warning. I receive letters with consistent regularity now from people who tell me that reading my online articles convinced them that their belief in biblical inerrancy was misguided; hence, reading the archived articles of The Skeptical Review can be dangerous to your belief in the inerrancy of the Bible.

Sparrow [quoting Till's Uzziel article]:
So we must notice that the sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel (verse 18) and that Izhar had sons named Korah, Nepheg, and Zichri (v:21). Numbers 16 records a rebellion against the leadership of Moses that was led by a man named Korah, so obviously biblical writers thought that there was a man named Korah living at the time of Moses. But was this Korah the same person who was listed in Exodus 6:21 as the son of Izhar, who was listed in verse 18 as the son of Kohath and brother of Amram? Unfortunately for proponents of the "skipped-generations" quibble, there is a clear indication that the Korah of Numbers 16 was considered the same Korah. This is how Numbers 16 begins: Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram...." And the chapter goes on to describe the rebellion that Korah led, which angered Yahweh so much that he caused the ground to open and swallow the rebels alive. Now look at the agreement we have between this verse and the Exodus-6 genealogy: Exodus 6:16, "These are the names of the sons of Lev according to their generations: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari...." Exodus 6:18, "And the sons of Kohath [were] Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel...." Exodus 6:21, "And the sons of Izhar [were] Korah, Nepheg, and Zichri...." Numbers 16:1, "Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi...."

At face value, the Bible says that Levi had a son named Kohath, who had a son named Amram, who had a brother named Izhar, who had a son named Korah, and the Bible, at face value, says that a rebellion against the leadership of Moses was led by a man named Korah, who was the son of Izhar,.who was the son of Kohath, who was the son of Levi. Previous postings have included biblical and extra biblical evidence to show to any reasonable person that both Jewish and biblical writers understood that Levi was the literal father of Kohath, who was the literal father of Amram, who was the literal father of Aaron and Moses. Now the information in this posting shows very clearly that biblical writers understood that the Amram, who was the son of Kohath, had a brother named Izhar, who had a son named Korah, who led a rebellion against Moses in the wilderness.

Derspatz [Sparrow]:
All quite agreeable for the purposes of this response, but a pity he couldn't resist the appeal to "reasonable person".

Till:
Well, I think everyone can see where this is going. Sparrow is not challenging my analyses of Exodus 12:40 and the four-generation genealogy in Exodus 6; he seems interested only in quoting long sections of my Uzziel article so that he can then say, "Well, yes, but why does Till keep using the word inerrantist"? So I will announce a change of course below after I have quoted Sparrow's next objection to use of the word that he doesn't seem to like.

Sparrow [quoting Till's Uzziel article]:
Now will inerrantists on the list please explain to us how this very compelling evidence leaves any room for skipped generations in the Exodus-6 genealogy? I am by no means finished with this thread, because I intend to establish that Uzziel was the literal uncle of Aaron.

Derspatz [Sparrow]:
Well I'm not sure what an "inerrantist" is,

Till:
If Sparrow doesn't know what an inerrantist is, he has only himself to blame, because the meaning of the word was explained over and over again when he was a member of alt.bible.errancy, where he constantly made this same complaint. Unless he is so far back in the wilderness of Western Australia that he has no access to dictionaries, he could have also checked there to find out what an inerrantist is.

This whole complaint about the word inerrantist is just a straw man that Sparrow set up to distract attention from his complete inability to explain away the 430-year discrepancy.

Sparrow:
and I know from past experience/dealings that I certainly don't agree with what Till's idea of what inerrancy is.

Till:
Till's idea of inerrancy is nothing more than what biblical inerrantists themselves say about this issue. I have quoted many times biblical inerrantists like Jerry Falwell, George DeHoff, and even Sparrow's favorite apologist, John Haley. I suggest that Sparrow take the time to read Haley's introduction to his book Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible. If he will do that, he will see that "Till's idea of what inerrancy is" agrees with what Haley, and apologists who came after him, have said about what inerrancy is. In next to the last paragraph in Haley's introduction, he wrote that he had a "profound conviction that every difficulty and discrepancy in the scriptures is, and will yet be seen to be, capable of a fair and reasonable solution" (original italics). "Till's idea of what inerrancy is," then, is the same as Haley's and other apologists like him. They maintained that discrepancies in the Bible are simply "alleged discrepancies," because all of them can be explained. In a word, then, an inerrantist is someone who says that there are no mistakes or discrepancies in the Bible.

If Sparrow can't understand that, I suggest that he seek professional help.

Sparrow:
"Skipped generations" or not, are quite irrelevant considering that Till's baseline assertion regarding where 430 years were to be spent sojourning is quite flawed and he hadn't expended any effort in either detailing that problem, nor trying to explain it - he just has seemed to pretend it wasn't there and that no one knew any better.

Till:
I was well aware of the 215-year solution that Sparrow has presented, and as the index page at The Skeptical Review Online will show, I have written extensively on the 430-year problem and have dismantled in detail attempts to truncate the 430-years of Exodus 12:40 to just 210 years. My rebuttal arguments in this article can be applied to Sparrow's position, because all he has done is add five years to the 210 to make it 215 years. Until, then, Sparrow can show us how it would have been logically possible for the "children of Israel" to have lived in Canaan before any children of Israel even existed, his "solution" to the problem will remain no solution at all.

At this point, I will leave out the part of Sparrow's article where he did nothing but quote my Uzziel article and periodically interrupt it to say, "Well, yeah, that may all be true, but why does Till keep using the word inerrantist?" I will continue on through his article to quote only places where he says something that I have not already rebutted over and over above. After his comment above, for example, Sparrow quoted a lengthy section of my Uzziel article about extrabiblical evidence, which readers can access by clicking the link, and then said, "All very nice - works for me! None of it has any bearing on the fact that Josephus also supports 'biblical texts' that show that the period of sojourning in Egypt and Canaan was 430 years." (I'll parenthetically interject here that Josephus did not "support" biblical texts that show that the 430-year period of sojourning was in Egypt and Canaan; he simply asserted that it was, and there is a difference in supporting and asserting.) All that Sparrow is doing, then, is quoting long sections of my article, which he then agrees with, and then says that Josephus said that the Israelites were in Egypt and Canaan for 430 years. There is no need, therefore, for me to quote what Sparrow agrees with. Instead, I will renew my challenge that he show us how it would have been logically possible for "children of Israel" to have lived in Canaan over a century and a half before children of Israel even existed.

From now on, then, I will link readers to the parts of my Uzziel article that I don't quote here, and I will reply only to the sections of Sparrow's article where he said something that I haven't already repeatedly rebutted.

Sparrow:
The single name rebuttal of Till's whole document as it stands (and his somewhat "flag-ship" ish entry to the first issue of TSR) still stands (untouched eben),

Till:
Here is another of Sparrow's attempts to sprinkle a little German into his article, but in so doing, he said something that was clearly erroneous. Readers of The Skeptical Review Online know, as I have repeatedly shown in this rebuttal, that I have indeed "touched" that "single name," i. e., Canaan, many times over. I have shown that Exodus 12:40 does not say that the children of Abraham dwelt in Egypt 430 years but that the children of Israel [Jacob} dwelt in Egypt 430 years. There were no "children of Israel" until about 50 years before Jacob [Israel] took his family into Egypt, so that fact shoots to pieces Sparrow's 215-year scenario, because an ethnic group [the children of Israel] could not have lived in Canaan until that ethnic group had come into existence.

Sparrow:
with further text support (unmentioned in Till's document) still to follow.

Till:
No amount of "text support" that Sparrow may think that he has could prove that the children of Israel had lived in Canaan a century and a half before the children of Israel had even existed.

Sparrow:
We've got to wade through more of this "uncle" stuff first though.

Till:
Well, I am skipping the "uncle stuff" here, because after Sparrow had waded through it, here is what he said.

[laughs] That last bit really seems to sum up what Till is really about. Although I haven't added much to all this as yet, I think what I have added already shows that Till isn't going about creating honest apologetical type work but rather about putting on some kind of flim-flam show. In short, Till is out and about for a fight - a proverbial (but aged) "Billy the Kid" looking for some fresh meat to gun down. Or perhaps more akin to the old snake-oil peddler? Never mind "reds under the bed" - this guy is seeing so-called "inerrantists" everywhere he turns.

Till:
So after I had presented irrefutable proof, which readers can verify by reading this section of Sparrow's article, where he quoted my entire analyses of biblical texts that clearly established that Uzziel was Aaron's uncle, Sparrow said not one word to try to disprove those analyses. He just pretended to laugh and then wagged out the same old worn-out complaint: "(T)his guy is seeing so-called 'inerrantists' everywhere he turns." In reality, I don't see inerrantists everywhere I turn, because most Christians in the United States are not inerrantists. I talk about inerrantists so much, because I have made it my goal to oppose a highly organized group of inerrantists in this country, who are trying to force their beliefs on us through legislative means, so I necessarily mention inerrantists quite often. I couldn't very well accomplish my goal of opposing biblical fundamentalism in the United States, which is based on a belief in biblical inerrancy, unless I referred to inerrantists in my articles. If I had set a goal to oppose Catholicism, for example, I couldn't expect to achieve that goal unless I made frequent references to Catholics and their doctrinal beliefs.

There isn't much wrong with Sparrow except that he lacks the common sense to reason rationally.

Sparrow [quoting Till's Uzziel article]:
Recap: Four previous postings have presented very convincing evidence that Jacob's son Levi was the literal father of Kohath, who was in turn the literal father of Amram, who was the literal father of Aaron and Moses. The astounding thing about this genealogy is the mountain of evidence, both biblical and nonbiblical, that makes it so easy to establish that Jewish writers, both biblical and nonbiblical, understood the relationships in this lineage exactly as they are presented above. Yet despite this overwhelming evidence, bibliolaters will resort to all kinds of verbal gymnastics to keep from admitting that the face-value meaning of the language in this genealogy makes Moses and Aaron the great-grandsons of Levi, Jacob's son from which the Levitical priesthood in Judaism descended.

Derspatz [Sparrow]:
One rant deserves another [grin]. Ooh, we've got "bibliolaters" "resort"ing to "verbal gymnastics" now.

Till:
Yes, a bibliolater is "someone whose devotion to the Bible is marked by an irrational lack of criticism" [New Webster's Dictionary, Lexicon Publications, 1993, p. 95]. If Sparrow doesn't think that this kind of irrational devotion to the Bible exists, he needs to get out of the deserts of Western Australian and try to learn what is going on in the rest of the world. There is a whole industry, which dates back before the publication of John Haley's Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible in 1874, that exists to convince irrational biblicists that the Bible didn't really mean what it plainly said in the passages where discrepancies have been identified. Exodus 12:40 for example, clearly says that the "children of Israel" dwelt in Egypt for 430 years, but this is not consistent with passages like the genealogy in Exodus 6, so "apologists" like Haley, Arndt, Torrey, Archer, Geisler, etc., etc., etc., come riding to the rescue to tell the gullible that this really doesn't mean that the children of Israel were in Egypt for 430 years or that generations were "skipped" in the Exodus-6 genealogy, and so there is no inconsistency. I could cite enough other examples to drag this article out forever, but anyone can go to the archives of The Skeptical Review and to the index page of The Skeptical Review Online and find various other examples of biblical discrepancies that professional "apologists" have repeatedly tried to convince the gullible are only "alleged discrepancies," because the passages where these are found in the Bible didn't really mean what they appeared to say.

This is bibliolatry, and it exists in the United States probably more than anywhere else in the world. If Sparrow doesn't like my opposition to it, he will just have not to like it.

Sparrow:
BOC [But of course], we haven't actually seen any such example of this, but Till assures us that it is so anyway. And then he goes on with more of the same.

Till:
If Sparrow hasn't seen "any such example of this," then he hasn't been paying attention, because he was a member of the alt.bible.errancy forum plenty long enough to see example after example of it. If he really believes that he hasn't seen "any such example of this," I invite him to check the links that I gave above. He will see enough there to keep him busy for years.

Sparrow:
"strawman" springs to mind.

Till:
Yes, it comes to my mind too. Sparrow has made the word inerrantist a straw man that he can kick around to take attention from his inability to show that there is no discrepancy in Exodus 12:40 and the genealogy in Exodus 6. I have shown that there clearly is, and he has done nothing to show otherwise.

Sparrow:
Watch how based on his own constructions, he'll descend into accusations of "ridiculous", etc, while claiming to give mysterious "biblicists" all sorts of "benefit of the doubt" and "breaks".

Till:
Those who read my Uzziel article in its entirety will see that I interpreted it to give every benefit of doubt to biblical inerrantists who claim that the Israelites dwelt in Egypt for 430 years. For example, I calculated the maximum number of years allowed in the genealogy by assuming that Kohath had sired Amram in the last year of his life and that Amram had sired Moses in the last year of his life. Such assumptions are clearly ridiculous, but they were intended to give every benefit of doubt to those who claim that no inconsistency exists between Exodus 12:40 and the genealogy in Exodus 6. If the most absurd and ridiculous assumptions slanted in favor of inerrantists who say that Exodus 12:40 said 430 years and meant 430 years cannot explain this chronological discrepancy, then inerrantists have a problem that urgently demands their attention. Sparrow settles nothing by sarcastically referring to my "accusations of ridiculous.'"

As for my references to "biblicists," there is nothing "mysterious" about them. They do exist. Webster's Time-Life Delux Dictionary defines biblicist like this: "A person who interprets the Bible literally or strictly." If Sparrow thinks that there are no "biblicists," I will advise him to get out of the deserts of Western Australia and try to find out what is really going on in the world.

Sparrow:
Are we all suitably impressed?

Till:
Well, I doubt that anyone has been "suitably impressed" by someone who writes an article in which his primary focus seems to be a denial that the kind of people designated by perfectly legitimate words like inerrantist, bibliolater, and biblicist exists. If such people didn't exist, the words that denote them wouldn't exist either. Words exist because the things or concepts that they denote existed to give rise to the words. That is so linguistically elementary that even Sparrow should be able to see it.

After I had analyzed the Exodus-6 genealogy to give biblical inerrantists the maximum benefit of doubt about how much time could have passed from Kohath's entry into Egypt until Moses led the "children of Israel" out of Egypt, I summarized the results.

So this is exactly why inerrantists bend over backwards to make the Exodus-6 genealogy not say what it obviously does say. If they admit that Exodus 6 contains a literal father-son genealogy, as it obviously does, then that results in a contradiction between Exodus 6 and Exodus 12:40. I believe that the evidence I have presented sustains my claim that there is indeed a discrepancy in the two texts, so it is now the responsibility of inerrantists to show us that I have incorrectly divided "the word of truth."

Then Sparrow had this to say.

Derspatz [Sparrow]:
See, he didn't disappoint, did he!

Till
I suppose that this comment was directed to my use of the word bibliolaters at the beginning of the section I omitted (linked to above), so I will challenge Sparrow to tell us what is wrong with using this word in reference to those who venerate the Bible when obviously such people do exist. As I said earlier, if there were no such people, the word wouldn't exist. When an opponent can do nothing but set up straw-men complaints about the usage of legitimate words, you can be sure that he knows that he has nothing substantial to offer.

Sparrow:
And there we go again with the "inerrantists" thang ... heck, there are plenty of non-believer [sic] scholar types who argue over such things, not to mention Jewish believers who similarly disagree over such things.

Till:
I don't know what Sparrow means by "nonbeliever scholar types," but, actually, there are relatively few biblical scholars who do not, in some sense, consider the Bible either the "word of God" or else an important religious work. However, such "scholars" are not inerrantists. The fact is that there are no real scholars who are inerrantists, because real scholars recognize that the Bible is an errant work that reflected the ideologies and misconceptions of the time. So-called "scholars" who are inerrantists publish their books at Grand Rapids, Michigan, or Nashville, Tennessee, or other sanctuaries of small religious presses.

The disagreements that Sparrow referred to are clear evidence to reasonable people that the Bible is not the inerrant work that biblicists claim that it is. If Sparrow is not an inerrantist, well and good, but that doesn't mean that inerrantists don't exist, and, certainly, it doesn't mean that articles opposing the inerrantist view should not be written. What kind of warped thinking has found its way into Sparrow's brain?"

Sparrow:
As for the "divided the word of truth" aspect, isn't it generally agreed upon that you actually have to be a believer with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to manage that?

Till:
Well, first of all, my reference to "rightly dividing the word of truth" was a sarcastic reference to 2 Timothy 2:15, where Timothy was told to study so that he could "rightly divide the word of Truth." Needless to say, I don't believe that the Bible is "the word of truth," but neither do I believe the scripture that Sparrow alluded to above, where the apostle Paul said that "the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot know them because they are spiritually judged, but he that is spiritual judges all things" (1 Cor. 2:14-15). Christian fundamentalists have spun this passage to mean that no one can understand the "word of God" (read Bible) unless he has the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. This is a self-contradictory doctrine that teaches that one must understand the "word of God" in order to receive the Holy Spirit but that one cannot understand the "word of God" until he has the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. It is just another example of the kind of nonsense that is so regrettably characteristic of Christian dogmatism.

And Sparrow has the temerity to fault me for using words like inerrantist, bibliolater, and biblicist to describe people who are inerrantists, bibliolaters, and biblicists.

Go figure.

Sparrow [quoting Till's Uzziel article]:
This pretty well summarizes the chronological problem that this genealogy causes the biblical inerrancy doctrine, and the bad news for biblicists is that I haven't yet finished analyzing the information that shows that biblical and nonbiblical writers thought that the generation-by-generation descent from Levi to Aaron was exactly as it is shown in the Exodus-6 genealogy.

Derspatz [Sparrow]:
Talk about heaping things up on [sic] a bad premise! What was the "biblical inerrancy doctrine" again?

Till:
A doctrine is "something taught as the principles or creed of a religion, political party, etc., a tenet or tenets of belief" (Webster's Unabridged Dictionary). By quoting above leading religious leaders like Jerry Falwell, I have shown that there is a system of beliefs in Christian fundamentalism that claims that there are no errors or mistakes of any kind in the Bible. Hence, the existence of a biblical inerrancy doctrine is so obviously established that only someone hopelessly uninformed would deny that there is such a doctrine in Christian fundamentalism. While he was on alt.bible.errancy, I never could understand Sparrow's objection to references to "biblical inerrancy doctrine," "biblical inerrantists," "biblicists," etc. He seemed to be saying that because he didn't believe that the Bible is inerrant, there is no such thing as a biblical inerrancy doctrine. That position is as idiotic as if I would say that because I don't believe in papal infallibility, there is no such thing as a doctrine of papal infallibility. When I am replying to something that David Sparrow wrote about biblical issues, I often feel as if I am trying to reason with a moron.

Sparrow"
How has his ad hominem laced (guilty your honour!) biased study of a certain genealogy caused a chronological problem with the promises of Genesis 15 and the confirmed fulfilment given in Exodus 12:40, Josephus and even in the New Testament?

Till:
My plea is really, "Not guility, your honor." It is Sparrow's responsibility to show that the conclusions that I reached in my "ad-hominem laced, biased study" of the Exodus-6 genealogy are incorrect. I don't see how he can expect to do that by frequently admitting, as he did throughout his article, that my genalogical analyses are correct. After making this admission, his only recourse has been to say that Exodus 12:40 really meant that the "children of Israel" sojourned in Egypt for just 215 years and the other 215 years were spent in Canaan, but he didn't bother to explain how "children of Israel" could have lived in Canaan before children of Israel even existed. He, like the others who have tried this "explanation" of the discrepancy, failed to recognize this huge hole in their theory.

Sparrow:
But wait, there is more we have to endure before getting on with all of that. [sigh].

Till:
The more that Sparrow had to endure was an analysis of genealogies in Ruth 4:18-29, Genesis 46:12, 1 Chronicles 2:5-10, Numbers 1:7, Numbers 2:3, Numbers 7:12, and Numbers 10:14, which all agreed that Nahshon, the brother of Aaron's wife Elisheba (Ex. 6:23), was the son of Amminadab, who was the son of Ram, who was the son of Hezron, the grandson of Judah, who, according to Genesis 46:12, had already been born when the Israelites went into Egypt. These genealogical analyses established that the writers of the various passages referred to agreed that the sons of Aaron and Elisheba would have been only the fourth generation of Israelites who were born in Egypt.

Look at what Sparrow said about these genealogical analyses.

Derspatz [Sparrow]:
[yawn] Oh sorry - yet [sic] it was all very nice and I am sure Till had fun researching it all,

Till:
If Sparrow could stay awake long enough, perhaps he would learn enough about the Bible not to put his foot in his mouth as he did immediately below.

Sparrow:
but it still has not dealt with the "And Canaan" aspect (that I am about to show is implied even when not given, and have already shown is also well given anyway) one iota.

Till:
I didn't "deal" with the "and Canaan aspect," because the article was not addressed to those who have tried this dodge. My Uzziel article was directed to those who think that Exodus 12:40 meant what it said and that the Exodus writer was claiming that the "children of Israel" had dwelt in Egypt for 430 years. I am well aware of the 210-year theory, and whenever I address that view of Exodus 12:40, I give a complete, detailed refutation of it, as Sparrow and anyone else can see by reading "The 210-Year solution." I will be waiting to see him rebut my conclusions in this article and explain to us how "children of Israel" could have lived in Canaan before children of Israel had even existed. If Sparrow were n