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[Editor's Note: Here Turkel continued the listing and limited discussion of the "social sub-factors [sic]" that he thinks will explain why gospel writers didn't report some important miraculous events associated with the crucifixion of Jesus.] Turkel: The unique purposes of each Gospel writer Till: And as I noted here and here in Part Two of this series, the "unique purpose" of the author of "John" was to report the "signs" in Jesus's life that would make readers believe that Jesus is "the Christ" (John 20:30-31), but even though that was his explicitly stated purpose, he omitted all references to miraculous events that had caused the Roman soldiers to say, "Surely, this was the son of God" (Matt. 27:24). As noted at the end of Part Two, the "author" of this gospel had said earlier that "(h)e who saw this has testified so that you also may believe," but in "testifying" so that his readers might also believe, he left out all references to the earthquake and resurrection of the saints, which had caused the Roman soldiers to say, "Surely, this was the son of God." How much sense does that make? Turkel: The quote of John above is hyperbolic, Till: Yes, it was, so as I noted earlier and will expand below, not much can be determined from the quotation except that the writer was claiming that Jesus did many things that he did not record. Turkel: but it does make a point. The ministry of Jesus lasted at least two years (for a defense of this point see here). Till: This is a link to part of an article where Turkel discussed "Jonn's [sic] Chronology vs. Synoptic Chronology." This article shows all the signs of being another slapped-together piece of hackwork so that Turkel could cut another notch into his keyboard to brag about how many articles he has written. The typographical error that I sicced above is still in the article, even though it was posted on February 20, 2005. The fact that Turkel is apparently unaware of the mistake makes me wonder about his claims of "thousands" who access his website each month. If this is so, don't any of them care enough about the impression he leaves with readers to call mistakes like this to his attention? As for the article linked to, it is simply an attempt by Turkel to harmonize "John" with the synoptic gospels on the matter of how long the personal ministry of Jesus was. The length of Jesus's ministry, however, has no relevance to why "John," who said that he wrote his gospel in order to make readers believe that Jesus was "the Christ," would have omitted references to three stupendous miracles that had made the Roman soldiers say that Jesus was surely the son of God. If these miracles had had that effect on the Romans, why wouldn't "John" have supposed that they would have had the same effect on at least some of his readers? See Bobby hop. See Bobby skip. See Bobby jump. See Bobby hop, skip, and jump right over this fly in the soup of his "crimes of omission." Turkel: This allows for a ministry of around 4000-5000 hours (take out time to sleep, eat, travel, etc [sic]) which any writer of a life of Jesus had to select from. If you were asked to write a biography of Jesus, what would you write about? Before you answer, there are some restrictions you need to keep in mind. Till: Well, since I am already aware of Turkel's paper-shortage "restrictions," I think I will answer the question now. First of all, Turkel's question begs the historicity of the man Jesus, but this is a very debatable issue. As I have noted in other website articles and postings, there are no extrabiblical records contemporary to the time that Jesus allegedly lived that make any mention of this man or of the miraculous deeds that he allegedly did. According to the gospel accounts, some of which have been noted earlier, he was followed by "great multitudes," which we now know could have been no more than ten people, wherever he went, and these accounts claim that people flocked to him from places like Tyre, Sidon, Syria, Decapolis, and "beyond the Jordan" (Matt. 4:24-25; Mark 3:7-8; Luke 6:17), yet no secular documents written in that time made any references to these fantastic deeds done by a man who changed water into wine, healed the blind and deaf, cured the ill, made the lame walk, walked on water, resurrected the dead, etc., etc., etc. Turkel cannot claim that secular history was silent about the man Jesus because there weren't any secular writers in that time and place. Justus of Tiberius lived in Galilee during the very time that Jesus allegedly did, and he wrote Chronicle of the Kings of the Jews, which began with Moses and went through Agrippa of the Herod family, so this history covered the very time that Jesus supposedly lived but made no mention of him. This work didn't survive beyond the 9th century, but Photius a 9th-century Christian writer summarized its contents in codus 33 of Bibliotheca (Myriobiblon): He [Justus] died in the third year of the reign of Trajan, when the history ends. Justus's style is very concise, and he omits a great deal that is of the utmost importance. Suffering from the common fault of the Jews, to which race he belonged, he does not even mention the coming of Christ, the events of His life, or the miracles performed by Him. So Photius put the blame for Justus's omissions of any references to Jesus and his miracles on the fact that Justus was a Jew, so it seemed not to occur to Photius that Justus may not have referred to Jesus because the man had never existed or that he was such an obscure chracter that nothing unusual was known about him. If so, in either case, the mythology about Jesus may not have arisen by the time that Justus wrote about the Galilee of his time. Turkel, then, is asking what we would include if we were writing a biography of a man who may not have existed or who may have been just another obscure person of that time who had achieved nothing worth reporting. For the sake of argument, however, let's just assume that Jesus did exist and that all of the things written about him in the gospel accounts are historical facts. If I were going to write a "biography" of this man with the avowed purpose of writing it so that the readers of it might believe that Jesus was the Christ, I would most certainly include the stupendous events that happened on the day of his crucifixion that caused the Roman soldiers to say that this man was surely the son of God. If my purpose was to make people believe that Jesus was the son of God, why would I omit the very deeds known to have had the effect of making some believe the very thing that I wanted readers of my gospel to believe? Turkel's mission, then, if he should accept it, is to explain to us why "John," who wanted his readers to believe that Jesus was "the Christ," would have omitted miraculous events that he knew had caused nonbelievers to declare that Jesus was the son of God, and if Turkel screams again that Till's problem is that God didn't kiss his patoot, besides begging the questions of God's existence and his involvement in the writing of the gospels, Turkel will be evading a question crucial to this issue that he is trying to defend. Turkel: First of all, you are limited to using only about 20 sheets of paper. Till: Why? Why this limitation? If Turkel says, "Well, that is how long the gospel of John was," he will be arguing from an unproven assumption that "John" could have made the gospel no longer than it is, but to so argue would be to engage in question begging. If "Matthew" was able to make his gospel longer, and if Luke was able to make his gospel and the book of Acts longer, why couldn't John have made his gospel longer? Paper shortage? If Turkel says this, he will be begging another question. As far as he actually knows, "John" had a foot or a yard or more of space left over when he completed his gospel and clipped the excess length off or just left it on. After all, who can know anything about the length of a scroll that no longer exists? What Turkel is claiming is that the unknown length of "John's" scroll just didn't have enough space to squeeze in the three crucifixion-day miracles that were mentioned in the synoptic gospels. Didn't he say something about arguments from silence? Turkel: What, you say? No more than that? Till: Yep, that is what I say. If Turkel wants to cling to his assertion that a space equivalent to only 20 sheets of paper was all the space available to "John" or whoever, let him explain to us just how he knows that. As I showed in this part of "The Paper Shortage," scrolls as long as 100 and even 144 feet have been found, and the Great Isaiah Scroll found at Qumran has 24 feet intact, and scholars estimate that the complete manuscript would have been about 28 feet long. If readers will compare the length of Isaiah (66 chapters) to the length of John (21 chapters), they will probably have no difficulty understanding that John could have easily found enough space to include references to the midday darkness, the earthquake, and the resurrection of the ten--er--many saints by just patching on another section of scroll, which was the way that scrolls were made to the length needed. What's that that Turkel is screaming in the background? "John" couldn't afford a longer scroll? How does he know that? Didn't he say something about arguments from silence?" Turkel: Sorry. Office Depot won't be open for another 1900 years, and neither will WalMart [sic], or Eckerd's, or any other place you are thinking of buying paper. You're not going to be writing on paper. You'll be writing on a scroll, and scrolls are both expensive and go no larger than a certain size. As Gamble reports in Books and Readers in the Early Church [44-50, 266], and Achtemeier in his JBL article, "Omne Verbatim Sonat"[11f]: Till: At this point, Turkel was already into a spiel about the cost of scrolls, which I replied to point-by-point in "The Paper Shortage," subtitled "Twice-Told Tales in a Time of Scarce and Expensive Scroll Materials," so all I need to do here is link readers to the exact part of my article that replied to his silly quibbles and speculations as I come to them again. The paragraph just quoted above was answered in detail in this part of the article, so there is no need for me to rehash that rebuttal here. Those who read this section will see how silly Turkel's quibble is. I will tack on here an additional comment. Turkel talks and talks and talks about the "cost of scrolls," but he doesn't tell us how much a scroll would have cost back then. Just to say that they were "expensive" doesn't really tell us anything. Earlier he wondered how many many were, so I think it is entirely appropriate for me to wonder how expensive expensive is. If he knows, the least he can do is give his readers access to this information. Turkel: Scrolls could be fashioned to any length desired, but practically speaking, the mean length was seven to ten meters. "A roll of ten to eleven meters was too cumbersome for the reader to handle... Till: The section of my article linked to above also replied to this, so I don't need to rehash that answer either. Earlier we saw Turkel asking where Matthew got his information and when he got it and where he got it and so on and so on. I replied to these questions, so now it is time to ask Turkel some questions. He claims that "John" faced a huge problem of limited scroll space, so if he is able to know that, he should be able to answer these questions. What was the length of the scroll on which "John" wrote the fourth gospel? How much did this scroll cost "John"? Did "John" use every inch of this scroll? Did he have any space at all left over when he wrote the final verse of this gospel? If he did have space left at the end, how long was that space? Two inches? One inch? a half inch? How much? If "John" had, say, a half inch left at the end, would that have been enough space for him to squeeze in, "When Jesus died, a great earthquake shook open the tombs of many saints, who went into the city, after his resurrection, and appeared to many, and the centurion seeing the earthquake and what took place said, 'Surely, this was the son of God'"? If "John's" scroll didn't even have an extra half inch to squeeze this information in, how much extra would it have cost him to have bought a scroll a half inch longer or to buy a half inch of scroll material to tack onto the end? If Turkel can't tell us exactly how long John's scroll was and whether he used every available inch of it at the end, then he cannot argue--with a straight face--that "John" had to omit references to the earthquake and resurrection of the "many" saints. If he does continue to recycle this ridiculous quibble, he will be arguing that John was unable to include these miracles on a scroll of unknown size. Talk about an argument from silence! Turkel: authors of long new works made their own divisions by taking the customary length of rolls into account." A roll of papyrus of typical quality "cost the equivalent of one or two days' wages, and it could run as high as what the labourer would earn in five or six days..." Till: Where did Turkel get this information? How much would five or six days' pay have amounted to in terms of today's value of the dollar? Whatever it was, wouldn't someone who had been with Jesus all through his personal ministry have considered five or six days of wages worth the production of a scroll that would contain information vital to the readers' eternal salvation? Didn't Gabriel or Michael or whoever was "God's" budget director at this time think that chipping in to help "John," if he was just unable to swing the cost of a longer scroll himself, would have been well worth a slight depletion in the heavenly treasury? In the section of my article linked to above, I replied to Turkel's last comment, so rather than rehashing that answer I will ask him some more questions and then urge him to answer them and my questions above. Did "God" leave the expense of securing adequate writing materials entirely to the ones whom he chose to write the biblical books? Did he provide any kind of direct help or at least providential help to their acquisition of scrolls? If not, does this mean that the omniscient, omnipotent one who parted the Red Sea for the Israelites, sent them manna down from heaven for 40 years, brought forth water for them from rocks, etc., etc., etc. just didn't consider his "inspired word" to be important enough to lift even a finger to help his chosen authors do it the right way? Now as for "John's" gospel, exactly how long was the scroll on which he wrote the fourth gospel? Did he use every last inch of it? If not, how much was left over? If any was left over, was this space long enough to squeeze in "Matthew's" brief description of the earthquake and the resurrection of the saints? Turkel is making an "argument" [quibble] that is based on an assumption that he doesn't know is factual, because he cannot argue that "John" omitted material because he just didn't have enough room for it unless Turkel at least knows the exact size of "John's" original scroll. In a word, he is arguing from silence, which he audaciously accused skeptics of doing in the matter of why eyewitness authors would have omitted references to sensational events like the midday darkness, earthquake, and resurrection of "many saints." Turkel: While at times it was easy to get paper when you could afford it, there were times when this was not the case. Achtemeir reports that at one point in the reign of toberius [sic], the Senate was asked to assume responsibility for the allocation of paper. But even at the most plentiful, paper never made it usual to print multiple copies of anything; the publication of 1000 copies of a work was significant enough for Pliny to give it notice. Till: This seems to be unreferenced new material that Turkel added to his article after I had replied to it, but there is really nothing here to answer, because the Roman Senate was not engaged in publishing materials commissioned by "God" that pertained to the eternal welfare of everyone who would ever live after the authorship of the gospels and other New Testament books had been completed. Hence, Turkel is asking his readers to believe that the god who created the universe; led the Israelites through the Red Sea; sent manna down from heaven for them to eat during a period of 40 years; brought water forth from rocks in the Sinai desert, protected Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego after they had been thrown into a fiery furnace; stopped the sun at midday; etc.; etc.; etc; somehow just couldn't manage to see that his chosen "inspired" writers had enough space on their scrolls to write down everything that needed to be recorded pertaining to the eternal salvation of every single person who would ever live after the completion of the New Testament. I wonder if Turkel can say, "False analogy." Turkel: Now maybe if you are wealthy, or know someone who is, you can get another scroll and do a "Life of Jesus, Part 2", perhaps a shorter half. But if you do, bear in mind that generations beyond you (and how can you anticipate WalMart [sic], or the printing press?), Till: Uh, God couldn't anticipate Wal-Mart and printing presses? If so, he's not very omniscient, is he? And if Turkel removes "God" from the process, he reduces the Bible, as I said earlier, to a worthless collection of ancient writings that isn't worth a pint of cold spit. Another comment is in order here. How does Turkel know that "John" didn't know someone who had the means to provide him with an adequate scroll and the willingness to do so in order to be a part of spreading "God's" plan of eternal salvation? By the way, Turkel referred to Wal-Mart, but if "God" selected me to write an inspired manuscript, I would walk to Peoria, 30 miles away, to get the paper I needed before I would go into Wal-Mart and spend even as much as a penny. Even though I don't patronize Wal-Mart, I can't help noticing how the name is spelled as I pass by its stores. That seems to be more than Turkel has noticed. That's a curious thing about Turkel's writing. He routinely puts hyphens where they aren't needed, as in non-existence, re-examine, post-resurrection, etc. and then omits them when they are needed as in the corporate spelling of Wal-Mart. But not to worry. He knows all about subtleties and "nuances" in biblical languages. Turkel: in order to preserve your work, will have to also buy two scrolls. Till: Why didn't Turkel say, "You will also have to buy two scrolls"? Why split the infinitive when awkwardness, which will occasionally happen unless infinitives are split, would not have been a problem. I point out matters like this because I want to keep readers reminded of how Turkel, the expert in biblical languages, often has problems with his own native language. Turkel: If you want your work to get out to people, that's not a very smart move. Your work is going to cost more to keep around than a work with one scroll. So you'd better plan carefully what you want to put on those scrolls. By the way, writing is cumbersome and difficult with comfortable chairs and writings desks not in the picture -- unless, again, you are very wealthy. So better keep it simple. Till: I replied to these last three paragraphs in this section of "the Paper Shortage." I included in my reply some lengthy biblical passages, such as Isaiah 37 and 2 Kings 19, which are identical except for a couple of minor variations, and Psalm 18:2-50 and 2 Samuel 22:2-51, which are also identical. I also cited other examples to show that apparently needless repetition is in the Bible, which testifies to the absurdity of Turkel's claim that biblical writers at times just had to leave out important material. At the end of the article I am now answering, Turkel linked to an article that allegedly answered--so he claims--my "Paper Shortage" article, so when I get there, I will show just how silly--and evasive--some of his "answers" were. Turkel: (Speaking of simple, see what some Skeptics who are experts in ancient availability of paper have to say about this here. [sic] Till: This is a link to Turkel's "reply" to "The Paper Shortage," which he mentions at the end as a satisfactory reply to my article. When we get there, I will copy his comments into a fourth part in this series in which I will show that he either skipped about 90% of the material in my article or "answered" it with what he would call "sound bites" if he encountered it in someone else's article. The other 10% [estimated], he "answered" with shameless quibbling when he "answered" at all. Turkel: Okay, so now you have scrolls and some ink. Are you ready? Not so fast! Did you ever have to write an essay of exactly a certain number of pages? No more or less than the decided amount? Till: Yes, I have had to write essays that contained an exact number of pages (or sometimes a limited number of words). After all, I majored in English and taught it for 30 years. In my own teaching, I did not assign these kinds of essays, because I considered such assignments asinine; however, when I had to write them myself during my own academic days, I didn't find them to be particularly troublesome. If I had been inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity while I was writing them, I strongly suspect that I would have found them to be even less troublesome. That is the factor that Turkel always wants to leave out. He wants his readers to believe that biblical writers were always left on their own to write as they pleased--and, of course, I think that he is absolutely right in that respect--but that is not what the Bible teaches. As I point out in more detail below, Jeremiah twice wrote a scroll that contained "the words from Yahweh's mouth," and the actual writing was done by a scribe who wrote the words down as they came from "the mouth of Jeremiah." As I have shown in "What the Bible Says about Inspiration," the doctrine of verbal inspiration is taught therein, so the Bible claimed that when the disciples talked, they were not speaking themselves but the "spirit of the Father" was speaking through them (Matt. 10:16). The article linked to here will show that time and time again, biblical writers claimed that they were speaking the "words" of Yahweh or that they were "filled with the spirit," and it claims that "no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God" (2 Peter 1:21). In Acts 28:25-26, Luke said that the apostle Paul quoted Isaiah 6:9-10 in a speech to Jewish leaders in Rome and introduced the quotation by saying that "the Holy Spirit had spoken [it] through the prophet Isaiah." Is this a true statement? When Isaiah wrote this, was the Holy Spirit speaking through him, or was Paul wrong about it? Let Turkel tell us if the Holy Spirit guided Isaiah in what he wrote or if Isaiah had to first sit down, take some notes, and stew over how much scroll space he had available to write whatever. Inquiring minds want to know. There is much more in the Bible about the so-called inspiration process, all of which is in sharp contrast with Turkel's claims that biblical writers were left on their own to get their information and to decide what to say and what not to say. This view of the Bible removes all claims of authority that have traditionally been attached to it, and if Turkel clings to this view, he cannot give a single logical reason why the Bible should be considered any more authoritative (or true) than any other documents of that time. I have said this at least twice above, but I will repeat it here. If Turkel wants to deny that the Bible teaches a doctrine of verbal inspiration, I will gladly oppose him in a debate on that issue if he will agree to post on his website everything that both of us write on the subject and leave it there UNEDITED for readers of his website to have access to as long as the site is maintained. Although I will gladly agree to do this on my website, he will never agree to it, so that ends the matter and leaves him free to rant and rave and foam at the mouth about how stupid Skeptic X is. Turkel: There should be no problem here with writing too little; Jesus did plenty of stuff, and was around enough time, and did enough teaching, to draw material from. But you're only going to be able to fit a certain amount on those scrolls. Till: I will ask Turkel again to tell us what the length of "John's" scroll was. Did "John" use every last inch of that scroll? If Turkel can't answer these questions, then he is going to look pretty foolish claiming that "John" had to leave details like the earthquake and the resurrection of the "many saints" out of his gospel account because he didn't have enough space for them on a scroll of unknown length. I wonder if Turkel can say, "Argument from silence." Well, yes, he can, can't he? He has been saying it about skeptics who think that extraordinary events like the midday darkness and the resurrection of the "many saints" would not have been omitted from an eyewitness account of events that happened on crucifixion day, but he can't seem to see when he is flagrantly arguing from silence. Turkel: So think for a while. Till: That would be good advice for Turkel. Does he ever think for even a little while before he writes such nonsense as what I am now replying to? If he says that he does, let him explain to us how he knows that "John" was pressed to find room to include some details on his scroll of an unknown length. Turkel: What is more important to write about? His crucifxion and resurrection already have to go in there; that was the defining time in his life, and it is the heart of the kerygma. Till: The heart of the kerygma! Did everyone catch that? Turkel used a Greek word here. Yes, he who thought that "rise again" in Greek required the word anestimi to be used twice put kerugma here instead of its English equivalent proclamation. That, of course, was designed to impress his choir members, who probably gasped in admiration and said, "Hey, look at our guy; he slings Greek around like it's going out of style." Ma foi! C'est incroyablement formidable! Now in reply to Turkel's question above, I will just repeat what I have already said. If the central purpose of my "biography" is to encourage the readers to believe that Jesus was "the Christ," I would certainly include the extraordinary events reported by Matthew, which caused the Roman soldiers to declare, "Surely, this was the son of God." After all, if one's purpose is to instill belief in one's readers, why not include that which has been proven to cause nonbelievers to believe? Wouldn't reporting that be more important than telling of, say, how Jesus once sat on a mountain with his disciples? Did anyone who saw Jesus on that occasion proclaim, "Holy smoke, Jesus is sitting on a mountain, so he must be the son of God"? Turkel: What else? The miracles? The teachings? His birth? You have to decide what you want to present, and how, before you ever put a pen to that scroll. Till: What Turkel is saying is completely contrary to the biblical doctrine of inspiration. In "What the Bible Says about Inspiration," I showed that the Bible teaches that the ones whom "God" chose to be prophets and apostles did not write of their own accord but wrote the words that "God" directed them to write. In other words, the Bible teaches verbal inspiration, and I have before Turkel a challenge to debate this issue, so this is his chance to rip me to pieces on this issue and show to his readers that he is the one who knows all about biblical inspiration. All he has to do is agree to post on his website everything that both of us write on the subject and agree to keep it there UNEDITED. Will he agree to do this? Will pigs fly someday? Turkel: Bear in mind if you don't do this carefully, you'll waste the entire scroll and either have to buy a new one, or will have to cut out the sheet you made the mistake on and connect it all back together! Small mistakes can be fixed, but if you start to do a whole story, you can't just change your mind and start over! Till Bear in mind that you would not have been the one to decide what to write on your scroll if "God" had chosen you to write an inspired gospel. He would have made that decision. And bear in mind that if an omniscient, omnipotent deity were guiding you as you wrote, as the examples cited above and below clearly show that the Bible claimed for its inspired writers, you surely wouldn't make mistakes that would require you to buy another scroll or cut and sew on your original one. Or is it the case that an omniscient, omnipotent deity just couldn't protect his inspired ones from errors? For Turkel's benefit, I will call his attention again to biblical passages that claimed that what had been written in biblical books had actually been spoken by the Holy Spirit. Did the Holy Spirit speak through Isaiah the words in Isaiah 6:9-10, or was the apostle Paul just mistaken when he said that the Holy Spirit did speak these words through Isaiah (Acts 28:25-26)? To quote every Old Testament passage where the writers claimed that they were writing the "words of Yahweh"--not the ideas of Yahweh but the "words of Yahweh"--would drag this article out forever, so I will add just a couple to those that I have already cited. The prophet Ezekiel claimed that Yahweh opened his mouth to speak the words that he wrote. Ezekiel 3:24 The spirit entered into me, and set me on my feet; and he spoke with me and said to me: Go, shut yourself inside your house. 25 As for you, mortal, cords shall be placed on you, and you shall be bound with them, so that you cannot go out among the people; 26 and I will make your tongue cling to the roof of your mouth, so that you shall be speechless and unable to reprove them; for they are a rebellious house. 27 But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you shall say to them, "Thus says the Lord GOD"; let those who will hear, hear; and let those who refuse to hear, refuse; for they are a rebellious house. If this passage was not claiming that God controlled what words Ezekiel would speak, then what was it claiming? See also Ezekiel 29:21 and 33:22 for other passages where Ezekiel claimed that Yahweh controlled what words came from his mouth, and there are numerous other parallel claims in the Bible. 2 Samuel 22:23 The spirit of Yahweh speaks through me, his word is upon my tongue. Knowing Turkel, he may quibble that the texts I have quoted above speak about words of Yahweh that were spoken, and so that would not necessarily include written scriptures. Well, I showed above that the apostle Paul claimed that the Holy Spirit spoke Isaiah 6:9-10 through the prophet Isaiah, and there are other scriptures that make the same claim about other written scriptures. Acts 1:15 In those days Peter stood up among the believers (together the crowd numbered about one hundred twenty persons) and said, 16 "Friends, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit through David foretold concerning Judas, who became a guide for those who arrested Jesus--17 for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry." Peter then went on to quote Psalm 69:25, which said, "Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents," and Psalm 109:8, which said, "Let his days be few; and let another take his office." Peter attributed both of these psalms to David and said that the Holy Spirit had spoken these "by the mouth of David concerning Judas" (KJV). Was Peter right when he said this? Did the Holy Spirit really speak through what "David" wrote here? If not, was Peter mistaken? This is the kind of predicament that Turkel puts himself into when he denies that the Bible clearly teaches a doctrine of verbal inspiration. If Turkel can read these passages and refuse to believe that the Bible teaches verbal inspiration, then I suppose that, in the words of Ezekiel, he who refuses to hear refuses to hear. Turkel: And there's another problem. The crucifixion and resurrection have to go in, but they will be at the end of the story, and you can't just write backwards from the end of the scroll-- unless you are a very unusual person! Till: Just a passing through here--but wouldn't a person inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity be "a very unusual person," who could write backwards if he needed to? Turkel: So you need to plan this account carefully. You need to decide what out of those 5000 hours you want to include. Till: I will again ask Turkel to tell us how long "John's" scroll was and how much space, if any, he had left over when he completed it. If Turkel can't answer this, then he is arguing that John didn't have room on a scroll of unknown length to include the details about the midday darkness and the resurrection of the "many saints." If Turkel wants to know what a real argument from silence is, he should read his own paper-shortage article. Turkel: So how do you start? Till: I would say that if one is writing the "words of Yahweh," as the Holy Spirits moves him to write them, then knowing how to start wouldn't be much of a problem. That would be for the Holy Spirit to decide, and he is omniscient, isn't he? Turkel: You start by taking notes. Till: This is certainly sound advice that any writing teacher worth his/her salt would instruct students to do, but we aren't talking about students of writing. We are talking about men who were presumably inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity, so how does Turkel know that biblical writers so inspired began by "taking notes"? Wouldn't the guidance of the "Holy Spirit" have enabled them to bypass that step, which is a method used by just ordinary writers? In his article on oral tradition that he links to below, Turkel claimed that "there is a growing body of evidence and arguments that supports the thesis that the disciples (and sometimes even the audiences of Jesus) 'took notes' during or immediately after His words/deeds," but he conveniently omitted any refences to documents that support this claim. A curious thing about the claim is that Turkel seemed to be quoting Glenn Miller, who, as we saw earlier, tried to prove that secular records of extraordinary events claimed in the Bible probably don't exist because of widespread illiterancy in those days, but when Miller and Turkel need to have a general literacy in those times to support a claim that the disciples of Jesus and people in his audience "took notes" during his speeches or miracles, suddenly nearly everyone was able to write back then. Remember what I said earlier about Turkel and Miller wanting to play both sides of the street? This is an example of their doing just that. Anyway, for the sake of argument, let's just assume that this is so. That would mean that Turkel is arguing that biblical writers were confronted with a limitation on scroll space, and so they solved that by "taking notes" before they began writing. In addition to saying that a biblical writer had to take notes on what to write on a scroll that would contain the "words of Yahweh," he is saying that the writers who had to contend with limited scroll space wasted some of that limited space by taking notes before they began writing. That, folks, is the kind of Tektonics nonsense that you get from Bobby Turkel. Doesn't he ever think before he writes? Turkel: This is where the "codex" or leaf book would have come in. Although the codex eventually evolved into the modern book, at this stage it was used for "school exercises, accounts, notes, first-drafts, and so forth," as well as being used for archival items like birth certificates. Till: This is an example of Turkel's ignorance that led me to entitle this article "Crimes by Speculation." First of all, I have to wonder why someone inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent "Holy Spirit" would have to take notes or "write first drafts, and so on." Was omnipotence and omniscience no longer omnipotence and omniscience when it came time for "John" to write his gospel? Second, the codex was a late first-century or early second-century AD invention. Prior to then, manuscripts were written on parchment or papyrus scrolls, so Turkel is apparently trying to give "John" access to something that didn't exist in his time, unless Turkel wants to say that the gospel of John wasn't written until the dates that some mainstream scholars give it, but we will see later that in another article, Turkel supported the view that "John" was the most "primitive" of the gospels. At any rate, I would like to see Turkel's proof that biblical writers made notes before they began their manuscripts. Does he know of any notes left by "John" or "Matthew" or the apostle Paul that have survived until today? Does he know of any "first drafts" of, say, the gospel of Luke? If so, maybe he will be kind enough to let us know what museum they are in. Turkel: So now you have a collection of notes, full of stories and teachings to choose from. Till: We do? Where are they? Would Turkel tell us where we can go to see the notes that "John" left, which would prove that he didn't have enough space on his scroll of an unknown length, and so he had to omit references to the midday darkness and the resurrection of the saints so that he could tell his readers that Jesus once sat on a mountain with his disciples? Turkel: Now what? Well, if you are an ancient writer, writing a story is not just a matter of slapping down things in order. Till: Is that so? Well, it's too bad that Turkel wasn't an "ancient writer." If he had been, maybe he wouldn't slap his articles together as he routinely does. If he had lived back when everyone was into note-taking, maybe he would have known better. Turkel: You're a little more creative than that! You also want to establish a certain theme, or use certain techniques, to make the story run smoothly. Till: Notice that Turkel has done nothing but string abstractions together. He gave us no specific examples of writers who established "certain themes" or what "certain techniques" were used, so these terms are just as abstract as saying that scrolls were "expensive." The longer I read Turkel's abstractions, the more I wonder if he wrote that way when he was a student at Florida State. At any rate, this is a good time to remind readers again that "John" clearly stated what his "certain theme" was: He wanted to report "signs" that would influence his readers to believe that Jesus was "the Christ." Maybe Turkel will tell us, then, why "John" with a "certain theme" like this would have omitted all references to the midday darkness and the resurrection of the "many saints," which were "signs" that had been proven to make nonbelievers declare that Jesus was surely the son of God. Why do I keep driving this point home? Well, I believe in a proven debating strategy: when you have your opponent on the ropes, keep him there. That will emphasize to the audience the weakness of his position. Turkel: (Biographies in the ancient world were often written topically rather than chronologically.) Till: So? This, even if true, does what to prove that "John" was unable to spare the space on a scroll of unknown length to record the midday darkness and the resurrection of the "many saints," which, if "Matthew's" account is reliable, were "signs" that would have contributed to "John's" desire to write a gospel that would cause the readers to believe that Jesus was "the Christ"? Turkel: After all, most of your "readers" will actually be hearers! 90-95% of those who get acquainted with your Gospel will have to remember its contents. Till: And this does what to prove that "John" was unable to spare the space on a scroll of unknown length to record the midday darkness and the resurrection of the "many saints," which, if "Matthew's" account is reliable, were "signs" that would have contributed to "John's" desire to write a gospel that would cause the readers to believe that Jesus was "the Christ"? Turkel: Your contemporaries all have good memories, because they are used to oral tradition, but that's partly because writers know ways to make memory easier. Till: So all of "John's" contemporaries had "good memories"? Exactly how does Turkel know that? Half of the people in a given population are below average in intelligence--a fact that probably explains why in a time of relative enlightenment there can be so many people who still believe in ancient superstitions--so I doubt that people in biblical times were all so superintelligent that they could remember tales as long as, say, "John's" gospel. Turkel's link above is to one of his articles in which he presented oral tradition as a sort of catch-all solution to inconsistencies in the Bible. For some strange reason, Turkel seems to think that inconsistencies that resulted from variations in oral tradition weren't really inconsistencies. Anyway, in typical fashion, Turkel "proves" his position by citing or quoting writers who agree with him. I dislike quoting authorities, because this is a method that doesn't prove anything, since one can always find books and articles that agree with his position, especially in religious matters. However, to show that the position of Turkel and his "sources" is far from a unanimous view, I am going to counter him by quoting some authorities who recognize that variations and inconsistencies in the Bible are natural consequences of the oral transmission of stories. "The Story of the Storytellers," co-authored by a professor of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Austin and a Professor of New Testament Studies and Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard Divinity School, explained how oral traditions about Jesus went through a process of evolution that eventually resulted in the gospels being written down according to the traditions of the places where they circulated, so these professors, who have more relevant credentials than master's degrees in library science, obviously don't think that variations in the gospel accounts were the result of a "paper shortage" but rather that they were the natural result of embellishments that happened as the traditions circulated over periods of time in different regions. This natural consequence of traditions circulating in different places was discussed in more detail by Alan Dundes in Holy Writ as Oral Lit: The Bible as Folklore. In The Jewish News Weekly, a brief review of Dundes's book explained that variations of the same story in the Bible resulted from different oral traditions. "There were different people telling different versions," said Dundes, a professor of anthropology and folklore. The natural consequence was different accounts of the same event, he said. A professor of anthropology and folklore should be better credentialed to speak about "oral tradition" than a library-science major, shouldn't he? At any rate, in another review of the same book, Patricia McBroom pointed out, correctly in my opinion, that the Bible is folklore or oral tradition that was eventually written down and that this accounts for variations in so many biblical stories. She mentioned some examples that Dundes had discussed. In his book, Dundes demonstrates that multiple versions exist for nearly every major episode in both the Old and New Testaments--the creation of woman, the flood, the Ten Commandments, the names of the 12 tribes of Israel, the names of the 12 disciples, the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, the words inscribed on the cross and the last words of Jesus, among others. Those who are familiar with the Old Testament know that such variations as these are scattered throughout it as the writer(s) or editor(s) apparently tried to accommodate the different traditions by including more than just one version of some stories. Two variations of Abraham's attempt to pass his wife Sarah off as his sister, for example, are in the book of Genesis (Gen. 12:10-20; Gen. 20:1-7), and still a third version of this tale appears in Genesis 26:1-11, where Isaac was the one trying to pass his wife Rebekka off as his sister. Many other variations of the same tale could be cited, but this one and Dundes' examples are enough to make the point that oral tradition rather than preserving the integrity of a story, as Turkel claims in his attempts to make oral tradition "reliable," resulted in significant variations in the same stories. Inerrantists like Turkel, of course, will bend over backwards to defend the historicity of all of these variations, but sensible people will have no difficulty understanding that variations like these, as Dundes pointed out, were a natural consequence of oral transmission. McBroom noted in her review of Dundes' book that he also identified variations like these in the New Testament. He said the New Testament was written 70 years after the death of Jesus--more than enough time for several different versions of the same story to have arisen. To try to determine which is the "true" version is probably not productive, said Dundes. Turkel, bless his little heart, nevertheless sticks to his premise that oral tradition was always reliable... as long as the oral traditions relate to the Bible. In support of his position that memories, in general, were so reliable in biblical times that stories were always kept intact during oral transmission, he cited three examples. Plato says that the Sophist Hippias of Elis "was able to repeat fifty names after hearing them only once." Pliny the Elder reports that Cyrus was able to name every man in his army, and that Lucius Scipio remembered the names of every person in the Roman Empire, and that one named Charmadas "recited by heart any book in the libraries." Seneca boasted of being able to his youth to repeat 2000 names read to him "and recite in reverse order over two hundred verses his fellow students told him..." He does regard this as miraculous, however! After listing these, however, even Turkel admitted that the examples "from Pliny are likely (!) exaggerated." No, kidding! Does Turkel mean that we can believe that Lucius Scipio couldn't really recite the names of every person in the Roman Empire? I suspect that if a biblical writer had made this claim, we would have seen articles from Turkel--and probably Miller too--explaining to us why we should see this as a credible claim. As for memory feats like the one that Plato attributed to Hippias of Elis, there would have been nothing at all exceptional about this. I once attended a program conducted by a memory expert, who had everyone in the audience (about 200 people) stand up and say their names. Later in the program, the man went through the audience and told everyone his/her name, and no one reported that he had erred. Some 25 years ago or so, my wife attended a Dale Carnegie class at Bradley University in Peoria (Illinois). After a few sessions, she came home and asked me to make a list of 35 different items and then read the list to her. I tried to include unusual items on the list, but after I read it to her, she was able to identify correctly any item on the list when I randomly called its number. She explained to me how it was done, and it was nothing more than a mnemonics exercise. Therefore, I don't find it hard to believe that in a time when people had to depend on memory much more than we do now, some became rather good at it, but I certainly don't believe that stories were passed down through long periods of time without changes and embellishments being made. The examples that Dundes discussed in his book and the ones that I added certainly show that this was the case. Those who are interested in seeing more detailed examples of variations of the same stories in the Bible should read Who Wrote the Bibe? by Richard Elliott Friedman. If nothing else, this book will show that for every "source" that Turkel and Miller can quote in support of their position that oral tradition was a reliable source of information for biblical writers, I can find sources that disagree. Thus, according to a standard that Turkel himself set back in October 1998, I have neutralized his experts by quoting experts who have opposing opinions. That was my primary purpose in quoting and citing the "sources" above. I never intended for anyone to think that my "sources" definitively settle any disputes about the reliability of oral tradition. I just wanted to illustrate something that I have tried to tell Turkel many times: citing or quoting "sources" doesn't prove a thing, because anyone can always find books or articles that agree with his position, especially if it is a religious position. As a final note to this point, I will refer readers to "Islamic Awareness," where they can see that Muslims use the same kind of argument to "explain" variations in Qur'anic and Islamic traditions, so if this kind of argumentation is appropriate to vindicate the Bible, why wouldn't it be appropriate to vindicate the Quran and Islam? In all of this, we see proof of an axiom that I often quote: what proves too much proves nothing at all. In this case, what it means is that Turkel's line of argumentation about "oral tradition" proves nothing for him, because the same argument could prove the truth of Islam, which is in many ways a religion directly at odds with Christianity. Turkel: Our Gospel writers took different approaches to this problem. Till: Apparently so, but why? As we saw above, the most likely reason for this was that different traditions were known in different regions, and so what was written depended on what region the author was in at the time. No one can logically explain why just one gospel inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity would not have been sufficient for the purpose of spreading the "good news" about Jesus around the world for all time, so the mere existence of four different gospels is enough to cast suspicion on the belief that they were all inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity. Turkel: On a macro level, Matthew divided his work into five sections of teaching interspersed with miracle stories (an imitation of the five books of the Pentateuch) and also begins with a genealogy and closes his work with an edict (the Great Commission), just like Chronicles opened with a genealogy and closed with Cyrus' decree in 2 Chronicles. Till: This, of course, is drivel that Turkel has read somewhere, which he is now trying to pass along to his choir members to make them squeal, "Whoopee, look at how much our guy knows about the Bible!" However, if Turkel--or rather his source(s)--can see five sections in "Matthew" that imitated the five books of the Pentateuch, he [they] can see more than I can see. To me, there are seven sections in this book, and I have noticed that some "experts" see just four sections to it. Turkel apparently likes the five-section theory so that he can make some dubious comparison to the five books of the Pentateuch, but one would have to stretch imagination like a rubber band to see any such comparison. What section of Matthew, for example, would be parallel to, say, the book of Leviticus, which is little more than a cataloging of superstitious ceremonies? Which section of Matthew would be parallel to Exodus, which told the yarn about 2.5 to 3 million Israelites trekking out of Egypt and devoted chapter after chapter to recording intricate details about how to make a tent and the curtains and furniture that would go into it? Which section of Matthew would be parallel to Numbers, which consisted of census taking and tales of the griping, complaining, and bellyaching of the Israelites when they were in the wilderness, where their god Yahweh was traveling with them in a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night? Which section would be... well, the point has been made. Turkel likes to throw stuff like this into his articles to dupe his sycophants into thinking that he is some big expert in biblical matters, but I have shown time and time again that his actual knowledge of biblical content is woefully superficial for someone who wants to be a biblical apologist. In Part Two, I linked readers to an article that showed how Turkel thought that "rise again" in Greek was expressed by using anestimi twice. For another example of an exposure of his biblical ignorance, read "Restroom Visits in Biblical Times." After reading this, you can go to this part of "Turkel Rides--Er--Stumbles Again (1-B)" to see where he tried to explain a problem in the book of Luke by arguing that the narrative was "dischronologized" in the place where the alleged discrepancy was. You will see where I had to point out to him that Luke claimed in the introduction to his gospel that he was going to write it in chronological order. This guy's biblical ignorance leaps out and bites the faces of readers who know enough about the Bible to recognize his mistakes, but, of course, his choir members don't know enough about the Bible to recognize them, and that is why he can get away with them. Bobby also sees a parallel in the organization of "Matthew" and the books of Chronicles, apparently just because 1 Chronicles began with a genealogy and 2 Chronicles ended with an edict, which he compared to the so-called "Great Commission." Of course, Booby didn't bother to mention that in between the opening genealogy of 1 Chronicles and Cyrus's edict at the end of 2 Chronicles, there is chapter after chapter after chapter of the "history" of kings of Israel and Judah and other biblical characters, information that is nothing at all like the contents of "Matthew" between the opening genealogy and the Great Commission. None of these comparisons of Matthew to Old Testament books has any relevance at all to the issue at hand, because "Matthew" isn't an issue at all. He included the midday darkness, the earthquake, and the resurrection of the "many saints," so the issue is not "Matthew" but why "John" included none of these extraordinary events and why Mark and Luke included only one of them. All of Turkel's comments about "Matthew," then, were just part of the smokescreen he is laying down to hide the obvious fact that he has no plausible explanation for why an eyewitness to the crucifixion would have omitted all references to three remarkable events that allegedly accompanied it, especially when his purpose in writing his gospel was to report signs done by Jesus that would make the readers believe that he was the son of God. Turkel: Mark used his "sandwich" technique of intercalcating a small story between two parts of another story. Luke wrote his work around the theme of travelling to Jerusalem (and wrote Acts around the theme of the gospel being preached around the Empire, with Jerusalem as a return point); Till: This is more of the same kind of drivel, which Turkel read somewhere and passes along to make his choir members thing that he is King Kong in biblical matters, but none of what he said about Mark's and Luke's "techniques" would explain why they would not have included in their accounts of crucifixion day such remarkable events as the earthquake that shook open the tombs of "many saints," who later came forth and went into the city and appeared to "many." Exactly what was there in Mark's "sandwich[ing]" technique that would have prevented him from including that information? If he had included it, the only difference in his "technique" would have been that he "sandwich[ed]" a big story, i. e., the resurrection of the "many saints" between two parts of his other big story, i. e., the crucifixion. And he could have really impressed his readers by "sandwich[ing]" into his account of the resurrection the fact (according to "Matthew") that after Jesus rose from the dead, the "many saints" came out of their tombs, went into the city, and appeared to many. Wow! Just think how impressive that would have been. And Mark fumbled the ball on this. In the introduction to his gospel, Luke said that he was writing it so that Theopolis "might know the certainty of the things wherein [he] was instructed" (1:4), so why wouldn't telling Theo about the earthquake and the resurrection of "many saints" have helped Luke achieve that purpose? Just think how certain Theo would have been of the things in which he had been instructed if Luke had included those tidbits. Well, let's go blow away a little more of Turkel's smokescreen. Turkel: he was also writing for the purpose of defending Paul at trial (see here). Till: The link here is to Turkel's "review" of Paul on Trial, a book by John Mauck, in which he speculates that Theopolis was actually a Roman investigator looking into the charges against the apostle Paul, and so Luke wrote both his gospel and the book of Acts as "evidentiary documents" to be used in Paul's defense in Rome. As Dave Barry would say, "I am not making this up." One wonders why Luke didn't mention somewhere in his gospel or Acts that this was his reason for writing these books, but I guess he was just too pressed for scroll space to squeeze it in. One also wonders why Turkel didn't proofread his review before cutting another notch into his keyboard. If he had proofread it, he probably would have seen the error he made in the final sentence when he referred to the title of this book as Paul of Trial, but the expert in biblical languages is just in too much of a hurry to get it on site to take time to proofread. At any rate, I have to ask again what any of this has to do with the price of tea in China. Mark and Luke are not the problem as much as "John" is. Mark and Luke at least mentioned the midday darkness, so although we can wonder why they wouldn't have included references to the earthquake and the resurrection of the "many saints," we really have to wonder about "John," who, as noted above, twice assured readers that he had seen the things he was writing about and knew that they were true, so why didn't he include the midday darkness, the earthquake, and the resurrection of the saints? After all, as I have pointed out umpteen times now, he said that the "signs" that he chose to write about were included in his book so that readers might believe that Jesus was "the Christ," but even though that was his expressly stated purpose in writing this book, he left out events that had caused the nonbelieving Roman soldiers to declare that Jesus was surely the son of God. Oh, I forgot; "John" just didn't have enough space on his scroll to squeeze these in, did he? How silly of me to forget! Turkel: John built his account around important "signs". [sic] Till: He built it around "important signs" that would make readers believe that Jesus was "the Christ," and then he omitted all references to signs that Matthew claimed had caused nonbelievers to declare that Jesus was the son of God. Go figure! Turkel: These are but three of numerous examples of memory and/or literary techniques in the Gospels -- and each technique, used differently, would mean different results in order, and different results in selection of material. Till: But when one of these writers ("John") expressly stated that his purpose was to write about "signs" that would cause people to believe that Jesus was "the Christ" and then left out two stupendous signs that had caused nonbelieving Romans to declare that Jesus was the son of God, we have to wonder what the guy was thinking. I mentioned above that Turkel would claim that "John" just didn't have enough space to squeeze these in, but I personally have a better explanation for their omission. "John" had been up all night during the trial of Jesus, and so as the day of the crucifixion wore on, he sat down somewhere, dropped off, and slept completely through the midday darkness, the earthquake--which was imperceptible anyway--and the opening of the tombs. After all, we have it from Turkel himself that the earthquake was so slight in its intensity that even those who were awake didn't even notice it. What better authority could we ask for than that of a man who apparently knows everything about the Bible and the way it was written? Turkel: But what of that selection? If you are a Matthew or a Mark writing a Gospel for the first time, what do you choose to offer? Till: As I have shown above, the Bible clearly teaches a doctrine of verbal inspiration, and so if "Matthew" and Mark had really been chosen by "God" to write their gospels, the choice would not have been theirs. The omniscient, omnipotent Holy Spirit would have decided what to offer. Or does Turkel think that "Matthew" and Mark were any less "inspired" than was Isaiah when the Holy Spirit spoke Isaiah 6:9-10 through him (Acts 28:25-26)? Or does Turkel think that "Matthew" and Mark were less "inspired" than David was when the Holy Spirit spoke Psalm 69:25 and Psalm 108:8 through "the mouth of David" (Acts 1:15-20). Does Turkel think that the Holy Spirit said to Isaiah and David, "Now, fellows, just sit down, take your time, write a few notes, and decide what you will choose to offer here"? Turkel: What miracles or teachings "stick out" the most and will tell readers the most about Jesus as a person? What events were most memorable? Till: Well, I guess I will have to run it by the Booby again. If one's avowed purpose is to write about miracles (signs) that would cause readers to believe that Jesus is "the Christ," why would he leave out three remarkable "signs" that had caused nonbelieving Romans to declare that Jesus was surely the Son of God? One would think that "John" would have said to himself, "Well, if that midday darkness, earthquake, and opening of the tombs caused those Roman soldiers to believe, maybe they would work for me too." But he didn't think this way, and Turkel has no plausible explanation for why he didn't. Turkel: By now it will be easy to guess that the constraints of selection would have a major impact on what appears in a Gospel and would explain a great many of the differences across the Gospels. Till: No, these imaginary "constraints" explain absolutely nothing, because, as I have repeatedly shown above, the Bible clearly teaches that in the process of inspiration, "God" put into the mouths [quills] of his chosen writers, the words that he wanted them to write. If Turkel wants to deny this, he can keep in mind my challenge above. If he wants to defend his paper-shortage, note-taking, it-doesn't-matter, work-of-art view of inspiration, I will gladly oppose him in a debate on the subject, if he will agree to post on his website everything written on both sides and to leave them there UNEDITED for as long as he maintains the site. Needless to say, I will gladly agree to post them and maintain them on my site. Will Turkel agree to this? Will pigs fly someday? Turkel: In some cases selection will be subjective. Till: Was Jeremiah's selection subjective when he dictated "the words of Yahweh" to Baruch in the writing of his scroll? Was Isaiah's selection subjective in Isaiah 6:9-10 when the Holy Spirit spoke through Isaiah's "mouth" what was written there? Was David's selection subjective when the Holy Spirit spoke through David's mouth the words contained in Psalm 69:25 and Psalm 108:8? Does Turkel want to see more biblical evidence that New Testament writers thought that "God" or "the Holy Spirit" had spoken the words written in the Old Testament? To make sure, I'll just accommodate him anyway. Acts 3:20 And he [God] shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: 21 Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. By all of his holy prophets since the world began--that is pretty inclusive, isn't it? If "God" spoke "by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began," I wonder if he left the selection of what those prophets said to their individual subjectivity. I, of course, believe that this is all pure nonsense, but I am just showing readers that Turkel's view of "inspiration" is not taught in the Bible, which clearly teaches verbal inspiration. Turkel: Selection will also be ruled by available space. Till: Oh, yes, I forgot about that. Now how long was the scroll on which "John" wrote his gospel? How much space, if any, was left when he had finished? One inch? A half inch? If just a half inch, would that have been enough space for "John" to squeeze in the midday darkness, the earthquake, and the "many saints" who were resurrected? If not, could "John" have clipped off a piece of the scroll on which he had written his notes to make his main scroll just a little bit longer to accommodate the "signs" that had caused nonbelieving Romans to declare that Jesus was the son of God? Or did "John" even care whether anyone who read his gospel would believe that Jesus was "the Christ"? Well, apparently so, because he said that the "signs" that he had written about had been included so that "you may believe that Jesus is the Christ." And then he left out all references to the signs that had caused Roman soldiers to declare that Jesus was the son of God. Go figure! Turkel: Matters of judgment being subjective, this is why a Mark may prefer to offer two loaves and fishes routines, while Matthew may prefer to add more teaching instead. Till: Did the Holy Spirit speak through "Matthew" and Mark, or was this just something that he had reserved for Isaiah, David, and "all the holy prophets since the world began"? If the Holy Spirit was involved in the writing of "Matthew's" and "Mark's" gospels, what was the extent of it? Was it such that one could select a specific passage from "Matthew" and say that the Holy Spirit had spoken this "through the mouth of Matthew"? If not, then, in what sense is any given passage in either "Matthew" or Mark "the word of God"? Anyway, here is another opportunity to try to convince Turkel's choir members that he doesn't know nearly as much about the Bible as he would like for them to think. He said above that Mark "prefer[red] to offer two loaves and fishes routines," while Matthew may have wanted to add more teaching instead, and I see an indication here that Turkel thinks that Mark told two incidents when Jesus had fed multitudes (which probably numbered no more than 10), whereas Matthew didn't relate two of these incidents but only one so that he could include more teaching. Doesn't this phony "apologist" know that "Matthew" contains both the account of the feeding of the five thousand (Matt. 14:13-21) and the account of the feeding of the four thousand (Matt. 15:32-38)? Does he not know that "Matthew's" versions of these alleged incidents are slightly longer than Mark's? That can be easily demonstrated by juxtaposting them below. The Five Thousand: Matthew 14:13 Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15 When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves." 16 Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." 17 They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish." 18 And he said, "Bring them here to me." 19 Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children. Mark 6:34 As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. 35 When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; 36 send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat." 37 But he answered them, "You give them something to eat." They said to him, "Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?" 38 And he said to them, "How many loaves have you? Go and see." When they had found out, they said, "Five, and two fish." 39 Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. 41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. 42 And all ate and were filled; 43 and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 44 Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men. We can see here that Mark's version is slightly longer--240 words to "Matthew's" 211--but when both accounts are totaled, we see that Matthew, who Turkel said wanted to include more teaching--used slightly more space to relate these two tales than did Mark. The Four Thousand: Matthew 15:30 Great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the maimed, the blind, the mute, and many others. They put them at his feet, and he cured them, 31 so that the crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel. 32 Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, "I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way." 33 The disciples said to him, "Where are we to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd?" 34 Jesus asked them, "How many loaves have you?" They said, "Seven, and a few small fish." 35 Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground, 36 he took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 37 And all of them ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 38 Those who had eaten were four thousand men, besides women and children. Mark 8:1 In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he called his disciples and said to them, 2 "I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. 3 If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way--and some of them have come from a great distance." 4 His disciples replied, "How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?" 5 He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?" They said, "Seven." 6 Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. 7 They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. 8 They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 9 Now there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. I find it more than just a little ludicrous that both of these writers expected their readers to believe that the disciples of Jesus were so dense that they weren't able to remember that just a short time before this, Jesus had fed another "great multitude" [of probably no more then ten] with only a few scraps of food, so this is probably another cause of a "doublet"—variations of the same oral tradition—having been included in both of its forms, but that is another subject for another time. Here we want to notice that Mark's version of this second feeding of multitudes contained only 189 words, whereas "Matthew's" version had 222. Altogether, then, "Matthew" used 433 words in telling these tales, and Mark used 429. In other words, both writers used approximately the same amount of space to tell about the feeding of the multitudes, so just where did Turkel get the idea that Mark included both stories, but Matthew, by implication, told only one, because he wanted to "add more teaching" than Mark did? Well, he probably got it the same place where he gets most of the nonsense that he writes in his articles--he made it up, and he has a bad habit of peddling stuff that he makes up before he checks to see if it is true. Discerning readers, then, will be careful about uncritically taking what Turkel says, because the guy does at times show an almost incredible ignorance of what is in the Bible. Turkel: On this matter as well, we have further input from Byrskog's Story as History concerning the selectivity of ancient historians in their reports [256f]. Till: This is typical of Robert "Cite-a-Scholar" Turkel. He seems to think that simply saying that we get "further imput" from Byrskog's Story as History is sufficient to make readers say, "Oh, gee, if Bryskog gives us further input, that settles everything, doesn't it?" But what specifically did Byrskog say by way of "further input"? Turkel didn't say. He just said it, undoubtedly knowing that his choir members would swallow it hook, line, and sinker, and not ask any questions. That is exactly why they believe the absurdities in the Bible. They don't have the critical curiosity to ask questions about beliefs in which they were indoctrinated in their childhood. It is precisely because of this kind of blind trust that Catholics believe in papal infallibility, Pentecostals believe in faith healing, Mormons believe in Joseph Smith's latter-day revelations, Muslims believe in the revelations of the prophet Muhammad, and so on ad infinitum. They don't bother to question and investigate. When Turkel referred to "Bryskog," did he mean Samuel Byrskog, a professor of New Testament and Hermeneutics at Göteborg University in Sweden? If so, his take on Byrskog's views on oral tradition are somewhat different from the interpretation of T. M. Derico, of Trinity College at Oxford, which he presented in the article just linked to. According to Derico, Bryskog said in the very same source [pp.166-167] cited by Turkel that historians always interpret the testimony of witnesses, because they recognize that witnesses could be biased. Turkel, of course, doesn't think that biblical "witnesses" could have been biased. If "John" or "Matthew" said it, Turkel believes it, and that settles it. Turkel would have everyone believe that there is almost scholarly unanimity on the subject of the place that oral tradition had in the shaping of the gospels, but Derico presented an entirely different view. After noting that practically all biblical scholars agree that oral tradition had great influences on the forming of the New Testament documents and especially the synoptic gospels, Derico went on to say that this is about the extent of scholarly agreement on oral tradition. Regrettably, these rather elementary points almost entirely exhaust scholarly unanimity on the subject. Respecting the form of the oral Jesus tradition, the means by which it was propagated, and the nature of its role in the churches there is very little agreement indeed. Concerning the extent to which it has influenced the composition of the Gospels or the other New Testament literature, and whether, or to what degree, any such influence can actually be detected in these texts, there is virtually no agreement at all. This article contains much information that contrasts sharply with Turkel's views of oral tradition, and I recommend it to those who think that Turkel is anywhere near the expert in ancient Near Eastern traditions, customs, and oral traditions that he tries to make his readers believe he is. Before I leave this point, I will say again that I didn't quote Derico's article in order to present him as a definitive authority in the matter of oral tradition. I just want readers to see how meaningless Turkel's cite-or-quote-sources method of apologetics is. No matter what the position of his "sources" may be, one can always match them with citations of sources that have dissenting positions. I have to wonder if Turkel is ever going to understand this or if he intends to spend the rest of his life writing, "DeMar thinks," or, "Stuart believes," or, "Keener says," etc., etc., etc. Turkel: The rhetoriticians [sic] as writers "knew that certain matters had better not be included. One should avoid an excess of unnecessary facts and words, Cicero says. Other rhetoriticians [sic] said very much the same." Till: Isn't this just like Turkel? He presumes to tell us what rhetoricians think, and he doesn't even know how to spell rhetorician. That aside, what is so brilliant about what Cicero said? This is a fundamental principle that is still taught in writing classes, but the issue is not the inclusion of "unnecessary facts and words" but rather the exclusion of necessary facts and words. In this case, the issue is whether "John's" telling his readers, whom he wanted to believe that Jesus was "the Christ," about a midday darkness and a resurrection of "many saints" would have been "unnecessary facts and words" if his purpose in writing the gospel was to tell about "signs" that would make them so believe. In other words, a writer deserves no praise for brevity if that brevity resulted in the omission of necessary facts and words, so I have another question for Turkel: If "John" had included the midday darkness, the earthquake, and the resurrection of the many saints in his gospel, would these have been "unnecessary words and facts"? If so, why? At any rate, the writer of "John" was certainly not a model of brevity, and I doubt that Turkel has ever even noticed or even has the linguistic know-how to see the unnecessary repetition in "John's" gospel. It is present from the very beginning of this gospel. Notice the repetitions that I underline in the opening verses of "John." John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. If "John" said in his opening sentence that the "Word," which was God, was in the beginning with God, why did he unnecessarily repeat in verse 2 that "(t)he same was in the beginning with God"? Didn't any of Cicero's students bother to pass along to "John" that unnecessary repetition of "facts and words" should be avoided? At the beginning of verse 3, "John" said of the "Word" that all things were made by him, so why did he turn around after this and unnecessarily say, "(A)nd without him was not anything made that was made," because if all things had been made by this "Word," it would necessarily follow that anything that had been made would not have been made without him. Goodness, where was Cicero when he was needed? The unnecessary repetition continued. In verse 7, "John" said of this man, "whose name was John," that he came "for a witness, to bear witness of the light." Well, if this John had come as a witness, why didn't the writer "John" simplify all this excess verbiage and say, "A man named John was sent to bear witness of the Light so that all might believe through him"? He could have also left out the word men, because if "John," the writer, had just said that the other John had come to bear witness of the light so that all might believe through him, readers would know that "all men" was meant here, because ducks, rabbits, deer, rocks, trees, and such like would not have been likely to believe John's witnessing. Then verse 8 could have been eliminated entirely, because if this man John had come to bear witness of the light, then obviously he himself was not the light, so why say unnecessarily, "He was not the light but was sent to bear witness of that light." If all unnecessary "facts and words" were eliminated from the passage I quoted above, we would be left with this stripped-down, but completely intelligible, text. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. A man named John was sent from God to bear witness of the true Light, which lights every many who comes into the world, so that all might believe through him. This light was in the world, and the world knew him not. In the final sentence above, I also eliminated "and the world was made by him," because "John" had already said at the beginning of this paragraph that "(a)ll things were made by him." Since the world would be a "thing," readers would understand that this "Word" had made the world. My stripped-down version has only 90 words as opposed to the 191 in "John's" version. My goodness, if "John" had followed Cicero's advice and cut out all "unnecessary words and facts," he would have had enough space to squeeze the following into his gospel. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those with him, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were terrified and said, "Truly this man was God's Son!" There are only 68 words in this account (copied from "Matthew"), which "John" could have easily squeezed into his gospel by just leaving out unnecessary facts and words in the first ten verses of his gospel. So much for Turkel's "paper-shortage" quibble! But let's go on and see what else Turkel's "rhetoriticians" [sic] had to say. Turkel: Further: "As a matter of course, a selection always took place on different levels of research and writing, Till: But apparently not much "selection" took place on "John's" part, because he fell down on the job in his note-taking, filled his gospel with unnecessary "facts and words," and then left out facts and words that would have made a direct contribution to the achievement of his purpose of wanting those who read his gospel to believe that Jesus was "the Christ." By the way, who said this statement that I am now dissecting? The quotation marks indicate that Turkel was quoting what someone said, but he didn't tell us who it was. I guess he was turning his hackwork crank too fast to notice this oversight. Turkel: such as when the historian chose what particular subject to investigate or when circumstances forced him to leave out matters concerning which he could not receive sufficient information." Till: I won't reinvent the wheel here, because I have already said enough above about the doctrine of verbal inspiration that the Bible obviously claims. Therefore, if "John" or "Matthew" were writing by the inspiration of an omniscient, omnipotent entity, the choice of what to say would have been made by that entity, which the Bible claims was the "Holy [snicker, snicker] Spirit." Just why would such an entity as this have had to "investigate" or "leave out matters concerning which he could not receive sufficient information"? Omniscience and omnipotence in "John's" time must not have been what they once were. I will remind Turkel of my challenge stated several times above. If he wishes to deny that the Bible teaches a doctrine of verbal inspiration, I will gladly oppose him in a debate on it if he will agree to post on his website everything that both of us write on the issue and leave it there UNEDITED. Of course, he isn't going to do this. Turkel: Matthew alone may have had access to needed information in his time and place when he composed his gospel; so likewise Luke or even John. Till: I wholeheartedly agree to this. It is undoubtedly the very reason why one gospel writer included information that others omitted, but if these writers were inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity, they would have known every bit of information that was necessary to include in their gospels. Turkel: Each writer had also to consider their [sic] audience and decide what was "worth mentioning" Till: Gee, doesn't this expert in biblical languages understand the basic principle of pronoun-antecedent agreement in his own native language? As Turkel wrote the sentence above, "each writer" is the antecedent of the pronoun their, so if the antecedent is singular, the pronoun should also be singular. I keep pointing out Turkel's deficiencies in English grammar so that some of his sycophants might begin to wonder if it is possible for someone who doesn't know basic grammar and subtleties of his own language to be as informed in biblical languages as Turkel sometimes pretends. Turkel: -- we even see writers occassionally [sic] apologizing for including what they think may be perceived as unworthy information -- Till: And sometimes we even see that "apologists" who think that they are experts in biblical languages can't even spell rather common words in English like occasionally. Turkel: and needless to say, we, not being the intended audience, are in no position to make such a decision. A good secular example should shut up critics who claim that some event was "too important" to leave out [258]: Till: I am going to look at Turkel's secular example, of course, but first I want to note that he is again resorting to the fallacy of false analogy. He simply cannot compare secular writing to biblical writing that was presumably inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity, who, as I have shown in several biblical quotations and citations above, allegedly wrote words that the "Holy Spirit" was speaking through them. Does Turkel think that Xenophon was inspired by such an entity? If not, he has no case, because Xenophon was a fallible human, who was writing on his own, but Isaiah, Jeremiah, "Daniel," Amos, Hosea, "Matthew," Mark, Luke, "John," Paul, etc. were presumably writing through the guidance of the "Holy Spirit," who was speaking through them. Now if Turkel wants to admit that the biblical writers were no more inspired than was Xenophon, I will gladly accept his concession. At that point, all debate between us would then stop, because there is no sense debating about truth or error in writings that were produced in the same way that Xenophon produced his. Oh, by the way, I will ask readers to note below that Turkel doesn't even know how to spell Oxyrhynchia but nevertheless cites it as a source. Turkel: As we see perhaps most evidently in the case of Xenophon, the essential criterion of this kind of selectivity remained quite subjective....the Hellenica Oxyrhychia [sic] according to the London papyrus P. Oxy. 842 III 11-43, gives great prominence to the naval war of 396 BCE, while Xenophon mentions only the stir caused at Sparta in the winter of 397-396, ignoring entirely the war itself. An event that was extremely important for the Oxyrhynchus historian was not at all important for Xenophon. One can easily imagine critics arguing that the naval battle must not have happened if Xenophon said nothing about it! A key issue Byrskog notes is that the historian was supposed to interpret and report history so as to make it a bridge between the past and the present [262]. Till: Xenophon wrote several books: Anabasis Kyrou (The Persian Expedition), Memorabilia [of Socrates], Cyropedia, a historical novel about Cyrus of Persia, and Hellenica, among others. The latter was a continuation of Thucydides' history of the Greeks that ended in 411 BC. Xenophon continued the history from there to 362 BC. Turkel didn't say what work of Xenophon he was referring to, but I suspect that he meant to say that Xenophon mentioned in the Hellenica "only the stir caused at Sparta in the winter of 397-396." If so, Turkel was referring to a part of the Hellenica in which Xenophon was relating the outcome of Spartan preemptive miltary strikes in Asia, under the leadership of their new King Agesilaus, to thwart a reported intention of the Persians to destroy the Spartan fleet in order to gain control of the seas (see Plutarch's "Agesilaus: The Lame King of Sparta"). In this part of the Hellenica, Xenophon was reporting the results of this foray into Asia, so, of course, he wasn't concerned at this point with the naval battles. A World War II Historian, for example, writing about the war in Europe would probably not mention the A-bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but that certainly doesn't mean that he wouldn't have mentioned them if he had been writing about the Pacific theater rather than the European. In the same way, Xenophon's involvement in the Spartan military invasions in Asia does not mean that he would have ignored naval battles if he had been, at the particular point referenced by Turkel's source, writing about the naval engagements. Indeed, earlier parts of the Hellenica show that he did not ignore naval battles that had occurred between the time when death had ended Thucydides' history and the time when Xenophon participated in the Asian land wars. In sections 2.2.1 to 4.43 of Xenophon's Hellenica one can find several references to the Peloponnesian War, which was fought between the Athenian Empire and the Peloponnesian League (Sparta and Corinth) from 431-404 BC. Xenophon, who was born in 444 BC, grew up during this war, so he would have been about 40 when it ended. Here are some quotations from the Hellenica, which show that Xenophon did devote space to discussing the naval aspects of this war that went well beyond the cursory interest that Turkel claimed above. The first quotation is from Book 1, a paragraph showing that Xenophon had much more interest in naval battles than Turkel's source claimed. Lysander, now that the organisation of his navy was arranged to his satisfaction, beached his squadron of ninety vessels at Ephesus, and sat with hands folded, whilst the vessels dried and underwent repairs. Alcibiades, being informed that Thrasybulus had come south of the Hellespont and was fortifying Phocaea, sailed across to join him, leaving his own pilot Antiochus in command of the fleet, with orders not to attack Lysander's fleet. Antiochus, however, was tempted to leave Notium and sail into the harbour of Ephesus with a couple of ships, his own and another, past the prows of Lysander's squadron. The Spartan at first contented himself with launching a few of his ships, and started in pursuit of the intruder; but when the Athenians came out with other vessels to assist Antiochus, he formed his whole squadron into line of battle, and bore down upon them, whereupon the Athenians followed suit, and getting their remaining triremes under weigh at Notium, stood out to sea as fast as each vessel could clear the point. Thus it befell in the engagement which ensued, that while the enemy was in due order, the Athenians came up in scattered detachments and without concert, and in the end were put to flight with the loss of fifteen ships of war. Of the crews, indeed, the majority escaped, though a certain number fell into the hands of the enemy. Then Lysander collected his vessels, and having erected a trophy on Cape Notium, sailed across to Ephesus, whilst the Athenians retired to Samos. The quotations below are from section 2.2, linked to above. They too show that Xenophon had more than just a passing interest in naval battles. [2.2.3] It was at night that the Paralus arrived at Athens with tidings of the disaster, and a sound of wailing ran from Piraeus through the long walls to the city, one man passing on the news to another; and during that night no one slept, all mourning, not for the lost alone, but far more for their own selves, thinking that they would suffer such treatment as they had visited upon the Melians, colonists of the Lacedaemonians, after reducing them by siege, and upon the Histiaeans and Scionaeans and Toronaeans and Aeginetans and many other Greek peoples. [2.2.4] On the following day they convened an Assembly, at which it was resolved to block up all the harbours except one, to repair the walls, to station guards, and in all other respects to get the city ready for a siege. They busied themselves, accordingly, with these matters. [2.2.5] Meanwhile Lysander, sailing out of the Hellespont with two hundred ships, arrived at Lesbos and arranged the affairs of Mytilene and the other cities of the island; and he sent Eteonicus with ten triremes to the places on the Thracian coast, and Eteonicus brought over everything in that region to the side of the Lacedaemonians. [2.2.6] Indeed, the rest of the Greek world also had fallen away from the Athenians immediately after the battle, with the exception of Samos; there the people slaughtered the aristocrats and held possession of their city. The narration of events continues on and on and on, and anyone who reads it will see that much of what Xenophon wrote was concerned with the war and its effects on the populations involved, so can anyone doubt that if Xenophon had been with the naval forces instead of the Spartan land forces in Asia in the section of the Hellenica that Turkel referred to, he would have related the results of some of those battles. I don't know where Turkel's source got the idea that Xenophon "ignor[ed] entirely the war itself," because that just is not so. Regardless of what Turkel may have been referring to, how Xenophon may have written his historical accounts is irrelevant to the issue being debated here, because no one believes that Xenophon was inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent "Holy Spirit." Hence, when Turkel reaches conclusions about how "Matthew" or "John" or whatever biblical author may have written by referring to secular writers, he is comparing apples to oranges. There can be no parallel between an uninspired Xenophon and a biblical writer presumably inspired by the omniscient, omnipotent "Holy Spirit." Of course, if Turkel wishes to concede that "Matthew" and "John" were not inspired by the Holy Spirit but were only inspired in the same sense that a "work of art" was inspired, I will welcome the concession. Then we can call all debates about the Bible over, because Turkel will have conceded what I have argued from the day I first crossed verbal swords with a biblical inerrantist: The Bible is in no sense the inspired "word of God." Turkel: Material was selected for relevance to the readership, not "because it was so exciting and amazing," and the resurrected saints were certainly of little relevance to anyone outside of Matthew's region. Till: Why would the resurrected saints have had relevance to those within "Matthew's region" but not to those within, say, Luke's region? Turkel never bothers to explain his assertions, does he? Anyway, as I have shown umpteen times above, the writer of "John" said that he had written about certain "signs" concerning Jesus so that his readers might believe that Jesus is "the Christ." Now if this was "John's" writing goal, why would he have omitted three amazing "signs" that had had the effect of causing Roman soldiers to declare that Jesus was surely the son of God? Watch Turkel ignore this point or else camouflage it under a barrage of insults and sarcasm. Turkel: And then, what of later writers? A Luke or a John, knowing of or seeing an earlier Gospel, is also working with the same constraints you are in terms of expense and materials. Till: I am glad to see that Turkel recognizes that Luke and John were "later writers," but at this point, I have to wonder what the hell Turkel is trying to prove beyond laying down a smokescreen to try to hide his inability to explain plausibly why three amazing miracles that happened, allegedly, on crucifixion day would not have been mentioned by "John" and why two of them would not have been mentioned by Luke. For the zillionth time, if "John's" purpose in writing his gospel was to record "signs" that might make readers believe that Jesus was "the Christ," why would he have omitted all references to three signs that had had the effect of producing exactly what "John" supposedly wanted, i. e., a declaration that Jesus was the son of God? I have been over this so many times that if Turkel evades it now, even some of his choir members may begin to notice his evasions. As for Turkel's "constraints" concerning "expense or materials," I will just ask Turkel the same questions again. What was the length of the scroll on which "John" wrote the fourth gospel? How much did this scroll cost "John"? Did "John" use every inch of this scroll? Did he have any space at all left over when he wrote the final verse of this gospel? If he did have space left at the end, how long was that space? Two inches? One inch? A half inch? How much? If "John" had, say, a half inch left at the end, would that have been enough space for him to squeeze in, "When Jesus died, a great earthquake shook open the tombs of many saints, who went into the city, after his resurrection, and appeared to many, and the centurion seeing the earthquake and what took place said, 'Surely, this was the son of God'"? If "John's" scroll didn't even have an extra half inch to squeeze this information in, how much extra would it have cost him to have bought a scroll a half inch longer or to buy a half inch of scroll material to tack onto the end? Watch Bobby hop. Watch Bobby skip. Watch Bobby jump. Watch Bobby hop, skip, and jump right over this. Turkel Now with that the case, why waste space reporting mostly the same things? Till: I don't often agree with Turkel, but I have to admit that this is a good question. As I have noted earlier and in other articles, I can see no reason why an omniscient, omnipotent deity would not have inspired just one perfectly written gospel account of his immolated son and been done with it. Why write four different accounts, which at times at least appear so inconsistent that an entire apologetic industry had to arise so that the experts like Turkel could tell all of the simpletons in the world what each one meant and why each was written in the way that it was? I am sure that Turkel has an explanation for this. If, however, Turkel wants to talk about "reporting mostly the same things," let him explain why over half of the content of Mark is repeated in the gospel of Luke and over 90% of it in the gospel of Matthew. Only about 7% of the material in Mark is peculiar to it; the rest is repeated, often times in near-verbatim form, in Matthew and Luke. So I will dump Turkel's question back into his lap. Why did "Matthew" and Mark waste so much space reporting the same things that Mark had already reported? Turkel, of course, will reject the Marcan priority of Matthew and Luke, but whether Matthew was written before Mark or vice versa is irrelevant to the question that Turkel asked above. If Matthew was written first, then Mark wasted a lot of space reporting the same things that "Matthew" had, and if Mark was written first, "Matthew" wasted space reporting the same things that Mark had. Why? Let Turkel answer his own question. Then let him explain why that of all the things that the gospel writers wasted space repeating, Mark, Luke, and "John" wouldn't have wasted just a little more space to report all of the miraculous events that had stunned the Roman soldiers into declaring that Jesus was surely the son of God? This question is particularly relevant to "John's" gospel, since his avowed purpose was to record the "signs" that would make his readers believe that Jesus was "the Christ," but despite having written with that goal, "John" omitted three remarkable "signs" that had caused some nonbelievers to declare that Jesus was surely the son of God. Turkel: Aside from the expected "defining moments" of the crucifixion and resurrection week, Till: The midday darkness, the earthquake that shook open the tombs of "many saints," and the subsequent resurrection of the "many saints" weren't "defining moments" of the crucifixion and resurrection week? Why weren't they? Turkel: we would expect a later writer to try to select as many different events, not found in other Gospels, as possible. Till: Why would "we" expect this? To the contrary, I would expect a writer who had reported some 58% of what was shared in the other gospels to report all of the phenomenal events that had caused the Roman soldiers to declare that Jesus was surely the son of God, but Mark and Luke didn't do that. They reported only two of them, and "John" reported none of them. Why? Surely, Turkel who has the answers to everything else can answer that question. If, for example, Mark chose to report that John the Baptist was clothed with a camel-hair garment and wore a leather girdle around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey (Mark 1:6), which Matthew also recorded (Matt. 3:4), why couldn't he have also reported the earthquake that shook open the tombs and the resurrection of the many saints that followed these events? Is Turkel actually going to quibble that it was far more important to Mark's objective to tell his readers what John the Baptist wore and ate than it was to tell about two remarkable signs that happened on crucifixion day to vindicate the divinity of Jesus? Likewise, if Luke could tell about the disciples of Jesus plucking grain on the sabbath day (Luke 6:1-5), which both Matthew (Matt. 12:1-8) and Mark (Mark 2:23-28) also recorded, why couldn't Luke have reported the resurrection of the "many saints" too? Is Turkel going to claim that it was more important for Luke to report a dispute over plucking grain, which two other writers had already reported, than it was to tell about a sensational event that had caused nonbelieving Roman soldiers to declare that Jesus was surely the son of God? Well, let's pursue this point into "John's" gospel. If "John" could tell about Jesus's chasing the money exchangers from the temple (John 2:13-22) as "Matthew" (Matt. 21:12-16), Mark (Mark 11:15-17), and Luke (Luke 19:45-46), all three synoptic writers, had reported, why couldn't "John" have clipped this tale out of his crowded-for-space scroll so that he could have had room to report the three miracles on crucifixion day that caused the nonbelieving Romans to declare that Jesus was surely the son of God? That was the result that "John" wanted, wasn't it? Why, then, did "John" think it more likely that his readers would see the expulsion of the money exchangers and say, "By golly, this guy Jesus must have been the son of God"? Turkel: And of course this is why John is so much different than [sic] the rest, generally speaking, Till: Hmmm, Turkel doesn't seem to know that "different than" rather than "different from" is a substandard, colloquial usage, but he knows all about Greek and Hebrew "nuances," doesn't he? Isn't it amazing how Turkel knows what was in the mind of someone who was writing 1900 years ago? "John's" gospel was so different from the rest because it was written after the others. I wonder why Luke wasn't even more different from Matthew and Mark than it is. I wonder too if Turkel has ever even considered the possibility that "John" differs so much from the synoptics because the writer of this gospel was in a region that had an entirely different set of oral traditions about Jesus from Mark's when he wrote his gospel in Rome [probably]. Since it became the source for the other two synoptics, that would easily account for their similarity, but if "John" didn't have access to it or thought that the local traditions in his region were more accurate than the ones relied on by the synoptic writers, that too could explain why "John" was so different from the others. Turkel will pooh-pooh all of this, of course, but anyone who has a lick of common sense will see how likely it is that the lateness of the gospel of "John" probably means that with the passage of time, traditions about Jesus had undergone substantial changes. None of this really matters, however, because if "John's" goal in writing his gospel was to report "signs" that would cause his readers to believe that Jesus was "the Christ," then he surely would have reported the miraculous events on crucifixion day that had caused nonbelievers to declare that Jesus was surely the son of God. If I keep driving this point home, Turkel may be embarrassed just to wave it aside or skip it entirely if he writes a selectively quoted reply to me. Turkel: and why he does not mention such things as the crucifixion darkness. He has another story to tell. Till: Right, and the story that he had to tell was intended to persuade readers that Jesus was "the Christ," so if that was his purpose, why.... Well, readers can fill in the rest. By now, they should know it by heart. Turkel: In fact, he assumes you already know Mark (see here). Till: The link here is to an article simply entitled "John," which is the same article in which Turkel has the section subtitled "Jonn's [sic] Chronology vs. Synoptic Chronology," which, like many other articles on Turkel's site, was posted at 11:53 AM on Sunday, February 20, 2005, when he apparently stayed home from church to revise his website. At any rate, the typographical error has been there for almost seven months now, and he seems unaware of it. The link above is to a section of this article subtitled "John as a Complement to Mark." Well, actually the entire subtitle was "Excursus: John as a Complement to Mark." Turkel introduced all of his subtitles in this article with excursus, so I think that he had learned a new word that he wanted to show off that day. Well, let me reword that. He apparently didn't learn a new word, because the primary meaning of excursus is "a digression," and I doubt that he wanted to say that all of his subsections were digressions. The secondary meaning of the word is "dissertation," but a dissertation is "a written essay, treatise, or disquisition," and none of his subsections in this article are detailed enough to qualify for any of these terms. In fact, Turkel even used the term "brief excursus" to introduce some of these subsections, but I find it hard to understand how an excursus could be brief. This is just a "nuance" in English that I thought I would pass along to Turkel, who is already an expert in Hebrew nuances. In the subsection linked to above, Turkel stretches imagination like a rubber band to try to find references in John that he could link to the book of Mark. At one point, he mentioned a strained parallel to Mark and then went on to say that "(t)here are parallels in Matthew as well," but he didn't elaborate on them, I suppose because this didn't fit into his "purpose" or "theme," but I couldn't help wondering why the same parallels in Matthew would not mean that "John" was also written as a "complement" to Matthew. At any rate, the whole content of this subsection seems based on the opinions of Richard Bauckham, which he discussed in an essay entitled "John for Readers of Mark." I have provided the link so that those who want to read the article can, and I think that those who do read it will find Bauckham's "parallels" strained. I personally found Dennis R. MacDonald's examples of Marcan parallels to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey in The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, although admittedly strained at times, to be less forced and much more convincing than Bauckham's parallels, but, of course, I don't expect Turkel to think for one moment that a New Testament gospel writer may have [gasp!] borrowed some of his plot material from ancient Greek classics. In fact, Turkel wrote "Homer on the Ranger" in "reply" to MacDonald's book in which he pooh-poohed to high heaven the mere suggestion that Mark had borrowed from Homer. Those who read Turkel's reply to MacDonald after reading his rehashing of Bauckham's attempt to find references in "John" to Mark should have no trouble seeing that Turkel's discussion of coincidental similarities between such historical events as the assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy would render everything that Bauckham said just as questionable as MacDonald's examples of mimesis, i. e., imitation, in Mark. I leave it to the readers to decide if they want to read the articles linked to above, because I want to save some of my limited "internet scroll" space to call attention to another example of inconsistency that I found in Turkel's article entitled "John." First, let's notice again what he said above. Aside from the expected "defining moments" of the crucifixion and resurrection week, we would expect a later writer to try to select as many different events, not found in other Gospels, as possible. And of course this is why John is so much different than [sic] the rest, generally speaking.... Did you get that? Turkel said here that "a later writer" would select "different events, not found in other gospels," and this is why John is so much different [from] the rest," but now look at what he said in his "John" article that he has linked to twice above. It is not considered objectionable to date John as late as 90-100 even in conservative circles [CarMoo.Int, 166]. But let us consider some of the arguments for a late date anyway: The theology of John is very developed, and therefore late. As we have noted elsewhere, such presuppositions are entirely arbitrary. Although favoring a 90-95 date for the Gospel, Streeter [Stree.4G, 456] recognized that: "The logos doctrine is consistent with almost any date for the Gospel." In support of this, he recognizes similar concepts in the work of Philo, and recognizes the author of John's Gospel as a man of genius. Further, a pre-existence [sic] Christology like John's is found in the letters of Philippians and Colossians, both of which may be put in the 50s, and has roots in the earlier Jewish Wisdom tradition. Beyond this, however, a consensus is now forming - in light of the "Qumran connection" - that John is actually the most primitive of the Gospels! [Robin.PJ, 6n] This spells trouble for late dates for John - not to mention a whole host of other suppositions! In light of this (and the fact that the destruction of Jerusalem is not mentioned), Robinson has suggested a date of 50-55 for John, with a second edition (including epilogue and prologue) at around 65. [ibid., 67n] Here is another example of Turkel's playing both sides of the street. On one day, "John" is a late gospel, and that accounts for why it is so different from the others, but on another day, "John" is the "most primitive" of the gospels. As I have said before, the position that Turkel takes on an issue will depend on what direction the winds of controversy are blowing. About the only consistency in his articles is his inconsistency, and it is almost amazing that anyone would have even a speck of confidence in anything he says. I have to keep in mind, however, that those who apparently aren't bothered by his inconsistencies are the same kind of people who aren't bothered by the inconsistencies in the Bible. Turkel: And so what of that particular example of the missing earthquake and saints? Even if we assume that Mark, Luke and John knew of these things, if they had other stories to tell, it is enough to point out that practically speaking, they had no room to tell every detail. Till: For the zillionth and one time, I will remind readers that "John" plainly said that he had written his gospel so that its readers might believe that Jesus was "the Christ"--and I can't imagine why the goals of "Matthew," Mark, and Luke would have been substantially different--so why would "John" have omitted all references to three "signs" that had had the effect of causing nonbelievers to declare that Jesus was the son of God? At any rate, I have already discussed above some of the ordinary, unmiraculous events that all of the gospel writers included, so there is no need for me to rehash them here. What we need instead is a sensible explanation from Turkel or Miller or whoever may buy their nonsense for why eyewitnesses to remarkable events that indicated divine intervention into the events of crucifixion day would not have mentioned them, but I don't expect ever to receive it. One cannot give that which cannot be given. Turkel: Luke offers instead some stories of resurrection appearances, and from his rushed ending apparently barely squeezed those in. Till: Why was Luke's ending any more rushed than, say, Mark's or "Matthew's"? I suppose that Turkel is here alluding to the clear impression left by Luke that Jesus ascended on the night of the day that he was resurrected, so probably Turkel will quibble that this misimpression resulted from Luke's having to deal with a troublesome paper shortage. I guess it is time, then, to have Turkel answer some questions about the scroll on which Luke was written. What was the length of the scroll on which Luke wrote his gospel? How much did this scroll cost Luke? Did Luke use every inch of this scroll? Did he have any space at all left over when he wrote the final verse of this gospel? If he did have space left at the end, how long was that space? Two inches? One inch? a half inch? How much? If Luke had, say, a half inch left at the end, would that have been enough space for him to squeeze in, "When Jesus died, a great earthquake shook open the tombs of many saints, who went into the city, after his resurrection, and appeared to many, and the centurion seeing the earthquake and what took place said, 'Surely, this was the son of God'"? If Luke's scroll didn't even have an extra half inch to squeeze this information in, how much extra would it have cost him to have bought a scroll a half inch longer or to buy a half inch of scroll material to tack onto the end? Since Luke already had the centurion saying, "Certainly this was a righteous man," he could easily have adapted this to what "Matthew" claimed the centurion had said, so all Luke would have needed to include all of the "signs" of that day would have been just two more lines. At any rate, the ending of Luke, which Turkel thinks was rushed for lack of space, could have been nothing more than a tradition of the time that Jesus had ascended on the same day he was resurrected, but when Luke (if he was the author) wrote Acts, another tradition had developed that had Jesus remaining on earth for 40 days (Acts 1:3), so Luke just wrote what was the tradition at that time. After all, it doesn't matter, does it? Isn't that Turkel's view of biblical "inerrancy"? Hasn't he argued that people back then weren't interested in strict consistency but only the central message of what the writer was saying? Isn't that the thrust of his ma besay-il quibble? Turkel: Now which is more important? A story of the Risen Jesus, or a story of an earthquake (probably felt by few people, and definitely not felt by Luke's Gentile readers living outside Palestine) Till: We can see how desperately Turkel is quibbling here, because the end result of this kind of reasoning would have justified leaving everything out of Luke's gospel, except for the midday darkness, which, if it happened as claimed, would have been noticed throughout the hemisphere, but which of the following would have been "felt" or noticed by Luke's Gentile readers living outside Palestine? The angel Gabriel's visit to Zacharias to announce the coming birth of John the Baptist (1:8-22). Gabriel's visit to announce to Mary the birth of Jesus (1:26-37). Mary's visit to Elisabeth in the hill country of Judah (1:39-56). The birth and naming of John the Baptist (1:57-66). The prophesying of Zacharias after his tongue was "loosed" (1: