I appreciate the opportunity to reply to Dr. Price's claim of prophecy fulfillment that he believes he has found in the book of Jeremiah. Dr. Price and I were brought together in this discussion at the request of two subscribers to The Skeptical Review, who asked me to try to arrange a debate with Dr. Price on the subject of prophecy fulfillment. Upon receiving my proposal, Dr. Price informed me that he is not a public debater, but he indicated a willingness to debate in writing. The article above is Dr. Price's effort to prove the reality of biblical prophecy fulfillment. My reply is being published simultaneously, after which Dr. Price may respond if he wishes, and I will reply again if deemed necessary. The exchanges will continue until we both mutually agree that the subject has been exhausted.
To say that I was delighted when I received Dr. Price's article would be an understatement, because, with the possible exception of some prophecies in the book of Ezekiel that failed miserably, he could not have selected a worse example than the one he has chosen to defend. I suspect that Dr. Price is aware of the weaknesses in his defense, because throughout his article, he made references to points that I would probably "quibble over" and then said just before his conclusion, "Till will respond by quibbling over some minute details that are irrelevant to the main issue--the fulfillment of the central details of one specific prophecy."
He is absolutely right in assuming that I will raise questions about some of the details in Jeremiah's 70-year prophecy and his defense of it, but I will leave it to the readers to decide if these are just "quibbles." If Dr. Price is going to claim prophecy fulfillment, then he is obligated to defend all details of the alleged prophecy and not just those that he considers "central," for if Jeremiah was indeed inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity, we have every right to expect fulfillment in ALL details and not just those that Dr. Price considers "central." He has predicted that I will quibble in my response, but he himself has already resorted to a familiar inerrantist quibble, by implying that some biblical details are more important than others and that we need to be concerned only with the details that are "central." This is the approach that some apologists use in defending the maze of contradictions in the resurrection narratives. They argue that if there is disagreement in some details in the narratives there is nevertheless agreement in one central detail, which is that Jesus rose from the dead. On the basis of this quibble, many inerrantists claim that the resurrection narratives can be trusted when they say that Jesus rose from the dead, no matter how inconsistent they may be in other details.
I consistently find that inerrantists accuse skeptics of quibbling over minor details when they are confronted with problems in their inerrancy defenses for which they have no sensible explanations, but apparently can't see their own quibble, not to mention inconsistency, when they try to rank biblical discrepancies in terms of importance, for if the Bible is inerrant, then it can have no mistakes of ANY kind, no matter how trivial they may seem. In other words, there is no such thing as "central details" in an inerrancy debate. They are all central and must all be reconcilable, or else the Bible is not inerrant. Anyone who disputes this should check a dictionary for the definition of inerrancy.
At the beginning of this exchange, I want to assure Dr. Price that I will not sit idly by and tolerate this smorgasbord approach to apologetics in which the defender of the Bible chooses details that he considers "central" and disregards those that are damaging to his position. Inerrantists claim that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of an omniscient, omnipotent deity, and if that claim is true, there is no such thing as a trivial inconsistency. Inerrantists must defend EVERYTHING and not just the details that they consider "central."
With my position clarified, I will begin my rebuttal of Dr. Price's article by citing first the criteria of valid prophecy fulfillment that were first published in my response to Dr. Hugh Ross's article on biblical prophecy fulfillments ("Prophecy Fulfillment: An Unprovable Claim," TSR, January/February 1996, pp. 3-6). Here they are as originally published:
In order to prove--and I mean PROVE, not just surmise--prophecy fulfillment, one would have to establish four things: (1) the claimant of a prophecy fulfillment is properly interpreting whatever text he is basing his claim on, (2) the prophecy was made BEFORE and not after the event that allegedly fulfills the prophecy, (3) the prophecy was made not just BEFORE an event but far enough in advance of it to make educated guesswork impossible, and (4) he event that allegedly fulfilled the prophecy did in fact happen.
As was true in the case of Dr. Ross's prophecy fulfillment claims, we will see that Dr. Price's example also cannot past this test for valid prophecy fulfillment.
THE DATE OF THE "PROPHECY": The most serious problem for Dr. Price is the second of these criteria. He must prove that this "prophecy" was made BEFORE its "fulfillment" and was not just retrojection or editing by a scribe or redactor who, after Jeremiah had been long dead, altered the text of this book to make it appear that he had made an amazing prediction of future events. The mere suggestion that such could have happened to a book revered by millions of Christians is shocking heresy to Dr. Price, but the evidence for widespread textual editing in the Bible and especially the book of Jeremiah is so overwhelming that no intellectually honest person can deny it.
Before I present the evidence to support my claim that the biblical text has been repeatedly edited, let's look first at a very simple rebuttal of Dr. Price's claim of prophecy-fulfillment in Jeremiah 25. Most adherents of religions that have holy books cite prophecy fulfillments as proof of the divine origin of their particular books. Mormons, for example, claim that amazing prophecy fulfillments in the Book of Mormon are undeniable evidence that it is another testament of Jesus Christ, inspired of God just as the Bible was. Some examples of Mormon "prophecy fulfillment" can be found in the books of Nephi, who was allegedly the son of a man named Lehi, who during the reign of Zedekiah, the rebellious puppet king whom Nebuchadnezzar put on the throne of Judah, was warned to take his family and flee into the wilderness by the Red Sea, from where Lehi's descendants later migrated to a new "promised land" on a ship they built. Lehi's son Nephi saw visions of a "book" that would go out among the Gentiles (1 Nephi 13:19-20), and in 2 Nephi 27 he made a lengthy prophecy about the "discovery" of this book:
And it shall come to pass that the Lord God shall bring forth unto you the words of a book, and they shall be the words of them which have slumbered. And behold the book shall be sealed; and in the book shall be a revelation from God, from the beginning of the world to the ending thereof. Wherefore, because of the things which are sealed up, the things which are sealed shall not be delivered in the day of the wickedness and abominations of the people. Wherefore the book shall be kept from them. But the book shall be delivered unto A MAN, and he shall deliver the words of the book, which are the words of those who have slumbered in the dust, and he shall deliver these words unto another; but the words which are sealed he shall not deliver, neither shall he deliver the book. For the book shall be sealed by the power of God, and the revelation which was sealed shall be kept in the book until the own due time of the Lord, that they may come forth; for behold, they reveal all things from the foundation of the world unto the end thereof.
And the day cometh that the words of the book which were sealed shall be read upon the house tops; and they shall be read by the power of Christ; and all things shall be revealed unto the children of men which ever have been among the children of men, and which ever will be even unto the end of the earth. Wherefore, at that day when the book shall be delivered unto THE MAN of whom I have spoken, the book shall be hid from the eyes of the world, that the eyes of none shall behold it save it be that three witnesses shall behold it, by the power of God, besides him to whom the book shall be delivered; and they shall testify to the truth of the book and the things therein. And there is none other which shall view it, save it be a few according to the will of God, to bear testimony of his word unto the children of men; for the Lord God hath said that the words of the faithful should speak as if it were from the dead.
Wherefore, the Lord God will proceed to bring forth the words of the book; and in the mouth of as many witnesses as seemeth him good will he establish his word; and wo[e] be unto him that rejecteth the word of God! But behold, it shall come to pass the Lord God shall say unto him to whom he shall deliver the book: Take these words which are not sealed and deliver them to another, that he may show them unto the learned, saying: Read this, I pray thee. And the learned shall say: Bring hither the book, and I will read them.
And now, because of the glory of the world and to get gain will they say this, and not for the glory of God. And the man shall say: I cannot bring the book for it is sealed. Then shall the learned say: I cannot read it. Wherefore it shall come to pass that the Lord God will deliver again the book and the words therefore to him that is not learned; and the man that is not learned shall say: I am not learned. Then shall the Lord God say unto him: The learned shall not read them, for they have rejected them, and I am able to do mine own work; wherefore thou shalt read the words which I shall give unto thee. Touch not the things which are sealed, for I will bring them forth in mine own due time; for I will show unto the children of men that I am able to do mine own work.
Wherefore, when thou hast read the words which I have commanded thee, and obtained the witnesses which I have promised unto thee, then shalt thou seal up the book again, and hide it up unto me, that I may preserve the words which thou has not read, until I shall see fit in mine own wisdom to reveal all things unto the children of men (vs:6-22, emphasis added).
I apologize for this lengthy quotation, but it was necessary to present the full context in order to show obvious reasons why Mormons see this as a clear prophecy of the coming of their holy book. This "prophecy" speaks of a book that would be delivered to "a man" but hidden to the word except for "three witnesses," who would testify to the truth of the book, and no one else save it be a few according to the will of God, who would also "bear testimony of his word unto the children of men." Every Book of Mormon is prefaced with the testimony of the three witnesses, who swear that they saw with their own eyes a book of golden plates delivered to Joseph Smith, and the eight witnesses, who swear that they handled the plates with their own hands. So this prophecy is far more explicit than any biblical prophecy that Dr. Price can cite, but does he believe that this is in any sense a genuine prophecy fulfillment? I seriously doubt it, because he is intelligent enough to see through a prophecy claim as transparent as this one. Any rational person not blinded by Mormon indoctrination can see that it is far more likely that the author of the Book of Mormon purposely wrote this passage to give it an appearance of prophecy fulfillment than that a man who lived 2,500 years ago actually predicted the coming of the Book of Mormon. As I will show, this is the problem that faces Dr. Price. He must prove beyond reasonable doubt that Jeremiah's prophecy was written seventy years before its "fulfillment" and not altered after the fact to make it appear that Yahweh had enabled Jeremiah to see far into the future. I predict that he will not be able to do that.
That some Old Testament writers resorted to prophetic retrojection just as the author of the Book of Mormon did can be seen by just common-sense interpretation of the alleged prophecies. A prime example would be the prophecy of Josiah's religious reformation. In this fanciful little tale, a "man of God" came from Judah to confront Jeroboam at the dedication of his pagan altar at Bethel. As Jeroboam was standing at the altar to burn incense, the man of God cried out, "O altar, altar, thus says Yahweh, Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and upon you will he sacrifice the priests of the high places that burn incense on you, and men's bones will they burn on you" (v:2). This "prophecy" was allegedly spoken around 920 B. C. in the early years of Jeroboam, and, sure enough, a king from the house of David, who ruled Judah from about 640 to 609 B. C. did the very things that the "man of God" had predicted almost three centuries earlier. Josiah's "fulfillment" is recorded in 2 Kings 23:17-19.
Is anyone impressed? If so he/she must be very naive, because anyone with common sense should be able to see that the author(s) of the books of Kings or some scribe editing them could have very easily retrojected the "man of God's" prediction of Josiah's reforms into the text to make it appear that an amazing prophecy had been made and fulfilled, or it is entirely possible that a writer just made up the whole story (both the prophecy and the fulfillment). Either alternative is far more likely than the simplistic assumption of biblical inerrantists that Yahweh enabled this unnamed "man of God" to see three centuries into the future and predict exact details like these.
Another example much like this one can be found in Joshua 6:28, where Joshua pronounced a curse upon anyone who would rebuild Jericho: "Cursed be the man before Yahweh who rises up and builds this city Jericho. With the loss of his firstborn will he lay the foundation thereof, and with the loss of his youngest son will he set up the gates of it." Well, guess what? That's right. Centuries later, a man named Hiel the Bethelite rebuilt Jericho, and "laid the foundation with the loss of Abiram his firstborn, and set up the gates thereof with the loss of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of Yahweh, which he spoke by Joshua the son of Nun." It's in the book (1 Kings 16:34).
Impressive? Hardly, except to people who are gullible enough to believe about anything. With no extrabiblical records from contemporary times to corroborate tales like these, it is more likely that such stories as these were written to give the appearance of prophecy fulfillment than that the prophecies were spoken and fulfilled exactly as claimed. In my personal correspondence with Dr. Price, I learned that he doesn't like to confront this type of rebuttal argument, which he calls an "anti-supernatural bias," and even tried to establish a ground rule that would prohibit my using it. I rejected his demand, because I consider it a legitimate response to miracle claims that have nothing to support them but the biased testimony of biblical writers, who lived in superstitious times and were very deeply committed emotionally to belief in their miracle-working god. It is an argument that he cannot escape from in a discussion like this. Hence, Dr. Price must present sensible reasons why anyone should believe in biblical miracle claims any more than the miracle claims in holy books of other religions.
THE SEPTUAGINT PROBLEM: A major thorn in the flesh of biblical inerrantists is the many variations in the Septuagint and Masoretic texts of the Old Testament. The Septuagint, a Greek version of the Old Testament that was translated in the 3rd century B. C., has more than 6,000 variations from the Masoretic text, which most English versions were derived from. The oldest complete version of the Masoretic text dates from the late 9th century A. D., so there is a span of about 12 centuries between these two versions. This many variations is a rather clear indication that substantial altering of the Hebrew text occurred between the 3rd century B. C. and the 9th century A. D. Admittedly, many of these variations are minor, but some of them aren't so minor. This can best be illustrated by comparing the two versions of a specific passage. First Samuel 17 (1 Kings 17 in the Septuagint) records the quaint story of David's battle with the Philistine giant Goliath. Verses 12 through 31 in the Masoretic text and consequently most English versions, which give genealogical information about David and the circumstances that caused him to be present when Goliath was challenging the Israelites, are missing from the Septuagint, an indication that the Hebrew text did not contain them when the Septuagint was translated. Jeremiah 27:19-22; 33:14-26; 39:3-14, and 48:45-47 in the Masoretic text are missing completely from the Septuagint, and, as we will see, the Septuagint did not have some of the very statements in chapter 25 on which Dr. Price is basing his argument for biblical prophecy fulfillment. In the Septuagint, chapter 32 is chapter 25:15-18 of the Masoretic version, chapter 34 is 27:1-19 of the Masoretic, chapter 40 is 33:1-14 of the Masoretic, and so on through more than 30 other changes in organization. In the face of such variations and omissions as these, who can honestly deny that substantial tampering with the text of Jeremiah was done after the Septuagint was completed?
Biblical "apologists" often argue that scribes took meticulous care in copying biblical manuscripts. These apologists tell tales about scribes who counted letters in their copies to make sure that they had made no errors in transcribing the text, but the actual evidence disputes this popular tale that preachers tell to credulous pulpit audiences. In cave four at Qumran, famous for the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered there, excavators have found fragments of Jeremiah that match the Septuagint version of this book. Since scholars have dated these fragments at some time in the second century B. C., here is evidence that the book of Jeremiah at that time was substantially the same as what the Septuagint translators had used. Writing on this subject, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, professor emeritus of New Testament at the Catholic University of America said this about these discoveries at Qumran:
In some cases, especially 1-2 Samuel, Jeremiah, and Exodus, the fragments brought to light forms or recensions of biblical books that differed from the medieval Masoretic tradition. For instance, one text turned out to be a shorter form of Jeremiah, previously known only in its Greek version in the Septuagint. It now seems that the fuller form of Masoretic tradition represents a Palestinian rewording of the book ("The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible: After Forty Years," America, October 31, 1987, p. 302, emphasis added).
Information like this is not at all friendly to Dr. Price's claim that he has found an amazing case of prophecy fulfillment in the book of Jeremiah, because if this book has been revised, edited, and tampered with as much as the evidence indicates, no reasonable person can have confidence in the integrity of the book.
The best way to show the extent to which the Hebrew text of Jeremiah has been compromised would be to compare with the Septuagint version the Masoretic passage in which Dr. Price thinks he has found a prophecy that was made 70 years before its fulfillment. Here is the Septuagint version of Jeremiah 25:1-14 in the Masoretic version, where Dr. Price claims he has found an amazing prophecy. The citation has been taken from Brenton's translation of the Greek text:
The word that came to Jeremias concerning all the people of Juda in the fourth year of Joakin, son of Josias, king of Juda; which he spoke to all the people of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, In the thirteenth year of Josias, son of Amos, king of Juda, even until this day for three and twenty years, I have both spoken to you, rising early and speaking, and I sent to you my servants the prophets, sending them early; (but ye hearkened not, and listened not with your ears;) saying, Turn ye everyone from his evil way, and from your evil practices, and ye shall dwell in the land which I gave to you and your fathers, of old and for ever. Go ye not after strange gods, to serve them, and to worship them, that ye provoke me not by the works of your hands, to do you hurt. But ye hearkened not to me.
Therefore, thus saith the Lord; Since ye believed not my words, behold, I will send and take a family from the north, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants of it, and against all the nations round about it, and I will make them utterly waste, and make them a desolation, and a hissing, and an everlasting reproach. And I will destroy from among them the voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the scent of ointment, and the light of a candle. And all the land shall be a desolation; and they shall serve among the Gentiles seventy years.
And when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will take vengeance on that nation, and will make them a perpetual desolation. And I will bring upon that land all my words which I have spoken against it, even all things that are written in this book.
Actually, this is only the quotation of 25:1-13, because the Septuagint has no verse 14. It is just one of the many passages missing from the Septuagint that are in the Masoretic. For convenience in comparing the two version, I will quote in its entirety the Masoretic-dependent version that Dr. Price cited in his article. The sections enclosed in asterisks (*) are either different from or missing in the Septuagint.
The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakin the son of Josiah, king of Judah (*which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon*), which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying: "From the thirteenth year of Josiah even to this day, this is the twenty-third year in which the word of the Lord has come to me; and I have spoken to you, rising early and speaking, but you have not listened. And the Lord has sent to you all his servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear. They said, `Repent now everyone of his evil way and his evil doings, and dwell in the land that the Lord has given to you and your fathers forever and ever. Do not go after other gods to serve them and worship them, and do not provoke me to anger with the works of your hands; and I will not harm you.' Yet you have not listened to me," says the Lord, "that you might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt.
"Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: `Because you have not heard My words, behold, I will send and take *all the families* of the north,' says the LORD, `*and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant,* and will bring them against this land, against its inhabitants, and against these nations all around, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, a hissing, and perpetual desolations. Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve *the king of Babylon* seventy years. Then it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will punish *the king of Babylon and* that nation, *the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity,' says the LORD;* `and I will make it a perpetual desolation. So I will bring on that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book, *which Jeremiah has prophesied concerning all the nations. (For many nations and great kings shall be served by them also; and I will repay them according to their deeds and according to the works of their own hands.)*'"
One thing immediately obvious in comparing these two versions is that Nebuchadnezzar and the nation of Babylon were not even mentioned in the 3rd-century B. C. Septuagint version. Where the 9th-century Masoretic text has Jeremiah dating this prophecy in the fourth year of Jehoiakim and the "first year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon," the Septuagint made no mention of Nebuchadnezzar and put the date of the prophecy only at the "fourth year of Joakin [Jehoiakin]" (v:1), and in verse 8, where the Masoretic has Jeremiah predicting that Yahweh would send "all the families of the north" and "Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon" against Judah and its inhabitants and "utterly destroy them," the Septuagint said only that Yahweh would send "a family from the north" against Judah. The Masoretic has Jeremiah predicting that the people of Judah would "serve the king of Babylon seventy years," but the Septuagint said only that they would "serve among the Gentiles seventy years." These variations indicate that when the Septuagint was completed in the 3rd century B. C., the translators were working with a Hebrew text that didn't even mention Nebuchadnezzar in this prophecy. Between then and the 12 centuries that separate this version from the earliest Masoretic text, some editor(s) evidently altered this passage to make it appear that Jeremiah had made a specific prediction about Nebuchadnezzar's part in the conquest and captivity of Judah.
Nebuchadnezzar was mentioned by name in the Septuagint but not nearly as much as in the Masoretic. That some post-Jeremiah editor(s) had an intense interest in increasing Nebuchadnezzar in this book is evident when other Masoretic passages are compared to the Septuagint:
MASORETIC 21:7, "And afterward says Yahweh, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and the servants, and the people, even such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek their life: and HE shall smite them with the edge of the sword; HE shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have mercy."
SEPTUAGINT 21:7, "And after this, thus saith the Lord; I will give Sedekias king of Juda, and his servants, and the people that is left in this city from the pestilence, and from the famine, and from the sword, into the hands of their enemies, that seek their lives; and THEY shall cut them in pieces with the edge of the sword: I will not spare them, and I will not have compassion upon them."
Comparison of the places emphasized in italics and bold print shows where the text from which the Septuagint was translated was later altered in order to inject Nebuchadnezzar into Jeremiah's prophecy. In the 3rd century B. C., the Hebrew text said only that the Lord would give Sedekias {Zedekiah] and the people of Jerusalem into the hands of their enemies, but somewhere between then and the 9th century A. D., the text was altered to make Nebuchadnezzar the specific enemy into which Judah would be delivered. In the 3rd century B. C., this verse read that Yahweh, speaking in the first person, would not spare them or have compassion on them, but 12 centuries later the text had been changed to a third-person narrative that had Nebuchadnezzar specified as the one who would not spare them or have mercy on them.
There are many passages in the Septuagint version of this book where Jeremiah referred only to "the king of Babylon," but many of them in the 9th century A. D. Masoretic text had been altered to refer specifically to Nebuchadnezzar by name, so obviously some post-Jeremiah editor(s) rewrote this book to increase the role that the prophet gave to Nebuchadnezzar. With evidence like this staring Dr. Price in the face, it is inconceivable that he would argue that people today can be assured that Jeremiah 25:8-14 is a prophecy that was written before the fact and afterwards fulfilled exactly as Jeremiah had written it. The text of this book has been compromised far too much for rational people to buy this argument. Hence, there is no way that Dr. Price can show that this prophecy satisfies the second criterion of valid prophecy.
THE SEVENTY YEARS: The evidence does suggest that the 3rd century B. C. Hebrew text contained a seventy-year prophecy, because the Septuagint said that the people of Judah would "serve among the Gentiles seventy years," but it isn't chronologically possible to establish a seventy-year exile for the Judeans who were taken into captivity during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. Both the Bible and the Babylonian Chronicles recorded the captivity, and even with the most generous interpretation of these records, the captivity cannot be stretched beyond 67 years, and a maximum of 60 years is a more likely interpretation. The Babylonian Chronicles, written on cuniform tablets, are in the British Museum, and the Jewish account of Judah's defeat and subsequent captivity is, of course, recorded in the Bible (2 Kings 24-25; 2 Chron. 36). The chronological information in the biblical text is tedious to wade through, but the following quotation from Eerdmans Bible Dictionary ("Exile," 1987, pp. 361-362) presents an easy to follow summation of the biblical record:
DEPORTATION OF JUDAH: Far more significant [than the deportation of the Northern Kingdom] was the exile of Judah, the southern kingdom (the tribes of Judah and Benjamin). Because they had been able to preserve a margin of autonomy following Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem in 701 (2 Kings 18:13-19:37 par[allel] Isa. 36-37), the people of Judah believed that they could regain their freedom from the crumbling Assyrian Empire, in dissolution since the fall of Nineveh in 612. But Judah had to face another powerful foe, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, whose capable leader, Nebuchadnezzar II, quickly defeated Judah's ally and overlord, Egypt, at Carchemish in 605.
According to 2 Kings 24, Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem in 598 and, following capture of the city, exiled to Babylon King Jehoiachin, his family, the nobles, a large number of valiant soldiers (a smaller number is given at Jer. 52:28), and craftsmen. Nebuchadnezzar also seized the temple treasure as booty (2 Kgs. 24:11-16; 2 Chr. 36:6; Dan. 1:1-2). The Babylonian monarch made Zedekiah his vassal in Jerusalem, and when Zedekiah refused to pay tribute, Nebuchadnezzar returned to Judah in 587, besieged the city again, and finally leveled it. He took the remaining Jewish rebels, except for the very poorest, to his capital (2 Kgs. 24:20-25:17; 2 Chr. 36:15-21; Jer. 52:3-16). A third deportation took place ca. 581 following the murder of Gedaliah, whom Nebuchadnezzar had appointed governor over Judah (2 Kgs. 25:22-26; Jer. 41:2-3). (Meanwhile a sizable number of Hebrews had taken refuge in Egypt [Jer. 43:5-7].)
Unlike their northern counterparts, the people of the southern kingdom RETURNED IN 538 when Cyrus the Achaemenid, who had conquered Babylon the preceding year, issued an edict that anyone who wished to assist in building a sanctuary for Yahweh in Jerusalem could go there (2 Chr. 36:22-23).
Dr. Price tried his best to get 70 years by dating the captivity from 605 B.C. and the issuance of Cyrus's decree in 536 B.C., but even then he could get only 69 years, which he said I would probably quibble about (an indication that he was well aware of a problem in the way he had calculated the beginning of the captivity). As stated in Eerdmans summation above, Nebuchadnezzar first captured Jerusalem in 598 B.C., at which time he took King Jehoiachin, his family, and some nobles and soldiers back to Babylon, but it wasn't until his destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. that he took captive "the residue of the people" who had been left in the city and "the residue of the multitude" (2 Kings 25:10). So even if we accept Price's dating of Cyrus's decree at 536 B.C., this would leave only a maximum of 62 years of captivity (598 minus 536 = 62). Dr. Price tried to sneak 605 B.C. by us as the beginning of the captivity, but Jeremiah said only that the word of Yahweh, through which this "prophecy" had presumably been revealed, had come to him in the "first year of Nebuchadnezzar"; he did not say that the captivity would begin that same year. Nebuchadnezzar became king in 605, but it wasn't until 598, seven years later that he made Judah a vassal state and took some captives to Babylon, so this is when the exile actually began.
Dr. Price claims that the Babylonian Exile ended for the Jews in 563 B. C., but the Babylonian Chronicles date Cyrus's conquest of Babylon at what would have been October 16, 539 B. C. (New Bible Dictionary, Inter-Varsity Press, 1994, p. 258). Second Chronicles 36:22 states that Cyrus issued his decree in the first year of his reign, so if Dr. Price's inspired word of God is historically accurate, the Jewish exiles were given their freedom to return to Judah in 539 B. C. Eerdmans dates the return to Jerusalem of a "great number" of exiles at 538 B. C. ("Dispersion," p. 286), as it also did in the quotation above. If this date is accepted as the end of the exile, its maximum duration could have been only 60 years. This is hardly a minor discrepancy, and one would think that a prophet speaking by the inspiration of an omniscient, omnipotent deity could have been more exact.
Dr. Price, of course, knows the precarious position he is in on this matter, because after taking us through calculations beginning with the date the prophecy was allegedly written and ending with his 536 B. C. date (in order to get 69 years so that he could claim the prophecy "fulfill[ed] the requirement of around number"), he then went on to say that some "have regarded the seventy years to begin with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 586 B. C. and to conclude with the completion of the second temple in 516 B. C." In other words, Dr. Price seems to be arguing that if his first interpretation of the prophecy is unsatisfactory, maybe the second one will be more palatable so that "(i)n either case the interval of seventy years was fulfilled" (p. 3, this issue). So which was it? Did the captivity begin in 605 B. C., when Nebuchadnezzar came to power, and end in 536 B. C. for a length of 69 years that can be rounded off to 70, or did it begin in 586 B. C. and end in 516 B. C., even though waves of exiles had returned to Jerusalem more than 20 years before the second temple was completed? Dr. Price seems to regard Jeremiah 25:8-14 as an amazing example of prophecy fulfillment, but after taking us on a long and winding road to arrive at a strained interpretation of a 69-rounded-off-to-70-year captivity, he ends up telling us that this may not be the right interpretation of the prophecy after all. Maybe Jeremiah meant that the captivity would begin 19 years after Price's first date and end 20 years after the first exiles had actually returned from Babylon. As if this were not wishy-washy enough, after stating his alternative interpretation, Dr. Price went on to say, "The truth is that these ancient dates cannot be established with rigorous precision." Well, pardon me, but if the dates cannot be established with rigorous precision, how can Dr. Price claim that even the "central detail" of the prophecy (the 70 years) was fulfilled. What he seems to be saying is that he knows that Jeremiah's 70-year prophecy was fulfilled even though the dates of the fulfillment "cannot be established with rigorous precision." Needless to say, I'm not impressed, and I suspect that critical-thinking readers won't be either.
THE "FIGURATIVE ELABORATION OF GOD'S JUDGMENT: In the same context with Jeremiah's 70-year prophecy, there are some other predictions (vs:15-38) that by no stretch of the imagination anyone can claim were fulfilled. Jeremiah listed various nations that Yahweh would "send the sword" among so that they would "fall and rise no more" (v:17). Some of these nations have ceased to exist, but there is no historical evidence to justify believing that Yahweh's judgment had anything to do with their demise. Others in the list, Egypt and Arabia, still exist, and Gaza has recently "risen again." The prophecy said that Yahweh would "call for a sword upon ALL the inhabitants of the earth" (v:29). He said that "evil shall go forth from nation to nation" and "a great tempest will be raised up from the uttermost parts of the earth" and "the slain of Yahweh shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth." He further said that "they [the slain] shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried" but would be "dung upon the face of the ground" (vs:32-33). Dr. Price can find nothing in history that any remote stretch of imagination can claim as fulfillments of these ravings of the Hebrew mystic Jeremiah. Knowing full well that he couldn't produce evidence of fulfillment for this part of the prophecy, Dr. Price resorted to a preemptive strike and declared that the "rest of chapter 25 contains a figurative elaboration of God's judgment of Judah and the surrounding nations in poetic terms" but that "(s)uch figurative language is not to be interpreted beyond the reasonable way Jeremiah's ancient readers would have understood it" (p. 3). Of course, the "reasonable way" that Jeremiah's "ancient readers" would have understood it is the way that Dr. Price wants it to be understood in order to eliminate a serious problem from the text, but such smorgasbord tactics are unacceptable. If Dr. Price is going to buy the biblical inerrancy doctrine, he will have to buy the whole bill of goods that go with it. He just can't pick and choose the parts he wants and dismiss the troublesome parts as just unimportant, "figurative" trivia that are "irrelevant to the main issue[s]."
There is much more that could be said about Dr. Price's claim
of prophecy fulfillment, but the points I have made are sufficient to
establish that there are no good reasons to see Jeremiah
25 as an example of fulfillment. Dr. Price cannot show that
Jeremiah ever even made a prediction that the Judeans would be taken
into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, and he can point to nothing that
fulfills any of the details that he tried to dismiss as just irrelevant
"figurative" language. If he wishes to respond to my rebuttal, he may
do so in a later issue.
