One of his "explanations" was an attempt to show that Perez, a direct ancestor of both David and the sons of Aaron, was the offspring of a lawful levirate marriage, and so he was not a bastard. In support of his case, Fox argued that "the union of Judah and Tamar was parallel to the union of Boaz and Ruth," and so "the union of Judah and Tamar was also a levirate marriage."I have already devoted enough space to demolishing Mr. Fox's quibbles, so I will not quote in their entirety the passages in Ruth that give the details of Ruth's levirate marriage to Boaz. However, I urge the readers to review chapters 3 and 4 in the book of Ruth to get those details. Ruth, a widow with no children, made herself sexually available to Boaz and urged him to "spread his skirt over her" (a euphemism whose meaning should be obvious) on the grounds that he was "a near kinsman" (3:9 ). Boaz refused the offer because there was another man whose kinship to Ruth's dead husband was closer than his, and not until Boaz had discussed the situation with that other kinsman and received a waiver of this man's right to Ruth did Boaz consummate the levirate marriage.
Now Mr. Fox apparently expects us to believe that this case was "parallel" to Judah's and Tamar's escapade. Under levirate law, Tamar was entitled to be impregnated by Judah's third son Shelah, but Judah had withheld him from Tamar. Before he had sexual relations with Tamar, Judah did not consult his son Shelah for a waiver of levirate rights. He didn't even know who Tamar was, because she had disguised herself as a prostitute in order to trick Judah into the sexual relationship. Judah left a "signet, cords, and staff" with Tamar as a pledge that he would later send her a kid from the goats of his flock as payment for her services, so he obviously thought that he was striking a deal with a prostitute. Tamar left before Judah sent the kid back to redeem his pledge, so she was able to use the signet, cords, and staff later to prove that he was the man who had impregnated her.
So Mr. Fox has a strange concept of what constitutes parallelism. Boaz went to great lengths to make his relationship with Ruth legal in terms of the laws of the society they lived in. Judah was simply interested in a quick roll in the hay. Fox said that "Tamar had the right to have a child by the next of kin, and if she had this right the child was not a bastard," but that is precisely the point. She didn't have her twins by her dead husband's next of kin. That next of kin was Shelah, her husband's brother, not Judah, her husband's father. Jewish law, in fact, prohibited sexual relations between a man and his daughter-in-law (Lev. 20:12). So just what is there in the story of Judah and Tamar that makes it so parallel to Boaz and Ruth?
Perhaps Mr. Fox is reading too much into a statement attributed to the people who had witnessed the transaction between Boaz and the "nearer kinsman" who waived his right to Ruth: "And all the people who were at the gate, and the elders, said, "We are witnesses. Yahweh make the woman who is coming to your house like Rachel and Leah, the two who built the house of Israel; and may you prosper in Ephrathah and be famous in Bethlehem. May your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring which Yahweh will give you from this young woman" (Ruth 4:11-12)."
Mr. Fox apparently wants to twist this passage to mean that God considered the levirate marriage of Boaz and Ruth to be parallel to Judah's and Tamar's relationship. Let's notice, however, that the passage doesn't claim that God made this statement; it was merely something that the witnesses to the transaction allegedly said. So if Mr. Fox is going to claim that the statement was inspired truth, then he puts himself in the position of having to say that whenever the Bible reported what people said, those statements were always true, and I doubt if he wants to do that.
For the sake of argument, let's just assume that the statement was "inspired truth." That wouldn't prove anything, because the witnesses who made the statement said nothing to suggest their approval of Tamar's and Judah's liaison; they merely expressed hope that Boaz's "house" (descendants) would become like the "house of Perez," which had been the branch of the tribe of Judah that produced David and other Judean kings. This book was obviously written after the time of David, because the genealogy in 4:18-22 listed him. So if Mr. Fox wants to play a how-it-could-have-been game, we can meet him on his own turf. It very well could have been that the witnesses to Boaz's transaction (if it ever even happened) never said anything like what the writer of Ruth attributed to them. He could have just put into the mouths of the witnesses words that would pay homage to the famous king who had descended from Perez. Be that as it may, if the witnesses to Boaz's transaction with the "nearer kinsman" did actually make a statement like this, it can be seen as nothing more than an expression of hope that Boaz's marriage to Ruth would be a fruitful one. Mr. Fox is really grasping for straws when he uses the passage to try to prove that the offspring of Judah's and Tamar's liaison was just as "legitimate" as the son produced by the levirate marriage of Boaz and Ruth.
Mr. Fox tried to argue that "Tamar was righteous to ave the child" and cited Genesis 38:26 in support of the claim. In this verse, there is nothing but a statement allegedly made by Judah when Tamar surprised him with the signet, cords, and staff that he had left with her as a pledge to send her a kid later. When Judah saw the tokens he had pledged, he acknowledged them and said, "She has been more righteous than I, because I did not give her to Shelah my son." Let's notice, then, that Judah did not say that Tamar was righteous. He said that she had been more righteous than he, because he had withheld his son Shelah from her. In other words, Judah was saying that his violation of the levirate law in withholding his son from Tamar was worse than what she had done. How does Fox get from this that Tamar's disguising herself as a prostitute and tricking her father-in-law into impregnating her was an act of "righteousness"?
Let's just assume, however, that Judah did mean to say that what Tamar had done was righteous. That would prove no more than that Judah *said* that Tamar was righteous, so we are right back where we were a moment ago. Is Mr. Fox going to take the position that everything said by biblical characters was true? He needs to reexamine an important hermeneutic principle accepted by almost all Bible inerrantists. This principle says that when the Bible reports what characters said, it is inerrant in stating what was said but what was said wasn't necessarily inerrant. An example often cited to illustrate this principle is found in Genesis 3:4, where the serpent said to Eve, "Ye shall not surely die." Fundamentalists would say that the Bible is inerrant in reporting that the serpent *said* this, but what the serpent said was not inerrant, because eating the forbidden fruit did bring death into the world. So with this heremeutic principle in mind, maybe Mr. Fox would like to explain why what Judah may have thought about the righteousness of Tamar's actions would prove anything.
The extent of Fox's desperation is shown in his attempt to prove that the expression "knew her" meant that Judah's and Tamar's sexual relations constituted marriage. "This expression is commonly used to refer to sexual relations in marriage ( Gen. 4:1)," he said. I suppose, then, that he will argue that when the men of Sodom surrounded Lot's house and told him to bring out the men (angels) visiting him "that we may *know* them" (Gen. 19:5), they were actually making a marriage proposal. The same would apply to the men of Gibeah in Judges 19:22, who called for the Levite to be brought out so "that we may *know* him." *Know* was used in the Bible in reference to conjugal sex, but it was also used to refer to sex outside of marriage. Genesis 38:26 said, "And he [Judah] *knew* her [Tamar] again no more," so the word wasn't used to describe sexual relations within marriage but sexual relations that never occurred again after Judah's "business transaction" with Tamar. Mr. Fox is desperate, and I think he knows it. On this point, he isn't just leaning over backwards for God; he has bent over double in search of a quibble-- just any quibble--to shore up a conspiculously weak spot in the inerrancy doctrine.
Mr. Fox's third "explanation" concerned *ex post facto* or retroactive law, and he was so vague about it that I'm really not sure I even understand what he meant. He said that my "interpretation of this passage [Dt. 23:2?]... requires that it be an *ex post facto* law." What is the antecedent of *it*? I'm not sure. Does he mean that the ban on bastards was given after the sons of Aaron were appointed priests, and so this law cannot be applied *ex post facto* to them? If so, then perhaps he should reconsider his argument. As he noted, the levirate marriage law was given in Deuteronomy 25:5-10, yet he tried to apply that law retroactively to Judah and Tamar to prove that their sexual relations were legal. Isn't he just a little bit inconsistent?
He even formulated another syllogism to prove that I was begging the question. The "First Premise" in his syllogism said, "All those who make *ex post facto* laws are those who are unrighteous." He then said that this premise is "axiomatic," so if I can show that Yahweh has enacted *ex post facto* laws, I assume that Mr. Fox will agree that Yahweh is "unrighteous."
Numbers 15:32-36 tells us that Yahweh once commanded an *ex post facto* punishment. A man who was found gathering sticks on the sabbath day was taken to Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation, and they "put him in ward, *because it had not been declared what should be done to him*" (v:34). Yahweh then said to Moses, "The man shall surely be put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp" (v:35). The next verse states that the sentence was carried out. So here is the case of a man on whom Yahweh pronounced an *ex post facto* punishment of death. By Mr. Fox's own admission, then, Yahweh is axiomatically unrighteous, so why are we debating?
Mr. Fox's fourth "explanation" can be handled very quickly. He seems to think I have been arguing that the expression "enter into the assembly of Yahweh" meant to serve as a leader, but I have never even implied that. "Entering into the assembly" meant to participate in religious ceremonies, and the entire context of Deuteronomy 23 quoted in my first response makes that rather clear. Banning Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, and Egyptians from the assembly didn't mean that they couldn't become leaders (although the bigotry expressed in this law would undoubtedly have prevented it); it meant that they couldn't enter into the assembly where religious ceremonies took place. Likewise, banning bastards and those with mutilated genitals meant that they could not participate in these ceremonies. So it wasn't a matter of whether David and the sons of Aaron could become "leaders." This law should have prohibited them from "entering the assembly," but it didn't. Mr. Fox has yet to give us a satisfactory reason why they were exempted from the ban.
In offering his fifth "explanation," Mr. Fox understated my position. I have never said that only Phinehas should "have come under the ban"; I have said that Phinehas's father, Eleazar, as well as Aaron's three other sons, Nadab, Abihu, and Ithamar, should have been banned as well. Their mother, Elisheba, was a great-grandaughter of Perez, so all of her sons would have been fifth-generation descendants of a bastard, and Phinehas, Elisheba's grandson, would have been a six-generation descendent. Nevertheless, Yahweh appointed all of them to be priests of Israel (Num. 3:1-3, 10; 18:7), and he was so pleased with Phinehas for running a spear through a couple caught in the act of adultery that he bestowed an "everlasting priesthood" on Phinehas and "his seed after him" (Num. 25:7-13). Now why did Yahweh bestow honors that required these men to perform specific duties in the assembly (Num. 4) if descendants of bastards were to be banned from the assembly of Yahweh "even to the tenth generation"?
Well, of course, Mr. Fox, as any self-respecting inerrantist will always do, has come up with a possible solution to this problem. Aaron's wife Elisheba was described as "the daughter of Amminadab" and "the sister of Nahshon" ( Ex. 6:23), so Mr. Fox has declared that I "must know, not just think" but know, that the Amminadab and Nahshon in E xodus 6:23 were the same Amminadab and Nahshon who were listed as descendants of Perez in the genealogy of David. Fox further declared that at least three men in the Bible were named Amminadab (1 Chron. 2:10; 6:22; 15:10). "Is it possible," he asks, "that the Amminadab of E xodus 6:23 is a fourth Amminadab?" He even suggested that the Amminadab of Exodus 6:23 could have been "the same Amminadab of 1 Chronicles 6:22."
I do wish that inerrantists would occasionally show a little originality. Whenever they encounter difficulties involving conflicting details that the Bible attributes to a particular person, they invariably trot out the same-name-but-different-persons dodge that Mr. Fox has resorted to in offering us his fifth "explanation." Exodus 12:40 states that the Israelites sojourned in Egypt 430 years, a time period that is hard to reconcile with a genealogy in Exodus 6: 18-20 that indicates Moses and Aaron were grandsons of Kohath, a son of Levi who was born before the Israelites went into Egypt (Gen. 46:11). In the very first issue of *TSR* ("The Inerrancy Doctrine Is Found To Be Impregnable," Winter 1990, p. 8), Jerry Moffitt offered an unlikely two-Amrams theory in an attempt to show that the Amram who was the father of Moses and Aaron ( Ex. 6:20) was not the same Amram who was Kohath's son ( Ex. 6:18). Moffitt's theory didn't float, and we will see that Fox's won't either.
Although I haven't directly asked him, I am sure Mr. Fox, as a loyal inerrantist, believes that the Pentateuch was written by Moses. The best biblical scholarship in the world will disagree with this fundamentalist belief, but for the moment we are going to assume that Moses did indeed write the Pentateuch. If he was the author of these five books, then basic hermeneutics should require us to interpret them according to perspectives we would expect someone on the scene at the time of the exodus would have had in recording events he was personally involved in.
With that in mind, let's notice that "Moses" described Aaron's wife Elisheba as "the daughter of Amminadab" and "the sister of Nahshon" ( Ex. 6:23). This description was given in a matter of fact way as if "Moses" thought that his readers would understand exactly who Amminadab and Nahshon were. The Exodus writer (Moses?) didn't always write so matter-of-factly. Even in the same context where Elisheba was identified as "the daughter of Amminadab" and "the sister of Nahshon," the writer went to great lengths to explain exactly who Moses and Aaron were: "These are the same Aaron and Moses to whom Yahweh said, 'Bring out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt according to their armies.' These are the ones who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring out the children of Israel from Egypt. These are the same Moses and Aaron" (vv:26-27). We could hardly expect a writer as specific as this to have used the names Amminadab and Nahshon just three verses earlier without clarifying their identities if he had thought that his readers might not understand exactly whom he was referring to.
For some reason, the Exodus writer thought it was important to identify Elisheba as the daughter of Amminadab and the sister of Nahshon, so the sensible conclusion to reach is that he thought that these names needed no explanation. Mr. Fox quibbled about the three different Amminadabs who are mentioned in the Bible. Of these three, the one in 1 Chronicles 15:10 was a contemporary of David, so he could hardly have been the Amminadab who was the father of Aaron's wife. Of the other two, only one was ever identified as the father of a son named Nahshon, and he figured so prominently in the affairs of the exodus (which happened under the leadership of Moses and Aaron) that common sense should be sufficient to convince any objective person that this was the Nahshon who was Aaron's brother-in-law (the brother of Elisheba).
In Numbers 1:1-4, Yahweh told Moses to take a census of the tribes of Israel and to appoint a "man of every tribe" to assist him in the census. For the tribe of Judah, Moses selected Nahshon, the son of Amminadab ( v:7). In Num bers 2, Moses designated the camping locations of the different tribes with reference to the tabernacle. The tribe of Judah was to camp on the east side, and Nahshon the son of Amminadab was chosen to be "the prince of the children of Judah" ( v:3). When the princes of the tribes offered their first oblations at the dedication of the altar in the tabernacle, Nahshon the son of Amminadab made the offering for the tribe of Judah (Num. 7:12,17). Nahshon the son of Amminadab also led the tribe of Judah when "the children of Israel set forward according to their journeys out of the Wilderness of Sinai" (Num. 10:12-14). In summarizing this information, I have emphasized that the Nahshon involved in all of these matters was a leader in the tribe of Judah. This is important to remember, because several genealogies in the Bible claim that Nahshon of Judah had descended from Judah through the bastard Perez. Furthermore, this Nahshon is the only Nahshon mentioned anywhere in the Bible, *unless the Nahshon who was Elisheba's brother was indeed a different Nahshon*.
To exclude this as a reasonable possibility, let's consider the extremes that Mr. Fox would have to resort to if he should try to defend this premise. (1) He would have to argue that "Moses" took the time to identify his sister-in-law Elisheba as the daughter and brother of men who are mentioned nowhere else in the Bible. (2) He would have to argue that the Nahshon who was Elisheba's brother by sheer coincidence was the son of a man who had the same name as the father of the Nahshon who figured so prominently in the tribal affairs of Judah at the time of the exodus. (3) He would have to argue that the verbally inspired "Moses" didn't receive enough guidance from the omniscient, omnipotent Holy Spirit to avoid a writing gaffe that would leave his readers throughly confused. One doesn't even have to be inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity to realize that just mentioning the names Amminadab and Nahson in passing, with nothing more said to explain who they were, would be confusing to readers if this Amminadab and this Nahson were not the same Amminadab and Nahshon who would later be mentioned often in recording affairs of the tribe of Judah during the wilderness wanderings.
The mere suggestion that the Amminadab and Nahshon who were the father and brother of Elisheba were not the same Amminadab and Nahshon of the tribe of Judah runs contrary to the best biblical scholarship. I have consulted several Bible dictionaries, and they all describe Amminadab as the father of Nahshon and Elisheba. Likewise, they describe Nahshon as the brother of Elisheba and a leader of the tribe of Judah. The following quotations from *Eerdmans Bible Dictionary* are typical of what Bible dictionaries say about these two:
Only one other point needs to be made about Mr. Fox's five "solutions" to the problem posed by Deuteronomy 23:2. He has quibbled that the Amminadab who was the father of Elisheba ( Ex. 6:23) could have been the Amminadab referred to in 1 Chronicles 6:22. In this verse, Amminadab was identified as a son of Kohath. We have already noted that Kohath was the grandfather of Moses and Aaron (Ex. 6:18-20), so what Mr. Fox has done is suggest that Aaron may have married his uncle's daughter. An analysis of 1 Chronicles 6:22 in context will show that this is a quibble that only desperation could have driven Mr. Fox to: " The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. The sons of Merari were Mahli and Mushi. Now these are the families of the Levites according to their fathers: of Gershon were Libni his son, Jahath his son, Zimah his son, Joah his son, Iddo his son, Zerah his son, Jahath his son, Zimmah his son, and Jeatherai his son. The sons of Kohath were Amminadab his son, Korah his son, Assir his son, etc. (1 Chron. 6:18-22)."
I realize how tedious--and even outright boring--genealogical analysis can be, but if we look carefully at this entire passage and compare the genealogical listings to the Exod us 6 genealogy, we can only conclude that the Chronicle writer miscued in saying that Kohath had a son named Amminadab. Either that or some scribe copying the book made a "copyist error."
Let's notice that the first sentence of the passage stated that Kohath (the grandfather of Moses and Aaron) had four sons: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. This agrees perfectly with E xodus 6:18, which listed Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel as the sons of Kohath. Nevertheless, the Chronicle writer just four verses later said that Kohath had a son named Amminadab. Why?
To answer that question, I'm going to ask the readers to imagine that Deuteronmy 23:2, which banned bastards from the assembly of Yahweh, was not in the Bible. In that case, we would not be discussing the issue now under consideration. If that were the case and I should try to argue that the genealogies in Exod us 6 and 1 Chronicles 6 are contradictory, because the latter listed an "Amminadab" as the son of Kohath, yet Exodus 6 did not refer to any Amminadab in listing Kohath's sons, what do you suppose Mr. Fox would say about this? Undoubtedly, he would say the same thing that I am going to say to answer his quibble. The "Amminadab" listed as Kohath's son in 1 Chronicles 6:22 was the same person as the Izhar listed as his son in E xodus 6:18.
Let's notice that the "Amminadab" of 1 Chronicles 6:22 had a son named Korah, but Kohath's son Izhar also had a son named Korah: "The sons of Izhar were Korah, Nepheg, and Zichri" ( Ex. 6:21). In Numbers 16:1, Korah was called "the son of Izhar." Everywhere the sons of Kohath were named in genealogies, with the one exception of 1 Chronicles 6:22, they were always listed as Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel (E x. 6:18; Num. 3:19; 1 Chron. 6:18, 38; 23:12). When the family names of the Kohathites were listed, they were always listed as the Amramites, the Izharites, the Hebronites, and the Uzzielites ( Num. 3:27; 1 Chron. 26:23). Reference was never made to a family of Amminadabites, and that is because the correct name for the "Amminadab" of 1 Chronicles 6:22 was Izhar.
Further proof of that can be found in the same context where Izhar was called Amminadab (probably inadvertently). The generations in the genealogy of this Amminadab were listed as Korah, Ebiasap, Assir, and Tahath (1 Chron. 6:22, but just a few verses later, the Bible in its uniquely repetitious style listed the generations in reverse: Tahath, Assir, Ebiasap, Korah, and Izhar (vv:37-38).
Can anyone in the face of such evidence deny that the "Amminadab" of 1 Chronicle 6:22 was the son of Kohath known everywhere else in the Bible as Izhar? A footnote affixed to 1 Chronicles 6:22 in my reference Bible says of this Amminadab, "In verse 2, 18, 38, *Izhar*."*Eerdmans Bible Dictionary* says of this Amminadab, "A Levite, the son of Kohath and father of Korah (1 Chron. 6:22); *called Izhar in parallel lists* (E x. 6:21; Num. 16:1; 1 Chron. 6:38)."
Mr. Fox may want to argue that even if the Amminadab of 1 Chronicles 6:22 was the same person called Izhar elsewhere in the Bible, he was called Amminadab at least once, so perhaps "Moses" also called him Amminadab in Exodus 6:23 where Elishiba was described as the daughter of Amminadab. To believe this, one must think that "Moses" referred to one of his uncles as Izhar in Exodus 6:18 but just five verses later, without informing his readers, switched and called this uncle Amminadab and then nowhere else in the entire Pentateuch used this name again in referring to this uncle. If Mr. Fox can believe this, he may be interested in buying the Brooklyn bridge from me. I'll let him have it cheap.
In my first article, I promised that I would comment on Mr. Fox's discussion of "common errors made by atheists and agnostics," so I will look briefly at some of his "syllogisms." He accused skeptics of committing the fallacy of denying the antecedent, but as Jim Lippard points out in his letter (p. 13, this issue), Mr. Fox has in some of his examples distorted inductive reasoning processes used by some skeptics into "deductive straw men." Mr. Lippard explains the error far better than I can, so his letter should be read in conjunction with this paragraph. I am, however, going to surprise Mr. Fox and at least admit that skeptics do sometimes induce too much from the silence of extrabiblical records (as was done in the case of the Hittite nation). I deplore this as much as anyone, but I am not responsible for what others do. I wish that he had been more specific and cited an example of when I have done this. I can't respond to a charge like this when no specific example of the mistake (in my articles) is cited.
I have been honest enough with him to admit that some skeptics do commit errors in reasoning, so now I wonder if he will reciprocate and admit that some of his cohorts do the same when they try to defend the inerrancy doctrine. Let's look at his first syllogism:
I get tired of pointing out to Bible fundamentalists that this
approach
to proving biblical inerrancy ultimately eliminates the entire
logical concept of
contradiction, because no matter how obviously the face-value meaning
of statements within a document may seem to contradict each other, one
can always dream up a "possible" explanation that would remove
the contradiction. To argue that such an approach to
resolving contradictions is valid is to say that absolute proof of
contradiction (in any document) is impossible. On the other hand, I
have
accomplished two things in this series of articles: (1) I have shown
that there is reasonable proof that Yahweh's ban on bastards conflicts
with other biblical statements, and (2) I have given reasonable proof
that Mr. Fox's "solutions" to the
problem are baseless quibbles. If he disagrees, I will give him space
to
reply.
