By responding to my May/June article before the second part was published in the July/August issue, Dr. Price has created a problem that I will have to work around. Responses to most of what he said in the foregoing article have already been made in part two of my rebuttal, "Testing the Null Hypothesis" (July/August, pp. 2-6, 11), so rather than rehashing those points, I will be referring readers to that article throughout this one. Following my rebuttal points would be easier if you would have the July/August issue at hand as you are reading this.
Failure to prove the denial: Dr. Price began his latest article with the astonishing claim that "(t)he proof of a proposition is in the failure to prove the denial." I have to wonder just where--if anywhere--Dr. Price studied logic, because all logic textbooks that I have ever read recognize that the lack of negative evidence does not constitute positive evidence, just as the lack of positive evidence does not constitute negative evidence. In other words, if I cannot prove that an alien spacecraft did not crash near Roswell, NM, 50 years ago, my failure to prove that this did not happen in no way constitutes proof that it did. This is so elementary that I can't believe Dr. Price is not aware of the universal recognition of this logical axiom, but desperation has apparently driven him to claim that his proposition must be true because I have not proven that it is not true. Such an obvious resort to logical absurdity must result from Price's painful recognition that he has not proven his prophecy-fulfillment claim, and so his only recourse is to declare victory by default.
The negative's responsibility: Dr. Price said that "(i)f the defender of a proposition must produce objective evidence to prove it, then the opponent of the proposition must present objective evidence to disprove it," so it would appear that in addition to being uninformed in basic principles of logic, Dr. Price also knows very little about debating principles. The affirmant's role in a debate is to establish the truth of his proposition; the negative's role is to rebut the affirmant's arguments to show that they are insufficient to prove his proposition. In discharging his responsibility, the negative may well prove that his opponent's proposition is not true, but he doesn't have to. If he establishes sufficient reasons to doubt the truth of the affirmant's proposition, then he has accomplished what the negative side should do in a debate. Let's consider the Roswell controversy again. The person who affirms that an alien spacecraft crashed near Roswell 50 years ago would have the burden of proving that this incident is historical fact; the opposition wouldn't have to prove that the incident did not happen in order to demolish the affirmant's case. If the negative demonstrates that the evidence is insufficient to establish the extraordinary claim that the incident did happen, then the affirmative side has lost the debate. In the matter before us, I have clearly demonstrated that Dr. Price's evidence is conspicuously insufficient to establish his prophecy-fulfillment claim. Therefore, I have done what I am supposed to do in this debate.
Why should the burden of proof be one-sided? In debating an unextraordinary proposition, both sides should share the burden of proof. Would raising taxes cause an economic recession? Two politicians debating this question would both have a responsibility to defend their positions, but in the matter of extraordinary claims, the burden of proof rests entirely on the claimants by virtue of the nature of the claims. Such claims engender doubts and denials only because the claims have been made. If, for example, no one had ever claimed that a man named Jesus of Nazareth rose from the death, there would never have been anyone to deny the claim. If no one had ever claimed that Joseph Smith was visited by an angel who gave him golden plates on which a revelation from God had been inscribed, there would never have been anyone to deny the claim. If no one had ever claimed that the prophet Muhammed ascended into heaven, there would never have been anyone to deny the claim. It is the extraordinary claim itself that fosters doubt, so the ones who create the controversy have the duty to prove their extraordinary claims; those who reject them have no duty to prove that the claims are not true.
I have been over and over this, so rather than continually harping about my insistence that he prove his case, Dr. Price should accept the recognized burden-of-proof principle or else present an argument that will establish logical reasons why the one who questions an extraordinary claim should bear the responsibility of proving that the claim is not true. I really don't believe that Dr. Price is willing to allow others to impose on him the same duty that he is trying to push onto me. If this were done, he would have the responsibility of proving that various claims of Mormons, Muslims, Hindus, Zoroastrians, etc. are not true, and I certainly don't believe that he is willing to assume that responsibility. What all of this amounts to, then, is that Dr. Price realizes that he cannot prove his proposition, and so he seeks to draw attention away from his failure by demanding that I prove that his prophecy-fulfillment claim is not true. His tactic is not going to work, because the critical-thinking skills of most readers of this paper are too sharp to fall for that ploy. If Dr. Price wants to talk about "rabbit chases," he should take a long look at this one, which he has been trying to divert me to ever since this discussion began.
Do supernatural claims require supernatural proof? Dr. Price has evidently been reading my debate with Michael Horner, because he has taken a cue from Horner and argued that when I say that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, I am actually saying that "supernatural claims require supernatural proof." I'm going to surprise him and admit that in the cases of some extraordinary claims, this is exactly what I am saying. The claim that a dead man returned to life or that a man was born to a virgin mother are such that nothing short of supernatural evidence would be sufficient to establish them as historical facts. In the case of a virgin-birth claim, for example, there is the obvious fact that only the woman who allegedly had such an experience as this could possibly know that she was a virgin at the time. The probability that a woman would tell a lie like this in order to spare herself social embarrassment is far greater than the possibility that she could have actually conceived a child without having had sexual relations, so I can't imagine how a claim like this could ever be proven without supernatural evidence. Dr. Price intended his statement as a reproach, but I see nothing at all disgraceful about agreeing that some extraordinary claims are such that only supernatural evidence could establish them as facts. Price asked what kind of supernatural evidence I would accept, whether the witness of an angel or an affidavit from God himself. Well, why not at least one or the other or something comparable? Angels rather routinely visited biblical characters, and God himself even dropped by occasionally to chat with Abraham and Moses. If it happened then, why would it be unreasonable to expect the same type of confirmation today? Rather than ridiculing those of us who demand unequivocal evidence before we accept fabulous claims, Dr. Price should show why such a demand is unreasonable. He hasn't done that. He has ranted about "anti-supernatural bias," but he has yet to explain why it is in any way irrational to demand unimpeachable evidence before accepting fabulous claims like those that characterize the Bible.
What law of nature does prediction violate? Desperation has apparently driven Dr. Price to argue that "prediction" does not violate natural laws. In so doing, he has resorted to equivocation on the word prediction. He said that "(n)early every law of nature includes the capacity for predicting future events," but in equating a biblical prophecy like Jeremiah's to Newton's laws of motion, he has committed the fallacy of false analogy by comparing two entirely different kinds of prediction. Events that happen as a result of fixed laws of physics cannot be compared to events that are dependent on whimsical human decisions. A scientist who understands the laws of planetary motion can accurately predict the positions of moons and planets at given moments, even thousands of years into the future, but this is because they are objects that cannot make decisions and exercise options. They have no choice but to follow the orbital paths determined by fixed laws of motion. Events that result from the policy decisions of political rulers, however, are entirely different. For example, in the matter of the "prophecy" under consideration, there are no fixed laws of human behavior by which Jeremiah could have known what specific events would occur over an extended period and how Nebuchadnezzar and his successors would react to them, and so there are no "laws" that would have enabled Jeremiah to predict the end of the Babylonian captivity at a certain time. If such a prediction as this were actually made and fulfilled, as Price claims, it could have happened only by one of two ways: (1) it was supernaturally revealed to Jeremiah, or (2) it happened by sheer coincidence. The first alternative is what Dr. Price must prove, because if it happened by sheer coincidence, this would reduce biblical prophecy to nothing better than the tabloid prophecies, which "psychics" make by the hundreds, in vague, imprecise language, and then brag if one of them appears to happen. That Dr. Price would resort to such an obviously false analogy as this indicates that he knows just how weak his position is.
Radical Skepticism: Eight times in his latest article, Dr. Price used terms like "radical skeptics," "radical critics," and "radical dogmatism" to refer to those who reject biblical miracle claims, but he described his own position as "moderate and reasonable skepticism" (p. 3). This is a common tactic in debating known as "poisoning the well," which occurs when a debater attempts to discredit his opponent in a way that will make the opponent's position appear unattractive. What Dr. Price is doing, in effect, is saying to our readers that they can accept my position and become "radicals" or else they can accept his position and be "moderate and reasonable skeptics." Whether one's position on an issue is "radical" or "moderate," however, has nothing to do with whether the position is true or false, and so such rhetoric as this is out of place in a debate.
My own unverifiable fabulous claims: Dr. Price charged that my "own anti-supernatural presupposition is based on a sequence of unverifiable fabulous claims" (p. 2) and used the issue of God's existence to try to prove the charge. This, by the way, has come after his objections to a few references I have made to biblical inerrancy. He complained that inerrancy has nothing to do with the accuracy of a prophecy written only in a book that is allegedly inerrant, but he seems to think that the question of God's existence is relevant. I am going to be brief in my response to this point, because in the very first issue of TSR, I stated that biblical inerrancy would be the focal point of this paper and specifically mentioned the question of God's existence as an issue that would not be discussed. I personally find the subject fascinating, but if I should publish articles on the subject, they would divert attention from the purpose of the paper, which is to discuss the inerrancy doctrine.
If Dr. Price is interested in discussing the existence issue, I would be glad to participate on one of the many internet sites where this subject is debated, but here, in this paper, I am going to confine my remarks to a rebuttal of his claim that my position on this question entails acceptance of "a sequence of unverifiable fabulous claims." As many Christians and theists on internet sites can confirm, I have stated many times that my position on the existence of God is simply that there is insufficient evidence to warrant belief in a deity. I do not assert that a deity does not exist; I simply say that I do not believe in the existence of a deity. In the same way, I do not assert that alien beings are not visiting earth in spacecrafts known as UFOs; I merely say that I do not believe that this is happening. In both cases, my opinion is based on insufficient evidence to establish belief. Dr. Price may see this as a presupposition "based on a sequence of unverifiable fabulous claims," but I consider it sound common sense. It is a common sense that he himself uses to evaluate and reject fabulous nonbiblical claims.
As for his claim that the second law of thermodynamics requires a "beginning in the past" for the universe and an "end in the future," he may want to take this matter up with the many physicists who see nothing in the second law of thermodynamics to require the extrapolation of a deity to explain the origin of the universe. If the laws of thermodynamics so obviously require the existence of a deity to explain the universe, then why do so many physicists reject the God-did-it theory and continue to look for naturalistic explanations? If Dr. Price is interested in checking into the subject of naturalistic explanations of the universe, I suggest that he read "What Happened Before the Big Bang?" (Astronomy, May 1996, pp. 34-41) by Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York. He will see a reputable physicist proposing a "multiverse/superstring" theory, which in effect makes matter eternal and our universe only one bubble of many fluctuating from "an infinite ocean frothing with universes" (p. 37). The article names physicists, including Nobel laureates, who are giving this theory their serious consideration. Kaku said of this theory that the "sane proposals" for a theory of everything [which would unify both general relativity and the quantum theory] have all been proven "mathematically inconsistent," and so the only candidate left at the present time is the multiverse/ superstring theory (p. 40). This theory was the subject of "The Self-Reproducing Inflationary Universe," Scientific American, (November 1994), in which the author, Adrei Linde of Stanford University, said, "If my colleagues and I are right, we may soon be saying goodbye to the idea that our universe was a single fireball created in the big bang" (p. 48). After explaining over the space of seven pages the inflationary model of the universe envisioned by this theory, Linde said, "In this scenario the universe as a whole is immortal. Each particular part of the universe may stem from a singularity somewhere in the past, and it may end up in a singularity somewhere in the future. There is, however, no end for the evolution of the entire universe" (emphasis added, p. 54). Dr. Price may think that my rejection of his God-did-it explanation of the universe is "based on a sequence of unverifiable fabulous claims," but if it is, I find myself in some very good company.
What theologically motivated double standard? Because of my insistence on unimpeachable evidence to support his prophecy-fulfillment claim, Dr. Price has accused me of wanting "to evaluate historical evidence by a double standard, one that admits the possibility of natural events but denies the possibility of supernatural events" (p. 3). The "possibility" of natural events? Does anyone seriously question the possibility of natural events? Once again, Dr. Price is comparing apples to oranges by trying to equate that which is known and recognized by everyone with that which has never been and cannot now be verified as reality.
He complained that my insistence on extraordinary evidence for his extraordinary claim would require the debate to proceed "not on a level field" but with a "theologically motivated double standard." However, if there is any "theologically motivated standard" at work in this debate, it is entirely on his side. For one thing, I have no theology, because I have no belief in gods, and as I have repeatedly pointed out, he is the one demanding that we play on an unlevel field, which would allow him to argue from the assumption that biblical miracles, in every case without exception, happened exactly as recorded, whereas my insistence has been only that biblical miracles should and must be evaluated by the same standards that are applied to other literary works. Just where would that make the field unlevel? If I would not accept claim X if it were recorded in a book written by someone named Tacitus or Suetonius, there are no logical reasons why I should accept it just because it was recorded in a book that has Holy Bible embossed on the cover. This is the standard that I have insisted on, and Dr. Price has yet to show us why this is an unreasonable standard.
In the March/April issue, I published "The Nature of the Claim" (pp. 10-11) to explain why rational people do not accept supernatural claims. The reason is simple. We see the natural repeating itself daily, but we do not see the supernatural occurring at all. Therefore, it is irrational to believe that the supernatural happened with the routine regularity claimed in the Bible and other ancient books. The mere fact that we do not see supernatural events occurring in our enlightened, scientific age is a strong reason to assume that the many claims of miraculous events in ancient literature resulted from the ignorance and superstition of the times.
Dr. Price could easily end this point of controversy by just giving us unequivocal evidence that the supernatural does happen, but he refuses to discuss this beyond simply asserting that I have an "anti-supernatural bias" because I won't accept extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence. In "The Nature of the Claim," I listed several supernatural claims recorded in the works of Josephus, Suetonius, the Qur'an, and Mormon literature, and asked Dr. Price to address these and tell us why he does or does not accept them. In his latest article, Dr. Price just waved at this issue on his way by it. He said that he had discussed this issue with me "in previous e-mail exchanges" and that he had informed me that he advocates "healthy skepticism, a skepticism that evaluates the evidence and accepts what is verifiable, a skepticism that is willing to give a reputable witness the benefit of the doubt" (p. 3). So Dr. Price's standard seems to be that if one accepts biblical miracle claims, he has a "healthy skepticism" and is "willing to give a reputable witness the benefit of the doubt," but if he evaluates biblical miracle claims by the same methods used to evaluate nonbiblical miracle claims, he is a "radical skeptic." I fail to see any logic at all in such a position.
Dr. Price said that it is irrelevant of me to "insist that [he] waste time by identifying what extrabiblical miracles [he] would accept as historical." He argued that this "has nothing to do with the debate at hand" (p. 3), but why isn't it relevant? He accuses me of imposing a double standard on the debate and of having an "anti-supernatural bias," so he should feel some obligation to show us that his standards are consistent and that they are consistent in all situations and not just in those that involve biblical claims. Otherwise, we have a case of the pot calling the kettle black, for if his standards for evaluating miracle claims are not consistent in all situations, biblical and nonbiblical alike, it will be very obvious just who has a bias.
Price claimed that in a previous e-mail exchange with me, he had documented "two modern verifiable miracles" for which "the evidence is undeniable" (p. 3). I didn't remember any such exchange, and so I asked Price to send the information to me again. When it arrived, these modern miracles turned out to be healing-by-prayer incidents. In one case, the father of one of Dr. Price's students was diagnosed with terminal cancer and had been given less than one month to live, but the members of his church "fervently prayed for his healing." Within "a short time," his "vigor returned," and he went back to the doctors, who ran new tests and "found that his body was completely free of cancer." The man is still alive today to verify the story.
The second case was "a beautiful 19-year-old young woman by the name of Marolyn Ford," who in 1960 "began to have trouble with her eyesight." She was examined by an ophthalmologist and told that she had "macular degeneration, the deterioration of the retina in the area of central vision." The condition is untreatable, so "over a period of time her blindness advanced until she became totally blind." She was told by medical experts that her retinas were hopelessly deteriorated and the optic nerves were dead." She remained blind until the night of August 25, 1972, when she was 31, and her husband and she prayed fervently that God would restore her sight." To make the long story short, her vision was completely restored that night to the point that she was able to read even fine print in newspapers. She returned to her eye specialist "who examined her and found that her retinas were still deteriorated and full of holes." Despite this condition, she still is able to see, and eye specialists can't explain why. Dr. Price cited These Blind Eyes Now See by Marolyn Ford and Phyllis Boykin as documentary evidence that this miracle actually happened.
Dr. Price was able himself to see a problem in claiming these cases as genuine miracles, because he immediately made this comment:
Now Mr. Till will attempt to explain away these verifiable accounts by claiming that on rare occasions such recoveries occur naturally. But this is merely a radical skeptic's form of rationalization, because the fact remains that there is no scientific explanation for them, and the recoveries cannot be reproduced in a laboratory: they do indeed meet the definition of a supernatural event, and some medical experts honestly regard them as miracles.
So even though Dr. Price apparently recognizes that cases like these occur naturally on rare occasions, he states that it would be "merely a radical skeptic's form of rationalization" if I should attempt to explain them in this way. He is very quick to pin the label of "radical skeptic" on anyone who disagrees with his supernatural inclinations, but if he admits that such cases as these occur naturally, how does he know that these two were not just rare natural occurrences? Does he think that spontaneous remissions of cancer are always miracles? If not, then on what basis does he conclude that the student's father experienced a miracle and not just a natural spontaneous remission?
Marolyn Ford's case is a different matter, and I view it with considerable suspicion. First, I couldn't help noticing that her book These Blind Eyes Now See was published by Christ For the World Publishers in Orlando, Florida. I'm not familiar with the company, but it sounds very much like a small religious press, and such publishing companies are notorious for printing poorly researched books. One would think that if such an experience as Ms. Ford claims had really happened and could be documented by incontestable medical records, this book would have easily been accepted by major publishing companies, where it would have found a much larger audience. I would be very interested in knowing why it wasn't submitted to such publishers and if it was, why it was rejected. This is information a "radical skeptic" would want to know before deciding to accept this case as a genuine miracle.
For the sake of argument, let's just assume that both of Dr. Price's examples can be confirmed by incontestable medical records to the extent that even a "radical skeptic" would have to agree that these were both supernatural events. We would then have two extraordinary claims that were confirmed by extraordinary evidence, and that is what I have been arguing all along: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Now if Dr. Price could just provide us with unimpeachable evidence to prove his prophecy-fulfillment claim, we could end this discussion and go on to other tasks.
In the case of Jeremiah's prophecy, the evidence would not have to be supernatural. If Dr. Price could produce undeniable corroborative evidence that Jeremiah wrote the prophecy in 605 B. C. and that the text of his book was never revised or edited after that date, that the Judean captives whom Jeremiah was referring to in chapter 25 were taken to Babylon that same year, and that they were released from captivity in 535 B. C., exactly 70 years later, then we would have the evidence that would be necessary to confirm that an extraordinary prophecy-fulfillment did happen. But where is Dr. Price going to find that kind of evidence? There are no nonbiblical records from Syria or Egypt or Babylon that mention a Hebrew prophet named Jeremiah, who prophesied during the first year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign that the Jews would be taken into bondage but released after 70 years. There were no archives of that time where original documents were recorded so that they could be referred to later to verify the accuracy of subsequent copies. In a word, there is simply no way to establish that Jeremiah made his prophecy at the time that Dr. Price alleges. Hence, there is no way for him to satisfy criterion number 2 in my list of valid prophecy requirements, which states that one claiming a prophecy fulfillment must prove that the prophecy was made before and not after the event. Since Dr. Price has said that these criteria were "satisfactory," I suggest that he get busy and try to satisfy this one.
The allegedly valid Text: Dr. Price trotted out the same old saw that we hear so often from biblicists who cannot support the historicity of their claims: If we can't trust the Bible, then "all ancient history is invalid" (p. 5). Price doesn't seem to understand that historians don't just automatically accept everything that ancient documents say. They evaluate the information and make judgments based on sound critical methods. If historians accepted everything that ancient documents say, then history books would be filled with tales of men who were born of virgins, performed various miracles, received visions, and foretold future events, but even though these claims permeate ancient literature, they have not been presented as facts in reputable histories, because they were rejected by common-sense critical methods of evaluation. Price apparently expects the Bible to be exempted from the same type of scrutiny.
The authorship of Jeremiah: "The authorship of an ancient document is determined by the internal claims of authorship," Dr. Price said, and then paraded before us four lines of scripture references in Jeremiah where the text says "the word of the LORD (or its equivalent) came to Jeremiah," but if such as this proves anything about authorship, then a Mormon could prove that the books of Nephi were written by a man named Nephi, who lived in Jerusalem during the reign of Zedekiah; that the book of Jacob was written by a man named Jacob 55 years after Nephi left Jerusalem; that the book of Enos was written by a man named Enos, etc., etc., etc. Dr. Price is approaching this subject as if he thinks that in a time when there were no copyrights or national archives to protect the integrity of documents, it would have been impossible that someone could have altered or revised a text after its author had completed it. To make his case, however, he must present to us unimpeachable evidence that scholars are wrong when they say that this is exactly what happened to the book of Jeremiah, which is the work of many writers over a long period of time.
The three external witnesses: Dr. Price argued that there are also three "external" witnesses to the 70-year prophecy, because 2 Chronicles 36:12, 21-22; Ezra 1:1; and Daniel 9:2 all refer to Jeremiah's prophecy. However, all of these books are recognized as postexilic works. As such, they were written after the Babylonian captivity, so they would not constitute evidence that Jeremiah's 70-year prophecy was in his original work. The most they could prove would be that the prophecy was in the Jeremiah text at the time that the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Daniel were written. What Dr. Price must find is clear, incontestable evidence in external sources that Jeremiah made this prophecy before the fact and that it was not put into the text by revisionist scribes and editors.
In "Testing the Null Hypothesis," I discussed the scholarly evidence that indicates that the book of Jeremiah "is the product of growth over a long period of time, to which many contributed" (The Interpreter's Bible, vol. 5, p. 787). I explained how that textual critics have identified Deuteronomic sections of the book, which were added toward the end of the captivity, and postexilic sections that were written even later, after the exile had ended. Both places where the 70-year prophecy appears are in sections that have been identified as late editions to the book. These are identifications that have been made through analyses of style, grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and theme, and the methods are recognized as legitimate critical devices. For a more complete discussion of this subject, readers and Dr. Price may consult pages 2 and 3 of the July/August issue of TSR. The evidence is sufficient to establish doubt that Jeremiah himself actually wrote the 70-year prophecy, and as long as there is reasonable doubt, Dr. Price doesn't have a case.
He was aware of this textual problem, of course, because he tried to make a preemptive strike against it: "Mr. Till will continue quibbling over authorship based on denials written by radical critics." Thus, we see again how Dr. Price responds to opinions that differ from his. He simply calls them "radical," as if a single buzz word is sufficient to refute them. He went on to say that "these denials are not based on objective evidence, but on subjective theories built on theological presuppositions like Till's anti-supernatural one" (p. 5). I guess we are supposed to believe that Dr. Price's position is not based on a theological presupposition that the Bible is infallibly true in everything it says. If he would bother to examine the literature on this subject, he will find that these "radical" opinions about the authorship of Jeremiah are based on careful analyses of style, grammar, vocabulary, syntax, and themes. It is far more objective than his claim that Jeremiah must have made this prophecy because it is in a book that bears the name "Jeremiah."
In the issue of Jeremiah's 70-year prophecy, Price could help his case if he could just present some good solid ordinary evidence to support key elements of his argument. A crucial element is the matter of when the prophecy was written. In the July/August edition of TSR (p. 5), I showed that the exiles to whom the prophecy was directed were those who were taken captive in Nebuchadnezzar's destruction of Jerusalem in 597 B. C. and not in 605 B. C., as Dr. Price has been claiming. Thus, the release of the captives in 537 would have constituted a captivity period of only about 60 years rather than 70. Since there is nothing extraordinary about a prophecy that failed, we really don't have an extraordinary claim in the case of Jeremiah's 70-year prophecy. At the very least, however, Dr. Price would have to present clear evidence that Jeremiah made the prophecy in 605 B. C., and I can't think of any way he could do that without either producing a copy of Jeremiah that he can show was written and completed by 605 B. C. or else some kind of corroborative nonbiblical record that would confirm that Jeremiah made such a prophecy in 605 B. C.
Baruch's role: As I pointed out, the 52nd chapter of Jeremiah shows internal evidence of a late authorship, but Dr. Price dismisses this chapter as just a late edition by Baruch, which he determines by citing 51:64, which says, "Thus far are the words of Jeremiah." So Price argued that the internal evidence "attributes the content of chapters one through fifty-one to Jeremiah" (p. 6). However, in the Septuagint, which Price has claimed was just a short edition of Jeremiah, chapter 51 is chapter 28, and 51:64 isn't even in the text. Furthermore, chapter 52 in the Septuagint begins with verses that aren't in the Masoretic: "The word which Jeremias the prophet spoke to Baruch son of Nerias, when he wrote these words in the book from the mouth of Jeremias...." After two more verses assuring readers that these are the words that "the LORD said to thee, O Baruch," the text goes on to present the last chapter of the book with essentially the same content that is in the Masoretic text. Hence, the Septuagint claims that this chapter contains words that were from the mouths of both Jeremiah and Yahweh. The concluding paragraph refers to events that happened in the 37th year of the captivity, so if the words in this chapter are really words that came from the mouth of Jeremiah, then Jeremiah didn't complete the book until at least 37 years into the captivity. If this is the case, did Jeremiah live long enough to feel safe in putting into the book a prediction that the captivity would last 70 years?
This doesn't really matter, because I showed in "Testing the Null Hypothesis" (July/August, p. 5) that Dr. Price's 605 B. C. dating of the prophecy is clearly wrong and that "Jeremiah" had directed the prophecy to the exiles who had been captured in 597 B. C. and that these were the ones who would serve Babylon for 70 years. Readers and Dr. Price should review the section subtitled "The 605 Date" to see that even the internal evidence of Jeremiah and extrabiblical records will allow for only a captivity of 60 years. Hence there was no fulfilled prophecy.
Evidence of textual tampering: Dr. Price argued that "(n)o textual differences exist [in Jeremiah] that indicate that the author of the historical appendix [Baruch's additions] made any significant changes to Jeremiah's portion of the text" (p. 5). In response to this, I will simply refer readers to my July/August article in which I pointed out several striking similarities in the text of Jeremiah and other biblical passages. (See the section subtitled "Criteria 2 and 3," pp. 2-3). These examples, which were by no means exhaustive, are sufficient to cast serious doubt on Price's apparent belief that Jeremiah wrote all but the end of this book and that it has remained unchanged through centuries of transmission by handwritten copies.
The debate has come down to three questions: (1) Is there
"undeniable" evidence that Jeremiah himself made the prophecy
attributed to him? (2) Is there "undeniable" evidence that Jeremiah
intended for this prophecy to date from 605 B. C.? (3) Did the captives
whom Jeremiah addressed in the prophecy serve 70 years in
Babylon? We all understand by now that Dr. Price thinks that I
have an "anti-supernatural bias" and that I am a "radical skeptic" and
that all scholars who disagree with him on this issue are "radical
critics," so if he chooses to continue this debate, I will insist that
he drop the ad hominem rhetoric and address the three questions above.
