Mr. Till continues to attack the integrity of the text of the book of Jeremiah. He stated: "I have shown that the existence of two very different versions of the book of Jeremiah (the Septuagint and the Masoretic) is sufficient to cast suspicion on the integrity of the text" (TSR, July/August 1997, p.2). His use of the term "very different" leads the readers to believe that the two text traditions are contradictory with significantly different messages. This gives a false impression. True, the order of the chapters is different in the two traditions. True, that the Masoretic tradition is longer than the Septuagint tradition, but neither of these facts suggest that the two traditions are contradictory or have divergent messages.
On the contrary, both text traditions record the same history, the same sermons, the same oracles against the nations, and the same poems. The Masoretic text has all the characteristics of an expanded second edition by the same author, with a new order, new material, and with added details and explanatory glosses. For the most part, differences that go beyond these characteristics are accounted for on the basis of the ordinary copyist variations that occur in all ancient manuscripts. Particularly that is true for the text of the prophecy under debate. Both text traditions record the same date, the same prediction, and the same seventy year time period. Apart from minor details, textual critics can recover the earliest form of each text tradition. That is true because the manuscript witnesses to Masoretic text of Jeremiah are no more diverse than those of the Masoretic text of other Old Testament books. The same is true for the text behind the Septuagint tradition. The text of Jeremiah is no more divergent than any other ancient historical source for which there are multiple copies.
All this was discussed in an earlier article, yet Mr. Till continues to make this strong accusation based on vague generalities which he has not supported with objective evidence. Let him produce convincing evidence that the text of the book of Jeremiah is unreliable. Let him produce one ancient Hebrew manuscript with a date for this prophecy other than the fourth year of Jehoiakim. Then let him explain why historians regard the book as a reliable resource for the history of that period.
Mr. Till misrepresented my argument for the validity of Jeremiah's text. He represented me as saying "If we can't trust the Bible, then `all ancient history is invalid'" (TSR, September/October 1997, p. 10.). That is not what I said at all, as all readers can verify. Come on, Farrell! That is not Kosher. Play by the rules. I said, "Of course, this is not a problem unique to the text of the Bible, but to all ancient historical records. If such evidence is necessary before an ancient text has validity, then all ancient history is invalid" (p. 5). What evidence was I referring to? The evidence from nonexistent ancient copyright agencies and registered original texts in official archives-- the evidence Mr. Till said must be available before the text of Jeremiah could be validated (TSR, May/June, 1997, p. 7). This is more evidence that Mr. Till uses a double standard. Every one knows that such means for validating the text of ancient documents did not exit in antiquity, yet he is willing to accept the validity of the texts of ancient secular documents without such nonexistent evidence.
Perhaps Mr. Till does not understand what the term "validity" means when it applies to ancient texts. The text of an ancient document is regarded as "valid" if the words preserved in the existing copies of the document can be regarded as reliably representing the message and intent of the original document. The text of an ancient document may be regarded as "valid" without one accepting the message of the document as true. A "valid" text may convey a false message.
In this regard, the texts of the Biblical books are more valid than almost all of the texts of ancient documents used for studying history. This is true because there are many more extant ancient manuscript copies of the Biblical books than there are of the secular documents, and the available textual evidence has greater consensus for validating the original words of the books. Mr. Till may not want to accept the message of the Biblical books as true, but he is in serious error to assert that he cannot do so because the texts of those books are less valid than other documents of antiquity.
Sixth-Century Origin: Mr. Till has claimed that the evidence does not support a sixth-century origin of the book. However, for him to make that claim, he must disregard the dates in the text of the book, particularly the date assigned to the writing of that part of the book containing the prophecy under debate. Jeremiah and his book are dated from the thirteenth year of Josiah's reign (627 B. C.) to the captivity in 586 BC (1:1-3). The prophecy under debate is dated in 605 B. C., the fourth year of Jehoiakim (25:1). That is the same year that Jeremiah first wrote some of his book (36:1-4; 45:1) which clearly contained the prophecy under debate (36:29). Other events are dated in the book (28:1; 32:1; 36:9; 39:1, 2; 46:2; 51:59; 52:4, 5, 12, 28, 29, 30, 31). The text records that Jeremiah was commanded to write certain material (22:30; 30:2; 36:2; 36:28), and that Jeremiah (or his amanuensis, Baruch) wrote certain material (36:4, 18, 32; 51:60). For Mr. Till to deny the sixth century date he must regard all these passages as fraudulent, something that he must prove, not simply allege.
On the basis of objective evidence, the Septuagint translation was made in the third century B. C. The Hebrew text behind the Septuagint translation must have been sufficiently well established in the third century for the translators to have regarded it as authoritative. That places that text tradition at least in the fourth and likely in the fifth century.
There are six manuscripts of Jeremiah from the Dead Sea Scroll collection which date in the first or second century B. C., some of which are from the tradition behind the Septuagint, and others from the Masoretic tradition. Emanuel Tov, Editor-in-Chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls publication project, and a recognized authority on Old Testament textual criticism and one "with no fundamentalist ax to grind," stated: "Between 1947 and 1956 fragments of more than 190 biblical scrolls were found in the eleven caves of Qumran" (Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992, p. 103). Many of these were fragments but with sufficient text to determine the textual tradition from which the manuscripts were copied. Mr. Till quibbled about some of the manuscripts being fragmentary, as though reasonably sized fragments cannot identify the text tradition to which they belong (TSR, July/August 1997, p. 11). If the police find the skull and a few bones of a dead body, can they not legitimately conclude that the whole living body once existed? And cannot an expert biologist determine the original size, weight, race, gender, and general appearance of the dead person from the evidence available in the extant fragments of the body? Cannot he study the DNA of these remains and determine its significant genetic codes? So also, textual experts can determine the textual family of a fragmentary text. If reasonably sufficient fragments of the Masoretic text exist among the Dead Sea Scrolls, then common sense admits the existence of the whole text. If the fragments confirm the essential details of the corresponding parts of the Masoretic text, then common sense admits that the missing fragments would also confirm the essential details of the text tradition to approximately the same degree of agreement.
A complete manuscript of the book of Isaiah (1QIsaA) exists from the second century B. C., and it has about 95% agreement with the Masoretic text. Another manuscript of Isaiah (1QIsaB) contains much of the text of 46 chapters of the book. This manuscript is almost identical with the current form of the Masoretic text. Tov (pp. 31-32) listed a catalogue of the types of differences between 1QIsaB and BHS (Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia), the accepted form of the Masoretic text today: (1) Orthography (spelling differences), 107; (2) Added waw conjunctive, 16; (3) Lack of waw conjunctive, 13; (4) Article (added/ omitted), 4; (5) Difference in consonants 10; (6) Missing letter, 5; (7) Different grammatical number, 14; (8) Differences in pronouns, 6; (9) Different grammatical form, 24; (10) Different proposition, 9; (11) Different words, 11; (12) Omission of words, 5; (13) Addition of words, 6; (14) Different sequence, 4.
That amounts to 234 differences of any kind "all of which concern minutiae" (Tov, p. 31). However, items 1, 2, 3, 4 and 14 have little or no effect on meaning, so they may be disregarded as insignificant. This leaves only 90 differences that may be regarded as of any possible significance.
There are 66 chapters in the book of Isaiah, 1291 verses, 16,930 words, and 66,884 letters in the current Masoretic text of Isaiah. If the number of words in 1QIsaB is estimated as 16,930 x 46/66 x .66 = 7,788 words, then 1QIsaB agrees with BHS (7,788 - 234) / 7,788 = 97.0%; or if the insignificant variations are excluded, the texts agree (7,788 - 90)/ 7,788 = 98.8%. That is about the kind of agreement that any manuscript of the Masoretic text has. Regarding the Masoretic text in the era of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Tov, who is liberal in his approach the Biblical text, wrote:
Because of the meticulous care of those who were involved in the copying of [the Masoretic text], the range of differences between the members of the [Masoretic] group was from the outset very small. One should remember that the temple employed professional magihim, "correctors" or "revisers," whose task it was to safeguard precision in the writing and transmission of the text (Tov, p. 32).
This places the textual tradition behind the Masoretic text at least in the fourth and likely in the fifth century. But the witness of the Aramaic translation known as the Targum gives good reason to place the Masoretic text of Jeremiah in at least the sixth century. Concerning the Aramaic Targum, Ernst Wurthwein, a recognized authority on Old Testament textual criticism, stated: "The Jewish tradition associating it (the Targum) with Ezra (cf. Neh. 8:8) may well be correct" (The Text of the Old Testament, Trans. by Erroll F. Rhodes Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1979, p. 75). Now the importance of the Aramaic Targum of the book of Jeremiah is that it was translated from a Hebrew text of the Masoretic tradition (Tov, p. 149). If Wurthwein is correct, and there is no reason to doubt him, then the Masoretic tradition of Jeremiah was already well established as authoritative in the fifth century B. C. This gives reason to accept the sixth-century origin of the book with little reason to doubt it. Not a shred of textual evidence exists that suggests that the date of Jeremiah's prophecy was ever altered. If such evidence exists I'm sure Mr. Till would have called it to our attention.
This is supported by several fifth- or sixth-century witnesses to the existence of the book, and the prophecy under debate in particular: (1) the author of the Chronicles (2 Chron. 36:22-23), (2) the author of Ezra-Nehemiah (Ezra 1:1-5), (3) the prophet Zechariah (Zech. 1:12; 7:5), and (4) the sixth-century prophet Daniel (Dan. 9:2). These very early witnesses knew Jeremiah's book, and the prophecy under debate in particular. All of these witnesses accepted Jeremiah as a historical person and the author of the prophecy. All regarded the prophecy as genuine, not fraudulent.
In fact, Daniel read Jeremiah's prophecy before it was fulfilled (Dan. 9:1-2). This is evident from the fact that Daniel did not record the fulfillment of the prophecy--something that would have been significant to the content of his ninth chapter. I know Mr. Till rejects the date and authorship of Daniel, and I am not interested in debating that question. But there is no reason to late-date Daniel except Mr. Till's anti-supernatural presupposition. In my own opinion, Daniel is a valid witness because his contemporary, the prophet Ezekiel, validated his date and existence (Ezek. 14:14, 20; 28:3). This does not include the mention of the prophet Jeremiah by the historian Josephus, the authors of some of the Apocryphal books (Sirach 49:6; 2 Macc 2:1, 5, 7; 15:14, 15; 1 Esdras 1:28, 32, 47, 57; 2:1; 4 Esdras 2:18), the Mishnah and the Talmud. All these ancient sources regarded the prophet and his writings to be authentic.
Now Mr. Till has objected to the cumulative force of all this evidence and asserted that I have not provided sufficient evidence that Jeremiah wrote the prophecy before its fulfillment. Instead he insisted that "What Dr. Price must find first 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" (TSR, Sept./October, p. 10). In other words, I am supposed to prove that Mr. Till's claim of fraud is false. But as I have shown, the laws of jurisprudence require the claim of fraud to be proved. The burden of that proof lies heavily on Mr. Till. But if I were to find other clear, incontestable, external sources he would do with them what he has already done with the four I have provided: he would label those sources as fraudulent also. Remember, no amount of evidence will convince him. I have provided textual evidence for the validity and early date of the book that is far more numerous and relatively early than that for any secular historical document Mr. Till accepts without question. I have provided four very early, independent, reputable witnesses to the existence of the book and the prophecy. These witnesses were all recognized men of integrity, intelligence, and skill. None would have accepted the authority of a known fraud, nor would they have been a part of fraud. They would have known the textual evidence of their day, much like competent scholars do today. They would not have tolerated fraudulent tampering with the text. Yet Mr. Till's response to these unimpeachable witnesses is that they too are frauds. They are guilty of misrepresenting Jeremiah's prediction as a legitimate fulfilled prophecy when in fact it is a fraud. Now, instead of one alleged fraudulent document we have five. But in so doing, Mr. Till has multiplied his claims of fraud and multiplied his burden of proof! What has he offered as proof? Unverifiable, subjective theories, and his anti-supernatural presupposition.
In addition, Mr. Till's denial of the sixth-century origin of the book of Jeremiah goes contrary to the very critical scholars he cited as authority. As he indicated, The Interpreter's Bible alleges that the 25th chapter of Jeremiah was written by the "Deuteronomist" (D), a later scribe who added his material to Jeremiah's book. However, The Interpreter's Bible also stated that "the D edition of Jeremiah was made about 550 B.C. The man (or group) who made it may have lived in Egypt. D made use of the three preceding collections, adding his own work to them or revising them at some points" (vol. 5, p. 788). Note that the date assigned to the prophecy under debate was in the sixth century, and almost twenty years before the prophecy was fulfilled. It seems that Mr. Till's critical authority does not support his radical skepticism. Even if we accept the view of The Interpreter's Bible that the prophecy was written by the "Deuteronomist" nearly 20 years before its fulfillment, the prophecy would be genuine according to Mr. Till's three criteria, because foresight of 20 years is also beyond human expectation. Mr. Till needs to find more radical critics to cite as authority.
Multiple Authors and Redactors: Mr. Till cited The Interpreter's Bible, which shares his critical skepticism, as asserting that the book of Jeremiah "is not the product of one person or of a small group of persons. It is the product of growth over a long period of time, to which many contributed" (TSR, July/ August p. 2). Of course, such an assertion does not constitute proof. It is only the opinion of another skeptic. Not a shred of objective evidence was presented. He then cited another critic of the same stripe who stated: "style, grammar, syntax, vocabulary, theme, and literary structure enables critics to recognize where redacting and editing occurred in the biblical text" (TSR, July/August, p. 2). These are his defense of the "fraud" hypothesis which he offers as an alternative to Jeremiah's authorship of the book. Of course, such statements are based on the underlying hypothesis that writers are incapable of writing in more than one style, vocabulary, theme, and literary structure. But just to articulate such a hypothesis shows how ridiculous it is. Only a literary clod would have such limitations. And if such a clod were to write something, who would publish or perpetuate his literature? Are we to assume that the great prophets of the Bible were literary clods? Who is to say that a given writer cannot produce a variety of literature such as history, poetry, novels, biography, sermons, hymns, and theology? Would anyone dare to assume that such a writer would be limited to one style, vocabulary, and literary structure for such a variety? Any student of literature recognizes how artificial this hypothesis is.
According to John Bright, a scholar who shares Mr. Till's hypothesis of multiple authorship, some critical scholars identify three types of literature in the book of Jeremiah: (1) Type A consisting of prophetic oracles written primarily in poetry; (2) Type B consisting of biography; and (3) Type C consisting of prose discourses in a rhetorical style similar to Deuteronomy. (Jeremiah, The Anchor Bible, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1965, pp. lxiii-lxviii). According to Bright and other scholars of that ilk, each of these types was written by a different author. Type A is usually attributed to the sixth-century prophet. Note that, contrary to Mr. Till, the critical scholars really do believe there was a historical Jeremiah. Types B and C are usually attributed to later authors who added their material to the original work of Jeremiah--Type C being the product of a scribe or scribes of the Deuteronomic school. Of course, no one explains why the poet Jeremiah could not have written biography and prose; and no one explains how the disciples of Jeremiah, the early rabbis, and the educated Jews would have tolerated anyone grossly tampering with the original text of Jeremiah.
Regarding the Type C portions, the type to which some critics assign our prophecy, Bright stated:
Beside the subjective nature of literary criticism, and the exaggerated manner in which critics evaluate differences, one has only to read the various critical authors on the analysis of the book of Jeremiah to observe one additional flaw: No two literary critics agree on the details of their analysis. In fact, it is not unusual to find the critics being very critical of one another. The Interpreter's Bible, which represents the critical view Mr. Till accepts, stated: "Though the subject has long been studied, there is no consensus among scholars as to the stages in the composition of the book of Jeremiah, or the process of growth by which it arrived at its present state" (vol. 5, p. 787). This type of disagreement is evidence of the weakness and subjectivity of the discipline as applied to Jeremiah. For a hypothesis to be eligible for acceptance, there should be consistent agreement of the details when tested by different investigators. Concerning the test of consistency of details, the literary criticism of Jeremiah fails miserably. Mr. Till's claim of fraud cannot be proved by an appeal to the highly subjective, overly exaggerated, and contradictory evidence from literary criticism.
Jeremiah the Deceiver: I have previously responded to Mr. Till's false accusation that Jeremiah was a deceiver (TSR, September/October, pp. 4-5). No need exists for further discussion of his attack on Jeremiah's veracity.
Jeremiah the Plagiarist: Mr. Till has accused Jeremiah of plagiarism in that a portion of chapter 52 is almost verbatim with a similar passage in Second Kings. Of course, Mr. Till admitted that he does not know whether Jeremiah copied Second Kings, or the author of Second Kings copied Jeremiah, or whether both copied from some other source now unknown. Nevertheless, even though Mr. Till does not know who copied who, he still accused Jeremiah of plagiarism (TSR, July/August, p. 3). This is an example of his claimed "common sense reasoning." The fact is that ancient writers often failed to acknowledge the source of material they used. That was not illegal or unethical in those days. It is also very likely that the kind of material common to Jeremiah and Second Kings was available through public records. The use of public information cannot be regarded as plagiarism even under the modern understanding of the term. Mr. Till has been so eager to malign Jeremiah's character that he has allowed himself to be very careless with the evidence.
I have previously shown that Jeremiah did not write chapter 52, but that it was a historical appendix written by a later author, probably Baruch. The Interpreter's Bible, which Mr. Till cited as authority, declared: "Ch. 52 is an appendix to the book of Jeremiah added in order to show how some of his prophecies were fulfilled" (vol. 5, p. 790). If that was the purpose of the appendix, then it must have been added before the end of the Exile, because otherwise the author would have mentioned the restoration of the Jews to their homeland, and the fulfillment of the seventy-year prophecy.
Altered Text: Mr. Till's claim of fraud includes the allegation that the text of Jeremiah was altered after the Exile in order to make it appear like a prophecy had been fulfilled. Of course, the only evidence he had to offer is the unverifiable subjective hypothesis of literary criticism discussed above. He appealed to the fact that this prophecy is part of the "Deuteronomic" segment of the book, and that this segment was allegedly written after the Exile, and so after the fulfillment. However, critical scholar John Bright, as cited above, stated that from a literary critical point of view the "Deuteronomic" prose is from the seventh/sixth century and no literary reason exists to date it after the Exile (Bright, p. lxxi).
The part of the text that is crucial to fulfilled prophecy is the date the prophecy was given--the fourth year of Jehoiakim (605 BC). Unfortunately for Mr. Till, not a single existing Hebrew manuscript contains an alternate date. The same is true for all the ancient translations of Jeremiah. The other part of the text that is important for fulfilled prophecy is the phrase "seventy years." Mr. Till has quibbled extensively that the time between Jehoiakim's fourth year and Cyrus' first year is not seventy years, but something less than that. Now, let's put Mr. Till's claim to the test. If a post-exilic editor wanted to alter the text to make it look like a fulfilled prophecy, why would he not put in the exact number of years instead of a round number? After all, an exact number would be much more impressive, much more convincing! Unfortunately for Mr. Till, no existing Hebrew manuscript contains an alternate number. The same is true for all the ancient translations of Jeremiah. Thus, no objective evidence exists to support Mr. Till's claim of a fraudulent alteration of the text. All objective textual evidence supports the date and the reading "seventy years." So Mr. Till can only erroneously appeal to his anti- supernatural presupposition. Sad to say, he has failed to prove his claim of fraud.
Round Number: Mr. Till objected to my interpretation of the "seventy years" as a round number. According to him, the time of Israel's subjugation to the Babylonian kings has to be exactly seventy years for the prophecy to be fulfilled. In this he disagrees with competent critical scholars like John Bright who said: "This seems to be here no more than a round number, i.e., a normal life span" (Bright, p. 160). Also he disagrees with The Interpreter's Bible, his source of critical scholarship, which declared: "Seventy years constitute the period during which the Jews were to serve Babylon, at the end of which Babylon itself was to be punished. . . . The number was not to be taken literally, but rather as a round or `perfect' number, perhaps the length of a man's lifetime (Ps. 90:10)" (vol. 5, p. 1000). This understanding is supported by extrabiblical texts (Thompson, p. 513). For Mr. Till to demand mathematical precision in statements of this type is to go beyond the normal principles of interpretation used by the critical scholarship he claims to accept, and the "common sense reasoning" he claims to follow.
Mr. Till complained that I did not provide documentation that the Persians followed the accession-year method for reckoning the regnal years of their kings. Of course that would have been an excellent opportunity for him to provide documentation to the contrary, which he failed to do, primarily because he knows I'm right. This point is not critical for understanding the seventy years of subjugation as a round number. However, for the record, Jack Finegan, a recognized authority on ancient chronology and one who has no "fundamentalist ax to grind," stated: "The system of reckoning which prevailed in Babylon, Assyria, and Persia, may be called the accession-year system.... In the accession-year system the portion of a year from the accession of the king to the end of the then current calendar year is only his 'accession year' (and for chronological purposes remains a part of the last numbered regnal year of his predecessor), and the new king's Year 1 begins only on the first day of the new calendar year after his accession" (Handbook of Biblical Chronology, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964, pp. 85-86). Among the Jews the practice was not consistent. Sometimes they followed the accession-year system and sometimes the non-accession system. Likewise, they sometimes followed the calendar year that began with the month of Nisan, and sometimes the calendar that began with the month Tishri (Finegan, pp. 87-92). In part, the method used by Jewish historians depended on the system used by the nation which held political dominance over them at the time. It is very likely that Ezra, a prominent citizen of Persia, and under orders from the Persian king, used the accession-year system of the Persians.
Also Mr. Till complained that the return journey of the captives would not be as long as I indicated. However, we have Ezra's record of how long it took his relatively small company to travel to Jerusalem--four months (Ezra 7:9). It surely would take quite a bit longer than four months for approximately 49,000 captives to travel that distance. Indeed, the available evidence supports my estimation of the time involved. Mr. Till has extensively quibbled over the interpretation of a round number. The fact that his critical scholars agree with me indicates how radical and unreasonable his attempts at rebuttal are.
Conclusion: I have demonstrated that all the objective evidence supports the fact that the prophet Jeremiah wrote the prophecy in 605 B.C., and that the prophecy was fulfilled at the end of the predicted "seventy years," interpreted as a round number. The round-number interpretation has the consensus of both conservative and liberal scholars. Mr. Till has countered with his fabulous claim that the prophecy was a fraud written after its fulfillment with the intent deceive. He failed to demonstrate that his claim of fraud satisfies the objective evidence better than does the clear, unaltered statement of the text. I have presented numerous lines of consistent objective evidence. Mr. Till has relied on unverifiable, inconsistent subjective hypotheses to support his view. This ends my case, and my part of the debate. The readers must evaluate the evidence for themselves and not let someone else do their thinking. The verdict seems quite certain. Jeremiah 25:1-13 is a genuine fulfilled prophecy. I thank Mr. Till for the opportunity to present the case for fulfilled prophecy, and I thank the readers for patiently enduring the presentation.
(James D. Price, Ph.D., Professor of Hebrew and Old
Testament, Temple Baptist Seminary, Chattanooga, TN 37404; e-mail, drjdprice@aol.com)
