In debating the Bible inerrancy doctrine, I have consistently found that the only defense its proponents can offer is the fabrication of fanciful, far-fetched, how-it-could-have-been scenarios to "explain" the obvious contradictions and discrepancies in the Bible text. Mr. Jackson's first rebuttal was enough to show that I can expect nothing different from him.
He began by saying that he could "see nothing in Till's last negative needing a reply," a statement that clearly underscores the intellectual bankruptcy of his position. My last rebuttal contained a final challenge for him to explain why or how the age of the Bible and its association with the nation of Israel prove anything even remotely related to divine origin. It challenged him to establish the "absolute inevitability" of his conclusions about Isaiah's reference to the "circle of the earth" and Matthew's claim that Micah 5:2 was a prophecy that had been fulfilled in the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem. It challenged him to explain why a statement must automatically be considered infallibly true just because it is recorded in the Bible. If he can see nothing in these challenges "needing a reply," he has no business trying to debate anything, much less an issue as complex as the inerrancy doctrine.
Mr. Jackson wants to know if I have ever seen or examined copies of the original Bible autographs. No, I haven't and neither has he, but this is an infinitely greater problem for him than it is for me. He claims that the Bible in its original autographs was verbally inspired of God and therefore completely inerrant, and as nutty positions go, this one is about as nutty as you will ever find. If not having the original manuscript of Hamlet or access to anyone who had ever seen it, I should argue that Shakespeare wrote it without making any errors in spelling, grammar, or punctuation, Mr. Jackson would have no problem recognizing the absurdity of my position, yet he can't seem to apply the same common sense reasoning to the original manuscripts of the Bible. Without access to them, there is no way he can ever prove they were inerrant. If he can't understand that, he is beyond hope.
He also wanted to know just how, when I "offer a range of objections," I can know the words that I "fault" mean what I think they mean. The question is extremely abstract, so I will reserve my answer until he gives a concrete example or explanation of what he is asking for.
After denouncing me throughout the defense of his proposition for rebutting his arguments with "very likely" and "quite probable" counterarguments, Mr. Jackson warned in his last affirmative manuscript that he would employ the same approach while I am affirming. In other words (as I pointed out in my final rebuttal), he was shamelessly announcing that he intended to answer my arguments with what he thinks is an unsound method of refutation. One can only wonder why he would choose such a course of action to defend a belief as obviously true as he claims the inerrancy doctrine is, but, be that as it may, now that he has made good his threat, he must do one of two things: he must either admit that he failed to refute any of my affirmative arguments or else acknowledge that my approach to rebutting his own affirmative arguments was entirely legitimate. He can't have it both ways.
In my final rebuttal, I assured Mr. Jackson that I would accept "very likely" or "quite probable" statements as "legitimate rebuttals" if he clearly and unequivocally establishes the "very likely" or "quite probably." Needless to say, he didn't establish even remote likeliness or probability any of the times he proclaimed that the contradictions I had identified could "very likely" or "quite probably" be explained in this way or that way. He merely offered unsubstantiated suppositions and arbitrarily proclaimed them to be "very likely" or "quite probably" the case. Such an ostentatious approach to argumentation may satisfy an urgent need to grandstand that he obviously feels, but, as far as logic is concerned, it proves, or rather disproves, absolutely nothing. If I may indulge myself in a little more weeping and whining, I'll just say that I don't have the space to review all of the times he did this in just one six-page "rebuttal"; I'll let the readers reexamine his manuscript and compare his efforts to establish likeliness and probability with the detailed, documented likely and probable counterarguments that I presented (pp. 9-10, 13-14) as alternatives to his assumptions about "the circle of the earth" and the Micah 5:2 "Messianic prophecy."
At this point, Mr. Jackson is so confused that he doesn't even know what he is supposed to be rebutting. I presented the case recorded in 2 Chronicles 21:18-20 and 22:1-2 of the son (Ahaziah) who was two years older than his father (Jehoram), and Jackson responded with an irrelevant "explanation" of how the length of a ruler's reign was determined sometimes by counting both the "year of accession" and a partial year and at other times by not counting either. The only problem is that the contradiction doesn't even involve the length of either Jehoram's or Ahaziah's reign but their ages relative to each other at the time of Jehoram's death. As explained in my first affirmative manuscript, the mathematics of the passage that recorded Jehoram's death and Ahaziah's succession to the throne lead unerringly to the conclusion that the father Jehoram was two years younger than his son Ahaziah. (Read the argument again on page 26.) Mr. Jackson said nothing in his rebuttal that would explain how this could possibly be.
Furthermore, a parallel account of this story recorded in 2 Kings 8:16-26 states that Ahaziah was twenty-two (v:26) when he began to reign. Now which was it? Was he forty-two (2 Chron. 22:2) or twenty-two (2 Kings 8:26) when he began to reign? I suppose Mr. Jackson will be able to show us either by counting or not counting "the year of accession" and maybe a partial year thrown in somewhere that there is no contradiction in these two accounts. Failing to do that, of course, he can always claim that the contradiction didn't exist in the no-longer-existent, unavailable-for-critical- examination original autographs.
He had arbitrary very likely or quite probable "explanations" for all of the contradictions I documented in my first affirmative manuscript, but he offered nothing but his own conjecture as proof of their likeliness or probability. Since nothing is likely or probable just because he says that it is, how are we to know that his "explanations" are right? Perhaps Mr. Jackson can enlighten us on this. He belongs to a church that incessantly demands a "thus saith the Lord" in all matters of faith and practice, so I now urge him to practice a little of what he preaches and provide us with a "thus saith the Lord." Rather than mere conjecture and speculation, I challenge him to give us a textual basis for seeing no contradiction between a passage that says 700 horsemen were captured in battle and another passage that says 7,000 horsemen were captured in the same battle. If he can't do that, then he is light years away from proving likeliness or probability.
In only seven short lines, Mr. Jackson exonerated Jesus or Mark or whoever was responsible for giving David companions (Mark 2:25-26) during his flight from king Saul's wrath (1 Sam. 20-22:1-2), but the stubborn truth still remains. The story in 1 Samuel clearly indicates that David was alone at the time of the incident Jesus alluded to. The 20th chapter tells how David hid in a field (vv:24-42) while Jonathan attended the king's banquet to assess Saul's attitude toward David. By a prearranged signal from Jonathan, David learned that Saul intended to kill him, so David came out of hiding, conferred briefly with Jonathan and then "arose and departed," as Jonathan returned to the city (v:42). Where is the mention of any men that David took with him as he fled? I challenge Mr. Jackson to find even the slightest hint in this passage that David took the time to find men to take with him.
The very next verse (21:1) has David at Nob talking to Ahimelech the priest, who asked David, "Why art thou alone and no man with thee?" This certainly indicates that Ahimelech saw no one in David's company. To enlist Ahimelech's help in getting food and weapons, David fabricated a story about being on a secret mission for the king, which he was to let no man know about (21:2). Wasn't David lying when he said he was on a secret mission for the king? If David was lying about being on a secret mission for the king, as he obviously was, what is Jackson's basis for determining that the second half of this same verse, where David said that he had appointed his men "to such and such a place," was the truth? These are questions that demand answers, and I challenge Mr. Jackson to provide them.
Every sound principle of literary interpretation points to only one conclusion about 1 Samuel 21:2: everything said in the verse was part of an elaborate lie that David fabricated in order to get help from Ahimelech. That includes both the claim of a secret mission and the reference to the men that were in hiding. To deny this, Mr. Jackson will have to establish that it was "very likely" or "quite probable" that David paused in his flight long enough to gather around him a band of men but didn't take the time to secure food and weapons. I'd like to see Mr. Jackson establish the likeliness of this.
The rest of the story clearly confirms that David was alone in his flight. He left Nob and took refuge in the Philistine city of Gath (21:10). No mention is made of anyone being with David at this time. Realizing some in the city had recognized him, he pretended to be insane by drooling on his beard and scribbling on the city gate (21:11-15). Why would David have done this if he was accompanied by armed companions? Did these phantom men David had with him also drool on their beards? Perhaps Mr. Jackson can give us "likely" or "probable" answers to these questions. If he attempts to, let's hope that he confirms them with a "thus saith the Lord."
Finally, David fled Gath and took refuge in the cave of Adullam (22:1), and when his whereabouts became known to family and friends "about 400 men" joined him to form a company of guerrilla marauders. It was at this point and only at this point, according to the story, that David had other men with him, and I defy Mr. Jackson to prove by the Bible text that this is an improper interpretation. Until he can do that, the double modus tollens syllogism (destructive dilemma) that I presented in my first affirmative manuscript (p. 28) remains intact, and Mr. Jackson is still caught on the horns of the dilemma. And I'm still waiting to see him try to escape.
Here I go weeping and whining again, but space will not allow me to develop a detailed response to Mr. Jackson's claim that at least three years (Gal. 1:18) transpired between Paul's conversion and his first trip to Jerusalem. I'll make a brief response now and expand it in my next manuscript.
True to style, Jackson arbitrarily finds room for a three-year delay between Acts 9:25 and 9:26, where one verse has Paul in Damascus and the next has him in Jerusalem conferring with the apostles. If there really was a three-year delay between these verses, perhaps Mr. Jackson can explain why the apostles hadn't yet learned of Paul's conversion from persecutor to gospel preacher. According to Acts 9:26-27, the disciples in Jerusalem were afraid of Paul until Barnabas brought him to the apostles and "declared unto them how he (Paul) had seen the Lord in the way" (v: 27). Peter had a miraculous gift of the spirit that enabled him to know Ananias and Sapphira were lying about the selling price of their property (Acts 5:1-6), but this gift and three years weren't enough for him to know Paul had been converted to Christianity. Is this what Mr. Jackson expects us to believe?
In my next manuscript, I will present problems even more serious than this that Mr. Jackson will have to "explain" before he can establish the "likeliness" or "probability" of his three-year-delay theory.
Go to Jackson's Second Rebuttal.
