Here's Mr. Till, down to his last two articles, and his conscience pains him to say he "purposely avoided introducing new material." Yes, Till, we wonder why! You seem so poorly equipped, I thought of offering you some agnostic materials from my own library! Isn't it so clear that Till says my views are "far-fetched, speculative, incoherent and wildly assertive tirades," but his are the very essence of clarity and substance! Oh, he's an absolute jewel when it comes to debating power!
It still is absolutely amazing that Till, for all the promise of his proposition: scientific inaccuracies, failed prophecies, moral atrocities of God, etc.--he is again devoting 3 1/2 pages to whether David had men with him in 1 Samuel 21, whether Paul spent time in Arabia, and on the sons of an ancient king! What is so pitiful is that Mr. Till says I wanted to avoid these for "less difficult" items. Then, to Till, these must be the most powerful arguments he can make in fighting inerrancy! It seems so! When I debated Bratteng, the Atheist, and asked how nothing got busy and made something, he said it would "require entire books to answer" (Bratteng, 3rd Neg., p. 62); so, he dropped it. And after Till had informed that archaeology is one of the strongest arguments against inerrancy (and I acknowledged this was in a letter, my 2nd Aff., p. 8), when pressed on it he states "the subject is too complex to present and document" in our short format. But, everything his proposition promised must be in the same vein--"too complex" to deal with. Come now, Mr. Till, if Palestine is in mid-Europe, if the River Jordan is really the Tigris, and if Jerusalem is really in Sweden, you should be able to say so! All he wants from me is listing thousands of points of proof as to archaeology confirming the Bible, and then he will answer! Till, have you forgotten you are in the affirmative, and yet, will not use one of the most "powerful" tools you have???
Notice that Mr. Till assumes and claims that which he has not proven: Identified contradictions, existence of mistakes, etc. and remember that he stated that he has found such excluding all possibility of an explanation from God! Well, he should know that to claim is not to prove, and what a wide area he embraces: excluding all possibility of God's authorship--and that, friends, he should never promise, and can never fulfill! And, remember his early childish gripe that "Jackson used bold letters" for emphasis? Then, see Till upper case "all possibility" repeatedly, then "eight, began, after three years" etc. Till, you don't even read your own articles, at least to avoid that which you criticize in others?
[Editor's Note: As explained later, Till's sarcastic mimicking of Jackson's overuse of bold emphasis apparently eluded him.]
I want now to work back through Till's points, from the last. So much space on whether Paul was correct in Galatians 1:17, and with Till's insistence that Arabia would have to be included between Acts 9:25-26! Till telling Luke, and the Holy Spirit, how it must be done! Till states all (bold letters again, Till) disciples were afraid of him; Mr. Till, Barnabas wasn't!! So, my plausibility point! We'll just let Till wonder why more disciples didn't know of Saul's conversion. I am perfectly happy with the text, and remember that what Till has said doesn't exclude the possibility that the Holy Spirit, Luke and Paul are correct!
I am also of the conviction that Jesus Christ knew what he was talking about in Mark 2:25-26. Jesus, Samuel, the priest, and David are in agreement; it's only that Till disagrees with them! He speaks of David's fabrication, being a fugitive, etc., but David's character is not the object of our debate. It still remains that Till cannot know that David did not have men in proximity to him in I Samuel 21. He says the "context doesn't allow" such, when he means Till will not allow such! And what did Till say when he was caught claiming that Jesus had the priest's name wrong? Not a word! The fact is that David could have raised men, when he fled, in a half-day's time, or in two hours' time! Till, you are running out of both time and soap again, and surely you can find something you feel has substance to it! And, did you notice Till's great reference volume, The Interpreter's Bible, one of the most liberal and God-denying works ever produced! I can see why Till, being Till, values it so! How ridiculous to hold an agnostic view simply because a certain matter is not worded as he, Till, wants it to be!
Then, on the matter of Ahaziah and his age [sic]. Till is jubilant in dealing with 22 and 42! But he is once more forgetting that a variance is not necessarily a contradiction. Galatians 6:2,5 contains a variance, and so do Proverbs 26:4-5, but there is no contradiction there! Till states that I made two unsuccessful attempts to explain the matter of Ahaziah and Jehoram, when I did not. I merely called to his attention the various calculations as per years of reign, ages, etc., and did not exhaust the matter even then! Different men, writing from a different basis, with differing methods of calculation, etc. can come up with a variance when it is written, but it is still not a contradiction. John Gill calls attention to Jewish writers in this connection (Kimchi, Abarbinel, cited in Gill, Vol. II, p. 510), and M. Henry records the view that, by literal expression, "he was the son of forty-two years," meaning the age of Athaliah (Henry, Vol. III, p. 270). Others hold that Jehoram co-reigned with his father for most of the father's reign, and that those years, during both reigns amount to the 42-year calculation--not the age of the man himself, but the age of that family's rule (42 in all at the time he began to reign, but 22 was his actual physical age). My point is that there are explanations for the variance, giving plausibility, and taking away Till's thinking he has an "error" beyond all possibility that the work is from God! There can be any of a half-dozen legitimate explanations for a variance; finding the variance does not exclude inerrancy!
[Editor's Note: When this debate took place, the internet was almost nonexistent, so checking claims like the references to Gill and Henry above could not be done without delaying the progress of the debate. However, the classical commentaries are now available with the click of a mouse button, so readers should be entitled to see whether Gill and Henry said what Jackson claimed above. John Gill's commentary on 2 Chronicles 22:2, which states that Ahaziah was 42 when he began to reign does not at all claim what Jackson said above.
Verse 2. Forty two and years old [sic] was Ahaziah when he began to reign,.... In 2 Kings 8:26, he is said to be but twenty two years old at his accession to the throne, which is undoubtedly most correct; for this makes him to be two years older than his father when he died, who was thirty two when he began to reign, and reigned eight years, 2 Chronicles 21:20, different ways are taken to solve this difficulty; some refer this to Jehoram, that he was forty two when Ahaziah began to reign, but he was but forty when he died; others to the age of Athaliah his mother, as if he was the son of one that was forty two, when he himself was but twenty two; but no instance is given of any such way of writing, nor any just reason for it; others make these forty two years reach to the twentieth of his son Joash, his age twenty two, his reign one, Athaliah six, and Joash thirteen; but the two principal solutions which seem most to satisfy learned men are, the one, that he was twenty two when he began to reign in his father's lifetime, and forty two when he began to reign in his own right; but then he must reign twenty years with his father, whereas his father reigned but eight years: to make this clear they observe {b}, as Kimchi and Abarbinel, from whom this solution is taken, that he reigned eight years very happily when his son was twenty two, and taken on the throne with him, after which he reigned twenty more ingloriously, and died, when his son was forty two; this has been greedily received by many, but without any proof: the other is, that these forty two years are not the date of the age of Ahaziah, but of the reign of the family of Omri king of Israel; so the Jewish chronology {c}; but how impertinent must the use of such a date be in the account of the reign of a king of Judah? all that can be said is, his mother was of that family, which is a trifling reason for such an unusual method of reckoning: it seems best to acknowledge a mistake of the copier, which might easily be made through a similarity of the numeral letters, bm, forty two, for bk, twenty two {d}; and the rather since some copies of the Septuagint, and the Syriac and Arabic versions, read twenty two, as in Kings; particularly the Syriac version, used in the church of Antioch from the most early times; a copy of which Bishop Usher obtained at a very great price, and in which the number is twenty two, as he assures us; and that the difficulty here is owing to the carelessness of the transcribers is owned by Glassius {e}, a warm advocate for the integrity of the Hebrew text, and so by Vitringa {f}: and indeed it is more to the honour of the sacred Scriptures to acknowledge here and there a mistake in the copiers, especially in the historical books, where there is sometimes a strange difference of names and numbers, than to give in to wild and distorted interpretations of them, in order to reconcile them....
As readers can see, Gill actually thought that the solutions proposed by Jackson were too unlikely to be accepted. Likewise, Matthew Henry did not propose the solution that Jackson attributed to him above.
Verses 1-9: We have here an account of the reign of Ahaziah, a short reign (of one year only), yet long enough, unless it had been better. He was called Jeho-ahaz (ch. 21:17); here he is called Ahaz-iah, which is the same name and of the same signification, only the words of which it is compounded are transposed. He is here said to be forty-two years old when he began to reign (v. 2), which could not be, for his father, his immediate predecessor, was but forty when he died, and it is said (2 Ki. 8:26) that he was twenty-two years old when he began to reign. Some make this forty-two to be the age of his mother Athaliah, for in the original it is, he was the son of forty-two years, that is, the son of a mother that was of that age; and justly is her age put for his, in reproach to him, because she managed him, and did what she would-—she, in effect, reigned, and he had little more than the title of king. Many good expositors are ready to allow that this, with some few more such difficulties, arise from the mistake of some transcriber, who put forty-two for twenty-two, and the copies by which the error should have been corrected might be lost. Many ancient translations read it here twenty-two. Few books are now printed without some errata, yet the authors do not therefore disown them, nor are the errors of the press imputed to the author, but the candid reader amends them by the sense, or by comparing them with some other part of the work, as we may easily do this.
Readers can formulate their own opinions as to why Jackson cited authorities who had actually rejected the solutions that he was claiming. The editor is simply passing along information about Jackson's sources that wasn't readily available at the time of the debate.]
Really, then, what has Till given us but a rehash of the same old points based primarily on "how I, Till, would have said it," and not allowing writers of old to express themselves in their own times and to their people! Clearly the Jews, through the ages, understood about kings and reigns, and had not the problem Till wishes to find!
It's interesting that Till, conveniently overlooking the basis for my affirmative--the Bible's original autographs--now chides me because those autographs are not available! My view, believing in God, allows me to hold the doctrines of inspiration and inerrancy, but Till is left dangling, stating he has no idea how God might have communicated with man, and yet determined to prove that whatever we find in the Bible could not be from God! I had earlier mentioned that I was not standing in defense of all that appears in translations. He earlier had cited the NIV on a matter; if I had said, "My preference is for the NIV," where would Till be with his point on Ahaziah, since the NIV has "22 years of age" in both 2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2? It's a good thing he has that point to make, for after promising so much in his proposition, he has offered precious little!
[Editor's Note: The Masoretic text, which inerrantist like Jackson believe "preserved" the inspired books of the Old Testament, reads in 2 Chronicles 22:2 that Ahaziah was 42 years old when he began to reign but reads in 2 Kings 8:26 that he was 22. Some later translations like the NIV and the NAS have tried to solve textual problems through recognizably incorrect translations.]
We have time, now, to point out these: (1) Till failed to deal with the six marks of the Bible indicating inspiration and inerrancy, not showing the six features in any of the other so-called "inspired" religious works; (2) Till has failed to give the archaeology that destroys Biblical inerrancy, though claiming powerful points; (3) Till failed to deal with the Bible's scientific foreknowledge, squirming to state such must not be literal, and that these things might have been known all the while; (4) Till failed to dislodge the firmness with which Biblical prophecy of Christ is rooted and grounded; (5) Till failed in thinking a prophet could not have uttered something that was not written down; (6) Till failed in holding the view that in New Testament fulfillment each and every part of the prophecy would have to be earlier mentioned, (7) Till failed in the point on David's men when Samuel, the priest, David, and the Lord held such was the case; (8) Till failed in his point on Luke having to insert the point of Galatians 1:17 when he recorded Acts 9:25-27. Till is bent on setting Luke straight in the matter; (9) Till fails in thinking Jackson's points are far-fetched and wildly assertive, but that his (Till's) are magnificent examples of sound reasoning, and (10) Till fails in holding that his every point offers plausibility that he may be correct, but when Jackson makes a point, Till sees no plausibility at all!
[Editor's Note: An earlier "Editor's Note" explained and documented that contrary to Jackson's claim that Till failed to reply to his "six points," they were all answered in the places linked to in the note.]
To let us know how mixed up Till happens to be, we cite him (Laws-Till Discussion, p. 25): "... it is possible that I am wrong..." and then he tells me (1st Affir., p. 28), "I have proven that the Bible is not inerrant." Yes, the double-minded man is unstable in all his ways!
Mr. Till has two more articles. Is this your whole offering? Your position is that the Bible is not inerrant because Luke did not mention Paul's Arabian stay, because there is doubt as to a king's age, and a question you have as to just when David had a company of men in support of him? That's it???? Your position (Till's First Affir., p. 26) offered so much more in promise, and has it ever been a bust! To paraphrase another: "Never in human history has a man been so confident, roared so loudly, promised so much, to then produce so little!" Your opposition to the Bible, Mr. Till, very clearly goes back into the past and into your heart, and you're just laboring to find fault with the Bible as a conscience soother!
Go to Till's Fourth Defense.
