We have now learned that Till doesn't care for Jackson's debating methods, punctuation or emphasis, and we wonder why that doesn't surprise us? Calling my methods "amateurish," Till sets out to give us the last word on debating and, no wonder, his being a man whose expressions even surpass God's! And once more Till has used up two pages of material to lecture on debating style, then pleads that he has insufficient space to deal with what has been given him! Till, you've played that song so long all now know it by heart!
He insists on claims plus evidence, but he also surely knows that a claim of inspiration/inerrancy must have internal evidence, and the internal evidence is a good part of the proof! Imagine a man not allowing evidence from the Bible in this regard! So, when Till sets out to instruct on just how to give evidence, what do we find him stating? Here it is: On the matter of the prophecies and the fulfilling of them, Till tells us, "They never happened except in... fertile imaginations...." Now, How's that for evidence? On the matter of Bethlehem, Till says it was "very likely intended as a reference to the head of a family clan." "Very likely," he says, Now, How's that for evidence? Till says, "Very likely." Then, Till gives us real [sic] hard evidence in stating "quite probably....raises the possibility...." Now, How's that for evidence? Till's view comes from imagination, and one not so fertile, at that!
He scared up a rabbit for me to chase, on Genesis 6:1-4. He found space for this, but not for dealing with my points! His view is that Moses believed angels intermarried with earthly women. And he is the one, mind you, who speaks of the need for evidence! Wonder where he found angels in Genesis 6:1-4? This, from a character who doesn't even know if he believes in God, having said the greater evidence lies on the side of the atheist! Sorry, Till, you do the chasing of the rabbit! Better still, why not try to deal with material I have presented? So far, Mr. Till has (1) Picked one of six arguments (antiquity), and all the while leaving the impression that I had not made the other five points; (2) Passed off Bible verses with, "How do you know they mean what you say they mean?"; (3) On how God would have communicated with man, if not through the Bible, Till says, "I don't know"; (4) On matters of scientific foreknowledge, Till says, "The writers probably know that on their own"; and (5), Till chooses to ignore Isaiah 53:7 and fulfillment; Psalm 69:21 and fulfillment, Psalm 22:18 and fulfillment; the matter of Genesis 9:4 and blood; the matter of Psalm 89:37 and the moon; and the Hittite empire! He ignores them all! But notice what he says: "I will deal with one and therefore you will know I am capable of dealing with the others if I had more time." (There goes that terrific ego again!) Really, Mr. Till!!! How does this old bromide go? "I'll quote you a Bible verse, and then you will know that I can quote the rest of them, and if I can manage to hit two piano keys, you just know I can play an entire concerto!"
Now, readers, are you quite impressed with Till's "expertise"? The "expert" has repeatedly chosen one of several points I offered, then filled up his space with other matters, only at last to plead he lacked space!! Approaching the one point Till chose to mention, he states that Jackson can "talk about `double intention' until he's blue in the face." You're tormented before the time, Mr. Till, but since you brought it up, you know nothing of type/anti-type, shadow/substance, application/ reapplication. We're to set aside a sound Biblical-interpretation rule because Mr. Till says he will not accept such?
Notice what Mr. Till tells us on Matthew 2:22-23. First, in Till's eyes, a resident of Sidon could be called a Sidonian, but a resident of Nazareth could not be called "a Nazarene." And, in Till's eyes, for scores of prophets who existed, none of them could have stated anything except what was written in a Bible book! Matthew says such was spoken by the prophets. Till says it couldn't be so because it wasn't written. But he's shown us that he wouldn't believe it even if it was written down! Come on, Mr. Till, if you're going to be an infidel, at least work at it!!
When Till comes to Micah 5:2 and Matthew 2:6, he tells us that a town could not have a man's name? He faults Matthew for not mentioning "Ephrathah" when it was simply an older name for Bethlehem? And does Till not know that a prophecy can be given, without every single word being cited in stating fulfillment? If Micah 5:2 pointed to Bethlehem having a promised greatness, to be not the least of thousands because of a ruler to come, and Matthew cites "princes of Judah" with a Governor to come, that is sufficient to show that our Prince, of thousands, is to come from Bethlehem. Till may not like it or see it, but Matthew did and the chief priests and scribes of Judaism could see it!
Now we come to Till's rule, made for the sake of argument, that a prophecy cannot be legitimate unless it mentions every single word when fulfillment is stated! It's the Till-rule, mind you, ignoring the promises that Christ will be resurrected, and then casting doubt on 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 because "the third day" was not mentioned. The prophecy had to do with the event, Mr. Till, and the fleshed-out details need not have been given at the time! Again, it's the Till rule!
Till makes the same blunder regarding Jeremiah 31:15, assuming, as a non-believer [sic] might well do, that before Matthew could cite his 2:17-18, there had to be a fulfilling of Jeremiah 31:16. The reference, Mr. Till, was to the likeness in the weeping over children! It is a completely arbitrary view on the part of Mr. Till that there can be no fulfilling of a portion of a prophecy unless there is a 100 percent repeating of the very same situation of the prophet's time! Once more, he seems not to understand the simplest matters of type/anti-type, shadow/substance, etc. By his thinking, Moses could not have been a type of Christ because Christ had not married a Midianite woman! We again point out that which is the truth of it: a prophecy can be stated as fulfilled if an element is there which can be shown to be fulfilled at a later time. There need not be a spelling out of every single detail of the prophecy!
It will be worthwhile to point out to readers exactly what Mr. Till has done regarding the very first and basic argument I had set forth. To paraphrase Mr. Till, in seeing how he dealt with this very first argument is proof that he will deal with all other arguments in the very same dodging fashion! I had set forth these points, which I number again, one through six. I pointed to the Bible's (1) Antiquity, (2) Association with the nation of Israel, whose history is so well documented, (3) Development of one steadfast and consistent theme down through its history, (4) Stated prophecies and the fulfillment given by the multiplied dozens, (5) Scientific foreknowledge against the common belief of the times, and which things have only come to scientific light in modern days, and (6), The plan of God by which the whole world is to be saved!
And, after I had set forth these points, what did Mr. Till do? He jumped on antiquity, as if that were all I had said, and pointed out that other religious works were ancient and claimed inspiration! He was silent on the rest, until a feeble point made just a little later. He has treated us to these: (1) He claims other ancient books have as much veracity as the Bible, but does not show it in accord with the six points I presented regarding the Bible. (2) As to how God would communicate with man, he said, "I don't know." (3) On Isaiah 40:22, he said, "How do you know it's literal?" and again, "Maybe Isaiah knew it without God." (4) On Genesis 6:1-4, Till dreams up angels to insert into the verses. (5) On other passages, he asks, "How do you know these mean what you think they mean?" We have been treated to the game of dodge, bend and twist from Mr. Till, who constantly pleads a lack of time and space, yet he finds time to weep over my debating procedures. When he sets out to give us an example of grand debating style, here's what he offered in the way of a rebuttal to my material: "...very likely.... quite probably.... raises the possibility....!" Here is the heart of it all: if the Bible says something, that's to be denied by Till. But Till "proves" his points with simply a "very likely" statement! Pitiful!
Now, Mr. Till, time is running out on you, but you seem not to be concerned about time and space, except to weep over the lack of it while you waste space! If you feel that you have offered acceptable negative material in answer to my points, then please get ready for me to do the same with you. When you, in the affirmative, will point to alleged contradictions and absurdities in the Bible, all I will have to do, in following you, is to say, "How do you know the verses mean what you think they mean, and if thus you cannot know, you really can't say they are in contradiction!" Remember, you set the pattern on this! If good for the goose, then good for the gander!
Let the reader remember that Mr. Till did not want to debate the existence of God, and left the door open for his belief that God does exist, though he feels atheism has the edge. Since he seems so lukewarm on the whole matter, he is in no position to state that God could not have said what He did say in any given situation! All he can do is deny!
[Editor's Note: At Mr. Jackson's insistence, the length of each manuscript was limited to six pages, which any reasonable person will understand was not nearly long enough to rebut all of the unsupported assertions that Mr. Jackson strung together in his part of the debate. The link to angels above will take readers to an article in which Till explicated in detail Genesis 6:1-4 to show that it obviously referred to an ancient myth about fallen angels, who married earthly women and produced a race of giants so wicked that God decided to destroy the earth. Readers can also go to "Sons of God: Just the Godly Lineage of Seth" to see even more evidence that the angels in Genesis 6:1-4 were clearly references to an ancient myth of fallen angels who corrupted the earth.]
Go to Till's Fourth Rebuttal.
