As I assume the affirmative role in this debate, I pledge to the readers my determination to stick to the issues involved in the defense of my proposition. To do this, I will avoid introducing matters that don't relate to the origin of the Bible. I will not waste time seeking Mr. McDonald's opinion about the existence of God, the theory of evolution, or the nature of good and evil. As I have repeatedly emphasized, such matters as these are irrelevant to the central issue of this debate. That issue concerns the authorship of the Bible. Mr. McDonald insists that God verbally inspired the authors of the Bible in order to protect them from error as they wrote. I insist that no such act of divine inspiration occurred.
The existence of God is therefore irrelevant to this issue. I frankly admit to serious doubts that God exists, but whether he does or not is beside the point. If God does exist, it would not necessarily follow that he inspired the authorship of the Bible. That fact can be demonstrated by the following obviously invalid syllogism, which would have to be valid before the existence of God could have any relevance to what we are debating:
Major Premise: If it is the case that God exists, then the Bible is the verbally inspired word of God.
Minor Premise: It is the case that God exists.
Conclusion: Therefore, the Bible is the verbally inspired word of God.
We have all noticed that Mr. McDonald is a great admirer of modus ponens arguments, so I assume (perhaps falsely) that he understands logical principles enough to recognize that this syllogism is unsound. The antecedent of the major premise, even if true, would not necessitate its consequent. The premise assumes that if God exists, then he must have verbally inspired the Bible, but by no stretch of imagination could anyone seriously argue that this would have to be the case. If the mere fact that God exists automatically requires the existence of the Bible, then the Bible itself would be eternal with God. Not even Mr. McDonald will claim that much for the Bible.
I begin my affirmative role, then, with the sincere hope that Mr. McDonald will be content to limit his comments to issues that relate directly to the origin of the Bible. I will do everything I can to help him do just that. The rules of the debate accord each participant the right to submit a list of five formal questions in each of his presentations. While I am affirming, I intend to waive that right so that Mr. McDonald will not be put into the position of defender. I am the affirmant; I will defend. I want him to use his entire space allotment for the rebuttal of my arguments. I predict he will need it.
As the affirmant, I will be defending this proposition: Intertextual contradictions and inconsistencies; historical, chronological, and scientific inaccuracies; failed prophecies; absurdities; moral atrocities attributed to divine ordainment; plagiarisms; and other disparities recorded in the Bible disprove its claim to be the inspired word of God. In a sense, I am affirming the exact opposite of the proposition Mr. McDonald tried but failed to defend. He affirmed that the Bible was verbally inspired of God; I will be affirming that it is in no sense, verbally or otherwise, inspired of God. Although my proposition is rather self-explanatory, I will define its key terms so that our readers will understand exactly what the issue is as the debate progresses. I assume the readers understand that the term Bible in my proposition refers to the sixty-six books traditionally included in the Protestant canon, although the arguments I will be presenting will apply equally to the larger canon included in such versions as the Jerusalem Bible and various Catholic editions. Catholic Bibles, for example, contain forty-six Old Testament books rather than the thirty-nine in most Protestant versions, and there are also books that some Christians include in the New Testament canon that others consider apocryphal. I contend that God inspired none of the books in the Bible regardless of what version it is. God simply had nothing to do with the authorship of the Bible.
By "intertextual contradictions," I mean statements within the Bible that in some way disagree or conflict with parallel accounts or other statements or passages within the overall canonical text. Obviously, then, I will be using the term contradiction in the vernacular sense that most people intend when they use it, rather than the rigidly logical sense that Mr. McDonald tried to invoke while he was affirming. When speaking in the vernacular, most people use the word contradiction simply to identify discrepancy or disagreement in meaning. Except when I specify otherwise, this is how I will be using it.
The term inconsistencies is intended to signify contrarieties or incongruities that defy coordination of meaning. By historical, chronological, and scientific inaccuracies, I mean errors that relate to verifiable historical, chronological (time-based), and scientific facts. The expression failed prophecies signifies predictions that failed to materialize at all or to materialize within the intended time frame set by the predictors. By absurdities, I am referring to seriously asserted statements, claims, or stories in the Bible that are so ridiculous, nonsensical, or far-fetched as to insult the intelligence of the modern-day, scientifically sophisticated reader. Moral atrocities attributed to divine ordainment are acts universally recognized in modern times to be outrageously immoral that were nevertheless condoned or even ordered by Yahweh, the war deity of the ancient Hebrews. Plagiarisms are written works or sections of written works that were taken from earlier sources and, without proper recognition of their origin, were inserted into the Bible text and passed off as original works of the allegedly inspired Bible writers. By other disparities recorded in the Bible, I mean discordant qualities other than those specifically listed in my proposition. My claim is that all of these together disprove, invalidate, or warrant rejection of the widely held belief that the Bible was divinely inspired, i. e., god-breathed in its origin.
In my rebuttals, I took the position that there is absolutely no way that Mr. McDonald could ever prove that the Bible was verbally inspired of God. This premise is based on a reasoning principle that recognizes the human senses as the only verifiable source of real knowledge. Whatever we know we know because of information we have learned by seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, or touching and then processing in our brains. McDonald cannot tell us one thing he knows that was acquired in some way other than the use of his senses. He tried in his second affirmative (pp. 5-6) to prove that he knew, without the aid of his senses, that Robert Sidney McDonald was his grandfather and then took offense when I pointed out to him as tactfully as possible that he could not know this, that only his grandmother could know for sure that Robert Sidney McDonald was the father of his father and then likewise only his mother could know for sure that Thomas Harvey McDonald, the man Jerry McDonald "knows" as his father, is in fact his father. Hence, Jerry McDonald does not know in the true sense of knowledge that Robert Sidney McDonald was actually his grandfather; he can only believe that he was. The principle involved is as simple as the story about the backwoods preacher who was trying to explain to his congregation the difference in faith and knowledge. He pointed to a couple on the front pew surrounded by a brood of children and said, "Now Betsy here knows that these young'uns are hers; that's knowledge. But Henry doesn't really know they are his. He loves his wife, he trusts his wife, and she says they are his, and he believes her. That's faith."
The point is that there is an enormous difference in faith and knowledge. Mr. McDonald would like everyone to think that he knows the Bible is the verbally inspired word of God, but he can't know that. It is impossible for him to know that. He wasn't bodily present when the books of the Bible were being written to evaluate its authorship directly with his senses; therefore, he will never be able to know that the Bible was indeed inspired of God. The best he can claim is that he believes the Bible was inspired of God.
Since I am in effect affirming the exact opposite of what Mr. McDonald affirmed, wouldn't the same principles apply to my position too? I wasn't physically present when the Bible was being written either, so how can I claim to know that it is not the verbally inspired word of God? Isn't there at least a little inconsistency in my proposition? A hypothetical illustration will show that there isn't. Let's assume that Mr. McDonald and I, working as archaeologists, discover a magnificent palace in a hitherto unexplored part of the word. Awed by the wonder of its architecture, Mr. McDonald rashly proclaims, "I know that this palace is perfect in every detail of construction." Any rational person would immediately recognize the absurdity of this claim. He wasn't present when the palace was being built, so, even if it had an outward appearance of perfection, he couldn't possibly know that the structure was perfect through and through, that no internal faults existed in places that had been covered by the exterior stages of construction. On the other hand, all I would have to do in order to know that the architecture wasn't perfect would be to find a single fault: a door that had been improperly hung, a wall that wasn't plumb, a corner that wasn't square, a floor that wasn't level, or some other imperfection that violated standards of flawless construction. So for him to know (regard as true beyond doubt) that the architecture of the palace was perfect, Mr. McDonald would have had to have been present during every step of construction from beginning to end so that he could have personally inspected every brick that was laid, every beam that was cut, every nail that was driven. The same principle, however, would not apply in order for me to know that the palace was not perfectly constructed.
Sometimes, then, it is much easier to know that a thing is not true than to know that it is true. All reliable evidence indicates that the once flourishing passenger pigeon is now extinct, but if one were to declare that he knows, in the sense of being certain beyond doubt, that this species is extinct, he would be asserting more than he could actually prove. The discovery of species previously thought to be extinct is not at all uncommon, and this could conceivably happen with the passenger pigeon. So for anyone to know that the extinction of the passenger pigeon is an absolute fact, he would have to devise some method of simultaneously checking every nook and cranny on the entire earth suitable for the habitat of passenger pigeons. If just one such place were overlooked, that could very well be the spot where a few specimens had managed to survive. On the other hand, for one to know that the passenger pigeon is not extinct, all he would have to do is produce just one living specimen.
This principle (that it is sometimes easier to know a thing is not true than to know it is), when applied to the central issue of this debate, puts me in a very enviable position as I assume the affirmative role. Mr. McDonald cannot (and did not) prove that the Bible is the verbally inspired word of God, but I can easily prove that it isn't. He wasn't present during the writing of the Bible and I wasn't either, but now that it has been written, as was true of the allegedly perfect palace in my illustration, all I have to do to prove imperfection is find flaws in the Bible's structure. And the readers need not doubt that this will be done. We will see enough cracks in the foundation of this house called the Bible to dispel for all times the preposterous myth that it is the inerrant word of God.
Mr. McDonald has made a big issue over my reluctance to claim infallibility. In my debate with James H. Laws, he asked me if I could possibly be wrong in my position on the Bible, and this is what I said:
From long years of dogmatically believing (as Dr. Laws does) that I was right, totally right, and couldn't possibly be wrong in my view of the Bible, I learned that it is unwise to take the position, on any matter, that I cannot be wrong. So, yes, it is possible that I am wrong, but I must insist that Dr. Laws prove he is right before I admit that I am wrong. Incidentally, I wonder if he is willing to admit that he might be wrong (Laws-Till Debate, p. 11).
In three debates since then (all with Church-of-Christ preachers), this statement has been wagged in and out of the debates as if it were the most shameful thing that anyone could ever say. It has also been brazenly misquoted and misapplied. In his fifth affirmative (p. 4), McDonald used it to misrepresent my debating strategy with him:
He (Till) says that if his biggest concession is that he admits that he may be wrong, then he is in pretty good shape. Well, I just do not know how I can respond to a statement like that. If I were to make all of my arguments in favor of my proposition, and then at the end say, "Oh, but, you see, it is possible that I am wrong regarding my proposition," Mr. Till would have something to howl about from now on. Does anyone honestly think that he would ever allow me to live that down? No! He would not! However, the shoe is on the other foot now. So it is not such a big deal. Because he is the one who is making the concession. If one is not sure of his position, why debate it? I would never debate a subject that I was not absolutely sure about.
There is a clear implication in this statement that I have made a practice of advancing arguments and then afterwards (at the end) saying, "Oh, but, you see, it is possible that I am wrong regarding my proposition," but I have done no such thing. The statement that McDonald was referring to was made in The Laws-Till Debate, and even then it was made in my first rebuttal in answer to a direct question Laws had asked. I didn't then and I don't now make a practice of presenting arguments and then saying, "Oh, but I could be wrong." This is just a smoke screen that McDonald keeps laying down to hide the inadequacies of his arguments.
In this statement that Laws, Jackson, Deaver, and McDonald (all Church-of-Christ debating opponents) have made such a fuss over, all I was doing was acknowledging the possibility that I could have misinterpreted the sense perceptions that have led me to conclude that the Bible is not the inspired word of God. Through my senses, I have acquired information that enables me to recognize contradictions and absurdities and to analyze written materials to identify unfulfilled prophetic statements and plagiarisms from other literary sources. I have found all of these problems and many others in the Bible text to a degree that I feel completely justified in saying that I know the Bible is not the inspired word of God. Modesty and past experience, however, compel me to admit at least the possibility of being wrong, of having misinterpreted the sense perceptions that led me to this conclusion, but so that no one will misunderstand my position, I declare here and now, without reservation, that there have been few things in my life that I have been as sure of as I am that the Bible is not the inspired word of God. If Mr. McDonald insists on twisting this simple act of modesty into some kind of logical error, I can't keep him from doing it. It won't be the first time in this debate that he has twisted and misinterpreted information.
I propose a way out of the impasse Mr. McDonald and I seem to have reached on the matter of my allegedly "damaging concessions." I suggest an end to the quibbling so that we can debate the issue of Bible inerrancy. Let me present my arguments and him his counterarguments, and then the readers can decide whose position is the sounder of the two. This is what I intend to do.
As I said earlier, Mr. McDonald has shown himself to be an admirer of modus ponens arguments; therefore, I know of no better way to begin the defense of my proposition than with a syllogism of my own:
Major Premise: If it is the case that the Bible possesses properties so obviously erroneous as to exclude all possibility of omniscient, omnipotent guidance in its authorship, then the Bible was written without the guidance of an omniscient, omnipotent deity.
Minor Premise: It is the case that the Bible possesses properties so obviously erroneous as to exclude all possibility of omniscient, omnipotent guidance in its authorship.
Conclusion: Therefore, the Bible was written without the guidance of an omniscient, omnipotent deity.
Mr. McDonald very emphatically claims that the god of the Bible, the god that he believes also inspired the Bible, is both omniscient (unlimited in knowledge) and omnipotent (unlimited in power). This is, in fact, a cardinal doctrine of everyone who believes in Bible inerrancy. Dr. George DeHoff, a respected authority on this subject in the Churches of Christ, while defining "plenary or full inspiration" in his book Alleged Bible Contradictions Explained, made this claim:
It (plenary inspiration) is the idea that the Bible is at the same time human and divine, that human beings wrote every word of it but that the Holy Spirit so guided and directed these men that they wrote exactly what God wanted them to write without any errors or mistakes... (emphasis added, p. 19).
Such an act of inspiration as the one described in this statement could have been accomplished only by an omniscient deity, for only a being who knows everything there is to know could possibly guarantee that no errors or mistakes would occur in the writing of a book whose range is as extensive as the Bible's. Furthermore, to leave no doubt that he meant for his definition of plenary inspiration to apply to every single word in the Bible, Dr. DeHoff went on to say:
If God had wanted another "i" dotted or another "t" crossed, He would have had it done. The writers did not use one word unless God wanted that word used. They put in every word which God wanted them to put into the Bible, (emphasis added, p. 23).
Mr. McDonald is in complete agreement with DeHoff's claim that every word, every jot and every tittle, fell under the protective umbrella of verbal inspiration as the Bible was being written. The fact that he does agree with this view of how the Bible was written spares me the need to establish that perfection in every detail would have to be an inevitable consequence of verbal inspiration. An omniscient, omnipotent deity could not make mistakes, no matter how insignificant, without casting serious doubts on his omniscience. Everything that McDonald said in defense of his own proposition obviously puts him in agreement with this, so to establish the soundness of my argument, all I have to do is prove that mistakes were made in writing the Bible. When I do that, as I will, I will have proven that the Bible was written without the guidance of an omniscient deity.
As I have said so often before in debates on this same proposition, there are so many glaring discrepancies in the Bible that I hardly know where to begin showing that it is intertextually contradictory and inconsistent. As good a place as any to begin, I suppose, would be to remind the readers that counterarguments I introduced in my rebuttals have clearly established the existence of intertextual contradictions in the present text of the Bible. The matter of Ahaziah's age "when he began to reign" (2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chron. 22:2) is a discrepancy that Mr. McDonald has not yet been able to explain away, so perhaps he would like to have another go at it early in this part of the debate. While he is at it, he might also want to explain how Jehoram of Judah could have had a son who was two years older than he. This too plagued him throughout the first half of the debate. So until Mr. McDonald can take care of these problems, I have already proven my position. There are obvious discrepancies in the Bible text.
A widely recognized rule of evidence declares that when two statements contradict each other they cannot both be right. They can both be wrong, but they can't both be right. In the case of Ahaziah's age "when he began to reign," we have disagreement between two "inspired" writers. One said that he was 22 when Ahaziah began to reign (2 Kings 8:26); the other said that he was 42 when he began to reign (2 Chron. 22:2). They cannot both be right; hence, there absolutely has to be at least one error in the Bible text. If that is so, how can any rational person believe that both accounts were verbally inspired by an omniscient deity? Is Mr. McDonald's omniscient, omnipotent god unable to determine simple things like the age of a king when he began to reign? If we can't trust omniscience in rather simple matters like this, how can we trust it to report accurately in more complex matters like the virgin birth of Jesus and his death, burial, and resurrection?
Space did not allow me to respond to McDonald's "explanation" of the discrepancy between 2 Samuel 24:24 and 1 Chronicles 21:25 that I introduced as a rebuttal argument, so I will reenter it as an affirmative argument and expand it to include more than the price that David paid for the temple site. Actually, there are four contradictions to be found in the broader context of these two stories. The first concerns the matter of who tempted David to take the census that, for reasons only Bible fundamentalists can comprehend, led Yahweh, in typical Yahwistic fashion, to send a pestilence against Israel that killed 70,000 people. Yahweh "moved" David to take the census, according to 2 Samuel 24:1, but "Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel," according to 1 Chronicles 21:1. So who moved David to do this, Yahweh or Satan? McDonald, of course, will have a Gleason Archer/John Haley "explanation" of how it could correctly be said that both Yahweh and Satan "moved" David to do this, but as he runs it by us, I urge the readers to take careful notice of how far one must stretch his imagination to find acceptability in fanciful resolutions to discrepancies as glaring as this one. I want to continue urging our readers to be prepared for McDonald's far-fetched, how-it-could-have-been scenarios. He is going to use and reuse them (as he did in his Jehoram-Ahaziah co-reign theory). The how-it-could-have-been scenario is the only weapon that bibliolaters have when they debate the inerrancy doctrine.
After Yahweh or Satan (take your pick) moved David to number Israel, the two "inspired" writers recording the event came up with conflicting census figures. According to 2 Samuel 24:8-9, after Joab had gone "to and fro through all the land," he reported to David that there were "in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword" and "the men of Judah were five hundred thousand." This would make a total of 1,300,000. The Chronicle writer, however, said that after Joab had gone "throughout all Israel," he reported that there were in Israel "a million and one hundred thousand men that drew the sword" and in Judah "four hundred seventy thousand men that drew the sword" (1 Chron. 21:4-5). These figures would add up to 1,570,000, a difference of 270,000.
Let me caution our readers to be prepared for a lot of double talk and mumbo jumbo when McDonald undertakes to explain this. You will hear him speculating such things as two censuses being conducted so that the conflict results from one writer reporting the result of the first census, while the other writer was reporting the result of the other. Or maybe you will hear him suggesting that only one census was conducted but that Joab made two reports to David, one immediately upon his return to Jerusalem and the other after he had refined his figures. Or maybe he will try the "valiant-men" dodge and say that 2 Samuel 24:9 was reporting the number of "battle-seasoned troops" or valiant men at 800,000, whereas the Chronicle writer, who didn't mention valiant men, was reporting the total number of troops, new recruits as well as combat veterans, at the higher figure of 1,100,000. Yes, he might say a lot of things, because, admittedly, bibliolaters have an almost endless supply of far-fetched, how-it-could-have-been scenarios that they resort to when confronted with discrepancies in the Bible text. I simply ask our readers to be objective in their consideration of whatever speculative explanation McDonald comes up with this time. In doing this, they should bear in mind that McDonald claims that an omniscient, omnipotent deity guided the hands of both of these writers.
With that in mind, we have the right to ask if confusion of this sort is the best that omniscience and omnipotence could do. If two censuses actually were conducted, couldn't omniscience and omnipotence have directed these writers to report them in such a way to make the distinction clear to us? If Joab actually did make two reports to David, couldn't omniscience and omnipotence have directed the writers to make that clear to us? If one report included only the "seasoned combat veterans" in Israel, couldn't omniscience and omnipotence have directed the writer of 2 Kings to report it in such a way that we would have so understood it without needing a Gleason Archer or John Haley or Jerry McDonald to explain it to us? I am just a lowly English teacher, but I could have reported the census findings in such a way as to avoid such confusion. So here is Till's version of 2 Samuel 24:9 written in a way to make it clear to the readers that only seasoned battle veterans were included in Joab's census figures for Israel: "And Joab gave up the sum of the numbering of the people to the king: and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword besides the new recruits who had no battle experience." Now what was so difficult about that? Or if 1 Chronicles 21:4-5 involved a second report to the king after Joab had refined his figures, it could have been written like this: "Therefore Joab departed and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem, and Joab gave up a preliminary sum of the numbering of the people of David: in Israel eight hundred thousand men that drew the sword and in Judah five hundred thousand men. Then after checking his numbers, he reported to the king a more exact count: All they of Israel, both valiant men and new recruits, were a million and one hundred thousand men that drew the sword and in Judah four hundred seventy thousand men." Would it be asking too much of omniscience and omnipotence to strive for this kind of clarity? What would be wrong with an inspired word of God that had been written in such a way as to make allegations of discrepancy and contradiction impossible?
The point is that a resort to speculative, could-have and may-have-been explanations of (alleged) discrepancies in the Bible text strikes at the very heart of the inerrancy doctrine, because it becomes an admission that the Bible was not written perfectly enough to avoid creating confusion. All inerrancy defenders agree that a consequence of the doctrine is a belief that the Bible must be completely free of any and all kinds of errors in matters of history, science, chronology, geography, etc. as well as faith and practice. The reasoning principle on which this belief is based is that omniscience knows everything and omnipotence can do anything. Therefore, for the Bible to have been inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity, it would have to be completely free of errors of any kind. To say otherwise would be to say that omniscience and omnipotence did not know enough and did not have enough power to avoid making mistakes. So far so good, but what the inerrantists refuse to admit is a second consequence of the doctrine, and that would be that a book inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity would have to have been written with such skill and clarity as to make misunderstanding and confusion impossible. To say otherwise is to say that omniscience did not know enough and did not have enough ability to avoid creating confusion.
Let Mr. McDonald keep this in mind as he seeks to explain the discrepancies that exist between the two census accounts recorded in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21. Let him remember that the very moment he resorts to how-it-could-have-been scenarios to explain the discrepancies, he is admitting that there is a flaw in his inerrancy doctrine. He won't admit this, of course, even though the mere existence of books like Gleason Archer's Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, John Haley's Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, and other books of the same sort testifies to the obvious fact that there is considerable disagreement about whether the Bible is as harmonious as fundamentalists want everyone to believe. The very fact that this debate is taking place testifies to the state of confusion that exists in matters of biblical interpretation. So before Mr. McDonald attempts to give us any more of his this-is-how-it-could-have-been solutions, he must first explain to us why an omniscient, omnipotent deity would have inspired a book that makes such explanations necessary.
The third point of contradiction in this census story was introduced in my second rebuttal (p. 19) and expanded in the third (pp. 21-24). This concerns the number of years in the famine that the prophet Gad offered David as one of three choices that David could choose as punishment for his sin in having numbered the Israelites (whatever the sin in conducting a census might have been). One "inspired" writer said that there would be seven years in the famine (2 Sam. 24:13); the other said that there would be three years in the famine (1 Chron. 21:12). So what did Gad really say when he presented David with the choice, seven years of famine or three years of famine? Both accounts can't be right. Gad couldn't have said seven while at the same time saying three.
McDonald tried earlier to wave this discrepancy aside by suggesting a far-fetched connection between the famine that Gad spoke of at this time with the famine that occurred in 2 Samuel 21:
There is no discrepancy between the two verses you produced. I believe them to have been in the original autographs just as they are. 2 Samuel 24:13 gives David the choice of enduring the whole famine (three years they had already endured due to [sic] Saul's sins [2 Sam. 21:9]. [sic] The year they were already in, and three years to come for David's sins) while 1 Chronicles 21:12 only mentions the three years for David's sins. One writer includes all of the famine while the other only writes of the three years to come. If Till took half as much time trying to harmonize these passages as he does trying to find contradictions, he would be much better off (third affirmative, p. 2).
One writer clearly said that Gad said David could choose seven years of famine; the other writer just as clearly said that Gad said David could choose three years of famine. I would like for Mr. McDonald to explain just how much time I or anyone would have to spend "trying to find contradiction" between these two statements. The details in both accounts are too parallel for anyone not to see that both writers were obviously reporting the same incidents. So when one said that Gad said seven years and the other said that Gad said three years, just how hard must one look in order to find contradiction in the statements? Perhaps McDonald should consider an adaptation of his own advice. If he spent a tenth as much time trying to see the obvious as he does looking for unlikely ways to "harmonize" statements as discrepant as these two, maybe he would finally begin to see the Bible for exactly what it is--a hopeless hodgepodge of inconsistencies and contradictions.
As for McDonald's attempt to connect the famine of 2 Samuel 21 with Gad's statement, I showed in my third rebuttal (pp. 21-22) that this famine had already ended when Gad came to pronounce judgment on David. After David, in accordance with the finest characteristics of Yahwistic justice, had delivered seven innocent men to death for something that had been done by somebody else, rain came that would have ended the famine. Saul's concubine Rizpah kept guard over the bodies of her sons until rain fell on them from the heavens (vv:10-14). David then had the bodies taken for burial (he had a streak of decency in him after all, didn't he?), "and after that, God heeded supplications for the land" (v:14, NRSV). If Mr. McDonald needed to find an end to this famine in order to resolve some point of discrepancy in the Bible text, do you think for one moment he would hesitate to say that these statements were sufficient to show that the famine ended after the executions? He certainly wouldn't. There is more than enough here to conclude that the writer was reporting that the executions had satisfied Yahweh's lust for blood, and so, he being appeased, had brought rain upon the land to end the famine. McDonald is hard pressed if he has to resort to this kind of verbal legerdemain to find harmony in the inspired word.
I further pointed out that McDonald's explanation will not work for the simple reason that both of these writers were reporting what Gad said to David. They weren't just recording the "essence" or the "substance" of what he said. In other words, they weren't claiming to be summarizing what was said; they both purported to be recording the very words that Gad said. That being true, McDonald's explanation simply will not float. Gad could not have said seven while at the same time saying three. If any readers doubt this, I ask them to just stop reading and try it.
That both accounts claimed to be reporting Gad's very words is very evident when the texts are read in modern translations that use quotation marks to enclose the words that biblical characters presumably said in their conversations. For the readers' convenience, I will juxtapose the two passages again from the Revised Berkeley Version with Yahweh substituted for "the LORD":
But after he had taken the census of the people, David's conscience accused him, and David confessed to Yahweh, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, Yahweh, I pray Thee, take away the wrong of Thy servant, for I have indeed played the fool." When David got up in the morning, the word of Yahweh came to the prophet Gad, David's seer, "Go, tell David, This is what Yahweh has decreed, 'I offer you three things; choose one of them for Me to do to you.'" So Gad came to David with the information and presented him with this, "Shall there come seven years of famine to you on your land, or three months of fleeing before your enemies with them pursuing you, or three days of a fatal malady in your land? Now consider, and decide what answer I am to return to Him who sent me" (2 Sam. 24:10-13).
David, it is true, confessed to God, "I have sinned greatly in doing this; and now, I pray Thee, take away the wrong of Thy servant, for I have indeed played the fool." But Yahweh spoke to Gad, David's seer, "Go, tell David, this is what Yahweh has decreed, 'I offer you three things; choose one of them for Me to do to you.'" So Gad came to David and informed him, "This is what Yahweh has decreed, 'Choose for yourself: three years of famine; or three months of being swept away before your adversaries, with the sword of your enemies overtaking you; or three days of the sword of Yahweh, that is of epidemic in the land, the angel of Yahweh working destruction all over the territory of Israel.' Now therefore decide what answer I am to return to Him who sent me" (1 Chron. 21: 8-12).
As I pointed out earlier, parts of the conversation are recorded identically in both accounts, a fact that makes it very obvious that both writers were recording the same conversation. There are variations, of course, but except for the discrepancy in numbers (seven in one; three in the other), the substance of what Gad allegedly said is the same in both accounts. However, the fact that there are variations in the conversation as it was recorded by the two "inspired" writers shoots McDonald's inerrancy theory so full of holes that it will never float again. Let's keep in mind exactly what McDonald is claiming. He is saying that God guided and directed the Bible writers so meticulously that everything they recorded was inerrant. But if there is inerrancy in everything written in the Bible, how could there be any variations at all in recorded conversation? Whatever a person says is what he says regardless of how he may say it, and so an inerrant record of what he said would have to state exactly what he said. If X says, "I was sick for three days," then X said, "I was sick for three days." Any written account of the statement that records X as having said, "For three days, I was ill," would not be an inerrant report of what X said, even though it would be an accurate reporting of the substance of what X said. And certainly if two different reporters recorded the statement so that A had X saying, "I was sick for three days," while B had X saying, "For seven days, I was ill," one would have to be crazy to argue that both statements were inerrant accounts of what X said. This is so obvious that anyone should be able to see it. If God were guiding the hand of a writer to record what someone had said, then God would know exactly what words were spoken and in what order. There would be no variations in the accounts even if God guided fifty different writers to record the words that were spoken. There are variations in these two accounts of Gad's conversation, however, and that is sufficient to show that McDonald's belief in an inerrant Bible text is just a pipe dream.
The first time around on this matter, McDonald said, "Are you (Till) sure that the writers wrote exactly, word for word, the conversations that took place? No! He is not sure, and his argument is merely a quibble" (fourth affirmative, p. 20). Well, I will just let him argue with his inerrant Bible on this matter. The KJV, which McDonald apparently believes the Apostle Paul carried with him in his hip pocket, introduces Gad's statement with these words: "So Gad came to David, and said unto him..." (1 Chron. 21:11). There then follows the statement quoted earlier, so this certainly sounds to me as if the writer wanted his readers to understand that he was telling them what Gad said. The same is true of the 2 Samuel account.
Here is a riddle for our readers. When does a statement in the Bible not mean exactly what it says in plain language? Answer: when the statement contradicts something said elsewhere in the Bible. This is the word game that inerrantists try to play every time they encounter a discrepancy in the Bible text. It is the game McDonald has been playing all through this debate, and I don't intend to let our readers forget it. So now I would like for him to tell us: what did Gad really say? Did he say seven years or did he say three years? Which? How could both be right and the Bible still be inerrant?
The fourth point of contradiction in this story concerns the price that David paid for the future temple site after the pestilence had been sent to kill 70,000 people to punish David for the sin he had committed. (I will reserve comment for later on the morality of killing 70,000 to punish one man for the "sin" of taking a census.) He paid "fifty shekels of silver" according to 2 Samuel 24:24, but he paid "600 shekels of gold by weight" according to 1 Chronicles 21:25. That sounds like a contradiction to me.
McDonald, of course, has an explanation for this. As I have said before, discrepancies, inconsistencies, and contradictions in the Bible text just can't be too glaring for him not to have explanations for them. On this matter, McDonald has offered this absurdly ridiculous "explanation":
In 2 Samuel 24:24 the writer refers to David buying the "threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver." However, the writer in 1 Chronicles 21:24-25 refers to David paying "the full price for the place (of the threshingfloor, v.22, jmd) six hundred shekels of gold by weight." One writer simply refers to David paying for the oxen and the cart (the threshingfloor), while the other writer refers to David paying the full price for the place of the threshingfloor, and the threshingfloor (along with the oxen) itself (fifth affirmative, p. 15).
So pressed is McDonald to find a solution to an embarrassing discrepancy that he wants to make the threshing floor a cart so that it can appear that the writer of the 2 Samuel account was saying that 50 shekels of silver were paid for a cart and oxen, whereas the writer of 1 Chronicles had in mind a much larger transaction that involved the purchase of a "place" (the future temple site) along with the cart and oxen. The only problem with this explanation is that a threshing floor in biblical times was not a cart; it was a place where grain was threshed. Eerdmans Bible Dictionary (1987, P. 1002) gives this definition of threshing floor:
A flat outdoor area used for threshing grain. Threshing floors were set on hilltops so that they were exposed to the wind that blew away chaff (cf. Dan. 2:35) in a threshing process that has survived to modern times in parts of the world.
The harvested grain was laid out on the threshing floor and was threshed by oxen driven over it, pulling a threshing sledge (Heb. môrag) equipped with sharp teeth dragged over it, or by beating with sticks (Isa. 28:27-28; 41:15).
If, as McDonald says, a threshing floor was a cart and if, as the above definition states, the grain was "laid out on the threshing floor" and threshed by driving oxen over it, then we must believe that grain was threshed in biblical times by having oxen tramp around in a cart. Who can imagine a scene so ridiculous? When David and Uzzah were transporting the ark of the covenant from the house of Abimadab on a new cart, Uzzah put forth his hand to stay the ark when the oxen pulling the cart stumbled at "the threshing-floor of Nacon," and Yahweh, in another display of tantrum, struck Uzzah dead "for his error" (2 Sam. 6:6). McDonald, I suppose, would have us believe that these oxen stumbled when they were trying to pull their cart over another cart. But that is also too ridiculous to imagine. So McDonald is wrong in saying that a threshing floor was a cart. It wasn't a cart; it was a place where grain was threshed. A juxtaposition of the two accounts of David's business deal with Ornan will show that both writers were obviously describing the same transaction:
And Gad came that day to David, and said to him, Go up, rear an altar to Yahweh in the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite. And David went up according to the saying of Gad, as Yahweh commanded.
And Araunah looked forth, and saw the king and his servants coming on toward him: and Araunah went out, and bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground. And Araunah said, Why has my sovereign the king come to his servant? And David said, To buy the threshing-floor of you, to build an altar to Yahweh, that the plague may be stopped from the people. And Araunah said to David, Let my sovereign the king take and offer up what seems good to him: behold, the oxen for the burnt-offering, and the threshing instruments and the yokes of the oxen for the wood: all this, O king, does Araunah give to the king, and Araunah said to the king, May Yahweh your Elohim accept you. And the king said to Araunah, No; but I will truly buy it from you at a price; neither will I offer burnt-offerings to Yahweh my Elohim which cost me nothing. David bought the threshing-floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver (2 Sam. 24:18-24, Bethel Bible).
Then the angel of Yahweh commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and rear an altar to Yahweh in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite. And David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in the name of Yahweh. And Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons that were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat. And as David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshing-floor and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground. Then David said to Ornan, Give me the place of this threshing-floor, that I may build thereon an altar to Yahweh: for the full price shall you give it to me, that the plague may be stopped from the people. And Ornan said to David, Take it to yourself, and let my sovereign the king do that which is good in his eyes: lo, I give thee the oxen for burnt-offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meal-offering; I give it all. And king David said to Ornan, No; but I will truly buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is yours for Yahweh, nor offer a burnt-offering without cost. So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight (1 Chron. 21:18-25, BB).
As parallel accounts in the Bible go, these two are strikingly similar. Both passages begin with Gad's telling David to go "rear an altar to Yahweh in the threshing-floor of Araunach (Ornan) the Jebusite." Both report that David went up "according to the saying of Gad." Both report that Ornan saw David coming, went out to meet him, and bowed down to the ground. The 1 Chronicles account even says that Ornan "went out of the threshing-floor." (McDonald, I assume, would interpret this to mean that Ornan alighted from a cart when he saw David coming.) Both report that David told Ornan he had come to build an altar to Yahweh on the threshing floor. Both state that Ornan offered to give David everything he needed (the oxen and the threshing instruments for wood) to build the altar and offer sacrifices. (The only difference on this point is that the Chronicle writer had Ornan include also an offer of wheat for a meal-offering.) Both say that David refused the offer on the grounds that he would not offer sacrifices to Yahweh that had cost him nothing. These two accounts are so parallel in details that no one should be able to say with a straight face that they were not describing the same transaction.
One account, however, says that David "bought the threshing-floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver," while the other says that David "gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight," and on the basis of this variation in wording about what was being purchased, McDonald has built a flimsy solution to the discrepancy in the amount of money that changed hands. He wants us to believe that in the first account 50 shekels of silver were paid for a cart and oxen, and in the other 600 shekels of gold were paid for a place, a site that was later used to build the temple on. But the first account does not say that David bought a cart; it says that he bought a threshing floor. If he bought a threshing floor, then he bought a place, because a threshing floor was a place, a location, a piece of flat ground on a hilltop that was used for winnowing grain. Please notice that both passages in question begin with Gad's telling David to go "rear an altar to Yahweh in the threshing-floor of Ornan." McDonald would have us believe that Gad was telling David to go build an altar to Yahweh in Ornan's cart, and that is too preposterous for anyone to believe, except for Bible fundamentalists who are desperate to preserve their precious inerrancy doctrine. These two accounts are in obvious conflict concerning the amount of money that exchanged hands during this transaction. McDonald can deny that even until his dying breath, but objective, rational-minded readers will have no difficulty seeing that this is an irreconcilable discrepancy.
To show the absurdity of McDonald's far-fetched resolution of this discrepancy, let's imagine that the two verses mentioning the money transaction read as follows:
So David bought the threshing-floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver by weight (2 Sam. 24:24).
So David gave to Ornan for the place fifty shekels of silver by weight (1 Chron. 21:25).
If this were the case, the two passages would be in agreement on the amount of money that was paid, but one would be saying that the fifty shekels were paid for "the threshing floor and the oxen," whereas the other would be saying that the fifty shekels were paid for the "place." If this were actually the way the two accounts read in the Bible, what do you suppose McDonald's reaction would be if some skeptic would declare this variation a discrepancy and say, "Aha, one inspired writer said that David paid fifty shekels of silver for a cart and oxen, but the other said that he paid fifty shekels of silver for a place, a piece of ground"? How quickly would it take McDonald to say, "If skeptics took half as much time trying to harmonize these passages as they do trying to find contradictions, they would be much better off"? I don't think it would take him very long to make that complaint, and I would agree that he would be justified in making it. If the two verses were that close in what they said, there would be no basis at all for asserting that they were discrepant in meaning. So if there would be no basis for claiming discrepancy if it were necessary for place and threshing-floor to mean the same thing in order to find harmony in the two verses, then there is no basis for claiming that place and threshing-floor mean different things in order to find harmony in the two verses. If not, why not? Let Mr. McDonald explain that.
To say that these conflicting accounts of the same story catch Mr. McDonald on the horns of a dilemma would be an understatement. Since he is such a great admirer of logical syllogisms, I will just state the problem confronting him in this case in the form of a valid destructive dilemma (double modus tollens syllogism):
Major Premise: If it is the case that the Bible is the verbally inspired, inerrant word of God, then 2 Samuel 24 must be true and accurate in every detail.
Major Premise: If it is the case that the Bible is the verbally inspired, inerrant word of God, then 1 Chronicles 21 must be true and accurate in every detail.
Minor (Disjunctive) Premise: Either 2 Samuel 24 is not true and accurate in every detail or I Chronicles 21 is not true and accurate in every detail.
Conclusion: Therefore, the Bible is not the verbally inspired, inerrant word of God.
Since Mr. McDonald accepts the truth of both major premises, the only way he can escape between the horns of this dilemma is to prove that the minor or disjunctive premise is not true. What I have said in explicating the four points of discrepancy in the two accounts of this story, however, is more than enough to prove the truth of the disjunctive premise in the syllogism. We can only conclude, then, that Mr. McDonald finds himself hopelessly caught on the horns of a dilemma.
To put the four points of discrepancy in these parallel accounts into their final perspective, let's return to a point that I made earlier. One inspired writer said that Yahweh moved David to number Israel; the other said that Satan moved David to do it. One inspired writer gave one set of census numbers; the other gave another set. One inspired writer said that Gad offered David seven years of famine; the other said that Gad offered three years of famine. One writer said that David paid Ornan 50 shekels of silver for the threshing floor; the other said that David paid 600 shekels of gold. To say the very least, these variations result in reader confusion about what happened in this story. So even if McDonald should be able to explain every one of these variations to our complete satisfaction (which he cannot do), he would still be left with the problem of why an omniscient, omnipotent deity could not inspire less confusing records of what happened when David numbered Israel. Don't we have the right to expect omniscience and omnipotence to do a better job than this? Let's hope that Mr. McDonald explains this to us in the "point-by-point" rebuttal that we expect him to make.
We should not leave this story without taking notice of another blow that it inflicts on the inerrancy doctrine. David was the one who sinned on this occasion. "I have sinned greatly in that I have done this thing," he said in a prayer to Yahweh Elohim (1 Chron. 21:8; 2 Sam. 24:10). That being so, we have to wonder about Yahweh's sense of justice in killing 70,000 people for something that another person did. David himself wondered this. When David saw that the angel had struck his people with a deadly pestilence, he said to Yahweh, "Lo, I have sinned, and I have done perversely; but these sheep, what have they done?" That's a good question for Mr. McDonald, and we hope he will answer it. What Yahweh did on this occasion violated a biblical principle that says that punishment for sin will be inflicted upon the one who sins and not on others (Ezek. 18:20; Dt. 24:16; 2 Kings 14:6; Jer. 31:29-30). In this case, however, as in others I could cite, 70,000 people were punished with death for something that was done by another man. Aside from the deplorable morality involved in it, we have another contradiction in the Bible. Out of one side of his mouth, Yahweh Elohim decreed that no one would be punished for the sins of others; out of the other side of his mouth, he decreed that 70,000 people should die for the sin of one man. Let's hope that Mr. McDonald will show us how this does not reflect poorly on the inerrancy doctrine.
Finally on this matter of David's sin in conducting a census, we should notice that both accounts of this story contradict a clearly worded statement in another Bible passage. Both accounts plainly declare that David sinned in numbering Israel: "And David said to Elohim, I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing" (1 Chron. 21:8; 2 Sam. 24:10; compare also to 1 Chron. 21:17 and 2 Sam. 24:17). Very well, David, for reasons understood only by the inscrutable omniscient one, sinned in ordering the census, but 1 Kings 15:5 states that "David did that which was right in the eyes of Yahweh, and turned not aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, except only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite." The discrepancy between this statement and the ones cited above is sufficient to establish another contradiction in the Bible text, for if David sinned in conducting the census, then it cannot be true that he did not sin all the days of his life in anything except the matter of Uriah the Hittite. I can, however, prove, even without his confession of sin in 2 Samuel 24:10 and 1 Chronicles 21:8, that David sinned in many things other than "the matter of Uriah the Hittite." While he was living among the Philistines during his flight from Saul's wrath, David survived by guerrilla marauding, at which time he had a policy of killing every man and woman in the villages he raided so that there would be no survivors alive to tell king Achish what he had done (1 Sam. 27:8-12). Will Mr. McDonald say that there was no sin involved in murdering entire civilian populations? Probably so, because he is already on record as a defender of the despicable massacre of the Amalekite and Midianite nations, so massacres by a roving desperado probably won't offend his sense of decency either.
David once killed 200 Philistines so that he could cut off their foreskins to give to Saul as a dowry for his daughter Michael (1 Sam. 18:27). After defeating the Ammonites, David "put them under saws, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through the brickkiln" (2 Sam. 12:31). The Confraternity Version translates that verse like this: "And bringing forth the people thereof, he sawed them, and drove over them chariots armed with iron: and divided them with knives, and made them pass through brick-kilns." Will McDonald say that these were the actions of a man who never sinned in his entire life except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite"? Probably so, because to defend the inerrancy doctrine, he will have to say it, and he is obviously willing to say anything to keep his precious inerrancy doctrine intact.
The occasion when David said that he had sinned in numbering Israel is not the only time that he himself admitted to having sinned. In Psalm 25:7,18 he said in a prayer to Yahweh, "Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions.... Consider my affliction and my travail; and forgive all my sins." Forgive all his sins? Why, there weren't any to forgive "except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite." In Psalm 32:5, he said in another prayer, "I acknowledged my sin to you, and my iniquity did I not hide: I said, I will confess my transgressions to Yahweh." Some will argue that David was here confessing his sin with Bathsheba, but that is an unsatisfactory solution to the problem, because he clearly said, "I will confess my transgressions (plural) to Yahweh." If, however, he had never sinned except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite, he would not have had transgressions to confess. The point is that even the Bible itself acknowledges many sins and transgressions of David, so whoever wrote the statement in 1 Kings 15:5 was wrong when he said that David had never turned aside "from anything he (Yahweh) commanded him all the days of his life." This is another discrepancy in the Bible text, and it is getting rather tedious having to point out the obvious to Mr. McDonald.
In The Jackson-Till Debate, I presented Mr. Jackson with a New Testament contradiction that he was never able to explain. I will pass it by Mr. McDonald to see if he can do a better job of explaining that it is not a contradiction. This involves the disagreement between Luke, the author of the book of Acts, and the apostle Paul concerning when Paul first went to Jerusalem after his conversion at Damascus. Luke obviously thought that Paul left Damascus and went immediately to Jerusalem: "And when many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel together to kill him (Paul): but their plot became known to Saul. And they watched the gates also day and night that they might kill him: but his disciples took him by night, and let him down through the wall, lowering him in a basket. And when he was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: and they were all afraid of him" (Acts 9:23-26). In one sentence (verse 25), Luke had Paul in Damascus but then in Jerusalem in the very next sentence (verse 26). Clearly Luke believed Paul left Damascus immediately after his conversion and went to Jerusalem.
Paul, however, had a different story. In writing to the Galatian churches in defense of his right to apostleship, he said, "But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, even from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles: straightway I conferred not with flesh and blood: neither went I up to Jerusalem to them that were apostles before me; but I went away into Arabia; and again I returned to Damascus" (Galatians 1:15-17). Luke's account of Paul's conversion just doesn't leave room for a three-year delay (Gal. 1:18) in Paul's return to Jerusalem. So who was right, Luke or Paul? And regardless of who was right, why would "verbally inspired" writers so obviously contradict each other in relating a simple fact like the first time Paul went to Jerusalem after his conversion? That is what we want Mr. McDonald to tell us.
Jackson tried the old, worn-out "explanation" that says one can correctly give a travel itinerary without listing every single stopping place on the trip. If one should leave St. Louis, for example, go to Denver for a while, then on to Phoenix for a period, and finally to Los Angeles, he would not be incorrect if he later said, "I left St. Louis and went to Los Angeles." This is of course correct, but a problem in this resolution that Jackson could never successfully resolve in trying to apply it to Paul's itinerary after leaving Damascus is its failure to explain why the disciples in Jerusalem did not know after an interval of three years that the great persecutor of Christianity had been converted. Saul's (Paul's) reputation as a persecutor had preceded him to Damascus. After he began to preach the gospel there "all that heard him (Paul) were amazed, and said, Is not this he that in Jerusalem made havoc of them that called on this name" (Acts 9:21). Yet when he went to Jerusalem (after three years, McDonald will want us to believe), he "tried to join himself to the disciples: and they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple" (9:26). Not until Barnabas had brought him to the apostles and "declared to them how he had seen the Lord in the way"(v:27) were the Jerusalem Christians willing to accept Paul as a disciple. After three years, the Jerusalem Christians had still not heard of Paul's conversion! Damascus is less than 200 miles from Jerusalem. Let's hope that Mr. McDonald can explain this.
While he is at it, he might want to explain to us too just why the apostles, who had been baptized in the Holy Spirit and given special insights into truth (John 16:13), could not know, even after three years, that Paul had been converted. Peter was able to recognize that Ananias and Sapphira were lying (Acts 5:1-10), yet we are supposed to believe that except for the intervention of Barnabas he could not know that Paul had been converted.
He might also try to explain why Paul himself, according to Luke's record of Paul's sermons, indicated on two occasions that he had gone directly from Damascus to Jerusalem after his conversion. He indicated it the first time in a speech at Jerusalem in which he recounted the circumstances of his conversion. In one verse he was telling of his baptism in Damascus; in the next, he said this:
And it came to pass, that, when I had returned to Jerusalem, and while I prayed in the temple, I fell into a trance, and saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem; because they will not receive of thee testimony concerning me. And I said, Lord, they themselves know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee: and when the blood of Stephen thy witness was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting, and keeping the garments of them that slew him. And he said unto me, Depart: for I will send thee forth far hence unto the Gentiles (Acts 22:17-21).
If this is an inerrant account of what Paul said on this occasion, then he was confirming the situation that Luke described in Acts 9:26-28. The Christians there did not believe on Paul's first trip to Jerusalem that he had been converted. Again, I must ask, "After three years, they didn't know that their persecutor had been converted in a city not even 200 miles away?" Who can believe it?
In his defense before king Agrippa, Paul allegedly gave the same missionary itinerary (Jerusalem, Judea, and then the Gentiles) following his conversion:
Wherefore, o king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision: but declared at Jerusalem, and through all the country of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance (Acts 26:19).
These statements from the pen of the "inspired" Luke are obviously inconsistent with what the "inspired" Paul said in his epistle to the Galatians. Only the most brazen-faced Bible fundamentalist intent on preserving an untenable belief in the inerrancy doctrine would even try to reconcile them.
There is enough material in this manuscript to keep Mr. McDonald busy for a lifetime, yet I haven't even scratched the surface in identifying inconsistencies, contradictions, and discrepancies in the Bible text. These few examples, however, are more than enough to prove the modus ponens argument that I began my defense with. I have found not only a wall out of plumb or an improperly hung door in the allegedly perfect structure of the Bible; I have found cracks in its foundation big enough to drive a fleet of Mack trucks through. I have proven that the Bible is not inerrant. Therefore, I know that the Bible is not the verbally inspired word of God to man.
I urge Mr. McDonald to deal directly with the issues that I have raised in my first defense and not try to pussyfoot around them, because my strategy is going to be the same as it was in my debate with Mr. Jackson. I will keep dumping these same contradictions into his lap until he either proves conclusively that they are not contradictions or until he admits that he knows of no way to explain them. I predict he is in for some hard times ahead.
Go to McDonald's First Rebuttal
