This debate is my fifth one on the Bible inerrancy doctrine, and I have yet to have an opponent who could stick to the issue and develop sensible arguments. Invariably, in these debates, I find myself having to spend time explaining basic principles of argumentation to my opponents, and I have now gone far enough in this one to see that Mr. McDonald is just like all the others. He spends half of his time on irrelevant matters, and the other half on undeveloped arguments that beg the question. I have twice suggested to him that he take the time to get himself an elementary logic textbook so that he can learn what begging the question is, but since he apparently doesn't intend to do that, I will try to explain to him what it is. Although my effort will probably turn out like the proverbial water on a duck's back, perhaps a quick review of this logical fallacy will help some of our readers who have no training in logic to understand where Mr. McDonald is going wrong in his efforts to "prove" his proposition.

Simply stated, begging the question occurs when a debater demands that his audience and opponent assume the very thing that he is obligated to prove. In Argument: A Guide to Critical Thinking, Perry Weddle explained the fallacy in this way:

Earlier we noted that in good argument premises are independent of the conclusion in the sense that support or acceptance of the premises must not come from the very thing the argument is trying to establish. An argument which depends partly or wholly on its conclusion is sometimes called a petitio principii, Latin for the commoner term, begging the question. Begging the question comes from ancient debating practice. Apparently, a debater would normally "beg" the opponent to grant certain premises. To attempt to beg the very question to be resolved, then, would be illegitimate. The old meaning still partly fits. We say that people have begged the question when they ignore glaring objections to their way of proceeding. In a context in which the findings of Freud, let us say, were in serious question, it would be inappropriate to base points on those very findings.

Ways in which an argument's conclusion can be used wholly or partly to shore up its premises can be obvious or subtle. One sneaky way involves concocting a string of premises in which the string, itself insufficient to sustain the conclusion, ultimately receives support from the conclusion. Such reasoning is called circular, like that of a teenager caught with a case of beer in his car: "Well, officer, if you don't believe me when I say that I'm of age, here's my driver's license. If you don't trust that, here's my draft card. The draft card's genuine. You can take my word for it." This is about as simple as circular reasoning gets. The boy's word is questioned. The word is backed by the driver's license. So far we have a straight authority argument (see Chapter 4), except that then the driver's license's authenticity is questioned. So the license is not taken as authority. Neither is the draft card. So what ends up "backing" the card? Precisely what was questioned in the first place, the boy's word, (p. 28).

With this information before us, I will now examine some of McDonald's arguments to show the readers that about all he can do is beg the question. In his first manuscript, he presented the following syllogism as "proof" of his claim that the Bible is authoritative:

Major Premise: If the Bible does show man how to live, and if it is to be man's judge, and if it may not be added to or subtracted from, then it is authoritative.

Minor Premise: The Bible does show man how to live, and it will be our judge, and it may not be added to or subtracted from.

Conclusion: Therefore, the Bible is authoritative.

I have serious questions about the truth of the major premise in this syllogism, but in the  interest of brevity, I will let that ride for the moment. Even if we assume that the major premise is indeed true, McDonald would have to prove the truth of the minor premise in order for his conclusion to be acceptable. So how did he prove the truth of his minor premise? He proved it by quoting the Bible. He cited, without comment, 2 Timothy 3:16-17; John 12:48; Deuteronomy 4:2; and Revelation 22:18-19 as proof that the Bible does show man how to live, that the Bible will judge man, and that no one may add to or subtract from the Bible. If the readers wonder what is wrong with quoting the Bible, the answer is that he cannot in legitimate argumentation quote the Bible to prove doubtful biblical issues. What is it that is in question in this debate? Whether the Bible is the inspired word of God is in question. That being so, how can Mr. McDonald be so simplistic as to think that all he has to do to prove the divine inspiration, authority, and all-sufficiency of the Bible is to quote the places where the Bible claims that it is divinely inspired, authoritative, and all-sufficient. In Weddle's example quoted above, the integrity of the teenager who had been caught with beer in his car was in question, so for the boy to appeal to his personal integrity to prove he was legally entitled to have the beer was procedurally improper. He was begging the question in the same way that McDonald begs the question when he presents a "syllogism" like the one cited above and then relies upon what the Bible says to prove that his premises are true. What did Weddle say in explaining what begging the question is? "Support or acceptance of the premises must not come from the very thing the argument is trying to establish." What was McDonald's syllogism trying to establish? It was trying to establish, among other things, that the Bible is authoritative. What did support of his premises come from? It came from the Bible, the very thing that is in question in this debate. If there were no question at all about the Bible's being authoritative, we wouldn't be having this debate, would we? So Mr. McDonald begged the question all the way in this syllogism, as he has done in most of his others. If he can't see that, then he needs more help than I can give him.

Perhaps the application of his syllogism to other "inspired" books will help him to see the flaws in his logic. Suppose an Islamic mullah presented this syllogism to him:

Major Premise: If the Koran does show man how to live, and if it is to be man's judge, and if it may not be added to or subtracted from, then it is authoritative.

Minor Premise: The Koran does show man how to live, and it will be our judge, and it may not be added to or subtracted from.

Conclusion: Therefore, the Koran is authoritative.

If our hypothetical mullah then presented Mr. McDonald with a list of citations from the Koran, without comment, as proof that his minor premise was true, how would Mr. McDonald react to that? If he has any familiarity at all with the Koran, he should know that it alleges to show man how to live (Ch. 17:89), it claims that man will be judged by it (Ch. 4:136-141), and it warns against changing its message or believing false korans (Ch. 10:15). According to McDonald's logic, then, the Koran is authoritative, but we all know that he isn't going to trash his Bible and vow allegiance to the Koran just on the basis of a syllogism as obviously flawed as this one. He would insist that our mullah provide some proof, other than its mere claims, that the Koran is indeed the book that God gave us to show how we should live, that its moral standards are indeed the standards we will be judged by, and that its message is the message that man must adhere to and never change. He should see, then, that if the adaptation of his syllogism to the Koran is flawed, its original form is equally as flawed, because the wordings of the two are exactly the same except that the word Koran is used in one where Bible is used in the other. The principle involved is a simple one: what will not prove the inspiration of the Koran cannot be used to prove the inspiration of the Bible. Why can't he see that?

Some may think that it isn't fair to restrict Mr. McDonald in quoting the Bible to support his proposition, but I'm not even suggesting that he should not quote the Bible. I am saying only that he should quote it in a proper way. If he believes that the Bible "shows  man how to live," that it is to be "man's judge," etc., let him say so and then proceed to prove these claims in the right way. The right way is certainly not to quote places where the Bible says the very thing he is claiming, because the moment he does that, he is begging the question again.To prove, for example, that the Bible shows man how to live, he would have to establish what the moral needs and obligations of man are (a formidable task in and of itself) and then do an in-depth analysis of biblical content to show that all of these needs are addressed in the Bible. To do that, of course, he would have to devote reasonable space to his arguments, something he has yet to do. Reasonable space for developing an argument like this would not consist of the relatively few lines that he put into "proving" his syllogism. An entire 20-page manuscript wouldn't be enough space for a project of this magnitude, but, of course, this is something he just can't seem to understand. He thinks that just saying a premise is true (begging the question) is all that he needs to establish that it is true.

In his second manuscript McDonald led off with a complaint that he had "made 16 arguments in his first affirmative" but that I had responded to only three of them. Well, of course, I couldn't respond to sixteen arguments in only 20 pages. How could I? How could anyone? First of all, most of his so-called arguments begged the question, as I just pointed out, so there was really nothing to respond to. Secondly, analyzing 16 improperly stated arguments to expose the fallacies in them simply cannot be done in a 20-page manuscript, because responding to an invalid argument takes more time than responding to a valid one. In addition to analyzing the quality of the supporting material, if any, procedural errors must also be pointed out.

Let's take an analytical look at his first manuscript to see just how ridiculous he is being to claim that it contained sixteen arguments. He spent six pages on irrelevant matters pertaining to my opinion of Joseph Wheless's book Is It God's Word?; the discussion of a position I had taken in the Laws-Till Debate concerning how knowledge is acquired; a challenge for me to prove that Moses never existed, followed by a challenge to prove that Moses did not write the Pentateuch; and finally a list of five complexly awkward questions designed to put me in a defensive posture. In the fourteen remaining pages, he presented his so-called sixteen arguments, three of which addressed extraneous matters like the existence of God and the theory of evolution. Now, common sense should tell a debater that he cannot present sixteen fully developed arguments in only fourteen manuscript pages, yet Mr. McDonald apparently believes that he did. That, more than anything else, should tell the readers what is wrong with his debating tactics. He doesn't know how to present and support arguments. He believes that little more than saying that certain traditional beliefs about the Bible are true is all that is needed to prove that they are true.

I said that I would not waste time on McDonald's syllogisms concerning the existence of God and the theory of evolution until he establishes their relevance to the proposition he is affirming. He hasn't done that yet, so I am going to stick to that decision and not get us bogged down on matters that have nothing to do with the truth or error of his position. However, to show the absurdity of his complaint that I am evading masterful arguments that he has presented in defense of his proposition, I do want to comment briefly on his existence-of-God argument. His syllogism and support of it, such as it was, barely filled three pages in his first manuscript. Countless volumes have been written on the subject of God's existence without resolving the matter either way, yet McDonald believes that he settled the question in only three, double-spaced manuscript pages! Do the readers need any more than this to see just how shallow his sense of logic is? The man is so accustomed to preaching to audiences ready to believe anything that comes from the pulpit that he simply doesn't know how to present his case in a situation where proof is demanded.

In my second rebuttal, I pointed out that if the existence of God could be unequivocally proven, as McDonald claims that he has done, then all intelligent people, regardless of race or geographic location, would accept the proof just as all intelligent people will accept any demonstrable fact or truth. In response to that, McDonald said that "most reasonably intelligent people do accept the existence of God" (third affirmative, p. 7). On this point, I have to challenge him. Most reasonably intelligent people do not accept the existence of God; they accept the existence of a god. Only a relative few of these reasonably intelligent people whom McDonald alluded to believe in the same god that he believes in. Some of them believe in Allah, others believe in Ahura Mazda, still others believe in Brahma, and so on ad infinitum. In checking the thesaurus on my desk, I found the names of 343 separate gods listed under the heading deity. That certainly doesn't sound to me as if the question of God's existence has been definitively settled. If it had been, then all reasonably intelligent people would believe in the same god. So much for McDonald's claim that he has unequivocally proven the existence of God!

The absurdity of his "syllogisms" seems to have no end. Here, as he presented it in his first manuscript, is his argument for "the possibility of the inerrancy of the scriptures":

Major Premise: If it is the case that God is omnipotent, then it is the case that he would have the power to inspire men to write the Bible to be free from error.

Minor Premis: It is the case that God is omnipotent.

Conclusion: Therefore, it is the case that God would have the power to inspire men to write the Bible to be free from error.

In addition to the simplistic absurdity of this syllogism, there is an obvious flaw in its major premise. Even if God exists and is omnipotent, it wouldn't necessarily follow that he would be able to inspire men to write an error-free Bible. Before an omnipotent god could do this, he would also have to be omniscient (all-knowing). Mr. McDonald left this all-important element out of his syllogism, so his flawless logic turns out to be not so flawless after all. For the sake of argument, however, let's assume that his major premise is true, that an omnipotent god who isn't necessarily omniscient could inspire men to write an error-free Bible. Even with this concession, exactly what does McDonald think he has proven by his syllogism? He has proven only that this omnipotent god of his could  have inspired the writing of an error-free Bible. But is that what we are debating, that God could have inspired the writing of an error-free Bible? An omnipotent god could have inspired men to write an error-free Koran or an error-free Avesta. An omnipotent god could have done a lot of things, but we are not debating what God could have done or may have done. The issue we are supposed to be debating is whether God did in fact inspire the writing of an error-free Bible. I was under the impression that Mr. McDonald was going to prove that God did inspire such a Bible, but I'm beginning to wonder when, if ever, he is going to get around to proving it.

Another of McDonald's beg-the-question syllogisms appeared in his first manuscript, page 18. This was his "Argument for the Bible [sic] Being Our Sole Authority in Religious Matters":

Major Premise: If we must do everything by the authority of Christ, and if the Bible is that authoritative word, then we must follow the Bible in making all of our religious decisions.

Minor Premise: We must do everything by the authority of Christ, and the Bible is that authoritative word.

Conclusion: Therefore, we must follow the Bible in making all of our religious decisions.

I have often commented on McDonald's irrelevant arguments, and in this syllogism we have an excellent example of irrelevance. Even if he could establish that the argument is valid (and he can't), it would in no way prove that the Bible is the verbally inspired, inerrant word of God. Why would proving that "we must follow the Bible in making all of our religious decisions" necessarily prove that the Bible is verbally inspired and therefore inerrant? McDonald has had a lot to say about what is possible and what God could do, so, even if we are indeed divinely obligated to follow the Bible in making all of our religious decisions, couldn't God have given us an errant Bible to follow? If not, why not? As a matter of fact, this is what McDonald's position forces him to believe. He claims the Bible was inerrant only in its original autographs, but even he will say that those "inerrant" original autographs no longer exist. In their place, we have only copies and translations containing numerous errors that have resulted from faulty transcriptions, purposeful redactions, mistranslations, etc. In a real sense, then, this Bible that McDonald's syllogism says we must follow in making all of our religious decisions is an errant Bible. So even if he could establish the soundness of his syllogism, which he can't do, what possible relevance would it have to the proposition he is supposed to be proving, i. e., the Bible in its original autographs was verbally inspired and therefore completely inerrant? An even more serious problem with this masterful syllogism, of course, concerns its beg-the-question approach to proving the truth of its minor premise. We must do everything by the authority of Christ, the premise proclaims. Well, who says that we must do everything by the authority of Christ? Why, the Bible says it, of course. So what else is new? McDonald is begging the question again. To prove this part of his minor premise, he quoted Colossians 3:17: "And whatsoever ye do in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." As noted earlier in Weddle's discussion of the fallacy of begging the question, "support or acceptance of the premises must not come from the very thing the argument is trying to establish," but the argument, in the second part of the premise under consideration, seeks to establish that "the Bible is that authoritative word." For proof of this part of the premise, where did McDonald go? Why, to the Bible, of course. Where else? He cited John 12:48; 14:26; and 1 Corinthians 7:10 as evidence that "the Bible is that authoritative word" (that we must follow). Hence, he begged the question by supporting his minor premise with "the very thing the argument is trying to establish," because whether the Bible is authoritative is one of the very things at question in this debate. The fact that the Bible says, "Whatsoever ye do in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus" proves nothing more than that the Bible says, "Whatsoever ye do in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." The same is true for the other passages McDonald cited to prove that "the Bible is that authoritative word." His citations prove absolutely nothing except that the Bible does make these statements. But are the statements authoritative? This is what he must prove and obviously can't.

If we apply McDonald's line of reasoning to other "inspired" books, the fallaciousness of it should become apparent. Let's suppose that a Mormon presented this syllogism to him:

Major Premise: If it is the case that God is omnipotent and omniscient and if it is the case that God revealed the Book of Mormon to man through divinely guided witnesses and messengers, then the Book of Mormon is the inerrant word of God.

Minor Premise: It is the case that God is omnipotent and omniscient, and it is the case that God revealed the Book of Mormon to man through divinely guided witnesses and messengers.

Conclusion: Therefore, the Book of Mormon is the inerrant word of God.

The soundness of this argument would of course hinge on the truth of its minor premise, so let's suppose that our hypothetical Mormon presented the following evidence to prove that the premise is true:

1 Nephi 9:6 declares that God is both omnipotent and omniscient: "But the Lord knoweth all things from the beginning; wherefore, he prepareth a way to accomplish all his works among the children of men; for behold, he hath all power unto the fulfilling of all his words...."

In  an  obvious reference to how the Book of Mormon would be delivered to Joseph Smith and its translation witnessed by Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer, 2 Nephi 27:6-26 gives a detailed prophecy of the deliverance of a special book to a man "that is not learned," whose revelation of its contents would be beheld by "three witnesses" who would "testify to the truth of the book and the things therein."

A Mormon would see this as an unassailable argument. The syllogism is in valid form, and the supporting evidence is quoted right from the Book of Mormon, which all dedicated Mormons are absolutely sure is the word of God. So our hypothetical Mormon would present this argument and wonder, "What more proof than this could any reasonable person ask for?" Mr. McDonald, on the other hand, wouldn't be impressed at all with this kind of logic, because he would see immediately that the syllogism begs the question. The issue in doubt in this hypothetical example is whether the Book of Mormon is the inerrant word of God, so McDonald would not allow his opponent to prove the conclusion of his syllogism by simply citing from the disputed book a passage that claims it originated in such a way that it would have to be inerrant. In other words, he would know, as Weddle pointed out, that support or acceptance of a premise must not come from the very thing the argument is trying to establish. In the same way, I know that no logical proof at all will ever be found in quotations from the Bible that are intended to prove the very thing his syllogisms seek to prove. How many times must I point this out to McDonald before it finally sinks in?

To answer my own question, I don't really expect these simple facts of argumentation ever to sink into McDonald's fundamentalist mind. You see, he actually believes that he is doing a bang-up job of defending his proposition. I kid you not; he really does! In his second affirmative manuscript, he even defended his quote-the-Bible-to-prove-the-Bible method:

He feels the need to instruct me on the fallacy of begging the question. Mr. Till, I have no need of instruction from you on this point. My argument still stands because you have not refuted my argument on the Bible being of divine origin. I demolished your response to that argument, so now you have it to do all over again. He accuses me of merely quoting scripture and not giving proof. Mr. Till, is not quoting scripture giving internal evidence? You do not disagree that the scriptures I quoted mean what I said they meant. Here he contradicts himself again. Observe, on page one he says: [sic] "...he has yet to produce any evidence, either internal (und. mine, jdm) or external, that proves that the Bible was verbally inspired of God." Then on page 19 he says: "What evidence (und. mine, jdm) did McDonald present to prove the 'truth' of his minor premise? He did what all fundamentalists do when their backs are against the wall on this issue. He confused quoting scripture with proving, and this is begging the question gone to seed." In one place he says that I gave no internal evidence and in another he says that this is all I gave. How many times can a man be allowed to contradict himself before he loses all credibility? Since he has not refuted my argument on the Bible [sic] being of divine origin, he cannot refute this one either (second affirmative, p. 16).

Every bit of this manuscript has so far been devoted to explaining and illustrating by his own "syllogisms" how Mr. McDonald has consistently begged the question in presenting his arguments, so I'm perfectly willing to leave it to our readers to decide if he needs instruction on this point. I believe that I have clearly proven that he does, but if he doesn't think so, he can continue the brand of "debating" he has been showing us. There is certainly no law in this country against making a fool of oneself. And as for his having "demolished" my response to his argument that the Bible is divine in origin, I have not been aware of his having demolished anything except his own credibility as a debater. Anyone reading this debate who has any skills at all in critical thinking will only shake his head in disbelief at McDonald's beg-the-question syllogisms and wonder if this guy is for real. Is it just so much talk, they will wonder, or does he really believe that he is "demolishing" all opposition to the inerrancy doctrine?

McDonald seems to think that he has found a glaring contradiction in my first rebuttal, because I said that he had produced no evidence, either internal or external, to prove that the Bible was verbally inspired but then later said that he was confusing quoting scripture with proving. Just where is the contradiction in these statements?   Is he trying to say--and I think he is--that the mere act of quoting scriptures constitutes giving internal evidence? If so, what am I to do with an opponent who knows no more about the nature of internal evidence than this? It would be legitimate procedure to quote the Bible to try to show that it exhibits such remarkable features as unity and harmony of content, scientific foreknowledge, prophetic fulfillment, and such like. If accompanied by adequate analysis and explication of the quotations, this would constitute proper use of internal evidences, but internal evidences cannot consist of merely quoting passages that claim the very things in question. If the inspiration of the Bible is in question, one cannot quote 2 Peter 1:20-21 and 2 Timothy 3:16 and expect such statements as these to stand as "internal evidence." To do so would be to beg the question, something that McDonald apparently has great difficulty understanding. So when I said in the statement quoted above that McDonald had presented no internal evidences to support his claim that the Bible is the inspired word of God, I certainly didn't mean to imply that he had not quoted the Bible at all. If I have been aware of anything, it is that he has been quoting the Bible, but he has not attempted to explicate his quotations to show that there are legitimate reasons to believe that the claims made in the quotations were true. It isn't a matter of whether the quotations meant what he claimed that they meant; it is a matter of whether there are any logical reasons why the claims should be accepted as truth. Anyone can write a document and claim that God inspired him to write it, but that doesn't make the claim true. Neither does including the document within the pages of a book called the Bible make the claim true. If McDonald can't see that, I pity him.

McDonald boasted of having "demolished" my response to his argument that  the Bible was divine in origin, so let's look at his idea of "demolishing" a counterargument. His original argument for the divine origin of the Bible was stated like this:

Major Premise: The Bible is either of divine origin or it is of human origin.

Minor Premise: The Bible is not of human origin.

Conclusion: Therefore, the Bible is of divine origin.

How McDonald could ever expect to prove the truth of his minor premise defies comprehension, for even if he could establish all of the good things traditionally claimed for the Bible, i. e., its wonderful unity and harmony, its marvelous prophetic fulfillment, its amazing scientific foreknowledge, etc., etc., etc., how would he ever be able to prove that these things didn't just happen through a chain of unlikely but nevertheless natural circumstances? Surely, he won't claim that all unlikely events are due to divine interference. But he didn't even address this issue. He spent barely one page (first affirmative, pp. 12-13) theorizing, which is not the same as proving, that bad men couldn't have written the Bible, because (are you ready for this?) "bad men would not have written it (the Bible) because it condemns their evil-doings." Then what about good men? Couldn't they have written the Bible? Well, believe it or not, this is what he said about that: "Good men could not have written it, because the Bible claims to have been inspired by God, and if good men did write the Bible, then they would have had to lie, and good men do not lie." I can already see the critical thinkers in our reading audience shaking their heads in disbelief.

To show McDonald why a critical-thinking person would so react, let's apply his argument to other "inspired" books. The syllogism so applied might read like this:

Major Premise: The Koran is either of divine origin or it is of human origin.

Minor Premise: The Koran is not of human origin.

Conclusion: Therefore, the Koran is of divine origin.

Now, to prove the minor premise, I will simply adapt McDonald's evidence to the Koran. Bad men would not have written the Koran, because it condemns their evil doings, and good men could not have written it, because the Koran claims to have been inspired by God, and if good men did write the Koran, then they would have had to lie, and good men do not lie. Hence, by McDonald's own ridiculous logic, I have proven that the Koran is of divine origin. What will he have to say about this? Will he finally realize that what will not prove the inspiration of the Koran or the Book of Mormon or the Avesta will not prove the inspiration of the Bible either? Don't count on it. The fundamentalist mind has a way of resisting the obvious.

In my original rebuttal of this syllogism, I pointed out that McDonald in wording his syllogism had overlooked another possible source of the Bible. According to its own doctrines and McDonald's personal beliefs, the Bible could quite well be Satanic in origin, and I devoted six pages (first rebuttal, pp. 11-17) to showing that such a possibility must be dealt with before he can consider his syllogism valid. What value is there in a premise that identifies only two possible sources of the Bible's origin if the syllogizer believes in a third possible source? This was all pointed out to McDonald and discussed in depth on the pages cited above. What was his response to it? In other words, how did he "demolish" this counterargument? Well, this is how he did it:

Till spends the next several pages trying to defend his view that the Bible could have been inspired by Satan only to turn right around and say: "I do not believe Satan inspired the Bible; I don't even believe that Satan exists" (p. 16). Well, Mr. Till, why did you spend so much of your space defending a position you do not even believe is plausible? I will tell you why! To kill space so he would not have the space to answer the rest of my arguments. That way he can plead a lack of space when pressed on it (second affirmative, p. 10).

Why did I spent so much time on this matter if I don't personally believe in the existence of Satan? Well, one thing is sure; I didn't do it just to take up space. As I just said, I saw an obvious flaw in McDonald's syllogism; his major premise didn't address all possible sources of the Bible. He believes in the existence of Satan and all of the evil works that the Bible attributes to Satan. As long as he is going to believe such nonsense as this, he must make his syllogism all inclusive, and he didn't do that. He left out Satan as a possible source of the Bible, and I was merely pointing out a serious flaw in his reasoning.

What did McDonald have to say about the six pages of materials that I presented to show that if one intends to accept the existence of Satan, he must, before formulating a syllogism like the one in question, deal with the possibility that Satan could have inspired the Bible? Here are his very words: "Since Till does not believe that the Bible is of Satanic origin and since I do not believe in such, I am not going to waste my space elaborating on it." Yes, sir, I would call that really "demolishing" a counterargument, wouldn't you? He demolished it by not wasting his space elaborating on it. I presented the Satanic authorship theory, not because I believe in it but because it is entirely consistent with what he believes. It posed a possible explanation for the Bible's origin that he had omitted from his syllogism. He was obligated to respond to it, but he didn't.  He ignored  it. Let's hope that he will be too embarrassed to crow anymore about his outstanding performance in this debate.

But the farce continues. In his second affirmative manuscript, McDonald produced a syllogism to "prove" that God didn't lie in that fanciful little yarn in 1 Kings 22:1-36; he only allowed Ahab to believe a lie. Here, if you can believe it, is the syllogism:

Major Premise: If the Bible can say that God sends strong delusions upon the wicked that they may believe lies and if he is only guilty of allowing them to believe these lies, then it could be said that God sent a lying spirit to Ahab's prophets' mouths and all God was guilty of was allowing Ahab to believe the prophets' lies.

Minor Premise: The Bible can say that God will send strong delusions upon the wicked that they may believe a lie, and all God is guilty of is allowing them to believe this lie.

Conclusion: Therefore, it can be said that God sent a lying spirit into the mouths of Ahab's prophets and all he was guilty of was allowing Ahab to believe the prophets' lies.

When we read clumsily worded syllogisms like this one, even unencumbered with the grammatical errors I have corrected, we can certainly see that Jerry McDonald, contrary to what he obviously thinks, is no logician. His problem seems to be that he has read so many Thomas B. Warren debates that he is beginning to suffer from syllogismitis. Despite his own propensity to beg the question, Warren did at least know enough about logical jargon to make a certain demagogic impression on those in his audience who knew nothing about logic, but McDonald can't even claim that much. He seems to have a syllogism to prove everything except his own inability to think clearly, but, of course, he doesn't really need a special syllogism for that. Each time he tries to construct a syllogistic argument, he makes his ignorance of logic painfully evident.

Let's examine what McDonald, in his inimitably awkward way, has tried to say in this syllogism. If we dig hard enough beneath all of the clumsily constructed verbiage, we seem to find him claiming that God didn't purposefully seek to mislead Ahab; God merely allowed Ahab to believe a lie. That is McDonald's claim, but we will just let the text speak for itself. Ahab's 400 prophets had predicted a glorious victory for Ahab's and Jehoshaphat's proposed alliance against Ramoth-gilead, but Jehoshaphat, a bit skeptical for some reason, wanted to hear the word of at least one more prophet. Ahab then reluctantly sent for Micaiah, a prophet whom Ahab hated, because Micaiah never said anything favorable about Ahab. When Micaiah entered into the presence of the two kings sitting on their thrones, Ahab's prophets were putting on quite a show. Zedekiah, having made for himself a set of iron horns to help dramatize his prophecy, was proclaiming to the kings, "Thus says the LORD (Yahweh): With these you shall gore the Arameans until they are destroyed." All the other prophets were in agreement: "Go up to Ramoth-gilead and triumph; the LORD (Yahweh) will give it into the hand of the king" (vv:11-12).

When Micaiah was asked if the joint-campaign would succeed, he at first said, "Go up and triumph; the LORD (Yahweh) will give it into the hand of the king" (v:15). Apparently recognizing sarcasm in Micaiah's answer, Ahab urged him to speak "nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD (Yahweh)," upon which Micaiah said that he saw all Israel scattered on the mountains like sheep that have no shepherd (v:17).  Micaiah then told of a vision he had received that would explain why the other prophets were predicting victory. The quotation is from the NRSV with Yahweh substituted for the LORD:

1 Kings 22:19-23: Then Micaiah said, "Therefore hear the word of Yahweh: I saw Yahweh sitting on his throne, with all the host of heaven standing beside him to the right and to the left of him. And Yahweh said, 'Who will entice Ahab, so that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?' Then one said one thing, and another said another, until a spirit came forward and stood before Yahweh saying, 'I will entice him.' 'How?' Yahweh asked him. He replied, 'I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' Then Yahweh said, 'You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do it.' So you see, Yahweh has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; Yahweh has decreed disaster for you"

Anyone who can read this passage and say that it teaches only that God allowed Ahab to believe a lie is obviously a person who will go to whatever extremes are necessary to protect the inerrancy doctrine. For this kind of person, no interpretation of a problem passage is too far-fetched or too insulting to the intelligence to accept just as long as it provides even as much as a shred of hope that the inerrancy doctrine can be kept intact. In this case, a biblical story poses immense problems for the passages that claim God cannot lie (Num. 23:19; Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18). To find a way out of the dilemma, McDonald would have us believe that God was not guilty of deception or lying in the vision Micaiah claimed to have seen; he merely allowed Ahab to believe a lie. But is that what the story says? The sections I have emphasized give no support at all to his interpretation. They present Yahweh as a full-fledged participant in a conspiracy to lure Ahab to his doom. From the heavenly host around his throne, Yahweh asked for volunteers to propose a plan by which Ahab could be enticed to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead. One suggested one thing and another still another, until "a spirit" came forward with a plan to go forth as a lying spirit in the mouths of Ahab's prophets. In response to this, Yahweh said to the spirit, "Go out and do it." Does this sound as if Yahweh was doing nothing but allowing Ahab to be deceived by the lying spirit in the mouths of his prophets? No, it doesn't. It specifically says that Yahweh commanded the spirit to "go out and do it." Furthermore, this story has the prophet Micaiah concluding the recital of his vision with this statement: "So you see, the LORD (Yahweh) has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets." He did not say that Yahweh had allowed a lying spirit to enter the mouths of Ahab's prophets; he clearly said that Yahweh himself had put the lying spirit into their mouths. That would have made Yahweh an active participant in the deception, and no amount of verbal legerdemain from Jerry McDonald, Gleason Archer, John Haley, R. A. Torrey, and their kind can change an obvious fact. If Mr. McDonald doubts this, a simple question might help him see the obvious. If I actively enlisted the help and advice of friends on how I could lure Jerry McDonald to invest money in a con game that would bilk him of his savings, would I be a guilty party to the deception and fraud if I later ordered one of these friends to carry out the deception? Or could it be said that I had only allowed Jerry McDonald to believe the deception?

The subject of this debate being the inerrancy issue, this would be as good a place as any to comment on Bible absurdities. Nonsense in the Bible is as strong an argument against the inerrancy doctrine as contradictions and discrepancies, and for sheer silliness of content this vision of the prophet Micaiah rivals the stories about the great flood, the Egyptian plagues, Balaam's ass, and an endless list of others. The vision implied that Yahweh, the alleged creator of the universe, couldn't think of a way to entice Ahab to go to Ramoth-gilead, so he had to enlist the help of the heavenly host around his throne. One would think that these heavenly beings would have been exceptionally intelligent creatures, but, like Yahweh, they themselves seemed momentarily stumped. One proposed this, another proposed that, until finally an enterprising "spirit" came forth and volunteered to become a lying spirit in the mouths of Ahab's prophets. Yahweh liked the plan and commanded this "spirit" to go do it. The whole idea was to deceive Ahab into going to his doom at Ramoth-gilead. So if the plan was to work, one would think that secrecy would have been of the utmost importance, yet right in the middle of the conspiracy, while the prophets who were under the influence of the "lying spirit" were telling Ahab that victory was assured if he decided to go up to Ramoth-gilead, along came Micaiah to blow the whistle on the plan. Yahweh had gone to great lengths to come up with a plan, and then right in the middle of its execution, he let one of his own prophets come onto the scene and give it away. This makes Yahweh look like an absolute nincompoop, and anyone who could believe the story has to be an even bigger nincompoop. A person gullible enough to believe it wouldn't have too much difficulty believing in the tooth fairy and the Good Ship Lollipop. If these remarks seem unkind and embarrassing to the inerrancy doctrine, believers in it shouldn't blame me. Let them blame the ignorance of the Bible writer who put such a ridiculous yarn as this one into the Bible text.

Silly syllogisms backed by beg-the-question evidence are not McDonald's only problem. He doesn't even seem to know what he is supposed to be doing. At this time, he is the affirmant in the debate, but he appears determined to force me into the affirmative role. So far, each of his manuscripts has contained a list of confusedly worded true or false statements that he demands answers to. Each question has been accompanied by a warning that he will assume this or that if I do not answer his questions. The obvious intent of these questions has been to remove affirmative pressure from him and to force me into a defensive posture. As the affirmative party at this stage of the debate, however, it is his duty to answer questions that may arise in response to the evidence he presents in support of his proposition. I am denying, not defending a proposition, so why should I be answering questions, especially when the questions are designed to take the pressure off him and cast me in the affirmative role? What am I supposed to be defending anyway, at this point, that would warrant all of these ridiculous true or false questions he has been bombarding me with?

In addition to his true or false questions, he has tried to force me into defending a book (Is It God's Word?) that I have yet to refer to except in response to his comments about it. He has tried to divert attention to a position that I took in The Laws-Till Debate on how knowledge is acquired, a position that related directly to the proposition Laws was defending but has nothing to do with the present affirmative proposition in this debate. He has tried to do about everything but defend his proposition with sensible evidence. So now it seems from his latest manuscript that he expects me to defend positions that Antony Flew took in his debates with Thomas B. Warren and Gary Habermas. I am aware of Dr. Flew's reputation, but his reputation is his own to defend. I sense no need to defend it for him. I have read both debates that McDonald referred to, and when I was reading Dr. Flew's speeches, I quite frankly found myself often wondering, "Why didn't he say this or why didn't he say that?" I especially wondered why Dr. Flew allowed Habermas to beg the question in their debate on the resurrection. Essentially, all that Habermas argued was that we can be assured that the resurrection happened, because the Bible says that it did. As one who has some expertise in question-begging himself, Mr. McDonald was no doubt impressed with Habermas's performance, but I wasn't. I was even less impressed with Dr. Flew's carelessness in letting Habermas get away with it. My opinion of both Flew and Habermas aside, however, I must ask Mr. McDonald to explain why he feels compelled to wag into this debate the names and opinions of people I have never relied on for support of any of my counterarguments. Why can't he at least wait until I have quoted them as proof before he gets involved in basing counterarguments on their positions and opinions? He has had a lot to say about how I waste time, but if the readers will check the number of times he has demanded that I defend Joseph Wheless or Adrian Swindler or Antony Flew, they will see just who is wasting time.

On the matter of Joseph Wheless's book, McDonald seems to think that he has caught me in another glaring inconsistency. He referred to a letter of September 1, 1989, in which I said that Is It God's Word? was "the most convincing anti-inerrancy book that I had ever read." In my second rebuttal, however, I referred to it as a "good anti-inerrancy work," and in these two comments McDonald sees inconsistency: "I am glad to see him make that change. He is beginning to see the pit-falls [sic] in this book and he apparently wishes to rid himself of defending it" (third affirmative, p. 9). Shades of utter stupidity! Is this man for real? Does he really believe that such nonsense as this constitutes proving his proposition? If I think that Wheless's book is the "most convincing anti-inerrancy work" that I have read, then of course I would believe that it is a "good anti-inerrancy" book, wouldn't I? So just where is the inconsistency? Suppose that there were parallel passages in the Bible that had a character, say David, declaring in one of the accounts that the heavens were the "most convincing evidence of all" that God exists, whereas the other account had him saying that the heavens were "good evidence" of God's existence. How would McDonald react to any efforts to paint this as a contradiction? Just to ask the question is to answer it.

Our readers will need some background information on Wheless's book to understand why McDonald is so obsessed with attacking it. In 1989, he contacted me and expressed an interest in debating the inerrancy doctrine. So that he could prepare for the debate, he asked if I would recommend to him a list of books and publications that presented the anti-inerrancy view, and I did. (Incidentally, I didn't ask him to send me a list of books that presented the inerrancy side; I didn't feel any need to.) Among the books that I recommended was the one by Joseph Wheless, Is It God's Word?, which I identified as the best or most convincing anti-inerrancy work I had ever read. Now if McDonald thinks I have been so impressed by his attack on the book that I have retreated from my original position, I hate to disappoint him. I still regard this book as the best of the many anti-inerrancy works that I have read. This doesn't mean that I agree with everything in the book; it means only that I regard it as the best that I have ever read in its field. McDonald has informed me that he acquired a copy of it and read it himself, so apparently what he has seen in it has put a burr under his saddle, because he seems more determined to attack this book than to defend his proposition. In other words, I suspect that he is far more impressed by the efficacy of the book than he would have us believe. If not, why does he keep bringing it up?

It's odd that McDonald sees contradiction in the two statements (quoted above) that I made about Wheless's book but seems completely unable to detect even a hint of contradiction between 2 Samuel 24:13 and 1 Chronicles 21:12. In one passage, the prophet Gad offered David seven years of famine on the land for his sin in numbering the Israelites (whatever the sin would have been in taking a census), and in the other (a parallel account), Gad offered him three years of famine. Was there any contradiction here? Why, heavens no! McDonald tied this famine in with the three years of famine in 2 Samuel 21:1-9 that the land had already suffered because of Saul's sin against the Gibeonites. McDonald speculated that those three years, plus "the year they were already in" and the "three years to come for David's sin" constituted the seven years that Gad referred to in the 2 Samuel account, whereas the 1 Chronicles account mentioned only the three years to come for David's sin. "One writer includes all of the  famine," McDonald theorized, "while the other only writes of the three years to come" (third affirmative, p. 2).

We have in this "explanation" an excellent example of the extremes that Bible fundamentalists will go to to deny that obvious contradictions exist in the Bible text. There is so much wrong with McDonald's "resolution" of the problem that I hardly know where to begin pointing out his mistakes. For one thing, the famine in 2 Samuel 21 ended after David, in a typical display of Yahwistic justice, had delivered seven of Saul's sons and grandsons to the Gibeonites to be hanged for Saul's sin. McDonald just didn't read far enough in his frantic search for a way out of this contradiction, or he might have noticed clear indications in verses 10-14 that this famine ended shortly after the executions.  Here we are told that Rizpah, Saul's concubine, spread sackcloth on a rock where she sat to keep birds and wild animals off the bodies of her sons, and she maintained her vigil "from the beginning of harvest until rain fell on them from the heavens" (NRSV). Upon hearing that Rizpah was guarding the corpses, David gathered the bones of those who had been executed and buried them. "And after that, God heeded supplications for the land" (v:14, NRSV). Yes, the principles of Yahwistic justice had been served; seven innocent men had died for the sins of another, so now Yahweh could end the famine. Apparently, Mr. McDonald didn't notice this part of the story, did he? But, of  course, he seems conveniently unable to see anything in the Bible text detrimental to his cherished inerrancy belief.

There is nothing in either of the parallel accounts (2 Samuel 24 or 1 Chronicles 21) to even suggest that the famine that Gad referred to was in any way connected with the famine in 2 Samuel 21. The first famine came upon the land because of Saul's crime against the Gibeonites; the text makes that abundantly clear. David "sought the face of Jehovah (Yahweh)" about the famine, however that was done, and was specifically told that it was "for Saul and his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death" (2 Sam. 21:1). Gad was sent to give David his choice of punishments for having sinned in numbering the people. The two were separate events entirely. Furthermore, if the famine in 2 Samuel 21 ended after the execution of Saul's sons and grandsons, as the text clearly indicates, it would have lacked the continuity to fit into McDonald's far-fetched theory. The famine had already lasted for three years before "David sought the face of Jehovah" (v:1), and it ended shortly after the executions. This doesn't leave any room for "the year they were already in," a year that McDonald must have in order to make his theory work.

The biggest flaw in McDonald's theory, however, is the fact that both of the parallel passages (2 Sam. 24:10-13 and 1 Chron. 21:8-12) were written as accounts of what Gad said to David and not as indirect narrations of what happened. If the 2 Samuel account were merely an indirect narration of what Gad told David, this would have left the "inspired writer" with the freedom to tell the event in his own words and choose whatever chronological method he wanted to use in telling the import of Gad's message to David, but since it, as well as the 1 Chronicles account, was presented as a direct account of Gad's very words to David, this freedom was lost. If we look at the two passages in juxtaposition, this problem that they pose for McDonald's theory becomes quite obvious. The quotations are 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 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).

I have used a modern language version in juxtaposing the two accounts, because the use of quotations marks makes it obvious that both writers were purporting to give the very words that were spoken on this occasion. The words that Yahweh allegedly spoke to Gad are identical in both accounts: "Go, tell David, this is what Yahweh has decreed, 'I offer you three things; choose one of them for Me to do to you.'" Variances in the wording of David's confession to Yahweh are so slight as to be easily explainable by the whims of translation. In one account, his opening statement was, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done," and in the other it was rendered, "I have sinned greatly in doing this." The rest of the confession is exactly the same in both places. Hence, these accounts were not presented as indirect narrations of the conversations involved on this occasion; they claim to be exact accounts of the very words that were spoken. How, then, could one account have Gad saying that David had his choice of seven years of famine, whereas the other has Gad saying three years of famine? Slight variations in the wording of what Gad said to David in presenting the three choices could be explained on the basis of one writer choosing to tell more details of the conversation than the other, but with both "inspired" writers purporting to state the exact words of Gad, one could not have him saying seven and the other three, without at least one of them being wrong. Assuming, then, that this incident ever happened, we are forced to conclude that one of the "inspired" writers incorrectly reported an important detail. When McDonald does his next "point-by-point" response, let's hope he doesn't forget to deal with this matter point by point.

Now it is time for my favorite part of my rebuttals--answering the true or false questions that McDonald includes in each of his manuscripts. For the readers' convenience, I will restate the questions and his warnings:

One: Is the following statement true or false? (If you do not answer we will assume that your answer is true.) "Before there can be real moral atrocities, there must be real (objective) morality."

Answer:  True. How could there be objective immorality unless there were objective moral laws to violate? This is not to say, however, that I believe in the existence of objective moral laws, because I do not. I am simply recognizing that there could never be objective moral atrocity unless there was first objective moral law. This is somewhat like saying that federal crimes could not be committed unless there are federal laws to violate.

Two: Is the following statement true or false? (If you do not answer we will assume that your answer is true.) "It is false that God, as a divine being, and as creator of all life, would have the right to decide who should live and who should die without becoming guilty of real (objective) moral wrong."

Answer: If objective moral laws do in fact exist, then God, if he too exists, would also be subject to those objective moral laws, wouldn't he? If not, why not? Will McDonald say that it is all right for God to be objectively immoral?

Three: Is the following statement true or false? (If you do not answer we will assume that your answer is true.) "It is possible for God to be infinite in some of his attributes and finite in others; for example, He can be infinite in love, but finite in justice."

Answer: True. If God exists--and please notice that I said if--the situation described would be possible. This answer should not be construed to mean that I am admitting that God does exist.

Four: How are you able to come to your conclusion in the  above question? (Please indicate all appropriate answers. If you do not answer we will assume that your answer is choice A.) [A] intuition, [B] deduction from the concept of God, [C] deduction from some empirical fact, [D] deduction from the concept of God and some empirical fact, or [E] something else (please  explain).

Answer: B.

Five: Is the following statement true or false? (If you do not answer we will assume that your answer is true.) "The idea of the Bible [sic] being inspired by God involves logical contradiction."

Answer: False. I do not contend that the idea of the Bible's being inspired of God involves logical contradiction. I contend that known facts about the Bible, especially the nature of its content, logically contradict the idea that it was inspired of God.

Usually, I reciprocate by giving Mr. McDonald a list of questions, but with my word allotment just about gone, I will forego my own questions and additional comments on his responses to my last set. If he continues in his next manuscript to bring up the irrelevant issue of objective morality, I will certainly want to return to the answers he gave to my last list of questions. In the space I have remaining, I want to respond to his "Argument for the New Testament Canon." As usual, he gave us a syllogism that proves nothing:

Major Premise: If it is the case that the New Testament Canon that we have today, in versions such as the KJV and the ASV, have [sic] the characteristics of inspiration, then it is the case that we have the correct New Testament Canon.

Minor Premise: It is the case that the New Testament Canon, in versions such as the KJV and the ASV, do [sic] have the characteristics of inspiration.

Conclusion: Therefore, we have the correct New Testament Canon today.

Only a glance at this syllogism is sufficient to see that McDonald must prove that the New Testament Canon in the KJV or ASV has "characteristics of inspiration," but he didn't do that. He didn't even come close to doing it. In the first place, how would one know what "the characteristics of inspiration" would be? At best, one could only come up with an arbitrary list of characteristics that fits his own preconceived notion of what constitutes features of inspiration, and this is what McDonald apparently did. He presented a list of three characteristics by which inspiration can be determined: (1) inspiration will be supported by intrinsic content, (2) inspiration can be corroborated by moral effect, and (3) inspiration can be shown by the value that early Christians placed on these (New Testament) books.

By what means did McDonald establish that these are "the characteristics of inspiration"? He didn't tell us or even try to. He just presented us with an arbitrary list that has no more value than an arbitrary list an Islamic mullah might give in declaring his view of what constitutes "characteristics of inspiration." Just as McDonald would reject the mullah's arbitrary list, I reject his--and so will all rational-thinking people who read this debate. They will want to see real evidence, but so far McDonald has produced no real evidence to prove his proposition. Certainly, he gave no evidence to prove this syllogism.

Even if we assumed that McDonald's "characteristics of inspiration" are legitimate, his argument would still fail, because he did not prove that the New Testament canon bears these characteristics. Inspiration will be supported by the "intrinsic content" of the writings, he asserted, and as proof that the New Testament meets this whimsical requirement, he said, "Every book of the N. T. has one central theme: The salvation of Man through Jesus Christ. This is brought out in every book." That's it? That's his proof? Yes, that's all that he said. He didn't tell us why the central theme of salvation through Jesus Christ would give a book "intrinsic content" that would indicate it was inspired, but the readers have no doubt noticed by now that McDonald doesn't believe it is necessary to explain much of anything. He seems to think that he can make just any kind of wild assertion he wants to and that it will stand as evidence. In the matter of his "characteristics of inspiration," however, he has once more come face to face with the old maxim of logic that says, "What proves too much proves nothing at all." The Epistle of Barnabas, The Apocalypse of Peter, The Shepherd of Hermas, The Epistle of Clement, and dozens of other apocryphal works that I could name have the same "intrinsic content" as the canonical books of the New Testament, i. e., the theme of salvation through Jesus Christ. Why, then, does McDonald not consider them inspired works? Perhaps he can explain this to us.

McDonald claims that the inspiration of the canonical books can be proven by their moral content. "The N.T. books are different from all other books on morality," he asserted. "Other books may record human thought, and some may influence it profoundly, but the N.T. books transform it." So, by this, we can know that the New Testament books are inspired, he wants us to believe. But is he not aware that lives of the early gnostic Christians were transformed by The Gospel of Truth, The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Philip, and many other apocryphal books that have been arbitrarily excluded from the New Testament canon? Lives have been transformed by the writings of Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, Ellen G. White, and the prophets Zoroaster and Mohammed, but McDonald certainly doesn't consider their works to be inspired. So what does this "characteristic of inspiration" prove? It proves nothing--nothing at all.

But what about the value that the early Christians placed on the books of the New Testament? Wouldn't that prove they were inspired? "People such as Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Iraeneus, Tertullian, Origen and many others quoted from these books," McDonald informed us, "and considered them to be inspired of God." Yes, but these same people considered a lot of other books to be inspired too and also rejected some of the books that have since been included in the New Testament canon. Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons, recognized The Apocalypse of John and Shepherd of Hermas as inspired books, both of which are not in the present canon, and he omitted Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, James, and Jude. Tertullian, presbyter of Carthage, rejected Hebrews, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and James. Origin of Alexandria considered The Apocalypse of John to be inspired but rejected 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and James. (See a History of the Bible, "The Canonization of the New Testament," pp. 184-197, for other interesting facts concerning early Christian opinion regarding "inspired" books.) In light of these facts, of what value is the opinion of the early Christian leaders whom McDonald cited as proof that the New Testament books were inspired? He himself will not accept everything they believed concerning what books were and were not inspired, so what is his basis for accepting anything they believed? Until he can explain this, he has no argument.

Obviously, then, Mr. McDonald's "argument for the New Testament canon" has been shot out of the water. It has nothing to commend it. McDonald has now completed three affirmative manuscripts, and we have seen nothing from him but wild assertions, speculative opinions, and begging-the-question syllogisms. Let's hope there will be improvement in his fourth effort.

Go to McDonald's Fourth Defense.