In January 1990, I began a written debate on the issue of biblical inerrancy with Jerry McDonald, a Church-of-Christ preacher who was living in Kansas at the time. Among the various issues discussed was the matter of how old Ahaziah of Judah was when he began to reign. One text says that he was 22; another says that he was 42.

2 Kings 8:26 Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign; he reigned one year in Jerusalem.

2 Chronicles 22:2 Ahaziah was forty-two years old when he began to reign; he reigned one year in Jerusalem.

The wording in both texts is exactly the same in the Masoretic Hebrew text, except for the age of Ahaziah when he began to reign. I personally believe that both texts originally read the same (22) in both passages and that the variance resulted from a scribal error in transcribing the numbers in 2 Chronicles 22. Evidence for this conclusion is found in the fact that the Septuagint (Greek) translation of the Old Testament, whose third-century BC dating preceded by several centuries the oldest Masoretic copy of the Tanakh, contains the same age for Ahaziah in both passages. In our debate, however, McDonald rejected this solution to the discrepancy and insisted that the original text of 2 Chronicles 22:2 gave 42 as Ahaziah's age when he began to reign.

When Ahaziah was 22 years old, he could have begun to co-reign with his father, Jehoram. During that time he may have co-reigned for 20 years, then when he was 42 years old his father died and he took complete control of the reign. To show the plausibility of this co-reigning one needs [sic] only read 1 Chronicles 29:23, "Then Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord as king instead of David his father, and prospered; and all Israel obeyed him." Then verse 26 says, "Thus David, the Son of Jessie [sic] reigned over all Israel." If Solomon could co-reign with his father David, then Ahaziah could have co-reigned with his father Jehoram (McDonald's first rebuttal)

The fact that biblical character A may have co-reigned with another king is not proof that character B or C or D also co-reigned. This kind of "argumentation" is pure speculation that certainly doesn't constitute speaking where the Bible speaks and remaining silent where the Bible is silent, which Church-of-Christ preachers often boast that they do. Besides being purely speculative, this "solution" to the discrepancy in Ahaziah's age is completely incompatible with the biblical dating of the reigns of Ahaziah and his father Jehoram of Judah.

1. Joram [Jehoram] of Israel began to reign in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat and reigned for twelve years (2 Kings 3:1).

2. Jehoram of Judah began to reign in the fifth year of Joram [Jehoram] of Israel (2 Kings 8:16).

3. Jehoram of Judah died of a "disease of the bowels" before Joram [Jehoram] of Israel was killed at Jezreel the following year (2 Chron. 21:19; 2 Kings 9:21-29).

4. Jehoram of Judah's son Ahaziah succeeded him and reigned as king of Judah for one year (2 Kings 8:26; 2 Chron. 22:1-2).

5. Ahaziah and Joram of Israel, who, as noted above, reigned for twelve years, were killed the same day in Jehu's massacre at Jezreel (2 Kings 9:21-29).

As I noted above, the sentences pertaining to the age of Ahaziah "when he began to reign" are the same in both passages. In fact, everything in both verses is the same down to the detail of the name of Ahaziah's mother. We will notice that McDonald is unable to give anything close to a plausible explanation for why two writers who were both presumably inspired by the "Holy Spirit" would have had entirely different meanings for an identically worded expression, i. e., "when he began to reign." We will, in fact, see that if the writer of 2 Chronicles did indeed mean that Ahaziah was 42 years old when he began to reign, then the Bible obviously erred when it stated, as noted above, that (1) Joram of Israel reigned for twelve years, (2) Jehoram of Judah began to reign in the fifth year of Joram of Israel, (3) Jehoram of Judah died a year before the end of Joram of Israel's twelve-year reign, (4) Ahaziah of Judah reigned for one year, and (5) Ahaziah of Judah and Joram of Israel were killed the same day in Jehu's massacre at Jezreel. This is a biblical math problem that McDonald has evaded ever since it was presented here in my fifth rebuttal. As I continue through McDonald's article below, I will quote his evasive "answer" to the problem that biblical math presents to his 20-year co-reign "solution" to the discrepancy in Ahaziah's age.

What Dennis McKinsey may have believed in this matter is no concern of mine. I think that it is no secret in skeptical circles that I have frequently disagreed with McKinsey on what constitutes errors in the Bible. As I stated above, I personally think that the discrepancy in Ahaziah's age when he began to reign resulted from an error that some scribe made in copying 2 Chronicles 22:2 and that once the error was made, attitudes about the sacredness of the Hebrew text kept it from being corrected. Hence, I can think of many other biblical discrepancies that would qualify as "the Achilles heel of the Bible" more so than the issue of Ahaziah's age.

Those who read the the McDonald-Till Debate will see that he frequently appealed to what avowed biblical inerrantists had said about biblical discrepancies. Here and here and here in his second affirmative manuscript, here and here in his third, here and here in his fifth manuscript, and here in his first rebuttal manuscript, he quoted Gleason Archer as if what Archer had said was sufficient to settle the issues being discussed. I could also provide links to where he quoted Norman Geisler, Josh McDowell, Frederick Kenyon, Foy E. Wallace, Henry Alford, John Gill, and other believers in biblical inspiration, as if what they said were sufficient to settle the issues under discussion. That is such an amateurish approach to debating that no further comment is necessary here. Suffice it to say that what Dennis McKinsey may have thought about the importance of the discrepancy in Ahaziah's age proves nothing to me one way or the other.

McDonald and I have indeed debated all of these issues, but the "extended debate on the Mary Magdalene problem" has been inactive for several months now because of McDonald's refusal to reply to specific rebuttals of his "solution" to the problem. Although my article entitled "The Mary-Magdalene Problem" is not a part of my debate with McDonald on this issue, it does effectively present the problem, which McDonald has been unable to solve. I will say more about this below in replying to other comments by McDonald.

McDonald, in fact, said in a post to the Errancy list that he would die before he would ever say that there are errors in the Bible, so he has, in effect, admitted that he is too stubbornly inflexible ever to change his view of the Bible. I, on the other hand, have made a complete about-face in my opinion of the Bible. I was once a member of the same church that McDonald preaches for, and at that time, I vigorously defended biblical inerrancy. As I explained in "A Long Day's Journey into Light," when my personal studies, after I had left the orchestrated classroom environments of Bible colleges, led me to see that the Bible is riddled with inconsistencies, discrepancies, and outright absurdities, I had the intellectual integrity to leave the ministry and pursue another profession. That, essentially, is the difference in McDonald and me. When I realized that mistakes are in the Bible, I admitted it to myself and made the appropriate changes in my life; when McDonald sees mistakes in the Bible, as he has certainly done in the matter of Ahaziah's age, he digs in and refuses to admit that the mistakes are there. In a word, he is intellectually dishonest.

I know that there isn't a chance in the world that I will change McDonald. I would have better luck trying to teach ballet dancing to baboons. I spend time replying to his nonsense for the benefit of readers who may yet be undecided on the issue of biblical inerrancy. I want them to see the ridiculous extremes that fanatics like McDonald will go to in order to defend beliefs that are in reality indefensible. I will be perfectly honest and say that I can't imagine ever seeing evidence that would convert me back to my old view of biblical inerrancy. I know the Bible much too well to envision that ever happening. However, the change in my life is proof that I am willing to change deeply held beliefs when I see evidence that they are wrong. I doubt that McDonald could point to any comparable evidence that he is willing to change regardless of how much compelling evidence against biblical inerrancy should be presented to him. As noted above, he has in fact publicly stated that he will die before he will ever admit that errors are in the Bible. He was born to a Church-of-Christ preacher, he grew up being indoctrinated in Church-of-Christ doctrines, and he still clings to them in the face of compelling evidence that the Bible is not at all what he was taught to believe. That is the essential difference in our respective personalities.

On the Errancy list, I have repeatedly tried to get McDonald to understand that saying "to try and..." is syntactically incorrect. One does not "try and convince" or "try and go" or "try and anything." The correct way to say this would be "to try to convince." The fact that McDonald can't seem to grasp simple linguistic concepts like this (and others that have been repeatedly pointed out to him) doesn't instill much confidence in his implied claim that he can see linguistic meanings in the Bible text that aren't apparent to others. Readers should keep this in mind as I go through his article below where he claimed that he can see a different meaning in the expression "when he began to reign" in 2 Chronicles 22:2 from what the same expression meant in 2 Kings 8:26.

Anyway, We obviously differ in our perceptions of what the purpose of this "debate" is, because, as I said above, my purpose in debating fanatical inerrantists like McDonald is to give the opportunity for those who are undecided on the issue of biblical inerrancy to see just how indefensible this belief is. I very much want those shackled to biblical supersition to know the personal satisfaction that comes from having thrown off religious bondage.

I have explained to members of the Errancy list, one of whom is McDonald, that while I was briefly hospitalized, I passed the time by reading some of the manuscripts of our debate, which had lain on a bookshelf in my office for over a decade. Reviewing the manuscripts reminded me of just how ludicrously illogical McDonald's defenses of biblical inerrancy were. Since he had been posting extensively on the Errancy list, sometimes sending posts as long as 80K, I decided to put html coding into my electronic copies of the manuscripts and post them on this website. I have offered to send all of the files to McDonald, who claims that he wants to post the debate on his site too, but so far he has spurned this offer. I think those who click the link above and read the debate will see why he isn't eager to cooperate with me in posting it.

As I noted above, McDonald seemed to find the time to send posts as long as 80K, several of them, but when he found himself cornered on the Mary-Magdalene problem, his posts became more and more infrequent. His periods of silence gave me more time to work on coding our exchanges in the inerrancy debate, and during that coding, I encountered more and more of his ludicrous "logic," which I had forgotten about over the years, so I posted some examples of it so that Errancy members could see that his performance in the Mary-Magdalene debate wasn't unusual at all for him.

McDonald failed to mention here that I rejected the proposition that he presented in his proposal, because it did not state the definitive position that he had taken in our written debate. Since he had said that his position had not changed, I insisted that he word his proposition to declare categorically that Ahaziah began a 20-year co-reign with his father Jehoram when Ahaziah was 22, but he refused to do so. As the quotation above from McDonald's first rebuttal in our written debate clearly shows, his position was that when Ahaziah was 22, he began a 20-year co-reign with his father Jehoram, so I can't understand why McDonald, who claims that his position on this issue hasn't changed, would not agree to affirm a proposition that unequivocally states that this is the reason why different ages were given for Ahaziah when he began to reign.

In my attempt to negotiate an agreement with McDonald on a proposition and guidelines for the debate, I told him that I wanted a provision that would obligate both participants to speak where the Bible speaks and remain silent where the Bible is silent. Since this is a popular slogan in the Church of Christ, McDonald should have been willing to agree to this guideline, but he didn't. While I was out of state, he unilaterally decided to begin a debate for which I had not been allowed input. Nevertheless, I have decided to reply point by point to his "first affirmative" in order to show readers just how inconsistent his "possible harmonization" is with clearly worded biblical texts.

To this, I would say that if McDonald doesn't admit after this debate--and he won't--that his "solution" to the discrepancy in Ahaziah's age conflicts with what the Bible clearly says, then he is beyond hope. I am taking the time to reply to his "first affirmative" not to convince him of anything, because he already knows from what I said on this issue in our written debate and on posts to the Errancy list that his position is untenable. What can I say except that he is a biblical inerrantist of the Church-of-Christ kind, and he will never admit to being wrong about anything pertaining to positions he has taken on the meanings of biblical texts. As I pointed out above, he notified the members of the Errancy list that he would die before he would ever admit that mistakes are in the Bible. There is no way to reason with that kind of mindset, so I am writing this reply to his article not for him but for the undecided so that they can see to what extremes fanatical inerrantists will go in trying to defend their belief in biblical inerrancy.

For once, I can agree with McDonald. I too urge readers to access the debate here and read the exchanges, which will clearly show to any reasonable person that the claim of biblical inerrancy cannot be successfully defended. McDonald's part of the debate will show him taking rather moronic positions to try to defend his proposition and rebut my counterarguments.

It would only be sensible for McDonald to do this, because if he has not learned anything different over the past 12 years, he should take down his apologetic shingle and spend his time in more fruitful endeavors. I remind him, however, that he has said on the Errancy list that his position on the matter of Ahaziah's age has not changed, so whatever new information he may have acquired since the completion of our written debate, it cannot conflict with his original claim that when Ahaziah was 22 years old, he began a 20-year co-reign with his father Jehoram and then began to reign on his own when he was 42. Otherwise, he will have to admit that his former position was wrong, and if he does that, he will also have to say that he once debated a subject that he wasn't "absolutely sure about." I will be referring repeatedly to the biblical math, quoted above, that is completely inconsistent with McDonald's co-reign theory. From time to time, I will also point out to readers that McDonald, contrary to the popular Church-of-Christ slogan, persistently speaks where the Bible does not speak.

In my comments below on McDonald's unilaterally decided proposition, I will explain why I found his proposition unacceptable.

As the quotation above clearly shows, McDonald's position in the written debate was that Ahaziah, when he was 22 years old, began a 20-year co-reign with his father Jehoram and then began to reign on his own at the age of 42, after his father Jehoram had died. He stuck to this throughout the debate, as readers can verify by going here and here and here and here and here and here and elsewhere in the part of the debate that hasn't yet been coded and posted. He even duplicitiously tried to deceive his readers into thinking that John Gill, in his popular commentary on the Bible, had presented the same "solution" to the discrepancy in Ahaziah's age. I showed here and here how blatantly McDonald had misrepresented Gill's position on this issue.

As for whether McDonald has ever taken the position that he absolutely knows that Ahaziah and his father had co-reigned for 20 years, I know of no place where he has directly stated this; however, he certainly said it through necessary implication. Throughout the debate, as readers can confirm by just browsing through the debate exchanges linked to above, McDonald pressed me repeatedly to say that I absolutely knew that my position was right. I refused to do this, because, as I had explained, I had learned through long years of adamantly proclaiming biblical inerrancy from the pulpit and then later realizing that I was wrong, that it isn't wise ever to take the position that one is right and couldn't possibly be wrong. McDonald just wouldn't let go of my refusal to say that I absolutely knew that my position was right and couldn't be wrong. On this matter, he finally resorted to ridicule in his last affirmative manuscript.

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 want to make all of my arguments in favor of my proposition, then at the end say, "Oh, but you see, it is possible that I am wrong regarding my proposition.", [sic] 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 making the concession. If one is not sure of his position, why debate it? I would never debate a subject I was not absolutely sure about (McDonald's Fifth Affirmative).

As readers can clearly see, after chiding me for refusing to say that I couldn't possibly be wrong in my position, McDonald said that he would never debate a subject that he wasn't "absolutely sure about," but now he is singing a different tune. Now he is saying that he "will not take the position that [he] absolutely know[s] that this [the 20-year co-reign] is the case." To turn his ridicule back on him, I guess I am entitled to say that he wants to make all of his arguments in favor of his position and then at the end say, "Oh, but you see, it is possible that I am wrong regarding my position." Since the written debate already linked to will show that he defended in that debate the claim that when Ahaziah was 22 years old, he had begun a 20-year co-reign with his father Jehoram, McDonald has said by direct implication that he is absolutely sure of his co-reign theory. Either that or else he lied when he said that he would never debate a subject that he wasn't absolutely sure about. I will let him tell us which choice he wants to make.

Now he is saying that he "absolutely know[s] that these two verses [2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2] do not contradict each other," so a question is in order here. Exactly how can McDonald absolutely know that these two verses do not contradict each other unless he absolutely knows of a solution that is unequivocally correct. He can't wiggle out of the pickle barrel he finds himself in by saying that he doesn't claim to know absolutely that a 20-year co-reign happened but that he absolutely knows only that "there are harmonizations for these passages." A harmonization of this or any other discrepancy is not a harmonization unless it can be confirmed that the "harmonization" actually happened. In other words, if McDonald advances Harmonization A as a solution to the discrepancy in Ahaziah's age, he cannot absolutely know that "these two verses do not contradict each other" unless he absolutely knows that Harmonization A is what actually happened. The same would be true of Harmonization B or C or D or any other "harmonization" he wants to present. Unless he can present a harmonization that he absolutely knows happened, then he cannot absolutely know that the two verses don't contradict each other.

If not, why not?

In case he answers this rebuttal of his article, I will present some true or false questions that are patterned after those that he asked me in our written debate.

1. Is the following statement true or false? (If you do not answer, we will assume that your answer is false.) "It can be absolutely proven that when Ahaziah was 22 years old, he began a 20-year co-reign with his father Jehoram."

2. Is the following statement true or false? (If you do not answer, we will assume that your answer is true.) "It is entirely possible that Ahaziah of Judah never co-reigned with his father Jehoram."

3. Is the following statement true or false? (If you do not answer, we will assume that your answer is true.) "I absolutely know that my answers to the questions above are true and couldn't possibly be wrong."

In a post to the Errancy list after I had returned from Tennessee and found McDonald's "first [unilateral] affirmative" in my email, I explained to him that this proposition does not state a definitive position, so to explain why this proposition was unacceptable to me, I will quote what I said in that post.

The first problem with the wording is that it redundantly states that the two passages about Ahaziah's age are harmonious and can be harmonized by so on. If the two passages are harmonious, then they have already been harmonized. The major problem with his wording, however, is that it does not definitively state that Ahaziah began to co-reign with his father Jehoram when Ahaziah was 22 years old. It simply says that the different statements about his age can be harmonized by a 20-year co-reign. This, in effect, takes a how-it-could-have-been position rather than a definitive one. Someone could just as easily argue that Jehoram of Judah reigned for eight years (as 2 Kings 8:17 says) and then died when Ahaziah was 22 years old, after which he was resurrected from the dead and co-reigned another 20 years until he died again when Ahaziah was 42. Hence, anyone given to unlikely speculations, as McDonald obviously is, could present a challenge to debate this proposition: "The different statements concerning Ahaziah's age (2 Kings 8:26; 2 Chronicles 22:2) can be harmonized by Jehoram's resurrection from the dead, which was then followed by an additional 20-year co-reign reign with his son Ahaziah.”

Although the Old Testament does claim resurrections from the dead, there is, of course, no such reference to a resurrection of Jehoram of Judah. However, McDonald's approach to his co-reign theory, as we will soon see below, is that if others co-reigned, then Jehoram of Judah and and his son Ahaziah could have co-reigned also. If this kind of argumentation is going to be allowed, then there would be no reason not to let some other inerrantist claim that Jehoram of Judah died and then was resurrected to reign again. I have demanded that McDonald take a definitive position on what had happened that made the two ages in question consistent, and until he agrees to do that, I will not engage in any formal debate on this issue. I am weary of biblical inerrantists who want to resolve discrepancies by speculating that X could have happened or that Y could have happened or that Z could have happened, and so on. That is an "apologetic" method that could be used to prove that the Book of Mormon, the Qur'an, the Avesta, or any other book is inerrant, but could haves don't prove anything; therefore, until McDonald can present a verifiable harmonization of the different ages given for Ahaziah "when he began to reign," he hasn't resolved anything.

What debate? There will be no formal debate on this issue until McDonald submits a proposition that states a definitive position. Needless to say, he is not going to do that, because he isn't so ignorant that he cannot see that his "harmonization" is inconsistent with clearly stated datings of Jehoram of Judah's reign.

Notice that McDonald's definition of the expression are harmonious is an admission that his proposition doesn't take an unequivocal position. He wants to take only a "can be" or "could have" position so that when he is backed into a corner, he can say--as he has already done in the Errancy forum and again did above--that he is not claiming to be absolutely sure of his position on a 20-year co-reign of Ahaziah and his father. In other words, if the going gets rough for him (as it will), he wants wiggling room to say, "Well, I never said that I was absolutely sure that Ahaziah co-reigned with his father for 20 years, so another possible solution is...."

As I said above, this age discrepancy is not "harmonized" by postulating a "possible" or even "probable" co-reign. Unless McDonald can unequivocally show that such a co-reign did occur, he has resolved nothing. Furthermore, I reject McDonald's meaning of the expression can be harmonized, as he has defined it above, and I have about as good an authority for doing this as he could want. That authority is none other than Jerry McDonald himself, who made the following statements of rejection in our written debate after I had defined my proposition.

He [Till] says that he will not be using the word "contradiction" in its rigidly logical sense that I made reference to when I was in the affirmative. I do not blame him; if I held his position I would not want to use the word in its rigidly logical sense either. However, I refuse to accept the definition that he has given upon the basis that two accounts can differ and yet not contradict one another (McDonald's First Rebuttal, italicized emphasis added).

I reject his definition of "moral atrocities" upon the same grounds that I rejected his definition of "contradictions." He thinks if the majority thinks that a thing is a "moral atrocity" then all must accept that as a moral atrocity. If the majority thinks that the Amalekite destruction was a moral atrocity, then he seems to think that we should just accept that fact and go on without ever saying a word. Sorry [sic] pal, we do not operate that way (McDonald's First Rebuttal, italicized emphasis added).

So with McDonald as my role model, I will tell him that I reject his definition of the expression "can be harmonized" in his unilateral proposition, because it does not state a definitive position. In the rules and guidelines that both of us agreed to prior to our written debate, he accepted the wording of my proposition and signed the negotiated rules. On the other hand, I never accepted his proposition in this "debate" that he unilaterally started, so I have far more reason to reject his definition than he had to reject mine (which, incidentally, was a definition quoted verbatim from standard English dictionaries). I will, however, take readers through the rest of his "first affirmative" in this bogus "debate" so that they can see that he isn't a bit shy about speaking where the Bible does not speak.

I have no doubt at all that reasonable people will see that McDonald's position is completely contrary to the Bible's datings of the reigns of Joram of Israel, Jehoram of Judah, and the latter's son Ahaziah. Only someone who has been completely blinded by allegiance to biblical inerrancy would think that Ahaziah could have co-reigned for twenty years with his father Jehoram when the latter began to reign in the fifth year of Joram of Israel and died in the eleventh year of Joram of Israel. That allows only a window of seven/eight years for McDonald's imaginary 20-year co-reign.

McDonald has resorted to an implied threat here, which is familiar to those of us who have crossed verbal swords with biblical inerrantists. What he is implying is that those who reject biblical inerrancy will go to hell. He has been challenged before to prove the existence of hell and a final judgment, but he has yet to produce any credible evidence for their existence. He seems to think that since whatever the Bible says is good enough for him, it should also be sufficient for everyone else too. That is how simplistic his "logic" is.

I wonder whom McDonald thinks he is fooling. He has not put any real effort at all into studying this issue or anything else that he believes about biblical inerrancy. His father was a Church-of-Christ preacher, and McDonald's attendance at a "school of preaching" sponsored by a fundamentalist Church of Christ, which thought that the traditional Bible colleges like Harding, Freed-Hardeman, David Lipscomb, Abilene Christian, etc. had become too "liberal" to be trusted with the training of its preachers, indoctrinated him even more thoroughly to believe that the Bible is completely inerrant. Hence, he believes what he believes because he has been indoctrinated all of his life to believe it. He should save his pious claims of studious efforts that led to what he believes for those who may know no better than to believe them.

This "debate" is going to be completed sooner than later unless McDonald agrees to word his proposition so that it states an unequivocal position on why different ages were given for Ahaziah "when he began to reign." If he doesn't have the courage to take a definite position, he has no business trying to be a debater.

I don't disagree at all with what McDonald said here. I am confident that those who read this article carefully will see that McDonald's efforts have been motivated by an extreme desire to force the Bible into his preconceived inerrancy mold. That desire is so deeply ingrained that he is willing, as we will see below, actually to argue that the Bible is inerrant in the matter of Ahaziah's age when he began to reign but errant in its records of the length of the reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah.

If I were a religious nut, I would jump up here and shout, "Amen!" The burden of proof lies on McDonald to find a 20-year co-reign that is mentioned nowhere in all that the Bible says about the reigns of Jehoram of Judah and his son Ahaziah. His proposition obligates him to "use" 2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2 "to show that a 20-year co-reign did indeed exist between Ahaziah and his father Jehoram," but since neither of these texts says anything at all about a father/son co-reign, I will be very interested in seeing McDonald use these two verses to "show" that such a co-reign did occur. Because of the silence of these verses on the subject of co-reigns, McDonald's only recourse is going to be speculation. As I wade through his speculations, I will keep readers reminded that he isn't speaking where the Bible speaks and remaining silent where the Bible is silent, so this would explain why he didn't accept my proposal to have guidelines that would include an agreement that both parties would speak only where the Bible speaks.

It is McDonald's responsibility to give evidence, but speculating is not evidence, and neither is quoting biblical inerrantists who, like him, will tie themselves into verbal knots to try to explain away obvious inconsistencies. We will see him resorting to both popular "apologetic" methods, which prove nothing at all except that inerrantists can both speculate and quote other inerrantists who speculate.

I think that much of McDonald's reliance on goofy logic and how-it-could-have-been "solutions" to biblical discrepancies is due to his experience as a fundamentalist preacher, which has accustomed him to having his mere word accepted without question by his audiences. We will see that in writing his "first [unilateral] affirmative," he failed to understand that his audience in this forum is not going to be gullible Church-of-Christ pew-warmers willing to accept every word spewed from a pulpit. The audience here consists of people who have critically examined the Bible and have found it not to be what people have traditionally believed about it. When McDonald receives negative feedback about his failure to make his case, as he will receive if he remains in the Errancy forum, I suspect we will hear him saying that the "hands" of these readers weren't quite so capable.

A lot of things "existed" in those days that neither Jehoram of Judah nor his son Ahaziah had participated in. I want readers to follow very carefully McDonald's line of reasoning here. He will be arguing that if X existed in biblical times, then it is possible that characters A, B, C... Z were parties to it even though the Bible may not say that they were. That is as fallacious as if arguing that a lot of people rob banks in our times; therefore, McDonald robs banks. This is the kind of reasoning that Church-of-Christ preachers must resort to when they abandon their slogan that pledges them to speak where the Bible speaks and remain silent where the Bible is silent. If the mere fact that co-reigns existed in biblical times is sufficient proof that Ahaziah and his father co-reigned for 20 years, then why wouldn't the presumable reality of resurrections in biblical times be enough to prove that Jehoram of Judah died and was later resurrected to co-reign for 20 years with his son Ahaziah?

On the Errancy list, members have often commented on McDonald's inability to read and understand plainly written texts, and we see evidence of that handicap here. To analyze the passage he just quoted, I am going to substitute the relative pronoun who for that, which is in the KJV that he quoted. Readers can check any version like the RSV or NRSV or NIV or NAS and see that these translations used who instead of that.

McDonald wanted his readers to believe that the firstborn of Pharaoh was sitting on the throne as a co-regent with Pharaoh, but that isn't at all what the text was saying. To say that all classes of society would be struck by the last plague, the verse figuratively listed three classes of firstborn to represent all who would be killed in the plague: (1) the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne; (2) the firstborn of the captive, who was in the dungeon; and (3) the firstborn of the cattle. Now if the dependent or subordinate clause "who sat on his throne" referred to or modified Pharaoh's firstborn offspring, then the clause "who was in the dungeon" would modify the firstborn of the captive; hence, this would force the verse to mean that the firstborn of captives who died were in the dungeons with their fathers, but this puts a ridiculous meaning on the verse, which was simply warning that the plague would touch everyone in Egypt from Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, down to the captives, who were in dungeons. In other words, the verse was saying that the plague would strike from the highest social class down to the lowest. The modern English translations below make this a bit clearer than McDonald's beloved KJV.

NIV: At midnight [Yahweh] struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock.

NRSV: At midnight [Yahweh] struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock.

The warning, therefore, was that everyone from the highest social station in Egypt to the lowest was going to be struck by the plague, and it doesn't at all mean what McDonald has distorted it to say. McDonald's inability to understand a rather simply written passage as this should cause readers to doubt that he is linguistically qualified to see the subtle differences that he claims were in the identical wording of two passages that gave Ahaziah's age when he began to reign.

By the way, when I quote biblical versions, I substitute Yahweh, the Hebrew name for their god, for the LORD, because I want readers to see that the Hebrews were as superstitious as other people of the times who had names like Chemosh, Dagon, Bel, Zeus, etc. for their gods. They were no different from primitive people who ignorantly thought that tossing virgins into volcanoes would appease their god Bongabonga and influence him to make the eruptions stop.

As a final note here, I will just say that McDonald has wasted his time, because I do not deny that co-regents existed in ancient times. However, the existence of co-regents in biblical times would not prove in any way that Ahaziah had served as his father's co-regent. To say that he did is an assumption that McDonald must prove, and he cannot do that. All he can do is speak where the Bible does not speak.

McDonald has again quoted the KJV rendering of this text, without bothering to tell his readers that this is a disputed translation, or perhaps he is so wedded to the KJV that he is even unaware of the disagreement about what the verse was saying. The following translations will show where the dispute is centered.

NKJV: Now in the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab, king of Israel, Jehoshaphat having been king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat began to reign as king of Judah.

RSV: In the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab, King of Israel, Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, began to reign.

NRSV: In the fifth year of King Joram son of Ahab of Israel, Jehoram son of King Jehoshaphat of Judah began to reign.

Holman Christian Standard: In the fifth year of Israel's King Joram son of Ahab, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat became king of Judah, replacing his father.

NAB: In the fifth year of Joram, son of Ahab, king of Israel, Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, became king.

Jersalem Bible: In the fifth year of Jehoram son of Ahab king of Israel, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat became king of Judah.

REB: In the fifth year of Jehoram son of King Ahab of Israel, Joram son of King Jehoshaphat of Judah became king.

GNB: In the fifth year of the reign of Joram son of Ahab as king of Israel, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat became king of Judah.

The Message: In the fifth year of the reign of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah became king.

JPS: In the fifth year of King Joram son of Ahab of Israel--Jehoshaphat had been king of Judah--Joram son of King Jehoshaphat of Judah became king.

These versions and others that I could quote don't say that Jehoshaphat was living at this time, which McDonald wants to make the verse mean, but only that he had been king of Judah prior to Jehoram's beginning to reign. If McDonald wants to claim that this verse, in saying that Jehoram was the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, meant that Jehoshaphat was still living at this time, he would have to say that Ahab was also still living, because the same verse refers to Joram as the son of Ahab, king of Israel. There are good reasons why this verse cannot be seen as proof that Jehoshaphat was still living at the time that his son Jehoram began to reign as king of Judah, and McDonald should know what they are, because they have been posted on the Errancy list during our discussion of this issue, but before I present them, I first want to notice that McDonald has previously said that 2 Kings 8:16 was stating that the fifth year of King Joram of Israel was when Johoshaphat died and Jehoram "took full control of the reign." Notice the clause emphasized in italic print in McDonald's statement.

"He [Till] challenges me to prove that Jehoram reigned longer than eight years in Jerusalem.’ 2 Kings 3:1 tells us that Jehoram ben Ahab began to reign in the 18th year of Jehosaphat [sic]. However, 2 Kings 1:17 tells us that Jehoram ben Ahab began to reign in the second year of Jehoram ben Jehosaphat [sic]. Now this means that Jehoram ben Jehosaphat [sic] began to reign in the 16th year of Jehosaphat [sic]. Jehosaphat [sic] reigned for 25 years in Jerusalem. Therefore, when Jehoram ben Ahab began to reign Jehoram ben Jehosaphat [sic] had already begun to reign, and had been reigning for two years. Now 2 Kings 8:16 tells us that Jehoram ben Jehosaphat [sic] began to reign in the fifth year of Jehoram ben Ahab, which was when Jehosaphat [sic] died. This is when Jehoram ben Jehosaphat [sic] took full control of the reign. And 2 Kings 8:25 tells us that Ahaziah ben Jehoram, began to reign in the 12th year of Jehoram ben Ahab. So this means that Jehoram ben Jehosaphat [sic] began reigning in the 16th year of Jehosaphat [sic] and co-reigned with Jehosaphat [sic] for 9 years. Then he reigned 5 years before Ahaziah ben Jehoram began to reign at the age 22 (2 Kings 8:24). According to that he had already reigned for 14 years when Ahaziah began to reign. So according to this, Jehoram did reign longer than eight years. Argue with it if you will, but you will never defeat it ("Ahaziah's Age (Part 1)," posted by McDonald on 8/09/07).

Well, I certainly will "argue with it," and I think our readers will see that I "defeat it" and do so rather easily. "Element Number One" in the defeat is McDonald's own contradictory statements. Notice that he said in the part emphasized in italic print in the quotation from his Errancy post that 2 Kings 8:16 "was when Jehoshaphat died," but he said above, in this article, that "(w)e can also look at the co-reign of Jehoshaphat and Jehoram" and then went on to quote 2 Kings 8:16 as the place where the Bible "explicitly states" that Jehoram of Judah co-reigned with his father. On 8/09/07, he was claiming that 2 Kings 1:17 was proof that Jehoram of Judah was co-reigning with Jehoshaphat in the 16th year of the latter and that 2 Kings 8:16 was proof that Jehoshaphat died in the fifth year of Joram of Israel (which would have been the 23rd year of Jehoshaphat), at which time his son Jehoram "took full control of the reign," but now in his latest article on the subject, posted only a month later, he is saying that the fifth year of Joram of Israel, as "explicitly stated" in 2 Kings 8:16, was when Jehoram of Judah began a co-reign with his father Jehoshaphat. Jehoram could not have co-reigned with a dead man, so McDonald has done a complete about-face on the matter of when Jehoshaphat died and his son Jehoram "took full control of the reign." When someone contradicts himself as blatantly as McDonald has done on this issue, it is no wonder that he refuses to say that he is absolutely sure of his position.

There is an "element Number Two" on the issue of whether Jehoram of Judah co-reigned with his father Jehoshaphat, and it is an issue that McDonald has repeatedly ignored in the Errancy forum: whether such a co-reign happened is irrelevant to McDonald's speculative "solution" to the discrepancy in Ahaziah's age. As noted above, McDonald's position is that "(w)hen Ahaziah was 22 years old, he could have begun to co-reign with his father, Jehoram," so he must show us that Ahaziah did begin a 20-year co-reign with his father when the former was 22 years old. If Ahaziah's father Jehoram had co-reigned with Jehoshaphat before this, that would be completely irrelevant to McDonald's position. McDonald has been told this umpteen times, so to run it by him again, I will simply quote here what I said on 8/10/07 in an Errancy post entitled "What Does the Bible Say? (1)."

Let's notice, first of all, that if 1 Kings 1:17 was really intended to mean that Jehoram of Judah had co-reigned with his father Jehoshaphat, that really wouldn't help McDonald, because the statement quoted above from his own manuscript stated that Ahaziah had begun to co-reign with his father Jehoram when Ahaziah was 22, so any time before this that Ahaziah's father Jehoram may have co-reigned with his father Jehoshaphat wouldn't help McDonald at all, because he must prove that Ahaziah, when he was 22, began a 20-year co-reign with his father and then after his father's death began to reign on his own, at which time Ahaziah would have been 42 in accordance with what 2 Chronicles 22:2 says. Proving that Jehoram of Judah (Ahaziah's father) may have co-reigned before the fifth year of Jehoram of Israel will do nothing for McDonald's speculative scenario, because the issue is how old Ahaziah was when he began to reign and not how old his father Jehoram of Judah was when he began to reign.

This was just one of several times that I pointed out to McDonald this problem in his attempts to prove that Jehoram co-reigned with his father Jehoshaphat, but McDonald has ignored this point and continues to waste time on an irrelevant issue. Readers should keep this in mind as they read below McDonald's continued focus on a possible Jehoshaphat/Jehoram co-reign. Such a co-reign, even if McDonald could prove that it happened, would in no way prove that when Ahaziah was 22, he began to co-reign with his father Jehoram.

No point has been made, because, as I noted above and several times on the Errancy list, whether Jehoshaphat and his son Jehoram co-reigned doesn't matter. The issue is whether Jehoram's son Ahaziah began to co-reign with his father when Ahaziah was 22. McDonald can't possibly be so dense that he can't see this.

To show how McDonald's out-of-context, truncated quotation here blatantly distorted what I said, I will have to take the time to go through the broader contexts that led up to the statement that he referred to above. I will begin by juxtaposing the passages that gave different ages for Ahaziah when he began to reign.

2 Kings 8:26 Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign; he reigned one year in Jerusalem.

2 Chronicles 21:20 He [Ahaziah] was thirty-two years old when he began to reign; he reigned eight years in Jerusalem.

McDonald's "solution" to the obvious problem here entailed not just a claim of an unmentioned 20-year co-reign that began when Ahaziah was 22 but also the ridiculous claim that the reference to the eight years that Jehoram of Judah reigned (2 Kings 8:17) and the references in the verses quoted above to the one year that his son Ahaziah reigned, all say that they reigned "in Jersualem," so he actually argued that in addition to the years that Jehoram of Judah and Ahaziah reigned "in Jerusalem," they also reigned in other places for periods that were never specified in the Bible. I am not kidding. He actually argued this.

However, some object to this [the claim of a 20-year co-reign] because the Bible says that Jehoram only reigned eight years, and Ahaziah only reigned one year. However, this is not what the passage says. The Bible says that Jehoram reigned in Jerusalem for eight years and Ahaziah reigned in Jerusalem for one year. One explanation of this would be Jehoram reigned only eight years in Jerusalem and reigned longer elsewhere (McDonald's Fifth Affirmative).

McDonald immediately saw the problem in this scenario and tried to head off at the pass the obvious reply that I would make to his silly interpretation.

Someone might point out that every Judean king was said to have reigned in Jerusalem. Yes, but not every Judean king was said to have spent some of that reign somewhere else (McDonald's Fifth Affirmative).

He labored long and hard to try to distort biblical passages to support his claim that the Bible said that Jehoram and Ahaziah reigned somewhere else besides Jerusalem. One of his absurdities was that the Bible "implies" that Jehoram reigned elsewhere.

It is implied that Jehoram spent part of his reign elsewhere (cf. 2 Chronicles 21:11) and it is specifically stated that Ahaziah spent part of his elsewhere. [sic] (2 Chronicles 22:6-9 [sic] (McDonald's Fifth Affirmative).

Let's just look at these passages that McDonald cited (without quoting). I will reply to them one at a time. I know that this section is long, but I ask the indulgence of readers so that I can thoroughly expose McDonald's absurd position in this matter and his inability to reply to information, quoted directly from the Bible, that clearly refutes his claim of a 20-year Jehoram/Ahaziah co-reign.

2 Chronicles 21:11 Moreover he [Jehoram] made high places in the hill country of Judah, and led the inhabitants of Jerusalem into unfaithfulness, and made Judah go astray.

To save time, I will just recycle my rebuttal of this, which readers can find here in my fifth rebuttal.

McDonald thinks it is "implied" in 2 Chronicles 21:11 that Jehoram spent part of his reign elsewhere (than Jerusalem). What does this verse say? "Moreover he (Jehoram) made high places in the mountains of Judah, and made the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the harlot, and led Judah astray." If I had not read this with my own eyes, I would never have believed that a bibliolater could be driven to such an extreme in his hunt for "solutions" to Bible discrepancies. What does he want us to see in this verse? Are we to think that the "high places" Jehoram made in the mountains of Judah were palaces or headquarters from which he reigned in addition to the time he spent reigning in Jerusalem? As the following quotation from Eerdmans Bible Dictionary will show, "high places" in the Old Testament were sites of pagan worship:

High Places: A place of worship, located on hilltops or man-made platforms. Old Testament accounts usually associate high places with pagan religious practices.

High places were a common fixture of Canaanite religion when the Israelites entered Palestine. The common ancient Near Eastern cosmology held that the earth was flat, and that the gods dwelt in the heavens above. Consequently, a worship center located on an elevation had a better chance of gaining their attention (1987, p. 486).

The existence of these "high places" was a problem throughout the reigns of the Judean kings. Some of the kings encouraged the high places; others worked to destroy them. References to these pagan sites were made in such places as 1 Kings 13:2,32-33; 14:23; 15:14; 22:43; 2 Kings 12:3; 14:4; 15:4 and many others. So when the Chronicle writer said that Jehoram "made high places in the mountains of Judah," he meant only that Jehoram built pagan worship sites, not that he divided his reign between Jerusalem and other locations in the Judean mountains. When a debater can offer no better counterargument than this, you know that his position is in serious trouble (Till's Fifth Rebuttal).

After I had entered this rebuttal into the debate, McDonald's quibble was that "where the kings worshiped was where they reigned," but this was another stretch of imagination for which he could offer no proof. In my second affirmative, I expanded my reply to the quibble.

McDonald has grasped every straw in sight to try to manufacture some kind of credibility for his split-reign theory. He has imagined "implications" in 2 Chronicles 21:11 that Jehoram divided his reign between Jerusalem and some other place, but all that this passage says is that Jehoram "made high places in the mountains of Judah, and made the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the harlot." This is saying nothing more than that Jehoram built pagan worship sites in the mountains of Judah, so in saying that "when Jehoram took Judah up to the high places to worship, this is where he resided" (rejoinder p. 3), McDonald is reading something into the text that is not there. When is he going to start speaking where the Bible speaks and being silent where the Bible is silent?

Is there anything in the Bible text that even hints that Judean kings who encouraged either pagan or Yahwistic worship in "high places" resided at the worship sites they had built? Nothing at all! Solomon went to the high place at Gibeon to offer a thousand burnt offerings (1 Kings 3:4), but he returned to Jerusalem after the ceremony (v:15). Later in his reign, Solomon built high places to Chemosh and Molech (1 Kings 11:6-8), yet when he died, it was said that he had "reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel" for forty years (1 Kings 11:42). In all the verses that tell the story of Solomon, a frequent worshiper at the "high places," not a one even hints that he reigned anywhere but in Jerusalem, so just where does McDonald get the idea that where the kings worshiped was where they resided? I'll tell you where he got it.  He has arbitrarily declared it--without as much as an iota of evidence--to try to get himself out of an embarrassing predicament.

King Ahaz sacrificed at the "high places, and on the hills, and under every green tree" (2 Kings 16:3), but when he died, it was said that he had "reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem." King Manasseh "built again the high places" that his father Hezekiah had destroyed, yet when he died it was said that he had "reigned in Jerusalem for fifty-five years (2 Kings 21:1-3). Obviously, then, saying that so-and-so had reigned in Jerusalem was simply the biblical way of recording the number of years the Judean kings had reigned, and McDonald can't produce one shred of evidence to dispute that. If he could, don't you know that he would do so? He would dearly love to do it.

Further along in my fourth affirmative, which has not yet been coded and posted online, I returned to McDonald's where-the-kings-worshiped quibble, which he kept repeating despite its having been thoroughly refuted. It was in the context of this additional rebuttal that I made the statement that McDonald truncated and quoted out of context.

He [McDonald] claimed that he gave us biblical proof in his rejoinder (p. 3, point 5) that "where the kings worshiped was where they reigned," but he did no such thing. The only proof for this that he can find in any of the passages he cited in his rejoinder is the far-fetched, speculative kind that he continually resorts to when he has no clearly stated biblical proof to support his how-it-could-have-been scenarios. He cited Jeroboam, the first king of Israel after the split with Judah, as an example that proves his case "by inference." Well, what was the important "inference" that McDonald saw in the record of Jeroboam's reign? To keep his subjects from going to Jerusalem to worship, Jeroboam made two golden calves and put one at Dan and one at Bethel and told the people to worship there (1 Kings 12:25-33). "Bethel is where he [Jeroboam] resided," McDonald  concluded, "and where he resided is where he reigned." My, my, I have learned not to be surprised at anything McDonald might say to try to salvage his precious inerrancy doctrine. Just before the verses (26-29) that tell of Jeroboam's designating Bethel and Dan as the sites where the golden calves would be put, we are told that Jeroboam "built Shechem and dwelt there" (v:25). Now we don't have to "infer" anything from this, because the verse clearly states that Jeroboam dwelt in Shechem.

Is there anything in the Bible text to indicate that Jeroboam also dwelt in Bethel? We are told that Jeroboam "went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel," and that is a rather clear indication that he wasn't living in Bethel. If I should say that "Jerry McDonald went up to Jefferson City to worship," that would be appropriate to say, because he doesn't live in Jefferson City; he lives several miles away in Sullivan. Since he lives in Sullivan, one would not say that he went up to Sullivan to worship, because he already lives in Sullivan.

If this is not enough to convince McDonald that his big inference has turned out to be just a big "bust," he might want to consider that Jeroboam was living in a city called Tirzah when his son died (presumably as a punishment from Yahweh), and this is clearly evident from 1 Kings 14:1-20. His son fell ill, and Jeroboam had his wife to disguise herself and go to Shiloh to ask the prophet Ahijah if the child would recover. While she was en route, Yahweh revealed to Ahijah that she was coming and told him what to say to her. When she arrived, Ahijah told her that the boy would die. "Arise thou therefore, and get thee to thy house: and when thy feet enter into the city, the child  shall  die" (v:12). Later, the claim was made that "Jeroboam's wife arose, and departed, and came to Tirzah: and as she came to the threshold of the house, the child died" (v:17). Now McDonald has to believe that this story is true in every detail or else surrender his inerrancy position, and the story indicates that Jeroboam's house was in Tirzah at this time.

Here, then, are the facts (according to the Bible) about Jeroboam's place of residence:   (1) he dwelt in Shechem early in his reign, (2) he built worship sites in Bethel and Dan, (3) he went up to Bethel to worship on at least one occasion, and (3) he lived at Tirzah at the end of his reign. So just where is the big inference that tells us "where the kings worshiped was where they resided"? It just isn't there. Yet to "prove" his important inference, McDonald used only one paragraph on the page he cited. I call that "passing mention," because to sustain his point about an assumed 20-year co-reign of Jehoram and Ahaziah, McDonald must prove that Jehoram reigned longer than the eight years "in Jerusalem" mentioned in 2 Kings 8:17 and 2 Chronicles 21:20. To do this is going to require much more than wishful thinking and one paragraph.

The italicized section above is what McDonald truncated and quoted out of context to leave the impression that I had said that if he can prove that Jehoram reigned longer than the eight years in Jerusalem mentioned in 2 Kings 8:17 and 2 Chronicles 21:20, he would sustain his point, but the broader context of the passage shows that I was replying to his claim that in Jerusalem in these verses meant that Jehoram reigned eight years in Jerusalem but much longer somewhere else. My intention was not to say that if McDonald could prove that Jehoram co-reigned with his father Jehoshaphat before he began to reign on his own, then that would sustain his 20-year co-reign theory. I was saying that he had to prove that Jehoram reigned additional years somewhere else besides his eight years in Jerusalem, so whether Jehoram co-reigned with Jehoshaphat before the former began to reign on his own is totally irrelevant to the issue in question, because McDonald's claim is not that Jehoram had co-reigned with his father Jehoshaphat before he had begun to reign on his own but that after Jehoram had taken "full control" of the kingdom, he had taken his son Ahaziah aboard as a co-regent when the latter was 22.

An additional problem in McDonald's ludicrous attempts to find the missing twenty years in a possible co-reign that Jehoram had shared with his father Ahaziah is that the Bible says that Jehoshaphat "reigned twenty-five years in Jerusalem" (1 Kings 22:42), so even if McDonald could prove that Jehoram and his father Jehoshaphat had shared a co-reign, that would not help his case at all, because that co-reign would have occurred in Jerusalem, and McDonald is trying to argue that Jehoram reigned just eight years in Jerusalem but several years somewhere else outside of Jerusalem. Hence, he will not find in a Jehoshaphat/Jehoram co-reign his missing years that Jehoram had spent reigning somewhere outside of Jerusalem, because Jehoshaphat's 25-year reign was spent in Jerusalem. McDonald's "in-Jerusalem" quibble, then, has been shown to have no biblical basis.

The second text that McDonald cited in his desperation to prove that Jehoram and Ahaziah had reigned in places other than Jerusalem was 2 Chronicles 22:6-9.

2 Chronicles 22:5 He [Ahaziah] even followed their [the house of Ahab's] advice, and went with Jehoram son of King Ahab of Israel to make war against King Hazael of Aram at Ramoth-gilead. The Arameans wounded Joram, ⁶ and he returned to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds that he had received at Ramah, when he fought King Hazael of Aram. And Ahaziah son of King Jehoram of Judah went down to see Joram son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick. ⁷ But it was ordained by God that the downfall of Ahaziah should come about through his going to visit Joram. For when he came there he went out with Jehoram to meet Jehu son of Nimshi, whom Yahweh had anointed to destroy the house of Ahab. ⁸ When Jehu was executing judgment on the house of Ahab, he met the officials of Judah and the sons of Ahaziah's brothers, who attended Ahaziah, and he killed them. ⁹ He searched for Ahaziah, who was captured while hiding in Samaria and was brought to Jehu, and put to death. They buried him, for they said, "He is the grandson of Jehoshaphat, who sought Yahweh with all his heart." And the house of Ahaziah had no one able to rule the kingdom.

This passage says no more than that Ahaziah entered into a military alliance with Joram of Israel to fight the Arameans at Ramoth-gillead. During the battle Joram of Israel was wounded and returned to his home in Jezreel to recuperate. Later, Ahaziah went to Jezreel to visit Joram, and while he was visiting there, Jehu led a coup d'état in which both Joram of Israel and Ahaziah were killed (2 Kings 9:21-29). McDonald's claim that this text proves that Ahaziah reigned somewhere besides Jerusalem is too moronic to deserve serious comment. His grandfather Jehoshaphat had entered a similar alliance with Joram's father Ahab to attack Ramoth-gilead, a military engagement that had cost Ahab his life (2 Kings 22:1-4,29-40). According to McDonald's goofy logic, when Jehoshaphat went with Ahab to attack Ramoth-gilead, he was reigning somewhere besides Jerusalem, yet 2 Kings 22:42 says that Jehoshaphat "was thirty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-five years in Jerusalem." The books of Kings record several occasions when the kings of Judah went to war outside of Jerusalem. Amaziah invaded Edom, captured Sela, and renamed it Joktheel (2 Kings 14:7), so according to McDonald, Amaziah was reigning in Edom at this time, even though the writer of 2 Kings said that he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem (v:2). I could cite other examples, but these are sufficient to make the point.

Only desperation to defend an untenable belief could drive an inerrantist to such extremes as this. Although the authors of the books of Kings recorded the "history" of both the northern (Israel) and southern (Judah) kingdoms, their sympathy was clearly with Judah. They considered Jerusalem as the place where Yahweh had chosen " to put his name" (1 Kings 8:16,29; 11:13,36; 2 Kings 21:4,7). The author(s) of the books of Kings, then, considered Jerusalem especially sacred, and that would account for why, as McDonald himself noted above, the author(s) specified of all the kings of Judah that they had reigned in Jerusalem. It was a way of emphasizing that they were the kings who reigned in a place that special was to the god Yahweh.

Yes, it is. McDonald often claims to "see" nuances and meanings in the biblical text that seem to elude other readers, so I wish he would explain to us why omnisciently inspired writers couldn't have plainly stated what they meant. If, for example, the author of 2 King 8:26 meant that Ahaziah had reigned for one year in Jerusalem but twenty other years in some other place, why couldn't omniscience have guided him to say that? If the author of 2 Chronicles 22:2 meant that the age of 42 was when Ahaziah began to reign on his own after a 20-year co-reign with his father Jehoram, why couldn't omniscience have guided him to say so? The best argument against McDonald's in-Jerusalem quibble is that the Bible says what it says, and in the case of the reigns of Jehoram of Judah and his son Ahaziah, it says that Jehoram "was thirty-two when he began to reign, and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem" (2 Kings 8:17) and that Ahaziah was 22/42 "when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem" (2 Kings 8:26; 2 Chron. 22:2). To argue that the references to "reigning in Jerusalem" in these passages meant that there had been additional years in these reigns in places other than Jerusalem is to say that writers omnisciently inspired could not communicate their ideas plainly enough to be understood. The fact that two references to Ahaziah's age "when he began to reign," are worded identically except for the ages that were given, can best be explained by concluding that either one of the writers erred or that someone copying 2 Chronicles 22 incorrectly put forty-two instead of twenty-two for Ahaziah's age. To borrow a phrase from John Gill, one of the sources that McDonald (mis)quoted in the written debate, McDonald's "wild and distorted interpretation" of this verse makes his omniscient deity look like a nincompoop who couldn't communicate clearly.

McDonald didn't say where Thiele said this in the book, and he didn't quote what Thiele said about biblical dating of reigns. As I showed above, McDonald blantantly misrepresented John Gill in our written debate to leave the impression that he endorsed the 20-year co-reign theory when in reality he thought that it was a resort to "wild and distorted interpretation," and members of the Errancy forum who are familiar with McDonald's way of distorting sources that he "quotes" will know that he cannot be trusted to report accurately what his sources really said, so we are left wondering not just what Thiele said but whether he even mentioned the biblical discrepancy in Ahaziah's age. Did Thiel, for example, address the biblical math problem that McDonald has been evading? If not, then what Thiele thought about the dating of biblical reigns does nothing at all to support McDonald's case. He needs to quote a source that specifically addressed the math problem below and showed that a 20-year co-reign of Jehoram and Ahaziah will fit between the fifth and eleventh years of the reign of Joram of Israel.

1. Joram [Jehoram] of Israel began to reign in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat and reigned for twelve years (2 Kings 3:1).

2. Jehoram of Judah began to reign in the fifth year of Joram [Jehoram] of Israel (2 Kings 8:16).

3. Jehoram of Judah died of a "disease of the bowels" before Joram [Jehoram] of Israel was killed at Jezreel the following year (2 Chron. 21:19; 2 Kings 9:21-29).

4. Jehoram of Judah's son Ahaziah succeeded him and reigned as king of Judah for one year (2 Kings 8:26; 2 Chron. 22:1-2).

5. Ahaziah and Joram of Israel, who, as noted above, reigned for twelve years, were killed the same day in Jehu's massacre at Jezreel (2 Kings 9:21-29).

Did Thiele show how an unmentioned 20-year co-reign, which began when Ahaziah was 22, can be made to fit between the fifth and eleventh years of Joram of Israel's reign? If not, what Thiele may have thought or said about the datings of "the reigns of Jewish kings" did nothing to solve this problem.

“It should be pointed out in this connection that this precedent for installing the crown prince as coregent in his father’s lifetime was followed at least six times in the course of the Judean monarchy: (1) Asa died in 869, but his son Jehoshaphat became coregent in 872 (making three or four years of coregency); (2) Jehoshaphat died in 848, but his son Jehoram became coregent in 853; (3) Amaziah died in 767, but his son Azariah (or Uzziah, as he is variously known) became coregent in 790 (possibly when Amaziah was taken captive to Israel by Jehoash ben Jehohaz, King of Israel); (4) Uzziah died in 739, but his son Jotham became coregent in 751 (when his father was stricken with leprosy); (5) Jotham died in 736 or 735, but his son became coregent in 743; (6) Ahaz died in 725 but his son Hezekiah became coregent in 728. From the technical standpoint, Jehoichin [sic] was the senior king of Judah from 597 (Ezekiel always dates his prophecies by Jehoichan’s [sic] regional [sic] years); and so during the entire reign of his brother Zedikiah 9597-587), the latter ruled only as coregent. If we bear these guide lines in mind, many apparent confusions in the dates of the period of the divided monarchy can be readily cleared up (pp. 204, 205).

Those who check this quotation in Archer's book will see that McDonald misspelled Jehoiachin and put regional for regnal, so these are just more examples of why readers must be wary of McDonald's quotations from source works. Besides the fact that they are generally blatant appeals to authority, the accuracy of his typing of the quotations can't be trusted. Besides that, I assume that everyone noticed that the quotation from Archer contained no biblical analyses to support these co-regency claims but simply asserted them. I know of biblical support for some of them, but some of the others are mere conjecture resorted to in order to "explain" other biblical discrepancies in dating the reigns of kings. A look at Archer's list of co-regencies will show that it made no mention of a Jehoram/Ahaziah co-reign, and that is probably because Archer saw no need of postulating one in order to explain the discrepancies in Ahaziah's age "when he began to reign." Like John Gill, Archer thought that this discrepancy had probably resulted from a scribal error made in transcribing Ahaziah's age in 2 Chronicles 22:2, as he said in his "explanation" of the discrepancy in this verse.

Copyists were prone to making two types of scribal errors. One concerned the spelling of names (especially unfamiliar proper names), and the other had to do with numbers. Ideally, we might have wished that the Holy Spirit had restrained all copyists of Scripture over the centuries from making mistakes of any kind; but an errorless copy would have required a miracle, and this was not the way it worked out.

It is beyond the capability of anyone to avoid any and every slip of the pen in copying page after page from any book--sacred or secular. Yet we may be sure that the original manuscript of each book of the Bible, being directly inspired by God, was free from all error. It is also true that no well-attested variation in the manuscript copies that have come down to us alter any doctrine of the Bible. To this extent, at least, the Holy Spirit has exercised a restraining influence in superintending the transmission of the text.

These two examples of numerical discrepancy have to do with the decade in the number given. In 2 Chronicles 22:2 Ahaziah is said to have been forty-two; in 2 Kings 8:26 he was said to have been twenty-two. Second Kings 8:17 tells us that Ahaziah's father Jehoram ben Jehoshaphat was thirty-two when he became king, and he died eight years later, at the age of forty. Therefore Ahaziah could not have been forty-two at the time of his father's death at age forty (Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, pp. 206-207, emphasis added)!

Archer continued to give other examples of numerical discrepancies, and then he attributed this and the other discrepancies to scribal error in transcribing numbers. McDonald has vehemently rejected the possibility of scribal error as the "explanation" for the discrepancy in Ahaziah's age. On August 9, 2007, he posted the following rejection of the scribal error explanation of the discrepancy in Ahaziah's age.

In his account of 2nd Chronicles 22:2 Archer stated "(s)till another instance is 2 Chronicles 22:2, which gives the age of Ahaziah son of Jehoram as ‘forty-two’ when he began to reign, whereas 2 Kings 8:26 gives it as ‘twenty-two’ (which is more probably the correct number)" (Ibid, p.226). Now, with that having been stated, we see that Archer based his decision on the idea that the manuscript could have been blurred or smudged and the copyist missed the other two hooks. I can see how the copyist could have missed the extra two arrows if the correct age was 42, because if the copy was blurred or smudged, he might have thought that it was 22. However, I fail to see how anyone could miss two extra hooks, if the correct age was 22. All (that I have ever read of) who hold to the copyist error approach take the position that the correct age is 22 rather than 42. If the copyist error is correct then the correct age would have to be 42, not 22 in order for the copyist to miss it, but I explained all this in that debate so many years ago. That is why I didn’t take the copyist error approach then, and that is why I don’t take it now. First, all the manuscripts say the same thing, 22 in Kings and 42 in Chronicles. Second, if the copyist error position is to be the correct position, then all who hold it are holding to the wrong age.

I could quote other posts in which McDonald rejected the possibility of copyist error in the matter of Ahaziah's age, but this is sufficient to show that he unequivocally disagreed with Archer's explanation of this discrepancy, so he is telling us that he doesn't agree with Archer's explanation of the discrepancy in Ahaziah's age--an explanation that Archer fully explained--but McDonald does expect us to accept the co-reign theory on the basis of what Archer said about co-reigns in a context in which Archer didn't mention even the possibility of a co-reign that Ahaziah had participated in. That is a familiar tactic in McDonald's "debating." In our written debate, he quoted the Testimonium Flavianum in Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews as proof that Jesus was an actual historical character, even though there are serious doubts in scholarly circles that this passage is authentic, but when I quoted Book 9, 5:3 in Antiquities to show that Josephus understood that Jehoram of Judah died at the age of 40, as 2 Kings 8:17 and 2 Chronicles 21:20 both clearly imply, McDonald rejected its accuracy on the grounds that he doesn't have to accept everything Josephus said. He did the same when I turned the tables on him after he had quoted Gleason Archer's books several times. He said that he didn't endorse everything in Archer's books. In other words, McDonald plays a cherry-picking game. If he finds a book that agrees with him on Point A, he expects everyone to let that settle whatever matter is in dispute, but if the same books can be shown to disagree with him on crucial doctrinal matters, he will say, "Well, I don't have to endorse everything said in those books." In response, then, to his quotation above from Archer's book, I can say that I accept very little that Archer, an avowed inerrantist, says in his books, and I think I am doubly entitled to do this when the statement that McDonald quoted as proof of his co-reign theory doesn't even mention Ahaziah.

If McDonald ever cites or quotes a source that tries to show that a 20-year co-reign, which began when Ahaziah was 22, can be made to fit between the twelfth and eleventh years of the reign of Joram of Israel, I will be glad to reply to it. Until then, there is nothing to answer in a quotation from a rank inerrantist who had a reputation for conjuring up ridiculous, how-it-could-have-been scenarios to "explain" discrepancies. McDonald, like Robert Turkel, has yet to realize that there is no such thing as a religious belief that hasn't had books and articles published in support of it. Finding a source to quote, then, is as simple as going to a library and browsing in the religious section.

Before I leave this point, I will say that I couldn't care less what how-it-could-have-been scenario McDonald wants to use to "explain" the discrepancy in Ahaziah's age, but his statement above about "hooks" in Hebrew numbering indicates that he has had very little experience with what kinds of mistakes can happen in writing. Before I address that, I want to explain first what these "hooks" were in Hebrewing numbering. First of all, McDonald is assuming that the writer of 2 Chronicles used this system instead of their normal way of writing numbers, which was somewhat like the Roman numeral system in which letters of the alphabet represented numbers. That system is explained and illustrated here to show that א [aleph] was one, ב [bet] two, ג [gimel] three, ד [dalet] four, ה [heh] five, ו [vav] six, etc. Another chart here illustrates the values of Hebrew letters in tens, hundreds, thousands, etc. Ten was י [yod], twenty was כ [kaf], thirty was ל [lamed], forty was ם [mem], and so on. The site at the first link above used the number 764 [דסשת], which, reading from the left as we are accustomed to doing, would be 764 equals ד [dalet] 4; plus ס [samed] 60; plus ס [shin] 300; plus ת [tav] 400. This system may seem strange to us, but while I was in France, I learned that the French spoken there doesn't have words for 80 and 90, so these numbers are communicated as quatre-vingts (four twenties) and quatre-vingt-dix (four twenties plus ten). Eighty-one was quatre-vingt-un (four twenties plus one), 82 was quatre-vingt-deux (four twenties plus two), and so on. The nineties were communicated as quatre-vingt-onze (91 or four twenties plus eleven), and so on.

(I)t seems best to acknowledge a mistake of the copier, which might easily be made through a similarity of the numeral letters, bm, forty two, for bk....

Gill's reference to the letters bm and bk were transliterations of the Hebrew numeral letters םב [mem, bet] and כב [kaf, bet] when read from right to left, so he apparently thought that this system of numbering was used in the Hebrew text instead of the "hooks" that McDonald has talked about so much. As Gill said and as I noted above, the similarity in the first numeral letters in the ages given for Ahaziah could have easily caused a scribe to mistake twenty-two for forty-two. So much for McDonald's claim that if a scribe miscopied, he would have made the error on the age of twenty-two rather than forty-two.

McDonald has put all of his eggs into the hook basket, so what is this system that he has talked about so much? It was a counting method that developed after the Babylonian captivity in which vertical strokes were used for what is now single-digit numbers in our Arabic system and horizontal lines with hooks on the end, somewhat like this ¬, were used for tens. As Archer illustrated it in the reference that McDonald quoted above (Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, pp. 206-207) eight would have been written as /III IIII. To make this 18, a long horizontal line with the hook on the end would have been stroked above the eight verticle lines. Tens were written as horizontal hooks somewhat like this ¬, but with the end curving back as a hook, so twenty two would have been /I with two horizontal hooks added to the side /I¬. To visualize how this would have looked, you should imagine a second horizontal hook under the other. Each horizontal hook represented ten, and each of the two vertical lines represented one; hence, 2 + 20 would equal 22. Accordingly, forty-two would have been /I¬¬ (with a second hook under the other in each column), so 2 + 40 would equal 42. McDonald's position, which I really have never understood, would have been that a scribe could have omitted the second column of hooks to make 42 read 22 but that he would not have added a second column of hooks to make 22 read 42. In so agruing McDonald has shown that he has had no experience reading handwritten articles, because he apparently doesn't know that writers will often make the mistake of repeating a letter or word. This is often done with short words like and or the or of, and writing teachers have a name for it, doubling or duplication. McDonald should know that this kind of mistake will occur in writing, because he is prone to make the same mistake. With just a little bit of searching, I found these examples of doubling in his part of our written debate.

If I were to say that the only way that one could know anything is by rationalism and logic, Till would quickly point out that I had left out our five senses and and rightly so (First Affirmative).

Everyone one of his opponents beg [sic] the question (Fourth Affirmative).

If this "hook" system of writing numbers was used by the Chronicle writer--and that is an if that McDonald can't prove--why is it so difficult to think that he could have made the same kind of "doubling" error that McDonald made in the sentences above? In writing the first sentence above, McDonald apparently forgot that he had already written the word and, so he wrote the same word again. In the second sentence, he must have forgotten that he had already incorporated the word one into everyone--incorrectly, by the way--and so he wrote one again. What makes him think that the Chronicle writer couldn't have done the same thing? In that scenario, the writer would have put the column of double hooks after /I and, forgetting that he had done so, put a second column of double hooks and inadvertently made Ahaziah's age 42 instead of 22. That could have easily happened. In reading student essays for 30 years, I found that doubling errors were commonplace, so I have no reason to think that the Chronicle writer, if he used this system of numbering, couldn't have made the same kind of mistake. If McDonald argues otherwise, he will simply show that he is too inexperienced in reading unedited and unrevised writing to know what kinds of mistakes are likely to happen. As a matter of fact, I learned in my teaching career and in editing and revising my own writing that there is no telling what kind of mistake a person may make in writing when his mind leaps above the strokes of his hand or else just wanders off to thoughts unrelated to what he is writing.

The Hebrews at times also spelled numbers in the way that we will spell twenty-two for 22 and forty-two for 42. My copy of the Masoretic text used this system in both 2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2. I have been using Biblical Hebrew: A Text and Workbook to bone up on Hebrew, and this text, which is widely used, presents no numbering system but the spelling of them in the same way that we write one, twenty, fifty-two, etc., so we just don't know what kind of numbering system the writer of 2 Chronicles used. Personally, I am inclined to think that he used the first one discussed above, which used numbers for letters in similar fashion to Roman numerals, and, as I pointed out, John Gill, one of McDonald's own sources quoted in our written debate, thought so too. Hence, it would have been easy for the Chronicler to have mistaken a kaf [כ] for a mem [ם], especially in a handwritten manuscript in which the letters would not have been as uniform as the printed examples are.

All of McDonald's talk about "hooks," then, has proven nothing at all about whether the discrepancy in Ahaziah's age could have been caused by scribal error.

When have I ever said that co-reigns didn't exist? I have acknowledged all along that there were co-regents in biblical times, but the fact there there were co-regents doesn't mean that Ahaziah ever co-reigned with his father. In his statement above, McDonald admitted that the term co-reign was never used, and that is possibly because there was no such Hebrew word for this office. It is, nevertheless, possible to determine that co-regencies were established in some cases. The David/Solomon co-regency has been one of McDonald's favorite examples, but the Bible explicitly says that while he was still alive, David made Solomon king.

1 Chronicles 23:1 When David was old and full of days, he made his son Solomon king over Israel.

The elaborate coronation ceremony described in 1 Chronicles 23-29 states that this crowning of Solomon occurred in the 40th year of David's reign 26:31, which was the final year of David's reign (1 Chron. 29:26-27; 1 Kings 2:10-11). Even this undisputed co-reign, then, was of short duration, nothing even close to the 20-year co-regency that McDonald is claiming for Ahaziah, but McDonald expects us to think that Ahaziah's long co-regency happened without so much as a hint in the Bible that it had occurred. That is hardly speaking where the Bible speaks. Rather, it is speculating blatantly for no other reason than to defend a belief in biblical inerrancy.

If McDonald replies to this, as he has said he will, I challenge him to quote the biblical passages that even remotely suggest that a co-reign of Jehoram of Judah and Ahaziah happened. Readers should not hold their breaths waiting for him to do that.

There isn't? Well, what do the passages that I cited and quoted above mean if they don't clearly say that while David was still living he "made Solomon king over Israel"? A co-regent is someone who shares kingship with someone else, so if David made Solomon king over all Israel while David was still living, then Solomon was made David's co-regent. If not, why not?

As I pointed out in replying to McDonald's "Element Number One" above, his "logic" in this matter seems to be that if biblical character A did X, then biblical character B also did X. I pointed out that this line of reasoning is as fallacious as if I should say, "A lot of people today rob banks; therefore, Jerry McDonald also robs banks." I used the biblical claim of resurrections from the dead as a comparative example. I assume that McDonald will agree that the Old Testament does claim that resurrections happened (2 Kings 4:32-37; 1 Kings 17:17-24; 2 Kings 13:20-21), so his kind of logic could be applied to this dispute so that one could just as well argue that if other Old Testament characters rose from the dead, Jehoram of Judah could have reigned for eight years, died, and then rose from the dead to co-reign 20 years with his son Ahaziah. If not, why not?

The fact is that nothing can ever be proven by arguing that if biblical character A did X, then biblical character B could have done the same.

To the contrary, I showed above that the Bible clearly says that David made Solomon king over all Israel while David was still living. If this is true, then Solomon was made David's co-regent, and nothing has to be inferred to reach that conclusion. McDonald could only wish that he had a thousandth as much evidence that Jehoram ever made his son Ahaziah a co-regent.

I quoted where the Bible says that while David was still alive, he made Solomon "king over all Israel." McDonald has cited no such evidence of a Jehoram/Ahaziah co-reign. In other words, I have spoken where the Bible spoke, but McDonald has spoken where the Bible is silent.

And what "textual evidence" is that? I hate to accuse McDonald of lying, but he has to know that what he just said is not true. He has given no textual evidence that Ahaziah began to co-reign with his father before the latter died, because no such textual evidence exists.

I have long wondered why biblical inerrantists will lie to try to find support for their ridiculous belief that there are no mistakes in the Bible.

It means nothing to me, because McDonald has not given any such textual evidence of a Jehoram/Ahaziah co-reign. If he has, let him embarrass me by posting that evidence in whatever reply he makes to this article.

If there is no verse that says that Ahaziah reigned with his father Jehoram, then how could McDonald, as he claimed above, "have given textual evidence that Ahaziah did begin to co-reign before Jehoram died"? If there is no verse that says that this co-reign began when Ahaziah was 22 and ended when he was 42, then how could McDonald have given "textual evidence" that a co-reign of such duration had happened?

McDonald is merely parroting here what Gleason Archer said in the quotation above in his Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, but as I pointed out in commenting on McDonald's quoting of an avowed biblical inerrantist to support his speculative co-reign, Archer did no biblical analyses at all to provide textual proof that these co-reigns had happened. These co-reigns have been postulated primarily to "explain" discrepancies in the dating of the reigns of kings. John Haley, another inerrantist who, like Archer, postulates all kinds of how-it-could have been scenarios to "explain" discrepancies, addressed the discrepancies in the dating of Azariah's reign.

Azariah's reign begun [sic] in the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam, 2 Kings xv.1; in the fifteenth year, 2 Kings xiv.2, 17, 23 (some say, the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam's co-partnership with his father, but the sixteenth since he began to reign alone. The best critics maintain that 27, כז, has been confounded with 15, טז). Azariah's reign ended in the first year of Pekah, 2 Kings 15:27; in the second year of Pekah, 2 Kings xv.32 [parts of years are reckoned as whole years] (Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, Baker Book House, 1988, p. 399).

We see, then, the game that inerrantists like Archer and Haley play. When there is a discrepancy in the Bible, they never say, "Yes, that is a real inconsistency." Instead, they postulate how-it-could-have-been solutions, and the co-reign "explanation" is one of their favorites when they are confronted with inconsistencies pertaining to when kings reigned. In the quotation from Haley's book, we see that he used this one, along with the scribal-error explanation. It is noteworthy that Haley seemed to disagree with Archer, who thought that the discrepancy in the reigns of Amaziah and his successor son Azariah could be "explained" by postulating a co-reign. Haley, on the other hand, referred to "(t)he best critics" who maintain that 27, כז, has been confounded with 15, טז." In other words, even the "experts" in biblical inerrancy can't agree on why these dating discrepancies are in the Bible, and a review of Haley's "explanation" (above) of the discrepancy in Azariah's co-reign merely presented the texts that show the inconsistency, but he did not present any textual evidence that would show that the postulated co-reign actually happened.

If McDonald thinks that Azariah co-reigned with his father, I would love to see him textually analyze the accounts of their reigns to show that they should be interpreted to include such a co-reign. However, whether an Amaziah/Azariah co-reign did occur is irrelevant, so for the sake of argument, I will just assume that it did and ask McDonald instead to tell us how that in any way helps his case. As I have pointed out several times now, I have never denied that some co-reigns did occur in biblical times. However, the fact that Azariah may have co-reigned with his father Amaziah would in no way prove that Ahaziah had co-reigned with his father Jehoram, just as Solomon's brief co-reign with his father David would not prove that there had been a Jehoram/Ahaziah co-reign.

Ho, hum, see my comments above. How would the fact that some kings co-reigned prove that Ahaziah had co-reigned with his father Jehoram of Judah? Would the fact that some biblical characters were resurrected from the dead (presumably) prove that Jehoram of Judah died and was then resurrected to co-reign for 20 years with his son Ahaziah? Would the fact that some kings had concubines (2 Sam. 3:7; 2 Sam. 15:16; 1 Kings 11:3; 2 Chron. 11:21) in any way prove that, say, Zedekiah also had concubines? Since it was commonplace for kings in biblical times to have concubines, Zedekiah may well have had them too, but the Bible makes no references to them. To argue, then, that Zedekiah had concubines because many other kings had concubines would be a non sequitur, which is exactly the kind of "logic" that McDonald has used to try to "prove" his Jehoram/Ahaziah co-reign theory.

My point is that if Ahaziah had co-reigned with his father for 20 years, let McDonald cite the evidence that proves that he did. To argue that he did co-reign with his father because other kings had co-reigned is really too idiotic to deserve serious comment, and certainly McDonald can't expect us to give any credence to his co-reign theory simply because historical records are "sketchy, and we don't have them all." The sketchiness of historical records works against him, not for him, because in defending his Jehoram/Ahaziah co-reign theory, he must not only speak where the Bible is silent but also speak where history is silent.

Yes, McDonald did pursue the same line of reasoning in the written debate by arguing that if other kings had co-regents in biblical times, then Jehoram of Judah could have had his son as a co-regent too, but not once did he ever cite any textual evidence to prove this assumption. I assume that everyone realizes that if McDonald knew of any such evidence, he would have produced it long ago, but having no textual evidence to help his case, all he can do is speak where the Bible does not speak and, as noted above, where history does not speak either.

All of the debate hasn't yet been coded and posted, but it will be. I have, however, quoted long sections of it in this article to show that McDonald never produced any biblical evidence to support his claim of a 20-year Jehoram/Ahaziah co-reign. He did the same thing in that debate as he has done here: he continually resorted to how-it-could-have-been scenarios and argued at length that if other kings had co-reigned, then Ahaziah could have done so too.

I have offered to send McDonald electronic copies of our manuscripts so that he could post the debate on his site much faster, but he has spurned this offer. Hence, he has only two of our exchanges on site at this time, whereas I have eight of them on the debate section of TSR Online. I really think that McDonald isn't at all eager to see this debate posted on the internet.

If this is so, why hasn't McDonald cited that evidence? As I have pointed out above, McDonald has talked and talked and talked about "textual evidence" that supports his position, but he has yet to cite any. As we go through his comments below, please notice that he continues to give only speculation to support his claim that such a co-reign happened. He certainly doesn't speak where the Bible speaks and remain silent where the Bible is silent.

I really don't understand what McDonald meant in saying that if the Bible did specify that there had been a Jehoram/Ahaziah co-reign "there would be other alternative interpretation [sic]," but I do appreciate his honesty in admitting that the Bible does not say that this co-reign happened. That being the case, I will again urge McDonald to practice what he preaches and begin speaking where the Bible speaks and remaining silence where the Bible is silent. Obviously, he has flung that slogan down and danced upon it in his defense of a 20-year Jehoram/Ahaziah co-reign.

Yes, it does, and that presents a definite possibility of error in the Bible or else a scribal error that had been made in transmitting the Bible text. The fact that the two texts in question say exactly the same thing except for the age given for Ahaziah would not have to mean what McDonald is saying, i. e., that Ahaziah was 22 when he began a co-reign with his father and that he was 42 when he began to reign "on his own." To borrow a phrase from him, there would be alternative explanations for the discrepancy, one of which would be that one of the writers simply made an error. The philosophical principle known as the law of parsimony, known also as Occam's razor, states that "entities shouldn't be multiplied unnecessarily," so if there are competing theories or explanations of a problem or phenomenon, the simplest one is more likely to be the correct one. McDonald's co-reign theory requires one to believe that a writer inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity was unable to explain clearly how long a king reigned, but to say either that the writer made a mistake or some scribe miscopied what the writer originally said is far more likely than McDonald's claim that the author used the expression eight years in Jerusalem to mean "eight years in Jerusalem and several years somewhere else." At any rate, until McDonald can prove definitively that this 20-year co-reign actually happened, he cannot be "absolutely sure," as he has claimed to be, that the two texts do not contradict each other.

Okay, let's go with it for now, but when McDonald comes back to his claim that the phrase in Jerusalem meant only that Jehoram and Ahaziah had reigned for eight and one years respectively "in Jerusalem" but had reigned much longer somewhere else, I will return with a vengeance to skin him alive and nail his hide to the wall, as I did in the written debate.

And we have "already seen" above that McDonald has contradicted himself about when Jehoshaphat made Jehoram of Judah his co-regent. Readers are urged to click the link above to see that McDonald clearly said

Now 2 Kings 8:16 tells us that Jehoram ben Jehosaphat [sic] began to reign in the fifth year of Jehoram ben Ahab, which was when Jehosaphat [sic] died ("Ahaziah's Age (Part 1)," posted on the Errancy list on 8/09/07).

So one time McDonald said that 2 Kings 8:16 told of when Jehoshaphat died, but now in this article, he is claiming that 2 Kings 8:16 was when Jehoshaphat "made Jehoram co-regent," which Jehoshaphat could not have done unless he was still living at the time. McDonald is the kind of inerrantist who will say what he needs to say at one time but will then flatly contradict that another time if it seems to suit his purpose. Until he can make up his mind about when Jehoshaphat died and when Jehosaphat made Jehoram his co-regent, how can he expect anyone to take him seriously?

Well, actually time wasn't counted backwards before the time of "Christ." When the Gregorian calendar was devised several years after the time of Jesus was when time "before Christ" was counted backwards. In that actual time, which we now call BC, other methods of counting time were used. One was to date with reference to events and the reigns of kings, and the latter is the system that the author(s) of the books of Kings used, and that system is what has given McDonald so much difficulty. The reign of Jehoram of Judah was dated with reference to the reign of Joram of Israel, and that dating is flatly contradictory with McDonald's "solution" to the discrepancy in the age of Ahaziah "when he began to reign." This is a good place to present again the Bible's dating of Jehoram of Judah's reign.

1. Joram [Jehoram] of Israel began to reign in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat and reigned for twelve years (2 Kings 3:1).

2. Jehoram of Judah began to reign in the fifth year of Joram [Jehoram] of Israel (2 Kings 8:16).

3. Jehoram of Judah died of a "disease of the bowels" before Joram [Jehoram] of Israel was killed at Jezreel the following year (2 Chron. 21:19; 2 Kings 9:21-29).

4. Jehoram of Judah's son Ahaziah succeeded him and reigned as king of Judah for one year (2 Kings 8:26; 2 Chron. 22:1-2).

5. Ahaziah and Joram of Israel, who, as noted above, reigned for twelve years, were killed the same day in Jehu's massacre at Jezreel (2 Kings 9:21-29).

McDonald has been repeatedly asked to explain how Jehoram of Judah could have begun to reign in the fifth year of Joram of Israel, who reigned for just twelve years, but still have engaged in a 20-year co-reign with his son Ahaziah, who died with Jehoram of Israel at Jezreel in the final or twelfth year of the latter. The problem is complicated further by the biblical claim that Jehoram of Judah died of a bowel disease a year before Joram of Israel's death in Jehu's massacre at Jezreel (2 Kings 9:21-29).

This problem in McDonald's 20-year co-regency theory was presented to him thirteen years ago in my fifth rebuttal, but he tried to dance around it with the following evasive reply.

Then he brings up 2 Kings 8:16 which said that Jehoram began reigning in the fifth year of Joram's (king of Israel) reign, and 2 Kings 8:25 says that Ahaziah began reigning in the twelfth year of Joram's reign. However, I have already shown that the 8 years in Jerusalem for Jehoram did not necessarily mean that this was 8 years in succession. Yes, Ahaziah did begin reigning in the twelfth year of Joram's reign but this does nothing for Till's position unless he can show [1] that the 8 years in Jerusalem means 8 years in succession and [2] that 8 years was [sic] all that Jehoram reigned. [3] He must prove that 5 from 12 equals 8. I am no math whiz, but even I know that the correct answer is 7. Given 2 Kings 9:29 we see that literally there were only 6 years that passed in Jehoram's (king of Israel) reign between the time that Jehoram (king of Judah) began to reign and when Ahaziah was said to have begun to reign, which leaves Mr. Till with a problem because he needs those extra two years to substantiate his point. Since he does not have that extra two years, his argument falls. [4] He must prove that Jehoram (king of Israel) only reigned for 12 years. How is he going to do that? In fact, how is he going to prove any of the above? He cannot do it! Therefore, his whole argument falls. He would have been better off had he never used this passage to back his claim (McDonald's Affirmative Rejoinder).

How can I prove that Jehoram (king of Israel) reigned for only 12 years? How about doing it by speaking where the Bible speaks: "Jehoram the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned twelve years" (2 Kings 3:1). Now if McDonald wants to quibble that this doesn't say that he reigned for only twelve years, he needs to explain to us why his omniscient, omnipotent deity would have let his "inspired" writer mislead his readers. Why would the "inspired" one have said that Joram of Israel reigned for 12 years if he had reigned for 13 or 14 or 15 or more? Here are some questions for McDonald to answer and explain his answers.

1. When the Bible said that Rehoboam reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem (1 Kings 14:21), did that mean that he reigned seventeen years or more than seventeen years?

2. When the Bible said that Abijam reigned over Judah three years in Jerusalem (1 Kings 15:1-2), did that mean that he reigned three years or more than three years?

3. When the Bible said that Jehoshaphat reigned twenty-five years in Jerusalem (2 Kings 22:42), did that mean that he reigned twenty-five years or more than twenty-five years?

4. When the Bible said that Jehoash reigned forty years in Jerusalem (2 Kings 12:1), did that mean that he reigned forty years or more than forty years?

5. When the Bible said that Ahaz reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem (2 Kings 16:1-2), did that mean that he reigned sixteen years or more than sixteen years?

6. When the Bible said that Hezekiah reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:1-2), did that mean that he reigned twenty-nine years or more than twenty-nine years?

7. When the Bible said that Manasseh reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem (2 Kings 21:1) did that mean that he reigned fifty-five years or more than fifty-five years?

8. When the Bible said that Josiah reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem (2 Kings 22:1), did that mean that he reigned thirty-one years or more than thirty-one years?

9. When the Bible said that Jehoahaz reigned three months in Jerusalem (2 Kings 23:31), did that mean that he reigned three months or more than three months?

10. When the Bible said that Jehoiachin reigned three months in Jerusalem (2 Kings 24:8), did that mean that he reigned three months or more than three months?

11. When the Bible said that Zedekiah reigned eleven years in Jerusalem (2 Kings 24:18), did that mean that he reigned eleven years or more than eleven years?

In other words, I am asking McDonald to clarify biblical dating for us. Did the Bible mean what it said when it dated the reigns of Judean kings in terms of specific numbers of years or did thirty-one years or eleven years or twenty-five years or sixteen years, etc. not mean what the numbers specified? If not, how can we be sure of anything else that the Bible measured or dated or weighed in terms of numbers?

At any rate, readers can easily see in the quotation (above) of McDonald's answer to my biblical math problem that he misrepresented the problem as I had presented it. As readers can see here, my point was that Jehoram of Judah [Ahaziah's father] began to reign in the 5th year of Joram of Israel (2 Kings 8:16) but that Joram of Israel reigned for only 12 years: "Now Jehoram the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned twelve years" (2 Kings 3:1). Ahaziah, Jehoram of Judah's son, began to reign in the 12th year of Jehoram of Israel (2 Kings 8:25), which would have been Jehoram of Israel's final year, and Ahaziah died in the first year of his own reign (2 Kings 8:26), so there is no way to squeeze into the fifth through the 12th and final year of the reign of Jehoram of Israel an eight-year reign by Jehoram of Judah "in Jerusalem" plus a 20-year, unmentioned co-reign with Ahaziah somewhere else. Furthermore, Joram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah were killed by Jehu on the same day (2 Kings 9:21-28). The math just won't allow time for this imagined 20-year co-reign somewhere outside of Jerusalem, yet McDonald still tries thirteen years after having had this biblical math problem presented to him to argue such inanities as "if other kings co-reigned, then Ahaziah could have co-reigned too," without even trying to explain how Ahaziah could have co-reigned for twenty years within a twelve-year time frame.

I have repeatedly pointed out to McDonald that whether Jehoram co-reigned with Jehoshaphat before reigning on his own is irrelevant, because McDonald's position, as can be verified here, is that Ahaziah, when he was 22, began a 20-year co-reign with his father Jehoram, so a Jehoshaphat/Jehoram co-reign before Jehoram reigned on his own would prove nothing at all about a 20-year Jehoram/Ahaziah co-reign, unless McDonald thinks that he can show that both Jehoram and Ahaziah co-reigned with Jehoshaphat, but even if he could prove this, that would add only five years to the eight years of Jehoram's reign and the one year of Ahaziah's reign. I assume that McDonald is mathematically competent enough to know that 5 + 8 + 1 = 14, so just where is he going to find the 20 years that he needs to make his co-reign theory work? I would like to see him try to do that, because I have shown in posts to the Errancy list, which McDonald has ignored, that there is no conclusive biblical evidence for even a Jehoshaphat/Jehoram co-reign much less a Jehoram/Ahaziah co-reign. I gave detailed evidence of this in an Errancy post that McDonald ignored. I am going to quote it below to see if McDonald will just ignore it again.

In part one of this series, I showed that McDonald's 34K post devoted to showing that Jehoram of Judah could have reigned longer than eight years was all wasted effort, because the issue is not when Jehoram of Judah began to reign but when his son Ahaziah began to reign. McDonald's "solution" to the discrepancy in Ahaziah's age in 2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2 is that Ahaziah, when he was 22, "could have begun to co-reign with his father, Jehoram" and that "(d)uring that time he may have co-reigned for 20 years" after which "when he was 42 years old his father died and he took complete control of the reign." McDonald's task, then, is to show biblical evidence that Ahaziah, not Jehoram of Judah, had co-reigned with his father. As I said in Part (1), if McDonald could prove conclusively that Jehoram of Judah had co-reigned with his father Jehoshaphat for a hundred years, that would not prove that Ahaziah had begun to reign when he was 22 (in a co-reign with his father) and then when he was 42 had begun to reign on his own. McDonald must prove that Ahaziah co-reigned for 20 years with his father.

I will interrupt here briefly to point out that despite the many times that I have emphasized this point, McDonald continues to ignore it to argue that Jehoram of Judah co-reigned with his father Jehoshaphat, as if that would in any way prove that Jehoram and Ahaziah began a 20-year co-reign when the latter was 22.

I have long noticed in my debates with him that McDonald has difficulty recognizing when information is relevant to whatever he is arguing, and in his 34K smoke screen in which he tried to prove that Jehoram of Judah had co-reigned with his father Jehoshaphat, we have an example of McDonald's irrelevant argumentation. Since, however, he brought up a possible co-reign of Jehoram of Judah with his father Jehoshaphat, I am going to take the time to show through biblical references that such a co-reign was unlikely, and then I will proceed to showing that a Jehoram of Judah/Ahaziah co-reign was even more unlikely.

First the alleged Jehoshaphat/Jehoram co-reign: McDonald claimed that 2 Kings 1:17 compared to 2 Kings 3:1 implied that Jehoram of Judah had begun a co-reign with Jehoshaphat in the 16th year of the latter.

2 Kings 1:17 So he [Ahaziah of Israel] died according to the word of Yahweh that Elijah had spoken. His brother, Jehoram succeeded him as king in the second year of King Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat of Judah, because Ahaziah had no son.

2 Kings 3:1 In the eighteenth year of King Jehoshaphat of Judah, Jehoram son of Ahab became king over Israel in Samaria; he reigned twelve years.

McDonald concluded from this that if Jehoram of Judah was in the second year of a co-reign with Jehoshaphat when Jehoram of Israel had become king in Samaria in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat, then Jehoram had begun to co-reign with his father in the 16th year of Jehoshaphat. However, I pointed out that 1 Kings 22:51 states that Ahaziah, the brother of Jehoram of Israel who died after a two-year reign, had become king in Samaria in the 17th year of Jehoshaphat.

1 Kings 22:51 Ahaziah son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in Samaria in the seventeenth year of King Jehoshaphat of Judah; he reigned two years over Israel.

I cited this as just another example of inconsistency in biblical chronology pertaining to when kings had begun to reign, which along with the others that I also cited showed the possibility that the reference to Jehoram of Judah's reign in 2 Kings 1:17 could just as well be another chronological discrepancy rather than an indication that Jehoram of Judah was co-reigning with his father Jehoshaphat at this time. I will now show that a co-reign between Jehoshaphat and his son Jehoram of Judah was unlikely. As I do, readers should keep in mind that even if there had been such a co-reign, it would in no way help McDonald's claim that Jehoram's son Ahaziah, when he was 22, had begun a co-reign with his father. No matter how long Jehoram of Judah may have co-reigned with his father Jehoshaphat--assuming that he did--that would not in any way prove that Ahaziah had begun to reign when he was 22.

No reference to a co-reign of Jehoshaphat and Jehoram is made in the Bible: The record of Jehoshaphat is sketchy in the books of Kings. They tell about his alliance with Ahab against Ramoth-gilead (1 Kings 22) and with Jehoram of Israel against Moab (2 Kings 3:4-12) but little else. Second Chronicles, however, gives a much more detailed account of his life in chapters 17 through 20, four chapters, the first of which tells of his fortifications of cities in Judah and setting garrisons in Judah and Ephraim, his sending princes throughout the cities of Judah, and his reception of tribute from the Philistines, who had come to fear his military might. Chapter 18 tells of his alliance with Ahab against Ramoth-gilead and is practically a word-for-word repetition of 1 Kings 22. Chapter 19 tells of the prophet Jehu's reprimand for Jehoshaphat's alliance with Ahab, which resulted in Jehoshaphat's appointment of judges in all the cities of Judah and his appointment of Levities in Jerusalem to decide fairly in legal controversies. Chapter 20 tells of his military battles with the Moabites and Ammonites, which brought considerable booty to the land when the bodies of the dead enemies were stripped of their garments and valuables, and it concluded with a brief account of Jehoshaphat's alliance with Ahaziah of Israel to build ships to go to Tarshish from Ezion-gerber, which so angered Yahweh that he destroyed the ships.

In all of this, Jehoshaphat's son Jehoram was never mentioned, a silence that seems rather strange if Jehoram were indeed at this time co-reigning with his father. Chapter 21 opens with an account of Jehoshaphat's death, and only then was Jehoram mentioned as the successor of his father.

2 Chronicles 21:1 Jehoshaphat slept with his ancestors and was buried with his ancestors in the city of David; his son Jehoram succeeded him. ² He had brothers, the sons of Jehoshaphat: Azariah, Jehiel, Zechariah, Azariah, Michael, and Shephatiah; all these were the sons of King Jehoshaphat of Judah. ³ Their father gave them many gifts, of silver, gold, and valuable possessions, together with fortified cities in Judah; but he gave the kingdom to Jehoram, because he was the firstborn.

Notice that this verse made a clear reference to the biblical custom of primogeniture or the tradition of making the firstborn male the father's heir. This custom or birthright gave the father's estate to the firstborn, and in cases of kingship the firstborn male was designated the heir to the father's throne. Hence, Jehoshaphat had given the kingdom to Jehoram rather than one of his six brothers, because Jehoram was the firstborn. Keep this custom in mind, for it will become important as we look for any biblical indications that Jehoram ever gave his son Ahaziah a co-regency.

The text just quoted above stated that Jehoram had six brothers who had received gifts from Jehoshaphat, but the very next verse dashes water on McDonald's speculation that Jehoram had co-reigned with Jehoshaphat prior to the latter's death.

2 Chronicles 21:4 When Jehoram had ascended the throne of his father and was established, he put all his brothers to the sword, and also some of the officials of Israel. ⁵ Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he began to reign; he reigned eight years in Jerusalem.

In other words, Jehoram eliminated any possible competition to serve as king by killing his six brothers, but he didn't do this until he had "ascended the throne of his father and was established." If Jehoram had indeed co-reigned with his father Jehoshaphat for eight years, as McDonald has speculated, wouldn't he have during that time already established himself as the rightful king? Why then did he kill his brothers? To say the least, there is certainly an implication in this passage quoted directly from the inspired, inerrant "word of God" that Jehoram had not established himself through any co-reign that he had participated in prior to Jehoshaphat's death.

We should keep in mind that whether there had been such a co-reign is irrelevant to McDonald's "solution" to the discrepancy in Ahaziah's age, because even if Jehoram had co-reigned with his father, that would in no way prove that Ahaziah had begun a co-reign with his father at the age of 22 and then 20 years later when he was 42 had begun to reign on his own. That is what McDonald has yet to establish, and so far he has presented nothing but the speculations of two Jewish Rabbis of the Middle Ages, who were undoubtedly the Gleason Archers of their time, looking for how-it-could-have-been explanations of biblical discrepancies.

We can go now to what the Bible says about a co-reign that Ahaziah of Judah had participated in beginning at the age of 22.

The silence of the Bible: As I have pointed out before, McDonald preaches for a church that boasts that it speaks where the Bible speaks and remains silent where the Bible is silent, so if he really believes this, he should abandon his Jehoram/Ahaziah co-reign theory, because the Bible says absolutely nothing to imply that such a co-reign ever occurred. There are, however, some rather clear implications that no such co-reign ever happened.

We noted above, for example, that the custom of primogeniture had given Jehoshaphat's throne to Jehoram because he was the firstborn. Ahaziah, however, was not Jehoram's firstborn; he was, in fact, the youngest son.

2 Chronicles 21:20 He [Jehoram] was thirty-two years old when he began to reign; he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. He departed with no one's regret. They buried him in the city of David, but not in the tombs of the kings. 22:1 The inhabitants of Jerusalem made his youngest son Ahaziah king as his successor; for the troops who came with the Arabs to the camp had killed all the older sons. So Ahaziah son of Jehoram reigned as king of Judah.

The Arab raid that killed Ahaziah's older brothers was recorded in the previous chapter.

21:16 Yahweh aroused against Jehoram the anger of the Philistines and of the Arabs who are near the Ethiopians. ¹⁷ They came up against Judah, invaded it, and carried away all the possessions they found that belonged to the king's house, along with his sons and his wives, so that no son was left to him except Jehoahaz, his youngest son.

In this text, Ahaziah was referred to as Jehoahaz, but no biblical scholars seriously doubt that this was just another name for Ahaziah in a time when double names were not uncommon. I am sure that not even McDonald will deny that the youngest son of Jehoram who was left alive after this raid by the Arabs was Ahaziah, who was made king when his father Jehoram died.

Now if Ahaziah had had older brothers until they were killed by the Arabs and if Jehoram of Judah had established a co-regency with one of his sons, wouldn't he have designated his oldest son to be the co-regent? McDonald may quibble that the deaths of Ahaziah's older brothers had happened before Jehoram had established a co-regency, and so Ahaziah was his only son left to designate his co-regent.

A big problem with this quibble would be that the massacre of Ahaziah's brothers would have had to have happened early in Jehoram's reign before the Arab massacre of his older sons; otherwise, he would have made his oldest son his co-regent rather than his youngest. In other words, Ahaziah became Jehoram's heir to the throne only because his older brothers were killed in the massacre: "The inhabitants of Jerusalem made his youngest son Ahaziah king as his successor; for the troops who came with the Arabs to the camp had killed all the older sons." If Ahaziah was made king after his father's death only because his older brothers had been massacred, then surely Jehoram would not have given his youngest son a 20-year co-regency, as McDonald claims, if any of his older brothers had been alive at the time.

The more detailed account of Jehoram's life in 2 Chronicles 21, however, indicates that Jehoram's older sons were massacred shortly before the two-year illness that resulted in Jehoram's death.

1. Jehoshaphat died and Jehoram succeeded him.

   2 Chronicles 21:1 Jehoshaphat slept with his ancestors and was buried with his ancestors in the city of David; his son Jehoram succeeded him.

2. Jehoram moved to secure his reign by killing his brothers.

   21:2 He had brothers, the sons of Jehoshaphat: Azariah, Jehiel, Zechariah, Azariah, Michael, and Shephatiah; all these were the sons of King Jehoshaphat of Judah.... ⁴ When Jehoram had ascended the throne of his father and was established, he put all his brothers to the sword, and also some of the officials of Israel.

3. Edom and Libnah revolted against Judah's political domination.

   21:8 In his [Jehoram's] days Edom revolted against the rule of Judah and set up a king of their own. ⁹ Then Jehoram crossed over with his commanders and all his chariots. He set out by night and attacked the Edomites, who had surrounded him and his chariot commanders. ¹⁰ So Edom has been in revolt against the rule of Judah to this day. At that time Libnah also revolted against his rule, because he had forsaken Yahweh, the God of his ancestors.

4. Jehoram's "forsaking of Yahweh" included the establishment of pagan shrines in the high places.

   21:11 Moreover he [Jehoram] made high places in the hill country of Judah, and led the inhabitants of Jerusalem into unfaithfulness, and made Judah go astray.

   Those who have not read McDonald's part of our written debate will probably not know that his position in the matter of Ahaziah's age when he began to reign is that the text (v:5) that says that Jehoram reigned "eight years in Jerusalem" meant that he reigned eight years in Jerusalem but also reigned a number of years somewhere else in Judah.

   I am not making this up. He actually said that.

I will interrupt briefly here to ask readers to be especially attentive to the following section because it rebuts in detail McDonald's repetition (below) of his claim that "eight years in Jerusalem" meant that Jehoram of Judah reigned eight years in Jerusalem but several more years somewhere outside of Jerusalem.

Mr. Till took the age of Jehoram when he began to reign and took the time that he reigned in Jerusalem and added them together to come up with his age at the time of his death. The Bible does not say that Jehoram was forty years old when he died. It merely states that he died. According to the discrepancy between the years of the split and the years of the kings [sic] reigns, we cannot say for sure that Jehoram only reigned eight years. This may have been the length of his reign in Jerusalem. That time in Jerusalem may have been consecutive or it may not have been. We do not know everything about the case because we have not communicated with the man who wrote this account. However it is possible that Jehoram was in his 60's when he died which would make the age of Ahaziah (42) perfectly legitimate (McDonald's Fifth Affirmative).

I showed that 2 Chronicles 21:11 implied that Jehoram spent part of his reign elsewhere. "Moreover he (Jehoram jdm) made high places in the mountains of Judah, and caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit fornication, and compelled Judah thereto." Mr. Till says: [sic] "If I had not read this with my own eyes, I would never have believed that a bibliolater could be driven to such an extreme in his hunt for 'solutions' to Bible discrepancies. What does he want us to see in this verse?" [sic] (p.6) [sic] What I want him to see is the fact that where the worship was held is where the king's throne was. In 1 Kings 12:20 through 13:1-8 Jeraboam [sic] was made King by Israel and he took the Israelites up to both Dan and Bethel and caused them to worship there. Bethel is where he resided [sic] and where he resided is where he reigned. Thus by inference we see that when Jehoram took Judah up to the high places to worship this is where he resided. They did not just worship one day and return the next, but their worship lasted for long periods of time. Thus Jehoram could have had them worshipping for long periods of time and only been in Jerusalem for short periods of time. When all of this was added up it amounted to 8 years. That is what I want Mr. Till to get out of that verse (McDonald's Affirmative Rejoinder).

McDonald's position, then, is that it was during those years that Jehoram "reigned" in the high places of Judah that he made his son Ahaziah his co-regent, but the more detailed account of Jehoram's life in 2 Chronicles 21 indicates that Jehoram built the high places in Judah before the Arabs massacred his older sons. We noticed above that Jehoram forsook Yahweh and led Judah astray by building the high places [of pagan worship].

1. This caused the prophet Elijah to write a letter to Jehoram to condemn his actions and pronounce a curse on his life.

   21:11 Moreover he made high places in the hill country of Judah, and led the inhabitants of Jerusalem into unfaithfulness, and made Judah go astray. ¹² A letter came to him from the prophet Elijah, saying: "Thus says Yahweh, the God of your father David: Because you have not walked in the ways of your father Jehoshaphat or in the ways of King Asa of Judah, ¹³ but have walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and have led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem into unfaithfulness, as the house of Ahab led Israel into unfaithfulness, and because you also have killed your brothers, members of your father's house, who were better than yourself, ¹⁴ see, Yahweh will bring a great plague on your people, your children, your wives, and all your possessions, ¹⁵ and you yourself will have a severe sickness with a disease of your bowels, until your bowels come out, day after day, because of the disease."

   Notice that this curse was pronounced on Jehoram's children, wives, and possessions and also upon his personal health. This curse came about because Jehoram by setting up the high places to lead the inhabitants of Judah astray had not walked in the ways of his father Jehoshaphat. The very next verse claims fulfillment of Elijah's curse.

   21:16 Yahweh aroused against Jehoram the anger of the Philistines and of the Arabs who are near the Ethiopians. ¹⁷ They came up against Judah, invaded it, and carried away all the possessions they found that belonged to the king's house, along with his sons and his wives, so that no son was left to him except Jehoahaz, his youngest son.

   Elijah said that Yahweh would take away Jehoram's children, wives, and possessions, and this passage claims that this happened as had been predicted. Since Jehoram's erection of shrines in the high places had provoked this curse, then the story certainly implies that up until this time, before the high places had been built, Jehoram's older sons were still alive. If, as McDonald claimed, Jehoram had shared his rule with a co-regent, why wouldn't he have made his oldest son the regent rather than his youngest son Ahaziah? As I continue, keep in mind that 2 Chronicles 22:1), quoted above, stated that Ahaziah was made king after Jehoram's death only because the older sons had been killed by the Arabs.

2. Now fulfillment of the curse upon Jehoram began.

   21:18 After all this Yahweh struck him in his bowels with an incurable disease. ¹⁹ In course of time, at the end of two years, his bowels came out because of the disease, and he died in great agony. His people made no fire in his honor, like the fires made for his ancestors.

   So Jehoram had lived only two years after the massacre of his older sons by the Arabs, so how likely is it that Ahaziah could have co-reigned with his father, beginning when the former was 22, and then taken "full control" of the kingdom 20 years later when he was 42? Only an inerrantist blinded by his desire to defend an untenable belief could think that this more detailed account of Jehoram's life leaves room for a 20-year co-reign with Ahaziah somewhere outside of Jerusalem. The next verse puts to rest any illusions that McDonald may have about the possibility of such a co-reign.

   21:20 He [Jehoram] was thirty-two years old when he began to reign; he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. He departed with no one's regret. They buried him in the city of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.

   To believe McDonald's cockamamie co-reign theory, one would have to believe that the writer of this text omitted a 20-year reign shared by Jehoram and Ahaziah somewhere outside of Jerusalem. Only desperation to defend an untenable belief could lead someone to such extremes.

   This rebuttal of McDonald's co-reign and "in-Jerusalem" quibbles was posted on the Errancy list on August 12, 2007, and he has yet to reply to it. Even though my rebuttal was posted before he wrote the article I am now replying to, he didn't address or even mention my rebuttal points quoted above. That has been typical of the debates that I have had with McDonald. If he can't answer arguments or rebuttals, he will ignore them and continue to recycle his arguments that have already been rebutted.

In going through McDonald's recyling of his "in-Jerusalem" quibble below, notice that it consists primarily of unsupported speculations, and keep in mind that my comments above thoroughly rebutted this quibble.

So did a lot of other Judean kings. I pointed this out to McDonald here in my fifth rebuttal, but he has ignored it and continues to recyle a quibble that was discredited long ago.

McDonald thinks it is "implied" in 2 Chronicles 21:11 that Jehoram spent part of his reign elsewhere (than Jerusalem). What does this verse say? "Moreover he (Jehoram) made high places in the mountains of Judah, and made the inhabitants of Jerusalem to play the harlot, and led Judah astray." If I had not read this with my own eyes, I would never have believed that a bibliolater could be driven to such an extreme in his hunt for "solutions" to Bible discrepancies. What does he want us to see in this verse? Are we to think that the "high places" Jehoram made in the mountains of Judah were palaces or headquarters from which he reigned in addition to the time he spent reigning in Jerusalem? As the following quotation from Eerdmans Bible Dictionary will show, "high places" in the Old Testament were sites of pagan worship:

High Places: A place of worship, located on hilltops or man-made platforms. Old Testament accounts usually associate high places with pagan religious practices.

High places were a common fixture of Canaanite religion when the Israelites entered Palestine. The common ancient Near Eastern cosmology held that the earth was flat, and that the gods dwelt in the heavens above. Consequently, a worship center located on an elevation had a better chance of gaining their attention (1987, p. 486).

The existence of these "high places" was a problem throughout the reigns of the Judean kings. Some of the kings encouraged the high places; others worked to destroy them. References to these pagan sites were made in such places as 1 Kings 13:22,32-33; 14:23; 15:14; 22:43; 2 Kings 12:3; 14:4; 15:4 and many others. So when the Chronicle writer said that Jehoram "made high places in the mountains of Judah," he meant only that Jehoram built pagan worship sites, not that he divided his reign between Jerusalem and other locations in the Judean mountains.  When a debater can offer no better counterargument than this, you know that his position is in serious trouble.

Despite the fact that several Judean kings built "high places" as worship sites for the people, when their reigns ended, the writer(s) of the books of Kings said that they had reigned in Jerusalem. I have already addressed this point above, where I explained that the author(s) of kings undoubtedly emphasized that the Judean kings had reigned "in Jerusalem," because they considered this a sacred place that Yahweh had chosen "to put his name" there. I also cited here examples of other Judean kings who "built high places" but were said to have reigned "in Jerusalem" when their stories were told.

To get these 13 years, McDonald has added five years of a controversial co-reign with Jehoram's father Jehoshaphat to the eight years of 2 Kings 8:17, but I have repeatedly explained that whether Jehoram had co-reigned with Jehoshaphat does not help his case, because his claim is that Ahaziah, when he was 22, had begun a 20-year co-reign with his father Jehoram. Readers can review this rebuttal here and here and here and here. Meanwhile, I am left wondering how many times I will have to point his out to McDonald before it finally sinks in.

And here is the detailed reply that I made to this in our written debate.

Even McDonald saw a major flaw in his argument. "Someone might point out that every Judean king was said to have reigned in Jerusalem," he said. And he had better believe that someone might point this out, because I am pointing it out right now. We are told that David reigned over Israel for 40 years, seven years in Hebron and 33 years in Jerusalem (2 Sam. 5:5; 2 Kings 2:11; 1 Chron. 29:27). His reign was split between Hebron and Jerusalem, because Jerusalem was a Jebusite stronghold that David didn't capture until the eighth year of his kingship (2 Sam. 5:6-9; 1 Chron. 11:4-7). Thereafter, he named it the "city of David," and it became the religious and political capital of a united Israel. The united kingdom split into a northern division (Israel) and a southern division (Judah) after the reign of Solomon (1 Kings 11:29-43; 12:1), but Jerusalem remained the capital of Judah throughout the reigns of the Judean kings. David's reign had to be split between Jerusalem and another location for the simple reason that Jerusalem had not yet been assimilated into the kingdom when he began to reign. This was not true of the Judean kings. They retained political control of it until it fell to Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C. during the reign of Zedekiah (2 Kings 25:8-11; 2 Chron. 36:6-20), so there was never any need for a Judean King from Rehoboam to Zedekiah to "split" his reign between Jerusalem and some other location. Beginning with Rehoboam (1 Kings 14:21) and ending with Zedekiah (2 Kings 24:18), Bible records tell us that So-And-So was however many years old when he began to reign and that he reigned in Jerusalem for X number of years. As McDonald knows and admitted, this was said of all the Judean kings. There was never a hint or suggestion that the reigns of any of them were divided between two headquarters. If there was any such hint, let him show it to us.

The best he could come up with to support his split-reign theory was the reference to Jehoram's construction of "high places" in the mountains of Judah, which, as we have already noted, had nothing at all to do with the place where Jehoram reigned. McDonald said too that "it is specifically stated that Ahaziah spent part of his (reign) elsewhere (2 Chronicles 22:6-9)." Well, let's just look at this passage and see if it says that Ahaziah reigned from a place other than Jerusalem:

And he (Jehoram of Israel) returned to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds which they (the Syrians) had given him at Ramah, when he fought against Hazael king of Syria. And Azariah (Ahaziah) the son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to see Jehoram the son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick.

Now the destruction of Ahaziah was of God, in that he  went unto Joram (Jehoram): for when he was come, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu the son of Nimshi, whom Yahweh had anointed to cut off the house of Ahab. And it came to pass, when Jehu was executing judgment upon the house of Ahab, that he found the princes of  Judah, and the sons of the brethren of Ahaziah, ministering to Ahaziah, and slew them. And he sought Ahaziah, and they caught him (now he was hiding in Samaria), and they brought him to Jehu, and slew him; and they buried him, for they said, He is the son  of  Jehoshaphat, who sought Yahweh with all his heart. And the house of Ahaziah had no power to hold the kingdom (ASV with Yahweh substituted for Jehovah).

This account of Jehu's murder of Ahaziah is parallel to 2 Kings 9:22-27, and both accounts state only that Ahaziah had gone to visit Jehoram of Israel who had been wounded in battle and that while he was on this visit Jehu killed him. They do not even imply that Ahaziah reigned in any official capacity while he was in Jezreel. How could he have done that without a fight if Jehoram, the uncle he had gone to visit, was the king of Israel reigning in Jezreel? McDonald's attempt to make this short trip of a Judean king who went to visit a sick relative into a case that will prove his groundless split-reign theory is just another example of the ridiculous extremes that bibliolaters will go to to keep from admitting that there are discrepancies in the Bible text.

Everything that McDonald is now quibbling has been thoroughly answered, but McDonald still recycles a speculative quibble that he knows had been rebutted in detail.

I have already noted above that if biblical writers gave incorrect chronologies, then they erred in what they reported, and an error cannot be made not an error on the grounds that the writers "were not concerned with chronology." That is such an elementary fact that anyone who doesn't have an inerrancy axe to grind can see it. In everything that McDonald has quoted from Hester, who was a Baptist preacher with a bias for biblical inerrancy, he cited nothing that Hester said that would explain how incorrect chronology would in any way have shown "how the Israelites responded to God." All such talk as this is nothing but attempts to dance around the fact that the Bible obviously contains errors.

McDonald concluded his unilateral "first affirmative" with answers to questions that I had asked him in the Errancy forum.

True or False: (If you do not answer, we will assume that your answer is true.) Jehoram of Judah and his son Ahaziah began a 20-year co-reign when Ahaziah was twenty-two years old.

Answer: True.

I assume everyone noticed that McDonald cited no scripture in support of his answer, just as he cited no scripture anywhere in all of his unilateral "first affirmative" above that would in any way indicate that the writer(s) of the books of Kings thought that Ahaziah had co-reigned with his father for 20 years. Is that what he calls speaking where the Bible speaks?

True or False: (If you do not answer, we will assume that your answer is true.) I (Jerry McDonald) absolutely know that Jehoram of Judah and his son Ahaziah began a 20-year co-reign when Ahaziah was 22 years old.

Answer: False.

If, as I pointed out above, McDonald doesn't absolutely know that Ahaziah began a 20-year co-regency with his father when the former was 22 years old, then he can't absolutely know, as he claims below, that 2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chronicles 22:2 are harmonious in the ages that they gave for Ahaziah when he began to reign. I will say more about this in commenting on his next answer.

True or False: (If you do not answer, we will assume that your answer is true.) I (Jerry McDonald) would never debate an issue that I was not absolutely sure about.

Answer: True. However, the thing that I am absolutely sure about is the fact that these two ages do not contradict each other and they are not inconsistent with each other.

Can McDonald possibly be so dense that he can't see his inconsistency? On 8/22/07 in the Errancy forum, he made a reply to my post entitled "McDonald on His Absolute Certainty." In my post, I had asked him if he was absolutely sure that Ahaziah had co-reigned for 20 years with his father Jehoram. In his answer, he said the following.

Am I sure that 2 Kings 8:26 and 2 Chron. 22:2 are harmoneous [sic]? Yes, I am? Do I know for a fact that it was a co-reign? No, I don't.

Can't this guy see that unless he can show with absolute certainty some solution to the discrepancy in Ahaziah's age, then he cannot be sure that the two passages are "harmonious"? If he isn't absolutely sure of his co-reign theory and if he doesn't think that a scribe incorrectly copied a number, then what is he "absolutely sure" of? Unless he can present another solution and show with absolute certainty that it is correct, then he can't be absolutely sure that the two ages given are harmonious. That should be obvious to everyone except, of course, someone who thinks that because the Nile River flows north in Africa, Jerusalem on another continent must have been north of Jezreel.

I have given my reasons why I believe that a co-reign probably existed between Jehoram and his son Ahaziah.

McDonald has given reasons why he believes that a co-reign "probably existed" between Jehoram and his son Ahaziah, but reasons why one "believes" something cannot be construed as absolute knowledge that such a co-reign happened, and McDonald said in our written debate, as noted above, that he would "never debate a subject that he wasn't absolutely sure about." He has debated here, in this article, and in our written debate that when he was 22, Ahaziah began a 20-year co-reign with his father Jehoram. Since he says that his position in this hasn't changed, as the article I am now answering shows, then he isn't telling the truth when he says that he would never debate a subject that he isn't absolutely sure about.

If Farrell is looking for a specific verse stating that it was a co-reign, I just don’t have it.

This is a direct admission from McDonald that he has not been speaking where the Bible speaks. He is inconsistently claiming that he is absolutely sure that the two ages given for Ahaziah when he began to reign are harmonious, while at the same time claiming that he isn't absolutely sure of any particular way to explain that the two ages are consistent.

However, I don’t have a specific verse stating that Solomon co-reigned with David either. However, Farrell accepts the fact that he did. Maybe he will enlighten us and show us where the verse is that says that such was a co-reign.

I showed above, that the Bible by necessary implication does say that Solomon co-reigned briefly with David in the final year of the latter's 40-year reign. Now I challenge McDonald to cite just one verse in the Bible that necessarily implies that Ahaziah co-reigned with his father for 40 years.

Those who accept McDonald's invitation will clearly see that his 20-year co-reign theory has been ground to pieces and dispersed in the winds of logical debate. I have given very specific counterarguments above to show that there is no merit at all to McDonald's speculative co-reign theory, but I want to close with a rebuttal that I haven't yet mentioned. I think it will drive a final nail into the coffin of McDonald's co-reign solution.

He admits that he knows of no scripture that specifically says that Jehoram and Ahaziah had ever co-reigned, but he claimed, with nothing to support it but crass speculation, that the references to the eight years and the one year that Jehoram and Ahaziah respectively had reigned in Jerusalem meant that they had reigned somewhere else long enough to make up the 20 missing years in their reigns. I countered this with specific scriptures that (1) said of all kings of Judah that they had reigned in Jerusalem, (2) other scriptures that referred to David as the only king who had reigned over the region known as Judah of whom the writer(s) of the books of Kings had given two locations for his reign, and (3) other scriptures that told of David's protracted absence from Jerusalem during Absalom's control of the city and his absence during other wars he had fought without even implying that he had reigned in other places while away from Jerusalem. The references to David's having reigned seven years in Hebron and thirty-three years in Jerusalem were made because David did not reign in Jerusalem until he had captured it from the Jebusites after having reigned his first seven years in Hebron. This is specific evidence that indicates that if a king had reigned somewhere else besides Jerusalem, the author(s) of the books of Kings would have specifically stated this as was done in the case of David.

This is important, because there is another case where the author(s) of Kings noted that a king's reign had been split between two places. That king was Omri of Israel, who was opposed during the first four years of his reign by Tibni, as noted above.

2 Kings 16:21 Then the people of Israel were divided into two parts; half of the people followed Tibni son of Ginath, to make him king, and half followed Omri. ²² But the people who followed Omri overcame the people who followed Tibni son of Ginath; so Tibni died, and Omri became king. ²³ In the thirty-first year of King Asa of Judah, Omri began to reign over Israel; he reigned for twelve years, six of them in Tirzah.

We have in David and Omri, then, specific examples of how the author(s) of the books of Kings specifically stated when kings had reigned in two different places. If he is going to continue his claim that Jehoram of Judah and Ahaziah had reigned eight and one years respectively in Jerusalem but many more years elsewhere, McDonald should explain to us why the biblical writer(s) failed to mention this when they were careful enoough to specify in the cases of David and Omri that their reigns had been divided between two different locations.

McDonald has said that he will post this article and reply to it. If he does post a reply, don't hold your breath until you see him explaining (1) how a 20-year Jehoram/Ahaziah co-reign, which began when Ahaziah was 22, can fit into the biblical math that dated Jehoram's reign by Joram of Israel's and (1) why the author(s) of the book of Kings told of the split locations in the reigns of David and Omri but said nothing at all about Jehoram's and Ahaziah's having split their reigns between Jerusalem and somewhere else.