Till:
At the end of Part Three,Turkel
said...
That [epi in the sense of under=during the administration of] [i]s a different part of BAGD's entry under epi. So Till made a big booboo here, and isn't willing to admit it, and hopes like heck no one will notice.
I replied to this and showed that in his haste to cut and paste a hackword "reply," Turkel hadn't read this section of my reply closely enough to see that I had clearly indicated that I was talking about different sections of Arndt & Gingrich's discussion of epi, so the "big booboo" existed only in Turkel's careless mind.
Turkel [quoting Till]:
Hence,
Till is reduced to saying, "Turkel seems to think that if he
cites what Casey said or what Brill said, that should settle the
matter in his favor, but if I cite authorities like Arndt &
Gingrich, who say the opposite, do we have a stalemate or what?"
Till:
I was "reduced" to saying
this? When I state an obvious fact, how does that constitute
being "reduced" to saying whatever?
Turkel:
By Till's Quote the Versions Rule,
it does; not that we follow such an absurd rule in the first place,
Till:
Well, Turkel didn't
need to tell me this. I have long noticed that he ridicules the
quoting of different versions, because he usually is in a situation
in which he is trying to sell some oddball meaning of Greek or Hebrew
words that give "nuances" and "insights" into
what the biblical writers really meant but the translators of the
different versions all seemed to have missed. That is a major
hazard of being a biblical inerrantist, because a biblical skeptic
can take just about any translation, accept what it says, and
identify error after error in the Bible. This puts the
inerrantist into the position of having to argue that the translators
really didn't understand the subtleties of Greek and Hebrew.
You can bet your life, however, that if Turkel could ever find 20+
translations that agreed with whatever spin he is putting on a
passage to explain away an "alleged" discrepancy, he
would break his neck to do it. However, being so consistently
in a position where he has to argue that the Bible didn't
really mean what it was clearly saying, he has to pretend that simple
reliance on what versions of the Bible say is "an absurd rule."
Turkel's ignorance of biblical languages has already been exposed in the land-promise debates and in my reply to his attempt to answer "Why Didn't They Know?" In the latter, I exposed his ignorance so thoroughly that even he had to admit that he had made a "big booboo," which he immediately tried to blame on errors in a software program he was using. I have a question for Turkel.
Whom do you think you are fooling by your constant attempts to pass yourself off as an expert in biblical languages who really doesn't need to rely on translations?
Turkel:
but if Till wants to
play the majority game he needs to do it consistently, not just "when
I say so and when I like it."
Till:
Just where have I been
inconsistent in the Abiathar matter? I hope others notice that
Turkel in one respect is consistent, because he consistently makes
unsupported assertions like this and expects everyone to accept them
without question.
Turkel:
That he hasn't the
wherewithal to answer arguments brought forth by scholars who know
their business is just too bad.
Till:
Well, all I see in this
respect from Turkel is the Everette-Hatcher approach, which consists
of stringing together unsupported assertion after unsupported
assertion from books that agree with him, but neither he nor the
authors he quotes take the time to develop supporting arguments for
their assertions. Notice, for example, that Turkel has yet to
present any supporting material for Casey's Abiathar
explanation. He simply posted it as an assertion, but if he
ever gives me an argument to answer, I will gladly show him that I
have the "wherewithal" to answer it.
On this point, I will just say that my replies to his second-round hackwork in the land-promise debates presented detailed information about suzerainty treaties from "scholars who know their business." I'll look forward to seeing if Turkel has the "wherewithal" to answer them.
And I have a lot more on the subject to throw at him. I will be interested to see if he has the "wherewithal" to answer the arguments brought forth by scholars "who know their business." Maybe he would like to get some practice by replying to the scholars whom I quoted in Part Two on the reference to Abiathar in Mark 2:26, but I doubt that he will. He doesn't even try to answer me, so why would he risk having his incompetence exposed by trying to answer scholars "who know their business"?
My honest opinion is that would-be apologists like Everette Hatcher and Robert Turkel lack the background in logic to understand what constitutes logical argumentation, and so they consistently make the mistake of thinking that if they throw together some assertions from books that agree with them, they have sustained their position, but they are apparently unable to recognize that there are rarely any attempts in what they quote to provide supporting arguments for what they are quoting. I have finished my reply to Turkel's... well, actually, Gary DeMar's, "Olivet Discourse," which I will edit again before I submit it for publication and posting. Readers of this will see that time after time Turkel asserted that such and such biblical verses meant so and so but offered no support except to put [DeMar] or whoever in brackets.
Turkel:
And anyway, we see
that BAGD doesn't disagree with us at all
Till:
Well, as I showed in
Part Two, this lexicon very
definitely disagrees with Turkel.
Turkel:
-- it makes epi in
Mark 2:26 a time reference, just as Casey and the Brill book do.
Till:
Yes, but the "time
reference" as explained by Arndt and Gingrich meant
"under=during the administration of," so according
to them, Jesus was saying that David went into the house of God
under, i.e., during the administration of Abiathar the high
priest. Abiathar was not even the priest that David went into;
hence, there is a clear error here except, of course, to diehard
inerrantists who lean over backwards to find "explanations"
to obvious discrepancies. If Mark 2:26 had said, "David
went into the house of God, and the priest Abiathar gave him
showbread to eat," you can bet that Turkel et al would
manufacture some kind of explanation to make this a statement
consistent with the OT tale.
Turkel:
But now to where Till
tries to diss Abiathar, and this is more amusing than Jerry Lewis
getting a cream pie in the face. After whining that I did not give
enough space to showing Till's data that Ahimelech was an honorable
man (we showed more than enough for anyone not on the Nitpick Parade
and desperate to score points with gullible readers --
Till:
Turkel, of course,
would say that he showed "more than enough" even when he
skipped over the examples of how epi was used, and speaking of
"gullible readers," what readers can be more gullible
than those who seem to think that Turkel is some kind of first-rate
apologist? Would a first-rate apologist skip and skip and skip
his opponent's rebuttal arguments?
I'm going to make a prediction. I have reinserted arguments and supporting materials that Turkel snipped and skipped, but the reinsertions won't matter. He'll skip them again.
Turkel:
not that it matters,
since the whole issue is a matter of long-term reputation, which
Abiathar had 40 years and more of behind him, as opposed to Ahmy's
fleeting cameos), and re-repeating his previous arguments,
Till:
I reinserted detailed
replies to this quibble too. Rather than just quoting it all
again, I'll summarize my points: (1) Hopni and Phinehas served
under Eli, who was a faithful, righteous priest and judge of Israel
for 40 years. (2) Hopni and Phinehas were so morally
corrupt that Yahweh promised to exterminate the house of Eli.
(3) Abiathar was a descendant of Eli, whose banishment by
Solomon was said to fulfill Yahweh's prophecy against the house
of Eli. (4) Abiathar, even though he had an ephod that he
could have used to "inquire of Yahweh," opposed Yahweh's
choice of Solomon to succeed David on the throne. (5) Not
a single Old Testament passage can be found that gives any indication
at all that Abiathar was renown for being a stickler for the law.
I could also cite Joab as an example that disputes Turkel's claim that 40 years of service to David must have meant that Abiathar was brimming full of righteousness. Joab also served David for 40 years, but he too sided with Adonijah in the power struggle to succeed David. Solomon ordered his execution, even though Joab had served David faithfully for 40 years.
1 Kings 2:28 When
the
news [of Abiathar's banishment] reached Joab, who had conspired
with Adonijah though not with Absalom, he fled to the tent of Yahweh
and took hold of the horns of the altar.
29
King Solomon was told that Joab had fled to the tent of Yahweh and
was beside the altar. Then Solomon ordered Benaiah son of Jehoiada,
"Go, strike him down!"
30 So Benaiah entered the
tent of Yahweh and said to Joab, "The king says, ‘Come
out!'" But he answered, "No, I will die here."
Benaiah reported to the king, "This is how Joab answered
me."
31 Then the king commanded Benaiah, "Do as
he says. Strike him down and bury him, and so clear me and my
father's house of the guilt of the innocent blood that Joab shed.
32
Yahweh will repay him for the blood he shed, because without the
knowledge of my father David he attacked two men and killed them with
the sword. Both of them--Abner son of Ner, commander of Israel's
army, and Amasa son of Jether, commander of Judah's army--were better
men and more upright than he.
33 May the guilt of their
blood rest on the head of Joab and his descendants forever. But on
David and his descendants, his house and his throne, may there be the
Lord's peace forever."
34 So Benaiah son of Jehoiada
went up and struck down Joab and killed him, and he was buried on his
own land in the desert.
35 The king put Benaiah son of
Jehoiada over the army in Joab's position and replaced Abiathar with
Zadok the priest.
This text rationalized the execution of Joab on the grounds that he had killed Abner, but (1) Joab killed Abner because Abner had killed Joab's brother Asahel [2 Sam. 2:20], (2) despite David's disapproval of Joab's action, Joab had a right according to Mosaic law to kill his brother's murderer, and (3) the killing of Abner had happened at Hebron within the first seven years of David's reign [2 Sam. 5:5]. If any such event as this really happened, Solomon‘s execution of Joab, ostensibly for having killed Abner, was probably an act of vengeance as Solomon sought to eradicate his opposition. If, however, Turkel wants to argue that it was an appropriately righteous act, it would show that Joab‘s 40 years of service to the "greatest" king of Israel would not prove that such service was always proof of righteousness.
Watch Turkel evade these rebuttal arguments again. When an inerrantist is backed into a corner, what can he do but duck and dodge and bob and weave?
Well, of course, there is one other thing he can do. He can hop, skip, and snip.
Turkel:
we get to the place
where Till actually tries to sniffle back with a reply to my
counters. On Abby using an "ephod" for divination, I said
that "inquiring of Yahweh was not forbidden by the law, no
matter what spin Till puts on the matter." To this we are given
a diversion on divination in the ANE, but none of this shows that
inquiring of Yahweh was forbidden.
Till:
Was the diversion as
glaring as Turkel's imaginary conversations between Till and
McKinsey, and the hypothetical phone calls from Hyper? Was the
diversion any more glaring than Turkel's excursion into
Ulansey's "detective work" on Mithraism? At
any rate, my comment above wasn't intended as any kind of
argument. It was merely a sarcastic remark about the parallels
in Judaism and the religions that surrounded them. The Hebrews
had their god, but so did the tribes and nations around them.
The Hebrews had a priesthood, but so did the tribes and nations
around them. The Hebrews incinerated animals to please their
god, but so did the nations around them. The Hebrews had a
temple, but so did the nations around them. The Hebrews
"inquired" of their god, but so did the nations around
them. The Hebrew religion was in various ways like the
religions of the nations around them, yet the Hebrews religion was
"right," and the other religions were wrong.
That was the point I was making. Turkel hops, skips, and jumps over serious rebuttals and supporting details of the rebuttals (as when he omitted completely my examples of how epi was used in the New Testament), but then he pounces onto a statement like my sarcastic comment about Abiathar's "ephod" and treats it as if it were my main argument. When a debating opponent does this sort of thing, he is trying to detract attention from his failure to answer the real arguments of his opponent.
Turkel [quoting Till]:
Till
barks, "I suspect that this would have been done much in the
same way that king Mesha of the Moabites inquired of Chemosh,
wouldn't it? So what do we conclude here? Was it divination if some
non-Hebraic king ‘inquired' of his god but not divination
if a Hebrew king so inquired of his god?"
Till:
Well, since Robert
"Duck and Dodge" Turkel has made a federal case out of
this comment, I'll just ask him to answer the question he
skipped above, but first I am going to rewrite the beginning of the
text of the Moabite Stone and substitute "Jehoshaphat"
for Mesha and "Yahweh" for Chemosh.
"I am Jehoshaphat, son of Yahweh... king of Judah, the Judahite. My father was king over Judah forty-one years, and I became king after my father. And I made this sanctuary for Yahweh at Jerusalem, for he saved me from all the kings and let me see my desire upon my adversaries. Mesha, king of Moab, he oppressed Judah many days, for Yahweh was angry with his land. And his son succeeded him and he too said, ‘I will oppress Judah.' In the days he spoke thus, and I saw my desire upon him and upon his house, when Moab perished utterly for ever. And Mesha had taken possession of the land of Medeba and Israel, dwelt in it his days and half the days of his son, forty years, but Yahweh dwelt in it in my days...."
As I said before, the Moabite inscription would read like a page from the Bible if Yahweh were substituted for Chemosh, and the rewriting above that made the substitution illustrates the similarity in Moabite and Israelite thinking in those times. If the text above were in the Bible, Turkel and every other biblical inerrantist would be defending its historical accuracy with their dying breaths.
Turkel may say whatever he wants to about my fundamentalism, but one obvious fact remains. I am not so stupid to believe that ancient texts that speak about talking animals and deities who chatted routinely with people are "the inspired, inerrant word of God."
Turkel:
Till needs more than
suspicions, by his own rhetoric ("Where is that in the text?");
Till:
Statements like this
clearly indicate that Turkel realizes that he is in deep trouble.
Have others noticed how often he will say things like, "It [the
text in question] doesn't say in the text that David felt
guilty," even though the text has David saying that he felt
"responsible," but when his opponents call for textual
evidence to support whatever he is claiming, the standard of textual
evidence becomes a sign of "fundamentalism."
I have a new name for Turkel--Robert "Double Standard" Turkel.
Turkel:
but if this is so
then we end up with the ridiculous conclusion that one cannot use a
telephone to call a doctor if it is also used to call a prostitute.
Till:
Of course, Turkel is
assuming that divination to inquire of Chemosh or Marduk or Dagon
would have been wrong, whereas divination to inquire of Yahweh would
be okay. Since he has made my sarcastic comment into a capital
case, I'll just ask him to explain to us how he was able to
determine that X if done in a pagan religion is wrong but X if done
in Judaism was right.
Watch him evade this, because he cannot answer this question without resorting to the fallacy of special pleading.
Turkel:
What it comes down to
is that Till can find no prohibition anywhere, on any particular
means, of inquiring of Yahweh (i.e., it was not mainly how you
called, but who you called, and Till needs to show beyond that that
the methods were similar enough), and to cover his embarrassment
needs to resort to a mini-lecture on the ANE (as if he knew that from
"A & E" or the History Channel) and then bark about
how silly it is to believe in things like miraculous contact with
Yahweh in the first place. A blatant dodge which reads, "Whoops,
I forgot to prove that this was actually against the law. Silly me.
Can we change the subject?"
Till:
I never intended to
suggest that "inquiring of Yahweh" was "against the
law. Even genocide wasn't against the law, because
Turkel's Yahweh often commanded the extermination of
non-Hebraic tribes. That, however, doesn't make it
right. The point of my comment was to call attention to the
utter silliness of those who defend the inerrancy of ancient Hebrew
documents on the grounds that they are the "word of God."
If Turkel wants to argue that X was wrong when Moabites,
Edomites, Amalekites, Jebusites, etc., etc., etc. did it but right
when Hebrews did it, then he is free to do so, since there is no law
against stupidity, which Turkel, like almost all biblical
inerrantists, have plenty of.
Turkel:
So now back to Ark
carrying. Now even Nazis who carried the Ark got shazammed,
Till:
Hmm, Turkel has been so
flattened in this debate that he has to resort to an Indiana Jones
movie to find something to say.
Turkel:
and Till wants to try
to muffle that high-level resume item on Abby's list by showing that
scoundrels, too, carried the Ark.
Till:
No, Till simply wants
textual evidence to support Turkel's claim that Abiathar had a
"high-level" resume. The fact that he was entrusted
with the ark of the covenant is no indication at all that he was "a
stickler for the law" and a "renowned priest whose name
invoke[d] honoring the law." I would think that any
first-day student in a Logic 101 course would immediately spot the
error in Turkel's reasoning, which seems to be something like
this.
1. Priests who were entrusted with the ark of the covenant were sticklers for the law and renowned for honoring the law.
2. Abiathar was entrusted with the ark of the covenant.
3. Therefore, Abiathar was a stickler for the law and renowned for honoring the law.
The only problem is that the conclusion to this argument is sound only if Turkel can establish the truth of the major premise, so when is he going to do that? Where does the Old Testament say anything at all to indicate that the ark of the covenant was entrusted only to priests who were sticklers for the law and renowned for honoring the law?
Turkel can just cut and paste the passage after his ID marker below.
Turkel:
Turkel:
Too bad for Till, the
examples he chooses are essentially the same as trying to use as an
example the guy who was fired for viewing porn at his desk rather
than someone like Abby who stuck it out for 40+ years under a pretty
serious king. He points to "Eli's sons, Hopni and
Phinehas," -- guys who as he admits, ended up with a case of
dead for their indiscretions!
Till:
If Turkel had been
stupid enough to argue that 40 years of service to a company was
proof that a person had high moral integrity, then the case of Sam
Jones, who after working for company X for 40 years was found to be a
distributor of child pornography, would prove that Turkel's
claim isn't necessarily true.
That's the case with his ark-of-the-covenant argument. He is claiming that Abiathar's having been entrusted with the ark proves that he was a renowned priest whose name had invoked honoring the law. If he is right about this, then the following syllogism would be a sound argument.
1. Priests who were entrusted with the ark of the covenant were sticklers for the law and renowned for honoring the law.
2. Hopni and Phinehas were priests who were entrusted with the ark of the covenant.
3. Therefore, Hopni and Phinehas were sticklers for the law and renowned for honoring the law.
Hopni and Phinehas, however, committed adultery with women who served at the entry of the tabernacle, stole from the sacrifices that were offered at the altar, and were so corrupt that Yahweh pronounced a curse on the house of Eli that brought about its extermination. The examples of Hopni and Phinehas, therefore, prove that the major premise of this syllogism is false. Since this is the very premise on which Turkel is basing his argument that Abiathar was a renowned priest whose name invoked honoring the law, his argument fails because it contains a conclusion that was derived from a premise that is obviously false.
Watch Turkel skip this part of my rebuttal if he "answers" again.
Turkel:
Rather than
countering my point, this only proves it!
Till:
No, it doesn't
because I just showed that Turkel's point was derived from an
obviously false premise. He mentioned a large seminary near
where he lives, so if there is a university nearby, he make want to
go there and ask someone in the philosophy department to give him a
crash course in logic.
Turkel:
Abby spent 40+ years
in the job and didn't get the divine zap. That sounds like someone
who was 99% likely to have the law on the ball to me!
Till:
Oh, is that right?
I suppose that Turkel also thinks that Manasseh's 55-year reign
as king of Judah was proof that he too had the law on the ball, so
let's just adapt Turkel's argument to Manasseh.
1. Those who spent as much as 40+ years in a job and didn't get the divine zap, were 99% likely to have the law on the ball.
2. Manasseh reigned as king of Judah for 55 years without getting the divine zap.
3. Therefore, it is 99% likely that Manasseh had the law on the ball.
Manasseh, however, was presented in the Bible as the epitome of evil.
2 Kings 21:10 Yahweh
said
through his servants the prophets:
11 "Manasseh
king of Judah has committed these detestable sins. He has done
more evil than the Amorites who preceded him and has led Judah into
sin with his idols.
12 Therefore this is what Yahweh,
the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on
Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will
tingle.
13 I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring
line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house
of Ahab. I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and
turning it upside down.
14 I will forsake the remnant of my
inheritance and hand them over to their enemies. They will be looted
and plundered by all their foes,
15 because they have done
evil in my eyes and have provoked me to anger from the day their
forefathers came out of Egypt until this day."
16
Moreover, Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled
Jerusalem from end to end--besides the sin that he had caused Judah
to commit, so that they did evil in the eyes of Yahweh.
17
As for the other events of Manasseh's reign, and all he did,
including the sin he committed, are they not written in the book of
the annals of the kings of Judah?
18 Manasseh rested with
his fathers and was buried in his palace garden, the garden of Uzza.
And Amon his son succeeded him as king.
Manasseh had reigned 55 years (2 Kings 21:1), and there is no indication that he was divinely "zapped" for all of the evil attributed to him. Hence, another of Turkel's arguments fail, because more than 40 years on the job without getting divinely zap did not make Manasseh "have the law on the ball."
I suppose Turkel will now quibble that Manasseh would fall into the one percent who didn't have the law on the ball. If so, I will give him examples of others whose long service "on the job" did not make them righteous.
Readers will have to understand that Turkel is in desperate straits. He jumped into water over his head by offering an unsupported assertion as a solution to the Abiathar problem, so he is now treading frantically to keep his head above the water.
Turkel:
But next Till
switches gears and tries to make Abby's earthly boss out to be a
softie. Re my comment that "...David was regarded as Israel's
greatest king," it is sniffled:
Till:
Well, yes, I would
dispute that, and I have the "inspired, inerrant word of God"
on my side.
2 Kings 23:24-25 Moreover Josiah put away the mediums, wizards, teraphim, idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, so that he established the words of the law that were written in the book that the priest Hilkiah had found in the house of Yahweh. Before him there was no king like him, who turned to Yahweh with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him.
Turkel:
To quote the
operator, "Sorry, wrong number!"
Till:
This isn't something the
operator would say, is it? Wouldn't this be said by the
party whose number had been incorrectly dialed?
I shouldn't have said this. Now, if Turkel answers again, he probably ignore my major arguments and put "one meg" into commenting on this.
Turkel:
Josiah was a reformer; he had
a reversal to accomplish and that's what he got praise for
here. Dave didn't have a reversal to do like this one. This is apples
and oranges.
Till:
In my reply to Turkel's
"Olivet Discourse," which will be
published in the
September/October 2002 issue of The Skeptical Review, and also
published on this website, I began with this statement.
A character named Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass said to Alice, "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less." The more I read the articles of Robert Turkel, the more I think that he must be the Humpty Dumpty of biblical apologetics, because he continually asserts that this or that word or expression means thus and so instead of the usual meanings that are attached to them.
We see that tactic at work in Turkel's statement above. The statement about Josiah is quite clear, but because it disagrees with something Turkel had said about David, he tried to interpret the meaning away.
2 Kings 23:25 25 Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to Yahweh as he did--with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.
The spin that Turkel tries to put on this is that the praise heaped on Josiah here was only for his reforms, i. e., his "turning" to Yahweh, but Turkel who shoots and asks questions later has gotten himself into trouble again, because in putting this spin on the verse, Turkel has created a contradiction with 2 Kings 18:5.
2 Kings 18:1 In the
third
year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king
of Judah began to reign.
2 He was twenty-five
years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem
twenty-nine years. His mother's name was Abijah daughter of
Zechariah.
3 He did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh,
just as his father David had done.
4 He removed the high
places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He
broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that
time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called
Nehushtan.)
5 Hezekiah trusted in Yahweh, the God of Israel.
There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either
before him or after him.
6 He held fast to Yahweh and
did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands Yahweh had given
Moses.
So which was it? Did the text in 2 Kings 23:25 mean that there had been no king like Josiah in terms of his general performance as a king, or did the text mean that Josiah's reforms, destroying the "high places," tearing down altars, stamping out idolatry, etc., was unlike that of any king before or after him? If Turkel says that it was the latter, he then has the problem of explaining what the text quoted above said about Hezekiah. He too removed the "high places," smashed idols, and stamped out idolatry in Judah, so in this respect he was described as having been unlike all the kings of Judah either before him or after him. So who was the greater king in terms of having accomplish this "reversal" that Turkel hypothesized, Hezekiah or Josiah?
Ah, the pitfalls of those who take up the task of proving inerrancy in the Bible!
I would urge Turkel's admirers not to be dismayed yet, because Turkel will dream up some kind of way to explain this problem, because he is the Humpty Dumpty of biblical apologetics. He can make words mean whatever he wants them to mean.
Turkel:
In contrast, David
gets more "air time" in the OT and NT than any other king
(since Till likes word counts: Dave is mentioned 1085 times, Josiah
only 53); he accomplished more politically, religiously, and
personally combined (even if he was exceeded in singular aspects by
his son Solomon -- who of course, owed him much in terms of influence
and setting things up so that he had time to gather wealth and power,
just like the WWII generation set the tone for later ease and
prosperity!) than any other Jewish king;
Till:
Well, okay, Turk, I
will accept your "explanation" for the sake of argument.
No verse that I know of ever said that David was the greatest of the
Israelite kings and that there were none like him in this respect
before or after him, and so the statement about Josiah must have
meant that there had been no reformer as great as Josiah before or
after him. That being the case, the statement that there had
been none like Hezekiah before or after him must have referred to the
reforms of Hezekiah that had just been stated.
So now let's see you reconcile the statements about Hezekiah and Josiah.
By the way, I wonder if Turkel is trying to argue that numbers determine truth.
Turkel:
he also got it said
of him, "...David did that which was right in the eyes of the
LORD, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all
the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite,"
Till:
Yes, I'm glad
that Turkel mentioned this verse, because it is one of my favorite
examples of biblical discrepancy. The statement is in 1 Kings
15:5.
David did what was right in the eyes of Yahweh, and had not turned aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.
Yet we read of at least another sin that David had committed. In 2 Samuel 24, David took a census that somehow ticked Yahweh off, and as the story unfolded, David's act was called a "sin."
2 Samuel 24:10 And David's heart condemned him after he had numbered the people. So David said to Yahweh, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done; but now, I pray, O Yahweh, take away the iniquity of Your servant, for I have done very foolishly."
Verse 17 Then David spoke to Yahweh when he saw the angel who was striking the people, and said, "Surely I have sinned, and I have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done?
One never knows what kind of explanation Humpty Dumpty may come up with to explain a biblical discrepancy, so he may quibble that just because David thought he had sinned doesn't mean that he actually had sinned. Before he offers a quibble like this, he should read something that was said in the parallel account of this incident.
1 Chronicles 21:5 And God was displeased with this thing; therefore He struck Israel.
The "striking" of Israel referred to a plague that Yahweh sent to kill 70,000 people after the census had been taken, so does Turkel think that the all-loving, merciful Yahweh killed 70,000 people just for the fun of it when no "sin" had been involved?
Well, your honor, I withdraw that question, because it would have been just like the Yahweh described in the Bible to kill 70,000 just for the fun of it.
But there is still another problem text.
1 Chronicles 22:7 And David said to Solomon: "My son, as for me, it was in my mind to build a house to the name of Yahweh my God; but the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, ‘You have shed much blood and have made great wars; you shall not build a house for My name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in My sight.'"
If the blood that David had shed had not been wrongful acts, then why would Yahweh not have allowed him the honor of building the temple? Well, maybe Yahweh had in mind previous acts of David like the one described below.
1 Samuel 27:8 And David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites. For those nations were the inhabitants of the land from of old, as you go to Shur, even as far as the land of Egypt. 9Whenever David attacked the land, he left neither man nor woman alive, but took away the sheep, the oxen, the donkeys, the camels, and the apparel, and returned and came to Achish. 10Then Achish would say, "Where have you made a raid today?" And David would say, "Against the southern area of Judah, or against the southern area of the Jerahmeelites, or against the southern area of the Kenites." 11David would save neither man nor woman alive, to bring news to Gath, saying, "Lest they should inform on us, saying, ‘Thus David did.'" And thus was his behavior all the time he dwelt in the country of the Philistines.
In this text, we read that David massacred entire villages during his days as a guerrilla marauder and that he afterwards would lie to King Achish, who had given him sanctuary in Philistia. I suppose Turkel will say that massacring entire civilian populations was in accordance with the commandments of Yahweh from which David had never turned aside except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.
Ooops, I'll have to withdraw that too, your honor, because several statements in Deuteronomy and Joshua indicate that it was Yahweh's will to massacre entire civilian populations and "leave nothing alive to breathe" (Deut. 20:16-17; Josh. 10:40; 11:11, 15).
But what about the lies that David told to Achis? There was nothing wrong with that?
Ah, the pitfalls that one encounters when he tries to prove inerrancy in the Bible! But I've already said that, haven't I?
Turkel:
and he was the point
of comparison for all later kings, including Josiah (2 Kings 22:2,
"And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, and
walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to
the right hand or to the left.") Josiah outranked David? Josiah
was measured by the standard of David!
Till:
Yes, and David had also
been the standard by which Hezekiah had been measured.
2 Kings 18:1 Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. 2He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah. 3And he did what was right in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that his father David had done.
Yet it was said of both Hezekiah and Josiah that there had been no king like them before or after them. In other words, how reliable is the "standard of measurement" of a writer who contradicted himself as much as whoever wrote 2 Kings?
Maybe Humpty Dumpty can bring all of these discrepancies together and tell us how they are all in complete harmony. Maybe he has some insight into Hebrew "nuances" that can make everything mesh together in perfect harmony.
Turkel:
Till still hasn't
learned his lesson about reading Semitic language with the proper
nuances. All that stuff is probably buried in his BS Baffle File.
Till:
Well, I knew that
Turkel would eventually get around to claiming that if I just knew
the "proper nuances" of Hebrew, I would be able to see
that there is no problem here. In the Jehu/Hosea exchanges, I
challenged him to submit to a test in Hebrew administered by a
recognized expert in the language, and this forced him to admit that
his knowledge of Hebrew is basically limited to what he gets from
sources he consults. He therefore can't possibly know
anything at all about Hebrew "nuances."
If he denies this, I will challenge him again to submit to a test administered by a recognized expert. I'll gladly travel to his home in Florida and pay the expenses of the expert so that we can determine the degree of Turkel's expertise in Semitic languages. I caught Turkel with his hand in the cookie jar when he argued in his reply to my article "Why Didn't They Know?" that if I knew more about Greek I would understand why the apostles didn't know that Jesus was supposed to rise from the dead. He made errors so glaring in his cutting and pasting from an electronic lexicon that even he had to admit that it was an error, which he blamed on mistakes in his software. Would an expert in Greek not recognize the errors in the software?
At any rate, if Turkel is so expert in Hebrew "nuances," maybe he can elaborate on the "nuances" he has found in biblical texts that would show that...
1. Abiathar was a "renowned priest" and a "stickler for the law, whose name invoke[d] honoring the law."
2. Being entrusted with the ark of the covenant meant that the priest so entrusted was a "stickler for the law, whose name invoke[d] honoring the law."
3. Serving a king for 40 years was evidence that a person was righteous and a "stickler for the law."
Turkel:
I note that, "one
may as well say that any man who served under George Washington in a
high position for the duration of his Presidency was not thereby
implicitly someone who did his job very well." I'll add this as
a comparison. One may as well say that Till, after spending 30+ years
at the same job, was implicitly someone who did not do his job well.
We take nothing away from Till for this: Few people survive even a
decade in any job;
Till:
Turkel doesn't
know much about the teaching profession. I knew teachers who in
my opinion rested on their laurels after they had obtained tenure, at
which time getting rid of them was so legally complicated that few
schools bothered with it. I knew of a business manager who was
found dipping into funds, but the trustees and administration kept it
quiet--to hide their own butts, I assume--and actually paid the guy
to go away quietly. I think of a popular book a couple of
decades ago that was entitled The Peter Principle. The
essence of the theory, named after the author of the book, was that a
person who shows competence in X will be promoted to a position that
requires competence in Y. As likely as not, the person
competent in X won't be competent in Y, but who responsible for
the promotion wants to admit this? Hence, the person who was
promoted to Y and found to be incompetent will likely be promoted to
Z, so that eventually everyone that seeks to climb the social ladder
will rise to his highest level of incompetence. I'm sad
to say that I think I saw this principle at work.
Anyway, we are at this time seeing CEOs and top business administrators being led off in handcuffs because of their dishonestly incompetent management of their business affairs. Would Turkel say that these CEOs, most of whom survived for much longer than a decade, support his premise that longevity of service is proof of honesty and integrity?
Turkel:
to last that long
indicates dedication and professionalism in a position, or maybe an
inability to get a better job, but we won't go there. We wonder if
Till would allow us to reply that we have an "idealistic"
view of his superiors and if he would accept an implication that he
stayed where he was 30 years via "political rewards and
cronyism."
Till
No, I didn't
survive because of "cronyism," and Turkel, who lives in
the suburbs of Orlando, Florida, is in a good position to check this
out for himself. Paul Gianini, a former president of the
college where I taught, moved to Orlando to take the position of
president of Valencia Community College. The last I heard, he
still occupied this position, but he may be retired now. At any
rate, if Turkel should inquire of him, he would get a big laugh in
his face if he suggested to Gianini that I survived in my job because
of cronyism. I was a gadfly to the administrators and was known
to them as a whistleblower, so there wasn't much love between
us. I had the opportunity to move to other positions. In
fact, I was once offered a position at a college in Central Florida,
but I passed it up because (1) the salary was way below what was paid
in Illinois, and (2) my family had settled into community life after
having moved and moved and moved in my missionary days, so we decided
to stay put.
Turkel:
What's all this about
not finding stuff in the text? Can we have some consistency, here? Of
course, if Till wants to tell us he did kiss various anatomies to
keep his job, who are we to argue?
Till:
Those who knew me
including the president of Valencia Community College will tell
Turkel that I was far from being an anatomy kisser.
Isn't it ludicrous that Turkel would hop, skip, and jump over my rebuttal arguments that I had to reinsert above and then waste so much time on drivel like this? Why doesn't he just settle this matter quickly and quote the Old Testament passages that tell us that Abiathar was a "stickler for the law" and a renowned priest, whose name invoked honoring the law?
Could it be that he doesn't quote them, because he knows that there are none? I suspect that is the reason for his silence, so he has to beat around on straw men like my job performance in order to take attention away from his inability to answer my arguments.
Turkel:
And then, back to
defending Ahimelech.
Till:
Yes, please do get back
to it.
Turkel:
Till repeats his same
arguments about him and about Abaithar first, just to make sure the
gullible skeptical readers are sufficently dazed, and then, where I
say, "Ahimelech, it is said, 'was a person of high integrity,
who was willing to reprimand a king who he thought was wrong' (though
the context is that of responding to an accusation by Saul against
him, to which we would expect such a response!)," it is said:
Till [quoted by Turkel]:
We
would expect such a response to an angry accusation from an absolute
monarch? Surely, Turkel is kidding. An unprincipled person would
certainly not have spoken so bluntly to a king who held the power of
life and death in his hands. A person without principles would have
tried a diplomatic route.
Turkel:
Whoa! There's that guy reading
minds again, even if he thinks no one else can. Where is there a
blunt tone of voice in any of this?
Till:
Well, let's just
look at it again. (I assume everyone noticed that Turkel
hopped, skipped, and jumped over my quotation of the passage.)
1 Samuel 22:13 Then Saul
said
to him, "Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of
Jesse, in that you have given him bread and a sword, and have
inquired of God for him, that he should rise against me, to lie in
wait, as it is this day?
14 So Ahimelech
answered the king and said, "And who among all your servants is
as faithful as David, who is the king's son-in-law, who goes at
your bidding, and is honorable in your house? 15Did I then
begin to inquire of God for him? Far be it from me! Let not the king
impute anything to his servant, or to any in the house of my father.
For your servant knew nothing of all this, little or much."
Is this Turkel's idea of diplomacy? An anatomy-kisser would have known to say something like, "My Lord, I didn't know that David had betrayed you. He told me that he was on a secret mission for you, which no one was to know about, and I believed him. I'm truly sorry that I aided someone who had rebelled against you."
Now that would have been diplomacy and anatomy-kissing, but the answer attributed to Ahimelech had him first speaking frankly in defense of David and only later did he say that he had known nothing about what David was really doing.
Anyway, if Turkel wants to talk about reading minds, let's talk about how he, er, Casey read the mind of Jesus when they said that Jesus intentionally referred to Abiathar instead of Ahimelech because he wanted the accusers of his disciples to think about how David's deed had happened in the days of a renowned priest, who had been a stickler for the law. To know that this was the intention of Jesus, Turkel and Casey would have to be able to read his mind because there is certainly nothing in the text to justify this claim.
Turkel:
You think "diplomacy"
would be first choice anyway before a nutcase like Saul who was known
for his rashness?
Till:
The nuttier the case,
the more diplomatic an anatomy-kisser would have been.
Anyway, look how long and hard Turkel, who won't answer clearly delineated arguments, labors to huff and puff at his straw men. If Abiathar was truly a "renowned priest" at this time, whose name invoked honoring the law, why doesn't Turkel just quote the textual evidence?
He doesn't because he knows that there isn't any. He swallowed hook, line, and sinker Casey's "explanation" of the Abiathar problem and passed it along without first checking to see how sound it was.
Turkel:
What is "diplomacy"
and how would it emerge in this context? Why would it be wrong in the
first place? I see no reason to think Ahmy was being blunt or
mouthing off bravely -- he was telling the truth; he pointed out,
very accurately, that David had been one of Saul's faithful servants
(put to Saul in the form of question, which is actually a very
"diplomatic" way to approach a king! -- which is not to say
it is wrong or bad, contrary to Till's implication). None of this is
enough to say one way or the other whether Ahmy was a man of
integrity.
Till:
See how long Turkel
will rave on and on about points that are rather minor. I
simply stated a reason why I saw Ahimelech presented more favorably
at the time of the Nob incident than Abiathar was, and Turkel, who
hopped, skipped, and jumped, over all my arguments based on textual
analyses of verses that had used epi has gone on endlessly
about this rather minor point. He kicks around on straw men to
divert attention from his inability to address the major issues,
which are these...
1. What textual evidence in the OT confirms Casey's claim that Abiathar was known at the time of the Nob incident as a "stickler for the law" and a priest whose name invoked honoring the law?
2. What NT verses that used the word epi would confirm the spin that Turkel is putting onto this word?
I have to ask why he skipped over the examples I used to support my position on this word and then launched into a long tirade about my job performance, Ahimelech's diplomacy, and other very minor issues. Why doesn't he devote even a tenth as much time trying to answer my rebuttal arguments?
I really should snip some of his rantings on very minor issues, but it's too much fun watching him twist in the wind.
Turkel:
Maybe he was brave
here, and if he was that does not mean he was not telling the truth
anyway.
Till:
When have I even
implied that Ahimelech was not telling the truth? Turkel's
point here is what?
Turkel:
We do not know
whether he held a high position or for what length of time he did so.
We do not know what responsibilities he had.
Till:
But we do know more
about him at the time of the Nob incident than we know about
Abiathar, who wasn't even mentioned in the OT until after
the incident at Nob. What basis then does Turkel have for
arguing that Jesus purposefully referred to Abiathar instead of
Ahimelech, because Abiathar was known at this time to be a "stickler
for the law"?
Turkel:
We do not know if his
service was so valued that he would have been excused (as Abby was)
from the death penalty.
Till:
Turkel should keep in
mind that Solomon's sentence pronounced on Abiathar was done to
fulfill the curse that Yahweh had pronounced on the house of Eli, so
did Yahweh have Solomon pronounce this punishment on someone who had
been "a stickler for the law" with a name that invoked
honoring the law?
Your honor, I withdraw the question, because if Yahweh did allow such punishment for a priest who had been "a stickler for the law" with a name that invoked honoring the law, well, that would have been just like him, wouldn't it?
Turkel should keep in mind that all the years of Joab's faithful service to David, which exceeded Abiathar's, didn't keep him from the death penalty. Of course, common sense would tell any halfwit why Solomon would have allowed Abiathar to live in banishment but killed Joab. The latter had been the top general in the Israelite army, so after having survived a coup that almost denied him the throne, Solomon would have wanted to guarantee that Joab would not be around to possibly lead another coup. A mere priest could have been banished and forgotten about, and besides killing a priest would probably have been repugnant even to Solomon‘s cronies. Keep in mind that only Doeg the Edomite, who had squealed on Ahimelech, would carry out the command to kill the priests at Nob.
1 Samuel 22:16 The
king
said, "You shall surely die, Ahimelech, you and all your
father's house."
17 The king said to the
guard who stood around him, "Turn and kill the priests of
Yahweh, because their hand also is with David; they knew that he
fled, and did not disclose it to me." But the servants of the
king would not raise their hand to attack the priests of Yahweh.
18
Then the king said to Doeg, "You, Doeg, turn and attack the
priests." Doeg the Edomite turned and attacked the priests; on
that day he killed eighty-five who wore the linen ephod.
19
Nob, the city of the priests, he put to the sword; men and women,
children and infants, oxen, donkeys, and sheep, he put to the sword.
By the way, according to the logic of Turkel and Casey, this massacre of the priests of Yahweh at Nob must have been a righteous act, because it happened in the days of king David, who was a renowned king who always did right in the sight of Yahweh, except for his one little booboo in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.
Turkel:
Again: This is Till
trying to make the Mona Lisa out of postage stamp-sized piece of
paper and a fingerpaint set. He can spread all the manure he wants,
but the roses aren't growing.
Till:
Hmm, Turkel seems to be
unfamiliar with the rule of literary style that advises the avoidance
of mixed metaphors. Anyway, I see my roses thriving
beautifully, while Turkel's stink weeds wither in the sun.
Now if he would just quote for us textual evidence to support his claim that (1) Abiathar was a renowned priest who was a "stickler for the law," (2) being entrusted with the ark of the covenant was proof that a priest was a "stickler for the law," and (3) extended periods of service to a king was proof that a person was righteous, maybe his stink weeds would perk up a bit.
Turkel:
Finally we get to
where Till tries to diss Abby over his miscue in Solomon's time in
siding with Adonijah. After wasting space recounting the story all
over again (guaranteed to make the skeptical readers nod in agreement
and keep nodding long after the parade has passed), we get to tacks
in which Till refers to 1 Kings 1:5-7 and asks, "Does Turkel
think that this conference that Adonijah had with Abiathar and
David's leading general was just a friendly chat that didn't involve
any political angles at all?" No, I don't.
Till:
Good, maybe some light
is finally getting through to Turkel.
Turkel:
What I said was that
nothing here shows Abby to be an opportunist, or displays his
motives.
Till:
Okay, Abiathar wasn't
an opportunist. Now what does that do to explain away the fact
that a "stickler for the law," who had an "ephod"
that could put him into direct contact with Yahweh, would have
opposed Yahweh's choice to succeed David on the throne?
In other words, I want Turkel to explain to us why a priest who was "a stickler for the law, whose name invoke[d] honoring the law," would have opposed Yahweh's choice for king. Maybe Abiathar's "ephod" was on the blink at that time, and his warranty on it had expired.
Turkel:
Till fumes back that
we should be able to find such things "implicit in the context"
but he's forgotten something in one of those contextual moments. By
this time Abiathar was at least 55-60 years old -- 40 years under
David, and he wasn't just a kid when he met David from the looks of
things. There wasn't any gingko baloba around, and what I see is more
of a case of Adonijah trying to take the old man for a ride by
telling him lies and giving him the same cock and bull story he was
feeding everyone else, telling them just what he wanted them to hear
and more.
Till:
So then Abiathar was
out of contact with Yahweh at this time? Maybe his "ephod"
really was on the blink.
Turkel:
Does Till want to
talk political realities? How about the scenario of the old and
complacent "official emeritus," not quite all there any
more and giving in to the wiles of a conniving young usurper? Till is
fairly sharp for his age, but I don't have to remind him, I think, of
the many elderly victims of scams in this era who end up dumping
their life savings into some scheme to raise the Titanic or some
nonsense like that. This is why we have organizations like the AARP
and the Better Business Bureau.
Till:
Such victimization is
quite common in this area, so I suppose that it happens just about
everywhere. I personally knew one victim of such a scheme, and
she was a person who had been raised all of her life to believe in
the incredible. She went to church, bought hook, line, and
sinker all the tales of virgin birth, walking on water, raising the
dead, etc., etc., etc. without question, so it is no wonder that
people like her are such easy prey. As kids, they were taught
to believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and to
go to church and believe everything that is said there too. Their
whole lives had been devoted to believing the fantastic.
I really don't believe that an elderly person who grew up using
his brain and critically examining fantastic claims would be such
easy prey.
But in all of this, Turkel overlooks that Abiathar was the man with the "ephod," and he has yet to address the fact that he was a member of the "house" on which Yahweh had pronounced the curse. Would Yahweh have treated a righteous priest, who had been such a stickler for the law, in this way, just because of genetics?
Oh, your honor, I withdraw that question too. I keep forgetting that we are talking about Yahweh who zapped people for any trivial excuse he could find.
Turkel:
Abby wasn't so lucky,
and lived in a time when living was harsher and the ravages of age
were around every corner,
Till:
Yes, it's too bad
he hadn't lived a few years before this where he could have
expected to live to 120 or 130, or just a few years before that when
someone 130 was just a kid.
Turkel:
so if he wants
to posit a scenario, mine uses more of the data far more efficiently
than his "Abby the opportunist" scenario.
Till:
A datum of the data
that Turkel has not used, however, is Abiathar's possession of
the "ephod" through which he could "inquire of
Yahweh." I would think that a "renowned priest"
who had been such a "stickler for the law," despite his
age, would have thought immediately to dust off his "ephod"
to see what Yahweh's wishes were in the matter of David's
successor, so why didn't he? Maybe the thing was out of
whack at that time. Maybe ephods could be used just so many
times, and after that they didn't work. Who knows?
Maybe Turkel can tell us. He seems to know everything else
pertaining to biblical matters, so this should be an easy problem for
him.
Turkel:
In fact, it does
better, since it is silly to see Abby "consolidating his own
position with the next king." What power did the king
have to legitimately replace or place priests,
Till:
Well, why don't
we just let Turkel's inspired, inerrant word of God answer his
question?
1 Kings 2:27 So Solomon removed Abiathar from the priesthood of Yahweh, fulfilling the word Yahweh had spoken at Shiloh about the house of Eli.
So king Solomon had not only the power to removed Abiathar from the priesthood, but his act of removing him had fulfilled one of Yahweh's own prophecies.
That last point keeps nagging away at me. I can't understand why Yahweh would have allowed a "renowned priest, whose name had invoke[d] honoring the law" to be punished for something that an ancestor had done.
Oh, well, never mind, I keep forgetting that Yahweh was Yahweh, so there's no telling why he may have done some of the things he did.
1 Kings 2:34 So
Benaiah
son of Jehoiada went up and struck down Joab and killed him, and he
was buried on his own land in the desert.
35
The king [Solomon] put Benaiah son of Jehoiada over the army in
Joab's position and REPLACED Abiathar with Zadok the priest.
So it seems that a king could both place and replace priests, even though Turkel may not understand that they could do this.
Turkel:
and how do we know
Abby needed that security in the first place?
Till:
Uh, would the fact that
Solomon removed Abiathar from the priesthood and banished him in any
way answer this question? Abiathar probably understood that the
continuation of his office as priest would depend on the good graces
of the next king, and so he moved to gain the favor of the one whom
he thought would replace David. In so doing, he misjudged and
suffered the consequences.
Maybe his "ephod" was on the blink at that time.
Turkel:
He wouldn't, unless
he knew David's other possible successor was a threat to him, and we
have no sign that Sol would have been like that.
Till:
No, we don't.
Solomon ordered the killing of his half-brother Adonijah, even after
Solomon had promised that his life would be spared (1 Kings 1:50-53;
2:25), he ordered the execution of Joab, David's leading
general, even while Joab was clinging to the horns of the altar,
ostensibly for something that Joab had done about 40 years earlier (1
Kings 2:28-35), and he banished Abiathar (1 Kings 2:27), so I think
we can all agree that Abiathar had no reason to think that Solomon
"would have been like that." After all, Abiathar
had been in David's service for 40 years, so he surely would
have had the opportunity to judge Solomon's character during
that time.
Turkel:
Till adds that he
"can't help wondering why Abiathar didn't just whip out his
ephod and ‘inquire of Yahweh' to learn what course of
action he should take during the power struggle," but I say you
may as well ask why the elderly (or even the younger set) don't call
a lawyer or the BBB before plopping down the life's savings on that
new mohair farm.
Till:
In other words, Turkel
has no reasonable explanation like this, so he tried to joke it away.
Turkel:
When the risk is low
enough, or covered up enough by whatever means, flattery and promises
can get you anywhere, especially with the vulnerable.
Till:
But the house-cleaning
that Solomon ordered after his position had been established shows
that the risk wasn't low. Does Turkel think that Joab and
Abiathar didn't know this? And if flattery could have
gotten them "everywhere," why didn't they use
flattery to get them off the hook?
It's time for me to note again that Turkel has wasted a ton of words on trivial matters like these, but he skipped over my rebuttal arguments that analyzed biblical texts to show how epi was used. There are really only two issues that need to be discussed at this point.
1. What did the word epi mean in Mark 2:26?
2. Is there any textual evidence that Abiathar at the time of the incident at Nob was a "renowned priest" who was "a stickler for the law, whose name invoke[d] honoring the law"?
Unable to address satisfactorily either one of these two main issues Turkel has wasted our time on pointless hypothetic Till/McKinsey conversations and telephone calls from "Hyper," and entirely speculative reasons why we should assume that Abiathar was what Casey said he was, even though there is absolutely no textual evidence at all to support the claim.
Turkel:
Finally he adds this
blurb:
Till:
After Solomon's sentence was
pronounced on Abiathar, the writer said, "So Solomon banished
Abiathar from being priest to Yahweh, thus fulfilling the word of
Yahweh that he had spoken concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh"
(1 Kings 2:27). So Abiathar died in disgrace, stripped of his
priesthood, a turn in his life that was claimed as a prophetic
fulfillment that had been pronounced on the house of Eli because of
the priestly corruption of Hopni and Phinehas.
Turkel:
Thank you. And the point is?
Till:
What is the point? Well, I'll
try to draw Turkel a picture.
As I explained to him in an earlier exchange on the land-promise issue, an explanation of a biblical discrepancy must be consistent with everything else in the Bible; otherwise, the inerrantist has simply resolved one discrepancy at the expense of other passages in the Bible. The Bible claims that Yahweh is all-knowing. That being the case, the pronouncement of a curse that would terminate with severe punishment to a priest who was renowned for being "a stickler for the law" and one whose name "invoke[d] honoring the law" would be hard to understand if Yahweh knew at the time of the curse that it would be fulfilled in the punishment of one who was so righteous and honorable. The only way that Turkel could reconcile this curse with his claim that Abiathar was a righteous priest who was "stickler for the law," would be to say that Yahweh didn't know when he pronounced the curse on the house of Eli that the curse would end in the severe punishment of an unusually righteous individual, but if Turkel takes that position, he creates a problem with scriptures that taught that Yahweh was all-knowing, merciful, just, etc.
So do you see the point now, Turkel?
The pronouncement of the curse on the house of Eli and the final fulfillment of the prophecy has to cast serious doubts on Casey's claim that Jesus intentionally appealed to Abiathar rather than Ahimelech, because he wanted the accusers of his disciples to think, "Well, yes, if this was done in the time of Abiathar, it had to be right, because Abiathar was such an honorable priest." If this was really what Jesus meant to do, he took a great risk, because there was even a greater chance that Pharisees who were really familiar with the law would think, "Abiathar? Oh, yes, he was the priest who rebelled against Yahweh's choice of a king to succeed David and ended his life in disgrace, so why would Jesus appeal to a guy like that?"
Turkel:
This doesn't make any poor
reflection on Abby at all.
Till:
Well, I suggest that Turkel direct
his one-dimensional thinking to what I said above. He labors
under the impression that just any kind of wild, speculative
"explanation" that falls even remotely into the realm of
possibility will remove the discrepancy, but he seems not to give any
consideration at all to whether his speculative explanations coincide
with everything else taught in the Bible. Either Abiathar was
not the epitome of righteous priesthood that Turkel claims, or else
Yahweh was not the all-knowing deity that Turkel thinks he was.
One or the other has to be true, unless Turkel wants to argue that
Yahweh was a god who just didn't care that the righteous might
suffer from his curses. That would give him a third
alternative.
Turkel:
Next we get to where
I say, "Nor can it be shown except by Till-spin that Ab
originally aligned himself with David purely to save his own life..."
To this Till remands to "a description of the extent of Saul's
massacre of the priests at Nob," quoting 1 Samuel 22:18-23, in
which Abby escapes and gets to David, who takes him in as noted
above. Till blerps:
Till [quoted by Turkel]":
Why did
Abiathar flee after David, who had gone into Philistine territory?
Why didn't he just flee elsewhere? David said, "You will be
safe with me." Does Turkel think that Abiathar wasn't aware of
this?
Turkel:
Well, yowsa again! Where was Abby
supposed to go? Philistia? Florida? The woods?
Till:
Well, actually, as the
tale was told, Abiathar did flee to Philistia, because that was where
David was, but why go to David? Philistia was a fairly big
place. He could have found refuge in it somewhere besides where
David was, or why didn't he flee to Moab, which was about the
same distance away as Philistia was? Is Turkel claiming that
the only possible place where Abiathar could have fled was into the
arms of David?
Again, I have to ask why Turkel is wasting so much verbiage on minor issues like this instead of addressing the two main ones:
1. Is there any textual evidence in the OT to support Casey's claim that Abiathar was a paragon of priestly righteousness, whose named invoked honoring the law?
2. Did the Greek word epi allow the leeway to what Casey claimed, or did it convey the sense of "in the presence of" or "under=during the administration of"?
Turkel is doing everything he can to circumvent these two key issues by shifting the focus to the comparatively trivial matters that have occupied the last half of his "reply" to my rebuttal.
Turkel:
Note again I say that
it is not a case of aligning with David purely to save his own life.
There is not a whit of reason to say that Abby was only out to save
his skin, as opposed to aligning with David for the long term health
of the nation, or because he thought David was a better person to
choose sides with. Of course, odds were that he'd get the bonus of
living longer if he sided with David, but so what? Why should that
make him do something different? That's like saying you should refuse
to do CPR because you might get a reward or publicity for saving a
life.
Till:
Okay, let's just
grant Turkel everything that he wants here. Abiathar didn't
align himself with David for any self-serving reasons. His
motives were entirely pure and innocent. How would that prove
that Jesus purposefully referred to Abiathar rather than Ahimelech,
because Abiathar was a "renowned priest," who was a
"stickler for the law," and whose name invoked "honoring
the law"? If there is any basis for this claim, Turkel
should be able to find it in the OT, so why doesn't he quote
the scriptures that teach this about Abiathar? He can put them
after his ID marker that I am typing below for his convenience.
Turkel:
Turkel:
What Till needs here,
and will never find, is something specifically showing (either
explicitly, or implicitly in a way that is the most in accord with
available data) Abby to be an opportunist, as opposed to either an
ignorant victim (as above) or someone who knows he needs to join the
ranks of the righteous for the good of all.
Till:
No, Till doesn't
need to find anything, because Till is not the one who made an
unsupported assertion. Turkel has asserted that Jesus
intentionally referred to Abiathar rather than Ahimelech, because he
wanted to invoke in the minds of the accusers of Jesus's
disciples the name of a "renowed priest," who had been
known as a "stickler for the law." Since Turkel
made the assertion, the burden is on him to support that assertion,
and so far he has quoted nothing from the OT that gives any proof at
all that Abiathar was a priest of the reputation claimed.
1. Turkel has claimed that the fact that Abiathar was entrusted with the ark proves that he was a priest of high integrity, but I have shot that argument to pieces with the example of the corruption of the priests Hopni and Phinehas.
2. Turkel has claimed that 40 years of service under the righteous David would prove that Abiathar was a priest of high integrity, but I have shot that argument to pieces by showing that David wasn't exactly the paragon of virtue that Turkel claims and by showing that Hopni and Phinehas served under Eli, who had been a righteous priest and judge of Israel for 40 years. I also rebutted this argument by showing that the humiliating end that Abiathar came to implies that he was not quite so righteous as Turkel claims.
Turkel has taken noticeable detours around my main rebuttal arguments, talked in fits, composed imaginary Till/McKinsey conversations, and rambled on and on about trivial matters like those that I identified above, but there is one glaring failure in this last reply of his: he has not presented a single scrap of OT evidence that Abiathar was the paragon of priestly virtue that he claimed in recyling Casey's solution to the Abiathar problem.
But Turkel's fans shouldn't despair yet. He will probably be back with more detours and rantings about my fundamentalism, and he will probably even yet make attempts to convince the gullible that he can talk with authority about the "nuances" in a dead language that he knows practically nothing about. I just ask that everyone look closely to see if he offers any scriptural support for Casey's claim. I can tell you now that he won't, because I know that there is none to offer.
Turkel:
His 40+ years serving
Israel's greatest king suggests a person with the right motives and
the right performance.
Till:
Did Joab's even
longer period of service "suggest a person with the right
motives and the right performance"? Did the long years of
service of Hopni and Phinehas under a righteous priest and judge of
Israel "suggest" that they were persons "with the
right motives and the right performance"?
Would the finishing touch that Abiathar put on Yahweh's curse on the house of Eli suggest that Abiathar may not have had the right motives and the right performance, at least not to the degree that Casey's solution to the Abiathar problem would require?
Turkel's fans should watch to see what shenanigans he will resort to in order to tiptoe around these issues.
Turkel:
Of course one can
always throw out the idea that maybe he was actually a rotten egg who
kissed rear ends endlessly, just as one could readily accuse Till of
keeping his 30+ year job by paying enormous bribes, simply because we
now and then saw him go from the bank straight to the president's
office.
Till:
Such ridiculous
analogies of these were addressed above. They don't need
to be dignified with addition attention to them. The fact that
so much of Turkel's "reply" to my rebuttal has been
devoted to such nonsense as this should tell reasonable readers of
these exchanges that Turkel can't address the main issues, and
so he has to spend most of his time fighting straw men and throwing
red herrings down his path.
Turkel:
Maybe he even used
some of those donations to Skepticism, Inc. to get the job done. It's
very easy to blow smoke and flash mirrors,
Till:
Yeah, right! I
was able to deduct $6,000 to $8,000 per year for 13 years on my
personal income tax as deductions to the operations of Skepticism,
Inc., because I was using part of the donations to pay bribes so that
I could keep my teaching position at the college. You can know
that Turkel is desperate when he has to resort to this kind of stuff
to draw attention from his inability to answer my rebuttal arguments.
Turkel's website is filled with solicitations for contributions so that his organization can become a full-time "ministry." On the other hand, I never once at any time solicited contributions to Skepticism, Inc.
Turkel:
but
in the final analysis it is our argument that fits the data better,
Till:
It is? Then
Turkel should be able finally to quote some OT passages that would
support his claim that Abiathar was a "renowed priest"
who had been known as "a stickler for the law, whose name
invoke[d] honoring the law," so I will ask him to quote those
passages after his ID marker below.
Turkel:
Till:
Turkel should also be
able to quote and analyze NT passages in which epi was used,
which would prove that this word was flexible enough to give it
leeway to mean within the lifetime of whatever person it referred to,
so I will also provide an ID marker where he can quote and analyze
those examples.
Turkel:
Till:
He should also be able
to reply to my examples that showed that epi in Mark
2:26 more likely conveyed the sense of "in the presence of"
or "under=during the administration of." I have
already quoted those examples three times, and he has skipped them
three times. I won't impose on the patience of readers by
quoting them here, but he can find both sets of examples in Part Two
of this series of replies. If his position is as solid as he
claims,he can go there and finally answer them.
I'm going to predict that he will ignore them again.
Turkel:
and Till has done
zippo to countermand it, beyond writing his own column for The
National Enquirer.
Till:
The evidence speaks for
itself, so fair-minded readers will recognize right away that I have
said far more than zippo to countermand Turkel's "solution"
to the Abiathar problem. I'm going to give him a final
chance to redeem himself by asking him to do three things. The
first is to quote OT passages that confirm that Abiathar was a
"renown priest" who was a "stickler for the law,
whose name invoke[d] honoring the law." He can put those
quotations after his ID marker below.
Turkel:
Till:
Second, he can take my
examples of NT quotation where epi was used to convey the
sense of "in the presence of" and the sense of
"under=during the administration of" and explain to us
why epi in Mark 2:26 couldn't possibly have conveyed
either meaning. He can put his analyses of the these examples
after his ID marker below.
Turkel:
Till:
Third, he can quote and analyze NT
examples of where epi was clearly used in a sense that meant
within the lifetime of whatever persons epi referred to.
He can put them after his ID marker below.
Turkel:
Till:
As a final note, I will
urge readers to watch to see if Turkel accepts any of these three
challenges. I predict that he won't. Go to Part Five.
