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Regular Member
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Canton, IL
Posts: 124
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Richbee's Evasions Continue
Quote:
Richbee quoting Bloom:
Ezekiel 29:17-21 is not "making lemonade out of a lemon" or trying to cover for a failed prophecy; it is simply rewarding the first of the many waves of nations that will follow.
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In a post that Richbee has not yet responded to--so what else is new--I showed that Nebuchadnezzar's army represented many nations when it came against Tyre.
Quote:
Till:
Richbee has repeatedly shown that he cannot reply to the rebuttal points of his opponents except by posting URLs that agree with him. Finding a "source" that agrees with one's religious position is easy to do, but replying to rebuttals of "apologetic" arguments isn't so easy. I have repeatedly pointed out that Ezekiel's prophecy was not that the "glory" of Tyre would never be regained but that the city would be destroyed and never rebuilt. Richbee is obviously unable to rebut this counterargument. I am going to post beneath this some of my rebuttal arguments to the popular apologetic claim that Tyre was to be destroyed not by Nebuchadnezzar but by "many nations." We can then sit back and watch Richbee ignore these rebuttals too.
Richbee has joined the ranks of biblical inerrantists who have tried to rationalize the obvious failure of Ezekiel's prophecy against Tyre by claiming that the prophecy said that "many nations" would be involved in the destruction of the city (Ezek. 26:3). In the last post that Richbee sent--at least up until the time that I began writing this post--he concluded with a link to an article on the website of Apologetics Press, a fundamentalist organization, staffed by members of the Church of Christ, which publishes the religious paper called Reason and Revelation. In the past, I have tried to get members of this organization to defend biblical inerrancy in some kind of public forum but all such efforts were unsuccessful. I once asked Dr. Bert Thompson, one of the editors of this paper to allow me to reprint its articles in my journal The Skeptical Review, along with my replies to them, and he refused to let me do this http://www.infidels.org/library/maga.../992mail.html/. Brad Bromling, one of the staff writers wrote an article in support of the Tyre prophecy, which I replied to here http://www.infidels.org/library/maga...2/992tyre.html under provisions of the copyright laws that permit reasonable quotations for educational purposes. One of Bromling's arguments was that "many nations" were to come against Tyre before it would be destroyed, so my article concentrated mainly on rebutting that point.
I have often addressed the "many-nations" apologetic claim, so since Richbee has injected it into the present debate, I have decided to put together a rebuttal of this "argument" from different articles I have written on the subject. The information below depended primarily on another article that I published in the December 1994 issue of The Skeptical Review. This information will effectively reply to Richbee's "many-nations" defense.
The claim that Ezekiel's prophecy against Tyre in Ezekiel 26 was fulfilled with amazing accuracy has been thoroughly refuted, yet uninformed biblicists keep repeating it, as Richbee has recently done here. In an article by Brad Bromling, published in Reason and Revelation, which executive editor Dr. Bert Thompson refused to let me reprint in TSR, Bromling listed six details that Ezekiel prophesied about Tyre and then said, "Each of these items came to pass exactly as Ezekiel said" (December 1994, p. 96). In the preceding issue of TSR, I had published an article by a reader who had described some of the struggles he is experiencing as he makes the transition from Bible believer to skeptic. One of those struggles concerned prophecy fulfillment and in particular Ezekiel's prophecy against Tyre, so even though I have already discussed this prophecy in earlier issues of TSR, I am going to review it to show the absurdity of trying to pawn this off as an example of remarkable prophecy fulfillment.
Although Apologetics Press would not permit me to reprint Bromling's article, copyright laws don't prohibit quoting it, so I will have to rely on this method to show how wrong Bromling was in his claim that Ezekiel's prophecy against Tyre was fulfilled. The reader referred to above expressed doubt that Ezekiel had intended to prophesy that Tyre would be destroyed and left desolate by Nebuchadnezzar, because "God has Ezekiel saying that He would bring many nations against them as the waves of the sea" (Vol. 10, Num. 1, p. 6), and Bromling stated the same position. The second of the "six specific predictions" that Bromling listed in his article was that "(m)any nations would come against Tyre (v:3)." Before addressing the claim that Ezekiel predicted that Tyre would be destroyed by "many nations," we should look at the reference to these nations in its context.
Bromingling quoting Ezekiel 26:
In the eleventh year, on the first day of the month, the word of Yahweh came to me: Mortal, because Tyre said concerning Jerusalem, "Aha, broken is the gateway of the peoples; it has swung open to me; I shall be replenished, now that it is wasted." Therefore, thus says Yahweh God: See, I am against you, O Tyre! I will hurl many nations against you, as the sea hurls its waves. They shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down its towers. I will scrape its soil from it and make it a bare rock. It shall become, in the midst of the sea, a place for spreading nets. I have spoken, says Yahweh God. It shall become plunder for the nations, and its daughter-towns in the country shall be killed by the sword. Then they shall know that I am Yahweh. For thus says Yahweh God: I will bring against Tyre from the north King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, king of kings, together with horses, chariots, cavalry, and a great and powerful army. Your daughter-towns in the country he shall put to the sword. He shall set up a siege wall against you, cast up a ramp against you, and raise a roof of shields against you. He shall direct the shock of his battering rams against your walls and break down your towers with his axes. His horses shall be so many that their dust shall cover you. At the noise of cavalry, wheels, and chariots your very walls shall shake, when he enters your gates like those entering a breached city. With the hoofs of his horses he shall trample all your streets. He shall put your people to the sword, and your strong pillars shall fall to the ground. They will plunder your riches and loot your merchandise; they shall break down your walls and destroy your fine houses. Your stones and timber and soil they shall cast into the water. I will silence the music of your songs; the sound of your lyres shall be heard no more. I will make you a bare rock; you shall be a place for spreading nets. You shall never again be rebuilt, for I Yahweh have spoken, says Yahweh God (Ezek. 26:1-14, NRSV with Yahweh substituted for the LORD).
Till:
Bromling depicted the "exact" fulfillment of this prophecy as a series of events that happened over a period of almost 1900 years.
Bromling:
Within a few years of Ezekiel's oracle, Nebuchadnezzar besieged the mainland city (586 B. C.). When he finally defeated Tyre 13 years later, the city was deserted--most of the inhabitants had already moved to the island. Things remained that way for about 241 years. Then in 332 B. C., Alexander the Great took the island city for Greece. This was accomplished by scraping clean the mainland city of its debris, and using those materials to build a land-bridge to the island. Although Alexander brought much damage to the city, it still stood. Tyre persisted for the next 1,600 years. Finally, in A. D. 1291, the Muslims thoroughly crushed Tyre, and the city has remained in ruins ever since. Aside from a small fishing community, nothing is left.
Till:
There are so many distortions and misrepresentations in this short paragraph that I hardly know where to begin replying to them, but when we read stuff like this, we can see how amateur "apologists" like Richbee manage to get their facts so distorted when they try to defend biblical inerrancy. They are simply parroting what they have read by writers like Bromling, who are assumed to know what they are talking about. At least two important counterpoints must be made in reply to Bromling's comments quoted above: (1) Nebuchadnezzar didn't finally defeat Tyre as Bromling claimed. Tyre was a stronghold on an off-shore island, and Nebuchadnezzar's 13-year siege (587-574 BC) against it failed, as even general encyclopedias will inform those who bother to check. Nebuchadnezzar succeeded only in capturing the mainland suburb, which was known as Ushu, but that certainly didn't require 13 years. The mainland area was taken without difficulty, and then the unsuccessful siege was directed against Tyre proper, which was the island stronghold. Nebuchadnezzar finally withdrew his forces after securing a Tyrian agreement to pay annual tribute to Babylon, but he did not capture the city much less destroy it permanently, as Ezekiel predicted he would. (2) Bromling also erred in saying that Tyre has remained in ruins ever since the Muslim conquest of 1291. The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (Vol. 4, p. 721) has an aerial photograph of modern Tyre, which shows the former island part covered by a town that is much more than just the "small fishing village" that Bromling described above. Also, the town is obviously much more than a "bare rock," where fishing nets are spread, which Ezekiel predicted it would forever be (v:14). What the photograph shows agrees with Harper's Bible Dictionary, which claims that an "important deep sounding in the 1970s" showed that "(t)he city has been almost continuously occupied from the third millennium B. C. until the present, except for a major gap from 2000 to 1600 B. C." (1985, pp. 1101-1102). This photo also agrees with the ones that have been posted here during my exchanges with Richbee http://tyros.leb.net/tyre/.
Biblical inerrantists have resorted to all sorts of verbal gymnastics to try to explain how Ezekiel's prophecy could have been fulfilled if the site of ancient Tyre is still occupied by a city. They say such things as it never regained its former splendor, as Richbee has done repeatedly, but the prophecy didn't predict this: it said that the city would never be rebuilt. Some inerrantists even say that present-day Tyre is not built on the same site, as Richbee has also done, but a look at modern maps of Lebanon will show (as do the photos linked to above) that Sur [the modern name] is located on the very site of the former island. It just isn't so that each of the items in this prophecy "came to pass exactly as Ezekiel said." He predicted that the city would be destroyed and never built again, but a city is there now on the same spot that Ezekiel said would be a bare rock forever.
That brings us to the matter of the "many nations" that Ezekiel said would be involved in the destruction of Tyre. The literary organization of the prophecy (quoted above) seems rather simple. It began with an introductory statement of what Yahweh intended to do to Tyre. He said that he would (1) cause "many nations" to come against it, (2) destroy its walls, (3) break down its towers, (4) scrape the dust from it and make it like a bare rock, and (5) slay its "daughter villages" in the field. After describing in general terms what he was going to do to Tyre, Yahweh then proceeded to state the specifics of how this would be done: "For thus says Yahweh God: I will bring against Tyre from the north King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon...." In other words, the organization of the text is in a familiar pattern of general to specific, and those who recognize this pattern should be able to see that Yahweh was saying that Nebuchadnezzar would be the instrument that he would use to destroy Tyre as promised in the introductory (general) statement. After the introduction, the writer then proceeded to state the specifics of what Nebuchadnezzar would do to Tyre. He would put Tyre's daughter-towns in the country [the mainland villages] to the sword, he would set up a siege wall, he would cast up a ramp, etc., etc., etc. The prophecy listed a dozen specific military actions that he would direct against Tyre, and the only reasonable antecedent of the pronoun he is Nebuchadnezzar.
So if Ezekiel was declaring that Nebuchadnezzar would be the instrument that Yahweh would use to destroy Tyre, why did he say that "many nations" would be sent against it? A reasonable explanation of the prophet's reference to "many-nations" can be found in the ethnic compositions of early empires. Empires like Babylonia formed from the conquest and annexation of surrounding tribes and nations, so when an area was assimilated into an adjoining kingdom, the soldiers of the conquered nations served the greater empire. The Assyrian empire, for example, crumbled when the combined forces of the Medes, Babylonians, and Scythians plundered Assur in 614 B. C. and Nineveh in 612. When Haran fell to these allied forces in 610 and then Carchemish in 605, most of the Assyrian territory was annexed by Babylon. In such cases, defeated armies swore allegiance to their conquerors, so the armies of a king like Nebuchadnezzar were actually armies of "many nations." Literally, then, when the armies of Nebuchadnezzar or Cyrus or Alexander attacked a city or territory, it wasn't just the aggression of a single nation but of many nations. This reality of ancient warfare was reflected in a familiar scenario in the Old Testament in which biblical prophets and writers depicted battles against common enemies as the gathering of "many nations." In 2 Chronicles 20:1-4, this allegedly happened when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah.
Quoting 2 Chronicles:
It happened after this that the people of Moab with the people of Ammon, and others with them besides the Ammonites, came to battle against Jehoshaphat. Then some came and told Jehoshaphat, saying, "A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea, from Syria, and they are in Hazazon Tamar."
Till:
Psalm 2:1-2 depicted the "kings of the earth" as having set themselves
against Yahweh and his anointed. Isaiah 13:4 told of a "tumultuous noise of
the kingdoms of nations" that were gathered together against Yahweh of hosts. Zechariah 12:3 warned that "all nations of the earth" that were gathered together against Jerusalem would be cut in pieces. Ezekiel himself clearly used this same scenario at times. In the allegory of the two sisters (Oholah and Oholibah), he warned Judah that Yahweh would send against it the Babylonians, Chaldeans, Pekod, Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians (23:23).
In his denunciation of Judah under the rule of Jehoiakim, the prophet Jeremiah prophesied that Yahweh would send Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem, and he depicted the army of Nebuchadnezzar as a multinational army.
Jeremiah 25:8 8 Therefore thus says Yahweh of hosts: Because you have not obeyed my words, 9 I am going to send for all the tribes of the north, says Yahweh, even for King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants, and against all these nations around; I will utterly destroy them, and make them an object of horror and of hissing, and an everlasting disgrace. 10 And I will banish from them the sound of mirth and the sound of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. 11 This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
Till:
In verse 9, Nebuchadnezzar was used in apposition to "all the tribes of the north"; hence, Jeremiah was saying that when Nebuchadnezzar moved against Jerusalem, it would actually be a multiplicity of tribes or nations laying siege.
The "many-nations" scenario was a commonplace hyperbolic device that biblical prophets used in their vitriolic denunciations of those who were enemies of Israel and Judah. This device was even used to denounce Judean kings who "did evil in the sight of Yahweh." After Nebuchadnezzar had installed a puppet king in Jerusalem and by a strange twist of thinking had come to be considered by some biblical writers as God's servant, Jehoiakim (the puppet) rebelled, and "Yahweh sent against him bands of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites to destroy Judah" (2 Kings 24:1-3), but the last two chapters of this book make it very clear that it was Nebuchadnezzar's army that destroyed Judah and took the people captive to Babylon, but in a real sense it was actually a conquest of "many nations," because Nebuchadnezzar's armies were comprised of more than just Babylonians.
When inerrantists today look at Ezekiel's prophecy through the glasses of historical records, they can clearly see that it was not fulfilled by Nebuchadnezzar, and so they must look for some way to explain away the failure. Ezekiel's reference to "many nations" is a straw that some inerrantists like Richbee have grabbed to try to salvage the prophecy, and so they have tried to make the prophecy mean that a series of attacks by many different nations spread out over 1900 years would result
in the eventual destruction but that Ezekiel never meant that the total desolation
of Tyre would be caused by Nebuchadnezzar. However, the literary organization of the prophetic passage (which I analyzed above) and the facts just noted about the multinational composition of ancient armies like Nebuchadnezzar's make this "explanation" questionable to say the least. It is more likely that Ezekiel meant that "many nations" under the leadership of Nebuchadnezzar would bring about the total destruction of Tyre.
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Do you suppose Richbee will reply to this someday?
Do you suppose pigs will fly someday?
Farrell Till
The Skeptical Review Online
http://www.theskepticalreview.com
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03-21-2006, 11:28 AM
