FatherMithras

This is honestly pathetic guys. Since when does saying "false!" when you're refuted and using "LOL/ROFLMA" become valid refutations? At least he's slowly detaching himself from most of his failing argument. Nice work guys, and it's always fun to see Christians laughably get every detail wrong (island vs mainland OMFGLMAOROFLMAO) because they don't know history (they were all enslaved and their trade never recovered!) or can't read a rebuttal. They have faith in the Bible and apologetics, neither need fact checking!

Farrell Till

All of your replies have been brief. When is this "moment" going to pass?

Oh, gee, I must be wrong, because Richbee disagrees. Has anyone else noticed that he seems to think he has answered a rebuttal when he says, "I disagree"?

Well, actually, Tyre [Sur] is a thriving city. It is the fourth largest city in Lebanon, and one of its main port cities. Anyway, whether modern Tyre or any of its predecessor cities have ever been a thriving city or not is irrelevant to the issue being debated, because the prophecy was not that Tyre would never again become a thriving city but that it would be destroyed and never rebuilt. In particular, the verse under consideration said that it would become a "bare rock." You say that modern Tyre is not located where ancient Tyre was situated, so would you tell us exactly where ancient Tyre was located and give us evidence that this area is now a "bare rock"?

I have already shot this ship out of the water, so there is no need to rehash here the information that proves you are dead wrong. Instead I will ask you a question that you can evade.

With respect to ancient Tyre, where is modern Tyre or Sur now located?

Please find us a map that you can link to that would show us that modern Tyre is not located on the same site as Ancient Tyre. If you don't answer this question, we will assume that you can't.

Oh, gee, well, why didn't you tell me? I don't suppose the previously mentioned former member of my Errancy list http://www.iierrancy.com who lived in modern Tyre would count for anything, even though he said that everyone there knew that the city was located where ancient Tyre once stood.

Farrell Till

Richbee doesn't rebut information by just saying, "I disagree," or, "False." Until he actually rebuts my counterarguments, they will stand unimpeached.

As I have already said, I know of no biblical passages that ever referred to Tyre as a "kingdom." If you know of any, please post them. Tyre did have satellite villages on the mainland, just as other Canaanite cities had satellite villages.

Heshbon and Jazer were both cities captured by the Israelites (according to the Bible), but as the texts just quoted show, they also had satellite villages. I could cite other examples, but these are sufficient to make the point. I don't know anyone who has ever tried to deny that Tyre had satellite villages (daughter-towns) on the mainland, but as I showed in another post, Ezekiel's prophecy was that Nebuchadnezzar would make short work of these "daughter-towns" and then turn his attention to the island stronghold.

Richbee, of course, hasn't even tried to reply to this.

I believe you have now admitted that the island stronghold existed centuries before Nebuchadnezzar's siege. If you renege on that admission, please show us that "history informs us" that the island was built into a city "only after Nebbie" had destroyed the "daughter-towns."

Richbee's ignorance is appalling for someone who seems to think that he is a debater.

I see that Richbee still doesn't know the difference in the verb prophesy and the noun prophecy. Anyway, what he is referring to in his Bible are editorial titles that refer to Tyre's king and kingdom, but I wonder if he knows that these were not in the original text but were added by the publisher of this particular version.

It would help if Richbee would take the time to read my posts. I not only have not denied that Tyre had a king but have also pointed out that kings of city-states were commonplace in biblical times. I hope he will read what I am reinserting below from a former post.

Now try to get with it, Richbee, and reply to counterarguments that clearly rebut your unsupported assertions. The fact that Tyre had a king didn't make it a kingdom any more than Jericho and Hazor and Bethel and any other city-state with kings were "kingdoms."

I certainly recognize that figurative and symbolic language was often used in the Bible, but I am inclined to think that the frequent references in Ezekiel's prophecy to Tyre's being "in the midst of the sea" and the "bring[ing] up of the deep" to cover it with "great waters," as well as numerous other references to the sea and water, were intended to be prophecies that Yahweh would cause Tyre to sink beneath the sea. Needless to say, this never happened, so this is more evidence that the prophecy failed. Regardless, the obvious intention of the prophecy was to predict that Tyre would be permanently destroyed and never rebuilt. This failed to happen.

Again, I must remind Richbee that the prophecy was that Tyre, the city, would be permanently destroyed and never rebuilt. I don't see anything in the prophecy that can be construed to mean that Ezekiel was simply predicting that the commercial status of Tyre would cease to exist. If this was what the prophecy meant, Richbee should show it to us.

Well, I don't know about the chains. When Nebuchadnezzar's 13-year siege failed to take the city, which had a navy that enabled it to supply itself by sea, a treaty was negotiated with Babylon, and Tyre's king and the royal family went to Babylon as a guarantee that the city would keep the terms of the treaty. The city, however, was not destroyed as Ezekiel had prophesied; hence, the prophecy failed.

Nevertheless, the wind has obviously been taken out of your sails; otherwise, you would be able to reply to my rebuttals instead of ignoring them or waving them off with, "I disagree."

Once again, Richbee shows his ignorance. Anyone who goes to Google and types "ports of Lebanon" into the window and then does the advanced search with "Tyre" as the keyword will receive 15 hits to articles that identify Tyre as one of the leading ports of Lebanon. In 1995, Israel blockaded Lebanese ports, including Tyre, to try to keep weapons from being shipped in to guerilla forces. I wonder why they bothered to blockade Tyre if it wasn't a port.

Is there no end to Richbee's ignorance?

Obviously not so, as I have repeatedly shown.

Farrell Till
The Skeptical Review Online
http://www.theskepticalreview.com

Farrell Till

I have said this all along. I don't know anyone who denies that Nebuchadnezzar made short work of Usu or Ushu--the mainland satellite of the island stronghold--but he failed to take the island city, as Richbee's own source just quoted states. The fact that Tyre, the island city, was "weakened by the conflict" and "recognized Babylonia authority," both of which I have already stated myself in previous posts, is irrelevant to the debate. The issue is whether Ezekiel's prophecy that the island city would be permanently destroyed and never rebuilt was fulfilled, and the evidence that others and I have posted here shows that this part of the prophecy failed.

I'm not here to reply to whatever URL articles that Richbee may post. If there is anything in the article linked to that supports Richbee's fulfillment claims, I will reply to it if he will post it here.

I noticed that he has given a link to Apologetics Press, which is a fundamentalist paper supported by members of the Church of Christ, so I wonder if Richbee is a member of this church, which I once preached for myself. If so, that would explain his mindset to defend biblical inerrancy against overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

By the way, Richbee, I tried years ago to get Wayne Jackson and other staff members of Apologetics Press to debate biblical inerrancy with me, and they refused. If you know Jackson, will you contact him and tell him that my challenge still stands? Maybe at your invitation he will come here and try to defend the Tyre prophecy.

And maybe pigs will fly someday too.

Farrell Till

I checked Richbee's link above and found that it was an article written by Trevor Majors, a staff writer for Apologetics Press, which simply rehashed the same old discredited nonsense about a fulfillment of Ezekiel's prophecy against Tyre. I would urge Richbee to contact Trevor Majors and invite him to come here and defend the Tyre prophecy.

Do that, Richbee, and see what response you get. I gave up years ago trying to get the members of this organization to put their courage where their mouths are.

Johnny Skeptic

What is at all unusual about the destruction of Tyre? Historically, kingdoms rising and falling has been the rule, not the exception.

Farrell Till

I am sorry for the delay in replying to this, but I have been busy with my own website and trying to reply to all of Richbee's evasions. I don't recall when I first learned that Nebuchadnezzar easily conquered Usu or Ushu, the mainland part or Tyre, so I can't cite any "primary sources," by which I assume you meant actual ancient records. I do recall once reading records in The Babylonian Chronicle, I believe, that referred to the treatment of the Tyrian royal family, which had returned with Nebuchadnezzar as a guarantee that the treaty with Tyre would be honored. I will keep looking to see if I can locate those records, which are somewhere in my paper files. I stop using paper files when the internet made research easier.

Meanwhile, I have found the following secondary sources, which agree with my understanding of Ushu's fall to Nebuchadnezzar.

As you know, primary sources for something like this are hard to find, but I will keep looking.

Farrell Till
The Skeptical Review Online
http://www.theskepticalreview.com

Richbee

Oh fascinating!?

You now claim that Tyre was on the Island exclusively?

See: Patricia M. Bikai, Phoenician Tyre: The Heritage of Tyre

Bikai stresses that, due to severe space constraints on the island, the majority of the population and most of Tyre's factories and warehouses were located on the mainland.

Richbee

Here is a great resource:

http://www.middleeast.com/tyre.htm

Note, the "glory" of Farrell Till's Tyre!

Hahahahahahaha!

More of Farrell Till's Tyre!

http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/900...t02/index.html

Spanky

Mr. Richbee. Please, please do not come on this site, especially to BC&H and respond like you do. You are a BUZZ KILLER. You add nothing to this beautiful forum. I am sure even the Christians on this site nod their collective heads at you.
Mr. Till probably spent over an hour writing several rebuttals to your claims and you come back and give us this? Spare me.
You need to go over to General Religious Discussions. That is more your forte. I am here not because I am of scholarly persuasion but because I like to learn. Therefore, I ask questions and basicly read a lot.
Take my advice, just read!! You do nothing for these discussions.