Matthew_Green

Hey all,

I am doing a study of the article "Yahweh's Failed Land Promise" in Farrell Till's The Skeptical Review. I am also studying Till's debate with Robert Turkel. However, Till has never completed his debate with Turkel over the Land Promise issue. I am really looking forward to Till's answers and for Till to completely answer everything Turkel has written but I think I am being way too optimistic. What I'd like to do in the meantime is look through Till's article and analyze an argument he made. Till wrote the following:

"In places, the Bible is almost boringly repetitious, but this writing characteristic of the "inspired" spokesmen of God often works to the advantage of those who seek to debunk the myth that God verbally inspired the writing of the Bible. In this case, it makes it easy to establish that a complete, unqualified fulfillment of the land promises was claimed by the "inspired" men who wrote the Old Testament. Consider, for example, the clearly stated claim of the following passages:

And Yahweh said unto Joshua, Be not afraid because of them (the armies of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, and Hivites poised for battle against the Israelites, FT); for tomorrow at this time will I deliver them up ALL slain before Israel: thou shalt hock their horses, and burn their chariots with fire. So Joshua came, and all the people of war with him, against them by the waters of Merom suddenly, and fell upon them. And Yahweh delivered them into the hand of Israel, and they smote them, and chased them unto great Sidon, and unto Misrephothmaim, and unto the valley of Mizpeh eastward; and they smote them, until they left them none remaining. And Joshua did unto them as Yahweh bade him: he hocked their horses, and burnt their chariots with fire. And Joshua turned back at that time, and took Hazor, and smote the king thereof with the sword: for Hazor before time was the head of all those kingdoms. And they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them; THERE WERE NONE LEFT THAT BREATHED: and he burnt Hazor with fire. And all the cities of those kings, and all the kings of them, did Joshua take, and he smote them with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed them; as Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded. But as for the cities that stood on their mounds, Israel burned none of them, save Hazor only; that did Joshua burn. And all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, neither left they any that breathed. As Yahweh commanded Moses his servant, so did Moses command Joshua: and so did Joshua; he left nothing undone of all that Yahweh commanded Moses, (Joshua 11:6-15, Yahweh substituted).

So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that Yahweh spake unto Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. And the land had rest from war, (Joshua 11:23, Yahweh substituted).
"So Yahweh gave unto Israel ALL the land which he sware to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein. And Yahweh gave them rest round about, according to all that he sware unto their fathers: and there stood not a man of all their enemies before them; Yahweh delivered all their enemies into their hand. THERE FAILED NOT AUGHT OF ANY GOOD THING WHICH YAHWEH HAD SPOKEN UNTO THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL. ALL CAME TO PASS,(Joshua 21:43-45, Yahweh substituted).

"These statements are fully as clear as Mark 16:16 and Acts 2:38. Yahweh gave unto Israel ALL the land that he swore to give to their fathers, and the dimensions of that land were clearly laid out in such passages as Exodus 23:20-33 and Joshua 1:1-6. Its borders extended from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, from the wilderness, to Lebanon, and to the great river Euphrates. Furthermore, the fulfillment claims state that the Israelites left none alive to breathe and that not a man of all their enemies stood before them. Who were those enemies? Time and time again, they were named in the land prophecies: the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, and the Perizzites. Yet after audaciously claiming in the passages noted above that every aspect of Yahweh's land promise had been fulfilled, the writer(s) turned around and brazenly admitted that some parts of the land were not conquered and some of the peoples in these lands were not driven out:

"Now Joshua was old and well stricken in years; and Yahweh said unto him, Thou art old and well stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed. This is the land that yet remaineth: all the regions of the Philistines, and all the Geshurites; from the Shihor, which is before Egypt, even unto the border of Ekron northward, which is reckoned to the Canaanites; the five lords of the Philistines; the Gazites, and the Ashdodites, the Ashkelonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites; also the Avvim, on the south; all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah that belongeth to the Sidonians, unto Aphek, to the border of the Amorites; and the land of the Gebalites, and all Lebanon, toward the sunrising, from Baalgad under mount Hermon unto the entrance of Hamath; all the inhabitants of the hill-country from Lebanon unto Misrephothmaim, even all the Sidonians; them will I drive out from before the children of Israel: only allot thou it unto Israel for an inheritance, as I have commanded thee, (Joshua 13:1-6, Yahweh substituted).

"This statement flatly contradicts the claim in Joshua 11:23 that Joshua "took the whole land, according to all that Yahweh spake unto Moses" so that the land had rest from war. All of the territorial regions singled out in this passage as land that remained to be possessed lay within the boundaries that were laid out in Joshua 1:1-6 to specify the scope of the land that Yahweh would give to the Israelites. So if Joshua had indeed taken "the WHOLE land, according to all that Yahweh spake unto Moses," as claimed In Joshua 11:23, how could it be said later that "very much land" remained to be possessed? Perhaps some of our inerrantist readers can answer this question. They are good at coming up with far-fetched, how-it- could-have-been scenarios to "explain" obvious contradictions in the Bible."

However, Turkel has responded to this argument with the following rebuttal:

" Our reply here was that Joshua 10, when it refers to ALL the land, refers only to ALL the land taken in Ch. 10, not the whole grant. Our opponent replied:
Joshua 10:41 says that the strike went from Kadesh-barnea “even to Gaza and all the country of Goshen,� so this would take the extent of the claimed attack to the Mediterranean Sea.
This is false. If the attack was to Gaza it does not include Gaza, on the sea, which was Philistine territory.
The same verse says that the strike extended “unto Gibeon,� which was a town located about 5 miles north of Jerusalem, so if Joshua had routed all the kings of this region and utterly destroyed all that breathed (v:40), he would have driven out and destroyed the Jebusites, who lived in and around Jerusalem, and this would have happened early in Joshua’s invasion of Canaan, yet texts describing events after this time specifically noted that the Israelites were unable to drive out the Jebusites.
This is false. Gibeon is actually approximately five miles northwest of Jerusalem, at 35 degrees, 14'30 east, while Jerusalem itself is at 35 degrees, 19'56 east. The map also shows it separated from Jerusalem by a river, a natural barrier. Our opponent desperately wishes to erase these five miles in a different direction, as well as disregard any issue of delineating georgraphical features, which would clearly exclude Jerusalem from the range between Kadesh-Barnea and Gibeon, but that geographical equivocation will not float in this ocean. To this we would add that our opponent has also naively assumed, even if he were correct, that the delineation in Joshua 10 would be a straight line, when it would more likely be drawn, in this era before maps, along natural barriers like rivers, mountains, and wilderness. This needs to be taken into account before our opponent can even begin an argument.

"We may add a pertinent observation. Our opponent here has argued that Joshua 10 offers an inconsistency with reference to Jerusalem only. In his original article, he clearly indicated that he believed that Joshua 10 offered an inconsistency with reference to all the land in the grant, including the "not yet taken" land in Joshua 13. So what happened? Is it just Jerusualem? If so, why did our opponent in his original article indicate that it was ALL the land in the grant that was at issue with reference to Joshua 10? He cannot backpedal and say that he only would have intended to reference Jerusalem intentionally. He never specifies this and he juxtaposes the Joshua 10 quotes, along with the others and with no differentiation specified, in a section ending with the words, "Yahweh gave unto Israel ALL the land that he swore to give to their fathers, and the dimensions of that land were clearly laid out in such passages as Exodus 23:20-33 and Joshua 1:1-6." Why is our opponent not being honest about his backpedalling?"

I have seen Till argue that the X vs. ~X argument is Joshua 21:43-45 vs. Joshua 13:1-6. What happened to Joshua 11:23? Does Joshua 11:23 refer to all the land as in the entire land promise or just the land that that was mentioned in an earlier chapter? In other words, does Joshua 21:43-45 still contradict Joshua 11:23? If so, how? I am having trouble understanding how Joshua 11:23 pertains to the entire land promise. I am having trouble understanding what may be wrong with Turkel's response that I have quoted from. Ultimately, I'd like to agree with Till that Yahweh's land promise really did fail but unfortunately, Till hasn't completed the debate so I am unable to know for sure without the closing arguments from each side. Does anyone have any insights or comments they might like to share?

Matthew

Steven Carr

http://www.theskepticalreview.com/landprom/5land.html


I think Turkel is taking his fantasies *to* extremes.

Still, at least we know now that when Jesus said he would go to Jerusalem, he did not mean that he would enter Jerusalem.

Matthew 16:21 From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.

Jesus meant, of course, that he would go *unto* Jerusalem, but that would not include Jerusalem.

Acts 8:26 'And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert.'

Philip realised, of course, that he was not to go into Gaza, but just go unto it, and hang about the outside for a bit.

People laughed when Clinton queried what 'is' meant. Turkel wonders what 'to' meant.

You have to admire Turkel's ability to major on the minors, and accuse people of falsehoods for making undectable errors.

http://www.bibleexplained.com/Gospel...jerusalem.html is a map.

As you can see , Gibeon is at about 11 o'clock to Jerusalem, perhaps 10:30.

Not quite due north.

Anybody looking at the map must wonder why Farrell Till can be considered as issuing falsehoods for claiming Gibeon is north of Jerusalem.


What would Holding say if somebody quibbled about one his articles in the way he quibbled about Till's?


Holding would say '...... -- and telling us that Syria is NNE of Jerusalem, which is still east, no matter how many N's are thrown in the batch.....'

That was from http://www.tektonics.org/af/birthnarrdef01.html

Interesting how Holding has different rules about what constitutes a falsehood.

When he says something is East of Jerusalem, any idiot who quibbles it was actually NNE, is rightly dismissed as an idiot.

When Till says something is North of Jerusalem, Holding steps up to the plate , with exactly the same quibble he rightly treats with scorn elsewhere on his web page.





'The city of Gerasa was about 30 miles southeast of the traditional location of this event; that being so, to speak of being in the "region" is hardly any more erroneous than saying, after landing a boat thirty miles south of Milwaukee, that you have landed in the "region" of Milwaukee. '

From http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/markdef.html

So Holding thinks a gap of 30 miles, with a lake in the way is not enough to disqualify something as being in the same 'region'.

Yet Holding can also claim that a distance of 5 miles is so far from being part of the region, that it deserves to be quibbled.

Joshua is supposed to have routed *all* the kings of this region. Did that include kings just a few miles from Gibeon?

Remember JP (No Link) Holding thinks 30 miles away is still the same region?

Holding's arguments are all post hoc rationalisations. He can and does change them when he wants to prove the exact opposite.

Matthew_Green

Steven,

Thanks for responding. There are some comments and questions I had.

First of all, your argument is that "Holding" seems to be quibbling over what *unto* and *is* means. I, myself, wondered what "unto" meant and I wished that Till would've analyzed the Hebrew and/or provided a parallel analysis with other verses showing that the Joshua 11:23 would include the whole land. I wanted to quote a section below:

"This is false. If the attack was to Gaza it does not include Gaza, on the sea, which was Philistine territory.
The same verse says that the strike extended “unto Gibeon,� which was a town located about 5 miles north of Jerusalem, so if Joshua had routed all the kings of this region and utterly destroyed all that breathed (v:40), he would have driven out and destroyed the Jebusites, who lived in and around Jerusalem, and this would have happened early in Joshua’s invasion of Canaan, yet texts describing events after this time specifically noted that the Israelites were unable to drive out the Jebusites.:"

So this seems to be the source of Turkel's quibble? I have been reading round two of Till's rebuttal. I liked how Till was actually making references to his original article as he was rebutting Turkel's response to it. But then he stopped and tried to nail Turkel on specific quibbles about Hebrew words such as "possess". I wish Till would continue the debate though and defend his original article. Last I heard, he was working on a response to Turkel's "Intelligence Shortage". Why though? I would think that such a rationalization is hardly worth a serious reply. I was hoping Till would finish the debate and even include a "Wrapping It All Up" round of responses like he did in the debate over "Preterism".

I did have a question though. The verses you cited were in the New Testament. While I acknowledge that you have a good point, I was wondering about similar wording in the Hebrew Bible. That would be the best place to nail Turkel at. Do you know of similar verses in the Hebrew?

Do you know when Till might finish up his part of the Land Promise debate?

Matthew

Farrell Till

Well, I see that Matt Green is still doing what he was known for in the (http://iierrancy.com) Errancy forum, which was complaining because everybody didn’t immediately rush to address whatever issues he wanted to talk about. On February 3, 2003, I advised him to go to the Theology Web to get the answers to some of the things that he was concerned about in my exchanges with Robert Turkel. If he had taken the time to search that website, he would have seen that Steve Carr and I handed Turkel’s head to him on a platter on the very issue that Green has now brought to this forum.

If he will go to the (http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/ar...hp/t-3602.html) Goofy Gaffe thread that Turkel started on the unto Gaza matter, he will see that I replied to this in detail, as Steve Carr also did. He will also see that Turkel did a typical tapdance routine and evaded everything that we said in showing example after example of where unto was used over and over in biblical contexts that showed the object of its preposition was included as locations that the subjects in the texts had gone to.

Although I was involved in completing a point-by-point reply to Glenn Miller’s attempt to rationalize the morality of the (http://www.theskepticalreview.com/Miller/answer.html) Yahwistic massacres that permeate the Old Testament, I put that project on hold to compile from the Theology Web all of the exchanges between Turkel and me on the issue that Green seems so concerned about. I have posted it on TSR Online under the title(http://theskepticalreview.com/landprom/Goofy.html) “The ‘Goofy-Gaffe’ Exchanges on the Theology Web,� so Green can now go there and read until his heart is content. Among other things, he will find that I not only replied, with Steve Carr’s help, in detail to Turkel’s unto quibble but in those exchanges, I linked readers to a section of (http://www.theskepticalreview.com/la...and.html#kings) Part Five of my first replies to Turkel on TSR Online in which I had presented the very rebuttal points that Turkel was evading in the Theology Web thread. That detailed rebuttal has been there for years, and I noticed that Steve Carr cited it here in a reply to Green. If Carr knew about it, why didn't Green? Part of Green’s problem, then, is that he seems to aspire to being a debunker of biblical inerrancy without having the desire to do his own research. I have seen his kind before. They come to the Errancy forum and post question after question, demand answers, and get miffed if everyone doesn’t drop everything they are doing and immediately give them the information that they want. Everything that Green was asking for was already available to him if he had had the motivation to do a little research.

In addition to the compilation of the Turkel-Till exchanges on the Theology Web, which I posted last night, I am also taking the time to go through Green’s post here to prepare a point-by-point reply to the issues he raised. It will necessarily be repetitive of what I said in the TW exchanges and Part Five of my replies to Turkel, linked to above, but when I have finished, maybe Green will finally stop complaining about my failure to rush to his aid immediately to help him with issues that a person knowledgeable in the Bible should have been able to answer for himself. Steve Carr, for example, has demonstrated that he can easily debunk Turkel’s unto quibble. I have often complained that would-be “apologists� like Robert Turkel and Glenn Miller repeatedly display the superficiality of their biblical knowledge. I regret that there are also skeptics trying to be debunkers of biblical inerrancy who also don’t have the background in the Bible to be what they want to be. They should first spend the time to acquire a foundation of biblical knowledge and then turn to debunking it.

Farrell Till

MiddleMan

Clicking the above link to the "googly" material, I get

Not Found
The requested URL /landprom/googy.html was not found on this server.

{I believe the link now works. I've changed it both here and in the original post.

Amaleq13, BC&H moderator}

MiddleMan

Yes, Amaleq13; it sure does now. Thanks!

Matthew_Green

Sorry to disappoint you Farrell but I am a completely different person now then I was back then. When I joined your Errancy list I was a recent deconvert and I was plagued with doubts and I wasn't at all sure at times that I made the right choice. I was a Deist but I have come a long way since then and, like you, I am an atheist. I no longer have second thoughts, panicky sensations, or anything like that. I am firmly and staunchly committed to atheism and secular humanism as I suppose that you are. Just to give you an idea of how far I have come, I was a pro-life Libertarian when I joined your list and now I am mostly pro-choice and rather liberal in my politics these days. I was a moderate on the issue of abortion but after having studied the issue ( your articles on abortion included) I am now firmly pro-choice and I am becoming more liberal in my views.

As for complaining because everybody didn't immediately rush to address whatever issues I want to talk about- that might have been true back then. I am not complaining now because everyone isn't immediatley rushing to address my issues. These days I only compain if I feel that there is something legitimate to complain about. I believe that there is and it's not because you're not dropping everything in order to rush and immediately answer an issue I have brought up. Rather I am complaining more out of disappointment. I am a bit disappointed that you paused the Land Promise debate and haven't really touched all that much since then. How long has it been since you last wrote an article for the Land Promise debate?

Another thing- I joined the Errancy list because I had quite a number of unresolved questions. Unfortunately around the same time I joined your list, a loathesome little fucktard named Max Tresmond came on your list and started hurling insults and so forth and being horribly obnoxious. I thought I had some good questions but it seemed that more people were interested in responding to Tresmond than answering some questions that I had I was looking forward to many fruitful discussions. I would've been willing to be very patient but trolls like Tresmond tax my patience. What finally made me leave was not Tresmond but I realized that I was wasting my time and there weren't really any valuable answers for me.

What finally helped me to rest my doubts was reading a book by Norman Geisler called Inerrancy and e-mail correspondence with a good friend of mine-Richard Carrier. It was Carrier who helped answer my questions and land me squarely into atheism. I had questions about Christian arguments such as the origin of legends, the spiritual resurrection, oral tradition, etc. I had to wait over a year for the book The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave to come out. I tried my best to be patient and it paid off.

Which had what to do with the Land Promise issue? That wasn't even an interest of mine back then. I went to TWeb so I could sound off about why I deconverted. I was concerned about the "Dear Abiathar" debate and over whether Till was right in regards to guilt existing in bibilcal times. I have come along way since then and I believe Till had greatly erred.

Um, I remind Farrell that the Land Promise wasn't really that much of an issue to me. It has become an issue because I am fascinated with the subjects of failed prophecy and the Documentary Hypothesis. I had no knowledge or really much of an interest in pursuing the Land Debate back in February of 2003. I didn't even know they debated the issue on TWeb. In fact, I came here hoping to discover information that anyone following the issue might have.

Thanks Farrell. I appreciate you taking the time to do this. I have looked at your posting on your website in the debate section and I am flattered that you even addressed the issue to me personally. It will take me a short while to digest what you have written.

I didn't mean to interrupt you. If you are upset, I apologize. I am just wondering when you had originally planned to finish the debate. I was hoping it would be sometime before the next presidential election in 2008

Thanks Farrell. I appreciate it. I appreciate the trouble you have gone through. Seriously.

I have printed out a lot of the Land Debate and have it stored in a binder. I haven't gone up to Part 20, mind you but I have printed somewhere past section 10, if my memory serves.

What detailed rebuttal? Part 5 of the land promise? I have printed it out and have read and re-read. What I was concerned most about were some of the arguments in your original article. I noticed that in Part 4 when you decided to "cut to the chase" you started quoting from your original article, which is good because that helps me and others. But soon you stopped and as I read through the rest of your Parts, I didn't see any references to the original article and I couldn't tell if you had vindicated your arguments in your original article. That's what I was concerned about.

How silly! Part of your problem ,Farrell, is you hardly know jack shit about me. Not only do I have the desire to do research but I am, as I type this, in the process of doing research. I have purchased many books on biblical criticism over the past few years since I deconverted and I have been studying quite a bit. I'm not sure if you know this or not but I am currently trying to finish my B.A. in history and I plan to study New Testament criticism and Hebrew Bible criticism in graduate school. I read books on the Bible written by critical scholars in my spare time such as those by E.P. Sanders, Geza Vermes, Robert M Price, and more recently, Frank Moore Cross.

Besides, I am quite astonished you have the damn gall to accuse me of not having a desire to do my own research. As I recall, I am not the one who got my ass handed to me in an argument over whether guilt existed or not in biblical times. When I asked you about this argument, your sole response was "Well how do they [Richard Rohrbaugh and Bruce Malina] know that?" You didn't bother to rent their books (or buy them), and as far as I know, you haven't done any research into the Context Group with an eye to their methodology, the type of questions they have asked, how they have gone about getting their answers, and what research they have conducted.

I did just that. I bought several Context Group books. Unfortunately, Farrell, you seem to be the one with little or no research. Even a skeptic who is quite your scholarly superior, Richard Carrier, even thinks highly of the Context Group from what I understand. Why don't you tell Carrier that guilt didn't exist and see how he responds to that? I know you won't though. This is the reason I left the Errancy forum. I came to conclude I was wasting my time looking to you for answers. If you did your homework like I have been doing, you would be able to know how Malina and Rohrbaugh have arrived at their conclusions regarding guilt and shame. Why don't you conduct some research and go before the anthropology community and tell the world what's wrong with the Context Group and their research?

Instead of taking the time to check their resources, their methodology, and getting to know the Context Group scholars, and asking them how they arrived at their conclusions and how they came to believe what they wrote in their social science works, you further wallowed in ignorance with your article "No Guilt in Biblical Times?" Same old hat. And you accuse me of not having a desire to do research? As you are fond of saying in regards to Turkel, the pot calls the kettle black.

That may have been quite accurate of me back then, but I have grown since then. But as for getting miffed that everyone is not dropping everything and answering my questions- such as not the case here. I defy, no, challenge you to prove the opposite. I have been trying to be as patient as I can with the Land Promise debate. I was patient when you were trying to take Turkel to task with the peterism debate. And your articles haven't really touched all that much on the debate since then. You have posted an article called "Will Turkel Take Up Pluming?" which is interesting but it still leaves the other debates hanging. You even wasted time by writing an article called "The Paper Shortage" and recently you have rehashed your ignorance and stubborness on the guilt issue. Now you are working on an article in rebuttal to Turkel's attempt to answer your reply on the "Paper Shortage"? Why? Seems like a waste of time!

Honestly, I would imagine very few people give a shit about whether or not there was enough paper in the ancient world. I certaintly don't and I don't imagine many informed skeptics like Richard Carrier or Robert Price lie awake at night and ponder these things. That's not all, either. You have wasted time with a silly article about Turkel being wrong about bathroom usage in bibilcal times.

Well shit, Farrell. I am in the process of doing research and have been for almost a year now. I have been reading and re-reading the Land Debate and even have gone on looking for it elsewhere such as on the website owned by Jason "Gus" Gastrich. I wasn't sure where else to look and conduct my research so I thought it would be only right if I came here and sought for a little nudge in the right direction. All someone had to do was point out to me that some exchanges were carried out on TheologyWeb but intead you have to go through this tripe and make me out to be the bad guy here. I have been trying to allocate sources to do an indepth study of the Land Promise. I even asked Turkel about where he learned about his "Landlord" theory and he graciously supplied the name of a book that he got his argument from. Before you finish the Land Promise debate, why don't you do yourself a favor and do what you chastize me for? Why don't you read Daniel Block's book Gods of the Nations which explains the concept Turkel keeps bringing up in the debate.

Finally stop complaining?! What the hell are you smoking here Farrell? What's the last thing I complained about that you didnt' "rush to my aid immediately to help me with"? I have news for you. I am still studying the Bible and learning about the original langagues behind it. What else have I "complained" about since leaving his forum? I would remind Farrell that I am leaning more about the Bible and trying to become well-versed in it.

What the hell do you think I am doing by starting threads like these? I am trying to acquire a foundation of biblical knowledge and I am still in the process of doing that. I am not one of these skeptics who is trying to debunk biblical inerrancy without trying to acquire a foundation of bibical knowledge. What do you think I want to go to graduate school for?!? One more thing, what's the last thing I published debunking biblical errancy? I haven't published one damn thing because I am trying to do the exact thing you accuse me of having little motivation to do. What do you think posts like these are for? I wanted to know if anyone had any information on it and could point me in the right direction. That's it. That's all you had to do is reference me to TWeb for the exchanges. Simple, isn't it?

Farrell, the reason that I sometimes get disappointed is because I have a mixed opinion about your work. Some of your articles (i.e. "What Men with David", "The Resurrection Maze", "Bobby Grabs More Straws", etc) are usually of high quality and some others are okay. Some are real stinkers in my opinion. I do believe that you occasionally hit the hammer on the head, bring up good points, and often prove what you set out to prove. I still enjoy reading your articles. Sometimes I even get a bit impatient but I do not expect everyone to drop everything and rush to my aid and then complain bitterly about it when it doesn't happen. That only happens in your imagination. I just find it extremely odd that you haven't finished the Land Debate, given your age, health, and considering that you may not have a lot of time left to live.

You know, I sent you a friendly e-mail. I was hoping that we could be on friendly terms again. I was hoping there was no bad blood between us and I was willing to mend any fences but you don't seem to be willing to do that. Intead you make me out to be the bad guy. It's not my intention to irritate you or have to rush to my aid and be at my beck and call whenever I need it. I do get impatient at times but it only proves that I am human. I am not the kind of person who you described. I regret that I may have been that kind of person but I am not anymore.

Next time, Farrell, don't make too many assumptions like this. If you continue, I'll really hand you your ass. Just try me.

Matthew

Amaleq13

Gentlemen,

I would greatly appreciate it if you would choose to resolve your personal difficulties through email or Private Messages and, while posting to this forum, stick to a discussion of the OP.

Thanks in advance,


Amaleq13, BC&H moderator

Farrell Till

I am glad to hear this. I realize that time is needed for someone to abandon long held religious views, but on the Errancy list, you became so irritated at the slowness of people to respond to you that you left in a huff, announcing that you were still a believer, as if to say, "Yah, yah, yah, I pulled one on you guys, didn't I? Now you just recently contacted me with an announcement that you never had been reconverted and asked me questions about the land-promise debate that you could have gotten for yourself by just putting the time in to read all of the exchanges that had been posted. I realize that Turkel's repeated cutting and pasting of the same evasions made the exchanges tedious to read, but if you had really wanted to study the issue well enough to write the "review" that you contacted me about, you would have put the time into poring over those exchanges, because, as I showed in my post above, the answers you wanted had been there all along.

How was I supposed to know that? I had only your past performance to go by in making my judgment.

Matt, did you even read http://www.theskepticalreview.com/landprom/goofy.html "The 'Goofy Gaffe'
Exchanges on the Theology Web"? I explained there that it was precisely because of Turkel's refusal to reply to my rebuttals that I realized that it was pretty much a waste of time to continue putting in hour after hour, day after day, writing articles whose primary rebuttal arguments he was never going to reply to and which he would never link his readers to so that they could see just how much he was ignoring and skipping. I have some more replies to his evasions in my computer, which I work on from time to time, and when they are completed, I intend to post them, but, quite honestly, this has a rather low priority for me right now, because I know that what I have already posted has nailed his hide to the wall. Furthermore, I doubt that you could cite a single issue involving this debate that I haven't already answered in detail.

You haven't been a member of the Errancy list for some time now, so there are some things that you may not know. First of all, I am almost 73 years old now. I have had macular degeneration diagosed, which requires me to limit the amount of time that I am supposed to sit looking at a computer screen. Back in January of this year, I also had an ischemic stroke, which I am still recovering from. Therapy requires me to walk two to three miles every day and to engage in exercises, such as writing with my left hand, to try to rewire the brain to compensate for the damage done. All of this takes more time out of my day, so excuse me if I get rather impatient with those who hold their breaths, stamp their feet, and yell, "Why won't you spend your time writing about issues that I want to read about?"

So you have just admitted to what I said above. You became angry because list members spent time replying to Tresmond instead of to you. I don't know if you were on the list when Joseph Alward was a member, but you remind me of him. He too wanted everyone to drop what they were doing and rush to spend their time writing about his silly how-it-could-have-been explanations to Bible discrepancies, when by that time we all knew that his main interest was to try to get information that he could use on a personal website to give the appearance of being a first-rate debunker of Bible inerrancy. Well, I have a bit of advice for you, Matt. Not everyone can rush to your rescue when you want to write an article that you aren't yet qualified to write. I know what I know about the Bible because I started studying it seriously in 1948 and have continued those studies until now. If you would begin a process of serious biblical research now, you would eventually be able to write on your own without begging for the assistance of others.

In my opinion, you had about the best help you could expect. I have a great deal of admiration for Carrier and his work. However, I don't bother him or anyone else with questions or requests for help, because I realize that there are no doubt many people who impose on his time with such requests. When he is answering your questions, he can't be working on other articles. Why can't you be content just to study his articles to see what you can learn from them.

And the wait didn't kill you, did it?

I believe that my article http://www.theskepticalreview.com/jf...bby/guilt.html "No Guilt in Biblical Times?" shows rather conclusively that the Bible does tell of people who experienced feelings of guilt. Furthermore, dumb little Bobby Turkel is so logically ignorant that he doesn't seem to know that claiming that feelings of guilt did not exist in biblical times is a universal negative that he could never prove.

Do you know how I found the exchanges between Turkel and me that I compiled into the "Goofy-Gaffe" article? I went to Google, typed "site:theologyweb.com unto Gaza" (without the quotation marks), and
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/ar...hp/t-3602.html was the first hit I got. That is how easy it was for me to find the thread, and I seriously doubt that there are very many people in this forum who are as illiterate in computer matters as I am. In other words, I am suggesting that it would have been easy for you to get the answers you wanted if you had spent more researching instead of asking questions of people who are rather busy with their own projects.

In all seriousness, I may not have it finished by then, because as I have already noted, in my opinion Turkel's quibbles have already been answered in detail. In the rest of the "debate," he just kept repasting them or saying, "I have answered that already."

Well, I just don't understand why you didn't first take the time to read all that had been posted before you started complaining. Do you have any idea how many words I put into those 20 parts already posted? There is enough there for any serious-minded person to see that Turkel's hide was nailed to the wall on this issue, and the TW exchanges were just frosting on the cake.

If you have, then you surely saw my verse by verse analysis of Joshua 12 in which I pinpointed the locations of all of the places allegedly captured and destroyed by Joshua to show that this chapter was claiming that all of the land from south to north and east to west in Yahweh's promise had been taken and given to the Israelites as a possession. If you haven't seen this, then you haven't read it carefully enough. I realize that there is a lot here to absorb, but I can't help it if some readers miss seeing important points.

Turkel quoted everything in that article and then spent his time saying such things as, "This is another example of the profound depths of distraction that our opponent must resort to in order to 'set the tone' for gullible readers," or "It is not necessary to quote this in a reply, and our opponent cannot, and never will be able to, explain why such superfluous commentary requires quotation and/or reference from a respondent." In so doing, he never replied to anything but just kept pasting comments like these over and over and over and over. Nevertheless, I took his article paragraph by paragraph and replied to it point by point, so if you had read all of my responses, you should have seen that I answered all of his quibbles. As I said above, I can't help it if readers miss points that are right in front of them.

<snippity, snip, snip, snip> I am sorry, Matt, but I just don't have time to go through your entire post. I have already invested too much time to your complaints. I am still working on a point-by-point reply to your first post in this thread. The time I have spent writing this could have been used to continue the other.

Farrell Till

You needn't worry anymore. I have finished sparring with Green. I have spent enough time on him already.

I tried to reply to his personal message to me, but I received a notice that it couldn't be delivered. All I had done was click the "reply" option and send him my answer. Does that help you to understand why I am still a little suspicious of him?