Johnny Skeptic

Logically, before the fulfillment of the land promise can be debated, it must first be reasonably established that there "was" a land promise, and that has by no means been reasonably established.

Matthew_Green

To everyone reading this...

I apologize that the exchange between myself and Mr. Till has been a bit on the nasty side. Honestly, I wasn't expecting him to come on here and say anything and I wasn't trying to bother him by starting this thread. Contra Till, I don't expect him or anyone to drop what they are doing and immediately rush to my aid. There is no doubt that some people who like Mr. Till's writings and have a high opinion of him will no doubt take his side and share his opinion of me. Although I feel sorry for those who do, there is little I can do about it. I invite people to get to know me on this thread rather than take Mr. Till's word about me. I guarantee that you will come to discover that I am not what Mr. Till makes me out to be.

I have no further interest in having exchanges with Mr. Till on here. If I choose to reply to him any further I will do so on the feedback page of his website. I couldn't care less if he regards me as a "waste of time" and is a bit "suspicious" of me but what I do not like is what he has said as though he expects readers to take his side. I am not asking anyone to take sides here but I do wish people would hear my side of the story and be open-minded about what I have to say and I don't appreciate what Mr. Till has said in response to me.

I first joined Till's Errancy list a few years back after I deconverted from the Christian faith. At that time, I was going through some emotionally trying times and I had second thoughts and panick attacks over whether or not I had made the right decision to leave the faith. I thought that Mr. Till would be able to help me out with answers. I joined the list and I would agree that I probably sounded like someone who did exactly as Mr.Till described. But can one blame me? How many times do people go through a process of deconversion and go through an emotionally roller-coaster in the process? I left the list with feelings of both humiliation and disgust. I was feeling humiliated and embarrassed because I had second thoughts and wondered if I was wrong about Robert Turkel. I was also disgusted because Mr.Till had posted some private information about Turkel on his website without Turkel's permission.

I left the list, not huffing that no one had answered my questions and feeling miffed about it, but because I was feeling humiliated. I comforted myself by telling myself that I probably wasn't going to find answers there anyways because I thought Mr. Till had embarrassed himself with a major blunder in regards to a debate over whether guilt existed in biblical times. I thought Mr.Till got his hide handed to him on a platter and I comforted myself by telling myself not to feel so bad for quitting his list. I reasoned that Mr.Till probably wasn't well-read enough to answer the questions that I had anyways and so quitting his list was no real loss.

It was Richard Carrier who helped me with my questions and my doubts. He was very kind, patient, and good-humored enough to help me through my ordeal and I have had nearly all my questions answered. The only questions I really have left, save the Land Promise issue, are probably questions that I can best answer in graduate school. I have questions about the Hebrew Bible, ancient Jewish culture, the early Christian Church but I realize that i can best answer these by becoming an expert in the subject myself.

I don't expect Mr. Till to answer all my questions nor do I expect him to write articles that only interest me. His whole website doesn't center around me I don't expect it to. But I ask readers this: am I wrong to want honest questions answered? Am I in the wrong to ask for directions and tips to help me conduct research so I can inform myself? Was I off-base for starting this thread? I have been very interested in the Land Promise issue. It's a debate that Mr. Till and Mr. Turkel have been engaged in. Mr.Till paused and then started to work on other debates such as over preterism. Now, is it irrational for me to assume that TMr.ill would resume his replies and work on completing the debate? Am I wrong to expect him to?

As time went on, Mr.Till would write other articles and it seemed many months with no sign in sight of when Mr.Till would would resume with the Debate. It seemed almost like a year since Mr.Till completed Part 20 or so. I have been trying to be patient for all this time. But patience sometimes wears thin. It happens to the best of us. This is one instance where my patience wore thin because I felt as though I was waiting longer than a reasonable person should have to. So I ask to be excused for wondering when Mr.Till was going to get around to completing the debate. I personally think that Mr. Till should've finished it by now. I'm not suggesting anything remotely smacking of him writing articles that only I think he should write but I am welcome to my opinion and for what it's worth and for whom it matters, it's my opinion that Mr.Till has wasted time writing some of these articles instead of resuming with the Land Debate. Many of his articles that he wrote since pausing the Debate are good and I agree that they are articles that need to have been written. I am pleased that Mr. Till invested the time and space that he did into writing them. Others have been a bit on the silly side and I think many reasonable people might agree with me. So, am I wrong in hoping that Mr. Till would've completed the Land Promise Debate by now and thinking that he should have? Am I being unreasonable and asking too much? Otherwise, he can write what he wants.

I am trying to be as reasonable as I can about this. There are probably ways I could've handled it better and I regret the very thought that I didn't do just that. Anyways, I wanted to share my side of the story because I don't like the impression that I got of Mr. Till casting me in bad light and I resent him comparing me with a known troll on his forum given what I have revealed above. I never trolled his forum but I did have panick attacks and I was tormented by second and third thoughts. I doubt the fellow whom Mr. Till referred to was in the same shoes as me. Mr. Till, I regret, is comparing apples and oranges. I put that to rest long before I signed up here and I am a wholly different person nowadays.

I will respect the wishes of Amaleq and avoid any further exchanges with Till about this on here. My apologies to all who were bothered by this.

Matthew

Toto

Chili - Johnny Skeptic dialogue split out

Lonergan

Matthew, I have done a little study regarding ANE society and have read
limited articles about Malina and Rohrbaugh. I have gained some insight into
the scriptures as a result of the works of the Context Group, but I always
keep in mind that all of this is social studies, not science.

While broad categories such as guilt-shame, agonistic, limited good, and
collective seem accurate, I believe you are going beyond what even Malina
would say when you say there was no individual guilt. It is prima facie absurd
to think that the feelings of guilt that moderns experience was non-existent
in ANE society. I agree that prima facie absurdities can turn out to be wrong,
but we simply don't have enough data to make an all inclusive statement of
no individual guilt.

I applaud your decision to thorougly study the matter, but keep in mind
that trendy thinking in the social sciences can lose its appeal very quickly.
Ten years from now the Context Group may have thoroughly refurbished its
thinking and you may look back at your naivete.

With respect to paper shortages and bathroom talk, I believe that Till
was only responding to what Turkal had written. These topics needed a response since Turkal had used paper shortage to explain discrepancies and
Turkal had tried to embarass Till but claiming that there was no bathroom
talk in the bible.

Steven Carr

Somebody asked Malina what he thought of Turkel's use of his work , after Turkel used Malina's work to hand Till's hide back to him.

Malina replied :'People have been citing the bible for centuries in the name of some "My Will Be Done" project (or religion). That some are doing this with my writings is no surprise.'

It would appear Malina did not think much of how JP (No Link) Holding used his work.

Johnny Skeptic

My question is, who says that there "was" a land promise?

Matthew_Green

I would agree with you. It's not a science in the way we are accustomed to thinking of how science is conducted.

Perhaps I shouldn't have worded it as I did. What I was referring to is that contra Mr.Till, Malina argued that it was a serious mistake to read feelings of guilt back into the text. I agree with this much. I am not denying the possibility that feelings of individual guilt existed back then but I do think that it's horribly improbable and Mr.Till really didn't bother to really research the matter before opening his mouth on the subject.

It's kind of funny that Mr.Till seems to me to cite scholarship if it goes against something Turkel says and if Turkel cites scholarship that doesn't actually agree with what he says when examined more closely, Mr. Till won't hesitate to use it against him. However, when it turns out that Turkel is for the most part right and the scholars in question side with Turkel, Till's attitude seems to be "Yeah, well what do they know?"

That may well be the case. I happen to think as of now that the Context Group's arguments are sound but I may well wind up eating my own words. It may turn out that they were dead wrong. What bothers me the most is that Mr. Till didn't bother really to even read the Context Group books to see what questions they asked, what methods they employed, and what kind of research they conducted, and how they arrived at what they did- it seemed that Mr. Till was dismissive of it just because it was Turkel who was using their work to bolster his case and when they didn't agree with Till, he more or less thumbed his nose at them.

Till may have just been doing only what you say but there comes a point where something is almost too absurd to deserve comment. I thought the paper shortage was almost too silly and pedantic to comment on and that there were bigger fish to fry. I am not necessarily disagreeing with Till and siding with Turkel but given that Till might not have that much longer to live, I would think that Till may want to get a lot of the bigger fish fried first and then turn to smaller items. Just my own personal opinion and I respect the fact that you may disagree with me here but I think that the Land Promise is much more important than whether there was enough paper. Till will probably write a response to Turkel's reply over the "Easter Challenge" and that, in my opinion, seems a lot more important than whether there was enough paper.

Look, I may be completely off-base here. I am willing to admit it if I am. I may have been way out of my league in my heated exchange with Till and I would have no problem with making an apology to Till for everything I have said to him in this thread. As painful as it may be to acknowledge something like this, I may have been entirely in the wrong here to criticize Till and I may have to apologize very profusely for what I have written. If that is the case, so be it. I will do exactly that and it will just be another lesson in pride-swallowing and learning from my mistakes.

Matthew

Farrell Till

Matt, I don't expect or want an apology from you. I just hope that you have finally come to see through Robert Turkel's superficial "apologetic" methods. I have now posted http://www.theskepticalreview.com/landprom/goofy.html and http://www.theskepticalreview.com/landprom/doubts.html on the TSR website. If you read them, I think you will find all of your concerns addressed in detail. You will notice that I also said in the second of these articles that if you think that Turkel has made an argument on the land-promise issue that I have not satisfactorily answered, I will reply to it if you will let me know that it is.

Steven Carr

Is it just me or is this site permanently down?

I can't even call up Google's cache of the contents.

Has anybody here been able to read this article and could email me a text version?

Julian

It shows up just fine for me. I would email but it is an extremely long page in formatted HTML. Just keep clicking, I guess.

Julian