Unlike (Holding), I will also post everything that he wrote in his response, at which time we will notice that the quality of his response was marred by what he selectively ignored in responding to my postings.
Answering this more specific, second charge will take quite a bit more space. We will be providing here the text of Till's original replies (sent to me through e-mail, as cc's from posts to his list) and highlighting that which we selected to quote, in order to answer the charge that we have omitted something important when replying to Till. Items we quoted in our replies will be placed in bold letters. We will leave out ONLY places where a) Till quotes verses from the Bible, and replace these with citations only; b) I shall (as above) substitute my pseudonym in places where Till has used my real name; c) we shall cut out places where Till extensively quotes either myself or Glenn Miller.
We will now look at Till's response for the purpose of answering the charge above. The response as presented is out of the order it was presented to me, as I have altered the order to suit my own outline of the Hosea/2 Kings issue, but we have eliminated nothing and made no changes outside the parameters delineated above. As we shall see, I left out nothing at all that had any effect on Till's arguments or on the quality/nature of my reply.
(There is also a secondary purpose to this. It has been reported that one of Till's lapdogs has said that I do not wish for my readers to see Till's "devastating arguments" against my work. Well, here are those "devastating" arguments, in their entirety. I daresay it will be shown that my actual motive was to spare my readers from suffering through consistent repetitive droning and polemic completely irrelevant to the issue at hand.)
To start, here is what Till had to say regarding Hosea 1:4 -
In the matter of Hosea's prophecy against the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel (1:4), Holding has claimed that the solution to the discrepancy between this passage and the
praise of Jehu's actions in 2 Kings 10:30 is simply the recognition that Jehu went beyond what
Yahweh commissioned him to do and killed some who were not Ahab's male descendants, so the punishment of the house of Jehu a century later was for Jehu's excesses and not for anything he did that was within the limits of what Yahweh had told him to do. That quibble has been ground to powder and blown away in earlier postings, so nothing more needs to be said about it. Holding has informed me by personal message that he may be able to find time in February to respond to my counterarguments, so we will have to wait and see if he has anything else to say in the face of the scriptures that clearly said that Yahweh wanted the house of Ahab to suffer the same fate as the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha.
Till is here recapping his case from previous postings. (This came from his last message to me on the subject.) This is naught but explanatory setup and polemic and not one bit of it needed to be quoted.
Meanwhile, we can look at what Holding proposed as a possible second solution to the problem.
The proposal of a second solution would in itself be an admission of insecurity about the first
solution, but those who may be new to the inerrancy controversy should be informed that this is a
familiar inerrantist tactic. If a first explanation of a discrepancy fails, inerrantists will simply return
to the drawing board and try to find another solution. Holding apparently decided to send us two at once so that he would already have a spare waiting in the wing if the first one failed (as it has in this case). So let's look at Holding's back-up solution. This is how he stated it in his response to my rebuttal of chapter one in ETDAV:
This is naught but more polemic and cheap psychologization. Only someone with the egotistical temerity to believe that they are never wrong would come up with such nonsense. Secondary, even tertiary, solutions are part of any rational enquiry in any subject matter.
Till then quotes from my essay, and writes thereafter:
What he means here isn't exactly clear, because his language is ambiguous. (So maybe he has
been reading the Bible more than I suspected.) What does he mean in saying that "(t)he
punishment is of a kind, not related in purpose"? What does he mean when he assures us that
"(m)any commentators of all stripes have suggested" that Hosea's prophecy "is better read to
express the idea that the bloodshed of Jezreel will be visited on the house of Jehu--which is to
say, the verse should read, not punished for the blood of Jezreel, but punished by [the blood of
Jezreel]? Who knows? And is "the blood of Jezreel," which I have enclosed in brackets, in
Holding's statement by implication, or did he mean something else? Again, who knows? Holding just hasn't made himself very clear here. He said that "the reference [in Hosea 1:4] is to the mode of punishment, rather than the cause of it." What does this mean? A "mode" is a method or manner, so how could the blood of Jezreel be a "mode of punishment"? At the time that Hosea wrote this, the blood of Jezreel had been dried up for a century, so I am at a complete loss to understand how that this blood could be a "mode of punishment." I suspect that this is a case of a biblicist having to say something rather than having something to say.
I took a very few select phrases from this rambling paragraph, simply pointing out that Till begged explanation for my earlier exposition - which I did indeed provide. But there was obviously no need to quote it to any extent.
At any rate, Holding seemed to be saying that there is a problem in translation in Hosea 1:4. That
he would say this is not at all surprising. Whenever biblicists are cornered on an issue, they love to start talking about the "Semitic mind" and nuances in the original language. However, since the most we can get from Holding's statement is a vague claim that the meaning of Hosea 1:4 in the original Hebrew has been misunderstood, let's just look at various translations of this verse:
Here I used Till's neo-chauvinistic remark re "Semitic mind" - and that was all that was necessary. The rest is simply a repeat of what has already been said. Following this paragraph, Till quotes over 20 versions of Hosea 1:4, as we noted. Then he writes:
Here are 21 different translations of Hosea 1:4, and they all clearly say the same thing: Yahweh
was going to punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel. I have even checked Segond's
French translation and found that it says (if my personal rendition of the French can be trusted),
"And the Eternal said to him, 'Call him by the name of Jezreel, for yet a little time, and I will
intervene against the house of Jehu because of the blood shed at Jezreel; I will put an end to the
kingdom of the house of Israel.'" So if there is some little nuance in the statement (as Holding claims) that makes it mean that the house of Jehu would "not [be] punished for the blood of Jezreel, but punished by [it]" [whatever that means] and that "the reference is to the mode of punishment, rather than the cause of it" [whatever that means], then why did all of this escape the hundreds of linguistic scholars who were involved in making the translations I have quoted? Are we to assume that the "(m)any commentators of all stripes," whom Holding referred to know more about the meaning of this verse than the various translation committees that put together the versions quoted above? I suspect that these "(m)any commentators of all stripes" are actually
believers in biblical inspiration who, being aware of the conflict between 2 Kings 10:30 and
Hosea 1:4, are looking for a way to plug a big hole in the traditional claim that the Bible is a work
of perfect harmony.
All of this has already been answered. Nothing at all here was left out that dulls Till's points.
In these translations, there is obviously an agreement that Hosea claimed that Yahweh would
punish the house of Jehu for something that their ancestor had done a century earlier. Since I have shown in earlier postings that Jehu's rampage at Jezreel was totally consistent with Yahweh's desire to do to the house of Ahab the same that had been done to the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha, there is nothing else to conclude but that the writer of 2 Kings and the prophet Hosea were not in agreement on Yahwistic acceptance of Jehu's actions. That being true, it cannot be true that the Bible is harmonious in all of its themes, as Josh McDowell and other inerrantists claim.
This is naught but wrap-up and closing polemic; again, not one word worthy of being quoted, and the same may be said of the following, which is just a blended rehash expressing Till's lack of understanding of my original argument:
Holding said that his "(m)any commentators of all stripes" have suggested, "based on structure and parallelism, that Hosea 1:4 is better read to express the idea that the bloodshed of Jezreel will be visited on the house of Jehu." I'm not sure what kind of quibble he is trying to base on the
possibility that "visiting" on the house of Jehu the blood of Israel may have been meant in Hosea's statement, but since a couple of the translations above did use the word "visit," I will address this matter in a separate posting. Then we can wait until February to see what Holding may be able to come up with as perhaps still another solution to this problem.
I will add here, however, that despite Till's promise, we have yet to receive anything from him in terms of a "separate posting" regarding the two translations that use "visit". Perhaps Till was hoping his admirers would gush forth their praise and forget about his promise, but we will fly it on the flagpole and ask where this promised rebuttal - presumably by now informed by the linguistic particulars we have mentioned - has gotten lost to.
Now we begin with matters associated with the 2 Kings citation. Here is what Till said in regards to the death of Ahaziah:
Did Jehu "go beyond" Yahweh's will in killing Ahaziah, the king of Judah, who was visiting his uncle at the time of Jehu's massacre of the royal family in Jezreel? Well, that is the claim of both Holding and Miller. In his "response" to my chapter, Holding quoted Miller's web page on this matter:
Obviously this is merely an introduction. Till goes on to quote Miller re Ahaziah, and writes:
The claim is that Ahaziah was not a male descendant of Ahab, and so in killing him, Jehu
exceeded what Yahweh had authorized him to do. Biblicists often make the mistake of taking a
position on a biblical text without checking to see if it has a parallel account (the same story told
by a different writer). In the case of Ahaziah's death, we do have parallel accounts. The more
familiar one is in 2 Kings 9:27-28, but 2 Chronicles 22:6-9 also tells the story. There are some
interesting variations in the two accounts, but that is another issue for another time. What I want to notice now is a statement that pours cold water all over this notion that Jehu displeased Yahweh by killing Ahaziah. The account of Ahaziah's reign in 2 Chronicles 22 informs us that after he succeeded his father as king, Ahaziah "walked in the ways of the house of Ahab: for his mother was his counsellor to do wickedly. And he did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, as did the house of Ahab, for they were his counsellors after the death of his father, to his destruction" (vs:3-4).
This paragraph is purely polemical and informational; it contains no data that we disagree with, and no arguments as such - and thus, not a thing that needed to be quoted.
So what do we have here? We have a biblical text telling us that Ahaziah "walked in the ways of
the house of Ahab" and "did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, as did the house of
Ahab." Twice in this short passage, the biblical writer (who, of course, was inspired of Yahweh
and therefore inerrant) compared the evil that Ahaziah did to "the ways of the house of Ahab." So if Yahweh was so miffed at the house of Ahab that he would have commissioned Jehu to go and kill every male, both BOND AND FREE, in the house of Ahab, he surely wouldn't have minded if Jehu threw in Ahaziah for good measure and killed him too.
Here I quoted the key point in Till's argument. The rest of the paragraph is informational and completely unnecessary for rebuttal purposes.
Just to remove any doubt about this, let's notice the verses in 2 Chronicles 22 that told about the
death of Ahaziah:
Till then quotes the passages from 2 Chronicles, and writes:
Now if that doesn't satisfy Miller and Holding, then they must not be willing to accept what their
inspired word of God says. This passage says that the downfall of Ahaziah "was ordained by
God." If Ahaziah's downfall was ordained by God, then it wasn't very nice of God to cut off the house of Jehu a century later for Jehu's massacre of Ahaziah. Holding has said that I don't read the Bible carefully enough, but I suspect that he and Miller were unaware of what the 2 Chronicles account of Ahaziah's death said when they took the position that in killing Ahaziah, Jehu went beyond what Yahweh had commanded him to do and that this was the reason for Hosea's pronouncement of doom on the house of Jehu.
What have we here? Relevant data? No, just restatement and more, more delicious polemic with mustard sauce. Surely Till does not expect anyone outside of his circle of irrational lapdogs to believe that not quoting this in its entirety had any negative effect whatsoever on the presentation of his case.
We now move to another section regarding 2 Kings:
There is no such thing as an "unanswerable" biblical contradiction. No matter how obvious an inconsistency or contradiction may be to those who can look at the Bible with no inerrancy axe to grind, those who have been indoctrinated to believe that the Bible is the "inspired, inerrant word of God" will devise some way to "explain" the contradiction. This is usually done by imaginative, far-fetched interpretations of the texts, which turn up insights that were overlooked by those who allege inconsistency or contradictions. Inerrantists who discover these imaginative insights will usually announce them with denunciations of skeptics for not looking carefully enough at the biblical text to see that there are no real contradictions.
The above is merely an introduction, a serving of Till's polemic designed to set up his case following. There was absolutely no reason for me to quote it, or any part it.
A case in point is the "blood of Jezreel," a term used in the Bible to describe Jehu's massacre of the royal family of Israel. In my response to the first chapter of Josh McDowell's ETDAV, I cited the writer of 2 Kings (who recorded Jehu's massacre) and the prophet Hosea as examples of biblical writers who were not unified in their opinions. McDowell had claimed that
the Bible is unique in its harmony and unity in that 40 different writers wrote 66 different books in different languages over a period of 1400 years, yet all that they wrote was perfectly unified in its themes and content. I showed that the writer of 2 Kings obviously approved of Jehu's massacre at Jezreel, because he had Yahweh declaring that because Jehu had "done that which is
right in my eyes and has done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart," Jehu's sons through four generations would sit on the throne of Israel (2 Kings 10:30), yet the prophet Hosea a century later denounced the "blood of Jezreel" and declared that Yahweh would "avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu" and would "cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease" (Hosea 1:4). The prophet Hosea, then, obviously didn't view Jehu's massacre the same way the writer of 2 Kings did.
Again, this is pure setup: There is not a thing here that needed to be quoted.
I understand that this example of biblical inconsistency has been "explained" on different Christian web pages and that at least in one case, I was singled out as an example of a skeptic who finds contradictions in matters like this without first studying the total context to see that there really is no inconsistency. One would-be apologist remarked that he was "rather surprised that this rather easy problem shows up at the Internet Infidels site," because he "expected better work than that." He went on to say that he would "have to examine their problems more closely." I can only hope that he will do exactly that, because if he really examines the problem of biblical inconsistencies closely and does so objectively, he will reach no other conclusion than that biblical inerrancy is a myth.
Again, more polemic/setup. However, there is one miscue on Till's part: He was not "singled out" at all regarding the matter. Glenn Miller's original response did not name Till at all. Miller responded to a request from a reader who had seen the matter alluded to on the Secular Web.
So if there is an "easy solution" to this problem, what is it? Glen Miller, an "apologist" whose web page several inerrantists have recommended that I investigate, apparently claims that this "problem" is misunderstood only because skeptics have failed to notice that Jehu went beyond what Yahweh had commanded him to do. His position seems to be that Yahweh's command to Jehu was to kill only the male descendants of Ahab, and he cited 2 Kings 9:8 as his proof text: "I will cut off from Ahab every man-child." At Jezreel, however, Jehu went far beyond killing just the male descendants of Ahab, but included in his massacre the following list of victims, which Miller cited in a discussion of this problem on his web site. The spelling is retained as it was in Miller's original.
Still more setup here, and for one who complains about spelling, Till ought to at least spell the big guy's name correctly. Till follows by quoting Miller's list; we'll skip past that and go to the next serving of paragraph, which is where we quote Till for the first time:
To Miller's list, I will add Jehu's massacre of the Baal worshipers, which is recorded in 2 Kings 10:25-28, just before the writer of this book patted Jehu on the back for doing all that was in Yahweh's heart regarding the house of Ahab. I include it, because another would-be apologist complained that "Till reports not a peep about.. how Jehu trapped and killed a number of priests of Baal." The fact is that these verses report that Jehu killed not only a number of priests of Baal but also all of the Baal worshipers in Samaria. Verse 28 states, "Thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel." Anyway, I have been accused of not saying a "peep" about this massacre, so I have now peeped about it and specified that according to the biblical record it was one of the atrocities that Jehu committed in seizing control of the northern kingdom. I will now examine these 9 points to show that they do nothing to alter the obvious inconsistency in the two views of Jehu's
massacre at Jezreel.
Here I had omitted a substantial portion of what Till had said for the simple reason that it is totally irrelevant: Till can add the massacre to Miller's list all he wants, but in no way was it argued by me that it ought to be. As I noted, the point of the argument was not that the massacre should be added to the list of things Jehu did, in order that we may see that he disobeyed God in doing them; the point was that it was an obvious reason for the 2 Kings writer to offer the praise to Jehu that Till believes applies to his actions regarding the house of Ahab.
As we shall see, Till spends the next several paragraphs addressing this phantom point, and there is nothing at all here that needed quoting or has any relevance whatsoever to my case. Indeed, he wastes a great deal of time here:
We can get # 3 out of the way very quickly, because Miller apparently recognized that he would be quibbling if he tried to make an issue over Jehu's massacre of Ahab's wife Jezebel. Elijah's original pronouncement of judgment against the house of Ahab (a pronouncement that he made after "the word of Yahweh allegedly came to him, 1 Kings 21:17) included a sentence of
death against Jezebel (vs:23-24), so Miller has grudgingly conceded that killing her was probably a part of Jehu's responsibility. His argument, as other inerrantists have also argued, is that in killing others besides Jezebel and Ahab's male descendants, Jehu went beyond what Yahweh had commanded him to do, and this was the "blood of Jezreel" that the prophet Hosea was referring to when he said that Yahweh would soon avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu and "cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease." We will see later that this is only a quibble that cannot withstand textual scrutiny.
Aside from more setup, the above is merely an indulgence and a childish psychologization of Miller's argument: Where does Miller "grudgingly concede" anything? What specific words or phrases in Miller's third point indicate a begrudging of some sort, or even a concession? In what way would Miller have had to phrase his exposition in order for Till to have interpreted it not as a grudging concession, but merely as commentary? Till wastes a great deal of time pasting psychologizations onto his opponents, time I daresay would be better spent consulting relevant sources like Hebrew concordances.
The massacre of the Baal priests and worshipers can be speedily dispatched too, because the OT clearly teaches that it was Yahweh's will to kill those who worship other gods. Elijah's famous contest with the prophets of Baal is recorded in 1 Kings 19, and after Yahweh's power exhibited through Elijah proved to be stronger than Baal's, the people fell on their faces and cried, "Yahweh, he is God! Yahweh, he is God!" Elijah then ordered that the prophets of Baal be taken to the Brook Kishon and killed. He specified that not one of them should escape (1 Kings 18:40). So what Jehu did in killing all of the priests and worshipers of Baal in Samaria was nothing more than what Yahweh's most famous prophet had done earlier, and Yahweh considered Elijah so righteous that he took him directly into heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings
2:11). Furthermore, we have the case of Josiah in 2 Kings 22-23, who led the most radical religious reformation in the history of all the kings of Judah and Israel. One of his righteous acts was to destroy all of the "high places" where the people worshiped false gods and "to kill all the priests of the high places" (23:20). The writer of 2 Kings then said that there was no king like unto Josiah, either before him or after him, who turned to Yahweh with all of his heart and soul and might (v:25). That would have to include even David, whom 1 Kings 15:5 described as a man who had never turned from anything that Yahweh commanded him except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. With that kind of biblical approbation heaped upon others who had massacred the worshipers and priests of false gods, not much room is left to argue that in killing the Baal worshipers Jehu had brought the wrath of Yahweh down upon his house by going beyond what he had been divinely commissioned to do, which was to kill only the male descendants of Ahab.
Even without these examples to refer to, we would still have Deuteronomy 13:6-11 and 17:2-7, both of which command that those who worship other gods be taken and executed. Some would-be apologist may think that I was trying to hide something by not saying a "peep" about this part of Jehu's massacre, but all of the evidence I have just cited clearly shows that there is no rationale at all for arguing that Yahweh was displeased with Jehu for slaughtering the worshipers of Baal. Hence, we can dismiss this point as nothing more than a failed attempt to find some way to reconcile 2 Kings 10:30 and Hosea 1:4.
The above is the longest waste of space yet: Here Till simply addresses his manufactured ninth point, answering his own manufactured argument. I daresay arguing with himself is the best way for Till to win an argument, and I daresay also his admirers are quite pleased by the catena of quotes and cites that portend great Biblical knowledge, but it is all a pointless sham.
We should keep in mind that Hosea said that Yahweh would soon avenge THE BLOOD OF JEZREEL upon the house of Jehu. In other words, Yahweh's vengeance would come down on the house of Jehu because of "the blood of Jezreel." However, some of the atrocities in Miller's list above include massacres the were done outside of Jezreel. After killing the royal family of Israel, Jehu "arose and departed, and went to Samaria" (2 Kings 10:12). It was while he was on this trip that he encountered the 42 princes of Judah and killed them (vs:13-14), so if biblical inerrantists are going to insist that skeptics should read the Bible more carefully before they allege inconsistencies and contradictions, they should heed their own advice before they jump too hastily to manufacture "explanations" that can't be sustained. Hosea pronounced judgment on the house of Jehu for the "blood of Jezreel," but these 42 princes were not killed at Jezreel, which was located north of Samaria. In order to "depart" and go to Samaria, Jehu would have traveled south toward Judah. It was on his way to Samaria that he encountered the princes of Judah, so if Miller and his cohorts had read the biblical text a little more carefully (as they advise skeptics to do), they would have known that this part of Jehu's massacre could not be considered the "blood of Jezreel."
Here I eliminated Till's citation and summary of the relevant verses, a small pile of polemic, and Till's assertion that "In order to "depart" and go to Samaria, Jehu would have traveled south toward Judah. It was on his way to Samaria that he encountered the princes of Judah..." None of these items when eliminated affects Till's major point, which is that the 42-prince massacre was not in Jezreel the city.
The same is true of "all that remained of Ahab in Samaria" (v:17), whom Jehu killed after his arrival in Samaria. Whoever these victims of Jehu's rampage were, they could not be considered a part of the "blood of Jezreel," because they were not killed in Jezreel but in Samaria. This leaves us with only three entries from Miller's list quoted above: (1) the killing of
Ahaziah, the king of Judah, (2) the killing of Joram's seventy sons, and (3) the killing of Joram's "great men, his familiar friends, and his priests" (2:11). In fact, we can say that there are only two entries left from Miller's list (1 and 3), because Joram's seventy sons were male descendants
of Ahab and were therefore included in the orders that Yahweh gave to Jehu to destroy the "house of Ahab." I will now show that inerrantists cannot successfully argue that Jehu went beyond what he was commanded to do when he killed Ahaziah and Joram's "great men, familiar friends, and priests." To do this will require a careful analysis of the divine instructions that were
allegedly given to Jehu at the time of his anointing as king of Israel, and so I am going to do that in a separate posting. This one is already long enough. I will show that Miller and his cohorts are the ones who have not been attentive to the biblical text. If they had been, they would never
have tried to "explain" this discrepancy by alleging that the house of Jehu was punished because Jehu went beyond what Yahweh had commanded.
The above consists of yet more wasted space, as Till continues to argue with himself and his phantoms rather than with Miller and myself. Neither Miller nor I argue that "all that remained in Samaria" had anything to do with the issue, nor did we argue at all regarding Joram's seventy sons. Add to that a layer of polemic, and there is nothing here worth quoting, but plenty that is designed to make Till's sycophants and lapdogs believe that he is actually engaging in substantiative debate.
At this point, Till began another message to his list:
Inerrantists claim that 2 Kings 10:30 praised Jehu only for killing the male descendants of Ahab in the Jezreel massacre, so therefore no inconsistency exists between this passage and Hosea 1:4, which pronounced judgment on the house of Jehu for "the blood of Jezreel." The inerrantist claim, then, is that the "blood of Jezreel" was not the killing of the male descendants of Ahab but Jehu's excesses in "going beyond" Yahweh's commandment and killing others who were not descendants of Ahab. To see if there is any merit in this "explanation" of the problem, we need to examine 2 Kings 10:30 in context.
Again, this is purely setup, obviously appropos to beginning a new message. Till followed by quoting 2 Kings 10:18 through 31; we will pass that by and proceed to this:
The massacre of all the priests and worshipers of Baal has already been addressed in an earlier posting on this issue, so we know that from a biblical point of view, no one can claim that this massacre would have in any way been contrary to Yahweh's will, certainly not to an extent that
would have prompted Hosea to pronounce judgment on the house of Jehu. The matter is as simple as recognizing that if Elijah's massacre of the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18 and if Josiah's massacre of all the priests of the high places in 2 Kings 23 were pleasing to Yahweh and if Yahweh had even commanded the execution of those who worship false gods (Deut. 13 and 17), then certainly inerrantists cannot claim that Hosea's condemnation of the house of Jehu had anything to do with massacring all adherents of Baal worship in Samaria. To do so would create an inconsistency in the character and nature of Yahweh that would be just as problematic as the issue we are now discussing.
More wasted space: Till here merely rehashes one of his former arguments, the phantom one. Naturally, there was nothing here that we left out that would alter in any way our counterarguments.
So with the matter of Jehu's massacre of the Baal worshipers out of the way, we can now look to see if there is any merit to the inerrantist claim that Jehu was praised only for his acts that conformed to Yahweh's command that he destroy the house of Ahab and not for any atrocities that exceeded that command. The specific verse in the above context that focuses on Yahweh's
praise of Jehu is verse 30: "Yahweh said to Jehu, 'Because you have done well in carrying out what I consider right, [and] in accordance with all that was in my heart have dealt with the house of Ahab, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.'" Let's notice that
this verse appears to praise Jehu for two things: (1) He had done well in carrying out what Yahweh considered right. (2) Jehu had dealt with the house of Ahab in accordance with all that was in Yahweh's heart. It would therefore seem that in addition to doing well in dealing with the house of Ahab, Jehu had also done well in carrying out what Yahweh considered right. If that is not to be interpreted as an approval of all of Jehu's activities in destroying the house of Jehu and all of the others included in his purge, why isn't it?
While we did not quote any part of this, we did answer the basic charge: Why is the "done well" phrase not to be interpreted as an approval in destroying the house of Ahab? (I assume that Till MEANS "the house of Ahab" above - obviously Jehu did not go around destroying his own house.)
Let's notice that verse 30 (the verse of praise) was sandwiched between two verses that expressed disapproval of Jehu. Let's look at the three verses together.
Till follows with quotes of 2 Kings 10:29-31. Again, we'll skip to:
So the writer of 2 Kings wasn't entirely pleased with Jehu's activities, because he made it a point to specify that Jehu did not turn aside from the sins of Jeroboam, who had set up altars to the golden calves in Bethel and Dan. The writer specified this disapproval before he stated that Yahweh was pleased that Jehu had done well in carrying out all that Yahweh considered right and in destroying the house of Ahab. THEN the writer turned around and repeated in the very next verse the same disapproval of Jehu for allowing the "sins of Jeroboam" [the altars to the golden calves] to continue. Obviously, the writer was upset with Jehu's failure to stamp out
the worship of false gods completely. How reasonable is it, then, to believe that this writer in a context in which he expressed disapproval of some of Jehu's actions would not have mentioned at all an offense so grievous that Yahweh would someday destroy the house of Jehu for it?
As can be seen, we quoted a substantial portion of the above paragraph, which brings out the point with ample sufficiency: The first sentence we quote summarizes the previous three. Nothing is left out that in any way affects Till's argument.
The section following is rather long and rather peculiar. I will not say that it is more phantom-arguing, for the objection Till describes below may indeed be one he has come across somewhere, but it is not one that either I or Miller made use of. Obviously, there was no need to refer to it in the specific context of our discussions; but here it is anyway:
Since inerrantists on Christian web sites are complaining that I have only a superficial knowledge of issues like this one, I will address a quibble that they will resort to in "responding" to any attempt to claim that 2 Kings 10:30 was praising Jehu for both doing that which was right in Yahweh's eyes AND in doing to the house of Ahab according to all that was in Yahweh's heart. This quibble centers on the absence of "and" in the Hebrew text, a fact that I indicated above when I enclosed "and" in brackets when I quoted the verse in context. They will argue, then, that doing to the house of Ahab according to all that was in Yahweh's heart was the same as doing all
that was right in Yahweh's eyes. In other words, they will argue that the latter expression is in apposition to the former so that actually this verse praises Jehu only for destroying the house of Ahab.
I believe that my comments above in which I pointed out that the verse of praise is sandwiched between two verses that expressed disapproval of Jehu's actions in not destroying Jeroboam's altars at Bethel and Dan are sufficient to show that this is an unlikely quibble. For those who think that there may be some merit to the quibble, I suggest that they thumb through an OT
version like the KJV or ASV, which italicizes words not in the original text but which are considered necessary to give an accurate English rendition. If they will do that, they will notice that "and" was often omitted in Hebrew in situations where we would use it in English.
To show that biblical translators thought that "and" is necessary in an English translation to accurately express the thought of the verse that praised Jehu, I suggest that inerrantist quibblers check versions like the KJV, ASV, NKJV, RSV, NRSV, NASV, NIV, NEB, REB, NAB, JB, and practically any other English version to see that they all supply the word "and" in their
translations. Biblical evidence clearly indicates that Yahweh praised Jehu for two accomplishments: (1) Doing well in executing that which was right in Yahweh's eyes. (2) Doing to the house of Ahab according to all that was in Yahweh's heart. The only reasonable conclusion to reach, then, is that the writer of 1 Kings approved all that Jehu did in purging the house of Ahab and all of those who were in alliance with Joram (Ahab's reigning son).
Three entire paragraphs spent addressing and polemicizing over - what? An argument made by neither myself or Miller, mostly irrelevant, although our point above re applying the "done well" phrase to the Baal-bash alone has some application to the latter sentence. Even so, there is not a single point here that would change in the least what I would argue, and nothing at all that serves to disprove or argue against anything that I have stated. Now for the closing polemic:
Although I have delved into this matter in great detail, I really haven't even scratched the surface yet. In another posting, I will analyze the orders that Yahweh gave to Jehu to show that they included not only the massacre of Ahab's descendants but also everyone who was in any way affiliated with Ahab's reigning son (Joram).
At this point, Till ended another message; we begin with the next:
The inerrantist claim is that Jehu went beyond what Yahweh had commanded him
to do, and so this was the reason for Hosea's pronouncement of vengeance on the house of Jehu. Jehu's house was to be destroyed not for slaughtering the Israelite royal family but for going beyond that and killing many who were not male descendants of Ahab. To show the utter absurdity of this quibble, all we have to do is examine the "marching orders" that Yahweh
allegedly gave to Jehu through the prophet that anointed him king of Israel.
Again, all setup, appropos to beginning a new message.
The situation at the time was that Joram, the king of Israel, and Ahaziah of Judah (Joram's nephew) had formed an alliance against Syria. In the battle of Ramoth-gilead, Joram was wounded and returned to his royal palace in Jezreel to recover from his wounds. Ahaziah then went down to Jezreel to visit his uncle during his recuperation. While the two kings were in
Jezreel, Elisha sent one of the "sons of the prophets" to Ramoth-gilead to anoint Jehu, an officer in Joram's army, to be king over Israel (the northern kingdom). In the anointing ceremony, Elisha's emissary, gave Jehu his orders from Yahweh:
More setup, setting the stage for what is to come. This is not argument, just setting that both sides agree upon and which we are all familiar with. Till next quotes 2 Kings 9:6-10; we'll skip to:
What these inerrantist quibblers have apparently never noticed is that verse 9 states that the "house of Ahab" was to be abolished in the way that the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and the house of Baasha, the son of Ahijah, were destroyed. Obviously these inerrantist quibblers have never bothered to read the biblical accounts of the thorough eradication of the
houses of Jeroboam and Baasha. I will give the details of that later, but first let's notice two things: (1) What this "son of the prophets" said upon anointing Jehu was the same as Elijah's pronouncement of doom upon the house of Ahab. (2) The word "house" as used in expressions like "the house of Ahab" or "the house of Jehu" carried a broader denotation than just the
descendants of the head of the house. It also included those who were servants or associates of the head of the clan. Sarah, for example, was "taken into pharaoh's house" when Abraham passed her off as his sister (Gen. 12:15). Abraham had 318 "trained men," who had been "born in his house" (Gen. 14:14). Surely, no one would argue that this means that these 318 men
had been born in a building that Abraham lived in. Genesis 17:23 states that Abraham took Ishmael and "all that were born in his house, all that were brought up with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's house" and circumcised them. At this time, however, Ishmael was the only descendant of Abraham, since Isaac and the children later born to Abraham's concubines had not yet been born. Verse 27 of this chapter again refers to "all the men of his house, those born in the house." When Abraham sought a wife for his son Isaac, he made "his servant, the elder of his house," swear that he would not take a wife from among the Canaanites for Isaac (Gen. 24:2-3). If inerrantists would read what a good Bible dictionary or encyclopedia says about the meaning of "house" as it was used in the situations mentioned above, they would not have made the mistake of assuming that Jehu had been ordered to kill only those who were male descendants of Ahab.
Here all I eliminated was the full text of the examples given by Till, though I did offer summary examples of two of them. I then went on to offer the definition of "house" (bayith) that showed that Till's information was erroneous and incomplete.
As for the original pronouncement of Elijah upon the "house of Ahab," we find that in 1 Kings 21. The situation was that Ahab had wanted the vineyard of a man named Naboth, but the latter had refused to sell it to Ahab. Jezebel then conspired to have Naboth murdered so that Ahab could take possession of the vineyard (vs: 1-16). Because of this deed, Yahweh sent Elijah the Tishbite to denounce Ahab and his house. When Elijah found Ahab, he made the following statement:
Till went on to quote 1 Kings 21:20-24. Next he said:
Let's notice that Elijah's pronouncement contained the same statement that the "son of the prophet" made to Jehu: Yahweh was going to make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam and the house of Baasha. Before we look at the biblical record of what Yahweh did to the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha, let's notice verse 21 above: " I will bring disaster on you; I will consume you, and will cut off from Ahab every male, BOND OR FREE, in Israel." Since
it is unlikely that any of Ahab's direct male descendants would have been bondmen, this statement supports my argument above, i. e., a patriarch's "house" included more than his descendants; it included also his servants and others affiliated with him. It really doesn't matter if inerrantists agree with this or not, because Elijah's prophecy against the house of Ahab
included a clear statement that Yahweh would "cut off from Ahab every male, BOND OR FREE, in Israel." Therefore, in executing Yahweh's orders, Jehu did not exceed what Yahweh had commanded, because the killing of all of Joram's "great men. familiar friends, and priests" until none were left unto Ahab (2 Kings 10:11) would certainly have been covered by verse 21 in Elijah's original prophecy. If not, why not?
Much of this is nothing to directly disagree with: Till cites these verses as proof that a "house" included more than descendants. We agree with that part. He also uses it to prove that the "house" included a patriarch's "servants and others affiliated with him." With the former we expressed agreement, regarding slaves; but the latter is the same as Till's other weasel-description, "associates," which we did address. We also showed that the "great men" etc. were NOT covered under the rubric of the bayith. There is not a word here that is not otherwise addressed; if Till thinks we have missed some point, then what, pray tell, are we missing?
Both Elijah and the "son of the prophet," who anointed Jehu, said that Yahweh would make the house of Ahab like the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha. Not much is said in the biblical text about the destruction of Jeroboam's "house." The Bible simply states that Jeroboam reigned 22 years, slept with his fathers, and then his son Nadab reigned in his stead (1 Kings 14:20). Nadab reigned for only 2 years. He "did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh," as did most of the kings of Israel and Judah. (After all, the ethnocentric biblical writers had to have some excuse for the failures of so many of Yahweh's anointed ones to secure their reigns.) Baasha, the son of
Ahijah, conspired against Nadab and killed him to usurp the throne. As soon as he became king, Baasha "smote all the house of Jeroboam" and "left not to Jeroboam any that breathed, until he had destroyed him, according to the saying of Yahweh, which he spoke by his servant Ahijah" (1 Kings 15:25-30). Chapter 14:7-11 contains the prophet Ahijah's pronouncement of destruction
on the house of Jeroboam, which he spoke to Jeroboam's wife, who had come to him to ask for the prophet's help in healing her sick child:
This paragraph is chock full of polemic and irrelevant data. Not one word here serves to counter anything we have said in reply to Till. He then fills more space by quoting 1 Kings 14:7-11; again, we'll pass that and go to:
I have cited this prophecy against the house of Jeroboam to counter the quibbles of those who may argue that the account of Baasha's destruction of the house of Jeroboam doesn't specifically say that the massacre included those who were not male descendants of Jeroboam, but Abijah's prophecy quoted above says the same thing that Elijah spoke concerning Ahab's house: every male, BOTH BOND AND FREE in Israel, who belonged to Jeroboam would be
consumed.
Again, all Till proves here, if anything, is that servants/slaves were included in a bayith, which is, again, totally irrelevant to the matter at hand.
The prophecy against the house of Baasha was uttered by Jehu, the son of Hanani (not the same Jehu who committed the massacres at Jezreel):
Till quotes the passage 1 Kings 16:1-3.
In the case of Yahweh's destruction of the house of Baasha, there can be no doubt at all that those who were not male descendants of Baasha were included in the destruction of Baasha's house. Not much was recorded about the reign of Baasha. We are told that he "slept with his fathers" and that his son Elah reigned over Israel for two years in Tirza (1 Kings 16:8). The reign was shortened because Elah fell victim to a coup d'etat like the one that had brought his father to the throne. Zemri killed Elah in the 27th year of Asa of Judah (v:10) and usurped the throne for himself. The next verses record the extent of Zemri's massacre of Baasha's "house" after he had secured his throne:
The above is just more setup. Till next quotes 1 Kings 16:11-14, and says:
Verse 11 above is clear enough. Zemri killed "all the house of Baasha," and
in doing so he didn't leave alive "a single male of his kindred or HIS FRIENDS." The next verse informs us that what Zemri did was "according to the word of Yahweh," which the prophet Jehu had spoken against Baasha.
Here we quoted the necessary point, in which Till wished to make an equation with the "friends" of Baasha and the "friends" killed by Jehu. We showed that the Hebrew words indicate entirely different parties. The second sentence adds nothing to this point.
So let's summarize what we have:
1. Yahweh said through the prophet Elijah that he would make the house of
Ahab like the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha.
2. The "son of the prophet" who anointed Jehu king of Israel said the same
thing in giving him instructions from Yahweh.
3. The biblical record states that Yahweh had decreed that all males, BOTH
BOND AND FREE, in the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha would be cut off.
4. The biblical record specifically states that in carrying out Yahweh's
will against the house of Baasha, Zemri killed every single male of Baasha's
kindred AND his friends.
Above, Till only summarizes what we has said previously. We have no dispute with these points at all; they are manifestly true. Till's error lies elsewhere, in the linguistic particulars beyond these points. There was no need to quote any of this.
In view of this textual evidence, we can only conclude that inerrantists are desperately searching for a way to resolve a discrepancy when they quibble that Jehu went beyond what Yahweh had ordered him to do. He did no such thing. He did exactly what Yahweh had said should be done. He destroyed the house of Ahab with the same thoroughness that the houses of Jeroboam and
Baasha had been destroyed earlier. If there is any doubt left, let these quibbling inerrantists try to explain 2 Kings 10:17. After the 70 sons of Joram had been beheaded in Jezreel, Jehu went to Samaria, where he "smote all that remained to Ahab in Samaria, till he had destroyed him, ACCORDING TO THE WORD OF YAHWEH, WHICH HE SPOKE TO ELIJAH." So what Jehu did after killing all of Joram's sons (male descendants of Ahab) was said to be in accordance to the word of Yahweh that had been spoken to Elijah.
Till does nothing here but summarize his case. These are merely repeats of what has been said before, decorated with a bit of polemic, and followed by this larger polemic:
Certain inerrantists on the internet have claimed that I don't read the biblical text carefully before I allege discrepancy or inconsistency, but it appears that those who have quibbled that Jehu went beyond what Yahweh had commanded him are the ones who are reading superficially. How could they be familiar with (1) the content of Elijah's prophecy against the house of Ahab and (2) the biblical record of the fates of the houses of Jeroboam and Baasha but still claim that Jehu went beyond what he was supposed to do. The discrepancy between 2 Kings 10:30 and Hosea 1:4 still stands.
The above was Till's closing statement regarding the 2 Kings cite. We now move to what Till wrote regarding Jeremiah 7:22. It began thusly:
As I pointed out in one of my postings on the Jehu part of Holding's "response," when a biblicist finds himself backed into a corner during discussions of biblical discrepancies, you can expect him to talk about the "Semitic mind" or the way that Semitic people thought, as if even one in a hundred of them would know diddly-squat about Semitic minds and thinking. They read this kind of stuff in the apologetic works of Josh McDowell types, and then pass it along to their readers. It may sound impressive to the gullible, who would stand in awe of the Josh McDowell types if they just read from a local phone directory, but what does it mean? What is there about the "Semitic context" of the passage in Jeremiah that should give readers cause to think that Jeremiah didn't mean exactly what he said. Let's look at the "context" again:
What did I cut here? A bit of polemic (viz. "phone directory") and some setup phrases. Nothing important missing at all. Till next quotes Jeremiah 7:21-26; we move thus to:
As inerrantists are fond of pointing out, Jeremiah was certainly reprimanding the people for their lack of obedience, but that does not remove the fact that he clearly said that Yahweh did not speak to their ancestors concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices in the day that he brought them out of the land of Egypt, and that flatly contradicts what is said elsewhere in the OT. So the context of the passage (which I suppose we can call the "Semitic context") shows that Jeremiah was reprimanding the people for being strict in their observance of sacrificial requirement while overlooking important qualities like honesty, sincerity, mercy, etc. In other words, Jeremiah was saying, "You have forgotten about the importance of inner attitudes while stressing the
importance of offering sacrifices, which Yahweh never commanded in the first place." However, in making his point, he made a statement that contradicts what is said elsewhere in the OT, and
no amount of examination of the "Semitic context" will remove the fact that he said that Yahweh did not speak to the Israelites concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices in the day that he brought them out of the land of Egypt. All of Holding's talk about a "Semitic context" amounts to nothing more than another biblicist trying to tell us that the Bible doesn't really mean what it plainly says.
The above does no more than restate the very same thing that Till said in Jury Chapter 1. There is nothing new added, and not one bit of this lessens my points re the idiomatic nature of Jer. 7:22 and Semitic context.
Till then quotes me a bit, and writes:
So once again we have Holding to tell us what "commentators of all stripes" think, but he would impress us more if he would give us a simple explanation for why Yahweh couldn't have inspired Jeremiah to say exactly what the divine position was on sacrifices. Look how easy it would have been for Jeremiah to write the passage to say clearly what Holding says he really
meant: "Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I spoke to them and commanded them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I didn't mean that they should think that just the outward act of offering sacrifices was all I wanted. I wanted them to offer their sacrifices with the right attitude, to be mindful of the importance of honesty, mercy, and justice. This is why I also gave them another command: 'Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you'" (1 Till 7:22).
Now that I have given an explanation re Semitic idioms and such, I presume that this request is satisfied. Till's satiric verse-form may be cute, but it adds nothing to his argument other than badly-needed comic relief. The point that Till made earlier is the same.
Now if I, as fallible as I am (which Holding apparently thinks is quite fallible), can write the passage that clearly, why couldn't an omniscient, omnipotent deity have done just as well? Oh, but I forgot; I don't have a "Semitic mind," and so that would account for the difference. To the Semitic mind, so biblicist say, a written text didn't always mean what it said; it sometimes meant something else that only a Semitic mind could figure out. If this is true, we have to wonder about the intelligence of a deity who would reveal his word in a way that could be understood by only a tribe of desert nomads who had "Semitic minds," and all the rest of the
world would just have to wonder what he meant. If Holding is so interested in how "minds" think, he should do a study of the fundamentalist mind. Now there's a real challenge.
So here we cut a good deal of polemic, and words which make the same exact points that have already been answered previously. Not one word that was eliminated makes any sort of alternate point.
Till next quotes AJINOD Ch. 1 re "there is no indication at all that the actual sacrificial
practice was disdained," and writes:
So Holding seems to be saying that since no records of opposition to the sacrificial system survived from an age when all kinds of records didn't survive (like the many books referred to in the OT), we should assume that there was no opposition. I think this is called the argument from silence, isn't it? Maybe Holding will want to check in a basic logic book to see what it says about this fallacy. Anyway, the statement from Jeremiah quoted above would constitute the very thing that Holding says history knows nothing about, wouldn't it? Other biblical passages also deemphasized the significance of sacrifices.
Here, we quoted one phrase directly, and alluded to the last two sentences. Again, not one word was left out in a way that disguises or adversely affects Till's position.
Till closes with a quote from me regarding the second Jer. 7:22 solution (re voluntary sacrifices) and comments:
Ah, so again we must depend on "some commentators" to point out to us what the Bible really means. I assume too that these are "commentators of all stripes," who could tell us that when Jeremiah said that Yahweh did not speak to the Israelites concerning burnt-offerings when he led them out of Egypt, he really didn't mean that Yahweh did not speak to them concerning ALL sacrifices but just some sacrifices. So we are again left wondering why an omniscient, omnipotent deity could not have inspired Jeremiah to write exactly what he meant. And, of course, it would always help if Holding would try to support his assertions rather than just making them and then going on to something else. What are the grounds for thinking that Jeremiah "seems" to be referring to personal sacrifices and not general sacrifices? If there is any basis for assuming this, it should be in the text somewhere. Why didn't Holding explicate the text and show us where Jeremiah "seemed" to be saying this?
The points above are naught but repeats of what has gone on before, except for the closing sentences, which I offer a necessarily incomplete answer to, since I do not have direct access to the needed sources.
In closing: We have shown that NOT ONE WORD which I did not quote from Till has even the SLIGHTEST effect towards improving what I did quote from Till. Statements were neither taken out of context nor altered; all that was "ignored" was polemic, setup phrases, irrelevancies, and points repeated elsewhere in different words. If Till thinks that I have ignored some point of his that affects his case, I should like to know where that point is, for it seems that he has lost that point himself.
