At 05:56 PM 3/29/99 +0800, david sparrow wrote:

TILL
>>Your reply clearly indicates that you
>>don't even understand the problem, but I will be saying more about that
>>later when I chew it up bit by bit and spit it out.
>
TILL
I do wish that Sparrow would learn the common courtesy used on this
newsgroup that most posters respect, which is to put identifying labels
above each person's comments so that readers will be able to follow who has
said what. Had I not typed TILL above my three-line comment above, some may
not have remembered that I was the one who made this statement. As Sparrow
presented it, readers would have had reason to think that the statement was
something that David Sparrow "wrote." So what about it, David? Can't you
please take a couple of seconds to respect this protocol? As you read
through my reply, I hope you will notice that at no time will the readers
experience confusion about who has said what. That is because I have made
sure that an identifying label has been put above each contributor's comments.

SPARROW
>I think now you are being plain rude, for your problem is
>quite evident, as per your web page.

TILL
No, I'm not being "plain rude"; I'm merely stating the obvious, because the
more you write, the clearer it becomes that you don't even begin to
recognize what the doctrine of biblical inerrancy entails. One thing it
does not entail is searching through various translations until one finds a
reading that suits his purpose, but I will be saying more about this later.

SPARROW
> You claim Ex 12:40
>contradicts other passages regarding a certain time frame
>when all the posts I've mailed you show that the time frame
>is perfectly matched - ie, a total of 430 years spent in the
>area of Egypt and Canaan, with the start of the period
>counted from around the birth of Isaac. It isn't my fault
>you wish to start the count from some other time. Ex 12:40
>is referring from the time of Abraham and Isaac, as is
>clearly shown in other passages of the bible.blem is.
>

TILL
Yes you did take this position, but I had not yet had time to reply to it.
I'm going to cut that section from your other posting and paste it below
after which I will show how that it does nothing except confirm that you
don't understand what the issue is.

>>FARREL TILL wrote:
>>It isn't possible to find 430 years in this genealogy, so we can
>>only conclude that there is a chronological discrepancy between Exodus
>>6:18-23 and Exodus 12:40, which says that the Israelites sojourned in Egypt
>>for 430 years. And an error is an error is an error.
>

SPARROW (I had to do your labeling for you again)
>And it appears to be all yours.
>
>Thank you for your posts - all 6 made it to me, unlike into this news group
>but I suspect you have posted them here before, and I had found your
>hompage entry via a name search anyway. I hope you will be either
>retracting it or better still correcting it, for you are quite mistaken.
>
>As I suspected, you were merely presenting a subject which has been
>dealt with in many ways over many years, obviously not all correctly, and
>to be fair, it is an issue which many are still divided on, much like the
>issue of the rapture, etc. I must commend you on your hard work, and
>it does seem to challenge in part some of the explanations put forth by
>various scholars over the years. At the end of the day there can only
>be one right answer even if it can be viewed from many perspectives, nu ?
>

TILL
It not only challenges the "explanations put forth by various scholars over
the years"; it completely demolishes them. In your case, it has elicited
from you an inadvertent admission that the doctrine of biblical inerrancy as
propagated by biblical inerrantists (at least the ones in the U. S.) is
wrong in this case. Before I go on to comment on your so-called rebuttal
below, let me clarify this point. Biblical inerrantists argue that the
biblical text of both the Old and New Testaments, as transmitted over the
centuries by the caretakers and scribes entrusted with the task of passing
it along, is for all intents and purposes the same text as was in the
"original autographs." Their position, of course, is that only the
"original autographs" were totally inerrant, but they contend that the
transmission of the text by its trustees was so meticulous and faithful that
we can be assured that we have the original text today except for minor
variations involving copyists errors and such like. A part of their
contention is that scribes were so zealously meticulous in their work that
they would count the alphabetic characters on all scrolls to make sure that
they had not made mistakes. Inerrantists just love to refer to a manuscript
of Isaiah discovered at Qumran, which was essentially the same as the
earliest known copy of Isaiah (dated from the 10th century) up until that
time, and boast that this verifies that the OT text was faithfully and
accurately transmitted over the centuries. The facts don't support this
claim, but I won't digress from the task at hand to discuss the merits of
this claim. For now, I just want to point out that biblical inerrantists
argue that the text of the OT as transmitted by the Masoretes is a faithful
and accurate representation of what was probably in the "original
autographs." I have yet to meet a biblical inerrantist who thinks that the
Septuagint or the Syriac or the Vulgate versions were faithful and accurate
representations of the "original autographs." As I will show, the
inerrantist position on the reliability of the Moasoretic text causes all
sorts of problems for your "resolution" of the chronological problem that
exists between Exodus 6 and 12.

SPARROW
>Without spending much time or effort, let as assume no gaps in any
>of the geneaology (despite it being a common thing to do, as you
>will conceed I hope, and at the tail end of this message I will add a
>bit about that practice).

TILL
No, I will not "conceed" [sic] that there are "gaps" in the genealogy. Did
you even read my postings? They presented argument after argument to show
that other biblical passages and Jewish writers (such as Philo, Josephus,
and the writer of *Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs* clearly thought that
there were no gaps in this genealogy. Perhaps you should try to respond to
these parts of my postings instead of just selectively quoting from them
what you want your readers to see. Did you by chance study "apologetic"
methods from Robert Turkel?

SPARROW
>Thus, you would appear to be quite correct in
>stating that 430 years is way too long according to the genealogies
>given.

TILL
Thank you for this admission. It is going to prove disastrous to your
position and in the end is going to result in your admission that biblical
inerrancy as it has been expounded and defended by the chief proponents of
this doctrine makes it impossible to defend the chronological accuracy of
the Exodus 6 genealogy.

SPARROW
> Unfortunately for you, it would seem you have build your
>whole argument on a false premise though,

TILL
I haven't built my argument on a false premise but on the reading of Exodus
12:40 as it appears in the Masoretic text of Exodus and as it appears in
English versions used and relied on by biblical inerrantists. These
translations were made from the Masoretic text. In fact, I have 25 English
translations in my personal library, and the only version that translated
from a text other than the Masoretic is Brenton's translation of the
Septuagint. Biblical inerrantist obviously regard the Masoretic text as the
basis for their inerrancy claims, so the only "premise" I have used in this
discussion is that the "faithfully" transmitted Masoretic text has a
chronological discrepancy in it concerning the length of the Israelite
sojourn in Egypt.

SPARROW
>and sadly, despite your many words, the whole things may well be brought
>tumbling down with just the introduction of a single name.
>

>Canaan.
>

TILL
And sadly for you, this "single name" is not in the Masoretic text, and this
is the text on which biblicists base their claim of inerrancy.

SPARROW
>As in (Exodus 12:40) "Now the time that the sons of Israel lived in
>Egypt =AND CANAAN= was four hundred and thirty years".
>

>It would appear that the translation you used to base your argument
>on is insufficient in this regard. "Canaan" has been left out of some
>translations and not others.
>

TILL
Would you mind explaining to us just how you determined that "Canaan" was
"left out of some translations"? In order to do this, you would have to
prove that it was ever in the original text, and how do you propose to do
this? For the sake of brevity, I won't quote the various English versions
that I have in my personal library, but I will list them. The KJV, NKJV,
ASV, NASV, RSV, NRSV, NIV, REB, NAB, GNB, CEV, NCV, NWT, JBS, Jerusalem
Bible, Amplified Bible, Confraternity, New Berkeley, Bethel, Tyndale's,
Lamsa's, Moffatt's, Living Bible,Young's Literal, and Hendrickson's
Interlinear ALL say only that the Israelites dwelt IN EGYPT for 430 years.
I also have Segond's French translation and the Masoretic text, and they
read the same as the versions cited above. They do not say in Canaan and
Egypt, so the burden is on you to show that Canaan should be in Exodus 12:40.

The Septuagint does have "in Canaan and Egypt" in Exodus 12:40, but as I
indicated above, the burden is on you to show that this is how this verse
should read. If you should succeed in doing so, the only thing you will
have accomplished is to undermine the integrity of the Masoretic text.
Anyway, you need to clarify your position to us. Is it your contention that
when a biblical discrepancy is found, one should be entitled to look through
the Syriac, the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and other translations until a
reading that eliminates the problem can be found? If so, why should we give
any credibility at all to the Masoretic text?

SPARROW
>Paul in the New Testament (Galatians) seems also to understand
>the counting of the 430 years was beginning from the birth of Isaac
>until the giving of the law, rather than a time in bondage/slavery.

TILL
Yes, but Paul usually quoted the Septuagint in his epistles, so it was
obviously the version of the OT that he relied on. Your task, as I have
stated above, is to demonstrate to us that the Septuagint is the "right"
version. How do you propose to do that? Is it your position, for example,
that we should accept the Septuagint version of Jeremiah rather than the
Masoretic?

SPARROW
>I don't think you will find many serious students of the bible seeing the
>entire time spent in "Canaan's land" as being abject/total bondage
>(despite Gen 15:13),

TILL
If you hadn't brought up Genesis 15:13, I was going to, because (as your
comments below clearly show that you are aware of) it does irreparable
damage to your position that the bondage in Exodus 12:40 included also the
years spent in Canaan.

>Genesis 15:13 Then Yahweh said to Abram, "Know this for certain, that your
offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and shall be slaves
there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years;
>14 but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward
they shall come out with great possessions.
>

Let's notice some statements in this passage that clearly show that its
intention was to refer to the bondage in Egypt. First, Yahweh allegedly
told Abraham (if one can take seriously stories about gods appearing to
humans) that his offspring would be aliens in A LAND (singular, not "lands"
plural) that is not theirs, but Genesis 12:7 has Yahweh already having told
Abraham that he was giving the land to his seed. Hence, it could not be
said that while Abraham's seed was in Canaan, they were in a land that was
"not theirs." Second, this same verse says that Abraham's offspring would
be "slaves there," i.e., in the land that is not theirs. You cannot show
(and, of course, your comments below recognize this) that the Israelites
were ever "slaves" while they were in Canaan. Third--and this is the killer
for your position--this same verse says that Abraham's seed would be slaves
in a land that wasn't theirs FOR FOUR HUNDRED YEARS. Notice that it does
not say that they would be slaves in LANDS that were not theirs, but if your
position is right, this is what the text would have to say, because you are
arguing that the Israelites sojourned as slaves in Canaan and Egypt for a
combined total of 400 years. However, the Genesis 15:13 prophecy spoke only
of enslavement in A LAND that wasn't theirs for 400 years. Finally, the
Genesis prophecy says that
Abraham's offspring would come out of this land they had been enslaved in
WITH GREAT POSSESSIONS. This statement fits into the scenario described in
Exodus 12 of the Israelites going out of Egypt with jewels, silver, gold,
raiment, and great herds of livestock, but I know of nothing claimed in the
Bible about the Israelites ever having "come out" of Canaan with great
possessions.

Clearly, the prophecy in Genesis 15:13 was intended to describe the exodus
from Egypt, and the text says that it would last 400 years, so it looks as
if you are going to have to take your theory back to the drawing board to
see if you can come up with another quibble or two to try to save it. The
problem is simple: even if you could unequivocally establish that Exodus
12:20 should read that the Israelites sojourned in Egypt AND CANAAN for 430
years, you would then be confronted with a conflict with Genesis 15:13,
which speaks only of a 400-year enslavement in A LAND that wasn't theirs,
out of which they would be brought after the 400 years. The Israelites were
not brought OUT of Canaan; the biblical claim is that they were brought INTO
it.

SPARROW
>and even poor examples of modern entertainment
>such as "The Prince of Egypt" fly in the face of typical Sunday School
>lessons which show that Israel ended up in Goshen at the favour of the
>Pharoah due to Joseph, and that the Very Hard life only happened quite
>some time after the death of both the Pharoah and Joseph and all his
>brothers, etc.
>

TILL
As I noted above, these were all comments you made in anticipation that I
would point out that Genesis 15:13 could not be applied to the time that
Abraham's seed had spent in Canaan prior to their sojourn in Egypt. Even
you obviously recognized this problem.

SPARROW
>Your hard work has just confirmed to you what many think already
>and that is the time spent in "Egypt" was only around 200 years
>and only a portion of the latter part of that in servitude, and that the
>total 430 years was from Abraham's move to Canaan.

TILL
Well, actually, many modern scholars are recognizing that it is highly
unlikely that the Israelites spent any time at all in Egypt, but we
shouldn't be concerned with what scholars think about this or that some
think that the time spent in Egypt was "only around 200 years." We are
supposed to be discussing whether what the Bible DOES say is inerrant. As
I have show, Exodus 12:40 clearly states in the text on which biblical
inerrantists have hung their hopes of biblical inerrancy that the Israelites
dwelt in Egypt 430 years. My analysis of Genesis 15:13 shows, as does your
own admission that the biblical text does not confirm that the
proto-Israelites lived in "abject bondage" in Canaan, that the biblical text
claimed an enslavement in a strange land of over 400 years. This claim
obviously conflicts with the Exodus-6 genealogy, so the problem has been
dumped right back into your lap.

SPARROW
>Exodus 12:40 says that the sojourn in Egypt and Canaan
>was 430,

TILL
Correction! Exodus 12:40 does not say that the Israelites sojourned in
Egypt and Canaan for 430 years. A particular translation that you found
says this, but since the Jews themselves use the Masoretic text and since
modern translations rely on the Masoretic text, it is your responsibility to
show us that the Masoretic text erroneously omitted Canaan from Exodus
12:40. And don't forget to tell us if your policy is going to be to reject
the Masoretic text in favor of the Septuagint.

SPARROW
>as per the indication of other scriptures and the understanding of the
authors.

TILL
You cited only Paul in support of this position, and as I showed, his
statement in Galatians 3:17 can be explained by the fact that he relied on
the Septuagint. Your task is to show us clear evidence that the Septuagint
is the "right" version and that the Masoretic is wrong. Furthermore, the
writer of Genesis in 15:13 (as I showed
above) clearly understood that the Israelite sojourn in Egypt lasted for 400
years, so you have yet to show that "other scriptures" and "the
understanding of the authors" indicate that the Israelites were in Egypt for
only 200 years. I'm relying on what the Bible says. You are relying on
just any speculation you can find to remove the problem.

SPARROW
>To suggest a whole people neither know nor understand (nor can count) their own
>precious and well recorded history, is preposterous, to boot.
>

TILL
Ah, yes, so you are now resorting to the old argument that says, "If this
were really a contradiction, the Jews would have noticed it long ago and
would not have left it in their scriptures." We are talking about times of
high levels of illiteracy, as well as times when logic was not the developed
discipline that it is today, so for you to argue on the basis of what "a
whole people" should have known or would have recognized is too speculative
to deserve serious comment. You need to do some reading in critical
literature of the Bible and try to get a picture of how that the Bible is
actually a hodgepodge that was strung together over time by different
writers. The Exodus-6 genealogy is recognized by some critics as a priestly
addition to the book of Exodus that was intended to support the view that
only descendants of Aaron were entitled to be priests, so if this is the
case, it wouldn't be at all surprising that an insertion into a text would
conflict with something that was said elsewhere in the same book. Try to
get a grip on reality.

SPARROW
>In short, your argument remains rebutted with the mere inclusion of a
single >name.

TILL
I'm sure those who read my rebuttal comments above will not agree.

SPARROW
>The quotes and commentry
>out of such resources as the Jewish Bible and Haley's
>etc, merely reinforce the single name rebuttal.

TILL
Do you think that I fell off a turnip truck just yesterday? I carried
Haley's book around with me probably before you were even born, so I am
familiar with his simplistic, speculative attempts to resolve biblical
discrepancies. He relied primarily on the how-it-could-have-been scenario
to explain away inconsistencies. In the matter of Exodus 12:40, he stated
the position that you have regurgitated above, but then he said the following:

"This hypothesis is open to weighty objections, some of which are:
that the free, independent, nomad life of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
previous to the descent into Egypt, does not properly come under the head of
'servitude' and 'affliction' predicted in Genesis xv.13; that a large
portion of the period was spent in Canaan, while but ONE land, that of
Egypt, is mentioned in the prediction; that the former country could not, in
view of the Divine promise to Abraham, be characterized as a "land not
theirs"; and that, on this hypothesis, the grandfather of Moses must had had
in the lifetime of the latter 8600 male descendants, of whom 2750 were
between thirty and fifty years of age" (Num. 3:27-28; 4:36).

From this point, Haley went on to speculate that the discrepancy could be
resolved by assuming that generations were skipped in the genealogy. You
took that route too, so I'll be discussing this quibble later. For now, I
suggest that you content yourself with trying to explain away the problems
in his "solution" that Haley listed above. I discussed some of the same
objections in my prior comments, so I would say that you have your work cut
out for you.

SPARROW
> Since you have been holding on to this argument of yours
>for such a long time, it is quite understandable that
>you will not easily let go of it, and I'll not try any further
>to prise it from your grasp - you can go on thinking you
>are right despite your carefull ignoring of all the resources
>available to you, and I'll go on knowing you are quite wrong.
>

TILL
Of course, we are all supposed to believe that you are entirely open minded
and stand ready to abandon immediately your arguments once you are shown
that they are fallacious. Is that what you're saying?

I was once a fundamentalist preacher and foreign missionary, who firmly
believed in biblical inerrancy. When my personal studies in the Bible kept
turning up conflict after conflict, I could no longer maintain belief in
that doctrine. Can you point to anything in your personal life that would
indicate you have a willingness to give up firmly held beliefs when you are
shown evidence that they are erroneous?

In your posting, you indicated that you have corresponded with someone named
Suzanne on this same subject. Could your send me her e-mail address so that
I can forward her a copy of my reply?

Farrell Till
Skepticism, Inc.
jftill@...




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