[Editor's Note: This is the final part of my replies to Turkel's attempt to defend his paper-shortage "apologetics." Everything that Turkel said in his evasive, sound-bite replies to my article "The Paper Shortage" will have been answered in detail by the end of this article.]
(We go to X's next attempt to make an issue:) I must have succeeded in that attempt to make an issue, because we will see that Turkel certainly couldn't reply with any kind of substance to my rebuttals. As we go through the "sound bites" that he inserted as replies to my article "The Paper Shortage," notice that he skipped over long sections without even trying to reply to my points.
Partial repetitions: In addition to almost verbatim repetitions, the Bible contains numerous examples of passages that repeat the same expressions or ideas, as if saying it once were not enough for readers to understand what was being said. In Joshua 13:1, for example, the "inspired" writer somehow thought it necessary to say twice that Joshua was old and advanced in years.
Now Joshua was old, advanced in years. And Yahweh said to him: "You are old, advanced in years, and there remains very much land yet to be possessed.
For reasons known only to Turkel, the chief advocate of the "paper-shortage" theory, Yahweh somehow thought it was necessary for his "inspired" one to waste precious scroll space to tell his readers twice that Joshua was old and advanced in years. Yahweh would do this, but for reasons also known only to Turkel, would not let "John" report that Jesus carried the cross partway to Golgotha before Simon of Cyrene carried it the rest of the way. Recording both details in John 19:17 would have taken no more space than was used to say twice in Joshua 13:1 that Joshua was old and advanced in years. (The same answer as before applies. Joshua was written for an entirely different purpose and situation than the Gospels;) Yawn! There is his same old "different-purpose" dodge again. He has yet to explain how the "different purpose" of Old Testament writers accorded them the luxury of wasting as much space as they wanted to on repetitions but the "purpose" of gospel writers like "John"--whose avowed purpose was to report "signs" that would lead readers to believe that Jesus was "the Christ" (John 20:30-31--wouldn't let him report the important "signs" that Matthew claimed had caused the Roman pagans to declare that Jesus was surely the son of God (Matt. 27:51-54). If "John's" purpose was to report "signs" that would cause people to believe that Jesus was "the Christ," why would he have left these signs out? I have driven this point into the ground, but I did so with the hope that Turkel would be so embarrassed by it that he would try to reply to it, but I really don't expect him to. (there was no concern for multiple copies placing a burden on others.) Ho, hum, the old "multiple-copies" quibble again, which I have replied to here and here and here and in so many other places that I don't need to rehash those rebuttals here. This "multiple-copies" quibble is completely without merit, and Turkel keeps recycling it because he has no sensible proof to support his paper-shortage quibble. I will, however, point out that Turkel's apparent belief that Old Testament books were written for Jews only, an exclusivity that minimized the need for "multiple copies," shows the extent of his biblical ignorance, because New Testament writers clearly indicated that what had been written in the Old Testament had been written for the benefit of all mankind.
1 Corinthians 10:11 These things [events that the Israelites experienced in their wilderness years] happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come.
Romans 4:23 Now the words, "it was reckoned to him," were written not for his [Abraham's] sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead....
Romans 15:4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.
I quoted these same passages here in "Turkel Rides--Er--Stumbles Again - Part One" and added the comments below.
So Turkel says that when biblical authors were writing their scrolls, they were writing for the people of their time, but the apostle Paul said that they were writing for "us" so that we could learn from their experiences. One would think, then, that if scroll materials were scarce and expensive in those days, an omniscient, omnipotent deity, inspiring men to write for the benefit of future generations, could have intervened in some way to make sure that they had enough writing space to explain themselves adequately. Certainly, such a deity should have been able to see into the future and know that the time would come when there would be printing presses and paper in abundance to supply the world [that's world in the sense of the entire inhabited earth] with affordable copies of his "word."
Now stay tuned for the next episode of The Mouth That Roared to see what insults and sarcasms Turkel will resort to as he holds his breath and stamps his feet in anger over a rebuttal argument that he cannot satisfactorily answer. Now back to more of his feeble attempts to sell his preterist rantings.
If the New Testament is inerrant, then the Old Testament was written not just for Jews but for the benefit of people who would live during the Christian era. So much for Turkel's "no-need-for-multiple-copies" quibble! (And there's one more point here which further exposes X's bigoted provincialism: Repetitive phrases like these are a function of oral repetition.) Say what? Repetitive phrases? Even if this would provide a justifiable explanation for the examples of "partial repetitions" that I cited in my article, it wouldn't explain the other examples I have quoted. As readers can clearly see in reading the many examples of Old Testament repetition that I have quoted in my replies to Turkel's paper-shortage quibble, the repetition involved not just "phrases" but often lengthy sections that frequently extended through entire chapters and even more. (With 99% of the population of this time illiterate, parallelisms like this one were necessary to inspire memorization. The trade-off between space and memory-enhancing weighs heavier towards the latter when not many copies need to be made in the first place. Where the Gospels were concerned, the balance is more equitable.) Well, Turkel claims that only 10% of the population was literate in New Testament times, so if such massive repetition was necessary when only 1% was literate, wouldn't at least a little bit of repetition have been required in New Testament time when just a relatively few more were literate? Furthermore, if repeating that Joshua was old and advanced in years was necessary to aid memorization in a time of widespread illiteracy, why wouldn't it have been necessary to repeat also that much land remained to be possessed? Anyway, I addressed Turkel's "literacy" estimate here in Part Three of this series. Those who read it will see that Turkel's literacy card is just another desperate quibble from someone who has made a paper-shortage claim to justify ambiguity and confusion in the Bible and now can't substantiate it with any substantive evidence. Furthermore, the kind of repetition that Turkel alluded to here was used to enhance memory to assist transmission through oral communication for the benefit of those who were unable to read, but written texts wouldn't have needed to rely on repetitive devices to transmit information, because anything that was written down would have been preserved much longer than words that dissipated as soon as they were spoken. That which was written could have been read by those who were literate for as long as the written texts survived; hence, the need for repetitive memory devices would certainly not have been as great. (Nevertheless the error of X remains the same, as he merely assumes the Gospel situation was 100% the same as Joshua's.) I did? Just where did I assume this? I certainly wouldn't assume that the "situation" in "biographies" of a person who probably never existed were "100% the same" as the "situation" in fictionalized Israelite history. Anyway, this is simply Turkel's old "different-purpose" dodge again. When is he going to give any kind of plausible supporting evidence for his claim that having a "different purpose" allowed Old Testament writers to engage in wholesale repetition, but the "different purpose" of New Testament writers wouldn't allow them to take space to report important information, such as the "signs" that had caused Roman pagans to declare their belief that Jesus was surely the son of God? I have been over this so often that I don't need to rehash it here. (We delete X's further examples from Judges, where the use of "no king over Israel" multiple times is also a memorization/orality function, supplying X's blithely ignorant "some unknown reason" for the repetition.) Uh, oh, Turkel has deleted another section, so I will have to reinsert it below.
In narrating a single story, the author(s) of Judges found it necessary to tell readers twice that this tale took place in the days when there was no king over Israel.
Judges 18:1 And it came to pass in those days, when there was no king in Israel, that there was a certain Levite staying in the remote mountains of Ephraim.
Judges 21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
A curious thing about this tale of the rape and slaughter of the Levite's concubine is that the writer(s) of Judges had thought it necessary to say just seven verses before the narration of the story began that there was no king in Israel in those days.
Judges 17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Hey, I get the idea: There was no king in Israel in those days. I suppose the writer(s) thought, for some unknown reason, that it was vitally important to let readers know that there was no king in Israel in those days, but it does seem strange that Yahweh would have "inspired" such repetition as this but then would inspire his chosen writers to leave out important details in other parts of his revelation to the world in order to save scroll space. If Yahweh had just inspired "John" to take an inch or two of extra linear space in his scroll to add that Jesus carried the cross until he collapsed, John 19:17 would never have become the issue that it now is.
Turkel's evasion above gives no plausible explanation at all for why repeating that there was no king in Israel in those days was a necessary "memorization/orality function" but that none of the other information in this lengthy tale about the maltreatment and fate of the Levite's concubine needed the aid of Turkel's perceived "memorization/orality function." After all, why would it have been so hard to remember a fairly simple statement like "there was no king in Israel in those days"? Notice now the continuation of Turkel's evasions. (Next up on X's list of Goofy Things to Say:) Speaking of goofy things, I just have to ask if anything can be more goofy than Turkel's claim that unidentified "different purposes" allowed Old Testament writers to engage in frequent repetitions of sometimes lengthy passages, but the "different purposes" of gospel writers did not allow "John"--whose avowed purpose was to report "signs" that would make readers believe that Jesus was "the Christ" (John 20:30-31)--to report even the very signs that had caused pagan Romans to declare that Jesus was surely the son of God (Matt. 27:51-54). I have learned that Turkel doesn't like repetition when I keep hammering him with rebuttal points that he has repeatedly ignored, but if he would ever answer a rebuttal, I wouldn't need to repeat so often. In Leviticus 18, the writer(s) declared laws against incestuous offenses and then turned around just two chapters later and repeated many of the same laws.
Leviticus 18:6 'None of you shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him, to uncover his nakedness: I am theYahweh. 7 The nakedness of your father or the nakedness of your mother you shall not uncover. She is your mother; you shall not uncover her nakedness. 8 The nakedness of your father's wife you shall not uncover; it is your father's nakedness. 9 The nakedness of your sister, the daughter of your father, or the daughter of your mother, whether born at home or elsewhere, their nakedness you shall not uncover. 10 The nakedness of your son's daughter or your daughter's daughter, their nakedness you shall not uncover; for theirs is your own nakedness. 11 The nakedness of your father's wife's daughter, begotten by your father--she is your sister--you shall not uncover her nakedness. 12 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's sister; she is near of kin to your father. 13 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister, for she is near of kin to your mother. 14 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's brother. You shall not approach his wife; she is your aunt. 15 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law--she is your son's wife--you shall not uncover her nakedness. 16 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother's wife; it is your brother's nakedness. 17 You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, nor shall you take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter, to uncover her nakedness. They are near of kin to her. It is wickedness. 18 Nor shall you take a woman as a rival to her sister, to uncover her nakedness while the other is alive.
Leviticus 20:10 'The man who commits adultery with another man's wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death. 11 The man who lies with his father's wife has uncovered his father's nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. 12 If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death. They have committed perversion. Their blood shall be upon them. 13 If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. 14 If a man marries a woman and her mother, it is wickedness. They shall be burned with fire, both he and they, that there may be no wickedness among you. 15 If a man mates with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. 16 If a woman approaches any animal and mates with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon them. 17 If a man takes his sister, his father's daughter or his mother's daughter, and sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it is a wicked thing. And they shall be cut off in the sight of their people. He has uncovered his sister's nakedness. He shall bear his guilt. 18 If a man lies with a woman during her sickness and uncovers her nakedness, he has exposed her flow, and she has uncovered the flow of her blood. Both of them shall be cut off from their people. 19 You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister nor of your father's sister, for that would uncover his near of kin. They shall bear their guilt. 20 If a man lies with his uncle's wife, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness. They shall bear their sin; they shall die childless. 21 If a man takes his brother's wife, it is an unclean thing. He has uncovered his brother's nakedness. They shall be childless.
There are variations in wording, of course, and chapter 20 includes laws against beastiality and sexual intercourse during the female's menstrual cycle, which were not in chapter 18, but it does seem that an omniscient, omnipotent deity could have guided his "inspired" one(s) to incorporate both versions of these laws into either chapter 18 or 20 so that in a time of scarce and expensive scroll materials, only one chapter on improper sexual relationships would have been written. (Once again the same answer: Leviticus is not the Gospels. Leviticus was reserved for use by priests, for whom a single copy or even less than a half dozen would serve. This is NOT the Gospels all over the Roman Empire.) And once again, the same rebuttal applies. Why would a "different purpose" in a time of scarce and expensive scroll materials have allowed, in this case, the author(s) of Leviticus to waste precious space repeating that which had just been reported, but a "different purpose" in New Testament times did not allow writers like "John" to report information that was directly related to his avowed purpose? He himself said that he had written about "signs" that would make readers believe that Jesus was "the Christ" (John 20:30-31), yet he left out the very signs that, according to Matthew, had caused Roman pagans to declare that Jesus was surely the son of God (Matt. 27:51-54). Why? Why on earth why? The Turk, of course, will say that the gospel writers had to be concerned with the need for "multiple copies" to spread the gospel around the world, whereas Leviticus, like other Old Testament books, was intended for a limited audience, but I have hammered this quibble to pieces here and in various other places. The link just given contains links to those other places where I took Turkel's damaging admission that one copy would have put "no burden" onto Isaiah and dumped it back into his lap by pointing out that if making one copy would not have burdened Isaiah financially, then a scribe who undertook to make a copy of Isaiah's scroll would not have been financially burdened either, and likewise a scribe who copied the copy wouldn't have experienced any burden, and so on. These links also show that when organized religious groups, like the colony at Qumran and congregations and monasteries that sprang up after the rise of Christianity, undertook to make copies of scrolls, they would have been able to share the expense of making multiple copies. Besides all of these holes in his "multiple-copies" quibble, I remind readers that I pointed out here in Part One of this series and also here in "Turkel Rides--Er--Stumbles Again - Part One" that Turkel is on-again-off-again concerning whether the gospels were evangelistic in their intent. When it is advantageous to whatever doctrine du jour he is defending, they are evangelistic, but when it is disadvantageous to his position, they aren't evangelistic, so Turkel's "multiple-copies" quibble has backfired in his face and left it covered with soot. (And again: memory, memory, memory.) And again, as I just explained above, repetitive memory devices were used primarily to faciliate oral transmission of information, but it wasn't nearly as important in written texts, which depended on transmitting information to those who could read. (The difference? Lev. 18 warns against the practices of the Caanites; Lev. 20 warns against the practices of worshipping Molech. Not quite the same, but several similarities.) Well, gee whillikers, doesn't the expert in ancient Near Eastern cultures, customs, and languages know that Molech was a Canaanite god? What was directed against "Canaanite practices" would therefore have been directed against the worship of Molech. And, my goodness, didn't Turkel notice that sacrifices to Molech were specifically mentioned and forbidden in chapter 18, which he says was written to warn against "the practices of the Canaanites"?
Leviticus 18:21 "Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am Yahweh.
So if the Levitical writer warned against the worship of Molech in the section where he was warning against "the practices of the Canaanites," then the worship of Molech was indeed a "Canaanite practice," so why was the warning against worshiping Molech repeated two chapters later and followed by repeating many of the laws that had already been stated in chapter 18? Anyway, let's see if I have this right. Since chapter 18 addressed practices of the Canaanites and chapter 20 warned against worshipping Molech, it was necessary for the author(s) to repeat in chapter 20 many of the same laws against "Canaanite practices" that were first given in chapter 18, even though most of those laws repeated had nothing to do with worshiping Molech. Is that it? When I read such stuff as this, I have to wonder if Turkel ever took a course in writing while he was getting his degree in library science. I'm just a dumb old uninspired atheist, but I can show the omniscient, omnipotent Holy Spirit how the two chapters could have easily been combined to save a whole lot of precious, scarce scroll space. First, let's look at the two introductions to these chapters.
Leviticus 18:1 Yahweh said to Moses, 2 "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'I am Yahweh your God. 3 You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. 4 You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am Yahweh your God. 5 Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them. I am Yahweh.'"
Leviticus 20:1 Yahweh said to Moses, 2 "Say to the Israelites: 'Any Israelite or any alien living in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death. The people of the community are to stone him. 3 I will set my face against that man and I will cut him off from his people; for by giving his children to Molech, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. 4 If the people of the community close their eyes when that man gives one of his children to Molech and they fail to put him to death, 5 I will set my face against that man and his family and will cut off from their people both him and all who follow him in prostituting themselves to Molech. 6 "'I will set my face against the person who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute himself by following them, and I will cut him off from his people. 7 "'Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am Yahweh your God.'"
Now here is a composite version, which combines all of the information in both texts and makes it applicable to both the general practices of Canaanites and the specific Canaanite practice of offering human sacrifices to the god Molech.
Leviticus 18:1 Yahweh said to Moses, 2 "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'I am Yahweh your God. 3 You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. 'Any Israelite or any alien living in Israel who gives any of his children to the Canaanite god Molech must be put to death. The people of the community are to stone him. 4 I will set my face against that man and I will cut him off from his people; for by giving his children to Molech, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. 5 If the people of the community close their eyes when that man gives one of his children to Molech and they fail to put him to death, 6 I will set my face against that man and his family and will cut off from their people both him and all who follow him in prostituting themselves to Molech. 6 "'I will set my face against the person who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute himself by following them, and I will cut him off from his people. 7 You must obey my laws and be careful to follow my decrees. I am Yahweh your God. 8 Keep my decrees and laws, for the man who obeys them will live by them. Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am Yahweh.'"
This composite version contains all information in both introductory sections and applies it to both "Canaanite practices" and the worship of Molech, so any laws or restrictions stated after this would have been understood to be directed against "Canaanite practices" and the worship of Molech. If the omniscient, omnipotent holy one had inspired the author(s) to combine all this information into one introduction, then by including laws in the one version that were not stated in the other, such as the prohibitions of beastialtiy and sexual relations during a woman's menstrual period (Lev. 20:16,18), everything in both chapters would have been presented in a way that would have saved a lot of space in a time when scroll materials were scarce and expensive. We will be interested in seeing Turkel's response to this, and he should remember that telling me that I am upset because "God" didn't descend to kiss my patoot is not a response. It will simply beg the questions of "God's" existence and his involvement in the writing of the Bible and leave completely unexplained why an omniscient, omnipotent deity could not write as clearly and concisely as a lowly, uninspired atheist. (We delete X's extra blah-blah where he repeats his point again and again for effect) Well, of course, we expect Turkel to delete that which he can't reply to without looking as silly as he just did in explaining why repetition in Leviticus 20 of what had been said two chapters earlier was necessary, so I will reinsert my "extra blah-blah" to remind readers of what Turkel is evading. Ah, yes, here it is.
Just think of the cost and space that could have been saved. Of course, if the writer(s) was/were not inspired and the similarities of these two passages resulted from a patchwork method of putting "God's word" together from different writers and sources, that would explain the repetition more sensibly than thinking that the omni-one was responsible for the unnecessary repetition in a time of scarce and expensive writing materials, but, nah, that explanation won't work, because the Bible is the "inspired, inerrant word of God," isn't it? And who are we to question Yahweh's ways?
I will reserve further comment until we look at Turkel's next rationalization for cutting or deleting that which he has no sensible reply to. (having no better arguments actually grounded in data to offer) As readers can see, my argument is indeed "grounded in data," which are the biblical passages themselves that show to any reasonable reader that careless and unnecessary repetition throughout the Bible--and especially the Old Testament--completely dismantles Turkel's claim that important information was often left out in the New Testament because scroll materials were just too scarce and expensive to include. I also presented an alternative explanation for why such repetition occurred so often in the Old Testament, and so I can only conclude that he deleted this "extra blah-blah" because he had no satisfactory response to it. If he reads the works of biblical scholars even a tenth as much as he claims, then he has to know that what I said above the "patchwork" way that the Old Testament was put together has become the prevailing view among biblical scholars (with the exception, of course, of those who are shackled to the outdated inerrancy view). (and skip to the close:) Yes, skip, skip, skip--Turkel's stock-in-trade is to skip that which he can't reply to without looking foolish. That is why I sometimes call him "Skippy" in my articles. If the name fits, why not use it, since he avoids mentioning the names of his opponents?
Time would fail me if I should try to discuss all of the biblical texts where space was wasted on genealogical data and then wasted again repeating the same data or where Yahweh "inspired" his chosen ones to give minute details, chapter after chapter, on how to build a tent and make the furniture that was to go into it (Exodus 26-39). No rational person can wade through such tedious, repetitious trivia as this (Note once again X's blind, mouth-foaming bigotry:) Hmm, sensibility is "mouth-foaming bigotry"? (because HE finds such details "trivial" and "tedious," it was obviously unimportant.) Yes, "God" didn't descend to kiss my patoot, did he? Do you suppose that Turkel will ever descend to explain a simple problem that I have presented to him over and over and over: Why would an omniscient, omnipotent deity devising a "plan of salvation" that would be imposed on all mankind, regardless of where and when they lived, have coded it in the idioms, nuances, and customs of a relatively small nomadic group in just a tiny part of the world, instead of presenting it in language that could be understood by all people of all times? And he cannot say that the books of the Old Testament were not really a part of the "plan of salvation" intended for all men, because one simply cannot understand such things as the claims of Messianic lineage, prophecy fulfillment, and shadows, figures, and types mentioned in the book of Hebrews, etc. without having a knowledge of the Old Testament. Furthermore, I have already shown that Turkel is dead wrong when he says that the Old Testament was addressed only to the Hebrews, because New Testament writers, as I showed here, clearly said that what had been written in the Old Testament was written for "our instruction" to be examples for us [living in the Christian era]. If the apostle Paul was right in preaching this, then Turkel's claim that the Old Testament was written just for Jews goes down the tube, as do most of the claims that he impetuously publishes on his website. (What sanctimonious arrogance!) Where is the arrogance in thinking that an omniscient, omnipotent deity should have been able to reveal a "plan of salvation" intended for all people of all times in language that is consistent, coherent, and comprehensible? Is Turkel ever going to address this issue beyond repeating his question-begging comment about "God's" not descending to kiss my patoot? Will pigs ever fly? (The ancients were VERY concerned with genealogies (see here) Well, I certainly don't need to "see here" to know that ancient cultures considered genealogical descent important, but what ancient cultures considered important is irrelevant to the fact that long sections of the Old Testament were wasted reporting that so-and-so begot whoever, when there was far more important information that an omniscient, omnipotent deity (presumably interested in the welfare of mankind) could have "inspired" his writers to record. Over time, the importance of genealogical descent has diminished as people have come to understand more about human reproduction, so the fact that Terah begot Abraham or that Shem begot Aram or that Esau begot Jalam is information of only trivial academic interest to people living today, and will be even less interesting to those who live 10,000 years from now. I have to wonder why this omni-max deity didn't know that this diminished interest would be forthcoming and accordingly leave out this kind of information to the emphasis of that which would have been more beneficial in a divine revelation intended for all people of all times. Turkel obviously doesn't want to address problems like these, because he knows that he has no sensible explanation. At any rate, I am glad that he gave us the link above, because it was obviously directed at my articles, which begin here, about the chronological inconsistencies in Exodus 12:40 and the genealogy in chapter six. As those who take the time to read these articles will clearly see, I have hung many an inerrantist out to dry on this issue, so after I have finished scalping Turkel on his paper-shortage quibble, I will try to find time to dismantle his article linked to above. I read through it quickly but could still see many holes in his line of argumentation. (and with details of such things (because they represented important concepts reflecting order in creation; see here for related points). well, I saw "here" but failed to see anything about "concepts" in the tabernacle design that "reflect[ed] order in creation." The article linked to discussed Levitical ceremonial cleansing, which attempted to explain how a priest could declare a person clean when "all his flesh" was covered with leprosy Leviticus 13:9-13, and in typical fashion, Turkel had found a book in which the author declared that ancient purity rituals drew "extensive lines of purity, of clean and unclean, in an attempt to create a model of God's cosmic order." Nothing was said to explain how the author had arrived at this conclusion, but even if this is all true, in everything that Turkel quoted from his source, nothing was said about "important concepts" in the design of the tabernacle that "reflect[ed] order in creation." Hence, I will ask Turkel the same question again. Why would an omniscient, omnipotent deity, who presumably had vital interests in mankind, have directed his chosen writer to give meticulous details about how the tabernacle, its curtains, and furnishings were to be designed (Ex. 26-39) to the neglect of information that would have been far more important for his chosen nomadic tribe. He could have, for example, given specific instructions on how to cure leprosy rather than telling priests what kind of hand-waving ceremonies to go through in order to declare a person "clean" or "unclean" of leprosy, but that would have made too much sense to have appealed to the omniscient, omnipotent Yahweh. (The comparison I have made of X to a Grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan is entirely justified;) The reason why Turkel wagged this comment in here eludes me, because comparing me to a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan occurred not in his "replies" to my paper-shortage articles, but in one of his defenses of preterism, but since he brought it up, I will quote my reply to it, which can be found at the same link just given.
As I said above, when I say that "God" should have done a better job of "inspiring" the writing of the Bible, that is not a slam directed at the ancient Hebrews or the language they spoke but at the omniscient, omnipotent deity who presumably inspired the authorship of the Bible. For reasons fully explained ahead, Turkel's ANE "explanation" for confusion and ambiguity in the Bible is not a vindication of the Bible but an indictment of his omni-max deity, who he thinks was the ultimate author of the Bible. If such an entity had truly "inspired" the authorship of a book that was intended to make all humanity aware of the unfolding of a "plan of redemption," the omnibenevolence of this entity would have made the finished product much different from what it is.
I stand by those comments, and Turkel has yet to give a sensible explanation for the problem that they identified. Why would an omniscient, omnipotent deity undertaking to reveal a "plan of salvation" to mankind have wasted so much scroll space on minute details about matters like the design of a tent and its furnishings and ritual ceremonies, which in the case under consideration were to be performed after leprosy had been contracted? Why wouldn't the omniscient, omnipotent one have wanted instead to help his chosen ones with clear instructions on how to cure leprosy after it had been contracted? These are sensible questions, and Turkel doesn't answer them by calling me "bigoted" or "provincial" or "one-dimensional" or "chauvinistic" or by saying that I am upset because "God" didn't descend to kiss my patoot. Such comments are flagrant evasions of legitimate problems that have been pointed out to Turkel over and over and over and over. If the ultimate intelligence behind the authorship of the Bible was indeed an omniscient, omnipotent deity, then why did he not move to lift the Hebrew understanding of the world far above the ignorance of their time instead of codifying superstitious practices pertaining to animal sacrifices, genealogical descent, ceremonial cleansings and other rituals, which rather than advancing civilization retarded it, for once rituals or customs have attained the status of religious belief or ceremony, they tend to remain entrenched in the societal structures of the cultures that practice them. The codification of ancient customs and superstitions in the Bible is plausible evidence that it is no more divine in its origin than other ethnic documents of ancient times. To say this is not to insult the intelligence of the Hebrews, because they simply reflected in their religious writings what they thought was true. It is an indictment of the omni-max deity who presumably inspired the writing of the Bible. (he is just as well to speak of "space wasted on Alex Haley's Roots") Alex Haley's Roots made no claim to being divine in its origin. I wonder if Turkel can say false analogy. (and the "tedious" descriptions of ceremonies that accompany Kwanzaa celebrations.) Although those who observe Kwanza claim that it is not a religious festival, it features customs like candle burning and the pouring of libations, which are certainly reminiscent of religious practices. Regardless, if Kwanza should gain the stranglehold on American society as biblical based religion has, I would indeed oppose it just as vigorously as I oppose the homage that people today pay to the Bible. (Sorry, X, the world does not revolve around YOU. The solar system is not "Xocentric". [sic]) Such comments as these are parallel to Turkel's kiss-Till's-patoot evasions. They do nothing to explain legitimate questions about problematic passages in the Bible. and then believe that parallel accounts in the New Testament sometimes appear inconsistent because "paper" was scarce and expensive in those days, so the "inspired ones" chose to leave out certain details that would have harmonized the accounts if they had told all. This is nothing more than another desperate attempt by an amateur apologist to rationalize obvious discrepancies and inconsistencies in the Bible. (It's nothing more than X foolishly assuming that conditions and purposes for the Gospels were the same as for the OT.) Yawn! Turkel can do nothing but recycle the same old discredited "different-purpose" quibble. I have now replied to it umpteen times, so I need to say nothing more here except to urge Turkel to give us a sensible reason why the "purpose" that Old Testament writers had allowed them to repeat freely and to copy long sections from previously written works, but the "purpose" of the gospel writers would not allow them to include important information, not even when that information was central to the writer's purpose, as when "John" said that he had written about "signs" in the life of Jesus that would make readers believe that he was "the Christ" John 20:30-31). He said that was his purpose, but he omitted the very signs that Matthew claimed had caused Roman pagans to declare that Jesus was surely the son of God (Matt. 27:51-54). Go figure. (And more than this, below, which X did not address from the article.) Well, readers will see that I have "addressed" the appeal to authority that Turkel made below.
This paper-shortage theory would have us believe that a god who had spared no expense in commanding the Israelites to build a tabernacle to his vanity, (Vanity, my foot.) This explains about as much as Turkel's "kiss-Till's-patoot" quibble. (This is X's bigotry shining again.) As I said above, Turkel doesn't explain legitimately identified biblical problems by saying that I am "bigoted" or "provincial" or "one-dimensional" or "chauvinistic" or by saying that I am upset because "God" didn't descend to kiss my patoot. Such comments are flagrant evasions of problems for which Turkel has no sensible explanations. What I said above is appropriate to quote here.If the ultimate intelligence behind the authorship of the Bible was indeed an omniscient, omnipotent deity, then why did he not move to lift the Hebrew understanding of the world far above the ignorance of their time instead of codifying superstitious practices pertaining to animal sacrifices, genealogical descent, ceremonial cleansings and other rituals, which rather than advancing civilization retarded it...?
Do you suppose Turkel will ever get around to actually trying to answer this question? (The tabernacle and other accoutrements again represented important concepts about order and chaos.) Yes, Turkel said this above, but as I showed there, the link that he gave said nothing by way of proof that the tabernacle and its accoutrements "represented important concepts about order and chaos." As readers will see by going to the link that Turkel gave above, his article talked about presumed symbols of "order in creation" in the ritualistic Levitical cleansing ceremonies but said nothing about representations of "order and chaos" in the tabernacle and its accoutrements. This article will show that Turkel has found a book to quote, and he quotes it as if the author is to be accepted as the final authority in the matter of Levitical cleansing ceremonies, but the article does not show that "concepts about order and chaos" were represented in the tabernacle. Now it may be that Turkel's source did claim elsewhere that such symbols were in the design of the tabernacle, but Turkel's article linked to didn't discuss them. For the sake of argument, let's just suppose that the design of the tabernacle did show all that Turkel is claiming. So what? Religious rituals and ceremonies in general reflect concepts that were prevalent at the time of their origin, but those concepts weren't necessarily accurate. There is a bumper sticker that says, "The Bible was written by people who thought the earth was flat." We now know that this belief was scientifically inaccurate, so if Turkel thinks that he has found "concepts about order and chaos" in the tabernacle and its accoutrements, he needs to show us what those concepts were, prove that they were accurate concepts, and explain to us why symbolization of those concepts would have been more important than information discussed above that Yahweh forewent in order to give intricate details about how to make the tabernacle and its accoutrements. (Isn't this the same X who quotes the verse above about God wanting men to be saved?) Yes, it is, so perhaps Turkel could explain to us how his perceived "concepts about order and chaos" in the designs of the tabernacle and its accoutrements made a more important contribution to the "salvation" of mankind than information (previously identified) that Yahweh chose to conceal in his divine revelations. in which the furniture was overlaid with pure gold and accessories cast of pure gold (Ex. 25-31), and later a temple even more elaborate, was so much of a tightwad that he would not provide his inspired writers with adequate scroll materials to write complete details of what they were reporting. (Uh huh. The Israelites were able to gather reparations from Egypt after 400 years of slavery.) Well, of course, that is what the Bible claims. I even know the place where the claim was made (Ex. 12:35), but whether this actually happened or not is another matter. For the sake of argument, let's just assume that it did. This would explain where a group of desert wanderers got the precious metals to overlay the tabernacle accoutrements, but it wouldn't explain how they had been able to carry tons of gold and silver through the desert wilderness when there was something of much more value and weight that they would have needed to transport. I am talking about the water that they would have needed to take with them between encampments to sustain 2.5 to 3 million people and their large herds of cattle (Ex. 12:38). In case Turkel doesn't know it, I'll clue him in; a gallon of water weighs eight pounds, so he can do the math, as I did in the article linked to above, to determine how much weight in water the Israelites would have had to transport with them if they had taken only one gallon per person per day in their three-day trek from the Red Sea to Marah (Ex. 15:22-23), which was only one of their many treks through the wilderness. These, of course, are problems that Turkel is too myopic to think about when he reads the Bible (if he reads it much at all). Uncritical Bible believers like him will read stories like the wilderness tales and never pause to ask themselves, "Now if this really happened, what would have necessarily been involved?" It's in the Bible, and that is good enough for them. At any rate, the Israelites presumably obtained "reparations" of gold and silver before they left Egypt, and what did the omniscient, omnipotent Yahweh have them do with them? Instead of saving them until they were where these valuables could have been used to make life more comfortable for the chosen ones, Yahweh had them put them into the building of a tent that would be dedicated to his vanity. That's just like Yahweh, isn't it? (So X selfishly supposes that someone else should have done the same for the sake of his ignorance and nitpicking? Yes, the word sic revolves around you, Skeptic X.) As I said above, forget about me and think about the thousands and thousands of people who have found the Bible too preposterous to believe because of many of the same kinds of problems that I have identified in it. I guess the world doesn't revolve around them either, so to hell with them. Isn't that what Turkel is, in effect, saying? (We'll....) Meaning Turkel, of course. ([We'll] skip his remaining confidence-man blather) Well, let's take a look at the "remaining confidence-man blather" that the Turk skipped. Ah, yes, here it is.
Down through the years, the efforts of biblicists to defend the inerrancy of the Bible have failed so miserably that they have been forced to abandon their methods in favor of new ones. The paper-shortage theory is one of the latest, and as any reasonable person can see, it is even more ridiculous than the how-it-could-have-been scenarios of John Haley, Gleason Archer, and such like.
The Bible is obviously errant. The "new apologists" should just accept the obvious and get over it.
The fact that Turkel has abandoned the traditional how-it-could-have-been methods of the apologists named above is a tacit admission that he has recognized their failure to explain adequately biblical discrepancies. Perhaps someday he will recognize the failure of his paper-shortage, it-doesn't-matter, concepts-of-order-and-chaos, etc., etc., etc. methods, but then maybe pigs will fly someday too. (and instead remind the reader of material in here X IGNORED in his response, particularly what is said by Byrskog. This is a link to Turkel's article "Crimes by Omission," which I have replied to in a detailed, point-by-point, three-part series, which begins here. Everything--and I do mean everything, every single point in Turkel's article--was answered in this series, and his fallacy of the appeal to authority in citing Byrskog was replied to here in the third part of this series, where I showed that Turkel had once again resorted to selective quoting, because Byrskog had said in the very source cited "that historians always interpret the testimony of witnesses, because they recognize that witnesses could be biased," and that is a view that conflicts with Turkel's often stated position that oral traditions on which biblical accounts were based are reliable. At any rate, the last thing that Turkel can accuse me of is evasion, because he well knows that when I reply to his articles, I do so in a detailed, point-by-point manner. He cannot say the same about his replies to my articles. (And he can't say he didn't have enough paper.) Neither can Turkel, so if he doesn't reply in kind to my rebuttal articles, there is only one reason why he doesn't--evasion!
I have now replied point-by-point in detail to
Turkel's attempts to defend his paper-shortage
quibble. If he replies to me in kind, I will reciprocate; however, if
he simply cranks out
another piece of hackwork that selectively quotes me, skips over entire
sections of my
rebuttal, and recycles his question-begging, kiss-Till's-patoot
evasions, I will see no need
to waste more time with him on an issue that he has no intention of
seriously debating.
