From jftill@midwest.net Mon Aug 12 13:39:20 1996 Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 15:03:49 -0500 (CDT) From: Farrell Till To: drjdprice@aol.com Cc: lippard@primenet.com, taylorj@pionet.net Subject: For M. Dawud: Response to Price >From: jftill@midwest.net (Farrell Till) >Subject: For M. Dawud: Response to Price > >Mr. Dawud: > > You have asked me to reply to Dr. James Price's response to Jim Lippard's article "The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah," which Lippard had posted on his home page. You wanted me to respond to it in *The Skeptical Review,* but Price's response totals 130k, and it would require more than two complete issues of TSR just to publish the text of Price's article. Since his response consisted of many unsupported assertions, to adequately rebut many of his points, I would need much more space than he took to make the assertions. This requirement is due to the obvious fact that assertions are generally brief but rebuttals of assertions require detailed analysis and support. For that reason, I will not be publishing Dr. Price's response, because I would probably have to devote more than an entire year of publishing space in discussion of this one issue. > >As a compromise, I intend to respond to Dr. Price via the internet. I will have to do this in a series of replies that I can see taking at least a year to complete, because I do have many other demands on my time. I will probably post these replies on my "Errancy" list, and I will send CCs to Dr. Price and people who have challenged me to debate him. Dr. Price, of course, will be entitled to respond to any of my rebuttals, and I will also post them on the errancy list. > >GENERAL IMPRESSIONS: > >My general impression of Dr. Price's rebuttal article is not at all favorable. It is slightly better than many attempts I have seen to prove biblical prophecy fulfillment, and it is certainly better than Dr. Hugh Ross's article on the subject that I published in the January/February 1996 issue of TSR and responded to in a series of three rebuttals. This, however, is not saying very much, because Ross's article was, in my opinion, incredibly simplistic. Price did at least try from time to time to present evidence to support his supposition rather than simply make bald assertions, and for that he is to be commended. This compliment should not be construed to mean that Dr. Price did not at times make bald, unsupported assertions, because he certainly did, as I will be pointing out. I am merely recognizing that some of his rebuttal arguments were accompanied by supporting information. > >PRICE >Jim Lippard's article was written in an attempt to discredit the >claims that certain Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament >were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. His article is copyrighted with >the following permission for use: > >This text copyright (c) 1993 by Jim Lippard, 2930 E. 1st St., >Tucson, AZ 85716 (lippard@rtd.com). Permission is granted to >redistribute this file electronically provided this notice is >retained. Quotations from his article are made under the >provisions of the above permission. > >TILL >This introductory information does not require any comment. > >PRICE >My own statements in this response to Lippard's article are not >copyrighted and may be distributed without restriction. My >response consists of several sections: (1) basic flaws in >Lippard's reasoning; (2) presentation of evidence for legitimate >predictive prophecy; (3) response to Lippard's discussion of the >significance of Messianic prophecy; and (4) response to Lippard's >rejection of specific Messianic prophecies. In this latter >section I follow Lippard's outline in which he divides his >critique into five sections: (a) birth prophecies; ministry >prophecies; (c) betrayal prophecies; (d) crucifixion prophecies; >and (e) conclusions. > >TILL >The various points that Price listed in this paragraph will be discussed in detail as I go through Price's rebuttal article, so I will not address them at this point. I have quoted this paragraph only to show that Dr. Price has indicated that he holds no copyright on his article, so I assume from his statement that he will have no objections to my responding to it via the internet. > >PRICE > >BASIC FLAWS >Lippard's article is characterized by three basic flaws: (1) >disregard of philosophical differences; (2) failure to consider >historic Jewish Messianic tradition; and (3) shallow scholarship. > >Philosophical Differences >Lippard provided two quotations, one from a Christian, Josh McDowell, >and another from an atheist, Thomas Paine, with exactly opposite views >on Jesus Christ and Messianic prophecy. He then declared Paine to be >right without discussing the fundamental difference in their >philosophical presuppositions. > >But any consideration of prophecy must surely include such a >discussion. If one begins with an anti-supernatural >presupposition, as did Paine and Lippard, then that automatically >excludes the possibility of true predictive prophecy which is by >its very nature supernatural. Thus, whenever an atheist like >Paine is faced with a possible instance of predictive prophecy, >he must rationalize and try to explain it away. He is satisfied >with any flimsy excuse to discredit the prophecy, because, after >all, predictive prophecy cannot really happen according to his >anti-supernatural presupposition. > >Lippard exposed his anti-supernatural presupposition when he >said: "Given our present knowledge of the chronology of the >Bible's writing, however, in most cases it cannot be demonstrated >that the prophetic statements do not post-date the events being >predicted." However, this statement involves circular reasoning, >because the scholars who post-dated prophecies did so because of >their own anti-supernatural presupposition. That is, they >reasoned that there is no such thing as long-range, specific >predictions, therefore, any such apparent predictions must >necessarily have been given after the event predicted. But such >reasoning is purely subjective and philosophical, not based on >valid historic evidence. It impugns the veracity of the Biblical >prophets, making them fraudulent, in spite of their godly >reputation. How could such alleged fraudulent literature have >gained canonicity and be regarded as the divinely inspired Word >of God? The ancient Jews were not gullible. The truly fraudulent >literature, and there was some, was never regarded as canonical. > >McDowell, on the other hand, is willing to allow the possibility >of the supernatural, and thus is willing to acknowledge the >existence of true predictive prophecy when it is verified by >valid historic evidence. As I demonstrate later, true prophecies >exist in the Hebrew Bible that cannot be post-dated, therefore, >it is appropriate to conduct the discussion of Messianic prophecy >under McDowell's presupposition. Any true prophecy will stand the >test of valid historic scrutiny, and any false prophecy will be >exposed. On the other hand, it is vain to conduct a discussion of >any type of prophecy under Lippard's anti-supernatural >presupposition, because such a discussion can only lead to >atheism. It begins with atheism and can only lead to atheism. >Lippard may pretend to reason in McDowell's philosophical arena, >but his anti-supernaturalism is frequently unmasked in the way he >reasons and rationalizes. > >TILL >In this section of Price's article, he has made the familiar theistic complaint that skeptics have an "anti-supernatural presupposition," but, of course, Dr. Price apparently doesn't recognize that he, like most biblicists, has a PRO-supernatural presupposition. As we will see in the course of my rebuttals, Dr. Price constantly betrays his pro-supernatural bias. As with most biblicists, the fact that the Bible says X is usually sufficient to prove X. Let X represent any of the many supernatural claims in the Bible, from the creation of the world, to the parting of the Red Sea, to Elisha's floating of an axehead, to the various miracles attributed to Jesus, to the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. The mere fact that the Bible claims these fabulous events occurred is all the evidence that credulous people like Dr. Price need to "prove" to them they did indeed happen. If a skeptic dares to ask for reasonable evidence that such miracles did happen, biblicists scream, "You have an anti-supernatural presupposition!" > >During the course of my rebuttal, I will be appealing to the rule of evidence known as Occam's razor, so I will introduce it now. William of Occam, a 13th-century philosopher and logician, although not its originator, popularized a reasoning principle that says, "Entities should not be unnecessarily multiplied." This principle has since been known as Occam's razor, and the essence of it is simple: When a phenomenon needs explanation, the simplest explanation is probably the correct one. My contention during this discussion will be that biblicists like Dr. Price have flung down this rule of evidence and danced upon it. In complete disregard of simple explanations of the many claims of biblical miracles, they stubbornly insist that the simplest explanations are wrong and the least likely explanations are correct. > >Let's take as an example, the story of the floating axehead in 2 Kings 6:5-6. Here is a claim that the prophet Elisha caused an axehead that had fallen into the Jordan River to float to the surface so that it could be retrieved. One may look at this story in two ways: (1) this happened exactly as recorded, and Elisha did indeed make an iron axehead float in water, or (2) this is merely a fabulous legend, typical of the times, and no such event actually happened. > >My contention is that the second of these views is the more reasonable one. Does this give me an "anti-supernatural presupposition"? Dr. Price may think so if he wishes, but my contention is that it merely gives me common sense. In all of my experiences--and I am 63 years old--I have never seen iron objects like axeheads float in the water, but I have experienced people who exaggerate and lie, and I have read literature of ancient times (some of it contemporary to the time of Elisha) in which fabulous claims were made. It is more reasonable, then, to believe that the story of the floating axehead is either an intentionally fabricated lie or merely a legend that developed in superstitious times. If I don't accept fabulous claims in the ancient literature of Greece or Rome or Moab, why should I accept similar claims just because they are recorded in a book that has "Holy Bible" embossed on the cover? If one is going to accept a fabulous claim just because it is recorded in an ancient document, then as Thomas Paine said in *Age of Reason* one would have to believe that the emperor Vespasian healed a blind man and a lame man as Tacitus said. (Paine said Tacitus, but actually this alleged event was recorded by Suetonius.) The New Testament attributed such miracles to Jesus; Suetonius attributed them to Vespasian. What is the difference? If Price says, "Well, the New Testament is God's word," he will be begging a question that he needs to prove. If he argues that prophecy fulfillment proves that the Bible is God's word but attempts to prove through appeals to the Bible (as we will see that he did) that prophecy fulfillments did indeed happen, then he finds himself chasing his tail in obviously circular reasoning. > >To accept miracle claims just because they are written in the Bible is to have not just a pro-supernatural bias but what I will call a LIMITED pro-supernatural bias. People with this limited pro-supernatural bias accept without question any fabulous claim recorded in the Bible while simultaneously rejecting fabulous claims recorded elsewhere. This is an inconsistency for which biblicists need to offer some justification. In my debate in Seattle on the issue of the resurrection, Michael Horner made the same "anti-supernatural" complaint about me that Dr. Price has made about Jim Lippard. The format of the debate was such that the participants had the right of cross-examination, so I spent much of my allotted time questioning Mr. Horner about his limited pro-supernatural bias. Did he believe that an angel had delivered to Joseph Smith golden plates on which the Book of Mormon had been written in reformed Egyptian script? He said that he didn't (*The Horner-Till Debate,* Transcript by Skepticism, Inc., p. 8). Did he believe any of the many reports claiming that Elvis Presley had been seen alive? He said that he didn't and went on to say that he thought it "a little bit ridiculous" that I would even bring it up (p. 9). I asked him if he believed that the people of Jerusalem had seen soldiers and chariots in the clouds surrounding the city, as Josephus had claimed in *Wars of the Jews,* 6:5.3). Horner said that he didn't know, because he hadn't "checked into it" (p. 9). I asked him if he believed Josephus's report that a heifer being led to the altar had given birth to a lamb? Horner gave the same answer: he hadn't checked into it (p. 9). I asked him if he believed the claim of Suetonius, recorded in *The Twelve Caesars* that while Roman officials were arguing over where to cremate the body of Julius Caesar, two divine forms came down with torches and set fire to Caesar's pyre. Horner said, "Same response, Farrell. I don't know where this is leading" (p. 9) > >I suspect that Horner knew exactly where I was leading. I was trying to show the audience that Horner was trying to apply a double standard to the debate by arguing that I was unreasonable in my rejection of biblical miracle claims while he himself was indicating that he rejected miracle claims unless they were in the Bible. In my final period of cross-examination, I confirmed my suspicion when I asked Horner if he could think of a single miracle claim recorded in the literature of biblical times that he believed really happened, with the exception of those in the Bible. He answered with one word: "No" (p. 16). Although I have not yet had the opportunity to inquire of Dr. Price, I suspect that he will have the same limited pro-supernatural bias. If the Bible says that a miracle happened, that is sufficient evidence for him to believe that it happened, but if extrabiblical literature claimed miracles events he will reject them. If this should be the case, he will prove himself to be too logically inconsistent to be a credible spokesman for biblical prophecy fulfillment. > >Finally, on this point, I will simply observe that it is entirely reasonable for Jim Lippard and me to have what Dr. Price calls an "anti-supernatural presupposition." I will use my own experiences as justification for this position, because I am considerably older than Lippard. In my entire lifetime, I have witnessed thousands and thousands of events, yet in all of that time, I have never seen an occurrence that could not be explained by natural means. I have never seen anyone demonstrate that miracles can happen. I have never known of anyone who has successfully proven that any miraculous event unquestionably happened. Why then should I believe that miracles routinely happened thousands of years ago in prescientific times when superstitious people customarily resorted to, "God did it," as explanations for things that they could not understand? If I am being reasonable when I reject the miracle claims of Josephus, Suetonius, and other writers of ancient times, by what rule of evidence should I accept a miracle claim simply because it is recorded in the Bible? These are matters that in his denunciation of Lippard's "anti-superstition presupposition," Dr. Price did not address. As it turns out, then, Lippard is the one with the more sensible position, and Price still has much to prove. > >There are other general comments that I need to make about Dr. Price's rebuttal article, which I will post in my next installment; then after that, I can address his various counterarguments. > > > > Farrell Till Skepticism, Inc. jftill@midwest.net From jftill@midwest.net Tue Aug 13 10:37:09 1996 Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 00:12:29 -0500 (CDT) From: Farrell Till To: drjdprice@aol.com Cc: lippard@primenet.com Subject: For Dawud: Response to Price 2 In my first rebuttal article, I addressed Dr. Price's claim that Jim Lippard approached the subject of prophecy fulfillment with an "anti-supernatural presupposition." I showed (1) that Dr. Price is inconsistent, if not hypocritical, in this criticism of Lippard, because Price has demonstrated an opposite or pro-supernatural bias, and (2) deep suspicion of supernatural claims is entirely reasonable in that no events have happened in contemporary times that cannot be explained by natural laws and no one has ever been able to verify beyond reasonable doubt the authenticity of any miracle claim. Before I begin discussing specific arguments in Dr. Price's article, there is one other prelimary matter that I need to address. Later, I will list and discuss some widely recognized criteria of valid prophecy fulfillment, but to discuss this other preliminary matter, I must jump ahead and focus on one of those criteria. It is obviously true that before a valid prophecy fulfillment can be established, the person claiming prophecy fulfillment must first show that the event or events that fulfilled the prophecy did in fact happen. This poses a special problem for Dr. Price, because the subject of Lippard's article that Price rebutted was Messianic prophecies. Obviously, then, no valid claim of Messianic prophecy fulfillment can be made until Price establishes beyond reasonable doubt that a Messiah actually existed, because no nonexistent person could possibly fulfill prophecies that were made about a specific person. If, for example, I should claim that Dudley P. Snizzlehoff living in 18th-century Boston, MA, fulfilled certain prophecies made by Michele de Nostredame in 1554, my fulfillment claim would be weak indeed if I couldn't even prove that a person by the name of Dudley P. Snizzlehoff had even lived in 18th-century Boston. This is the situation that Dr. Price finds himself in. He claims that several Old Testament prophecies of a coming Messiah were fulfilled in the person and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth in the first century of the common era, yet neither he nor anyone else can establish beyond reasonable doubt that this Jesus of Nazareth was an actual historical person. This man Jesus of Nazareth was mentioned in New Testament documents, and he was mentioned in certain apocryphal writings. However, none of these documents were contemporary to the time that Jesus allegedly lived; they were all written after the time that Christians believe that he had lived. The earliest of these documents, some of the epistles of the apostle Paul, were written about two decades after Jesus had presumably been crucified and resurrected, and their author never even claimed that he had seen Jesus while he was alive. His claim was that he had seen Jesus after his death and that this sighting was only in a "vision" (Acts 26:19), and even this was a hearsay claim that came to us through Luke. The other New Testament documents came later--much later--and there is no way to confirm that they were actually written by the people whom Christians claim were their authors. The apocryphal writings are so outrageously ridiculous in their content that even Christians reject their authenticity. When we put all of these facts into perspective, we have a very weak case for the historicity of Jesus. The New Testament gospels present him as a man who attracted huge multitudes of people, who had heard of his fame in places as far away as Syria, Tyre, Sidon, and Idumea (Matt. 4:24-25; Mark 3:7; Luke 6:17), a man who went about healing the blind and the lame, walking on water, changing water into wine, raising the dead, a man who himself was allegedly crucified amidst remarkable signs and wonders, i.e., a mysterious midday darkness, an earthquake, and a general resurrection of many saints, and was then himself resurrected to life; yet not a single contemporary record makes any mention at all of this remarkable man or any of these wondrous signs. Dr. Price cannot quote a single contemporary secular writer who said that he/she ever saw the man, ever talked to him, ever heard him preach, or ever saw him perform a single miracle. The only references to him in any documents that even come close to being contemporary records were written by people who were flagrantly biased in their belief that a man named Jesus had lived and performed signs and wonders during the time of the Roman prefector Pontius Pilate. This is hardly convincing evidence for actual historical existence. Dr. Price, of course, will argue that this is an argument from silence, but complete historical silence about some of the events presumably associated with Jesus are difficult, if not impossible, to imagine. King Herod allegedly killed all of the male children in and around Bethlehem, but there are no historical references to this massacre. Josephus, who treated Herod rather unkindly in his *Antiquities of the Jews* and told of many of Herod's heinous deeds, said nothing about the slaughter of the infants at Bethlehem. Later, we will see Dr. Price actually arguing that Josephus probably didn't consider such a deed as this important enough to mention. Likewise, I presume Dr. Price thinks that Josephus didn't consider the three hours of darkness over all the land at midday when Jesus was crucified important enough to mention (Matt. 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44). Apparently no other contemporary writer considered it important either, because no indisputable records of it were left by anyone. This was described as a darkness that fell over "all the land," and Luke even translated the Greek word "ge" as earth, which was a possible meaning of the word, so the gospel writers could have been claiming that this midday darkness had fallen over "all the earth." If it was even a regional darkness, there would surely have been some mention of it in official and unofficial records, yet the best that biblicists can do is cite a disputed reference or two from second- and third-century writers like Julius Africanus and Phlegon, who claim that first century writers whose works are no longer extant had mentioned an "eclipse." Eclipses are measured in minutes, not hours, so such hearsay references as these can hardly be considered sterling evidence that an unnatural midday darkness of three hours' duration really happened. Contemporary records were also strangely silent about the earthquake at the time of Jesus's death, which allegedly shook open the graves of many saints who then went into the city and appeared unto many (Matt. 27:52-53). Like the supernatural darkness at midday, word of such a remarkable event as this would surely have been spread through the region, if not the known world, so that references to it would have been left in contemporary records, but none exist. The historian Seneca was born in 4 B.C., the same year that most New Testament scholars fix the time of Jesus's birth. He and Pliny the Elder, another contemporary of Jesus, wrote detailed accounts of all of the known natural disasters and phenomena, past and present, earthquakes, floods, meteors, comets, eclipses, etc., but neither one mentioned either a three-hour darkness at midday or an earthquake that shook open tombs and resurrected "many" dead people. In chapter 24 of *The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,* Edward Gibbon refers to the silence of Seneca and Pliny on the midday darkness and accepts this as reason to believe that no such event ever happened. The silence of Josephus about such remarkable events as these is also hard to imagine. His father, Matthias, was a priest in Jerusalem at the very time that Jesus was allegedly crucified and resurrected (*The Life of Flavius Josephus,* 2:7-12), so we can hardly imagine Josephus's father witnessing such phenomenal events as the midday darkness and the resurrection of "many" saints and not talking about them in the family circle as Josephus was growing up. Likewise, we can't imagine Josephus not referring to these events if his father had indeed mentioned them. Josephus mentioned several minor Messianic claimants, whom history has now all but forgotten, but he made only two short, disputed references to a Messiah whose life was accompanied by truly amazing events. There is argument from silence; there is argument from unreasonable silence, and it is unreasonable to think that really remarkable events like these could have happened without any contemporary references to them having survived. My personal position is not that Jesus of Nazareth was merely a fictional or legendary character but that he very well could have been, because the evidence is simply insufficient to establish as historical fact that this man was an actual person. The strange silence of contemporary records concerning the New Testament claims of amazing signs and wonders that accompanied the ministry of Jesus is certainly reason enough to believe that he was at best a quasihistorical person, whose life was later exaggerated and legendized to the point that it would be correct to say that the Jesus of the gospels simply did not exist. As I begin addressing Dr. Price's claims of prophecy fulfillment, we will see that most of his evidence consists only of what the New Testament says happened in the life of Jesus. In a word, we will see that practically all of Dr. Price's evidence assumes the historical accuracy of the New Testament documents. We will see him arguing that the New Testament says that Jesus was born of a virgin, and so this proves that he was born of a virgin. We will see him arguing that the New Testament claims that he was born in Bethlehem, and so this proves that he was born in Bethlehem, and so on. Dr. Price's claim that Jesus of Nazareth existed and fulfilled many Messianic prophecies is a claim that is fraught with too many problems to be taken seriously by rational people. He is, in effect, claiming that a person who may not have existed fulfilled certain events that may not have happened, whose historicity depends entirely upon an assumption that everything the New Testament claims is historically accurate. At this point, I could simply stop and say that Dr. Price's prophecy fulfillment claims have been rebutted until he can remove the problems that I have identified in this posting. However, I will begin in my next posting to take his arguments one by one and show that even if we assume the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth, Dr. Price's arguments are insufficient to establish undeniable prophecy fulfillment. I don't know if Dr. Price intends to respond to my rebuttals, but if he does, I invite him to begin with a major problem that arises from something he said in the following quotation excerpted from the conclusion of his article: PRICE What is surprising is the prophecies that Lippard failed to discuss. He stated that he discussed the most important ones, but the most important ones relate to Jesus' resurrection. The Old Testament does foretell the resurrection of the Messiah, and God really did raise Jesus from the dead. This event validates the righteous character of Jesus, the truth of His Messianic claims, the truth of fulfilled Messianic prophecy, and the validity of Christianity. TILL Aside from the obvious fact that establishing beyond reasonable doubt that Jesus of Nazareth did literally die and then literally return to life poses immense problems for Dr. Price, I am going to lay an added burden on him. The New Testament does claim that the resurrection of Jesus was prophesied, but no one can identify any Old Testament prophecy of the Messiah's resurrection that was worded so clearly that no reasonable person can deny that this was what the prophecy meant. I know that the apostles Peter and Paul, according to Luke, claimed that Psalm 16:8ff was a prophecy of Jesus's resurrection, but only someone desperate to find a resurrection prophecy could read this text and find any reason to believe that it was predicting a Messiah's resurrection from the dead. This prophecy will very likely come up later if Dr. Price decides to participate in a debate on prophecy fulfillment, but for now, I want to call his attention to what Luke alleged that Jesus told his disciples the night of his resurrection: "Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day" (Luke 24:47). The apostle Paul also alleged that the scriptures had spoken of the Messiah's resurrection on the third day: "For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried and he has been raised on the third day ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES" (1 Cor. 15:3-4). So here are two New Testament statements, one of them allegedly made by Jesus himself, that the scriptures (which would have had to have been the Old Testament) had spoken of the Christ's resurrection ON THE THIRD DAY. I now issue a challenge to Dr. Price. I defy him to find any Old Testament passage that ever prophesied that the Messiah would be resurrected on the third day. Farrell Till Skepticism, Inc. jftill@midwest.net