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Space constraints in this issue will require me to divide my response to Dr. Price's second defense of Jeremiah's prophecy into at least two parts. On page 15 of this issue is a letter from Dave Matson that helps me to abbreviate a response to Dr. Price's persistent objections to my insistence that extraordinary claims, such as the one he is defending, require exceptionally good, and even extraordinary, evidence. Matson's letter and my article "The Nature of the Claim" (TSR, March/April 1977, pp. 10-11) provide more than reasonable proof that Dr. Price's constant complaining about an "anti-supernatural bias" is merely a straw man he has set up to beat on and divert attention from the obvious fact that his case is weak. I have repeatedly asked Dr. Price to prove me wrong in my suspicion that he has the same so-called "anti-supernatural bias" about everything but the Bible, and he has refused to address the issue. Does he, for example, accept the miracle claims of ancient nonbiblical documents? If not, why not? Does he have an "anti-supernatural bias" toward all miracle claims except biblical ones? If so, what is his rationale for this highly selective bias? If he expects to have any credibility with rational people, he needs to tell us. My article previously cited ("The Nature of the Claim") gives him an excellent opportunity to address this issue. In it, I listed several specific miracle claims from various ancient nonbiblical documents. I challenge Dr. Price to read this article and tell us which, if any, of these claims he accepts. If he accepts none of them, what are his reasons for the rejections? Until he addresses this issue, it is going to hang around his neck like an albatross all through the debate on this subject. So I will put the question to him pointblank. Dr. Price, do you accept the miracle claims in the Book of Mormon, the Hindu Vedas, the Qur'an, Josephus's Wars of the Jews, Suetonius's Twelve Caesars, and such like? If not, why not? If it is reasonable to question such claims as these, why is it unreasonable to question comparable claims in the Bible on the same grounds that have led you to reject nonbiblical miracles? My position is that exaggerations, deliberate falsifications, mistaken impressions, etc., in documents of prescientific times were far more likely than the suspension of recognized natural laws? What is so wrong about that position? We need an answer, and continual harping about an anti-supernatural bias is not an answer. It is an indication of a far more unreasonable bias.
Other straw men: In addition to his complaints about an "anti-supernatural bias," Dr. Price has set up other straw men to give a false impression that he is debating the issue that divides us. He accused me of "poisoning the pot" by entitling my rebuttal article "A Bad Example of Prophecy Fulfillment," but if he will consult the textbooks used in writing courses at the seminary where he teaches, he should see that my title did exactly what writing experts say that a good title should do: it encapsulated the central theme of my article. As any writing instructor knows, the title is an integral part of an essay or article, so if Dr. Price is going to set a writing standard that would prohibit any statement in a title that would inform readers of the author's opinion on the subject of the article, consistency would demand that nothing be said anywhere in the article that would express the author's opinion. Such a standard would make discussion of controversial issues impossible, so his complaint is without merit.
He accused me of "continually chasing irrelevant rabbit trails" by referring to the biblical inerrancy doctrine, but this too is a straw man that was set up to divert attention from what I was actually arguing. He had predicted that I would "respond by quibbling over some minute details that are irrelevant to the main issue--the fulfillment of the central details of one specific prophecy" (March/ April, p. 4), and I replied to this by arguing that in a prophecy-fulfillment claim, there can be no such thing as "minute details," for if a genuine prophecy, inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity, was ever made, it would necessarily be fulfilled in every single detail, including the "minute" ones. To argue otherwise would reduce "divinely inspired" prophecy to a hit-and-miss proposition somewhat like the tabloid "prophecies," which sometimes seem to hit on some details but are incorrect in others and most often incorrect in everything.
I further said that "(i)f Dr. Price is going to claim prophecy fulfillment, then he is obligated to defend all details of the alleged prophecy and not just those that he considers `central,' for if Jeremiah was indeed inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity, we have every right to expect fulfillment in all details and not just those that Dr. Price considers `central'" (p. 4, emphasis added). I then compared Price's argumentation on this point to the way biblicists try to defend inerrancy by accusing skeptics of "quibbling over minor details when [inerrantists] are confronted with problems in their inerrancy defenses" (p. 4). I don't deny my belief that biblical inerrancy is inextricably related to the issue of prophecy fulfillment. At no time, however, did I state that the Bible would have to be inerrant before it could contain a valid prophecy, and at no time did Dr. Price address my claim that a genuine prophecy fulfillment would have to include fulfillment of all details and not just those that someone arbitrarily declares "central" ones. Let's hope that Dr. Price will address this issue.
The relevance of inerrancy: Having just stated my belief that biblical inerrancy cannot be separated from the issue of prophecy fulfillment, I will try to show Dr. Price what the relationship is. My position is that lack of faith in a claim, especially an extraordinary claim, is always justified when there are no good reasons to believe the claim. From beginning to end, the Bible is filled with fabulous claims, none of which can be verified by reasonable evidence. The Bible text, however, is a tangible existent that can be critically examined, and when it is so examined, we find that it is riddled with inconsistencies, discrepancies, and outright contradictions. (Space won't allow me to discuss in this article the many proofs of biblical errancy, but if Dr. Price cares to challenge me on this, I am prepared to debate it when this one is finished.) Verifiable flaws like these give rational readers every reason to suspect that the many fabulous, unverifiable claims probably didn't happen. In other words, the obvious errancy of the Bible in matters that can be verified gives probable cause to doubt the accuracy of its fabulous claims that cannot be verified. This is a simple application of the rule of evidence known as falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, i. e., false in one thing, false in everything. This rule does not mean that if one verifiable error is found in a document or the testimony of a witness, everything else in the document or testimony is necessarily false; it simply means that if one error is discovered, the credibility of the document or testimony is thereby impeached, and one then has sufficient cause to question anything else in the document or testimony.
So it is in the matter of the prophecy claim that Dr. Price is defending. It is found not just in a book within a collection of books that contain numerous inconsistencies and discrepancies; the specific book in which the prophecy is found is itself riddled with inconsistencies. The fact that two very different versions of Jeremiah have long existed (as explained in my first rebuttal article) is enough to call into question the traditional claim that this is a document that was inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity, but I will address this matter and Dr. Price's response to it later (probably in the next issue of TSR). For now, I'll limit my comments to problems in Jeremiah that show, whether inspired or not, it is not a book that instills confidence in the prophetic talents of its writer.
The credibility of the prophet Jeremiah: In my booklet Prophecies: Imaginary and Unfulfilled, I presented the following example of Jeremiah's shortcomings as a prophet: "Zedekiah to die in peace: In predicting Jerusalem's fall to Babylon, Jeremiah prophesied that Zedekiah, the king of Judah, would `die in peace':
Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: `Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah and tell him, "Thus says Yahweh, `Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. And you shall not escape from his hand, but shall surely be taken and delivered into his hand; your eyes shall see the eyes of the king of Babylon, he shall speak with you face to face, and you shall go to Babylon.' Yet hear the word of Yahweh, O Zedekiah king of Judah! Thus says Yahweh concerning you: "You shall not die by the sword. You shall die in peace; as in the ceremonies of your fathers, the former kings who were before you, so they shall burn incense for you and lament for you, saying, `Alas, lord!' For I have pronounced the word, says Yahweh'" (Jer. 34:2-5).
"The prophecy was that Jerusalem would fall to Babylon and Zedekiah would be captured and taken to Babylon but would `die in peace.' So what happened? Jerusalem was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar for two years and finally fell. Zedekiah and all his men of war fled the city by night but were pursued and overtaken on the plains of Jericho. Read what happened next:
But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and they overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. All his army was scattered from him. So they (the Chaldeans) took the king (Zedekiah) and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he pronounced judgment on him. Then the king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. And he killed all the princes of Judah in Riblah. He also put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in bronze fetters, took him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death (Jer. 52:9-11).
"If this was Jeremiah's idea of `dying in peace,' one can only surmise how horrible Zedekiah's fate would have been had the prophet predicted a dreadful death. Also, there is no indication that incense was burned in memory of Zedekiah as Jeremiah had predicted. Indeed, how could there have been with Judah defeated and its people scattered abroad" (pp. 20-21)?
Other discrepancies in the book of Jeremiah could be noted if space permitted, but this is sufficient to show that the prophet on whom Dr. Price is betting so much in this debate had a prophetic track record that, if he were alive today, would qualify him for inclusion in National Enquirer's annual article about psychic predictions. Besides that, we have to wonder about the man's intelligence if he indeed wrote the book attributed to him. In one passage, he predicted that Zedekiah would die in peace and enjoy the respect and veneration of his people; then later the same prophet (presumably) wrote that Zedekiah was captured and treated as recorded in the passage just quoted. One would think that if Jeremiah had predicted a peaceful death for Zedekiah and then subsequent events proved the prediction wrong, he would have had the good sense to omit the prophecy about Zedekiah's death or else rewrite it to make it compatible with the account of how Zedekiah died or even fabricate a version of his death that would have been consistent with the prophecy. Since he chose none of these options, we have to wonder about the man's rationality.
Jeremiah a liar by his own admission: In chapter 37, Jeremiah was accused of being a Chaldean sympathizer (a charge that was not without some merit, as we will see later) and was imprisoned in Jonathan's house by the princes of Judah. As superstitious kings living in superstitious times so often did, Zedekiah wanted a prophet's prediction of the future, which at the time looked dismal with Nebuchadnezzar's army having laid siege to Jerusalem, so Zedekiah had Jeremiah brought to him (38:14-16). When the prophet told him that he could save his life only by going out of the city to Babylon's princes, Zedekiah then said, "Let no man know of these words, and you shall not die. If the princes hear that I have talked with you, and they come to you and say to you, `Declare to us now what you have said to the king and also what the king said to you; do not hide it from us, and we will not put you to death,' then you shall say to them, `I presented my request before the king that he would not make me return to Jonathan's house to die there'" (vs:24-26). The princes did come to Jeremiah and ask about his conversation with the king, and Jeremiah "told them according to all these words that the king had commanded" (v:27).
In other words, if Jeremiah's account of this incident is accurate, he admitted that in certain situations he would and did lie. It is also noteworthy that in answering Zedekiah's question about what the future held for him, Jeremiah did not tell him that if he went out of the city to meet the Babylonian princes, all of his sons would be killed in his presence and he himself would be blinded and imprisoned for the rest of his life. We have to wonder if Zedekiah would have left the city if he had known this. To say the least, if Jeremiah was a real prophet, who could see into the future, he was a bit deceptive in answering Zedekiah's question about the outcome of Nebuchadnezzar's siege.
To summarize, then, I have identified three facts that impeach the credibility of the book of Jeremiah: (1) the existence of two very different versions of the book gives sufficient reason to suspect that it was edited and rewritten at least once, (2) it contains identifiable discrepancies and inconsistencies, and (3) its author admitted that he sometimes practiced deception and falsified information. Dr. Price, of course, will insist that these are inconsequential "quibbles" that have no bearings on whether the 70-year prophecy was fulfilled. "To demonstrate the existence of fulfilled prophecy," he said, "all that must be done is to meet the four requirements that Till outlined in his rebuttal," and he further said that "the requirements are satisfactory." One of those requirements, however, was that the prophecy must have been made before and not after the alleged fulfillment. So is Dr. Price going to argue that the unverifiable word of an admittedly deceptive prophet recorded only in a document that is contradictory in places and shows obvious signs of having been edited and rewritten is sufficient to prove that this prophecy was actually made before the fact? If so, he has a strange concept of what constitutes reliable evidence.
What do I mean by the unverifiable word of an admittedly deceptive prophet? I mean that there is no way for Dr. Price or anyone to prove that Jeremiah 25:1-14 (the passage containing the prophecy in question) was written by Jeremiah in 605 B. C., the date that Dr. Price claims for the prophecy. In fact, Dr. Price can't even prove that Jeremiah himself made this statement. In biblical times, there were no copyright agencies or archives that registered and kept original works, which could be consulted if questions later arose concerning the reading of the original text and the date of its authorship. All Dr. Price has to offer as evidence are the existing text of Jeremiah and a tradition that the entire book was written by a 7th- and 6th-century prophet named Jeremiah. In other words, Dr. Price is asking us to believe that the prophecy was made before the fact because an ancient book containing the prophecy says that it was made before the fact. That is hardly sterling evidence that satisfies a criterion of valid prophecy that even Dr. Prices says is "satisfactory."
Let's notice some additional facts about the book of Jeremiah that Dr. Price needs to consider. At the close of the book, a reference is made to events that allegedly happened at least 37 years after the captivity began: "And it came to pass in the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, that Evil-Merodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah and brought him out of prison" (52:31). This would mean that the manuscript was not completed until at least 45 years after "the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah" in chapter 25, where he made the "prophecy" that Dr. Price is so excited about. The number 45 is arrived at by calculating from the 4th year of Jehoiakim's reign and the first year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, which was the year that Jeremiah claimed that the word of Yahweh came to him (25:1). As Dr. Price has already noted, the first year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign was 605 B. C. (2 Kings 24:1-7; 2 Chron. 36:5-10). Jehoiakim continued to reign as a vassal king for 7 more years, so the total length of his reign was 11 years (2 Kings 23:36), which would have ended in 598 B. C. He was succeeded by his son Jehoiachin, who reigned for only 3 months, at which time (597 B. C.) he was taken as a captive to Babylon with his family (2 Kings 24:6-12). Thus, Jehoiachin's captivity began eight years after "the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah" (25:1), so if Jeremiah knew that Jehoiachin was released from prison in Babylon in the 37th year of his captivity, he could not have completed his book until 45 years after the word of Yahweh allegedly came to him and revealed the 70-year prophecy.
But the problem becomes even more complex for Dr. Price. The very last verse of Jeremiah states that the king of Babylon gave Jehoiachin a continual allowance" every day "until the day of his death, all the days of his life" (52:34). This expression indicates that the writer thought that Jehoiachin's favored treatment lasted for an extended period of time, so if the conclusion of Jeremiah was actually written by the prophet himself (or even by his scribe Baruch), which Dr. Price will surely claim, we have no way of knowing just how many years of the captivity had passed before this book was completed. If we assume that "all the days of [Jehoiakim's] life" after his release from prison were no more than 10 years, this would mean that the book of Jeremiah in its present form was not completed until 55 years into the captivity (as Dr. Price dates it). This would put the completion of the book late enough (even if we assume the authenticity of everything in it) close enough to the end of the captivity to pose a conflict with the third criterion of valid prophecy in my list: The prophecy must be made not just before an event but far enough in advance of it to make educated guesswork impossible.
This would pose another serious problem for Dr. Price, because the book of Jeremiah does not claim that the prophecy in question was written in the 4th year of Je hoiakim's reign (605 B. C.) but only that the the word of Yahweh had come to Jeremiah at that time. So if the book wasn't even completed until 45 to 55 years into the captivity, how can Dr. Price know exactly when Jeremiah wrote the prophecy? Also, how can Dr. Price know that a prophet who, by his own admission, lied and practiced deception would not have seen in the political climate at that time events that indicated a softening of Babylonian attitudes toward the captives, which would have enabled him to guess that the captivity would end soon? After all, if Jehoiakim had been released from prison and was being favored above all the other captive kings in Babylon, that would have certainly suggested that better times were in store for the captives. If such a change in the political climate had occurred before the book was finished, a devious prophet would certainly not have been above gambling on a retrojected prediction that the captivity would last only "seventy" years. As we will see in my next article, the number 70 could have been intended not literally but only in a figurative, round or perfect number.
Many biblical scholars have identified various sections of Jeremiah that were undoubtedly written by a Deuteronomist editor after the exile was over, but with no more space available in this issue, I will have to discuss this point in my next article. I think unbiased readers will find the evidence for this conclusion quite compelling. Even without that evidence, however, I have already pointed out sufficient reason to question the in tegrity of the book of Jeremiah to an extent that obligates Dr. Price to prove with reasonable certainty that the 70-year prophecy was made before and not after the fact. Dr. Price used a lot of ink talking about my responsibility to produce "objective evidence" to prove that the prophecy was not written or altered in any way after the fact, but just who has the burden of proof in this matter?
Dr. Price is the one who is making an extraordinary claim, so he is the one who must prove that the 70-year prophecy meets the criteria that he says are "satisfactory." He, then, must establish beyond doubt that this prophecy was actually made 70 years before its fulfillment. Dr Price seems to think it is my responsibility to produce "objective evidence" to prove that the prophecy was not written or altered in any way after the fact, but the burden of proof in this matter doesn't rest on me. He is the one who is making an extraorfdinary claim, so he is the one who must prove that the 70-year prophecy meets criteria that he says are "satisfactory." He, then, must establish beyond doubt that this prophecy was actually made 70 years before its fulfillment. We won't settle for anything less than unimpeachable evidence.
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