Mr. Till began his rebuttal with the common tactic of poisoning the pot. He tried to prejudice the audience by referring to the prophecy under discussion as a bad example. Far from being a bad example, the prophecy was chosen specifically because its authorship is widely accepted by the most reputable authorities, and it is clearly dated long before the fulfillment occurred. The date of the prophecy cannot be denied by any objective evidence--the kind of evidence that Till allegedly demands. Those few who would presume to deny the date do so on the basis of subjective theories. Further, the fulfillment of the prophecy is documented by contemporary extra-Biblical historic records, the validity of which is denied by none. As I predicted, Till indeed quibbled over some of the details, but the reader will observe that for the most part he quibbled over details that are irrelevant.
Inerrancy Ploy: Mr. Till apparently thinks we are debating "inerrancy." No, Mr. Till, we agreed to debate fulfilled prophecy! Remember? As I predicted, Till insisted on bringing in the question of inerrancy. Of course, the consequences of this debate will have some bearing on the question of inerrancy. But this debate is on the topic of fulfilled prophecy, not inerrancy. To demonstrate the existence of fulfilled prophecy, all that must be done is to meet the four requirements that Till outlined in his rebuttal. These requirements do not include a proof of the inerrancy of Scripture. I have demonstrated that the prophecy under discussion was accurately fulfilled, and I did so without invoking an appeal to the inerrancy of Scripture. After all, it is possible for a prophecy recorded in the Bible to be accurately fulfilled without the Bible being necessarily inerrant in nonrelevant details. The inerrancy of the Bible depends on the truth of fulfilled prophecy, but fulfilled prophecy does not depend on the Bible being inerrant in every detail; it depends only on the truth of the relevant details of the given prophecy. Till seems unable to understand this significant difference. At least, he will not admit it. That is why I keep insisting that we stick to the one question at hand and not becloud the issue by continually chasing irrelevant rabbit trails. The issue of inerrency is a non sequitur in this debate.
Smorgasbord approach: Mr. Till likened my defense of Jeremiah's prophecy to a smorgasbord, and asserted that he would not tolerate it. Likewise, at the beginning of this response, I want to assure Mr. Till that I will not tolerate his "smorgasbord approach" to a rebuttal of the prophecy under discussion. Mr. Till's approach to rebuttal is to bring up apparent discrepancies that are irrelevant to the topic under discussion. Apparent discrepancies indeed must be resolved individually in order to defend inerrancy, but unless an alleged discrepancy is directly related to the topic under study it remains irrelevant to the investigation. In this debate, the topic is Jeremiah's prophecy of Israel's 70-year servitude. Anything not directly related to that topic is irrelevant--a non sequitur. I insist that Till limit his rebuttal to that topic only.
Date of the prophecy: Mr. Till presented four requirements necessary for the proof of fulfilled prophecy. The requirements are satisfactory, and I have met them in the proof of the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy of the 70-year servitude of the Jews.
Mr. Till began his rebuttal by challenging the validity of the date Jeremiah attached to the prophecy. He did so by hypothesizing that the date was changed by a late redactor to make the prophecy appear fulfilled. Since the burden of proof lies with the one who challenges the validity of the date given in the Book of Jeremiah, it is interesting to note that Till provided no convincing objective evidence that such textual manipulation took place. Indeed, I will show that Jeremiah's date is consistently supported by all textual traditions from diverse sources at the earliest dates. All the objective evidence consistently supports the validity of Jeremiah's date.
Mormon ploy: Mr. Till digressed from the topic by introducing a lengthy ploy about potential religious fraud. Mr. Till indeed should apologize for such a lengthy rabbit trail. This is an old illustration that he has used before in other debates. Surely his readers are becoming bored with such useless repetition. As in the previous debates, this example has no direct relationship with the topic under discussion. The fact that some Mormon elders evidently falsified records does not give Till the right to conclude that such falsification has necessarily happened in all religious literature. This is a logical fallacy known as a hasty generalization. Its falsity is demonstrated by the following fallacious analogous generalization: (1) The Piltdown Man was proven to be a hoax; therefore, all human fossils are hoaxes; (2) Some atheists are known to be liars; therefore, all atheists are liars. Let Till refrain from using such fallacious generalizations. Each case must be evaluated on its own merits. According to Till's theological presuppositions it may seem likely that Jeremiah's date is a late redaction. But subjective speculations are not objective facts, and the less likely event does actually happen at times. Let him produce convincing objective evidence that Jeremiah's date is fraudulent, or let him refrain from unsubstantiated slander and accept the date as accurate by default.
More alleged fraud: Twice again Mr. Till digressed from the topic at hand, by alleging, without any verification, that two Biblical prophecies were fraudulent. I am not impressed with Till's naive belief that common sense demands that such predictions are impossible. Common sense merely suggests that such predictions are unlikely. But common sense does not demand that unlikely events never happen. History is full of unlikely events, and everyone with common sense knows that. Of course it is possible that the Biblical author made up these stories to accomplish some theological purpose. On the other hand it is also possible that the author recorded as history what he found written in the court records he used as his sources; after all, that is what common sense suggests was the author's usual practice for most of the history he wrote. What is the objective evidence that these prophecies are hoaxes? None! Till merely appealed to his subjective theological presupposition that fulfilled prophecy is impossible. According to him it must be a forgery because his presupposition demands it, regardless of the evidence. Circular reasoning, pure and simple! In a scientific investigation one must prove the null hypothesis; it is insufficient to merely assert it.
Mr. Till complained that I do not like that kind of reasoning. Of course, I don't like that kind of reasoning because it is fallacious, and I have clearly pointed this out to Till. Jeremiah's prophecy is not without "extrabiblical records from contemporary times to corroborate" its validity. With such reasonable objective evidence in support of Jeremiah's prophecy, Till's appeal to this presupposition amounts to simplistic rationalization. I am not impressed.
Now, even if these prophecies were forgeries--and there is no objective evidence that they were--it would have no direct bearing on the present debate. Jeremiah's prophecy must be evaluated on its own merits, and the evidence for its validity is of a different stripe. We know who wrote the prophecy. We know when he lived. The date he appended to the prophecy is supported by strong textual and historical evidence. Those who question the validity of the date do so on the basis of subjective theories, not on the basis of objective evidence. So Till is guilty of another logical fallacy--false analogy.
The Septuagint problem: Mr. Till introduced what he called "the Septuagint Problem" in which he denied the validity of the text of the Book of Jeremiah based on the witness of the Greek translation known as the Septuagint. Here the discussion became serious, and Till committed three serious blunders: (1) exaggeration, (2) misinformation, and (3) withholding information.
Exaggeration: Till tried to impress his readers with the alleged gross corruption of the Biblical text by parading before their eyes a large number (6,000) of textual variations that exist between the Hebrew Masoretic text and the Greek translation known as the Septuagint. Such a large number sounds serious until it is placed in proper perspective with the size of the Old Testament text. That number amounts to about 6 variations per chapter, about one variation in four verses, or about one variation in 100 words. Now, since Till himself admitted that "many of these variations are minor," and since most of them have little effect on the significant facts of the message, this leaves only about one variation per chapter that may amount to a problem. But Till would have his readers to believe that these textual variations compromise the integrity of the text. Actually, the presence of these variations (and others from other textual sources) enables textual scholars to determine the correct reading of the text in all but the most difficult places.
Next Till paraded the book with the most textual variations (Samuel) as an example, supposedly to give the readers the impression that all the books of the Old testament experienced the same degree of textual variation. While it is true that the text of Jeremiah has a greater proportion of variations than most of the other Old Testament books, it is not true that such variations compromise the integrity of the book, and in particular, the text of the prophecy under discussion. This is discussed later.
Misinformation: Next Till engaged in misinforming his readers. He may be guilty of not being well informed himself and of not doing proper research, or he may be guilty of deliberately misrepresenting the facts. I give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is just out of touch with the real world. In the first place, Till asserted: "The oldest complete version of the Masoretic text dates from the late 9th century A.D." Here he must mean a copy of all the books of the Masoretic text bound together in one volume. Otherwise, the statement is inaccurate. There are individual manuscripts of portions of the Masoretic text (including the Prophets) that date earlier than the 9th century. In fact, before about the 2nd century A.D., none of the books of the Old Testament were bound together in a common volume. Instead, each book existed as an independent scroll. Still today the Hebrew Bible used in synagogues is in the form of handwritten scrolls. Further, Till seems ignorant of the fact that numerous scrolls of nearly every book of the Old Testament found in the caves of the Dead Sea, dating from 1st century A.D. to as early as the 4th century B.C., verify that the Masoretic text in all its essential details was in existence at that time. The main difference between the early form of the Masoretic text found in the Judean desert and the form found in medieval manuscripts is that the later texts contain vowel signs, accent marks, and marginal notes. Actual textual variations between the early form of the Masoretic text and its medieval form are of very minor importance. Emanuel Tov, one of the leading experts on textual criticism of the Old Testament, stated:
The Masoretic Text (M), sometimes called the "received text," is strictly speaking a medieval representative of an ancient text of the Bible which already at an early stage was accepted as the sole text by the central stream of Judaism. As a result, the slightly different forms of this text were copied and circulated more than other texts. The final form of this text was determined in the Middle Ages, and it is that form which is usually called the Masoretic Text, while earlier forms found in the Judean Desert, lacking the later vocalization [vowel points] and accentuation, are called proto-Masoretic (Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Fortress Press, 1992, p. 19).
For the Book of Jeremiah six scrolls exist from that era, some dating in the 2nd century B.C.
Next Till referred to the Greek Septuagint, translated in the 3rd century B.C., as though manuscripts of that text now exist from that time. Thus he alleged that "there is a span of about 12 centuries between these two versions. This many variations is a rather clear indication that substantial altering of the Hebrew text occurred between the 3rd century B. C. and the 9th century A. D." Thus he presents the picture that careless copying together with some deliberate altering of the text took place over a 1200 year period. The truth is: the Dead Sea Scrolls verify that the Septuagint text and the Masoretic text existed side by side at that time. So whatever differences exist between the two text traditions, they originated sometime before the days of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Since the days of the Dead Sea Scrolls the Masoretic text has remained essentially the same, except for very minor variations.
Withholding information: Till either withheld information important to this discussion, or he is ignorant of such information. He was eager to introduce the Greek Septuagint translation of the 3rd century B.C. because it contains textual variations that he thinks disproves my position. However, he was careful not to mention the Aramaic translation which dates from the 4th or 5th century B.C. and corresponds with the Masoretic Text in the Book of Jeremiah. Two other ancient translations--the Syriac translation (2nd century A.D.) and the Latin Vulgate (4th century A.D.) also validate the antiquity of the Masoretic Text. Concerning the Aramaic translation, Ernst Wurthwein, another leading authority on the text of the Old Testament, stated: "The Jewish tradition associating it with Ezra (cf. Neh. 8:8) may well be correct" (The Text of the Old Testament, Eerdmans, 1979, p. 75). Common sense dictates that a translation would have been made from an authoritative Hebrew text; therefore, the Masoretic Text from which the Aramaic translation was made must have dated near the time of the return from the Babylonian Captivity, or earlier. Thus, while Till would have the readers to believe that the Masoretic text of Jeremiah is very late, and that long after Jeremiah was dead the text was fraudulently altered to make it appear to be a fulfilled prophecy; on the other hand, the objective evidence contained in ancient manuscripts and ancient translations demonstrates that the date (and all the other essential details of the prophecy) was soundly intact very shortly after Jeremiah's death. Later I show why common sense demands that the date of this prophecy (and other details) must have come from the hand of Jeremiah himself.
Textual variations: Next Mr. Till introduced evidence from the popular magazine America that the Book of Jeremiah has a diverse textual history. This explains why Till evidently is ill informed. He seems to rely on articles in popular magazines that are necessarily limited and slanted, rather than on scholarly publications that treat the subject in depth. Of course, it is important that two of the six Qumran manuscripts of Jeremiah contain the Hebrew text tradition that lies behind the Greek Septuagint. However, it is equally important that the other four manuscripts contain the early form of the Masoretic Text. Common sense dictates that the textual sources behind all six of these manuscripts are equally ancient.
It is true that the Masoretic Text of Jeremiah contains a number of short sections not found in the Septuagint, and that its material was organized according to a different pattern. However, the other differences between the texts consist primarily of the expansion of proper nouns and formulae on the basis of context. Tov referred to the two text traditions as Edition I and Edition II (page 321). Because the objective textual evidence points to a very early date of the Masoretic tradition, it is likely that both editions came from the hand of Jeremiah, apart from minor textual variations due to later influences. The first (shorter) edition was likely produced in Egypt soon after Jeremiah was taken there by the Jews, and it became the text used by the Egyptian community of Jews which eventually produced the Septuagint.The second (expanded) edition was likely produced by Jeremiah just before his death; this edition was taken to Babylon by Baruch where it became part of the Masoretic tradition.
Septuagint evidence: Next Mr. Till attempted to show from Septuagint evidence that Jeremiah's 70 year prophecy was seriously different in the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text. Till's original quibble was about the validity of the date of this prophecy. The reader is invited to examine the text of the Septuagint and of the Masoretic Text presented by Till to see clearly that both texts give the same date in two complementary forms: (1) in the 4th year of Jehoiakim, and (2) 23 years after the 13th year of Josiah. The Masoretic Text contains Jeremiah's added comment that Jehoiakim's 4th year corresponded with the 1st year of Nebuchadnezzar--a detail that Jeremiah himself would have known. Both text traditions also state that the land of Judah would be attacked by a nation from the north, that the land of Judah would be made desolate, and that after 70 years God would judge the northern nation and the Jews would return to their land. That is, both text traditions are in full agreement with respect to all the essential details of the prophecy.
Now, let's use some common sense right here, not Till's brand (because it is tainted with subjective theories), but common sense that deals with objective evidence. Suppose, for a moment, that it was true that long after Jeremiah was dead some redactor changed the date in the text in order to make it appear as though the prophecy was fulfilled. Till seems to imply that the change took place in the middle ages sometime before the 9th century, but anyone with common sense can see the flaw in that conclusion. Let's suppose it was changed sometime shortly after the return from the captivity, say in the days of Ezra. But by that time, Jeremiah's book would have been copied hundreds of times and circulated among the Jewish communities throughout the Middle East, in Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, etc. Now here is an interesting question for common sense evaluation: How did that fraudulent redactor manage to change all the textual exemplars and all the copies in all those places so that all textual witnesses in all forms, including manuscripts, translations, and commentaries (such as Daniel and Josephus) have the same readings? Common sense consideration of Till's hypothesis reveals how ridiculous such an idea is, and it leads one to conclude that the only way all extant witnesses to the text could agree on these details would be that they were from the hand of the original author, Jeremiah. This is a widely accepted law of textual criticism: when all the textual witnesses agree, the reading is original. Those who would question the validity of this date would not dare to do it on the grounds of the objective textual evidence, but must resort to subjective theories. Therefore, common sense demands that the date of this prophecy is authentic on the basis of the objective evidence.
Now what has been said about the date also holds true for the other essential details of the prophecy; all textual witnesses agree. The main detail that the Masoretic Text adds is an expansion of the identity of the nation from the north and its king. In Jeremiah's last years he would have known more fully these details, and that would have been a reasonable expansion to make. Such an expansion made no essential difference in the prophetic message, and did not make the passage have an appearance of a fulfilled prediction that was not already in the earlier edition. Verse 14 is obviously an added parenthetical summation that adds no new elements to the prophecy.
Quibble over Nebuchadnezzar: Next Mr. Till introduced a lengthy quibble over the introduction of Babylon and King Nebuchadnezzar into the Masoretic Text as an expansion of the identity of the northern nation and its king. In this lengthy quibble, Till made much of the fact that Jeremiah expanded the identity of the northern nation to include the fact that the nation was Babylon and that its king was Nebuchadnezzar. But everyone familiar with the history of Jeremiah and the last days of the kingdom of Judah knows that in the last years of Jeremiah that identity was well known. Jeremiah lived to see the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of the Jews by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. He was the most likely one to have expanded the prophecy to include those details. This expansion added nothing to the predictive aspects of the prophecy. Till's quibble is just that, irrelevant haggling.
Seventy-year chronology: Mr. Till objected that "it isn't chronologically possible to establish a seventy-year exile for the Judeans who were taken into captivity during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar." Mr. Till has made another of his usual blunders at this juncture. He has mistaken vassalage for captivity. Jeremiah's text says "these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years." While it is customary to refer to this period as a captivity or an exile, because most of it includes the time in which the Jews were in exile as captives, yet the text says "serve" not "be captives" or "go into exile." Technically, the text refers to vassalage, not captivity. Judah and the surrounding nations became vassals of Nebuchadnezzar in 605 B.C.
The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, the same dictionary Till cited as an authority on the dates of the Exile, states the following regarding the reign of King Jehoiakim: "After the battle of Carchemish (605), in which Nebuchadnezzar defeated Neco, Jehoiakim became a Babylonian vassal (Jer 46:2) ["Jehoiakim," p. 559; see also Josephus, Antiquities, 10:5.2]. That was the year Nebuchadnezzar first besieged Jerusalem, confiscated some of the Temple treasures, and deported a number of young royal hostages to Babylon (Dan. 1:1-4; Josephus, Antiquities, 10:10.1). That was the year in which Jeremiah proclaimed the prophecy under discussion--the year the servitude of Judah began.
As a secondary remark, the alleged difficulty that Mr. Till pointed out here is evidence to support the validity of the date Jeremiah attached to this prophecy. If the date had been supplied by some late redactor, as Till hypothesizes, the redactor surely would have selected a date that would have been free from difficulties. He would have selected a date that fulfilled the seventy years without possible question. As it stands, the date bears all the marks of authenticity.
536 verified: Mr. Till objected to my date of the Jews' return from the Babylonian captivity in the year 536 B.C. He did so on the grounds that Cyrus conquered Babylon in 539 and that the Jews must have returned in 538. However, in this he displays an ignorance of the cultural practice among the Babylonians and Persians for dating regnal years of their kings. Among these ancient neareastern people, the regnal year of a king was counted from the New Year's day following the kings ascension to the throne. This is different than the practice of western cultures by which Till erroneously judged the present situation. Cyrus conquered Babylon on October 16, 539 B.C., and thus became the sovereign of the Medo-Persian Empire. However, the following New Year's day was not until March 24, 538. So his first regnal year extended from March 24, 538, to March 23, 537 B.C. Sometime within that year, Cyrus issued the decree for the captive nations to return home (2 Chron. 36:22). It is likely that the decree was issued late in the year, because administrative duties would have been heavy for the months immediately following the conquest of Babylon; less important details, like the affairs of foreign captives, would naturally be postponed. Taking into account the slow pace at which government business took place, the amount of time required to summons, assemble, and organize a large company of returnees, and the time for such a large group to travel the long distance from Babylon to Jerusalem, it is reasonable to expect that the convoy did not arrive in Judah until some time in 536.
Lack of precision: Mr. Till objected that my explanation of the 70 years of servitude was not established with rigorous precision. In this he demonstrates his ignorance of the hermeneutics of historic research. Reasonable common sense expects that an ancient text should be interpreted according to how it would have been understood by the people to whom it was addressed, not according to 20th century scientific precision. From extant contemporary literature from that period, I provided two examples of how the ancient Jews understood the 70 years of Jeremiah's prophecy. In both cases, the Jews regarded the elapsed time to be consistent with their understanding of 70 years. In insisting on 20th century scientific precision, Till is neither reasonable, nor is he exercising common sense.
Irrelevant quibble: Mr. Till took exception to my interpretation of Jeremiah 25:15-38 as "figurative elaboration of God's judgment of Judah and the surrounding nations in poetic terms." Likewise, he objected to my statement that "(s)uch figurative language is not to be interpreted beyond the reasonable way Jeremiah's ancient readers would have understood it." Of course, this statement is in full harmony with the standard laws of hermeneutics. Till wants to use an ultra-literal interpretation on ancient figurative language with 20th century scientific precision. He knows quite well that such interpretive techniques are contrary to the commonly accepted hermeneutics of the historical method.
The detail that completely destroys Till's critique is that in the first edition of Jeremiah's book as reflected in the Septuagint version, the version Till used as the authority for the early form of Jeremiah, verses 15-38 appear in chapter 32, an entirely different section of the book. In that chapter, the oracle has its own heading in the Greek text. This indicates that verses 15-38 and verses 1-14 constitute completely different oracles-- independent prophecies. Till conveniently withheld this information from his readers. Whatever reason Jeremiah had for juxtaposing the two oracles in his second edition, it was not because the two constituted a single prophecy. Rather, it is likely that he did so because the two oracles have similar elements. Thus, whatever Till's complaints about the oracle of verses 15-38 may be, they are completely irrelevant to the prophecy in verses 1-14, and must be treated in a separate discussion. They have no bearing on the veracity of the prophecy under discussion.
Prophecy was fulfilled: As expected, Mr. Till quibbled over some of the details of Jeremiah's prophecy of the 70 year servitude of the Jews. However, his quibble over the validity of the date Jeremiah attached to the prophecy turns out to be just that, nothing but empty haggling. All the objective evidence indicates that date must have come from the hand of the original author, not from a late redactor. All the objective evidence supports the validity of the number 70 in the text, and the details foretold about the servitude. The fulfillment of the prophecy is confirmed by contemporary secular evidence. Till's quibble over rigorous precision regarding the duration of the 70 years is unreasonable and inconsistent with the hermeneutics of historic research. Finally, Till's quibbles over the details of verses 15-38 turns out to be completely irrelevant. Thus Jeremiah's prophecy of the 70 year servitude of the Jews has been verified as fulfilled, and Till's theological presupposition that fulfilled prophecy is impossible has been demonstrated to be fallacious.
(James D. Price, Ph.D., Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament,
Temple Baptist Seminary, Chattanooga, TN 37404; e-mail drjdprice@aol.com)
