Hi W-Fortneberry,
'You appear to be privy to some knowledge of error within the essay mentioned.'
I would like to think that any person over ten years of age could find multiple errors within this essay.
'If this is so, allow me to ask you two questions.
First, have you contacted the author to inform him of his mistakes?
Myself and James Patrick Holding aka Robert Turkel are engaged in discussions over this matter.
'Second, would you be willing to state those mistakes in this forum?'
Sure, here are a few to be going on with, I have so far listed over 50 errors in the first part of the essay but I'll just give you a few to chew on.
1. First of all the author starts with a conclusion rather than an introduction, for example, he states '..the Exodus, although an event blessed often by divine intervention, does not in and of itself beyond that offer any scenarios that are unreasonable or impossible.'
This is more suited to a conclusion as the author has not presented any of these 'scenarios' to the reader, all the author has done here is to show the bias of his stance.
2. Secondly, apparently the purpose of the essay is to examine common objections to the practical historicity of this event; that is, not issues having to do with archaelogy, for example, but whether such a mass movement of people is people is possible at all within the context of what is claimed in the Bible.
This stance is confusing, how can you present an argument to the 'practical historicity' of the event without having knowledge of the social background that these events took place in? To do this you need a good knowledge of archaeology and anthropology, because to give any event a 'practical historicity' it has to be shown that the claims are at least plausible within the settings that it is claimed to have happened in. The author wants to jettison one of the three main sources for recontsructing the background of the Exodus. I'm afraid that by removing archaeology from the list of sources the author is setting himself up to be shot down when the archaeological evidence is introduced.
3. Thirdly, the author says 'We may begin by answering the most fundamental objection of all -- whether indeed that initial clan of 70 could have grown to 2-3 million within the required timeframe.'
Most biblical scholars (Alright, Alt, Bright et al) are happy to go with a figure of 2.5 million, so I won't dispute that. What I will dispute is that if Joseph's clan can grow from 70 to 2.5 million in 430 years then surely there is nothing to stop every other man's clan from doing the same. For the ancient near east to support all these people is 'historically impractical', imagine if only 1% of men living at the time reproduced at the same rate! Remember that the author insists that to procreate at this rate is not unreasonable or impossible, it would be reasonable to assume then that Joseph is not the only man that could reproduce at this rate.
4. Fourthly, all through the essay assumptions abound, it is full of unsupported assertions. The first assumption is 'If we assume that there was one female born for every male, we would have 102 children. That comes to a total of 8.5 children per family.' Now why assume this, is it reasonable to assume that families come in packs of one male and one female, does the author have any evidence from the time period that this is reasonable? Also a minor technicality here, 8.5 children per family, surely he means an 'average' of 8.5 children per family, another mark off for poor presentation skills.
5. The author then goes on to use a 'modern day Jacob' to illustrate the possibility of the number in the Exodus group. (I searched the Guiness Book of Records website and found no trace of Samuel Must, so I will take the author's word that this claim is true) What he does here causes more problems that it solves! The strange thing is, he doesnt need to use anyone as an example, we have the stats for Jospeh's family, work the population growth out from there and apply that growth rate across the whole of that area of the world, if it is not an unreasonable scenario then apply it to everyone. What the author seems blissfully ignorant of is that the population growth of today is far higher that it was in Joseph's time, which would have been around 4000 years ago. The population has only grown significantly since the development of large urban centres, and with medical and technological advances. The author makes a gross error by comparing a man from the modern day world with that of a relatively underdeveloped social world of 4000 yeas ago. What he really should do if he wants to take this angle is to compare Joseph to his contemporaries.
6. There are numerous internal inconsistencies within the essay, one example if that the author would like to wipe out an entire generation as soon as their grandchildren are born! However, the person used as an example of a modern day Jacob was alive long enough to see 82 great great grandchildren born! If the author is using a person as an example then he has to be consistent and thus has to have everyone living until at least their great great grandchildren are born.
There are upteen more errors that I am going to discuss with the author, and I am sure you can see a few for yourself. This is really a good example however, a good example of how bible inerrantists make the bible into a laughing stock.
The authors 'chicken challenge' can be found here:
http://www.tektonics.org/masoud01.html
I don't see where I have misrepresented the author at all, what he says is very explicit: the final paragraph says:
'And so, since "Huey" has declined to answer our challenge given personally, preferring (apparently) the relative safety of his closed circle on this list of his, we'll re-issue the challenge here, and as a special bonus make it open to everyone -- and thereby express a key theme of Tekton Apologetics Ministries. The challenge is simple: Pick up any essay of mine and refute it. Contact me for terms of exchange. And if I hear nothing, I'll guess I'll just have to assume that no one can respond to my material.'
I take it that 'open to everyone' includes everyone ?
I think the author is happy to discuss his essays with anyone who is interested in biblical studies. Good Luck to Robert Turkel, he is standing up for what he believes in, and you have to admire that, you dont have to agree with the arguments however.
I am not even convinced that even the most conservative bible scholar would entertain this essay for a second, but we will see.
Best Wishes.
Brian.
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Remembering events that never happened is a dangerous thing!
[This message has been edited by Brian Johnston, 02-09-2003]
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Bumping my favorite topics.
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