Finley's "Solution"

Finley's "Solution"

by Farrell Till

Response to Till's Genealogical Claims

by Travis Finley

I must apologize for the delay in replying to Travis Finley's attempt to explain the 430-year problem in Exodus 12:40 and the genealogy in Exodus 6:14-25. Because of other projects, I am sometimes negligent about reading the comments that are posted about my articles, so I didn't know that Finley had attempted to resolve the 430-year problem until he mentioned it on the Errancy internet list. Rather than reply to him in the section reserved for readers' comments, I am going to put my reply on the website as solution number 4, because Finley seemed to have put a serious effort into resolving the problem. His attempt failed, of course, but I think that his effort at least warrants a point-by-point rebuttal.

Finley's "solution" is really just a variation of the skipped-generation solution, which was roundly refuted in my initial article in this series. At times, I also got the idea that he didn't read my follow-up articles very carefully, because he sometimes presented arguments and quibbles that were anticipated and rebutted in detail in them, so apparently he didn't see these or else just ignored them. I won't take the time to reinvent the wheel when I encounter one of his arguments that I have already replied to. I will just link readers to the sections in my three "solution" articles where they can go to find my previously posted rebuttals of those arguments.

I will follow my usual custom of using ID headers (Finley and Till) so that readers can more easily follow who has said what.

Finley:

Mr. Till’s admirable endeavour is to sustain the argument that the genealogies in the Bible are literal father-son relationships. That is to say, when Exodus tells us that Levi bore Kohath and Kohath bore Amram and Amram bore Moses it intends us to understand that these are literal father-son ratios [sic].

Till:

I didn't make just an "admirable endeavor" to sustain this argument; I presented detailed arguments for this position, which were supported by detailed biblical analyses and quotations from extrabiblical writings that clearly show that the authors of these works obviously believed that Levi was the literal son of Jacob, that Kohath was the literal son of Levi, that Amram was the literal son of Kohath, and that Aaron and Moses were the literal sons of Amram. If readers will refer back to my initial article in this series, they will see the detailed analysis of the "Uzziel factor," which clearly shows that the writer of Exodus understood that Uzziel was a literal son of Kohath, a literal brother of Amram, and a literal uncle of Aaron and that Uzziel was living in the time of the exodus. Furthermore, this same article presented another detailed analysis, which showed that Izhar was another literal son of Kohath, a literal brother of Amram and Uzziel, and the literal father of a man named Korah, who led a rebellion against Moses during the wilderness years. These analyses eliminated the possibility of skipped generations between Kohath and Aaron. Finley completely ignored this section of the article and wrote his "solution" as if these analyses had never been presented, so I will ask readers to keep this point in mind so that I can just refer back to it in places where Finley is arguing as if these literal relationships had not been established.

In the same article linked to above, I quoted extrabiblical writers like Josephus, Philo Judaeus, and the author of Levi's testament in Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, which clearly showed that these Jewish writers understood that Levi was the literal father of Kohath, that Kohath was the literal father of Amram, and that Amram was the literal father of Aaron and Moses. Finley ignored this information too except to say close to the end of his article that "Josephus misunderstood the text." That is typical fundamentalist arrogance, as if it is more likely that a biblicist living in the 21st century would know more about the likely meaning of the biblical texts in dispute than would those who grew up in Jewish culture and lived 2,000 or more years closer to the time they were writing about. I will have more to say about this as we go along and especially when we come to where Finley said that Josephus had just misunderstood the text.

Finley:

Mr. Till then correctly calculates that this would mean that only four generations spanned the 430-year sojourn of Israel in Egypt. He says correctly, “It is inconceivable that in the space of 400 years just two more generations would have been born in the Levitical branch that Moses and Aaron were born into.” As you will read at the conclusion of this paper, I, an [sic] confessing evangelical[,] whole heartedly agree with Mr. Till on this last point. Mr. Till also unleashes vitriol at Evangelicals for hermeneutical gymnastics when we try to explain away this discrepancy with “quibbling”. [sic]

Till:

Pointing out that inerrantists resort to verbal gymnastics and quibbling when they try to "explain" biblical discrepancies is "vitriol"? My, my, Finley certainly wears his feelings on his sleeves, doesn't he? As I proceed in this rebuttal of Finley's article, I will emphasize those places where he is obviously engaging in verbal gymnastics and quibbling to try to make the biblical text not mean what it clearly says. Finley can then explain to us why pointing out clear examples of verbal gynmastics and quibbling is "vitriol." Since when is telling the truth vitriol?

Finley:

He quotes them as saying, “There are obviously generations skipped between these accounts.” This paper will seek to demonstrate that there are generational gaps between the Mosaic and Chronicler’s genealogies and that this will then allow for a 430 year exile of Israel in the wilderness.

Till:

And we will see that Finley's "paper" failed miserably to accomplish what he sought to do but I will wait until I come to his failures before I comment further on this.

Finley:

1. The general conservative consensus is that the Exodus occurred in 1446 BC, so we will use that date for our reference point.

Till:

I am glad to see that Finley accepts biblical chronology, which says that Solomon began construction on the temple during the 4th year of his reign (1 Kings 6:1). Since the fourth year of Solomon's reign would have been 966 BC, the exodus would have occurred in 1446 BC (966 + 480 = 1446). I can, however, cite other scriptures that are incompatible with this date, but that will be another article.

Finley:

There are as Mr. Till pointed out 2 possible time frames for the occupation of Israel in Egypt: 210-215 years and 430 years. Let us begin with the LORD’s promise to Abraham that his seed would sojourn 400 years in a foreign land being afflicted. Note well, here, that one already has a discrepancy: Gen 15 says 400 years and Ex 12 says 430. One may as well cease and desist right now. Is it 400 or 430? Perhaps rather than throwing out the baby with the bath water, one might consider the possibility that the use of language allows for proximations. But were one to be strictly literal, this is the place to start.

Till:

When have I ever even implied that Genesis 15:13 is inconsistent with Exodus 12:40 because the one speaks of 400 years of affliction whereas the other one says 430? If Finley sticks around on the Errancy list long enough, he will learn that I accept the appropriateness of approximations, although one must sometimes wonder why a writer inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity would have given approximations instead of exact numbers.

Finley:

But to the point.

Till:

Yes, please. There were enough points in my articles to keep Finley busy for weeks, so I am eager to see him get to at least a few of them.

Finley:

Let us consider the whole of Genesis’ words concerning the promise of slavery. The LORD says that the seed of Abraham would indeed be afflicted for 400 years. If one were to seek for a consistent literal interpretation, the whole of the 400 years is described as one of conflict.

Till:

Yes, it was, so I will ask readers to watch Finley begin his verbal gymnastics and quibbling to try to show that when Yahweh said that Abraham's seed would be afflicted and oppressed for 400 years, he really didn't mean what he said.

Finley:

However, Joseph's stay and that of his immediate kin did not appear to be one of oppression.

Till:

No, it didn't, so now watch Finley's verbal gymnastics and quibbling begin as he tries to show that although Yahweh clearly said that Abraham's seed would be afflicted and oppressed for 400 years in a land that wasn't theirs, he didn't really mean this.

Finley:

This is a figure of speech that describes the whole event by a characteristic of only a part of the whole.

Till:

Finley didn't use the word, but he is claiming that the references to affliction and servitude in Genesis 15:13 were being used synecdochically. Synecdoche is a figure of speech where the whole is substituted for the part or the part is substituted for the whole. This figure of speech is obvious in such sentences as, "He asked for the daughter's hand in marriage." It is obvious that the prospective groom is interested in much more than just the woman's hand, so the use of synecdoche in this sentence is readily apparent because of the absurd meaning that would result from interpreting hand literally. I will have more to say about this later after I have commented on Finley's habit of resorting to familiar logical fallacies. Members of the Errancy list have already noticed that Finley constantly resorts to question begging, special pleading, and argumentation by assertion in his posts to this forum, so he is up to his old tricks here. This text is not figurative just because Finley asserts that it is. He has an obligation to analyze the text and show us legitimate reasons to understand that the writer intended the 400 years of oppression to have a synecdochical meaning. I taught college literature for 30 years, have a master's degree and 90 postgraduate hours in the field, so I think I know a little bit about literary interpretation. One thing that I know--and I was taught the same thing in hermeneutics at the Bible college I attended--is that the language of written texts is to be interpreted literally unless there are compelling reasons to assign figurative meaning, so I would like to see Finley's analysis of Genesis 15:12ff that will show us compelling reasons to think that the language in verse 13 was figurative. I hope he understands that a desire to make a text inerrant is not a legitimate reason to assign figurative meaning to its language.

He who asserts must prove, so Finley is obligated to show us good cause to think that the 400 years of affliction and servitude were used synecdochically in Genesis 15:13. It isn't my obligation to prove that they were not so used. From my experience with biblical inerrantists, however, I know that they will rarely meet their burden of proof, so I am going to take the time to show good cause to think that the Genesis writer was not speaking synecdochically in this passage. Figures of speech are usually easy to recognize, because literal interpretation of them would result in absurd meanings. This is especially true of synecdoche. Farmers, for example, refer to laborers as "hands," so if a farmer said that he had 10 hands working for him, no one familiar with this synecdochical usage of the word would think that he literally meant that he had ten hands working in his field. He would recognize that the farmer was speaking figuratively to use hand for the whole laborer. The absurdity of the meaning that a literal interpretation would give to the farmer's statement tells us that he was using handssynecdochically.

I could spend all day citing examples here. If a rancher says that he has 200 head of cattle grazing on his range, no one would think that he meant that only the heads of the cattle were grazing. A part has obviously been substituted for the whole. If someone read in the sports section of his newspaper, "The United States defeated Brazil in basketball," he would understand that the whole was being substituted for the part, that certain citizens of the United States defeated certain citizens of Brazil in a basketball game. Since a literal interpretation would result in an absurd meaning, we are able to recognize the synecdochical meanings of United States and Brazil.

There are many examples of synecdoche in the Bible, and they are easily recognized by the absurdities that would result from literal interpretations. In Matthew 27:4, the remorseful Judas said that he "had betrayed innocent blood," but to interpret this literally would result in a nonsensical meaning, because the story of Judas makes it clear that he betrayed the whole person of Jesus and not just his blood. Hence, we can know that blood was used synecdochically here. In the so-called "Lord's prayer," Jesus taught his disciples to pray for God to give them their daily bread (Matt. 6:11), but common sense tells us that bread was being used to represent all of the food that one needs to sustain life. Judges 12:7 literally says that Jephthah was buried "in the cities of Gilead," but a literal interpretation of this results in absurd meaning, because he could not have been buried in all of the cities of Gilead. Here the whole was substituted for the part. Some translations have even bracketed [in one of] into the text before "the cities" in order to make the synecdochical meaning more apparent, but this addition was not necessary for those who understand this figure of speech. It is comparable toGenesis 8:4, which says that after the flood, the ark rested "on the mountains of Ararat." Since it would result in absurd meaning to interpret this to mean that the ark had landed on all of the mountains of Ararat, we can know that this is another case of synecdoche.

I could continue this indefinitely, but this is sufficient to make my point: synecdoche is easy to recognize because literal interpretation of this figure of speech will almost always result in absurd meaning. I have therefore shown good reasons why affliction and servitudewere not used synecdochically in Genesis 15:13, because to understand that Yahweh was telling Abraham that his descendants would be literally afflicted for 400 years in a land that was not theirs results in no absurd meaning. It is now Finley's responsibility to analyze the text and show us good reasons why we should think that this text was speaking synecdochically. I trust that he knows that the desire to make a written text mean what he wants it to mean or, in the case of biblical inerrancy, to make the Bible inerrant is not a literarily legitimate reason to assign figurative meaning to it. Let's see his analysis that will justify his assertion that the meaning in Genesis 15:13 was figurative. I won't let him get away with argumentation by assertion.

Finley:

So here we see at least that the Bible is not always to be taken literally.

Till:

I agree that the language of the Bible is not always literal, but I certainly don't see any reason to think that Genesis 15:13 was figurative. I demand that Finley support this assertion with a textual analysis. Until he does, my rebuttal of his assertion (above) will stand unimpeached.

Finley:

One might retort, the text is to be taken at face value unless otherwise obvious.

Till:

One might not only retort this; one has every right to do so, because this is an established principle of literary interpretation. What is Finley's "obvious" reason for asserting that this text is figurative? Notice how nothing that he says below gives any literary reason to justify his asserton.

Finley:

This is true.

Till:

You're darned right it is! So what is Finley's "obvious" reason for asserting that Genesis 15:13 is figurative?

Finley:

Upon reading chronologically, the latter story in Exodus reveals that “a king arose who did not know Joseph.” How long was this duration? The text does not say but one may surmise that it might not have been the immediate king following; perhaps a later one. So there is another principle of hermeneutics at work here.

Till:

Quite honestly, I have to say that whatever principle of hermeneutics Finley thinks is at work here completely eludes me.

Finley:

It is referred to as “the analogy of Scripture” which means that the Bible is used to interpret the Bible.

Till:

Ah, yes, the old let-scripture-interpret-scripture assertion. It is a pathetically flawed hermeneutic principle, because it attempts to prove inerrancy by assuming inerrancy. The "argument" works like this: scripture A says thus and so, but scripture B says something that apparently contradicts A; therefore one of the scriptures must not mean what it says. Otherwise, there will be a contradiction in the Bible. This whole "argument" is based on the assumption that the Bible is consistent in everything it says, and so writer B could not have contradicted writer A. This assumption is then used to assign some figurative or allegorical meaning to one of the texts so that the inconsistency or contradiction will be eliminated.

This argument is a resort to the fallacy of special pleading, because it accords the Bible interpretative privileges that would not be accorded any other literary forms. If, for example, one should read a book by John Steinbeck and encounter a statement that contradicts something that Ernest Hemingway said on the same subject in one of his books, the reader would never feel an obligation to engage in verbal gymnastics that would assign some figurative meaning to one of the texts so that the two would be in agreement, because he would recognize that the two books were written by different authors and that different authors will often have conflicting opinions. Even Bible fundamentalists don't think that all of the books of the Bible were written by the same person. They think that some of the Bible was written by Moses [snicker, snicker], some of it by Joshua [snicker again], some of it by David, some of it by Solomon, and so on. Since different people obviously wrote the Bible, there is every reason to suppose that they had different opinions even in theological matters, so it is literarily unsound to argue that one should let a text written by Solomon (presumably) interpret a text written by Moses (presumably).

Finley will no doubt argue that the Bible was written by the same person and that "person" was God, but that would be an assertion that he is obligated to prove. If he wishes to affirm that God inspired the authorship of the Bible, I will be glad to serve as his opponent.

He may also argue that Moses wrote both Genesis and Exodus, the two books that he referred to below, but that too would be an assertion that I will challenge him on if he cares to make it. Besides that, even if Finley could establish that Moses wrote both Genesis and Exodus that would in no way prove that he did not at times contradict himself. In my 30 years of teaching college composition, I must have read thousands of student papers, and I wouldn't even try to estimate the number of times that I encountered contradictions within the same paper. Finley's only recourse would be to claim that Moses was inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity who protected him from making any errors, but if he wants to take that course, let him. I will bury him under examples of "Mosaic" inconsistencies and contradictions that are just as detailed as the 430-year problem, which Finley was obviously unable to explain away.

Finley;

If one portion of the Word is not as clear on a subject, another part may shed light on it.

Till:

I just explained above that this is a literarily unsound principle of interpretation, because it seeks to prove biblical inerrancy by assuming biblical inerrancy.

Finley:

Such is the case here.

Till:

It is most assuredly not the case unless Finley can show that the let-scripture-interpret-scripture method is a sound literary interpretation principle. I have shown above why it is not a sound principle.

Finley:

At first glance, the former story (enslaved four hundred years) is modified by the latter (a king arose who knew not Joseph).

Till:

Aside from the fact that these two passages have no apparent connection to one another, they are widely separated in the Bible. The first one is a J text, and the other one an E Text. (Readers may consult Richard Elliot Freidman's Who Wrote the Bible? for more on the J and E documents.) I see no connection at all in the two texts (Gen. 15:13 and Exodus 1:8), but if Finley thinks that there is a connection that provides some modification of Genesis 15:13, he is obligated to show us that there is. I won't allow him just to assert it.

Finley:

On the other hand, one may very well argue that this appositive is not a figure of speech and that the Bible is therefore wrong in describing the event this way. That is an option.

Till:

What is Finley even talking about? What appositive? There is no appositive in either Genesis 15:13 or Exodus 1:8. Does he even know what an appositive is? It is difficult to reply to something that makes no sense.

Finley:

2. Exodus 12 tells the reader Israel stayed in the land 430 years.

Till:

Yes, it does, but as I showed in my first article in this series, the Exodus-6 genealogy is obviously a generation-by-generation listing that leaves no room for the passage of 430 years before the exodus began. Finley has come this far in his "rebuttal," and he has yet to say anything that shows the textual analyses in my first article were incorrect.

Finley:

Again, using the date 1446, this would place the Jacobian caravan at 1876 BC. However, as Mr. Till noted, the LXX reading is at variance reading “Egypt and Canaan”. (sic) This would require the 430 years to cover Abram’s departure from Haran until Moses’ Exodus.

Till:

Yes, it would, but Finley is playing his old game of trying to prove biblical inerrancy by assuming inerrancy. What he is saying is this: The Israelites could not have sojourned in Egypt for 430 years, because counting back 430 years from the exodus would take us back to the time that Abram [Abraham] departed from Haran. That would mean that there is an error in the Bible, and that can't be, because the Bible is inerrant. He should get into his head here and now that I will not let him play that game. He must show us why it is not possible that Exodus 12:40 would be inconsistent with other parts of the Bible, and he can't do that by just saying, "Well, there can't be inconsistencies in the Bible, because the Bible is inerrant." If the time of the exodus, according to the Bible, was 1446 BC--and I agree that it was--and ifExodus 12:40 says that the Israelites left Egypt after they had sojourned there for 430 years and if adding 430 years to 1446 BC takes us back some 200 years before the Israelites even went into Egypt, that can only mean that there are chronological discrepancies in the Bible. Finley will just have to live with that no matter how it punctures the inerrancy balloon that he was taught to believe in.

Finley:

This variant may be the one Paul quotes in Galatians 3 referring to the Law's being given 430 years after the promise made to Abraham in Genesis.

Till:

Paul's claim that 430 years had passed from the time of the promise to Abraham to the giving of the law after the exodus is simply more frosting on the errancy cake. It simply reinforces my claim that there are serious chronological discrepancies in the Bible concerning how long the Israelites were in Egypt. I will refer readers to "The 210-Year Solution," my second article in this series, where I showed that Exodus 12:40 doesn't say that Abraham's seed sojourned in Egypt 430 years but that the children of Israel sojourned there for 430 years. I then proceeded to show through analyses of various Genesis texts that Israel (Jacob) didn't even have any children until about 50 years before he took his extended family into Egypt. Therefore, it is impossible for both Exodus 12:40 and the biblical chronology that Finley referred to above to be true, because it just cannot be that if the exodus occurred in 1446 BC and Abraham left Haran around 1876 BC, the children of Israel had managed to sojourn in Egypt 430 years, because the children of Israel could not have dwelt anywhere before they were even born. This is just basic math.

Finley:

Now, to be literal, it is about 215 years from Abraham’s sojourn from Haran until Jacob’s traveling to Egypt (1876 + 215 = ca 2091). If Paul were referring to this event, that would leave then 215 years left until Moses comes as deliverer. These years together equal 430. But this would then alter other dates concluded to be reliable in reconstructing history. Remember again, this is hypothetical, taking into account the possibility that the variant of Ex. 12:40 is credible. This appears to be untenable however, because this would leave Joseph’s experience under the rule of the Hyksos rather than Egyptian while the narrative seems to favour Egyptian rule.

Till:

If it is untenable, then why did Finley waste our time with it? My articles were filled with detailed scripture analyses that show the genealogy in Exodus 6 was a generation-by-generation listing, and Finley skipped all of this so that he could summarize that which he admits is untenable.

Finley:

Consider this however. Paul summarises [sic] the period of promise as 430 years. That is, from God's promise to Abraham until Moses deliverance is dubbed 430 years. Now, to which particular promise episode is Paul referring? The very first (Gen 12)? The second (Gen 15)? The third (Gen 17)? The fourth (Gen 22)? Perhaps even the last occurrence of the promise (Gen 46) is a possibility.

Till:

Well, the promise in Genesis 46 could not have been the one that Paul was referring to, because this was a promise that God spoke to Jacob (Israel).

Genesis 46:2 God spoke to Israel in visions of the night, and said, "Jacob, Jacob." And he said, "Here I am." 3 Then he said, "I am God, the God of your father; do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. 4 I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again; and Joseph's own hand shall close your eyes."

But Paul was very clear in saying that he was speaking of a promise that had been made to Abraham.

Galatians 3:16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring; it does not say, "And to offsprings," as of many; but it says, "And to your offspring," that is, to one person, who is Christ. 17 My point is this: the law, which came four hundred thirty years later, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.

Paul was clearly referring to a promise that had been made to Abraham, so it doubtful that he had in mind the renewal of the promise to Jacob years after Abraham was dead. One never knows what kind of quibbling he may encountered from a biblicist, so Finley may claim that Galatians 3:16 says that the promise was made to Abraham and to his offspring, and Jacob (Israel) was a descendant or offspring of Abraham. That this would be a quibble can be determined by noticing that the other promises that Finley cited, which were spoken directly to Abraham, were clear in stating that the promise was to Abraham's offspring or seed.

Genesis 12:7 Then Yahweh appeared to Abram, and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built there an altar to Yahweh, who had appeared to him.

Genesis 15:18 On that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites."

Genesis 17:7 I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you, and to your offspringafter you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God."

Genesis 22:17 I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspringshall possess the gate of their enemies, 18 and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice."

To deny that Paul was referring to the earliest versions of the land promise and not to one that came decades later would be a resort to shameless quibbling, because Paul clearly said that the promise were spoken to Abraham. I quoted the NRSV version above, which says that the promise was "made" to Abraham, as does the KJV. However, if Finley will check the Greek text of Galatians 3:16, he will see that Paul used the word errethesan, a derivative of rheo,the root of the English word rhetoric. It meant "to speak" or "to say," and many English translations, such as the ASV, NASV, NIV, and NAB, so translated it. Obviously, then, the apostle Paul was referring to a promise that had been spoken to Abraham, so that would exclude the promises spoken to Jacob [Israel].

As for the other promises that Finley cited, they were all spoken to Abraham over a period of some 25 or 30 years. Abram [Abraham] was 75 when he left Haran (Gen. 12:4), and the first account of the promise was made when he arrived in Canaan (Gen. 12:7), which would have been when he was about 75. He was 100 when Isaac was born (Gen. 21:5), shortly after which the omnibenevolent Yahweh commanded Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, at which time Yahweh renewed the promise (Gen. 22:17-18). If, therefore, Finley wants to make Galatians 3:16 refer to the last time the promise was spoken to Abraham, let him do so. He will gain only about 30 years, which would make the interval between the promise spoken to Abraham and the covenant at Sinai just 400 years. However, since he noted above that the Bible sometimes spoke in approximations or rounded numbers, he will have gained nothing. He is still left with the problem of trying to explain why Exodus 12:40 said that the children of Israel sojourned in Egypt 430 years, whereas the apostle Paul said that there had been 430 years from the promise spoken to Abraham to the giving of the law at Mount Sinai.

Are there any mistakes in the Bible? Why, no, I think we can all see that. All it takes to remove them are a lot of verbal legerdemain and gymnastics, and biblical inerrantists are not a bit ashamed to resort to these tactics to try to prove that their "word of God" is inerrant.

Finley:

Again, using metonymy where one thing is put for another,

Till:

Well, this is not a case of again using metonymy, because the other example of a figure of speech that Finley claimed was synecdoche, which is the use of a part for the whole or a whole for the part. Metonomy substitutes the whole of one thing for the whole of another, such as when Jesus took a cup at the last supper, gave it to his disciples, and told all of them to drink it (Matt. 26:27). Obviously, he didn't mean for the disciples to drink the cup but to drink what was in it. This, then, is a case of metonomy, where the cup was substituted for it contents i. e., the whole of one thing for the whole of another. This is different from synecdoche, which Finley claims occurred in Genesis 15:13, where Yahweh was, according to Finley, subtituting the whole (400 years) for just a part of that time.

I took the time to point this out, because Finley speaks facilely of figurative language and figures of speech, when obviously he doesn't know one figure from another. It is hard to think that we should put much confidence in someone who is as confused about figures of speech as he is. His comments below, therefore, should be read with this in mind.

Finley:

Again, using metonymy where one thing is put for another, Paul may be referring not to Abraham in and of himself but to the very core of the promise which beginning with Jacob's descent would begin the countdown of 430 years.

Till:

Well, if Finley begins the countdown of 430 years at the time of Jacob's descent into Egypt, he would be beginning the count around 1661 BC, so if the Israelites were in Egypt for 430 years after that, the exodus would have happened around 1231 BC, but Finley said above that the exodus happened around 1446 BC. Does this guy even know what he is trying to defend?

Anyway, Finley thinks that he can just arbitrarily declare that Paul was using metonymy in Galatians 3:16, and we will accept it without question, but if he is going to claim that this is an example of metonymy, he is obligated to show us good reason to think that it is. In rebutting his claim that synecdoche was used in Genesis 15:13, I pointed out that this figure of speech can be easily recognized, because a literal interpretation of synecdoche will result in absurd meaning. This is true of metonymy. If, for example, we interpet Jesus literally when he told all of his disciples to drink the cup that he passed among them, we would have to visualize the disciples breaking the cup into pieces and swallowing them. When we hear over the news that "the White House said," we certainly don't think that the White House suddenly developed a speech mechanism that enables it to use language. If someone says that he is "reading Shakespeare," we don't understand that he is literally reading Shakespeare but what Shakespeare wrote. One thing is metonymically substituted for another. If we fail to recognize this, we will absurdly interpret the statement.

Now here is a question for Finley. He claims that the apostle Paul used metonomy in Galatians 3:16 by substituting Abraham for Jacob, but what absurdity would result if we understand that Paul literally meant Abraham when he referred to a promise that had been made to Abraham 430 years before the giving of the law at Sinai? Finley cannot say that this meaning would result in the absurdity of a contradiction in the Bible, because contradictions are not absurdities. They are commonplace in written documents, so if Finley takes this track, he will again be caught trying to prove inerrancy by assuming inerrancy. Before he does that, I will insist that he prove to us that the Bible is inerrant.

Finley:

Note well again, Christian Bible students presuppose the Bible is reliable and believe it is able to sustain criticism. It may be considered gymnastics by opponents but this does not mean the Bible is against exercise.

Till:

Well, Finley doesn't have to tell me that Christian Bible students presuppose that the Bible is reliable. I know that all too well, because I was once one of those fellows myself until I came to see through intense biblical studies that this is an untenable belief. If Finley will bother to check, he will find that Muslims believe that the Qur'an is reliable and that Mormons believe that the Book of Mormon is reliable, but I am sure that Finley would not be at all impressed with Muslims and Mormons who would try to support their beliefs with claims that their holy books are "reliable." Finley made a familiar mistake here: He used an argument that any adherent of another religion could make to prove the reliability of his holy book. What proves too much proves nothing at all, but Finley apparently doesn't understand that.

Finley:

3. Now, the 215-year sojourn is more conducive to a literal reading of the four generations between Levi and Moses

Till:

But it isn't at all "conducive" to Exodus 12:40, which very plainly says that the children of Israel sojourned in Egypt for 430 years. Two hundred fifteen is not 430.

Finley;

and to that we now turn. Let us unpack the information as it is. Exodus 6 tells the reader that Kohath is 133 years old when he dies. Amram is 137 when he dies and he is the father of Moses who is 80 when he leaves Egypt. Together the total is 360 years. This is shy of 400 not to mention 430. It would not do to say, “Eh. Let’s just round up.” So, what to do?

Till:

Quibble some more? Lean over backwards to try to find some verbal gynastic that will resolve the problem by assigning possible but very improbable meaning to the Exodus-6 genealogy? That is what biblical inerrantists before Finley have done, so I could hardly expect anything different from him. What he says below shows that my expectations were correct.

Finley:

Besides the above scenario, the adding together of all the years assumes no overlapping of father and son; hence, Mr. Till’s responsible conclusion in his paper: isn’t very practical.

Till:

I didn't intend for anyone to think that it was practical. I presented it only to show how extremely impractical it would be to think that fathers well over 100 years old had sired sons on their deathbeds for three successive generations.

Finley:

It would imply that indeed, each son was sired at the death of the father. Now, while this is not as impossible as some may esteem (that old age is a barrier for God), it is also not very reasonable.

Till:

I disagree with Finley only in that I consider this to have been so improbable that for all intents and purposes it could be considered impossible. I do appreciate, however, that Finley believes that it is "very unreasonable" to think that this had happened.

Finley:

Mr. Till labors in his paper to prove the Levi-Moses genealogy is literally four generations.

Till:

No "labor" at all was involved. It was easy to do by simply analyzing relevant biblical texts, so why isn't Finley trying to show that my analyses were flawed? If readers will go back and read "How Long Were the Children of Israel in Egypt?" they will find that all of my conclusions were supported by detailed analyses of biblical and extrabiblical texts, which Finley has ignored thoughout his attempt to rebut the article. In other words, he is just like most other biblicists that I have crossed verbal swords with. He selects just a few points from his opponent's article and then writes a "reply" as if 90% of the opponent's article never existed.

Finley:

His use of Scripture to prove Scripture is just as laudable as he refers to Genesis 46 et al and extra-biblical historians as well.

Till:

I don't use scripture to prove scripture. I use scripture to show that it is inconsistent. When, for example, I quote Exodus 12:40, which says that the children of Israel sojourned in Egypt 430 years, I am not claiming that this statement is true. I am claiming only that this is what the Bible says. As a matter of fact, I don't think that the Israelites were held in bondage in Egypt. (I will be glad to show Finley evidence that the exodus and wilderness wanderings are fictionalized "history" if he should care to defend the historicity of this part of the Bible.) After I had quoted Exodus 12:40, I then quoted the Exodus-6 genealogy and Genesis 46 only to show that what Exodus 12:40 said is inconsistent with certain claims in other biblical passages. I could not prove that inconsistencies are in, say, the Book of Mormon unless I juxtaposed quotations from this book to show that what passage A says is inconsistent with what passage B says. I am sure that Finley realizes this, so why should he think that the methodology in exposing biblical discrepancies should be any different? The only laudable thing in my articles, therefore, is that I support my claims of biblical errancy by showing the actual discrepancies in the Bible.

Finley:

Let us consider this literal genealogical system. Look at the man Bezalel. He was the man chosen to construct the tabernacle and a contemporary with Moses (Ex 31:2-5). Note 1 Chronicles’ genealogy in chapter 2. If we are to remain consistent as Mr. Till is sure to make sure, then literal genealogies will appear here.

Till:

No, Finley is off a country mile here. I do not claim that all genealogies in the Bible gave generation-by-generation listings. My claim is that some of them did and that Exodus 6 was obviously intended as a generation-by-generation listing, for if it isn't, other passages in the Bible contain discrepancies.

My proof is in the article (linked to above), which Finley mainly ignored. Those who read it will see that I pointed out the following facts.

1. The Exodus-6 genealogy says that Kohath was the son of Levi (v:16).

2. This agrees with Genesis 46:11, 1 Chronicles 6:1, and every other genealogical listing for Kohath.

3. Exodus 6:18 claims that Kohath had four sons: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel.

From these biblical claims, I concluded that if Exodus 6 is a generation-by-generation listing, then Amram would have been a literal son of Kohath, and Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel would have been literal brothers of Amram and uncles of Aaron and Moses. I then proceeded to show that these conclusions were consistent with Exodus 6:22, which says that Uzziel had sons named Mishael and Elzaphan and Leviticus 10:4, which says that a man named Uzziel, living in the time of Aaron and Moses, had sons named Mishael and Elzaphan and that this man was "the uncle of Aaron." This was compelling information that showed very good reasons to believe that no generations were skipped in the Exodus-6 genealogy. Finley, however, skipped over all of this information and didn't even mention it.

I further showed that Izhar, who was listed in Exodus 6:18 as a son of Kohath, had a son named Korah (Exodus 6:21) and that a man named Korah, living in the time of the exodus led a rebellion against the leadership of Moses (Num. 16:1) and that this man was described in the passage just referenced as the "son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi." This was more compelling textual evidence that no generations were skipped in Exodus 6, but Finley ignored this too.

I also pointed out two more biblical facts that Finley completely ignored.

1. Exodus 6:20 says that Amram married his father's sister Jochebed, who bore to him Aaron and Moses.

2. This agrees with Numbers 26:59, which says that Amram's wife Jochebed was born to Levi in Egypt and bore to Amram Aaron, Moses, and their sister Miriam.

I then quoted a section from Levi's testament in Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, where the writer, purporting to be Levi, clearly stated that Kohath was his son, that Kohath's sons were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, and that Amram had married his daughter Jochebed, who had been born to him in Egypt. This too was more compelling evidence for a generation-by-generation, literal genealogy in Exodus 6, but Finley ignored all of this too.

I cited other extrabiblical evidence, but I am going to save the summation of it until I come to where Finley waved the extrabiblical evidence aside by asserting, without supporting evidence, of course, that Josephus had just misunderstood the genealogy.

Finley:

Let us start with where we left off, with Bezalel. Verse 20 tells us Bezalel’s father is Uri and Uri’s father was Hur (v 20); Hur was fathered by Caleb and he in turn by Hezron (vv 1-19); Hezron was the son of Perez (v 5) and he in turn is the son of Judah (vv 3-4). Finally the reader is referred to the father of all these: Israel (v 1). Now, let us consider the generations. Remembering that there are only four generations from Levi (contemporary with Judah [vv 1,3,4] ) to Moses who is a contemporary with Bezalel, we should expect here a symmetrical four generations. What do we find? We find Judah (1), Perez (2), Hezron (3), Caleb (4), Hur (5), Uri (6), and finally Bezalel (7). Just with numerics alone we see a ratio of four (4) against seven (7). This shows us that Moses, Bezalel, Caleb, and Joshua are contemporaries. Does this probable [apparent omission] with Moses family tree only needing four generations while these other two have more?

Till:

Finley is at it again. He is trying to prove biblical inerrancy by assuming inerrancy, but even if we conclude that the genealogy of Bezalel was accurate, that would in no way prove that seven generations could not have been born in his family tree while only four were born in Aaron's and Moses' family. I need look no further than my own family to understand this. My wife was 17 years old when her kid sister was born. This sister had a daughter when she was in her mid-40s. This daughter, my wife's niece, is 12 years old now. She is a first cousin to our three children, who are 49, 48, and 46 respectively. Hence, there is a 37-year gap in the ages of my older son and his first cousin. This is confusing even to us, because my wife's niece sometimes calls me grandpa instead of uncle and calls my son uncle, when really he is her first cousin. My wife has an older sister, who had a daughter before my wife and I married, so the 12-year-old niece just mentioned has a first cousin who is even older than our firstborn son. The gap in ages here is 41.

My point is that it would be entirely possible for seven generations to be born in one family while only four were being born in another. All that would be necessary for this to happen would be early marriages in one family but late marriages in the other. Aside from this, Finley shows his biblical ignorance by appealing to such a quibble as this, because six Levitical generations through Aaron and not just four were listed in Exodus 6.

Exodus 6:20 Amram married Jochebed his father's sister and she bore him Aaron and Moses, and the length of Amram's life was one hundred thirty-seven years.... 23 Aaron married Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab and sister of Nahshon, and she bore him Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.... 25 Aaron's son Eleazarmarried one of the daughters of Putiel, and she bore him Phinehas. These are the heads of the ancestral houses of the Levites by their families.

As we have already noticed, Aaron was the fourth generation from Levi, so Eleazar would have been the fifth and Phinehas the sixth. If Finley will bother to check, he will find that Eleazar and Phinehas were alive during the wilderness years, so they would have been the fifth and sixth generations from Levi and would have been contemporaries of Hur, Uri, and Bezalel, the fifth, sixth, and seventh generations in Bezalel's genealogy. Just like that, then, Finley's quibble backfires in his face when he tries to prove that there had to have been more than four generations from Levi to Aaron and Moses on the grounds that there were seven generations in the genealogy of Bezalel, who was a contemporary of Aaron. There would have been nothing improbable at all about seven generations being born in a period of time from Judah to Bezalel, whereas only six had been born during the same time period in a family descending from Judah's brother Levi through Phinehas. Aaron and Bezalel were contemporaries, but that means only that their lives overlapped. Aaron was 83 at the time of the exodus (Ex. 7:7), but I can find nowhere any indication of how old Bezalel was. It is entirely possible that even though they were contemporaries, several decades separated their ages. To call Aaron and Bezalel contemporaries may be linguistically correct, but in all probability, if any of this exodus stuff really happened, Bezalel would have been somewhere in the age group of Aaron's son Eleazar or his grandson Phinephas, so there is no merit at all to Finley's attempt to use the genealogy of Bezalel to prove that there had to have been more than four generations in the Exodus 6 genealogy, because there were more than four generations listed there. Eleazar and Phinehas were the fifth and sixth generations. That Finley would resort to such a quibble as this is just another indication of how desperate biblicists can be when they try to prove inerrancy in the Bible.

The best is yet to come, because Finley really put his foot into his mouth immediately below.

Finley:

Consider, as well, the family tree of Eliashim. He and his son Joshua were contemporaries with Moses as we have seen. In 1 Chronicles 7:22-26 we read this.

Their father Ephraim (1) mourned for them many days, and his relatives came to comfort him. Then he lay with his wife again, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. He named him Beriah (2), because there had been misfortune in his family. His daughter was Sheerah, who built Lower and Upper Beth Horon as well as Uzzen Sheerah. Rephah (3) was his son, Resheph (4) his son, Telah (5) his son, Tahan (6) his son, Ladan (7) his son, Ammihud (8) his son, Elishama (9) [cross reference Numbers 1:10: Of the children of Joseph: of Ephraim; Elishama the son of Ammihud: of Manasseh; Gamaliel the son of Pedahzur.] his son, Nun (10) his son and Joshua (11) his son.

The ratio has now just grown. Prima facie, the reading has 11 generations between Ephraim (contemporary with the Patriarchs coming to Egypt) and his “son” Joshua, who along with his father was a contemporary with Moses. Now, while these eleven generations could fit into a 215-year sojourn, one could not then easily say that there were only four generations between Levi’s and Moses’ family tree. It is not apparent to this Bible student that all recorded genealogies are literal.

Till:

Unfortunately for Finley, he was not a member of the Errancy forum in July 2001, for if he had been, he would have seen an inerrantist named Joe Carter taken to the cleaners when he tried to use this same passage to prove that generations had been skipped in the Exodus-6 genealogy. The chronicler who wrote the genealogy that Finley has cited was so confused about or uninformed in Israelite history that he thought that Ephraim, a son of Joseph who had been born before Jacob took his extended family into Egypt (Gen. 41:52, was still alive almost 500 years later when the Israelites entered Canaan after wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. This can easily be demonstrated by an analysis of the complete genealogy that Finley cited. First, let's notice that Finley omitted the first two verses of the genealogy.

1 Chronicles 7:20 The sons of Ephraim: Shuthelah, and Bered his son, Tahath his son, Eleadah his son, Tahath his son, 21 Zabad his son, Shuthelah his son, and Ezer and Elead. Now the people of Gath, who were born in the land, killed them, because they came down to raid their cattle.

The part that Finley quoted gives no explanation for why Ephraim was in mourning, but the first two verses of the genealogy will explain it. The sons of Ephraim had been killed by the people of Gath. Whether this was because the sons of Ephraim were rustling cattle in the region of Gath or whether the people of Gath were rustling the cattle of Ephraim's sons is not clear in the text. I personally favor the former interpretation, but I recognize that it could be the other, because the antecedent of they is ambiguous, as are many pronoun antecedents in the Bible. This, however, is not important. What is important is that this text claims that Ephraim mourned the death of his sons who had been killed by the people of Gath.

Gath was a Philistine city located in the Northwestern area of Philistia, whose inhabitants were called Gittites in the Bible (Josh. 13:2-3; 2 Sam. 21:19), so the writer of 1 Chronicles apparently thought that Ephraim, Joseph's son born before the Israelite descent into Egypt, had somehow settled into postconquered Canaan and had experienced the death of his sons during a raid that they had made on Gittite cattle or a raid that Gittites had made on their cattle. At that time, the men of Gath, who had been born in the land, killed three of Ephraim's sons, whom he then mourned over before the birth of another son. This would mean that the Chronicler was either ignorant of Israelite history or else he thought that Ephraim had lived through the entire 430 years of Egyptian bondage and the 40 years of wilderness wanderings to enter Canaan and live there long enough to experience the deaths of his sons and the subsequent birth of his son Beriah, who was conceived after Ephraim had mourned for "many days." This would have made Ephraim almost 500 years old, and it would create a discrepancy with Numbers 14:30, which claims that Caleb and Joshua would be the only adults in the wilderness wanderings who would survive the 40 years in the wilderness and enter Canaan.

In debates on this issue with other inerrantists, they have resorted to rank quibbling to try to date the deaths of Ephraim's sons well before the exodus. Their most popular quibble was that the chronicler was simply referring back to a time when the Ephraimites made cross-border cattle raids from Egypt into Philistine territory. In other words, they were claiming that the grandsons of Joseph, the second most powerful leader in Egypt, had engaged in cattle rustling some 200 miles from their home in Egypt. That within itself is a scenario too unlikely for rational people even to consider. That the Chronicler identified the men of Gath as those who had been "born in the land" indicates that he saw these Gittites as original inhabitants of the land in contrast to the Ephraimites, who had just recently entered Canaan. I will show by more detailed analyses of this genealogy and related texts in 1 Chronicles that there is no textual support at all for the quibble that Ephraim's sons were cattle rustlers while they were living in Egypt. These analyses will show that the Chronicler was so unfamiliar with Israelite history as it was recounted in the Hexateuch that he apparently didn't know about the alleged bondage in Egypt or else didn't believe it, and so he wrote as if it had never happened.

I will begin by calling attention to verse 24 in the genealogy that Finley cited. It says that Ephraim's daughter built lower and upper Beth-horon and Uzzen-sheerah. The Beth-horons were towns in Canaan, which were referred to as boundary points for the distribution of the part of the conquered lands that went to the descendants of Joseph (Josh. 16:3-5; Josh. 18:13-14). Uzzen-sheerah is mentioned only in this genealogy, but its very name indicates that the writer understood that it was a town founded by Ephraim's daughter Sheerah, so the Chronicler claimed that a daughter of Ephraim built three towns in Canaan. How could she have done this if the Ephraimites were in Egypt all through the lifespan of Ephraim? Are we to think that although Ephraim may have died in Egypt, his daughter somehow lived for several centuries, survived the wilderness years, entered Canaan, and then built these three cities? I debated this issue with an inerrantist who claimed that Sheerah wasn't Ephraim's daughter but the daughter of his son Beriah. Even if that were true, Sheerah would have been Ephraim's granddaughter, and it would have been logistically impossible for the granddaughter of a man who had been born before the entry into Egypt to live through the 430 years of bondage and the 40 wilderness years, and then enter Canaan where she built the cities attributed to her. I even had an inerrantist claim that Sheerah had married into prominent Egyptian society, and so she built these places in Canaan as vacation retreats, but he offered not a speck of evidence to support this claim. As we will see, it is far more reasonable to interpret this reference to Sheerah as just another indication that the Chronicle writer was unaware of the alleged 430-year bondage in Egypt, and so he wrote as if it hadn't happened.

The chronicler's placement of Ephraim in Canaan is clearly an anachronism (in terms of what other biblical writers said about Israelite history), so the genealogy that Finley cited in 1 Chronicles 7 is shown to be unrealiable from the outset. If Finley wants to defend the inerrancy of the chronicler's Ephraimite genealogy, I will respond by posting an analysis of this writer's literary style, which will convince anyone but diehard inerrantists that the writer was interested only in what had happened to the Israelites after they entered Canaan and not in what they had experienced before that. This is a five-part series that was posted on the Errancy list back in July of 2001. I would copy it into the text, but this rebuttal of Finley's article is long enough already. I will wait to see if Finley tries to defend the Ephraimite genealogy any further. If so, I will then reply with this archived material. For his benefit, however, I will recommend that he go to the Errancy archives, type "The Chronicler's Writing Strategy" into the search window, and then read these and related articles, which clearly show that the chronicler had no interest in the pre-Canaan history of Israel. He might then understand that it wouldn't be prudent to use the genealogies in 1 Chronicles to support his skipped-generation theory.

The chronicler wrote as if Egypt had never happened to the Israelites, and this resulted in various anachronistic mistakes. To detail them all would probably double the length of this rebuttal article, so I am going to discuss just a few of them. The chronicler, for example, thought that Israelites who had been born in Canaan before the alleged bondage in Egypt lived to enter Canaan after the conquest.

Here is a revision of one example of what I posted while debating this issue on the Errancy list with Joe Carter back in 2001. To follow the analysis, readers will need to understand that Machir, whose daughter Caleb married, was the son of Manasseh, who was Joseph's firstborn son. In other words, Machir was Joseph's grandson. Also, the references to the Hebrew wordyalad were made because Carter had argued that this word in reference to Jochebed's "bearing" Aaron and Moses had meant only that she was their ancestor.

Let's consider, then, a passage in 1 Chronicles 2. First Chronicles, by the way, is going to give Carter so many migraines in this debate that he will be addicted to aspirin by the time it is over. It is a maze of genealogical problems, so if Carter intends to make a career of defending the inerrancy of biblical genealogies, he should take the time to become much more familiar with 1 Chronicles than he now is. If he knew this book, he would never have said that the context of chapter 7 will show that the cattle raid in which Ephraim's sons were killed happened while they were living in Egypt, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's focus for now on Machir and his son Gilead.

The genealogies in 1 Chronicles take some characters born before the entry into Egypt and their near descendants and put them into Canaan after the conquest when the land was being divided among the different tribes. Here is one such passage, to which I will apply some of the conclusions from Carter's "yalad" study. I will emphasize in bold print some of the names to call special attention to them.

1 Chronicles 2:18 And Caleb the son of Hezron begat children of Azubah his wife, and of Jerioth: her sons are these; Jesher, and Shobab, and Ardon. 19 And when Azubah was dead, Caleb took unto him Ephrath, which bare him Hur. 20 And Hur begat Uri, and Uri begat Bezaleel. 21 And afterward Hezron went in to the daughter of Machirthe father of Gilead, whom he married when he was threescore years old; and she bare [yalad] him Segub. 22 And Segub begat [yalad] Jair, who had three and twenty cities in the land of Gilead.

Hezron? We have seen that name before, haven't we? The context shows that this was the Hezron who was the center of controversy in the "Judah's Grandsons" debate. He and Hamul were allegedly the sons of Perez, one of Judah's bastard twins whom Tamar bore to him. He was listed as one of the 66 "souls" who went into Egypt with Jacob (Gen. 46:12). That the Hezron in the passage quoted above was this same Hezron is evident from an earlier part of this same genealogy. I will again emphasize certain names to call attention to them.

1 Chronicles 2:3 The sons of Judah; Er, and Onan, and Shelah: which three were born unto him of the daughter of Shua the Canaanitess. And Er, the firstborn of Judah, was evil in the sight of Yahweh; and he slew him. 4 And Tamar his daughter in law bare him Pharez and Zerah. All the sons of Judah were five. 5 The sons of Pharez; Hezron, and Hamul. 6 And the sons of Zerah; Zimri, and Ethan, and Heman, and Calcol, and Dara: five of them in all. 7 And the sons of Carmi; Achar, the troubler of Israel, who transgressed in the thing accursed. 8 And the sons of Ethan; Azariah. 9 The sons also of Hezron, that were born unto him; Jerahmeel, and Ram, and Chelubai [Caleb]. 10 And Ram begat Amminadab; and Amminadab begat Nahshon, prince of the children of Judah....

The pattern here is typical. The sons of Judah were named, and then the sons of these sons were listed. After the listing of the sons of the sons, the writer gave the genealogy of Hezron's son Caleb [Chelubai], which began at verse 18. By analyzing the different sections of Judah's genealogy, we get the following father/son sequence: Judah was the father of Perez, Perez was the father of Hezron, Hezron was the father of Caleb [Chelubai]. Hence, Caleb [Chelubai] was the third generation from Judah.

I'll ask Carter to keep in mind that this information has been gleaned from a genealogy in which the writer, true to his style, counted the sons in the genealogy. "All the sons of Judah were five" (v:4). The sons of Zerah, Perez's twin brother, were "five in all" (v:6). The sons of Jesse in verses 12-17 (not quoted above) were counted: firstborn, the second, the third, the fourth, etc. With such exactness as this in this genealogy, it is not just reasonable but practically mandatory to conclude that Caleb [Chelubai] was the third-generation descendant of Judah.

This is important because after telling of Caleb's marriage and the children born to his wife who died (vs:18-20), the writer then said that "Hezron had relations with the daughter of Machir father of Gilead--he had married her when he was sixty years old--and she bore him Serug; and Serug begot [yalad] Jair" (vs:21-22, JPS). That Caleb married Machir's daughter according to this passage gives Carter less room to quibble about skipped generations in this genealogy, because it is easy to understand how a third-generation descendant of Judah (or, more exactly, a great-grandson of Judah) could have married the actual daughter of Machir (a second-generation descendant or grandson of Judah's brother Joseph) when he was 60, but it isn't at all easy to visualize how this could have happened if this daughter of Machir was only a descendant of Machir in a genealogy in which generations were "skipped," which Carter may want to quibble to make this genealogy compatible with the claim of a 430-year sojourn in Egypt. The generations in this genealogy, then, look like this: Judah begot Perez, Perez begot (1) Hezron, Hezron begot (2) Caleb, and then Caleb married Machir's daughter, who bore (3) Segub, who then begot (4) Jair. I put the numbers in parentheses in order to count the number of generations born from the time of Hezron's entry into Egypt. As you can see, there were only four. Carter may be inclined to ask, "So what?" and then argue that this proves nothing except that Hezron begot Caleb, Caleb begot Segub, and Segub begot Jair, but if that is what he thinks, he hasn't looked at this part of the genealogy closely enough. Jair is very important, because look what the genealogy says after it states that Segub begot Jair.

21 And she [Machir's daughter] bore him [Caleb] Segub; and Segub begot Jair; He had twenty-three cities in the land of Gilead.

What did the writer mean when he said that Jair had 23 cities in the land of Gilead? He was talking about the distribution of the land of Canaan after its conquest.

Joshua 13:29 Moses gave an inheritance to the half-tribe of Manasseh; it was allotted to the half-tribe of the Manassites according to their families. 30 Their territory extended from Mahanaim, through all Bashan, the whole kingdom of King Og of Bashan, and all the settlements of Jair, which are in Bashan, sixty towns....

Later on, much to Carter's dismay, I will be posting some detailed analyses of the tribal genealogies in 1 Chronicles, which will show that the writer had an interest in telling what territories and what cities different tribes and tribal members received when the spoils of victory were divvied up. Comments about the dividing of the land and cities are scattered throughout the genealogies, but 4:31-33, 4:39-42, 5:8-9, and 5:16-17 are just a few of them.

What this all means is that, whether it was historically accurate or not, the writer of 1 Chronicles thought that Jair, who was only a fourth-generation descendant of Hezron (one of the original 66 to go into Egypt), lived long enough to enter Canaan and receive 23 cities during the distribution of the spoils of victory. How could this genealogical information possibly be consistent with Genesis 50:23, that Carter was so excited about?

Is Carter still not convinced? In Part Three, I will show him that the chronicler thought that even Caleb, just a first-generation descendant of Hezron, had gone into Canaan too. That would certainly be incompatible with the claim of a 430-year sojourn, but as we will see, the writer of 1 Chronicles seemed almost oblivious to the claim that the Israelites had sojourned in Egypt.

I have K's and K's of other analyses of the chronicler's genalogies in the Errancy archives, and they show just as clearly as the examples above that this writer filled his work with anachronisms in terms of what other biblical writers said about Israelite history [fiction]. There is an indication in 1 Chronicles, for example, that Hezron died in Canaan, but I will leave it to Findley to decide if he wants me to hit him with this additional information. If he returns with an attempt to prove the historical accuracy of the Ephramite genealogy, I will dump the whole load of information on him.

Finley's next "rebuttal" needs to be quoted in its entirety before I comment on it.

Finley:

4. Mr. Till helps us here when he uses Judah’s genealogy as an example of literal generations. He notes, "The genealogy shifted its focus to Aaron at verse 23, at which time the writer further indicated that he was presenting a generation-by-generation genealogy. And Aaron took him Elisheba, the daughter of Amminadab, the sister of Nahshon, to wife, and she bore him Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.

"This verse strengthens my claim that the writer of Exodus 6 used family relationships in their literal senses in this genealogy. To show why, let's notice another genealogical statement in Ruth 4:18-20. Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez begot Hezron, and Hezron begot Ram, and Ram begot Amminadab, and Amminadab begot Nahshon...."

Notice here—Mr. Till only shows half the genealogy. Were we only to have this much of the family tree, we would concur with Mr. Till at least this far. That is, there are four heads of families listed here and there are four listed for Moses. Nashon then is Moses’ in-law. But Mr. Till’s point is that Amminadab is Nashon’s immediate father. Is this plausible? Perhaps. Let us continue Mr. Till’s use of Ruth. Notice verses 18-22.

18 This, then, is the family line of Perez: Perez was the father of Hezron, 19 Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, 20 Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, [3] 21 Salmon the father of Boaz, Boaz the father of Obed, 22 Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David..

Beginning here we see that before the journey into Egypt we have Perez (note again, Mr Till’s affirmation of this point when he says, “Perez’s son Hezron was also born before the descent into Egypt…” ). But we also have an end point: David. How many generations are there between the descent into Egypt and David’s birth? First let us consider, conservative dates for biblical events. We already have 1446 BC as the date for the Exodus. Assuming 430 years is roughly the duration of the previous slavery we have its genesis in ca. 1876 BC. So Perez (1), Hezron (2), and understandable Ram (3) are early Egyptian squatters. There are three generations to begin with. Who follows? Amminadab (4), Nashon (5), Salmon (6), Boaz (7), Obed (8), Jesse (9), and David (10). Herein is a literal genealogy and this from a different author than Genesis, Exodus and Chronicles. If we consider what we observed above, that Joshua, the (11th) generation from Ephraim was a contemporary of Moses, what must we conclude about David? 1876 BC is where we left off. 1446 BC is the year of the Exodus (of which David is now a contemporary) but the date for David’s reign as King over Israel is in the 1000’s. Here is a random site for reference to this date.

Here the site offers a date of 1010 for his reign. This is an even more glaring Gordian Knot for us “bibliolaters” to untie. Insurmountable!! I will not try. But to make a comment or two I suppose would suffices [sic]. Mr. Till says the generations are literal father to son ratios. He says there are literally four generations from Levi to Moses. But we have seen that there are also eleven generations between Ephraim and Joshua and more recently that there are eleven generations between Judah and David. Joshua and David may have played together in daycare!

Till:

So there is Finley's "rebuttal" in its uninterrupted entirety. From what I have already said, I shouldn't have to comment on it, but, of course, I will. To begin dismantling it, I will point out again that Finley plays the old game of trying to prove inerrancy by assuming inerrancy. In this case, he argues that the genealogy in Exodus 6 cannot be a generation-by-generation listing, because a genalogy in Ruth contains only 10 generations from Perez to David, and according to chronology derived from analyzing data in other biblical passages, David reigned some 400 years after the exodus. Since Nahshon participated in the exodus, Finley is arguing, that would mean that there were only 5 generations in David's lineage during these 400 years. Finley was asking by implication,"How likely is this?" First, I will remind readers that Finley continues to try to prove inerrancy by assuming inerrancy, which he calls "letting scripture interpret scripture," but when one assumes that text A cannot mean what it appears to say, because text B, which is explicitly clear, will contradict it if the face-value meaning of A is accepted, he is arguing from the assumption that all scripture is inerrant and therefore must be in agreement.

Finley assumed above, for example, that there had to have been generations skipped in Exodus 6 because a genealogy in 1 Chronicles 7 listed 11 generations between Ephraim (who had been born before the Israelite descent into Egypt) and Joshua, (who was the Israelite leader of the conquest of Canaan). His reasoning is fallacious for three reasons. First, I showed through reference to the 40-year gap between first cousins in my own family that one cannot assume that if X number of generations were born in one family, the same number of generations would have to be born in another family over the same period of time. As I explained, if early marriages were a custom in the one family and late marriages in the other, over extended periods of time, the one family branch would have more generations in it than the other. Hence, there is no merit at all to this part of Finley's "solution." Second, I showed through detailed analyses of the chronicler's earlier genealogies that he apparently had no awareness of a period of bondage in Egypt that had lasted 430 years, because the genealogies in this book put biblical characters like Hezron, Judah's grandson who had been born before the descent into Egypt, into postconquered Canaan. The chronicler's concept of how much time had passed between the time of biblical characters like Hezron, Ephraim, and Machir and the Israelite division of the land in Canaan was obviously much shorter than that of those who wrote in the Hexateuch the tales of bondage, exodus, wilderness wanderings, and conquest of Canaan, so Finley certainly cannot let the genealogy in 1 Chronicles "interpret" the genealogy in Exodus 6. Third, if the chronicler's sense of Israelite chronology was much shorter than that of the authors of the Hexateuch, Finley cannot know whether the chronological sense of the author of Ruth was in agreement with the author of Exodus 6 or whether he too, like the chronicler, thought that the time from Perez to Nahshon and from Nhashon to David had been no longer than a span that would have been covered by just the ten generations listed in Ruth 4:18-20. When these factors are all considered, the last semblance of merit in Finley's "solution" will evaporate.

As an endnote to this part of Finley's "solution," I want readers to note that as he took us through his "rebuttal," he completely ignored everything I said in "How Long Were the Children of Israel in Egypt?" that clearly showed that, according to the book of Numbers, Nahshon was a contemporary of Moses and Aaron and was the designated leader of the tribe of Judah during the wilderness years. To save readers the time of having to look for it, I will quote the relevant section. Notice how it shows textual reasons not just to understand that Nahshon was a contemporary of Aaron but that he was also the actual son of Amminadab.

Obviously, inerrantists can't accept the "face-value" meaning of these genealogies, so that is why they will insist that some generations were skipped between Hezron, who was born before the descent into Egypt, and Nahshon, who was obviously a contemporary of Aaron and Moses, because he is mentioned several times during the wilderness wanderings as a leader in the tribe of Judah.

Numbers 1:4 A man from each tribe shall be with you, each man the head of his ancestral house. 5 These are the names of the men who shall assist you: From Reuben, Elizur son of Shedeur. 6 From Simeon, Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai. 7 From Judah, Nahshon son of Amminadab.

Numbers 2:3 Those to camp on the east side toward the sunrise shall be of the regimental encampment of Judah by companies. The leader of the people of Judah shall be Nahshon son of Amminadab, 4 with a company as enrolled of seventy-four thousand six hundred.

Numbers 7:11 Yahweh said to Moses: They shall present their offerings, one leader each day, for the dedication of the altar. 12 The one who presented his offering the first day was Nahshon son of Amminadab, of the tribe of Judah....

Numbers 10:13 They set out for the first time at the command of Yahweh by Moses. 14 The standard of the camp of Judah set out first, company by company, and over the whole company was Nahshon son of Amminadab.

Interestingly enough, whenever Nahshon was mentioned, he was always identified as "the son of Amminadab." Yes, inerrantists will argue, he was the "son of Amminadab, but "son" could mean just descendant, so that doesn't necessarily mean that Nahshon was the literal "son" of Amminadab. Well, if he wasn't the literal son of a man named Amminadab, why was he always called the "son of Amminadab"? As many times as he was mentioned, why didn't a biblical writer at least one time refer to him as the son of whoever was his actual father?

A dodge that some inerrantists try to use when confronted with genealogical problems like the one in Exodus 6 is to argue that the names in genealogies represented "ages" or "eras" and not the specific people named in them. Thus, the name Abraham in the genealogy of Jesus meant not Abraham but the "age" or "era" of Abraham. Very well, if that is true, why did the biblical writers consistently say that Nahshon was the "son of Amminadab"? Who was this Amminadab anyway? We really don't know, because outside of the many times that he is listed in genealogies as the "son" of Ram and the father of Nahshon, he was never mentioned. So why would biblical writers have chosen such an obscure person to represent an "age" or an "era" in the various genealogies that listed Amminadab? He was famous for nothing except that he had a "son" who was an important leader in the tribe of Judah during the wilderness experiences of the Israelites. If this age-or-era-of argument has any merit, why wouldn't the writers of biblical genealogies have gone directly from Hezron to Nahshon, because he was the only descendant after Hezron who was prominent enough to have an age or era named after him? Ram and Amminadab weren't.

For these reasons, it is entirely logical to understand that the writer of the Exodus-6 genealogy meant for his readers to understand that he thought that Aaron's wife Elisheba was the literal sister of the Israelite leader Nahshon and that this Nahshon was the literal son of a man named Amminadab, just as Aaron's wife was the literal daughter of Amminadab. I have already established to the satisfaction of anyone who doesn't have an inerrancy axe to grind that the writer of this genealogy was using the word "sons" literally throughout the genealogy as he listed the "sons" of Reuben and Simeon and Levi and Kohath, etc. So if Nahshon was not the literal son of Amminadab, then the genealogist suddenly switched the meaning of the word "son" when he said that Nahshon was the "son of Amminadab," and that would be a writing error known as equivocation. I have said many times in discussing biblical discrepancies that an error is an error. It doesn't have to be a "biggie" in order to be an error, and if there is even a "little" error in the Bible, it is not inerrant.

Readers can see for themelves that Finley made no attempt at all to address this section of my first article. As far as his "rebuttal" was concerned, none of what I quoted above was ever said.

Finley:

Now no respectable Christian scholar will deny that Ruth is a book that justifies David’s ancestry. King David’s that is.

Till:

As I noted above, we cannot assume that the author of Ruth had any better grasp of the chronology in Israelite "history" than did the writer of 1 Chronicles. As far as we can know, the author of Ruth had the same perception of chronology as did the chronicler, who seemed to be oblivious to the Hexateuchal claims of a 430-year sojourn in Egypt. Hence, this writer, like the chronicler could have thought that there were only 10 actual generations from Perez to David. What Finley needs here is some kind of textual evidence that the author of Ruth understood that 430 + 40 + 400 years had passed from the Israelite descent into Egypt until the birth of David. Without that evidence he can base no legitimate skipped-generation argument on the genealogy in Ruth.

On the other hand, I pointed out above that there are good reasons to think that the author of 1 Chronicles thought that his genealogy from Perez through David was a generation-by-generation listing. I will go over this again for Finley's benefit.

1 Chronicles 2:3 The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, and Shelah; these three the Canaanite woman Bath-shua bore to him. Now Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of Yahweh, and he put him to death. 4 His daughter-in-law Tamar also bore him Perez and Zerah. Judah had five sons in all. 5 The sons of Perez: Hezron and Hamul. 6 The sons of Zerah: Zimri, Ethan, Heman, Calcol, and Dara, five in all. 7 The sons of Carmi: Achar [Achan], the troubler of Israel, who transgressed in the matter of the devoted thing; 8 and Ethan's son was Azariah.

Notice the parts that I have emphasized in bold print. This writer was so specific that after listing the sons of Judah and Zerah, he took the trouble to count them. How likely is it that a writer that meticulous would turn around in the very next verses in this genealogy and begin skipping names?

9 The sons of Hezron, who were born to him: Jerahmeel, Ram, and Chelubai [Caleb]. 10 Ram became the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab became the father of Nahshon, prince of the sons of Judah. 11 Nahshon became the father of Salma, Salma of Boaz, 12 Boaz of Obed, Obed of Jesse.

I am sure that Finley knows that Jesse was the father of David, who is listed as one of Jesse's sons in the very next verse. I interupted the text here to ask readers to note that the chronicler once again began to count or number the names in this genealogy.

13 Jesse became the father of Eliab his firstborn, Abinadab the second, Shimea the third, 14 Nethanel the fourth, Raddai the fifth, 15 Ozem the sixth, David the seventh; 16 and their sisters were Zeruiah and Abigail.

So I will ask Finley again to tell us how likely it was that a genealogists who meticulously counted names at times would have skipped generations without informing his readers. In the chronicler's genealogies, therefore, whether they are accurate or not, we have compelling evidence that this writer at least thought they were accurate.

I have gone to lengths to show that Old Testament writers at times could not agree on their chronology; hence, the Hexateuchal writers would put 430 + 40 years between the Israelite entry into Egypt and their conquest of Canaan, whereas the chronicler obviously thought that this time span was much shorter. For Finley's benefit, I will point out another piece of evidence that shows that writers were confused in their chronology. Earlier, I quoted the closing verses in the Exodus-6 genealogy to show that it went beyond four generations and included a fifth and sixth.

Exodus 6:23 Aaron married Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab and sister of Nahshon, and she bore him Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.... 25 Aaron's son Eleazar married one of the daughters of Putiel, and she bore him Phinehas.

That Phinehas was born at least during the wilderness years and at sometime fairly early in those years must be conceded, because Numbers 25 depicts him as carrying out the execution of a couple who had participated in the orgy at Peor.

6 Just then one of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman into his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the Israelites, while they were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he got up and left the congregation. Taking a spear in his hand, 8 he went after the Israelite man into the tent, and pierced the two of them, the Israelite and the woman, through the belly. So the plague was stopped among the people of Israel. 9 Nevertheless those that died by the plague were twenty-four thousand. 10 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying: 11 "Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the Israelites by manifesting such zeal among them on my behalf that in my jealousy I did not consume the Israelites.

Later Phinehas is mentioned several times in the book of Joshua during the conquest years (22:13; 22:30-32; and 24:33). The last citation is the final verse in the book of Joshua, so Phinehas was alive at the close of this book, which is followed by the book of Judges. Biblical chronologists have noted chronological references in Judges that span a total of 410 years, but since this figure is difficult to reconcile with other biblical passages, some chronologists have manipulated the numbers to reduce the time span of the judges to 280 years (Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, 1987, p. 610). Even this lower estimate, however, is hard to reconcile with the reference to Phinehas at the end of the book of Judges.

Judges 20:27 And the Israelites inquired of Yahweh (for the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days, 28 and Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron,ministered before it in those days)....

So even if we take the lower estimate, which was arrived at in order to try to eliminate inconsistency from the Bible, we still have a chronological problem, because Phinehas, who was alive during the wilderness years and all through the conquest of Canaan, was still alive and kicking at the end of the 280, and probably even more, years of the era of the Judges. This would have made him well over 300 years old. Hence, we can see that biblical chronology is so confused in places that neither Finley nor anyone else can base a credible "explanation" of the 430-year problem of Exodus 12:40 on what other biblical genealogies say. In other words, Finley's let-scripture-interpret-scripture theory is fundamentally unsound.

Finley:

Let us consider then Mr. Till’s earlier point. He queries, “How reasonable is it to believe that only three generations…would have been born during the 430 year sojourn in Egypt? That’s not very likely,” he says. I couldn’t agree more. But I think that’s the point, isn’t it? We are not told how many literal generations there were in those 430 years but what we are told, let us seek to know the Bible is intended to teach us reliable truths.

Till:

I think that Finley must have left a word or expression out of his final sentence, so I am not really sure of what he was trying to say, but if he meant that we can determine that the generations in Exodus 6 were not literal, I will just refer readers to what I said above, which clearly kicks the props out from under his skipped-generation "explanation." As for his plea for us "to know the Bible is intended to teach us realiable truths," I will simply say that it may have been the intention of the biblical writers to do this, but we have seen in the case of the 430-year problem that, if reliability was their aim, they didn't succeed. I could also point out other discrepancies in the Bible, but if Finley will read the TSR website, he should see that reliability in the Bible is just a pipedream.

Finley:

In conclusion, let me tie this last point back to the first one made. The Bible is real. It’s made of the stuff of earth. It has two authors, the Spirit of God and the men he inspired to pen his history of redemption.

Till:

Members of the ii-errancy forum have seen that Finley's stocks in trade are logical fallacies like begging the question, special pleading, and argumentation by assertion. We see in his statement above that he is at it again. Does he seriously expect us to accept on nothing but his assertion that "the Spirit of God" is one of the authors of the Bible? If so, I have news for him. The readers of this website are a bit more critical in their thinking than that.

Finley:

The Bible is an organic, living Word.

Till:

This is more argumentation by assertion, so all I need to say here is that we would like very much to see Finley prove this assertion.

Finley:

One author (Moses) will not contradict another (Ruth’s author).

Till:

This too is argumentation by assertion, and I have shown above that this assertion is clearly not true. Furthermore, if Finley would care to affirm in a written debate that "Moses" was the author of the Pentateuch, I would be glad to oppose him.

Finley:

Why? Because both have the same General Editor: God. This is where the Christian begins, he comes with a bias—he is predisposed to trust God. Mr. Till however, is not predisposed to trust but assumes incredulity—this is his bias. He seeks to disprove while the child of God seeks to learn from his Father.

Till:

I lumped everything together in the paragraph above, because it consists of nothing more than sermonizing filled with the usual fallacies that I identified above. I have learned from Mr. Finley's participation in the ii_errancy forum that he can hardly write a sentence without engaging in question begging, special pleading, or argumentation by assertion.

Finley:

As was discussed earlier, there is the analogy of Scripture. One portion of Scripture will not contradict but will either support or elaborate on a matter.

Till:

I have explained above why this is an unsound principle of literary interpretation, so there is no need for me to rehash a rebuttal of it here. Mr. Finley needs to learn that sermonizing just won't work on critical thinkers. In my 12 years as a fundamentalist preacher and foreign missionary, I preached quite a few sermons myself in which I said some of the same things he is saying. If I rejected such thinking as that, what makes him think that I will be persuaded if he just runs it by me again.

Finley:

Mr. Till wants to approach the Bible prima facie and so do we.

Till:

I saw nothing in Mr. Finley's "rebuttal" to indicate that he has this desire, because the face-value language of the Exodus-6 genealogy and Exodus 12:40, if accepted for what they say, would force Finley to admit that there is a chronological discrepancy here.

Finley:

If the Bible is understood at one point to be saying that there were four generations between Levi and Moses, we must believe so unless there is evidence to do otherwise.

Till:

And as I have shown above, there is no evidence that the author of Exodus 6 meant for his readers to think that there were more than four generations from Levi to Moses.

Finley:

Rather than assume the Bible’s proclivity for error, Christians understand that if there is something amiss it is the interpreter, not the document.

Till:

Ah, yes, Finley is now parroting that old saw that we have heard from biblicists more times than I could possibly estimate: If the Bible seems to contradict itself, one should understand that this is only an apparent contradiction, which has an explanation. Well, we have seen that if there is an explanation for the 430-year problem, we will have to look elsewhere than in Finley's article to find it.

Finley:

So one must consider the story. Exodus records only four men from Canaan to Egypt (prima facie, there are four generations only) but that the duration of captivity was 430 years. This gives the reader pause. What does this mean? Is there a discrepancy? Perhaps.

Till:

No perhaps about it. I have shown through detailed textual analyses that this is clearly a discrepancy. Analyses of extrabiblical evidence also show that writers such as Josephus, Philo Judaeus, and the unknown author of Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs also believed that there had been only four generations from Canaan to the exodus.

Finley:

But again, the Bible student will begin by trusting his author and will suppose the kink will work itself out through prayerful study. We have seen that there is an alternate solution to errancy. Ruth records as does the Chronicler various genealogies that run against the grain of literal father to son ratios.

Till:

I showed above that the chronicler's sense of chronology was completely out of step with the chronology presented in the Hexateuch, and I showed that there is no reason to think that the author of Ruth was any more familiar with Hexateuchal chronology than was the chronicle writer.

Finley:

Listen to Eugene Merrill on this matter.

Till:

Before we look at the quotation from Eugene Merrill's book, I will inform readers that Merrill is a professor of "Old Testament studies" at Dallas Theological Seminary, a Southern Baptist organization. He received his B. A., M. A., and Ph, D.--all three--from Bob Jones University. That within itself speaks volumes about the probable fundamentalist mindset of Merrill. That he is a confirmed biblical inerrantist is evident from the mission statement of DTS.

Dallas Seminary stands unequivocally committed to God’s inerrant Scriptures. Members of the school’s boards and faculty subscribe to the Seminary’s Doctrinal Statement, which safeguards the school’s unswerving theological stance.

The Seminary’s commitment to the Scriptures leads to a system of doctrine in which the great fundamentals of the Christian faith are affirmed and expounded. The doctrines of evangelical orthodoxy are taught in the framework of premillennial, dispensational theology, derived from a consistent grammatical-historical interpretation of the Bible. Those truths include such essentials as the authority and inerrancy of Scripture, the Trinity, the full deity and humanity of Christ, the spiritual lostness of the human race, the substitutionary atonement and bodily resurrection of Christ, salvation by faith alone in Christ alone, and the physical return of Christ.

Doctrinal statement, underlined in the quotation above is a link to a lengthy, detailed doctrinal statement on 21 articles of faith, ranging from the inspiration of the Bible to the second coming of Christ and the eternal state of the "saved." I will quote only Article I, which pertains to DTS's view of inspiration that clearly presents a belief in the verbal inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible.

We believe that all “Scripture is given by inspiration of God,” by which we understand the whole Bible is inspired in the sense that holy men of God “were moved by the Holy Spirit” to write the very words of Scripture. We believe that this divine inspiration extends equally and fully to all parts of the writings—historical, poetical, doctrinal, and prophetical—as appeared in the original manuscripts. We believe that the whole Bible in the originals is therefore without error. We believe that all the Scriptures center about the Lord Jesus Christ in His person and work in His first and second coming, and hence that no portion, even of the Old Testament, is properly read, or understood, until it leads to Him. We also believe that all the Scriptures were designed for our practical instruction (Mark 12:26, 36; 13:11; Luke 24:27, 44; John 5:39; Acts 1:16; 17:2–3; 18:28; 26:22–23; 28:23; Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor. 2:13; 10:11; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21).

These quotations show to any reasonable person that we could not expect Merrill to express any view of the Bible that would conflict with the doctrinal statements of DTS. To do so would put his job in jeopardy, because an employment statement on the website states that DTS employs "men and women who show evidence that they are born again, are of proven Christian character, endowed with appropriate spiritual gifts, and adhere to the basic doctrines of Christian faith." I seriously doubt that the seminary would consider Merrill an adherent of "the basic doctrines of Christian faith" if he should express the view that the Bible may be errant. In other words, Merrill is a hired gun for the verbal, inerrant view of the Bible, so no reasonable person could expect him to say anything that would conflict with that view. By working for an institution like this, Merrill surrendered his objectivity, so anything that he says about the Bible should be viewed accordingly.

I have taken the time to post all of this information so that readers can see that Finley's source would be very unlikely to express an objective view of the Bible that was not in agreement with what his employer demands of him. Here now is Finely's quotation from Merrill's book

Citing Kenneth Kitchen, he says, “the structure of Exodus 6.16-20 reflects not immediately successive generations, but tribe (Levi), clan (Kohath), family (Amram), and individual (Moses). A parallel structure is found in Joshua 7.16-18, where tribe (Judah), clan (Zerah), family (Zimri) and individual appear” (Kingdom of Priests, 77).

Till:

That a clan was intended in Joshua 7 is evident from the author's specific identification of it as "the family of the Zerahites."

Joshua 6:16 So Joshua rose early in the morning, and brought Israel near tribe by tribe, and the tribe of Judah was taken. 17 He brought near the clans of Judah, and the clan of the Zerahites was taken; and he brought near the clan of the Zerahites, family by family, and Zabdi was taken.

This isn't even close to being "parallel" to Exodus 6. Here the writer clearly spoke of clans and families, but Exodus 6 speaks of individuals who begot individuals. Levi begot Kohath, Kohath begot Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, etc. Although not a rank inerrantist like Finley and Merrill, Kenneth Kitchen will defend the Bible whenever he sees a "possible" way to do so. His comments, then, should also be evaluated accordingly. Finley proves nothing by quoting such writers. Whatever belief one may want to defend, he will have no trouble finding authors who agree with it. Would Finley say, "Well, I must be wrong," if I should quote authors who agree that Aaron and Moses were the literal grandsons of Kohath? Well, come to think of it, I have already quoted three ancient Jewish sources who agreed with me on this, and what was Finley's reaction? As we will see below, he said that they had "misunderstood" the genealogy. Why then should he expect us to swoon when he quotes a Bible professor from, of all places, Dallas Theological Seminary?

Finley:

He says that this may mean that Moses was not Amram immediately.

Till:

I assume that Finley meant to say that Kitchen said that Moses may not have been Amram's immediate son.

Finley:

This is exactly Mr. Till's contention: Moses must be Amram's immediate descendent.

Till:

No, that is not my contention. That is a conclusion necessitated by the various biblical and extrabiblical passages that I have quoted and analyzed. I am sure that readers saw that Finley made very little effort to rebut those analyses.

Finley:

A word must be said here to address Mr. Till's use of Josephus and others to support a literal succession of father to son. While it may be true that Josephus understands Moses to present his material thus; and while it may be true that Josephus was millennia ahead of us to his source allowing him to have a more correct view, this does not necessitate that Josephus' view is itself valid.

Till:

So that there will be no misunderstanding of what Finley is saying, I will put it more directly. He is saying that Josephus's view was wrong but his is right. This is just another example of fundamentalist arrogance.

Finley:

What I am saying is this. Josephus misunderstood the text just as this article is arguing for Mr. Till's misunderstanding.

Till:

I could put a link here to where I quoted Josephus, but, instead, I will quote it again for the readers' convenience. Since I also quoted Philo Judaeus as evidence that those who grew up in Jewish culture in biblical times understood that Moses and Aaron were the literal grandsons of Kohath, I will also quote that part too.

Philo Judaeus said this about Amram's wife.

"For there was," says the same historian, "a man of the tribe of Levi, named Amram, who took to wife one of the daughters of Levi, and had her, and she conceived and brought forth a male child; and seeing that he was a goodly child they concealed him for three months." This is Moses..." (The Works of Philo, Hendrickson Publishers, 1993, p. 316).

Philo didn't identify Amram's wife by name but only referred to her as a "daughter of Levi," so inerrantists may quibble that this leaves room for her to be a daughter of Levi only in the sense that she was a "descendant" of Levi. However, I have already given sufficient evidence that the writer of Exodus 6 was speaking literally in his usage of the word "sons," so if Amram was a son of Kohath (who was Levi's son), and if Amram married "his father's sister," then Amram married his grandfather Levi's daughter. And that is exactly what the writer of Numbers 26:59 said: "The name of Amram's wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, who was born to him in Egypt." And that is exactly what Levi's testament in T12P says: "And Jochebed was born in my sixty-fourth year in Egypt."

In Antiquities of the Jews, however, Josephus was more specific and said that Jochebed was Amram's wife (2:9.4, verse 217) and went on to describe how she and Amram built an ark of bulrushes in order to thwart pharaoh's decree to kill all Hebrew male children. This, of course, is a familiar story about Moses that is known even to people whose biblical studies never went beyond Sunday school. Hence, the evidence, both biblical and nonbiblical, supports my argument that the writer of Exodus 6 was using literal language to describe the relationships of the people listed in the genealogy.

Further extrabiblical evidence to support the generation-by-generation view of the genealogy can be found in Philo and Josephus. Before we look at it, let's notice first that the Bible clearly teaches that Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Levi, and I don't think that any inerrantist would seriously try to dispute that there were just four generations from Abraham to Levi. Therefore, if Levi literally begot Kohath, and Kohath literally begot Amram, and Amram literally begot Aaron and Moses, there would have been just seven generations from Abraham to Aaron and Moses. These would be (1) Abraham, (2) Isaac, (3) Jacob, (4) Levi, (5) Kohath, (6) Amram, and (7) Aaron and Moses. In his account of the birth of Moses, Josephus said, "(F)or Abraham was his [Moses'] ancestor of the seventh generation, for Moses was the son of Amram, who was the son of Caath [Kohath], whose father, Levi, was the son of Jacob, who was the son of Isaac, who was the son of Abraham" ( Antiquities, 2:9.6, verse 229). The fact that Josephus said that Abraham was Moses' ancestor of the "seventh" generation clearly shows that he was using the word son in its strictest sense as he went on to say who was the son of whom in these seven generations.

On the subject of Moses' descent from Abraham, Philo said, "(A)nd Moses is the seventh generation in succession from the original settler [Abraham] in the country who was the founder of the whole race of the Jews: ("On the Life of Moses," The Works of Philo, Hendrickson Publishers, 1993, section II, verse 7, p. 459).

So two major Jewish writers both understood that there had been only seven generations from Abraham to Moses, and Philo even specified that these were seven generations "in succession." Seven generations in succession would not allow for any "skipped generations" in the Exodus-6 genealogy. Josephus even listed all seven names after saying that Abraham was Moses' ancestor "of the seventh generation." When trying to explain biblical discrepancies, some inerrantists will talk a great deal about the need to understand Hebrew culture. It will be interesting, then, to see what these Hebrew-culture advocates will resort to in order to dance around the obvious fact that two well known Jewish writers, who were about 2,000 years closer to the time of the exodus than they are, understood that Moses was the seventh generation in succession from Abraham. Surely, they will not claim that Philo and Josephus just didn't understand Hebrew culture.

Well, I was obviously wrong, because Finley did claim that Josephus just didn't understand the Exodus-6 genealogy. What about Philo Judaeus? Finley didn't say anything about Philo's saying that Moses was the seventh generation in succession from Abraham, so did Philo misunderstand the genealogy too? I suppose that Finley skipped over this quotation from Philo because he thought maybe it would be too much for readers to swallow if he said that Philo had also misunderstood the genealogy.

Finley also skipped over the quotation from Levi's testament, which I quoted from The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs.

I was twenty-eight when I took a wife; her name was Melcha. She conceived and gave birth to a son, and I gave him the name Gersom, because we were sojourners in the land. And I saw that, as concerns him, he would not be in the first rank. And Kohath was born in the thirty-fifth year of my life, before sunrise. And in a vision I saw him standing in the heights, in the midst of the congregation. That is why I called him Kohath, that is the Ruler of Majesty and Reconciliation. And she bore me a third son, Merari, in the fortieth year of my life, and since his mother bore him with great pain, I called him Merari; that is bitterness. Jochebed was born in Egypt in the sixty-fourth year of my life, for by that time I had a great reputation in the midst of my brothers.

And Gersom took a wife who bore him Lomni and Semei. The sons of Kohath were Amram, Isaachar, Hebron, Ozeel. And the sons of Merari were Mooli and Moses. And in my ninety-fourth year Amram took Jochebed my daughter, as his wife, because he and my daughter had been born on the same day... (quoted from The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, editor James H. Charlesworth, vol. 1, Doubleday, p. 792).

So what is Finley going to say about this? Is he going to say that Josephus, Philo, and the author of this extrabiblical document all misunderstood the Exodus 6 genealogy, even though they grew up in ancient Jewish societies, whereas Finley is over 20 centuries removed from that time and grew up in a non-Jewish culture? There just isn't anything to equal the arrogance of biblical fundamentalism, is there?

Finley:

The Bible is not mere history.

Till:

No, it isn't. A lot of it is fiction. This has become a prevailing view in mainstream biblical scholarship and even in orthodox Judaism too, but someone who wraps himself in biblical fundamentalism, as Finley apparently does, would be unware of that.

Finley:

It is theology that happens in history and those who record for us the intent of history are free to arrange the data in order to make the desired point.

Till:

That isn't what the doctrinal statement of Dallas Theological Seminary says. As noted above, this statement claims that "holy men of God 'were moved by the Holy Spirit' to write the very words of Scripture," so that would take away the freedom of the writers to arrange the data in order to make the desired point, or does Finley expect us to accept what Merrill says when it agrees with him but reject it when it disagrees with him?

Finley:

Don't choke on your cookies, now. This is reflected in critical scholarship of the Gospels as well (which are able to withstand their critics as well).

Till:

Finley has stated a view of the gospels that even fundamentalists will take when they are confronted with inconsistencies. When that happens, they will say, "Well, Matthew chose to report thus and so, but Mark (or Luke or John) didn't find this within his purpose." It is a view completely inconsistent with DTS's claim that "holy men of God 'were moved by the Holy Spirit' to write the very words of Scripture," so the view that an inerrantist will take of the process of inspiration depends on what situation he is facing. If there is no discrepancy to defend, he will claim that the Bible is the verbally inspired word of God, but if there are discrepancies to "explain," he will claim that the variations resulted from individual choices the writers made.

Finley:

One must understand that each writer is writing for his agenda and his writing style and purpose is going to differ from another's.

Till:

If the DTS doctrinal statement is true, then the biblical writers could have had no agendas or purposes. They would have written as they were "moved by the Holy Spirit to write the very words of God." Perhaps it is time to ask Finley a question.

Does the Bible contain the very words of God?

Finley:

This should not be surprising.

Till:

It isn't surprising, and I fully agree that different writers will have different agendas, styles, and purposes, but I have this view because I don't think that the Bible was in any sense inspired of God. One who thinks that it was verbally inspired of God is being inconsistent when he talks about agendas, styles, and purposes that the biblical writers had, because verbal inspiration wouldn't allow writers to have agendas and purposes.

Finley:

The problem is when a foreign matrix is imposed on said author saying in effect, "This is how you must write."

Till:

The doctrine of verbal inspiration as presented in the DTS mission statement requires an adherent of this theory to think that biblical writers wrote the very words of God as they were "moved by the Holy Spirit." That doctrine would necessarily preclude all the freedom that Finley is trying to give the writers, because a writer being "moved by the Holy Spirit" would follow the Spirit's agenda and purposes and not his own. If not, why not?

Finley:

If this is problematic for the outsider it is no surprise. Paul tells us that those who are perishing consider the things of God (primarily the Cross of Christ) as sheer inanity.

Till:

It is sheer inanity, and I defy Finley to make any logical sense out of it.

At any rate, all we are seeing from Finley now is sermonizing that is laced with the usual fallacies of question begging, special pleading, and argumentation by assertion. Why should I, for example, give a hoot what the apostle Paul said? When Finley proves to me that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God, I assure him that I will perk up and take due notice of not just what Paul said but what all other biblical writers said. Until then, I hope he will spare us the inane semonizing.

Finley:

Mr. Till would have his readers believe that it is the other way around.

Till:

If Finley cares to debate the issue, I will gladly show him through a process of logical argumentation that the so-called "gospel" is really nothing but sheer inanity.

Finley:

We unfortunate, sightless, silly Christians are to be pitied for swallowing the greatest bait and switch.

Till:

Well, Finley said it; I didn't. He has no idea how much I pity his religious ignorance.

Finley:

I beg to differ.

Till:

I'm surprised. I thought that Finley would be in complete agreement.

Finley:

There is the great Fisherman who called his followers to fish as well—fish for the soul’s of men. My prayer for Mr. Till is that he will switch his own bait and begin here.

Till

More inane, boring sermonizing. Finley must make about the 10 thousandth Christian who has said that he is praying for me. I wonder why the prayers aren't working.

Finley:

We have sufficiently displayed the error of this one point he has made.

Till:

"We" have? Where?

Finley:

He has more. Of that I am sure.

Till:

Finley had better believe I have more. I have enough to bury him under a mountain of biblical discrepancies that would take him a lifetime of rationalization to try to explain.

Finley:

But I am confident of this as well, not that I will merit a gold medal in hermeneutical gymnastics,

Till:

No, he won't.

Finley:

but that the God of all truth will be able to sustain whatever else may come his way. Amen.

Till:

Then let's see the "God of all truth" get busy and lead Finley to answer the slamming that I gave him in this reply. May the "God of all truth" not skip the hard stuff this time.

Finley:

Should anyone wish to correspond with me on this matter, I am more than willing to dialogue providing the tone is respectful and with deference.

Till:

Should Finley wish to reply to my rebuttal points above, I will be more than willing to reply to him again if he makes a serious attempt to answer all of my points, and I won't really care what his tone is.