Yahwistic Land Promise prophecy debate: Jason Gastrich vs. J.F. Till

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

The following is a continuation of a formal debate between Jason Gastrich and J.F. Till.

The topic of the debate is on the following issue:

"The Yahwistic land promise to the descendants of Abraham was fulfilled in all of its details."

Jason Gastrich will take the affirmative and J.F. Till will oppose. Both have agreed to move the formal debate to the IIDB.

This debate is continued from a formal debate in Inerrancy.com located here (http://inerrancy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30). Jason Gastrich has been kind enough to post all of the prior responses that can be viewed on the IIDB thread here (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58369) (on the first post of this thread, Jason Gastrich pointed out the parameters of the prior debate, which are still binding here as well).

J.F. Till will post first in this thread, continuing from the prior debate (after J.F. Till replies, it will be the end of Round 3). There has been a Peanut Gallery (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58444) set up in BC&H for the rest of us to comment on the debate.

Gentlemen, best of luck. :)

- Nightshade, FD Moderator

Addendum: Till and Gastrich have agreed to have statements exceeding 24K characters to remain in one post instead of 2 consecutive posts (with the limit still at 48K characters). The ten day duration rule applies when the number of characters exceeds 24K.

[Farrell Till]

Part 1

I wasn’t at all surprised that Jason ignored my X and not X (P and ~P) argument, so as I warned that I would do, I am going to repost it. If he ignores it again, I will simply post it again.


Now it is time to develop more fully my second rebuttal argument, which Jason ignored. He has ignored it ever since he first introduced the land-promise issue on ii_errancy. This is the X and not X (P and ~P) claim that the OT made about the fulfillment of the land promise. When I say that the Bible says X and not X (or P and ~P), I’m not talking about what was said in the original land promise but what the books of Joshua and Judges said about the fulfillment of the promise. If the Bible is inerrant in what it says about the land promise, then all passages that speak of the promise must be consistent, but we find that this is not the case. The Bible claims both that the promise was and was not fulfilled. First, Joshua claimed that the Israelites had been given all the land that Yahweh had promised.

Joshua 21:43 So Yahweh gave to Israel all the land of which he had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. 44 Yahweh gave them rest all around, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers. And not a man of all their enemies stood against them; Yahweh delivered all their enemies into their hand. 45 not a word failed of any good thing which Yahweh had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass.

This passage is clear enough that even Jason should be able to understand it. The passage flatly says that Yahweh had given to Israel all the land that he had sworn to their fathers to give to them. It even explicitly says that “not a word failed of any good thing which Yahweh had spoken to the house of Israel.” It then went on to say that “all came to pass.”

Yet we read something entirely different in another passage.

Joshua 13:1 Now Joshua was old, advanced in years. And Yahweh said to him “You are old, advanced in years, and there remains very much land yet to be possessed....”

Since he is an inerrantist, Jason will probably try to argue that the statement in Joshua 13:1 was made before the one in Joshua 21, and so at the time of Joshua 13, the Israelites had not taken all of the land but had done so in Joshua 21. Notice, however, that 13:1 was said when Joshua was “old, advanced in years.” What we have, then, is a typical problem of inconsistencies that resulted from the patchwork method that was used in putting the hexateuch together from different documents and/or traditions. That this is the explanation for why a text about Joshua’s “advanced” years would have preceded one about his earlier years is evident from a statement in chapter 21. The chapters following this recorded the dividing of the land among the tribes, and it was in this context that the claim was made that “Yahweh gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers,” but after two more chapters that described the division of the land, this statement was made about Joshua’s age.

Joshua 23:1 Now it came to pass, a long time after Yahweh had given rest to Israel from all their enemies round about, that Joshua was old, advanced in age. 2 And Joshua called for all Israel, for their elders, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers, and said to them “I am old, advanced in age...."

The text in Joshua 21, which said that Yahweh had given to the Israelites all the land he had sworn to their fathers to give to them, also said that “Yahweh gave them rest all around, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers” (v44), so after the time that it was claimed that Yahweh had given to the Israelites all the land he had promised them, it was said two chapters later that “a long time after Yahweh had given rest to Israel” Joshua was “old, advanced in age,” so at the time of the claim in Joshua 21:43 that Yahweh had given all the land promised to the Israelites, Joshua was younger but later became old and advanced in years. Hence, the reference in 13:1 to the “much land” that remained to be possessed could not have chronologically preceded the claim in 21:43 that all of the land promised had been given to the Israelites, because in 13:1 Joshua was old and advanced in age, but in 21:43, he wasn’t yet old and advanced in years but became so “a long time after” this.

Clearly, then, we have a case of X and not X (or P and ~P), because one text says X (Yahweh gave the Israelites all the land he had promised them) but another text says not X (Yahweh did not give the Israelites all the land he had promised them). So this is clearly a matter of the Bible saying something in one passage and then saying the opposite in another. Jason has not explained this contradiction, but maybe he will this time around. We’ll have to wait to see.

In case Jason wants to quibble (against the evidence I outlined above) that Joshua 13:1 (the not X text) was written before 21:43 (the X text), I will point out that even if he could establish this, he would still have the same X and not X problem, because the book of Judges claimed that the Israelites could not take all of the land.

Judges 1:19 And Yahweh was with Judah. And they drove out the mountaineers, but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the lowland, because they had chariots of iron.

Furthermore, Joshua 21:44 said that “there stood not a man of all their enemies before them,” and the next verse says that “not a word failed of any good thing which Yahweh had spoken to the house of Israel” but that “all came to pass.” One of the good things that Yahweh had promised was that the Israelites would drive out all the nations in Canaan” (Deut. 7:1-2; 9:20-24), but Judges is filled with examples of where the Israelites had been unable to drive out the original inhabitants of the land.

Judges 1:21 But the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who inhabited Jerusalem; so the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day.

Judges 1:27 However, Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth Shean and its villages, or Taanach and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages; for the Canaanites were determined to dwell in that land.

Judges 3:1 Now these are the nations which Yahweh left, that He might test Israel by them, that is, all who had not known any of the wars in Canaan 2 (this was only so that the generations of the children of Israel might be taught to know war, at least those who had not formerly known it), 3 namely, five lords of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who dwelt in Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath. 4 And they were left, that He might test Israel by them....

We see a lot of rationalization in the last passage, but these texts clearly contradict Joshua 21:43ff, which claimed that everything Yahweh had promised to the Israelites had been fulfilled at that time, but one of Yahweh’s promises was that he would drive out all of the nations in Canaan and that not a man would be able to stand against them. Judges 3:1-3 claims that this didn’t happen. Some nations did stand against the Israelites.

This too becomes an X and not X problem that Jason must solve to resolve the inconsistency problem. I predict that he will at best wave at it in passing, but he will not attempt a point-by-point rebuttal, because he cannot rebut that which cannot be rebutted. Better would-be apologists than he have tried to solve this problem and have failed.

Jason claims that the land promise was conditional, a claim that I will return to later, but the significance of the argument just quoted above is that even if Jason is right--and he isn’t--in his claim that the land promise was conditional, the Bible would still be errant in at least one matter, because it claims X (the Israelites received, possessed, and dwelt in all of the land that Yahweh had promised them) and not X (the Israelites did not receive all of the land that Yahweh had promised them. Both statement cannot be true. One of them is necessarily false, and that would be a clear, undeniable contradiction, unless Jason can show us that the logical law of contradiction is no longer true.

Jason has tried to claim that the Israelites did receive all of the land within Yahweh’s defined borders but that they didn’t receive it until the time of Solomon. Because of space limitations in this forum, I had to reply to this claim in the ii_errancy forum <http://www.topica.com/lists/ii_errancy/read/message.html?mid=806754981&sort=d&start=22266>. Readers can go there and see that I gave a full, complete rebuttal of this quibble, but for the sake of argument, let’s just suppose that Jason is right and that the Israelites did possess during Solomon’s reign all of the land that Yahweh had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. How would that solve the problem? The claim that the Israelites had received, possessed, and dwelt in all the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers was made during the time of Joshua, which was some five centuries before the time of Solomon. To solve this X and not X problem, then, Jason must prove to us that the Israelites during the time of Joshua had received, possessed, and dwelt in all of the land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates River and from the eastern desert to the Great (Mediterranean) Sea. So I will ask Jason to answer some very relevant questions.

When did the Israelites of Joshua’s time ever possess all of the land within the borders defined in the land promise?

When did the Israelites of Joshua’s time ever possess the Mediterranean coastal regions?

When did the Israelites of Joshua’s time ever possess northern Lebanon up to the Euphrates River?

Watch Jason ignore these questions again, and there is a reason why he ignores them: He cannot produce the evidence that will sustain the claim in Joshua 21:43 that the Israelites had received, possessed, and dwelt in all of the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers. Hence, there is at least one error in the Bible.

I will turn now to Jason’s attempts to make the original land promise conditional. I have already quoted Genesis 26:2-5 twice, so for the sake of brevity, I will omit it. This is the passage where Yahweh after Abraham was dead renewed the land promise to Isaac and said that the promise was being made because Abraham obeyed Yahweh's voice and kept his charge, his commandments, his statutes, and his laws. My argument is that if Yahweh made the promise after Abraham’s death and said that he was making the promise because of Abraham’s fidelity but attached to the promise no behavioral conditions on the part of Abraham’s descendants, then the promise was predicated only on the behavior of Abraham. Yahweh couldn’t later “change his mind” or add conditions without reneging on his promise.

Jason refuses to address this argument, but he did try to quibble his way around it.


Jason:
You have chosen to view Genesis 26. This is an interesting “snapshot” of the conditional land promise. However, your argument has some serious problems.

Since when did Abraham’s death make God’s land promise unchangeable?

Well, I will try again to draw a picture for Jason. Abraham’s death made the land promise unchangeable, because Yahweh said to Isaac that he was making the promise because of Abraham’s fidelity, and Abraham was already dead at this time. This can be compared to putting one’s signature onto a contract. After the signature is affixed, the contract is sealed. Whatever stipulations were in the contract are binding thereafter. Abraham’s death had put Yahweh’s signature onto the contract, since Abraham’s fidelity was already a fait accompli and could never thereafter be altered in any way. A man who died faithful to his god could not become unfaithful to him after he was dead. Now if Abraham had still been alive when Yahweh renewed to Isaac a promise that was predicated solely on the fidelity of Abraham, then Jason could argue that Abraham had afterwards become unfaithful, and so Yahweh withdrew his promise, but Abraham was already dead at this time. There was no way that Abraham’s faithfulness to Yahweh could have been altered afterwards.

I suspect that Jason can see this but has nothing to offer in reply except quibblous assertions.


Jason:
Is this in the Bible?

Yes, it is in the Bible. Abraham’s death is recorded in Genesis 25:8, and later (in 26:2-5), Yahweh appeared <snicker, snicker> to Isaac and said, “I am going to give all these lands to your descendants, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” Yahweh chose to predicate the promise on the behavior of a man who was dead at that time. That was his choice, but once he had made the promise on the premise of the faithfulness of a man who was dead at the time, that forever sealed the promise and made it unchangeable. If not, why not?

I will ask Jason again a question he has repeatedly ignored.

If the land promise was renewed to Isaac and predicated only on the fidelity of Abraham, how could the behavior of Isaac’s descendants have been a condition to receiving the promise?


Jason
This logic is akin to the childhood saying, “Back, back, no trade-backs.” In case you aren’t familiar with this saying, it is what kids say when they give another kid something they didn’t want back. One kid would simply say, “Back, back, no trade-backs,” and the other kid wasn’t “allowed” to give back the (usually unwanted) gift.

You are invoking the same kind of scenario in this case. You have invented a childish way to make God’s land promise unchangeable. You have created a way that you think makes you the winner of this argument. However, there is absolutely no sociological, biblical, ethical or moral reason to believe that Abraham’s death caused God to be unable to make His land promise conditional.

I wonder if Jason knows what the fallacy of false analogy is. He tries to analogize a children’s game with the actions of an allegedly omniscient, omnipotent deity. This omniscient one said nothing about behavioral conditions, but he did say that he was making the promise because of Abraham’s fidelity, so I just want Jason to explain to us how a promise that an omniscient, omnipotent deity predicated only on the faithfulness of a man who was dead at the time of the promise could afterwards be construed as a promise that was conditional to the behavior of people who lived centuries after the promise.

I didn’t invent anything. Jason’s inspired, inerrant “word of God” says that Yahweh promised all these lands to Isaac’s descendants because of Abraham’s fidelity. He stipulated no other conditions, so if Abraham was dead at the time that Yahweh said this, Jason will either have to admit that Abraham’s death at this time made the promise unconditional, or else he must show that somehow, after he was dead, Abraham managed to become unfaithful to Yahweh.

Why won’t Jason deal with this argument? Just look at how he tried to quibble his way around this problem in his claim that the promise was “conditional.”


Till
Nothing could ever change it, because it is impossible for a dead man, who had died faithfully, to become unfaithful. Yahweh had to give the land unconditionally to Abraham's descendants or else renege on his promise.

Jason
This is fine if you are making things up.

Who is making things up? Did Abraham die in Genesis 25:8? Yes or no, Jason? Just answer the question.

Did Yahweh renew the land promise to Isaac in Genesis 26:2-5 after Abraham was dead? Yes or no, Jason? Just answer the question.

Did Yahweh say in the renewal of the land promise in Genesis 26:2-5 that he would give all these lands to Isaac’s descendants, because Abraham had heard the voice of Yahweh and had kept his charge, his commandments, his statutes, and his laws? Yes or no, Jason? Just answer the question.

If the answers to all these questions are yes, which they have to be unless Jason is going to deny what the Bible plainly says, then I am not making a thing up. The promise to Isaac was predicated on Abraham’s faithfulness, and Abraham was dead at the time.

How could a man who had died in a state of faithfulness become unfaithful after he had died?

Watch Jason ignore this question.


Jason:
It’s fine if you are writing a story like Star Wars. However, like I illustrated above, you are making the story into Till’s, childish game by inserting your own rules.

I am not writing a story like Star Wars, and I am not making the story into a childish game. Did Yahweh predicate the promise on Abraham’s faithfulness? Was Abraham dead at the time? The answer to both questions has to be yes, so how am I inserting my own rules? Is it not true that once a person is dead, whatever kind of life he lived is forever fixed? If he was a faithful person, then his life of faithfulness could never be altered.

Jason can see it, folks, but he just can’t admit it, for if he did, he would have to concede that the land promise was predicated only on Abraham’s behavior and not on the behavior of his descendants.

Who is inserting his own rules? Jason is, because he can’t find any anything in the original land promise that made it conditional to the behavior of Isaac’s descendants, so all he can do is chant over and over like a mantra, “The promise was conditional; the promise was conditional.”


Jason
You aren’t understanding God’s rules. It is painfully obvious that the land promise was conditional on the Israelites’ righteousness.

If it is painfully obvious that the land promise was conditional on the Israelites’ righteousness, then why can’t Jason cite the conditions? Let’s look at the various versions of the promise.


Genesis 12:6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 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.

Here Yahweh said, “I will give this land to your offspring.” Where did Yahweh say anything here that attached a condition that he would give the land only if the behavior of Abraham’s offspring was appropriate? Let Jason quote the language that attached any such conditions. If he falls back on that old inerrantist complaint that I am quoting out of context, let him quote whatever he thinks is in the context that would make the promise conditional to the behavior of Abraham’s descendants.


Genesis 13:14 Yahweh said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, "Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; 15 for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring FOREVER. 16 I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. 17 Rise up, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you."

Where does this passage say anything that made the promise conditional to the behavior of Abraham's seed? If Jason says that I am quoting out of context, let him quote the fuller context and show us the language that set conditions on the behavior of Abraham's descendants.


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."

Where does this version of the promise stipulate that the giving of the land would be conditional to the behavior of Abraham’s descendants? Let Jason quote the language that made the promise conditional. If he says that I have quoted out of context, let him quote the fuller context and show us where the condition is.


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 offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God." 9 God said to Abraham, "As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations.

Jason may try to make verse 9 a behavioral condition, but as this text was written Yahweh didn’t say, “I will give to you and to your offspring all the land of Canaan for a perpetual holding, if you and your descendants keep my covenant“; it flatly said that Yahweh would give all the land of Canaan to Abraham’s offspring for a perpetual holding and then it commanded Abraham and his descendants to keep Yahweh’s covenant, but no one has tried to argue that the Israelites were not commanded to keep the covenant. They obviously were, but, just as obviously, they didn’t keep the covenant (Deut. 9:1ff), but Yahweh gave the land to them anyway. There is no behavioral condition in this text.


Genesis 26:3 Reside in this land as an alien, and I will be with you, and will bless you; for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will fulfill the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. 4 I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, and will give to your offspring all these lands; and all the nations of the earth shall gain blessing for themselves through your offspring, 5 because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws."

Now there is a condition stated here, but that condition was the fidelity of Abraham, which at this time was a fait accompli. Abraham was dead, and so his fidelity was forever established. There was no way that Abraham could afterwards become unfaithful. Hence, the land promise was predicated on Abraham’s fidelity, a state or condition that was forever afterwards unchangeable, so if Yahweh said that he would give the land to Isaac’s descendants because of Abraham’s fidelity, he had to give them the land or else prove unfaithful to his promise.

Continued in Part 2

Edit: fixed link
- Nightshade

[Farrell Till]

Part 2

Yahweh's obligation to give the land to Isaac's descendants in order to fulfill the promise he had made in Genesis was made very clear in Deuteronomy 9:5, which Jason is avoiding like the plague.


It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to occupy their land; but because of the wickedness of these nations Yahweh your God is dispossessing them before you, in order to fulfill the promise that Yahweh made on oath to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

So we have Jason vs. Yahweh and Moses. Jason says that the promise was conditional on the behavior of Isaac’s descendants, but Yahweh said, “I will fulfill the oath that I swore to your father Abraham,” and Moses said that it was not because of the righteousness of the Israelites that Yahweh was giving the land to them but because of a promise that he had made on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then, of course, the text in Deuteronomy 9, as we have already noted, went on to say that the Israelites were a stiff-necked people (v:6) and had been rebellious to Yahweh from the day they had come out of Egypt (v:7), so if the promise was conditional on the behavior of Isaac’s descendants, why did Yahweh give the land to this generation of Israelites?

Is everyone noticing that Jason is ignoring this question?


Jason:
Numerous scriptures have been given for this argument, too.

Yes, but the Bible often says X in one passage and then says not X in others, so there is nothing unusual in Jason’s ability to find passages that conflict with the ones in Genesis that clearly made an unconditional promise that all the land of Canaan would be given to the descendants of Abraham and Isaac. I will say more about biblical inconsistencies later as I demolish Jason’s attempts to find conditions stated later on in the Bible. For now, I just want to put pressure on Jason to show us one version of the land promise in Genesis that stipulated that giving the land to Abraham’s and Isaac’s descendants was conditional to the behavior of those descendants.

He can’t do it.


Till:
Jason should keep in mind an important point. If the clear reading of text A requires, in this case, an understanding that Yahweh’s land promise was conditioned only on the behavior of Abraham, if texts B, C, D, etc. later indicate that the promise was conditioned on the behavior of Abraham’s descendants, then the Bible is not inerrant.

Jason:
This is false.

This is false? So is Jason saying that if the clear reading of text A contradicts what is said in texts B, C, and D, these would not be biblical discrepancies?


Jason:
The land promise was given to Abraham. Abraham was faithful, so the conditional part of the land promise wasn’t given to him. It was omitted because he was faithful and telling him what would happen if he would be unfaithful was unnecessary.

But as anyone can see by scrolling up to the passages quoted in Genesis, these land promises always included the descendants of Abraham and Isaac. Hence, these were not promises made only to Abraham and Isaac alone but to their descendants too. If the behavior of their descendants was a condition, Yahweh had an obligation to state it, but he didn’t. Let’s look again at the inclusion of Abraham’s and Isaac’s descendants in the promises.

"To your offspring I will give this land" (Gen. 12:7). This passage didn’t even include Abraham. It referred only to his descendants and said that they would be given the land.

”(F)or all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring FOREVER” (Gen. 13:15).

“To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates” (Gen. 15:18). Here is another version of the promise that mentioned only the descendants of Abraham.

“And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding” (Gen. 17:8).

[i]“(F)or to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will fulfill the oath that I swore to your father Abraham.” (Gen. 26:3).

Clearly, then, the promise was not made to Abraham alone or to Isaac alone but to them and their descendants. Jason says that the promise was given to Abraham, and since he was faithful to Yahweh, it wasn’t necessary to state any conditions, but the reality is that the promise was really made to Abraham’s descendants, because Abraham himself never received the land. If Jason wants to dispute this, I will just let him argue with what Stephen said in Jason’s inspired, inerrant “word of God.”


[i]Acts 7:2 And Stephen replied [to the council]: "Brothers and fathers, listen to me. The God of glory appeared to our ancestor Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, 3 and said to him, 'Leave your country and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you.' 4 Then he left the country of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After his father died, God had him move from there to this country in which you are now living. 5 He did not give him any of it as a heritage, not even a foot's length, but promised to give it to him as his possession and to his descendants after him, even though he had no child.

Contrary to Jason’s quibble, the land promise was a promise made to their descendants much more than it was to Abraham and Isaac, so if receiving the land was conditioned on the behavior of their descendants, the omniscient, omnipotent one would surely have said so, but Jason cannot find a single condition incumbent on Abraham’s and Isaac’s descendants in the book of Genesis. In the absence of any such condition, we must conclude that the promise, as I have repeatedly stated, was predicated on the faithfulness of a dead man. Once the omniscient, omnipotent Yahweh, who is immutable (Mal. 3:6) and cannot lie (Titus 1:2), had told Isaac that he would give all these lands to Isaac’s descendants because of the fidelity of a dead man, the contract was signed and sealed. The only thing that remained was to deliver the promise. Yahweh promised in Deuteronomy 9:5 that he was going to deliver the promise that had been made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but he never did it.

In the original promise, there were no behavioral conditions put on the descendants of Abraham and Isaac. Their descendants were to receive the land as a reward for Abraham’s fidelity, but later, when the promise had obviously failed, the books were cooked to make it appear that the failure was the fault of the Israelites because they had not been good little children of God. I will address the editing of the books later to show that this was done.


Jason
Abraham’s descendants became unfaithful.

Did they ever! Deuteronomy 9 depicted them as a rebellious, bellyaching nation of ingrates, but their faithfulness was never a condition for receiving the land. As I have repeatedly shown, the promise was made because Abraham had been faithful. Furthermore, this promise was made after Abraham had died in a state of faithfulness. How could the faithfulness of a dead man later change to unfaithfulness? How could an omniscient, omnipotent, immutable deity make a promise predicated on the faithfulness of a dead man and then afterwards “change his mind”?

Jason has a lot of explaining to do, but he is running away from this problem.


Jason
Therefore, the land promise became conditional.

And just what biblical text is Jason getting this from? I assume that everyone noticed that
he quoted no scriptures that say that the land promise would become conditional if the descendants of Abraham and Isaac proved unfaithful.


Jason:
God warned them and told them what would happen if they were faithful and what would happen if they were unfaithful.

Nope, the fact that Yahweh said in Deuteronomy 9 that he was giving the land to the Israelites of that generation despite their long history of rebellion and disobedience shoots Jason’s quibble to pieces. In this text, Moses said that Yahweh was giving the land to the Israelites in order to fulfill a promise that he had sworn with an oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Jason cannot refute this. All he can do is scream, “It ain’t so!”

I assume that everyone is noticing that Jason is arguing by assertion.


Jason:
Abraham’s descendants became unfaithful. Therefore, the land promise became conditional.

How could the land promise have become conditional if it were never predicated on the faithfulness of Abraham’s descendants. As I have repeatedly shown, the promise, as it was stated to Isaac, did not stipulate any conditions that would be incumbent on his descendants. The promise was predicated only on the faithfulness of Abraham, who was dead at the time; therefore, the behavior of Abraham’s descendants could not be made a condition later on. Jason is depicting his omniscient, omnipotent god as a deity who would make a contract and then later modify it. If Jason entered into a contract with a second party, I wonder if he would allow the other party to make changes in the contract, but he that is exactly the kind of contract-breaker that Jason‘s “solution“ makes his god Yahweh. Such a depiction is completely contrary to the biblical claim that Yahweh is immutable (Mal. 36) and cannot lie (Titus 12). Thus, Jason makes a mistake that is all too common in debates with biblical inerrantists: he resolves a discrepancy in a way that creates discrepancies in other texts.

That puts me into a no-lose situation, because my position is that the Bible is errant. If Jason can sustain--and he can't--his "solution" to the land-promise discrepancy, he will do so only by arguing a position that makes the Bible errant in a cardinal doctrinal matter. If Yahweh "changed his mind," as Jason is claiming, then he is not immutable, and Malachi 3:6 contains an erroneous statement about Yahweh's nature.


Malachi 3:5 Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says Yahweh of hosts. 6 For I Yahweh do not change.

The passage is in a context that was obviously intended to say that Yahweh can be depended on to do what he says. If he say something, he will do it. Jason’s problem then is to reconcile his claim that Yahweh “changed his mind” in the land-promise matter with the biblical doctrine that Yahweh is immutable and does not change his mind.


Numbers 23:19 19 God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?

It is a pity that Jason wasn’t around when Moses <snicker, snicker> was writing this. Jason could have set him straight and told him that God does change his mind and that God does promise and not fulfill, because Yahweh promised the Israelites all the land of Canaan because of Abraham’s fidelity but then changed his mind and did not fulfill this promise.


Jason:
God warned them and told them what would happen if they were faithful and what would happen if they were unfaithful.

Till:
According to Deuteronomy 9:1ff, Yahweh recognized his unconditional obligation to Isaac’s descendants, because he told the Israelites that he wasn’t giving the land to them because they were a righteous people, because in truth they were a rebellious, stiff-necked people, but that he was giving the land to them in order to fulfill the promise that he had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If the disobedience of Abraham’s descendants had been a condition that would have affected the promise, Yahweh could have told the Israelites then and there that they were not getting the land because they had been a rebellious people in the wilderness.

Jason:
Very well. Let’s see what the scriptures are saying.

At this point, Jason resorted to his old tricks of taking key expressions in biblical passages and putting on them his own peculiar definitions. I will comment on these as I go through Jason’s quibbles.


Jason:
Deuteronomy 9:4-6 reads, “After the LORD your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘The LORD has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.’ No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is going to drive them out before you. 5It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 6Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.”

Notice the phrase, “driven them out before you.” It was not because of the Israelites’ righteousness that God was driving the people out before them. This was the first step in conquering them. God was going to smoke them out of their holes and drive them out before the Israelites; not drive them away from the Israelites and not drive them out of the land, but drive them out before the Israelites, so the Israelites could conquer them and possess their land.

This is the kind of quibbling that characterizes Jason's "apologetics." When he finds himself face-to-face with a passage that is in obvious conflict with other passages, he will try to put a spin on key words or expressions to try to make the problem passage not say what it clearly does say. He has postulated an “explanation” that completely ignored a major argument in my other replies, where I showed that “drive out” was used to convey the sense of “utter destruction.” As I always do, when Jason ignores one of my arguments, I am going to run this one by him again.

Notice that he began quoting at verse 4 in Deuteronomy 9, but if he had begun with the verse just before this, his readers would have seen that “drive out” conveyed the sense of destruction


Deuteronomy 9:3 Know then today that Yahweh your God is the one who crosses over before you as a devouring fire; he will defeat them and subdue them before you, so that you may dispossess and DESTROY THEM quickly, as Yahweh has promised you.

The very next verse (with which Jason began his quotation) used “drive out,” so the term was used interchangeably with destroy, a word that was used with utterly several times in Joshua to describe the extent of the Israelite victories ( Josh. 6:21; 8:26; 10:1, 28, 35, 37, 39-40). Many of these texts state that the utter destruction of these civilian populations was done in obedience to the commands of Moses and Yahweh.


Joshua 11 And they put to the sword all who were in it, utterly destroying them; there was no one left who breathed, and he burned Hazor with fire. 12 And all the towns of those kings, and all their kings, Joshua took, and struck them with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them, as Moses the servant of Yahweh had commanded.... ] 14 All the spoil of these towns, and the livestock, the Israelites took for their booty; but all the people they struck down with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, and they did not leave any who breathed. 15 As Yahweh had commanded his servant Moses, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did; he left nothing undone of all that Yahweh had commanded Moses.

Another text in Deuteronomy also makes the meaning of “drive out” clear.


Deuteronomy 7:1 When Yahweh your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you--the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations mightier and more numerous than you-- 2 and when Yahweh your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must UTTERLY DESTROY them.

Yahweh said that he would “drive out” the inhabitants of the land and commanded the Israelites to utterly destroy them. The obvious intended meaning of such passages as these was that Yahweh would completely rid the land of the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, etc., etc., because if Yahweh was going to drive these nations out “before” the Israelites and if the Israelites were going to “utterly destroy” them, they would be removed completely from the land. Jason quibbled that Yahweh would just drive the people “away” from the Israelites but would not drive them “out of the land,” but anytime an inerrantist has to quibble like this, you can know that he recognizes that he is in trouble. Does the following passage, for example, support Jason’s quibble that Yahweh would not drive the other peoples “out of the land”?


Exodus 23:27 I will send my terror in front of you, and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. 28 And I will send the pestilence in front of you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you. 29 I will not drive them out from before you in one year, or the land would become desolate and the wild animals would multiply against you. 30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land.

Notice why Yahweh said that he would not drive out these peoples in one year. He said that if he did that, the land would become desolate and the wild animals would multiply; therefore, he would drive the other nations out “little by little,” until the Israelites had increased and possessed the land. The land, the land, the land--it was the land that these peoples would be driven from so that the Israelites could possess the land. This passage is completely inconsistent with Jason’s quibble that Yahweh said that he would drive the other nations out “before the Israelites” but that he would not drive them “out of the land." We have here an excellent example of how a biblical inerrantist must resort to quibbling in order to find unity in the Bible.

Of course, there is no perfect unity in the Bible, and only someone who has been blinded by allegiance to a cherished belief would argue that the Bible is harmonious in all that it says. The text that I just quoted above, for example, says that Yahweh would not drive out the other nations within just one year, but would do it “little by little” to keep wild beasts from multiplying against the Israelites (as if 2.5 to 3 million Israelites couldn't have controlled wild-animal populations in an area no larger than Canaan), but Deuteronomy 9:3, which I have quoted several times said that Yahweh would drive them out quickly.


Deuteronomy 9:3 Know then today that Yahweh your God is the one who crosses over before you as a devouring fire; he will defeat them and subdue them before you, so that you may dispossess and destroy them quickly, as Yahweh has promised you.

So we have here another example of where the Bible said both X and not X (P and ~P). Exodus 23:30 says X (Yahweh would drive out the nations “little by little”), but Deuteronomy 9:3 says not X (Yahweh would dispossess and destroy those nations “quickly.” Both cannot be true statements.

Why is Jason so intent on fighting a losing battle to try to prove that the Bible is inerrant?


Jason:
Mr. Till, you have tried to use this passage as the pinnacle of your argument, but it fails.

No, Genesis 26:2-5 is the “pinnacle” of my argument, because it predicated the land promise on Abraham’s fidelity and did so after Abraham was dead (when it was impossible for Abraham to later become unfaithful). Deuteronomy 9:1ff is simply biblical confirmation that I have correctly interpreted the land promises in Genesis as Yahweh’s commitments to give all the land of Canaan to Abraham’s descendants without any regard at all to their behavior. By having Yahweh say that he was going to give the land to the Israelites despite their unrighteousness in order to fulfill the promise he had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Deuteronomy 9:1ff shoots Jason’s conditional quibble so full of holes that it will never get off the ground.


Jason:
The very statements made in this passage indicate God’s part of the conditional land promise. He was driving out the people before the Israelites, so they could conquer them and take their land. However, as we see from other passages, the Israelites resolved to let some of the people stay on the land. This caused them to receive a partial fulfillment of blessings and a partial fulfillment of judgment.

I have shown that the Israelites did not “resolve” to let some of the people stay on the land. The Bible is clear in saying that the Israelites could not drive these people out.


Joshua 15:63 But the people of Judah could not drive out the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem; so the Jebusites live with the people of Judah in Jerusalem to this day.

I have already quoted several other texts (Josh. 17:12-13; Judges 1:19), so there is no need for me to requote them here. I would, however, challenge Jason to quote the texts that say that the Israelites just wouldn’t “resolve” to drive the people out. I can think of only one example that could be construed as a case when the Israelites lacked the “resolve” to drive out the other nations in Canaan. This is in Joshua 9:3-15, where Hivites living in Gibeon went to the Israelites and, pretending to be inhabitants of a “far country” (vs:6, 9). negotiated a treaty with Joshua, but this was a case of deception and not an example of a lack of “resolve” on the part of the Israelites. If Jason is going to continue to peddle his assertion that some nations weren’t driven out of the land because the Israelites lacked the “resolve” to fight them, he needs to support that assertion with biblical examples. He hasn’t cited any, because there are none.

I have reached the 48K limit, but I don’t intend to let the rest of Jason’s quibbles go unanswered. I will complete my response and post it on the ii_errancy list. Members of Jason’s forum who want to read it can go to <http://www.topica.com/lists/ii_errancy/read/message.html?mid=806845678&sort=d&start=22360> and access it there, but it will probably be two or three days before I finish it. Post 22360 was the latest one at the time that I completed this part of my reply, so readers can begin there and scroll forward until they find the post that finishes my replies to Jason’s latest quibbles.

[Jason Gastrich]

Round 4

Mr. Till,

First, I want to thank iidb for hosting the remainder of our debate. I appreciate their service.

Next, I want to say hello to the readers. Thank you for joining us and following our debate. Your comments are welcomed in the comments section (the link is given in the first message in this topic).

Now, I will continue my arguments. As you can see, God’s promise was fulfilled to the Israelites. It was fulfilled because God did what He said He would do; He both blessed the Israelites and He punished them. His land promise was conditional on their obedience and participation. This much is obvious. Now, I’ll address your words from your last message.

When I say that the Bible says X and not X (or P and ~P), I’m not talking about what was said in the original land promise but what the books of Joshua and Judges said about the fulfillment of the promise. If the Bible is inerrant in what it says about the land promise, then all passages that speak of the promise must be consistent, but we find that this is not the case.

This is an invalid argument. Why? Because it ignores some important details about the Bible.

1) The Bible was written by several people. Therefore, it would be normal for certain people to include and omit details that are included by other authors.

2) It ignores the sound, exegetical method of harmonization. We aren’t talking about contradictory passages. We are talking about omissions. Therefore, your argument fails.

Jason claims that the land promise was conditional, a claim that I will return to later, but the significance of the argument just quoted above is that even if Jason is right--and he isn’t--in his claim that the land promise was conditional,

This is an argument by assertion.

the Bible would still be errant in at least one matter, because it claims X (the Israelites received, possessed, and dwelt in all of the land that Yahweh had promised them) and not X (the Israelites did not receive all of the land that Yahweh had promised them.

You had to change the order of the scriptures to begin to argue this point. Quite a bold move. Yes? You have yet to prove that your chronology is better and acceptable and the accepted chronology is false.

Jason has tried to claim that the Israelites did receive all of the land within Yahweh’s defined borders but that they didn’t receive it until the time of Solomon.

I didn’t try. I gave specific and unequivocal evidence of this fact.

Because of space limitations in this forum, I had to reply to this claim in the ii_errancy forum.

This is an unfair tactic, Mr. Till. We gave specific rules regarding the space limitations for this debate. I agreed to double the initial limit of 9-10 pages, so we each have up to 20 pages for each round. It is inappropriate for you to break the rules and post additional information on your mail list. Do not expect me to go there, read it, or respond to it.

When did the Israelites of Joshua’s time ever possess all of the land within the borders defined in the land promise?

When did the Israelites of Joshua’s time ever possess the Mediterranean coastal regions?

When did the Israelites of Joshua’s time ever possess northern Lebanon up to the Euphrates River?

This is a red herring. You have misinterpreted Joshua 23 and made a critical error. Here is the passage in question.

“So the LORD gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. 44The LORD gave them rest all around, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers. And not a man of all their enemies stood against them; the LORD delivered all their enemies into their hand. 45Not a word failed of any good thing which the LORD had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass.”

This verse goes to show exactly what I’ve been saying along. God’s land promise was CONDITIONAL. The promise was to give the land to the Israelites as they conquered the pagans. This promise was met. You cannot put your finger on one, meaningful battle that Joshua lost, so these verses are absolutely true.

In Exodus 23, we find these verses:

29I will not drive them out from before you in one year, or the land would become desolate and the wild animals would multiply against you. 30Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land.

Therefore, it is an established fact that God and the Israelites were going to drive these people out over a period of time. Even in the middle of Judges, we see that some land still needed to be possessed. Therefore, you have no argument as you try and assert that Joshua 23 states that the entire promised land was already belonging to the Israelites. Nobody would even try and assert such a ludicrous thing except for a desperate person. You could turn the page and read Judges chapter 1 and see that the Canaanites were still in the land! Joshua 23 was obviously referring to a certain framework, but it is a typical and widespread error to apply a biblical passage to a wrong framework. You simply have to dig in and understand what was being said and meant.

I will turn now to Jason’s attempts to make the original land promise conditional. I have already quoted Genesis 26:2-5 twice, so for the sake of brevity, I will omit it. This is the passage where Yahweh after Abraham was dead renewed the land promise to Isaac and said that the promise was being made because Abraham obeyed Yahweh's voice and kept his charge, his commandments, his statutes, and his laws. My argument is that if Yahweh made the promise after Abraham’s death and said that he was making the promise because of Abraham’s fidelity but attached to the promise no behavioral conditions on the part of Abraham’s descendants, then the promise was predicated only on the behavior of Abraham. Yahweh couldn’t later “change his mind” or add conditions without reneging on his promise.

Jason refuses to address this argument, but he did try to quibble his way around it.

The simple fact is that God didn’t need to rattle a saber before Abraham. Why?

1) Abraham was a righteous man and a friend of God.
2) The conditional nature of the promise wouldn’t be revealed until his descendants rejected God’s will.

Think about it. You have made a number of promises to your children. Have you always told them about the conditions?

For example, a father could promise their child a wonderful day at the park. If his child runs away, will they get the day in the park? No, probably not. Should the child’s Dad have mentioned the conditional nature of His promise and mentioned the consequences for running away from home? Well, possibly. But imagine if he was expected to mention all of the conditions every time he made a promise. Just the thought is ludicrous, yet this is the standard you are demanding of the biblical record and God’s recorded words to Abraham.

This is another major problem of atheists and skeptics as they attempt biblical exegesis. They hold the biblical text to an unreasonable standard that they do not attribute to any other text. Yes, it was inspired by God, but your expectations are simply unreasonable.

I see that you want to direct the debate into a number of areas that will help me avoid proving the resolution. However, for the sake of staying on track, I need to redirect the conversation to the resolution.

Here is the resolution: "The Yahwistic land promise to the descendants of Abraham was fulfilled in all of its details.”

You wrote this resolution. Right, Mr. Till? Does this resolution say anything about the land promise to Abraham? No, it doesn’t. Therefore, you shouldn’t waste your time dwelling on one, partial record of the land promise that was given to Abraham. By your own admission and by your own resolution, you have admitted that the land promise was to the descendants of Abraham. It wasn’t simply to Abraham. Any more red herrings about Abraham will be ignored.

In order to understand how this land promise was fulfilled, we need to ask an important question. What was the land promise? Here are some scriptures that indicate the land promise. Please note: the land promise, as you’ve eluded to in your resolution, was given to a large number of people over a period of time. Therefore, the only way to effectively understand the land promise is to take all of the records of it and harmonize them. Like any other work - from antiquity or from recent times - we cannot expect every mention of the land promise to include every word of it. The biblical record reveals conversations about the promise, spirited sermons to the Israelites concerning the promised land, reminders of God’s help in conquering the people, warnings about the consequences of fear and disobedience, etc.

Deuteronomy 7:1-5 - This is an excellent summation of the land promise, too. It is detailed, relatively concise and covers all of the recorded land promises. It reads:

“When the LORD your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, and when the LORD your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the LORD will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly. But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire.”

Now that we’ve answered the question, “What was the land promise?,” now we can move on to another, important question. Was the land promise fulfilled?

In order for the land promise to be fulfilled, we must see one of three things:

1) Complete obedience from the Israelites and complete fulfillment of the prophecy

2) Complete disobedience from the Israelites and complete non-fulfillment of the prophecy

or

3) Partial obedience and partial disobedience from the Israelites and a partial fulfillment of blessings and a partial fulfillment of judgments

In this case, we clearly see the third type of fulfillment. Even though the Israelites temporarily possessed all of the land under David’s rule, it doesn’t matter if we agree on this point or not. It wouldn’t matter if the Israelites never possessed the entire promised land because the promise was conditioned on their obedience. The promise wasn’t conditioned on their righteousness because they weren’t given the promised land because of their righteousness. However, their possession of the land was conditioned on their obedience to God. They were clearly told to conquer the pagan people living in the land. As they did so, they received the land. As they feared, disobeyed, made the pagans pay taxes while living on their land, etc., they suffered the consequences.

There is no reason why we should limit the scope of this prophecy to any particular time. We can apply it to today. The Israelites rejected God’s command to overthrow and conquer all of the people in the land and they have received some of the land and the consequences for their disobedience.

It’s not difficult to see how this prophecy was given and fulfilled. The biblical, historical, and current records follows the prophetic, land promise as it was given. The Israelites resolved not to conquer certain people and those people made their life very difficult as they turned them away from God. They were led into captivity, spread around the world, and suffered greatly from their disobedience.

What is the conclusion? Let me conclude with restating the above.

The land promise:

“When the LORD your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, and when the LORD your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the LORD will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly. But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire.”

The fulfillment:

Partial blessing and partial judgment.

Sincerely,
Jason Gastrich

*Mr. Till, you have 5 days to respond.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

Originally posted by Jason Gastrich
It is inappropriate for you to break the rules and post additional information on your mail list. Do not expect me to go there, read it, or respond to it.


Hi Jason,

Actually, Till is free to do this as there is no rule against referring and linking to supplementary information to add support to arguments in formal debates. There was no specific stipulation against this from the debate parameters (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58369) you and Till set up prior to the debate as well. Of course, you're correct, there is no inherent expectation that one should respond to supplementary information external to the debate.

If you have any concerns, then feel free bring them up in Bugs, Problems, & Complaints (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=16).

Thank you, and carry on gentlemen,

- Nightshade, FD moderator

[Farrell Till]

Reply to Jason's first evasion in Part 4:

I have learned in debating biblical inerrantists that if I present three or four arguments, my opponent will selectively quote what he thinks he can best reply to and leave unmentioned arguments that he cannot answer. We are seeing Jason Gastrich do that in this debate. To counteract his evasion, I am going to limit this reply to just one specific point, which he has now evaded four times, so if he evades it this time, his evasion will be obvious to everyone, including even those who may be sympathetic to his position.


Jason:
Now, I will continue my arguments. As you can see, God’s promise was fulfilled to the Israelites. It was fulfilled because God did what He said He would do; He both blessed the Israelites and He punished them. His land promise was conditional on their obedience and participation. This much is obvious. Now, I’ll address your words from your last message.

Till:
When I say that the Bible says X and not X (or P and ~P), I’m not talking about what was said in the original land promise but what the books of Joshua and Judges said about the fulfillment of the promise. If the Bible is inerrant in what it says about the land promise, then all passages that speak of the promise must be consistent, but we find that this is not the case.

Jason:
This is an invalid argument. Why? Because it ignores some important details about the Bible.

1) The Bible was written by several people. Therefore, it would be normal for certain people to include and omit details that are included by other authors.


But what those “several people” said in giving additional details or omitting details must be in agreement with everything that all of them said on the same subject, or else the Bible is not inerrant. If writer A, for example, said that in the time of Joshua, the Israelites had received, possessed, and dwelt in all of the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers, all other biblical writers have to agree with that or else the Bible is not inerrant on that particular point.

As I have pointed out, Joshua 21:43 did say that in the time of Joshua, the Israelites received, possessed, and dwelt in all of the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers.


Joshua 21:43 And Yahweh gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein.

As we have noticed in passages like Genesis 13:14; 15:18-21; Exodus 22:31; and Joshua 1:4, all the land that Yahweh had promised to the fathers of the Israelites encompassed the land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates River and from the eastern desert to the Great (Mediterranean) Sea. By necessity, then, Joshua 21:43 has to mean that in the time of Joshua, the Israelites had received, possessed, and dwelt in all of these lands.

Here again, then, is the question that Jason has repeatedly evaded.

Did the Israelites IN THE TIME OF JOSHUA receive, possess, and dwell in ALL THE LANDS within the borders defined in the passages cited above?

If Jason says that they did, he must explain why the writer(s) of the passage below said what they did.


Joshua 13:1 Now Joshua was old and stricken in years; and the LORD said unto him, Thou art old and stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed. 2 This is the land that yet remaineth: all the borders of the Philistines, and all Geshuri, 3 From Sihor, which is before Egypt, even unto the borders of Ekron northward, which is counted to the Canaanite: five lords of the Philistines; the Gazathites, and the Ashdothites, the Eshkalonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites; also the Avites: 4 From the south, all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah that is beside the Sidonians unto Aphek, to the borders of the Amorites: 5 And the land of the Giblites, and all Lebanon, toward the sunrising, from Baalgad under mount Hermon unto the entering into Hamath.6 All the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon unto Misrephothmaim, and all the Sidonians, them will I drive out from before the children of Israel: only divide thou it by lot unto the Israelites for an inheritance, as I have commanded thee.

As I have twice shown now, analysis of chronological markers show that Joshua 13:1 was said after Joshua 21:43 said that the Israelites had received, possessed, and dwelt in all the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers. Hence, we have a clear case of X and not X (P and ~P) in the biblical text, and Jason is dodging all of my attempts to get him to reply to this argument.

I should add here that whether Joshua 21:43 chronologically preceded 13:1 or not is really irrelevant, because 21:43, which is a statement about the Israelites in the time of Joshua, clearly says that the Israelites had received, possessed, and dwelt in all the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers, so Jason has a question to answer: Did the Israelites IN THE TIME OF JOSHUA receive, possess, and dwell in all the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers? The only possible reason why Jason would refuse to answer this question is that he knows the damage that his answer can do to his position.

If I continued through his “reply,” this would simply give him room to wiggle around this argument and dodge it again, so I am going to stop my reply here, so that there will be nothing else for Jason to reply to but this. If he dodges it again, his evasion will be so obvious that even his own choir members will be able to see it.

Answer this question, Jason: Did the Israelites IN THE TIME OF JOSHUA receive, possess, and dwell in all the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers?

That is a simple question, Jason, so there is no reason why you shouldn’t answer it. If you don’t answer it, everyone will know that you are evading an argument that you cannot answer.

[Jason Gastrich]

Hi Mr. Till,

Having you write one page as your Round 4 post is quite comical! Thank you for the humor and thank you for making my Round 5 post extremely easy and brief.

It’s quite ironic that you have complained about the space limitations and even posted additional information in other places and have now decided to write one page. Please let it be known that you ignored some extremely important points in my last post. Plus, it also should be known that I’ve already answered this question, twice! If you read my last two messages, you will see how I answered this question two times. I’m happy to answer it a third time, but don’t act like your evasion is magnanimous. You obviously read some things in my Round 4 post that were detrimental to your argument and wanted to shift the focus elsewhere. However, I don’t think anyone will buy it because I’ve already answered this question, twice.

Did the Israelites IN THE TIME OF JOSHUA receive, possess, and dwell in all the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers?

The answer is clearly “No.” Since you are obviously referring to the entire land and not the land that was mentioned in the intended framework of Joshua 21, you aren’t understanding the passage. You are misinterpreting it. I’ll try and help your understanding, though.

First, I’m glad that you have changed the chronology of Joshua. It helps my argument. Joshua 21 does NOT say or imply that Joshua and his army possessed the land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River to the Sihor River. Does it?

Since I want everyone to understand this passage and its proper context, here is Joshua 21.

“1Then the heads of the fathers’ houses of the Levites came near to Eleazar the priest, to Joshua the son of Nun, and to the heads of the fathers’ houses of the tribes of the children of Israel. 2And they spoke to them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, “The LORD commanded through Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with their common-lands for our livestock.” 3So the children of Israel gave to the Levites from their inheritance, at the commandment of the LORD, these cities and their common-lands:
4Now the lot came out for the families of the Kohathites. And the children of Aaron the priest, who were of the Levites, had thirteen cities by lot from the tribe of Judah, from the tribe of Simeon, and from the tribe of Benjamin. 5The rest of the children of Kohath had ten cities by lot from the families of the tribe of Ephraim, from the tribe of Dan, and from the half-tribe of Manasseh.
6And the children of Gershon had thirteen cities by lot from the families of the tribe of Issachar, from the tribe of Asher, from the tribe of Naphtali, and from the half-tribe of Manasseh in Bashan.
7The children of Merari according to their families had twelve cities from the tribe of Reuben, from the tribe of Gad, and from the tribe of Zebulun.
8And the children of Israel gave these cities with their common-lands by lot to the Levites, as the LORD had commanded by the hand of Moses.
9So they gave from the tribe of the children of Judah and from the tribe of the children of Simeon these cities which are designated by name, 10which were for the children of Aaron, one of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi; for the lot was theirs first. 11And they gave them Kirjath Arba (Arba was the father of Anak), which is Hebron, in the mountains of Judah, with the common-land surrounding it. 12But the fields of the city and its villages they gave to Caleb the son of Jephunneh as his possession.

13Thus to the children of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron with its common-land (a city of refuge for the slayer), Libnah with its common-land, 14Jattir with its common-land, Eshtemoa with its common-land, 15Holon with its common-land, Debir with its common-land, 16Ain with its common-land, Juttah with its common-land, and Beth Shemesh with its common-land: nine cities from those two tribes; 17and from the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with its common-land, Geba with its common-land, 18Anathoth with its common-land, and Almon with its common-land: four cities. 19All the cities of the children of Aaron, the priests, were thirteen cities with their common-lands.

20And the families of the children of Kohath, the Levites, the rest of the children of Kohath, even they had the cities of their lot from the tribe of Ephraim. 21For they gave them Shechem with its common-land in the mountains of Ephraim (a city of refuge for the slayer), Gezer with its common-land, 22Kibzaim with its common-land, and Beth Horon with its common-land: four cities; 23and from the tribe of Dan, Eltekeh with its common-land, Gibbethon with its common-land, 24Aijalon with its common-land, and Gath Rimmon with its common-land: four cities; 25and from the half-tribe of Manasseh, Tanach with its common-land and Gath Rimmon with its common-land: two cities. 26All the ten cities with their common-lands were for the rest of the families of the children of Kohath.

27Also to the children of Gershon, of the families of the Levites, from the other half-tribe of Manasseh, they gave Golan in Bashan with its common-land (a city of refuge for the slayer), and Be Eshterah with its common-land: two cities; 28and from the tribe of Issachar, Kishion with its common-land, Daberath with its common-land, 29Jarmuth with its common-land, and En Gannim with its common-land: four cities; 30and from the tribe of Asher, Mishal with its common-land, Abdon with its common-land, 31Helkath with its common-land, and Rehob with its common-land: four cities; 32and from the tribe of Naphtali, Kedesh in Galilee with its common-land (a city of refuge for the slayer), Hammoth Dor with its common-land, and Kartan with its common-land: three cities. 33All the cities of the Gershonites according to their families were thirteen cities with their common-lands.

34And to the families of the children of Merari, the rest of the Levites, from the tribe of Zebulun, Jokneam with its common-land, Kartah with its common-land, 35Dimnah with its common-land, and Nahalal with its common-land: four cities; 36and from the tribe of Reuben, Bezer with its common-land, Jahaz with its common-land, 37Kedemoth with its common-land, and Mephaath with its common-land: four cities;£ 38and from the tribe of Gad, Ramoth in Gilead with its common-land (a city of refuge for the slayer), Mahanaim with its common-land, 39Heshbon with its common-land, and Jazer with its common-land: four cities in all. 40So all the cities for the children of Merari according to their families, the rest of the families of the Levites, were by their lot twelve cities.

41All the cities of the Levites within the possession of the children of Israel were forty-eight cities with their common-lands. 42Every one of these cities had its common-land surrounding it; thus were all these cities.
43So the LORD gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. 44The LORD gave them rest all around, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers. And not a man of all their enemies stood against them; the LORD delivered all their enemies into their hand. 45Not a word failed of any good thing which the LORD had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass.”

What do we have here? We have a list of the land that was possessed by the Israelites.

Would it be appropriate to say the following:

“I gave them San Diego and Sacramento. Therefore, they had all of California and Arizona.” Would this be appropriate? Of course not. However, this is your argument. The particular cities that are possessed are listed and you take verse 43 out of context and try and apply a new meaning. You assert that it refers to ALL of the land outside of the intended framework and context.

Let me remove one letter and add two letters to verse 43. It will help you understand what is being said. Verse 43 reads, “So the LORD gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it.”

Since we have a list of the land given and we plainly don’t see the ENTIRE land promise being fulfilled, yet (which is also evidenced by the subsequent chapters like Joshua 23, Judges 1, etc.), verse 43 is obviously referring to all of THAT land and not all of the land.

For your clarification, verse 43 can also read, “So the LORD gave to Israel all this land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it.”

Now, Mr. Till, please return to the points that you’ve evaded here they are.

1) Since your resolution clearly states that the land promise was to the descendants of Abraham, how can you argue that the promise to Abraham was unconditional and binding?

2) How can you deny that the land promise was not fulfilled? There was a prophecy with a promise and a warning. The promise was contingent on obedience. The warning and judgment was contingent on disobedience. We see both. The Israelites obeyed a little and disobeyed a little. Consequently, we see exactly what was prophesied; a partial fulfillment of blessings and a partial fulfillment of judgments.

3) Please illustrate how there was not a fulfillment of blessings and judgments.

Don’t forget. You’ve already, clearly admitted and declared that the land promise was to Abraham’s descendants. Therefore, you don’t have any valid arguments involving Abraham. Furthermore, the conditional/unconditional nature of the land promise is not on trial. Let me repeat the resolution:

“The Yahwistic land promise to the descendants of Abraham was fulfilled in all of its details.”

Remember, the word “descendants” is plural. Therefore, if you choose to argue with statements to his son, Isaac, then those arguments are also invalid. Isaac was ONLY one descendant. This land promise was to the DESCENDANTS of Abraham. Therefore, you must admit to the land promise that was recorded in the Bible as it was given to the DESCENDANTS of Abraham. Here is one record of it.

“When the LORD your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, and when the LORD your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the LORD will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly. But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire.”

I’m not into “saber rattling” as I know you are, but you have A LOT of explaining to do. You have built your arguments on a false foundation. You’ve tried to divert the debate into a red herring (conditional/unconditional). Please stick to the resolution and the points I’ve posted.

Sincerely,
Jason Gastrich
http://www.jcsm.org

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

I've been informed that J.F. Till has went on vacation for a few weeks. Till and Gastrich have stipulated in the debate parameters that the duration between responses can be extended during these events. On J.F. Till's return, I will set a new deadline.

- Nightshade, FD Moderator

[Farrell Till]

Jason:
Hi Mr. Till,

Having you write one page as your Round 4 post is quite comical! Thank you for the humor and thank you for making my Round 5 post extremely easy and brief.

I will comment below on the limitation of my rebuttal to just one point, but if Jason feels cheated because I didn’t address all if his “points,“ he may begin to understand how I feel when I post point-by-point rebuttals of his posts only to have him ignore all but a few of my points. If he is disappointed in the shortness of my latest rebuttal, he can go back, pick up some of my many rebuttal points that he has skipped, and reply to them.


Jason:
It’s quite ironic that you have complained about the space limitations and even posted additional information in other places and have now decided to write one page.

Yes, I have said that even 48K is not enough to answer Jason’s posts point by point, because he fills his posts with unsupported assertions and sermonettes. One needs only a few words to make an unsupported assertion, but the opponent will need space, sometimes even hundreds of words, to show that the assertion is unsound or outright false. It had become obvious to me that if I continued to answer Jason’s assertions point by point, he would go on selectively picking and choosing the ones that he thinks he can halfway sensibly reply to, so in my round-four reply, I intentionally limited myself to just one of my arguments that he has repeatedly evaded so that he would have no room to wiggle out of answering it without making his evasion obvious to all.

I see that my strategy has worked. Jason had nothing else to pick and choose from, so he was forced to try to show us that there is no error in Joshua 21:43, which says that the Israelites received, possessed and dwelt in ALL THE LAND that Yahweh had promised their fathers. His answer gives me an excellent opportunity to show our readers how absurdly biblical inerrantists will distort the scriptures in order to keep from admitting that there are errors in the Bible. I thank him for his cooperation.

Yes, I do reply to Jason’s posts in other forums. That is, I post on the ii-errancy list point-by-point replies to the parts of his posts that I could not get to before my 48K limit ran out. I can’t see any reason why he should object to this. I would think that someone who has boasted that he can “explain every verse in the Bible” would reply to my additional replies on ii_errancy so that he could demonstrate to our readers how easy it is to show that there is no merit to my rebuttals. We know,, of course, that he isn’t going to do that, because he hops, skips, and jumps over most of my rebuttals here, so he certainly isn’t going to take on more in another forum. I will, however, continue to post at ii_errancy point-by-point replies to his assertions and sermonettes that the 48K limit will not allow me to answer here.

By the way, readers who would like to see my replies to Jason’s points that I didn’t have space to answer here can access the last one at <http://www.topica.com/lists/ii_errancy/read/message.html?mid=806990401&sort=d&start=23167>. I suspect, however, that no one will ever see, here or at ii_errancy, Jason’s replies to my additional rebuttals that I posted in the Errancy forum after I had run out of space here.


Jason:
Please let it be known that you ignored some extremely important points in my last post.

Well, of course, I didn’t answer some of Jason’s points, and I explained why at the very beginning of my last rebuttal..


Till:
I have learned in debating biblical inerrantists that if I present three or four arguments, my opponent will selectively quote what he thinks he can best reply to and leave unmentioned arguments that he cannot answer. We are seeing Jason Gastrich do that in this debate. To counteract his evasion, I am going to limit this reply to just one specific point, which he has now evaded four times, so if he evades it this time, his evasion will be obvious to everyone, including even those who may be sympathetic to his position.

I don’t know whom Jason thought he was fooling by pretending not to understand why my 4th rebuttal post was much shorter than usual. I explained why I made it short. I intentionally confined myself to just one point so that if Jason evaded the only rebuttal point that I mentioned in it, our readers, even those sympathetic to his position, would be able to see his evasion.

Now that Jason has had to concentrate on just this one point, I will show how far-fetched and unlikely his “explanation“ is.


Jason:
Plus, it also should be known that I’ve already answered this question, twice!

If this is so, why didn’t Jason just cut and paste those previous answers? As everyone will see, his attempt at answering it below is nothing like anything else he has said on the subject.


Jason:
If you read my last two messages, you will see how I answered this question two times.

As I said above, if Jason had already answered it twice, why didn’t he cut and paste that answer here? What he said below is nothing like what he has said before as he tried to dance around this problem. As I go through his “third answer” to this, I will contrast it with what he said in his previous evasions of my request for him to tell us if the Israelites had ever in the time of Joshua possessed and dwelt in all the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers. We will see that his answer then is not consistent with his answer now.


Jason:
I’m happy to answer it a third time, but don’t act like your evasion is magnanimous. You obviously read some things in my Round 4 post that were detrimental to your argument and wanted to shift the focus elsewhere.

Members of the ii_errancy forum know that I will eventually reply to every “point” in Jason’s fourth-round post, just as I have replied point by point to everything in his first three rounds. If Jason thinks that I am evading anything, I will make a deal with him. If he will post in the next round an argument that he thinks I have evaded, I will reply to it point by point. He will then agree to reply point by point to a previous rebuttal argument of mine that I think he has evaded. If he will agree to this, we can continue to post material, one point at a time, that we think the other has evaded, and each of us will agree to reply point by point to what the other posts.

I predict that Jason will never agree to do this.

As for his belief that I shortened my last rebuttal because I had seen some things in his 4th-round post that were detrimental to my argument, I can honestly say that I have never seen anything in any of Jason’s posts that I considered detrimental to my rebuttals. Jason’s position on the land-promise issue is so obviously erroneous that I can’t conceive of him or anyone ever successfully defending it. I shortened my last rebuttal for the reason that I stated. I wanted to force him to stop hopping and jumping here and there, so that he would be pinned down to just one point, which he couldn’t dodge without making his evasion obvious.


Jason:
However, I don’t think anyone will buy it because I’ve already answered this question, twice.

As I have twice asked now, if Jason has really answered my question twice, why didn’t he just cut and paste that answer? As we will see, he has danced around this question until now, and his attempt to answer it this time is not at all consistent with his earlier “answers.” As I go through his answer, I will contrast it with what he has said in the past on this same issue.


Till:
Did the Israelites IN THE TIME OF JOSHUA receive, possess, and dwell in all the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers?

Jason:
The answer is clearly “No.”

Well, what took Jason so long to give the only truthful answer that he could give to this question? I want everyone to take special note of his answer, because he has dug himself into a hole that he will never be able to climb out of. His answer is “clearly ‘No’”; the Israelites did not in the time of Joshua receive, possess, and dwell in all the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers. I invite everyone to sit back now and watch him twist in the wind.

Before we look at his attempt to make his answer consistent with what the Bible says in the land-promise text, let’s notice again what Joshua 21:43 says. If we have this verse before us as we continue, we will be able to see just how badly Jason distorted Joshua 21 to try to remove the historical error in verse 43.


Joshua 21:43 Thus Yahweh gave to Israel all the land that he swore to their ancestors that he would give them; and having taken possession of it, they settled there.

This verse clearly says that Yahweh gave to Israel all the land that he had sworn to give to their fathers. As I have noted many times, the borders to the land that Yahweh promised Abraham and Isaac are clearly defined in such passages as Genesis 15:18; Exodus 23:31; and Joshua 1:3-4. So that we can evaluate the claim in Joshua 21:43 that Yahweh gave to the Israelites all the land that he had promised their fathers and that they had possessed it and dwelt in it, I will also put before us the passages that defined the borders of the land that Yahweh had promised to Abraham’s descendants.


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."

Exodus 23:31 I will set your borders from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates; for I will hand over to you the inhabitants of the land, and you shall drive them out before you.

Joshua 1:3 Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, as I promised to Moses. 4 From the wilderness and the Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, to the Great Sea in the west shall be your territory.

Now in order for Joshua 21:43 to be a true statement, the Israelites in the time of Joshua would have had to have possessed and dwelt in all of the land from the Red Sea to the Euphrates River and from the wilderness to the Sea of the Philistines or the “Great Sea in the west,” which would have been the Mediterranean Sea. We will see that they did not possess all of this land in the time of Joshua, and Jason, who knows that they didn’t, has flagrantly distorted the 21st chapter of Joshua to make it say something it was never intended to mean.


Jason:
Since you are obviously referring to the entire land and not the land that was mentioned in the intended framework of Joshua 21, you aren’t understanding the passage.

Yes, I meant the entire land, and I contend that Joshua 21:43 had to be referring to all of the land within the borders defined in the verses just quoted above or else the text makes no sense in the context it is in. The text clearly says that Yahweh gave to the Israelites all the land he had promised their fathers and that they had possessed it and dwelt in it, and the context on both sides of this statement clearly shows that the writer was referring to all of the promised land and not just to the cities and limited land mentioned in chapter 21.

I see that it is time for me to ask Jason some more questions for him to evade in his next reply.

1. All of the land that Yahweh had promised the fathers of the Israelites would have encompassed what territories? Please support your answer with specific scriptures.

2. How could the Israelites have possessed and dwelt in all the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers unless they had possessed and dwelt in all of the land from the Red
Sea to the Euphrates River and from the wilderness to the Philistine (Mediterranean) Sea?

If Jason ignores these questions, he will see them again.


Jason:
You are misinterpreting it. I’ll try and [sic] help your understanding, though.

I appreciate Jason’s offer of help, but as we are going to see, he is the one doing the misinterpreting.


Jason:
First, I’m glad that you have changed the chronology of Joshua.

I have no idea what Jason is referring to. I have not “changed the chronology of Joshua.” I have said all along that Joshua 21:43, which said that the Israelites had received, possessed, and dwelt in all of the land Yahweh had promised their fathers, must be chronologically dated before Joshua 13:1, which said that the Israelites had not yet received all the land. If Jason sees this as a change that I have made in the chronology, he will have to explain himself, because my position on the dating now is what it has been all along, and I can verify that by quoting articles I had written on the subject before this debate began.


Jason:
It helps my argument.

Since I have made no change in chronology, the “help” that Jason thinks I have given him is all in his head.


Jason:
Joshua 21 does NOT say or imply that Joshua and his army possessed the land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River to the Sihor River. Does it?

No, it doesn’t, but it does say that Yahweh gave to the Israelites all the land that he had promised their fathers and that they possessed it and dwelt in it, and to Jason’s chagrin, I will soon show that the surrounding context of Joshua 21:43 leaves room for no other interpretation except that the writer meant to say that the Israelites had received, possessed, and dwelt in all of the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers, which would necessarily include the land within the borders listed above.

Jason can clear up the meaning of Joshua 21:43 very quickly if he will just answer the questions that I asked above.

1. Did Yahweh promise that he would give to Abraham’s descendants all of the land from the Red Sea to the Euphrates River?

2. Did Yahweh promise that he would give to Abraham’s descendants all of the land from the “river of Egypt” [Shihor River] to the Mediterranean Sea?

The Israelites never at any time possessed and dwelt in all of the land within the borders defined in the different land-promise texts, so it cannot be true that the Israelites in the time of Joshua had received, possessed, and dwelt in all of the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers. As I go through the rest of Jason’s post, I will show that he is trying to distort the obvious meaning of Joshua 21:43.


Jason:
Since I want everyone to understand this passage and its proper context, here is Joshua 21.

I will soon show that the “proper context” of Joshua 21:43 includes much more than just chapter 21. It includes several chapters before 21 and the chapter after it. Get ready to see Jason take a broadside hit.


Jason:
“1Then the heads of the fathers’ houses of the Levites came near to Eleazar the priest, to Joshua the son of Nun, and to the heads of the fathers’ houses of the tribes of the children of Israel. 2And they spoke to them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, “The LORD commanded through Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with their common-lands for our livestock.” 3So the children of Israel gave to the Levites from their inheritance, at the commandment of the LORD, these cities and their common-lands: 4Now the lot came out for the families of the Kohathites. And the children of Aaron the priest, who were of the Levites, had thirteen cities by lot from the tribe of Judah, from the tribe of Simeon, and from the tribe of Benjamin. 5The rest of the children of Kohath had ten cities by lot from the families of the tribe of Ephraim, from the tribe of Dan, and from the half-tribe of Manasseh. 6And the children of Gershon had thirteen cities by lot from the families of the tribe of Issachar, from the tribe of Asher, from the tribe of Naphtali, and from the half-tribe of Manasseh in Bashan. 7The children of Merari according to their families had twelve cities from the tribe of Reuben, from the tribe of Gad, and from the tribe of Zebulun. 8And the children of Israel gave these cities with their common-lands by lot to the Levites, as the LORD had commanded by the hand of Moses. 9So they gave from the tribe of the children of Judah and from the tribe of the children of Simeon these cities which are designated by name, 10which were for the children of Aaron, one of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi; for the lot was theirs first. 11And they gave them Kirjath Arba (Arba was the father of Anak), which is Hebron, in the mountains of Judah, with the common-land surrounding it. 12But the fields of the city and its villages they gave to Caleb the son of Jephunneh as his possession.

13Thus to the children of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron with its common-land (a city of refuge for the slayer), Libnah with its common-land, 14Jattir with its common-land, Eshtemoa with its common-land, 15Holon with its common-land, Debir with its common-land, 16Ain with its common-land, Juttah with its common-land, and Beth Shemesh with its common-land: nine cities from those two tribes; 17and from the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with its common-land, Geba with its common-land, 18Anathoth with its common-land, and Almon with its common-land: four cities. 19All the cities of the children of Aaron, the priests, were thirteen cities with their common-lands.

20And the families of the children of Kohath, the Levites, the rest of the children of Kohath, even they had the cities of their lot from the tribe of Ephraim. 21For they gave them Shechem with its common-land in the mountains of Ephraim (a city of refuge for the slayer), Gezer with its common-land, 22Kibzaim with its common-land, and Beth Horon with its common-land: four cities; 23and from the tribe of Dan, Eltekeh with its common-land, Gibbethon with its common-land, 24Aijalon with its common-land, and Gath Rimmon with its common-land: four cities; 25and from the half-tribe of Manasseh, Tanach with its common-land and Gath Rimmon with its common-land: two cities. 26All the ten cities with their common-lands were for the rest of the families of the children of Kohath.

27Also to the children of Gershon, of the families of the Levites, from the other half-tribe of Manasseh, they gave Golan in Bashan with its common-land (a city of refuge for the slayer), and Be Eshterah with its common-land: two cities; 28and from the tribe of Issachar, Kishion with its common-land, Daberath with its common-land, 29Jarmuth with its common-land, and En Gannim with its common-land: four cities; 30and from the tribe of Asher, Mishal with its common-land, Abdon with its common-land, 31Helkath with its common-land, and Rehob with its common-land: four cities; 32and from the tribe of Naphtali, Kedesh in Galilee with its common-land (a city of refuge for the slayer), Hammoth Dor with its common-land, and Kartan with its common-land: three cities. 33All the cities of the Gershonites according to their families were thirteen cities with their common-lands.

34And to the families of the children of Merari, the rest of the Levites, from the tribe of Zebulun, Jokneam with its common-land, Kartah with its common-land, 35Dimnah with its common-land, and Nahalal with its common-land: four cities; 36and from the tribe of Reuben, Bezer with its common-land, Jahaz with its common-land, 37Kedemoth with its common-land, and Mephaath with its common-land: four cities;£ 38and from the tribe of Gad, Ramoth in Gilead with its common-land (a city of refuge for the slayer), Mahanaim with its common-land, 39Heshbon with its common-land, and Jazer with its common-land: four cities in all. 40So all the cities for the children of Merari according to their families, the rest of the families of the Levites, were by their lot twelve cities.

41All the cities of the Levites within the possession of the children of Israel were forty-eight cities with their common-lands. 42Every one of these cities had its common-land surrounding it; thus were all these cities. 43So the LORD gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. 44The LORD gave them rest all around, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers. And not a man of all their enemies stood against them; the LORD delivered all their enemies into their hand. 45Not a word failed of any good thing which the LORD had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass.”

What do we have here?

What do we have here? We have only a partial quotation of a much lengthier section of Joshua, which describes the division of the conquered lands among the 12 tribes of Israel. Chapter 21 was concerned only with the inheritance of the Levites, who received no land inheritance but only some cities that were taken from land that had been parceled out (in earlier chapters) to the other tribes. Anyone who will analyze the chapter that Jason quoted above will see that each tribe (Judah, Benjamin, Asher, etc.) had to give to the Levites some of the cities in the land they had conquered, because the Levites had received no actual land inheritance. A verse early in the chapter that Jason quoted would have shown him this had he bothered to read it carefully enough to see what it was saying.


Joshua 21:3 So the children of Israel gave to the Levites from their inheritance, at the commandment of Yahweh, these cities and their common-lands:

So this chapter is saying only that the tribes of Israel gave to the Levites certain cities that were within the land that the other tribes had “inherited.” Hence, when the last three verses of this chapter say that Yahweh gave to the Israelites all the land that he had promised their fathers and that they possessed and dwelt in it, they were referring to more than just the cities mentioned in this chapter. Otherwise, the verse would have said, “Yahweh gave to the Levites all of the cities he had promised their fathers and the Levites possessed them and dwelt in them.”

That, however, is not what the verse says. It says that Yahweh gave to the Israelites all of the land that he had promised their fathers, and unless Yahweh had given to the Israelites in the time of Joshua all of the land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates River and from the eastern desert to the Mediterranean Sea, this verse contains a historically incorrect statement.

Now if Jason would just take the time to go back and read chapters 19, 18, 17, etc., he would see that chapter 21 is simply a continuation of this longer context, where the writer(s) was/were describing the division of the land among the different tribes. The inheritance of the tribe of Zebulan, for example, was given in 19:10-16.


Joshua 19:10 The third lot came up for the tribe of Zebulun, according to its families. The boundary of its inheritance reached as far as Sarid; 11 then its boundary goes up westward, and on to Maralah, and touches Dabbesheth, then the wadi that is east of Jokneam; 12 from Sarid it goes in the other direction eastward toward the sunrise to the boundary of Chisloth-tabor; from there it goes to Daberath, then up to Japhia; 13 from there it passes along on the east toward the sunrise to Gath-hepher, to Eth-kazin, and going on to Rimmon it bends toward Neah; 14 then on the north the boundary makes a turn to Hannathon, and it ends at the valley of Iphtah-el; 15 and Kattath, Nahalal, Shimron, Idalah, and Bethlehem--twelve towns with their villages. 16 This is the inheritance of the tribe of Zebulun, according to its families--these towns with their villages.

Notice (in bold print) that the borders of Zebulan’s “inheritance” were clearly defined here. If Jason will read the divisions that were given to the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Asher, etc. in the rest of the total context, he will find that the same was true of them too, so the wrap-up verses in Joshua 21:43-45 were not just speaking of the cities given to the Levites in chapter 21 but of all the land that was parceled out to the various tribes in the preceding chapters. Chapter 21 was only one part of a much larger context. I am really surprised that someone who just recently boasted that he could “explain every verse in the Bible” would not be able to read and interpret an extended context as clear as this.

That Joshua 21 was speaking about land that had already been parceled out in the preceding chapters is obvious to anyone who will take the time to do a little textual analysis. The text quoted above gave the boundaries of the “inheritance” of the tribe of Zebulan and listed 12 towns that were within Zebulan’s borders. However, 20:7 states that the tribe of Zebulun was required to give some of those cities to the Merarite clan of the Levites.


Joshua 20:7 The Merarites according to their families received twelve towns from the tribe of Reuben, the tribe of Gad, and the tribe of Zebulun.

The same was true of the other tribes. They received territories with defined borders, but in chapter 20, they were required to cede to the Levites some of the towns within those borders. That Jason would so gratuitously offer to interpret Joshua 21:43 to me is a laugh, because he has demonstrated that he lacks even elementary interpretative skills. Joshua 21:43 was not referring to just the “land” mentioned earlier in that chapter but to all of the land mentioned in the broader context that described what territories were allotted to the different tribes. Joshua 21:43-45 is a summation of the entire section, consisting of several chapters, so the writer(s) was/were claiming that all of the land, in the strictest sense, that Yahweh had promised to the fathers of the Israelites had been received, possessed, and dwelt in during the time of Joshua. If Jason argues otherwise, he will only demonstrate his inability to interpret an extended literary text.


Jason:
We have a list of the land that was possessed by the Israelites.

In the broader context we have a list of the land that was possessed by the Israelites, but in chapter 21 we have a listing only of the cities and limited land holdings that the different tribes were required to cede to the Levites. Jason obviously doesn’t understand Joshua 21, so I urge him to read the broader context, which includes six chapters before 21, to see that the broader context is describing land that was allotted to the various tribes. Thus when the D editor said that the ISRAELITES, not just the Levites, had received, possessed, and dwelt in all the land that Yahweh had promised their ancestors, he was claiming that Yahweh had fulfilled his promise and given the Israelites... well, all the land that he had promised.

If not, why not?


Jason:
Would it be appropriate to say the following:

“I gave them San Diego and Sacramento. Therefore, they had all of California and Arizona.” Would this be appropriate? Of course not. However, this is your argument.

No, it was not my argument. My argument, as everyone can see, is that a seven-chapter context described in detail the distribution of the conquered lands to the tribes of Israel. These chapters were followed by 20 and 21, which respectively listed the cities of refuge that were designated and the cities that the different tribes were required to give to the Levites, the priestly tribe that had not been given any land inheritance. After all of this, the D writer added a summary paragraph, which said that Yahweh had given to the ISRAELITES all the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers and that the Israelites had possessed it and dwelt in it. The writer was referring to much more than just the cities that were given to the Levites in chapter 21.

To prove that 21:43 made a true statement, Jason must show us that in the time of Joshua the Israelites had received, possessed, and dwelt in all the land from the Red Sea to the Euphrates River and from the eastern desert to the Mediterranean Sea. We will be waiting for him to prove this, but he finds himself in a bit of a fix, because he said that the Israelites in the time of Joshua clearly did not receive, possess, and dwell in all the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers.

Before I pass on to Jason’s other quibbles, let’s take notice of the predicament that Jason finds himself in. Readers can scroll up and see that I asked Jason this question.


Did the Israelites IN THE TIME OF JOSHUA receive, possess, and dwell in all the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers?

And this was his answer.


The answer is clearly “No.”

So Jason is on record as having said that the Israelites in the time of Joshua clearly did not receive, possess, and dwell in all the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers, so now that he has seen that Joshua 21:43 was not referring to just the cities given to the Levites earlier in the chapter but to all the land that was distributed to the other tribes in the broader context of chapters 15-21, he cannot change his “clearly no” answer without looking pretty foolish for someone who had earlier claimed that he can “explain every verse in the Bible.”

If Jason were [Edited by Moderator], I could feel sorry for him when he gets himself into predicaments like this.


Jason:
The particular cities that are possessed are listed and you take verse 43 out of context and try and [sic] apply a new meaning

No, I’m not taking anything out of context. Jason is the one guilty of that. In the broader context, all of the land allegedly distributed to the tribes of Israel and the Levites was listed in the seven-chapter context, so Jason is the one who is taking Joshua 12:43 out of context. It was clearly the D editor’s intention, after the lengthy record of the land distributions to the different tribes, to claim that all of the land that Yahweh had promised the Israelites had been given to them and that they had possessed it and dwelt in it.


Jason:
You assert that it refers to ALL of the land outside of the intended framework and context.

No, I am not asserting that. The D editor asserted it. He--and not I--was the one who said what you quote immediately below. In just a moment, I will show that the writer clearly meant for “all the land” to mean all of the land that was within the borders of Yahweh’s land promises.


Jason:
Let me remove one letter and add two letters to verse 43. It will help you understand what is being said. Verse 43 reads, “So the LORD gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it.”

Since we have a list of the land given and we plainly don’t see the ENTIRE land promise being fulfilled, yet (which is also evidenced by the subsequent chapters like Joshua 23, Judges 1, etc.), verse 43 is obviously referring to all of THAT land and not all of the land.

Ah, so Jason seeks to rewrite the verse in order to make it mean what he would like for it to mean, but I have shown that the spin that he is trying to put onto this verse is clearly not what the writer meant. A distribution-of-land context began in chapter 15. The writer took each of the tribes of Israel, listed the land and cities that they received, and defined the borders of each of their “inheritances.” Chapter 20 then listed the cities of refuge that were to be designated for those who unintentionally shed blood so that they could go to these places to escape retribution of the nearest of kin. Then chapter 21 listed the cities that the other tribes were to give to the Levites, who were not awarded a land “inheritance.” After all of this, the D writer put a summation paragraph, which began with a claim that the Israelites had received, possessed, and dwelt in all the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers. There is a passage within the total context of 21:43, which I will be quoting later, that removes all doubt that this was what the writer meant.

As I have repeatedly said, in order for Jason to prove that Joshua 21:43 made a true statement, he must show that the Israelites in the time of Joshua received, possessed, and dwelt in all of the land from the Red Sea to the Euphrates River and from the eastern desert to the Mediterranean Sea.

If not, why not? I will be waiting for Jason to explain how the Israelites could have received, possessed, and dwelt in all the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers unless they had received, possessed, and dwelt in all the land within the borders specified above.


Jason:
For your clarification, verse 43 can also read, “So the LORD gave to Israel all this land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it.”

The verse can read this way? According to whom? According to Jason, of course, but the problem is that the verse says what it says, and it does not say what Jason has altered it to say. It says that Yahweh gave to Israel all THE land that he had promised their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it.” Jason has to change the wording of the text to try to make it say what he wants it to mean. So it is question time for Jason.

1. Does the text say that Yahweh gave to Israel “all this land” that he had promised their fathers, or does it say that Yahweh gave to Israel all THE land that he had promised their fathers?

2. What were the borders of all THE land that Yahweh had promised the fathers of the Israelites?

3. Did the Israelites in the time of Joshua receive, possess, and dwell in all of the land within those borders?

Finally, I will note that even if the text said that Yahweh had given to the Israelites “all this land” that he had promised their fathers, this reading would not help Jason’s case one bit, because the D editor was obviously referring to all of the land described and distributed within the broader context, so this land in Jason’s rewriting of the text would have referred to all of the land described in the broader, seven-chapter distribution context. It was clearly the writer’s intention to claim that Yahweh had given to the Israelites all of the land that he had promised their fathers. Jason has strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel to try to make Joshua 21:43 refer only to the cities distributed to the Levites in this chapter.

That this was not the intention of the D editor can be seen by analyzing all three of the wrap-up verses at the end of chapter 21. Please notice the words and expressions that I have emphasized in bold print.


Joshua 21:43-45 43 And Yahweh gave to Israel all the land which he swore to give to their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein. 44 And Yahweh gave them rest round about, according to all that he swore unto their fathers: and there stood not a man of all their enemies before them; Yahweh delivered all their enemies into their hand. 45 There failed not ought of any good thing which Yahweh had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass.

Anyone but a biblical inerrantist can read this and understand that the writer was clearly claiming that every detail of Yahweh’s land promise to the Israelites had been fulfilled. A passage this inclusive and emphatic would not have been made about just a few cities that had been allotted to the Levites. The writer obviously meant that every detail of Yahweh’s land promise had been met. The details of the promise included the following.

1. The land area. This has been discussed and analyzed so often that it isn’t necessary to say anything else about it here. The D writer claimed that the Israelites in the time of Joshua had received all the land promised by Yahweh and identified by clearly defined borders.

2. The Israelites in the time of Joshua had possessed and dwelt in all of this land.

3. Yahweh gave to the Israelites the “rest” or peace that he had sworn to give their fathers. This “rest” has been previously discussed; it was to come when the Israelites had defeated their enemies and taken all of the land.


Deuteronomy 3:18 At that time, I charged you as follows: "Although Yahweh your God has given you this land to occupy, all your troops shall cross over armed as the vanguard of your Israelite kin. 19 Only your wives, your children, and your livestock--I know that you have much livestock--shall stay behind in the towns that I have given to you. 20 When Yahweh gives REST to your kindred, as to you, and they too have occupied the land that Yahweh your God is giving them beyond the Jordan, then each of you may return to the property that I have given to you."

Moses was here speaking to the Reubenites, Manassites, and Gadites, who had requested their “inheritance” in land that had been conquered before the Israelites crossed the Jordan. The text just quoted was saying that when “they,” i. e., the other tribes, had occupied the land that Yahweh was giving them on the other side of the Jordan, the Reubenite, Manassite, and Gadite soldiers could then return to their land east of the Jordan. Keep that point in mind, because it is important.

A similar reference to “rest” was made in Joshua 1:13-15, where Joshua reminded the Reubenites, Manassites, and Gadites that they were to cross the Jordan to fight with the other tribes until they had taken the land west of the Jordan.


Joshua 1:13 "Remember the word that Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded you, saying, 'Yahweh your God is providing you a place of rest, and will give you this land.' 14 Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land that Moses gave you beyond the Jordan. But all the warriors among you shall cross over armed before your kindred and shall help them, 15 until Yahweh gives rest to your kindred as well as to you, and they too take possession of the land that Yahweh your God is giving them. Then you shall return to your own land and take possession of it, the land that Moses the servant of Yahweh gave you beyond the Jordan to the east."

So the tribes that were receiving land east of the Jordan had already received “a place of rest,” but they were required to cross the Jordan and fight with the other tribes until Yahweh had given them “rest” like the Gadites, Reubenites, and Manassites already had and until they [the other tribes] took possession of their land TOO, so the D writer was claiming in Joshua 21:43-45 that the Israelites had received the rest that would come with conquering all of their enemies and occupying the land. That this was the intended meaning of the writer’s reference to rest in 21:44 can easily be determined by reading on into the very next chapter. This is the passage that I promised would definitively settle the question of what “all the land” in Joshua 21:43 meant. Please notice the emphasized expressions.


Joshua 22:1 Then Joshua summoned the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, 2 and said to them, "You have observed all that Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded you, and have obeyed me in all that I have commanded you; 3 you have not forsaken your kindred these many days, down to this day, but have been careful to keep the charge of Yahweh your God. 4 And now Yahweh your God has given REST to your kindred, as he promised them; therefore turn and go to your tents in the land where your possession lies, which Moses the servant of Yahweh gave you on the other side of the Jordan.

This passage is so clear that we will have to [Edited by Moderator] if he doesn’t now admit that he has distorted the intended meaning of Joshua 21:43. We have noticed (above) where both Moses and Joshua told the Reubenite, Manassite, and Gadite soldiers that they would have to cross the Jordan into Canaan and fight with the other tribes until the land was conquered and Yahweh had given “rest” to their kindred. Then in Joshua 21:44, the writer said that Yahweh had given ISRAEL “rest” ROUND ABOUT. The verses that immediately follow, just quoted above, say that Joshua then summoned the Reubenites, Gadites, and Manassites and told them that they were free to return to their “tents” in the land they had been given, because Yahweh had given REST to their kindred as Yahweh had promised. The Reubenites, Gadites, and Manassites could not return to their land until Yahweh had given their kindred “rest,” and after the writer said in 21:44 that Yahweh had given the Israelites “rest” ROUND ABOUT, Joshua told the Reubenites, Gadites, and Manassites that they were free to return to their tents in their land because... well, because Yahweh had given their kindred the rest he had promised.

Hence, the writer was claiming in 21:43-45 that the conquest of all the land promised by Yahweh had been completed at that time. Otherwise, the Israelites would not have received a period of “rest” and Joshua would not have told the Reubenite, Gadite, and Manassite soldiers that they were free to go to their homes.

If not, why not?

It will be fun to watch Jason try to wiggle out of the predicament he has gotten himself into, because one thing is sure: he will not admit that he misinterpreted Joshua 21:43. [Edited by Moderator]

4. There stood not a man of all of their enemies (v:44). If the D writer did not mean here that the Israelites had defeated all of their enemies and taken their land, then why did he claim that “not a man of all their enemies” had been able to stand before them? If none of their enemies had been able to stand before them, how could it have been true that some of the land remained to be conquered?

5. Yahweh delivered all of their enemies into their hands. If Yahweh had delivered all of the enemies of the Israelites into their hands, how could it have been that the Israelites had not at this time taken all of the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers? Well, the answer is obvious to everyone but biblical inerrantists. The D writer was claiming in this text (v:43) that the Israelites had taken all of the land that Yahweh had promised them.

Now I fully understand that Jason can quote scriptures that claim the Israelites did not take all of the land that Yahweh had promised their fathers. In fact, I have been the one to introduce such scriptures as Joshua 13:1, which chronologically postdates 21:43 and says that the Israelites did not possess all of the land that Yahweh had promised. However, Jason cannot cite this passage--and others--as proof that Joshua 21:43 did not claim that the Israelites in Joshua’s time had received, possessed, and dwelt in all the land that Yahweh had promised, because to do so would be to argue from the assumption that the Bible is inerrant and therefore does not contain inconsistencies or contradictions. The inerrancy of the Bible is the very issue at stake in this debate, so Jason must prove to us that Joshua 21:43, irrespective of what may have been said in other biblical passages, was not claiming that the Israelites in Joshua’s time had received, possessed, and dwelt in all the land that Yahweh had promised to their fathers.

I, for one, will eagerly wait to see Jason prove that a passage that plainly said that Yahweh gave to the Israelites all the land that he had sworn to give to their fathers and that they possessed it and dwelt in it did not mean that Yahweh had given to the Israelites in Joshua’s time all the land that he had sworn to give to their fathers and th