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Ninth Dialogue:

JA: Typical Problems Faced by Inerrantists in Defending the Bible

Errantist: Let's look at just a few of more than a thousand serious problems that "inerrantists" face when forced to address specific scriptural texts.

First, there is the one just cited in the example above. The inerrantists are faced with the difficulty of showing how the intentional killing of infants is not murder, that what happened to the Amalekites was not genocide, and that the land of the Amalekites was not stolen (1 Samuel 15:3).

RS: It is not murder because God says its not. It is a divine principle that when the sin of the society reaches an abominable height, the children of the society will also suffer in the calamity is a God-ordained edict. It does not, however, mean that the children cannot be eternally saved, since each individual will be judged by God pertaining to what they know and what they did. As for the booty, it was not "stolen" since it is regarded as the spoils of God's righteous judgment upon wicked people. What this really shows is Jorge's mistrust in what God decrees, setting himself up as the judge of what is moral.

JA: Errantist: They need to explain how the same God commanded people not to murder and to murder (Ex. 20:13 and 1 Sam. 15:3);

RS: The command not to murder in Ex 20:13 refers to a man, who without authorization from God to kill, takes the life of another man. The command in 1 Sam 15:3 refers to God commanding man to kill other men as a punishment to the latter for sin.

JA: Errantist: not to steal and to steal (Ex 20:15 and Ex. 3:21-22); not to lie and to lie (Rev. 22:15 and Ex. 3:18-20).

RS: This shows the difference between unauthorized taking of another's goods, and the God-ordained taking of booty as spoils of God's judgment. It has nothing to do with inerrancy. Rather, it shows that Jorge has an acute misunderstanding about what inerrancy actually is.

JA: Errantist: They have to defend the wisdom and fairness of prohibiting males with wounded testicles, or bastards and their children down to the tenth generation, from entering the congregation of the Lord (Deut. 23:1-2).

RS: Its fair because God said it was. In fact, if Jorge doesn't accept this edict, he is rejecting the inspiration of Scripture, not its inerrancy, per se. To understand the reasons such commands were given one has to understand two things: (1) after the grievous sin of worshiping the golden calf (Exodus 32), God gave Israel many tedious and confining laws, as a punishment for their sin (Ezekiel 20:24-25). (2) As regards the Ammonites and Moabites, as verse 4 states, they were to be punished for their sin of trying to destroy Israel. Again, these are God's prerogatives to do as He wishes in punishment of evil doers, and it has nothing to do with inerrancy. It has to do more with Jorge's limited concept of who God really is.

JA: Errantist: They have to defend the wisdom and fairness of prohibiting those with defects in vision from approaching the altar (Lev. 21:16-23, see esp. v. 20).

RS: Those with defects were disallowed, since the priest was a symbol of the unblemished victim needed for sacrifice. The disallowance was not saying that the individual himself had any moral defect. We do the same when we reject flat-footed people for military service. But the fact that Jorge brings up such questions shows his basic distrust in God and the Scripture.

JA: Errantist: They have to explain how the inerrant word of God could say both: 2 Samuel 24:1 and 1 Chronicles 21:1(Who caused David to number Israel, the Lord, or Satan?);

RS: Anyone familiar with Scripture knows that this gives us an insight into the fact that God, in His infinite strategy, uses Satan to do his bidding even though Satan thinks that he is upsetting God's plans. The most outstanding example of this is the book of Job, in which God allows Satan to tempt Job so that God could prove to Satan that Job was a true man of God.

JA: Errantist: 2 Sam. 24:13 and 1 Chron. 21:11-12 (Was it seven years of famine, or three years of famine?)

RS: 2 Samuel 24 records the first approach to David in which the initial punishment was seven years; 1 Chron 21 gives the second approach to David. David's prayer moved God to reduce the second offer.

JA: Errantist: 2 Chron. 36:9 and 2 Kings 24:8 (Was Jehoiachin eight years old, or eighteen years old, when he began his reign?);

RS: This is obviously a copyist error. The LXX of 2 Chr says Jehoiachin was 18, and thus matches 2 Kings 24:8, so it is the copyist's error of the Masoretic text of 2 Chr 36:9 that is the culprit. This can be expected since the numerical notation in use during the fifth century BC has a horizontal stroke ending in a hook at its right end as the sign for 10. Two of them would make the number 20. The digits under ten were indicated by rows of little vertical strokes, usually in groups of three. Thus, what was originally written as a horizontal stroke over one or more of these groups of short vertical strokes would appear as a mere "eight" instead of "eighteen."

JA: Errantist: and 2 Samuel 10:18 and 1 Chron. 19:18 (Was it seven hundred chariots, or seven thousand chariots?).

RS: Obviously, another copyist error. The number in 1 Chronicles is probably the correct one, since it is closer to the agreed upon cavalry number of 40,000.

JA: Errantist: They have to defend the death penalty for unruly children (Deut. 21:18-21),

RS: Defend it? We have to do no such thing. It defends itself, because it was an edict from God, just as God's command to execute the man who presumptuously sinned by picking up sticks on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32). There's no problem with inerrancy here, but there is a problem with Jorge's knowledge and understanding of God.

JA: Errantist: adulterers (Lev. 20:10), homosexuals (Lev. 20:13), and those who pick up sticks on the Sabbath (Num. 15:32-36).

RS: We don't have to defend this either, since adultery and homosexuality were capital crimes against the society. The man executed for picking up sticks on the Sabbath met that fate due to his "presumptuousness," as stated in Numbers 15:30-31 right before the incident.

JA: Errantist: They have to explain why women who have given birth (even Mary, who gave birth to the divine Jesus (see Luke 2:22) need ritual purification,

RS: Because they were ritually unclean, according to the ceremonial law -- the law that was no longer required of Christians in the New Covenant.

JA: Errantist: and why women who give birth to girls are unclean twice as long as women who give birth to boys (Lev. 12:2-5).

RS: How does this relate to inerrancy? Again, all it shows is Jorge's obstinance to accept the facts of the Old Testament even when they are given to him in a straightforward manner, without any hint of error. Jorge's problem is with the ancient cultus of the Old Testament.

JA: Errantist: They have to explain the morality of the law that says, when the rapist of a young virgin girl is discovered, the rapist shall pay the father fifty shekels and the girl shall be forced to live with the rapist as long as he lives (Deut. 22:28-29).

RS: The passage doesn't say he's a "rapist," for there is no indication that the girl was resisting the sexual advance. This is especially significant since the text stresses the need for the girl to "cry out" in case of rape (verses 24, 27).

JA: Errantist: They have to explain why it was okay to possess slaves, both male and female, provided they were purchased from neighboring nations (Lev. 25:44).

RS: Because there is nothing wrong with having hired help that is treated well. The "slaves" of Israel were not like the black slaves of America. The former were well-treated according to Jewish law.

JA: Errantist: They have to explain why it was okay for a father to sell his daughter into slavery (Exodus 21:7).

RS: See above.

JA: Errantist: They have the difficulty of explaining why, in the story of David and Goliath, King Saul hears of Jesse (David's father) and David, sends for David to serve as a harp player to calm his nerves (1 Sam. 16:16-19), likes David very much and makes David a personal armor-bearer (1 Sam. 16:20-21), continues in personal contact with David (1 Sam 16:22-23), speaks lengthily to David concerning Goliath (1 Sam 17:30-39), offers David his own armor when David is about to go out and face Goliath (1 Sam. 17:38-39), and then does not know who David is after David returns from slaying Goliath (1 Sam. 17:57-58).

RS: Up until the contest with Goliath, David had shown to King Saul only his artistic side; and then David had been permitted to return home to Bethlehem. After the Goliath incident, it would be natural for Saul to see David in a new light and to show a keen interest in his background. Apparently Abner had no previous acquaintance with David except as a harp player and thus was not even aware of Jesse's name (1 Sm 17:55). Abner had not been involved in David's earlier introduction to the palace as the soothing harp player (1 Sm 16:18); rather, one of Saul's 'young men' had mentioned Jesse's name to Saul. After the Goliath incident, Saul's new interest in David went far beyond David's father, even though that was his initial question. It is obvious that Saul wanted to know whether there were any more at home like David, which was in line with his standard policy recorded in 1 Sm 14:52. In David, Saul saw a promising lead to obtaining more soldiers like David. In 1 Sm 18:1 there is a more extensive conversation with Saul, which went far beyond the giving of David's father's name. Thus, there is no discrepancy.

JA: Errantist: They have to explain why God's word would contain dozens of failed prophecies, prophecies of events that either (1) never occurred, or (2) did not occur when they were prophesied to happen, or in the way they were supposed to happen.

RS: Like what? Perhaps Jorge can enlighten us to a few examples.

JA: Errantist: They need to explain, for example, why Isaiah 17:1 predicts that Damascus would cease to be a city and become a heap of ruins. Damascus, though it has been sacked, NEVER stopped being a city and is a city today. The present day city of Damascus includes the area of the ancient city of Damascus to which Isaiah 17:1 referred. (Incidentally, Straight Street, the only street named in the Bible, still exists in the same place as it did when it was mentioned in Acts 9:11.) [Be cautious about which version of the Bible you use in studying Isaiah 17:1.]

RS: Isaiah is relating what happened when Assyria, under Tiglath-Pileser, conquered Syria, a known fact of history. The Hebrew words mosar meyir for "departed city" matches in assonance the words meyi mapalah "a heap of ruin" for a poetic effect. The term mosar does not necessarily mean that Damascus would no longer be physically standing, but only that its populous would depart, and, according to Isaiah 17:3 it is the "sovereignty" of Damascus which is taken away.

JA: Errantist: As another example, they need to explain why Ezek. 26:7-12 predicts that Tyre would be defeated by Nebuchadnezzar, and that Nebuchadnezzar would enter the city, plunder it, and slay its citizens. As historians know (and as Ezek. 29:18-20 admits), Nebuchadnezzar's thirteen-year siege of Tyre failed. No ancient historian, and no modern historian of any credibility, has ever claimed that Nebuchadnezzar defeated, plundered, and destroyed the city of Tyre. The city of Tyre was not taken until hundreds of years later (by Alexander the Great), and no Nebuchadnezzar was involved.

RS: Ezekiel is already aware of the less-than-successful campaign of Nebuchadnezzer against Tyre by showing us that the attack on Tyre was in two stages, first by Nebuchadnezzer and then by Alexander. Ezek. 26:3-4 says that "MANY nations would come against Tyre," meaning more than Nebuchadnezzer. Ezek. 26:7-11 refers to Nebuchadnezzer's campaign, while 26:12 refers to an unspecified new attacker by the plural "they," most likely referring to Alexander.

JA: Errantist: Also, Ezek. 26:14, 21 and 27:36 predict that the destroyed city of Tyre would never be rebuilt and re-inhabited. But you can see from Matthew 15:21, Mark 3:8, Mark 7:24, Mark 7:31, Acts 12:20, and Acts 21:3,7, that Tyre was a city in NT times, and it is still a city. The island (which had contained the walled city) became attached to the mainland after silt deposited around the remains of Alexander's wooden mole [there is some debate over the actual mechanism], but all the original land of Tyre is inhabited today. If you wish to check it out, you can fly to an airport just outside the city.

RS: Tyre had a mainland city and an island city. Ezekiel is referring to the island city, which was never rebuilt after Alexander destroyed it.

JA: Errantist: In another example requiring some explanation from the inerrantists, Ezek. 29:9-16 predicts that the land of Egypt would become a desolate wasteland, a ruin from Migdol to Aswan, as far as the border of Cush. It says that no foot of man or animal will pass through it, and that no one will live there for forty years. It says the Egyptians will be dispersed throughout other lands, and that after forty years they would be gathered and restored to Upper Egypt, the land of their ancestry. Egypt would be the lowliest of nations and never again exalt itself above other nations. Egyptian history is extremely well known, and scholars of Egyptian history know of no forty-year period when Egypt was a wasteland with cities uninhabited by people and animals. There was never a forty-year period of forced dispersion or captivity, and (of course) never a re-gathering following such. Egypt never became the lowliest of nations. The nations that attempted to conquer Egypt militarily: (1) were not entirely successful (usually only northern Egypt was even affected), (2) did not destroy its cities making Egypt a wasteland, and (3) never had the long-lasting affects on Egypt predicted in verses 15 and 16.

RS: Josephus (Antiquities 10.9.5-7) refers to Nebuchadnezzer's conquest of Egypt around 582 BC. Cuniform tables discovered by Pinches and translated by Pritchard (Ancient Near East Text, p. 308) dates one of Nebuchadnezzer's invasions in this thirty-seventh year (569 or 568 BC). A biographical funerary stela housed in the Louvre, the Nes-Hor, the commander in the reign of Uah-ib-Ra, speaks of an invasion of the Nile Valley by an "army of northerers." Thus, there is plenty of evidence that Nebuchanezzer did what Ezekiel says (Ezek 29:15). After Nebuchanezzer, Cambysys, son of Cyrus, annexed Egypt in 525 BC, showing that Egypt had no power to resist. The Egyptians remained vassals of the Persians up to 332 BC, after which they were subservient to Alexander the Great. The Ptolemies ruled Egypt until Cleopatra's navy was defeated by Augustus at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. From that point onward, the Romans retained control through the Byzantine era, until the Arabs overwhelmed the Nile Valley in 630 AD. Thus, it is easily seen that there was no strong or enduring native Egyptian dynasty from the time of Nebuchadnezzer until the present.

JA: Errantist: As In Jer. 34:4-5 it is said that the Lord promised Zedekiah that he would die a peaceful death, and that he would be honored by a funeral pyre in the same way the earlier kings were honored. But later we read of Zedekiah's actual fate. After being captured in battle, he was forced to watch his sons being slain. Then Zedekiah himself had his eyes removed and he was bound in chains and placed in a prison in Babylon until he died (Jer. 52:10-11). No funeral pyre in Babylon to honor him is mentioned, but, in the extremely unlikely event there was one, there is still no rational way in which the death of Zedekiah can be called peaceful.

RS: There is no contradiction between the two accounts. The fact that Jeremiah 52:10-11 says that Nebuchadnezzer killed all of Zedekiah's sons and all the princes of Judah, but did not kill Zedekiah, shows that God had spared Zedekiah's life, as promised in Jeremiah 34:4-5. In fact, the account in Jeremiah 34:4-5 could also be taken as God mocking Zedekiah, assuring Zedekiah that he would be buried with spices like his fathers and be in peace until his death, yet all the while planning to have his eyes gouged out and have him put in prison in order to fulfill the prophecy. In the face of outright apostasy, it is not unusual for God to act in this way (cf. Numbers 11:20).

JA: Errantist: Inerrantists are quite positive that the OT authors were accurate in reporting the word of God, despite their obvious partiality. They are so sure of themselves they are even willing to condone the Israelites' intentional slaughter of infants, claiming it wasn't murder, but just a good deed. Do they think that the infamous Son of Sam should have been found innocent of his murders in New York City? After all, he said God spoke to him through a dog. The Son of Sam was no more biased in telling his story than the Israelites were in telling theirs.

RS: This shows the distortion biblical errantists try to create in order to confuse the issue. The Son of Sam has absolutely nothing to do with the God-ordained slaughter of the infants of wicked nations in the OT It shows that the biblical errantist not only thinks there are errors in Scripture, but that the Scriptures are merely the thoughts of the ancient Jews without the benefit of divine inspiration. Thus, the errors of the biblical errantist run much deeper than simply claiming the Bible has errors. They don't believe the Bible is divinely inspired; that God wrote the Bible through men and put His thoughts and desires on paper. The biblical errantist thinks that the Jews merely passed off their own thoughts as God's thoughts. This is totally false. No Pope, Council, or Theologian of Catholic history has ever held to such an aberrant idea.

Tenth Dialogue:

JA: This ought to get you started gentlemen.

Let's look at the Book of Daniel for starters.

RS: Here is Augustine's letter to Jerome:

"For I confess to your charity that I have learned to regard those books of Scripture now called canonical - and them alone - with such awe and honor that I most firmly believe none of their authors has erred in writing ANYTHING. And if I come across anything in those Writings which troubles me because it seems contrary to the truth, I will unhesitatingly lay the blame elsewhere: perhaps the copy is untrue to the original; or the translator may not have rendered the passage faithfully; or perhaps I just do not understand."

JA: Oh, by the way, here are some of the answers I came up with to your questions:

Darius the Mede is called the son of Xerxes in Daniel 5:31 and 9:11, but both are wrong: Darius was not a Mede but a Persian and the father of Xerxes.

RS: They are two different Darius's, Jorge. Darius 1 was a Persian by birth, a cousin of King Cyrus; he was not a Median. Darius was a young man when he assassinated the imposter Guamata in 522. Darius did not precede Cyrus as king of Babylon, rather, he began his reign seven years after the death of Cyrus the Great (as opposed to the higher-critical theory that alleges that the author supposed that he came before Cyrus).

Confusion over the nationality and time sequence of Darius the Great would have been unthinkable in the second-century BC Hellenistic world. Every school boy was required to read Xenophon, and probably Herodotus, and other Greek historians from the fifth and forth centuries BC. Even in Hellenistic Palestine, these authors were widely read and admired. It is from Xenophon and Herodotus that we gain our information concerning Cyrus and Darius. Any Greek-writing author who attempted to put Darius before Cyrus would have been laughed off the stage. Thus, Darius the Mede and Darius the Persian are not the same, and the confusion is in the minds of higher-critical theorists rather than in the mind of Daniel.

Now, someone may object that no reference to "Darius the Mede" has been discovered in archaeology, but there is evidence nonetheless. There are several indications in Daniel that Darius was not a king in his own right but had been temporarily appointed to the throne by a higher authority. In 9:1 it is stated that Darius "was made king." The passive Hebrew stem (the hophal stem) is used in the verb homlak, rather than the usual malak ("became king"). Malak would have been used had he obtained the throne by conquest or by inheritance. In 5:31, Darius "received" (Hebrew qabbel) the kingship, as if it had been entrusted to him by a higher authority. Subordinate or vassal kings were similarly appointed by Cyrus according to the Behistun Rock inscription set up by Darius 1 in the late sixth century. (Thus, Darius's own forebear, Hystaspes, is said to have been "made king" during the time of Cyrus the Great). As the incumbent to the throne of Babylon, it was only a matter of protocol for Cyrus's appointee to assume in official decrees the same titles as had always attached to that title. Thus, the decree of 6:25 is addressed to the inhabitants of "all the earth" or "land." A traditional title going back to the time of Hammurabi (18 th century BC) was Sar Kissati ("king of the universe"). Therefore, this phrase need not be construed as implying that Darius was claiming to be king over all the inhabited world, including Persia itself, as some higher-critics have assumed.

Darius the Mede, in accord with the titles given historically to underlings put in key positions, comes from the Persian Darayawush ("the royal one"), and is related to the word Dara, which appears in Avestan as a term for "king." Like "Augustus" among the Romans, Darayawush may have been a special honorific title, which could also be used as a proper name (just as "King" may be a name in English).

Right after the fall of Babylon to the Medo-Persians, Cyrus's presence was urgently needed on another front of his expanding empire. He therefore found it expedient to put Gabaru-Darius in charge, with the title King of Babylon, to rule for a year or so until Cyrus could return in person and celebrate a formal coronation as king in the temple of Marduk. After his year of rule as regent, then, Darius was retained as the governor of Babylon, but with the crown transferred to his overlord, Cyrus, who had his son, Cambyses, crowned king of Babylon. It is clear from Daniel's lack of mention of any date later than Darius's "first year" (Daniel 9:1) that his reign must have been very brief.

Lastly, Daniel 5 relates the episode of the divine handwriting on the wall. The third term in that inscription is PERES, which Daniel interprets as "your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians." This means that the author of the book believed that kingdom #1 (the Babylonians) passed immediately into the control of the Persians, allied with the Medes, as kingdom #2. This leaves no room for the higher-critical theory of an earlier and separate Median empire as that intended by Daniel. The author must have believed that kingdom #2 was Persian (that is, Medio-Perisian), and that kingdom #3 was the Macedonian-Greek, and that kingdom #4 would overthrow and replace the Greek. The only power that ever overthrew the Greeks was the Roman empire. Therefore, the prophetic import of Daniel, which actually predicted the fall of the Greeks to another power, cannot be negated by higher-criticism.

JA: Belshazzar is called the king of Babylon in Chapter 7 and the son of Bebuchadnezzar in chapter 5. He was neither: he was only crown prince under his father Nabonidus.

RS: Quite the contrary. The biblical information has been strikingly confirmed by archaeological evidence. During previous centuries, many scholars mistakenly assumed that "Belshazzar" was a legendary figure because none of the Greek historians, from Herodotus onward, knew anything about Belshazzar or referred to his name. While it is true that Nabonidus was the king of Babylon at the demise of the Babylonian empire, it has now been well established that he was quartered at Tema in North Arbia at the time of Cyrus's invasion of Babylonia. It was therefore his son, Belshazzar, who was in charge of Babylon itself and who had been crowned as viceroy several years earlier during his father's reign.

Excavations at Ur turned up an inscription of Nabunaid containing a prayer, first for himself, then for his firstborn son, Bel-shar-usur (i.e., Belshazzar). Such prayers were offered only for the reigning monarch. Other cuniform documents record how Belshazzar presented sheep and oxen at the temples of Sippar as "an offering of the king." Since the name of Belshazzar had been forgotten by the time of Herodotus (450 BC), it is clear that the author of Daniel 5 must have written his work earlier than 450 BC. He was well aware that Belshazzar was only the #2 king of Babylon in 539 BC, for all he could offer Daniel as a reward for deciphering the inscription of the wall of the banquet hall was "the third place in the kingdom."

JA: In Chapter 6 Cyrus succeeds Darius as king of the Persians. This, too, has history backward, since Cyrus was the founder of the Persian dynasty.

RS: Jorge, refer to the answer I gave on Darius.

JA: The author seems to be quite confused about his facts. Have fun rewriting history. As soon as you have solved these (i.e., created a solution out of whole cloth) I have many more. These are the easy ones. I won't be so kind next time. :)

RS: Well, Jorge, I hope you understand now that the writer of Daniel was not confused at all. Like Augustine said above in his letter to Jerome, put the blame for the biblical difficulties somewhere else, but don't blame them on the inspired, inerrant word of God.

Robert Sungenis
Catholic Apologetics International
April 21, 2003

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