Sins Of The Fathers (3)

Farrell Till continues his rebuttal of David Ariel's evasions:

The lengthy section that Ariel skipped over has been snipped.

ARIEL First I maintain that when David made his speech "I alone  sinned" it was David's opinion and plea which any righteous  monarch would use before his God.

TILL

YOU maintain this, but in this forum we like to see arguments 

to support what one maintains. Such arguments are 

conspicuously absent in your replies. Please understand that 

argumentation by asserting, question begging, and special 

pleading is frowned upon in this forum.

Is it your contention that David was wrong when he said that 

he ALONE had sinned? Furthermore, David asked a question: 

"What have these sheep done?" If David was not the only one 

who had sinned, then state specifically what the "sheep" had 

done and support your answer with textual evidence.

By the way, I hope you will study this posting to take notice 

of how a serious debater will take his opponent's material 

and reply to it point by point.

ARIEL

A king is supposed to take responsibility for his leadership.

TILL

Does that mean he is supposed to lie? Did David lie when he said 

that he ALONE had sinned? Would you agree that "what have 

these sheep done?" was a rhetorical question? If so, what does 

that imply about the meaning of David's statement?

ARIEL

But, we don't see the text validating David's claim as far as  God is concerned.

TILL

Was the question rhetorical? If so, would that not be validation 

of David's statement that he ALONE had sinned.

As for textual validation, I certainly don't see the text validating 

what you are claiming. Could you give us that textual validation?

ARIEL

God or his prophet is not recorded as having agreed with  David's  premise that he alone sinned.

TILL

It doesn't? When "the word of Yahweh came to Gad" (2 Sam. 

24:11)  to tell him to go rebuke David, Yahweh told Gad to go 

to David  and offer him three things, one of which David was 

to choose,  so that Yahweh could do it "unto thee" (v:12). I 

have quoted  the KJV here to emphasize that Yahweh clearly 

said that the  punishment that David chose would be done to 

David (thee).  Yahweh mentioned nothing about the people 

and the sins that  you are alleging they had committed. 

Furthermore, when Gad  went to David, Gad said nothing 

about the people either.

ARIEL

In fact, the text states that God relented on His own BEFORE  David even uttered his plea.

TILL

So what? How does that prove that Yahweh didn't punish 70,000 

people for something that David ALONE had done? You like 

analogies, so let's look at one. Suppose that an absolute dictator 

is angered by an act that X does. The dictator then begins 

killing people who had nothing to do with what X had done. 

After the dictator has massacred 70,000 people he stops the 

killing, at which time X says that he alone had done wrong and 

asks the dictator, "What did the seventy thousand who have 

been killed do?" Would the fact that the dictator had stopped the 

killing before X expressed disapproval mean that the dictator 

was really a nice guy? Would the fact that the dictator had 

stopped the killing prior to X's complaint prove that the seventy 

thousand were not killed for something that they didn't do?

ARIEL

This shows that God did not need David's confession or reasoning  to end the plague. Such reasoning apparently had nothing to  do with the decision.

TILL

But the fact that, as this tale is told, Yahweh stopped the plague 

before David's confession would in no way alter the fact that 

Yahweh  had killed 70,000 people for something that David had 

done.  Your task is to show that the 70,000 were killed for sins 

they  had  done. If this was the case, where does the text state 

what  you are  claiming?

ARIEL

I did not discuss if a tax would have helped. Either way it  isn't relevant to our case's main thrust. The text of Exodus 30  states " so that there will not be a plague among them when  counting them. The text thereby expresses clearly that it is the  counting that is the basis for the plague.

TILL

You need to sharpen your interpretative skills. If the counting 

was the basis for the plague, then why didn't Yahweh send a 

plague? The census (counting) took place, but no plague was 

sent, and that was because the tax was paid (Ex. 38:25). 

Obviously, then, the text was saying that the tax should be 

paid so that there would be no plague. Yahweh was, in other

words warning, that if they did not pay a half-shekel tax for 

every male counted, a plague would be sent. Since they paid 

the tax, no plague was sent, even though the counting took 

place.

ARIEL

Furthermore, the verse never says that the punishment for  doing so is plague (for if you do this bad thing such and  such then the punishment is such and such) like the Bible  says in other verses about other sins. It rather says passively  "so that there will not be a plague" as if to say "don't risk  the chance of this danger".

TILL

Well, I just explained how that your interpretation just won't 

work. If the mere act of counting would cause a plague to 

be sent, then the census at this time would have caused a 

plague. No plague, however, occurred even though the census 

was taken, so obviously the statement meant that the

half-shekel tax had to be paid or else a plague would be sent 

against the people. If upon entering a theater you saw a sign 

that said, "Please don't smoke when you enter the theater so 

that you won't be removed," would you understand this to 

mean that if you entered the theater, you would be removed, 

or would you understand it to mean that if you smoked after

entering, you would be removed?

Well, heck, why don't we just look at an example from the very 

same chapter of Exodus.

Exodus 30:20 When they [Aaron and his sons] go into the tent  of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to  make an offering by fire to Yahweh, they shall wash with water,  so that they may not die. 21 They shall wash their hands and their feet, so that they may  not die: it shall be a perpetual ordinance for them, for him and  for his descendants throughout their generations.

Surely you can see that the act of going into the tabernacle or 

going near the altar would not bring death to the priests. It would 

have been the act of entering the tabernacle and approaching 

the altar without washing their feet and hands that would have 

brought death to them. In the same way, the act of taking the 

census would not have caused a plague, because the census

was taken and no plague occurred. The warning was that if the 

males didn't pay the half-shekel tax after being counted, a 

plague would be sent.

ARIEL

The text of I Chronicles 21:3 quotes general Yoav "Why should  this be a source of guilt for Israel?" The text gives us a clear clue  here. The count was not to be a source of "sin" for Israel but a  source of "guilt". There lies the difference.

TILL

Or rather there lies the quibble. How could there have been 

"guilt" unless there had been an offense or "sin" first?

ARIEL

Yoav was not concerned about a vicarious sin or a direct sin.  He was concerned with the legal concept of guilty vs. not guilty.  He knew that Israel had already sinned as proven by the text  of II Samuel 24:1 "The anger of God again flared against Israel.... Go count the people". This shows that anger had flared even  before the count.

TILL

Well, let's fill in the ellipsis to see what you left out.

The anger of the Lord again flared up against Israel; AND  HE INCITED DAVID AGAINST THEM, saying, "Go number  Israel and Judah.

Your spin on this makes the situation even worse. Yahweh 

had his feathers ruffled about something that isn't specified, 

and he incited David to number the people. This makes the 

census Yahweh's doing, which he achieved through the orders 

of the king, but then he punished 70,000 people for

something that he and David were responsible for.

I'll ask again, whatever happened to the principle decreed in 

Deuteronomy 24:16?

Parents shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall  children be put to death for their parents; only for their  own crimes may persons be put to death.

ARIEL

Yoav was worried that the sins that until now had not brought  punishment and were mercifully ruled to be "not guilty" would  now become a "guilty" verdict as a result of the effects of the  count.

TILL

Let's look at the parallel text in 1 Chronicles 21.

21:3 But Joab said, "May Yahweh increase the number of his  people a hundredfold! Are they not, my lord the king, all of them  my lord's servants? Why then should my lord require this?  Why should he bring guilt on Israel?"

I will repeat that nothing was ever said in either account of this 

incident to explain why there was some sin involved in taking a 

census, but the way the story was told, the writers apparently 

understood that there was a sin involved. The text above proves 

nothing except that Joab thought that taking the census would 

be wrong and that he also thought that Yahweh might blame 

the people if a census were taken.   There is nothing at all 

unusual in this idea, because we are talking about a time when 

people thought that their gods often put the blame for sin on those 

who had not committed the sin. After all of this has been said, 

stubborn facts still remain unexplained. David took a census 

and then afterwards realized that he had sinned. A prophet was 

sent to offer David his choice of three punishments. David chose 

to let Yahweh decide the punishment. Yahweh selected to send a 

plague that left David unharmed but killed 70,000 people

who had had nothing to do with ordering the census. David said 

that he ALONE had sinned and rhetorically asked, "What have 

these sheep done?"

Put it all together and you have an example of people being 

killed for the offense of another, something that clearly violated 

Deuteronomy 24:16.

ARIEL

Finally, the text of the Torah shows us that Kings could not just  do as they pleased in ancient Israel. The Bible says that a king  is to be bound by the rules of the Torah like any ordinary citizen  and more so; to quote Deut 17:14-20 "......to observe all the  words of this Torah and these decrees, to perform them, so that  his heart does not become haughty over his brethren and not  turn from the commandment right or left so that he will prolong  years....". The people have the right to reject the king's  command  if it violates the law.

TILL

How could the people have "rejected" the king's order to be
counted when that order was being carried out by the king's
chief general and the army he commanded?

1 Samuel 24:4 But the king's word prevailed against Joab  and the commanders of the army. So Joab AND THE  COMMANDERS OF THE ARMY went out from the presence  of the king to take a census of the people of Israel. 5 They crossed the Jordan, and began from Aroer and from  the city that is in the middle of the valley, toward Gad and  on to Jazer.

I could just see some Israelite peasant saying to Joab and 
his troops, "No, I won't let you count me; it just isn't right." 
In the first place, how could someone keep the army from 
counting him and the members of his family?

ARIEL

In conclusion I still maintain the above textual information  shows: 1) Israel was already sinful.

TILL

If that is the case, they should have been punished for
whatever these sins were and not for something that David
commanded and his army executed.

ARIEL

2) A census made the nation vulnerable to being considered  guilty for those other sins.

TILL

I showed above how the text in question will prove only that
Joab thought that if a sin was involved in taking a census,
his all-loving Yahweh might hold the people responsible. The
text says nothing about other sins of the people. Any way you
look at it, your god Yahweh had some glaring character flaws.
If I didn't like something that my children had done but let the

matter go without punishment, what kind of person would I be
if the next week my wife did something to offend me, and I
then said to my children, "Well, your mother has ticked me
off, so now you're going to have to pay for what you did last
week"?

ARIEL

3) King David's plea "I alone" was not a relevant factor as  far as God was concerned. King David's plea of "I alone" did  not make it so simply because the Bible records the plea.

TILL

And your textual support for this is what? As I asked before,
did David lie when he said that he ALONE had sinned? If you
say he did, I have another text to quote that will create another
contradiction in the Tanakh.

ARIEL

4) Kings in Israel did not have authority to act against the  Torah.

TILL

Well, okay, I'll just jump ahead and show that if David acted
"against the Torah" in this matter, then there is another
contradiction in the Tanakh.

1 Kings 15:4 Nevertheless for David's sake Yahweh his God  gave him a lamp in Jerusalem, setting up his son after him,  and establishing Jerusalem; 5 because David did what was right in the sight of Yahweh,  and did not turn aside from anything that he commanded  him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the  Hittite.

Uriah wasn't involved in the census in any way because he was 
already dead, so if David acted against the Torah in taking the 
census, the writer of 1 Kings erred in saying that David never 
turned aside from anything that Yahweh had commanded him 
all the days of his life except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.

ARIEL

Therefore, your assertion that people were killed for David's  sin is false. They were killed for their own sins even though  David's actions helped bring those sins under focus. Since  the people could have protested, they shared the problem.

TILL

All three of these points have been rebutted above. I hope
you will try to answer them this time instead of skipping to
the end of this reply and making some general, unsupported
comments (assertions).

ARIEL

You should rather find a case where Peter stole and God  imprisoned Paul for the theft or Peter ate pork and Paul  was lashed for it.You have yet to present such a case.

TILL

What about a case where a man committed adultery that
resulted in the birth of a child whom Yahweh then killed?
Would that suffice?

ARIEL

I await your rebuttal.

TILL

You have my rebuttal. Now I'm waiting to see if you answer
my points or just skip over them.

I'll reply to your aside about the famine in a third part.

Farrell Till