Till gives a good summation of the facts in this debate in his second response in this post, which Ariel has repeatedly side stepped:
| sub 1: As an aside, my reference to an already existing three year famine is not NEEDED to advance my point. It is based as follows. II Samuel starts with an introduction that God was already angry. Therefore God was quoted as offering 7 years of famine. That means a full 7 years. 3 already and 3 to come (the 7th is because after 6 years of famine, the ground may be ready to produce in the 7th but the field must be planted and the crop grown and harvested. Since the people are still waiting for food in year 7 it is the 7th year of famine). I Chronicles does not prelude by saying "And God was angry". |
TILL
No, the Chronicler didn't say this. In fact, he said that Satan
had moved David to take the census. This is consistent with
the Chronicler's whitewashing efforts in which he cut out all
of the dirt about David and tried to make him look like Mr.
Goody Two Shoes.
ARIEL
| The Chronicler is therefore just focusing on the ultimatum presented as three sets of choices about new evils in three while ignoring the fact of the previous famine already underway. |
TILL
You are showing that you can offer explanations just as speculative
as anything Christian inerrantists have to offer, but you are
conspicuously lacking in textual support for your assertions. Here
are the facts as stated in 2 Samuel 24.
1. David ordered a census.
2. After the census had been taken, David said to Yahweh, "I have
sinned greatly in what I have done, but now, Yahweh, put away
the iniquity of YOUR SERVANT, for I have done very foolishly"
(2 Sam. 24:10).
3. So far nothing has been said about "sins" that the people had done.
4. Yahweh sent the prophet Gad to offer David three choices of
punishment (v:12)
5. Gad offered to David the famine as one of the punishments (v:13).
6. Nothing was said anywhere in Gad's message to David that
the famine was being offered as a "hint" to the Israelites that
they had better shape up.
I challenge you to cite any language in either account of this
incident that indicates that the people even knew about Gad's
message to David.
I'll remind you again that we want real evidence here and not
speculations.
ARIEL
| Further proof textually can be found since II Samuel 21 starts by saying there was in fact a famine of 3 years in that time. |
TILL
Yes, it does, and this chapter was going to be my next source of
an example of punishing others for the sins of someone else. Let's
look at the text.
| 2 Samuel 21:1 Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David inquired of Yahweh. Yahweh said, "There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death." 2 So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had tried to wipe them out in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.) 3 David said to the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you? How shall I make expiation, that you may bless the heritage of Yahweh?" 4 The Gibeonites said to him, "It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put anyone to death in Israel." He said, "What do you say that I should do for you?" 5 They said to the king, "The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us, so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel-- 6 let seven of his sons be handed over to us, and we will impale them before Yahweh at Gibeon on the mountain of Yahweh." The king said, "I will hand them over." 7 But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Saul's son Jonathan, because of the oath of Yahweh that was between them, between David and Jonathan son of Saul. 8 The king took the two sons of Rizpah daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Merab daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite; 9 he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they impaled them on the mountain before Yahweh. The seven of them perished together. They were put to death in the first days of harvest, at the beginning of barley harvest. |
Just look at what we have here. The text clearly indicates
that Yahweh sent the famine, because when David inquired
of Yahweh (as biblical characters often did in those days),
Yahweh told him that the famine had been sent because
Saul had put the Gibeonites to death. Saul did something
wrong, and after Saul was dead, Yahweh punished the
Israelites by sending a famine upon them. Then David
delivered seven of Saul's descendants to the Gibeonites
to be impaled, after which "God heeded supplications
for the land" (v:14).
I fail to see how Ariel thought that this passage would help
him. All that it proves is that I am right in saying that the Tanakh
contains numerous examples of people being punished, with
Yahweh's approval, for sins that were committed by others. Why
doesn't this violate the Yahwistic decree in Deuteronomy 24:16?
Please address the issue, Ariel.
ARIEL
| This seems to be the same famine. Notice that the Chronicler did not even mention the previous famine even in a previous chapter as Samuel did. |
TILL
Well, the Chronicler didn't mention a lot of things that were in the
books of Samuel and Kings, so his silence on this point doesn't
prove very much. Your claim that this three-year famine was the
beginning of the same famine that Gad offered to David as
punishment in chapter 24 is flawed, because as I noted above,
after David had given seven of Saul's grandchildren to the
Gibeonites to appease Yahweh's anger, verse 14 claims that
Yahweh then heard supplications for the land. In other words,
the famine was over at that time. The rest of chapter 21 describes
wars that David had with the Philistines, so time had obviously
passed from the famine in chapter 21 to the census in chapter 24.
Ariel cited this chapter apparently without considering what it
would do to his position. Let's just assume that the famine offered
in chapter 24 was connected to the one in chapter 21. If so, this
would explain why Yahweh's was angry with Israel. He was angry
because Saul had killed some Gibeonites, and so he had sent a
famine upon the land. This would be another case of Yahweh
punishing people for something they had not personally done,
so if sending the pestilence in chapter 24 was something Yahweh
did (as Ariel is claiming) because of his anger at Israel, this
would mean that Yahweh gave the people a double whammy
for things that they had not done, first the famine because of
Saul's sin and then the pestilence because of David's sin.
How does Ariel think that any of this helps his case?
ARIEL
| Sub2: TILL mentions that David did not choose his punishment. He did in fact choose. He said:" Let us fall into the hands of God..". |
TILL
Look at the account as recorded in 1 Chronicles 21.
| 1 Chronicles 21:13 Then David said to Gad, "I am in great distress; let ME fall into the hand of Yahweh, for his mercy is very great; but let ME not fall into human hands." |
So this raises an interesting issue. What did David say to Gad?
Did he say "me" or "us"? This is just another case of discrepancy
in the Tanakh, because it isn't possible that he said both "us" and
"me." However, let's assume for the sake of argument, that he
said "us." What would this prove? If you are claiming that the
"us" meant both him and the population at large, I'd like for you
to support that with textual evidence. There is no reason why
we could not assume that, if this conversation happened at
all, David meant (1) "us" in the royal sense, or (2) "us" in the
sense of him and the ones who had actually taken the census.
ARIEL
| By saying "us" he avoided famine as a choice because they would have little food but would always feed the king. |
TILL
| 9 And the LORD spake unto Gad, David's seer, saying, 10 Go and tell David, saying, Thus saith the LORD, I offer THEE three things: choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto THEE. 11 So Gad came to David, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Choose THEE 12 Either three years' famine; or three months to be destroyed before THY foes, while that the sword of THINE enemies overtaketh THEE; or else three days the sword of the LORD, even the pestilence, in the land, and the angel of the LORD destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel. Now therefore advise THYSELF what word I shall bring again to him that sent me. 13 And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: let ME fall now into the hand of the LORD; for very great are his mercies: but let ME not fall into the hand of man. |
I have quoted the KJV here so that the individual, personal
nature of the punishments will be made clearer. Notice the
archaic second-person singular pronouns thee, thy, thine,
and thyself. These indicate that the punishments were
directed to David personally. In telling Gad to let HIM
fall into the hands of Yahweh, David's obvious meaning
was that he was leaving it up to Yahweh to choose the
punishment.
To argue otherwise is crass quibbling. You quibbled that
a famine would not have punished David because, as
king, he would have gotten whatever food was available,
but the pestilence skipped David too. He wasn't punished
by it, so in what sense was the pestilence punishment
to David that the famine would not have been?
Please remember that we want textual evidence and not
speculative assertions.
ARIEL
| By saying "not into human hands" he was rejecting war where he would be protected by his men. |
TILL
Would you like for me to cite some examples of biblical
kings who were killed in war? Anyway, as I showed above,
the pestilence skipped David, so in what sense did this
punishment afflict David directly? You're resorting to
quibbles as flagrant as any I have seen from Christian
inerrantists.
ARIEL
| By saying "into God's hands" he was including himself at equal risk with his people by plague which is directly an act of God's hands. Plague does not discriminate between kings and peasants so he chose that. |
TILL
And your textual proof that David selected the plague is
what? If this was a direct selection that David had made,
then why didn't the text say so? How hard would it have
been for the writer to have said that David said, "I choose
the plague so that I won't fall into the hands of men"? At
any rate, the plague didn't affect David personally, but
since it was a plague that had been sent by Yahweh and
since David ALONE had sinned, why didn't Yahweh make
sure that David died from the plague?
Could you explain some problems to us without resorting
to flagrant speculation and quibbles?
KESLER
| Ariel is arguing that 2 Samuel 24 provides an example of the punishment prescribed in Exodus 30:11-13. However, notice that Exodus 30 specifically states that if the Israelite men did not give "an atonement for [their]soul[s]," there would be "a plague among them WHEN COUNTING THEM." In other words, if the proper tribute were not paid, Yahweh was to send a "plague" during the very census itself, not after the census was concluded as is the case in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21. In fact, 2 Samuel 24:8 says that the census took "nine months and twenty days," so if the failure to pay tribute was the cause of the plague, Yahweh certainly took his time in exacting punishment. Also, since when does Yahweh give people a choice about a punishment he decrees for a "sin"? If a "plague" was the predetermined punishment for census-taking without a monetary tribute, why did Yahweh even give David choices about the punishment? ARIEL 1) I believe the plague occured mid-census. My textual proof is I Chronicles 27:24 "Yoav the son of Zeruiah commenced to count but DID NOT FINISH and there was wrath...". |
TILL
Excuse me, Ariel, but the census in 1 Chronicles 27:24
was not the census in chapter 21. The census in chapter 27
was being taken to choose those who would serve in "courses"
in the temple that was being planned. In chapter 23, "David
was old and full of days" (v:1), so he made Solomon king.
He then gathered all the princes and began the process of
choosing those who would serve in Solomon's government.
If you would read from chapter 23 on forward in 1 Chronicles,
you should see this.
ARIEL
| 2) a. I am pretty sure that the fact King David got a choice has no bearing on TILL's assertion against my position. |
TILL
As I have said, we like to see textual evidence and not
assertions that you are "pretty sure" of.
ARIEL
| b. As far as I know, God can and does and says he will commute or change punishments. Exodus 33:19 "...I shall show favor when I choose to show favor and I shall show mercy when I choose to show mercy." |
TILL
This is not the issue. The issue is whether Yahweh can
punish someone for an offense committed by another and
not violate his own decree in Deuteronomy 24:16. I keep
hoping that you'll be different from the Christian inerrantists
who have tried to address this issue, and give us a reply,
but I'm losing hope that you will do any better than the others.
ARIEL
| c. As to why each choice would make a difference in II Samuel 24? I don't know. Maybe your guess is as good as mine. I venture that it was an opportunity for King David to show solidarity with his people by choosing the only punishment where he could also suffer. This set a scriptural example to follow for other future leaders on how to feel regarding one's people. Since the Bible was given so we could learn from it, maybe that is what we learn; that a leader must throw his lot in with the people. |
TILL
You have yet to show that David chose the pestilence. When
do you plan to do that? If you ever do, please try to explain
why if David ALONE had sinned, Yahweh would have sent a
pestilence that killed 70,000 people but skipped over the one
who was responsible for having ticked off the omni one.
ARIEL
| An IDEALIST is willing to suffer for what he believes in. A FANATIC is willing to make OTHERS suffer for what he believes in. |
TILL
I like that, but it doesn't explain anything in the problem
now before us.
Farrell Till
No comments:
Post a Comment