TILL
No, Ronal, let the chips lie where they may. And back in past postings,
there are some chips lying that proved devastating to your positon. You
wouldn't touch my posting on Deuteronomy 7:1-4, and you know it. Remember
how you would dismiss it by just saying that you aren't a language expert?
BAKER 12/4
I couldn't allow this post to slide by without making a few comments about
the wild claims Mr. Till has made. I went through many of my saved files of
debates between Till and I and found THIRTY-TWO posts that discussed or
mentioned Deuteronomy 7:1-4 in some way. Now to me 32 postings is a lot of
material. That may not be all there were, simply because I went through my
files a while back and trashed many files to free up some space.
TILL 12/4
Certainly, Deuteronomy 7:1-4 had to have been mentioned several times in our
many exchanges, and I'm glad that you did state that we swapped this many
postings on this one verse alone. Perhaps that will convince Matthew that I
didn't run from you. However, if you don't remember the specific posting
that I was referring to, then you have suffered a convenient loss of memory.
I no longer have this in my saved files, because I experienced a garbled
mailbox yesterday, and it was necessary for me to erase over a thousand (can
you believe it!) postings from errancy that I had saved.
BAKER 12/4
I am more than willing to admit that I said I am not a linguistic expert,
but I do not immediately recall which post it was in. You might recall in
some other post that I said that I didn't think you were not an linquistic
expert either. I will try to find the post later.
TILL
I'm going to restate the problem briefly. First here is Deuteronomy 7:1-3
again:
"When Yahweh your God shall bring you into the land where you go to
possess it and shall cast out many nations before you, the Hittite, the
Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the
Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than you, and when Yahweh your
God shall deliver THEM, up before you and you shall smit THEM, then you
shall utterly destroy THEM. You shall make no covenant with THEM nor show
mercy to them. Neither shall you make marriages with THEM."
My argument, if Baker is able to remember, was that the antecedent of the
pronouns "they" and "them" had to have been the seven nations that were
greater and mightier than Israel. In any text, the antecedent of a pronoun
can be substituted without affecting the meaning of the text, so if we do
this in this passage, we have the following:
"When Yahweh your God shall bring you into the land where you go to
possess it and shall cast out many nations before you, the Hittite, the
Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the
Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than you, and when Yahweh your
God shall deliver THE SEVEN NATIONS, up before you and you shall smit THE
SEVEN NATIONS, then you shall utterly destroy THE SEVEN NATIONS. You shall
make no covenant with THE SEVEN NATIONS nor show mercy to them. Neither
shall you make marriages with THE SEVEN NATIONS."
Now if "Moses" was just talking about lions, wolves, dinosaurs, ground
squirrels, etc. in this passage, then we have the following absurdities in
the text: (1) Yahweh was warning the Israelites not to make any covenants
with lions, wolves, dinosaurs, etc. (2) Yahweh was warning the Israelites
not to intermarry with lions, wolves, dinosaurs, etc. To believe that this
is what the text means is so utterly ridiculous that it hardly deserves comment.
BAKER 12/4
Allow me to break in at this point to say that if one assumes what Till is
alledging to be true then he has a point. However, Moses and the Israelites
knew that both animals and humans lived in Canaan. Moses certainly was not
warning the Israelites against marrying lions and squirrels, but warning
them not to marry the human Canaanites, some of which may have been Hivites,
because Hivites were people that herded and cared for cattle. None of the
Perizzites or Girgashites were human, and if Till can show textual evidence
that they were I would sure like to see it. Since I know he cannot, will he
admit that the warnings against marriage could not have been directed at
them? I don't think he will admit to it, and I would be surprised if he will
admit that his postings 'DEVASTATED' my theory that among the seven nations
of Canaan, some of those seven nations were large groups or herds of
animals, including dinosaurs. Now I have admitted I am not a linguistic
expert. Will he admit that to this as well?
TILL 12/4
The reason why Yahweh ordered the Israelites not to intermarry with these
seven nations was that they would be led away to serve other gods (v:4).
Hence, Baker's interpretation requires us to think that lions, wolves,
dinosaurs, etc. had gods that they would influence the Israelites to follow
if intermarriages took place. Now don't you remember, Baker, that you
wouldn't comment on this analysis of Deuteronomy 7:1-3 on the grounds that
you were not a linguistic expert? Even though we pointed out to you that
your not being a linguistic expert had never deterred you from arbitrarily
declaring such things as horses and chariots were really caged birds and
that the OT had been extensively mistranslated, you still wouldn't address
the pronoun-antecedent argument stated above. If you don't remember this,
perhaps you can search your files a little more carefully and find those
postings.
BAKER 12/4
I have already admitted that I am not a linguistic expert. Are you going to
admit that you aren't one either? As far as not addressing the issues of
pronoun-antecedent, I believe that I did address this issue. Remember, I
have 31 more files to examine, and I will present evidence to show that I
did in fact address all of your objections.
TILL 12/4
By the way, I don't intend to renew this discussion, Baker. With over 200
messages backed up in my mailbox, I have no time to take up a "theory" that
in my opinion you didn't even come close to proving back when it dominated
the list. I would, however, appreciate your not misrepresenting to new
subscribers like Matthew my participation in discussions that occurred
before they came onto the list.
BAKER 12/4
Folks I hope you havn't missed what Till is really saying above. He claimed
that he 'DEVASTATED' my theory once, and that I wouldn't 'TOUCH' his
position on Deuteronomy 7:1-4. He is again claiming victory, but as I will
demonstrate he failed to prove anything but his biblical biases. Now if he
will honestly fess up to his "misrepresentations," (read top paragraph), I
will not post the rest of the material from my 31 other posts on Deuteronomy
7 wherein I addressed these issues. Since Till has indicated that I have
"misrepresented" his participation, I would hope that he is intellectually
honest now to admit that he has misrepresented my participation.
Ronal Baker <bakerr@cdsnet.net> Author of *Biblical Dinosaurs*
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The world's first Rapid Evolutionist. Rapid evolution is true
and the Bible proves it!