Blood, Water and Magicians (1b)
Farrell Till jftill@midwest.net
Wed, 30 Sep 1998 20:19:09 -0700 (00907229949, 2.2.32.19981001031909.00895910@midwest.net)
At 04:16 PM 9/30/98 +0100, Matthew Bell wrote:
>> > >
>> > > F.TILL
>> > > Perhaps you or someone in your CCBE group can explain to
>> > > us how the magicians were able to pull off this remarkable
>> > > stunt'
>> >
>> > CCBE
>> > No, we cannot, as the text does not indicate how the feat was
>> > accomplished, only that it was.
>> >
>> F.TILL
>> You have already admitted this, so why don't you now turn your attention to
>> proving that the text was historically accurate in its claim that the
>> magicians, in some unknown way, duplicated Aaron's and Moses' feat? How
>> would you go about doing that without just assuming the accuracy of the
>> biblical text, but the accuracy of the biblical text is what we are
>> debating, so if you are just going to assume the truth of what you are
>> affirming, you will be reasoning in a circle. I would think that even you
>> would know that this is fallacious reasoning.
>>
>CCBE
>We have the Biblical record claiming the occurrence of both the initial act by
>Moses/Aaron and that of the duplication by the magicians. Why ask us to
>demonstrate the historical accuracy of one and not the other?
TILL
Well, I AM asking you to demonstrate the historical accuracy of both.
Haven't you been reading the postings? We have pointed out that Egyptian
records make no reference at all to any national catastrophes like the ten
plagues, and Michael Fisher pointed out that the changing of all of the
water of Egypt into blood would have necessarily caused the economic
collapse of Egypt and pollution that would have had effects on the ecology
outside of Egypt. You have made no attempt to respond to these points.
In my original posting, which I cut and pasted from a written debate with
Jerry Moffitt (a Church-of-Christ preacher who chickened out when the going
got too rough for him), I noted that if we concede the existence of an
all-powerful deity who was behind the efforts of Aaron and Moses to secure
the release of the Israelites, then certainly changing rods into serpents
and water into blood would be recognizably possible, BUT no one, not even an
omnipotent deity, could change water that didn't exist into blood. Hence,
my line of argumentation was based on a concession that your god Yahweh
exists and that he could have enabled Aaron and Moses to perform the
remarkable miracles in the story of the 10 plagues, but I was also arguing
that not even this magnificent Yahweh could do that which is logistically
impossible to do. The changing of water into blood after ALL of the water
in Egypt has already been changed into blood is logistically impossible, and
the killing of livestock with hail after ALL of the livestock of Egypt had
already been killed by the plague of murrain would also have been
logistically impossible. How could these events have happened?
This is the issue, Matt, so why don't you and your CCBE cohorts get busy and
solve this problem?
CCBE
> Why are you moving the goalposts of the original matter under discussion,
i.e. >whether there is a matter of errancy in the recording of the events.
In asking such >of us it appeared that, for the sake of argument you were
taking an
>if-these-events-occurred-then etc, approach.
TILL
No, you are only partially right. If my position is that it would have been
logistically impossible for even an omnipotent god to change into blood
water that didn't exist, then certainly I couldn't have been taking an
if-these-events-occurred approach. My approach was a simple request for you
to explain how that even if A (Aaron's miracle of changing all the water of
Egypt into blood) had happened, B (the magicians of Egypt doing the same
with their enchantments) could have happened. The problem is simple. Aaron
and Moses allegedly changed all the water that existed in Egypt into blood,
and the magicians then allegedly changed all the water that DIDN'T exist in
Egypt into blood. If the first event happened, how could the second one
have happened. That's the problem, and we are still waiting for an explanation.
CCBE
>If you required validation of the historical relaibility of the events then
that should >have been your first question.
TILL
See the above and then try to explain to us how that if A happened, B could
have happened.
CCBE
>Except for the biblical record itself we know of no other unbiased
validation that >the events occured.
TILL
No OTHER "unbiased validation"? Are you actually claiming that the biblical
account is an unbiased record?
CCBE
>If you consider there is contrary evidence then please present it, though
we would >request that this is withheld until the present matter of the text
is concluded.
>>
TILL
My evidence to the contrary is simple logic. If ALL of the water throughout
all the land of Egypt had been changed into blood, then it would have been
logically impossible for the magicians to have done the same with their
enchantments. So until you can explain how that such would be possible, why
is it not reasonable to see the logistic impossibility as "contrary
evidence"? As for the "present matter of the text," what is there to
conclude? You have admitted that the text does not say how the Egyptians
managed to do the same with their enchantments, and you just stated (above)
that other than for the biblical record you know of no "other unbiased
validation" of the event. So why wouldn't the "present matter of the text"
already be concluded?
Farrell Till
Skepticism, Inc.
jftill@midwest.net