Commentators of All Stripes
Farrell Till jftill@midwest.net
Mon, 19 Oct 1998 16:32:47 -0700 (00908857967, 2.2.32.19981019233247.0087d170@midwest.net)
TILL
In his "rebuttal" of the apparent discrepancy in 2 Kings 10:30 and Hosea 1:4
concerning Jehu's massacre at Jezreel, Robert Turkel, who writes under the
pseudonym "James Patrick Holding," argued that credence should be given to his
resolution of the problem, because it represented the thinking of
"commentators of all stripes." In other words, he was claiming that his
resolution represented the views of "commentators" who were liberal and
moderate as well as conservative. I replied to this argument in my 28-part
response, so there is no need to show again that this argument proves
nothing for the simple reason that there are many biblical views that are
shared by liberal, moderate, and conservative Christians. That the Bible
contains errors, for example, is an opinion that is shared by many liberal
and moderate Christians, as well as even some conservatives, but I'm sure
that Turkel would not see this as a reason to change his belief in biblical
inerrancy.
To see just how accurate Turkel's claim is that his view of Hosea 1:4
represents the theological opinion of "commentators of all stripes," I have
been tracking down the sources that he cited in the article I replied to,
and so I will be taking these sources one at a time to see just what kind
of "stripes" they are. Turkel relied heavily on the opinion of Thomas Edward
McComiskey as presented in two works: (1) *The Minor Prophets,* vol. 1,
Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1992, and (2) "Prophetic Irony in Hosea
1.4: A Study of the Collocation [PQD AL] and Its Implications for the Fall
of Jehu's Dynasty," *Journal for the Study of the Old Testament,* 58, 1993,
pp. 93-101.
I call attention first to the fact that McComiskey's commentary was
published by Baker Book House of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and, needless to
say, this is not a publisher who is noted for objective biblical scholarship.
All that one needs to do to check me on this is visit several "Christian"
book stores and examine the materials on their shelves. Besides being
generally trite, much of it is published by the evangelical and
fundamentalist publishing companies in Grand Rapids. This, of course, is
not intended to mean that McComiskey's view must be considered wrong by
virtue of what company published it, but it does give reason to suspect that
the scholarship represented in it may not be objectively impartial or as
profound as Turkel would have us think. Just as one would hardly expect to
find objective scholarship in *The National Enquirer* or the *NRA Journal,"
so one would expect that in all probability evangelical or fundamentalist
views of the Bible will be found in materials published in Grand Rapids,
Michigan. An inerrantist position on the Bible would be one of those views.
An examination of McComiskey's commentary increases suspicion that this just
may not be an objective biblical reference work, because it turns out that
McComiskey is a "professor of Old Testament Exegesis and Biblical Theology"
at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. For those
who may not know, this is the same "divinity school" where Gleason Archer
teaches. Archer, as many reading this will recognize, is probably the chief
guru of biblical inerrancy, and is known primarily for his book
*Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties,* a work that is heavily relied on by
biblical fundamentalists looking for "solutions" to Bible discrepancies. In
the introduction to this work, Archer gave the following advice to his
readers who encounter problem passages in the Bible:
>Be fully persuaded in your own mind that an adequate explanation
>exists, even though you have not yet found it.
In other words, Archer's advice to his readers is that they approach the
Bible with the assumption that it is inerrant, and even when they can see no
explanation to an apparent discrepancy, they should still assume inerrancy.
Now it may be that McComiskey does not share Archer's view of the Bible, but
I suspect that he does, because it would be unlikely that he would be on the
staff of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School unless he did accept the
premise of biblical inerrancy. In examining his commentary, I saw no
suggestion at all that he is not a biblical inerrantist. Indeed, everything
seemed to be written on the premise that he was commenting on a book that
contained God's dealings with his chosen people.
At this stage of my investigation into Turkel's "commentators of all
stripes," it appears very likely that he used only two or three primary
sources, even though his endnotes contained 17 listings. Although I won't
know until I have been able to look through all of the books that Turkel
cited, I suspect that he pulled a ploy that was very familiar to me from my
days of teaching college writing. It was quite common for students to find
two or three primary references that contained within them quotations or
references to other works and then try to present the secondary references
as works that they had consulted in researching their papers. In such cases,
a bibliography of 20 entries may represent only two or three books that were
consulted during "research." McComiskey, for example, referred to the
opinions of Francis Andersen and David Noel Freedman, and so in Turkel's
"rebuttal" of my article, he mentioned the same opinions of Andersen and
Freedman that McComiskey had cited, and then Andersen and Freedman were
listed in Turkel's endnotes. McComiskey cited these two, along with James
Luther Mays, Hans Walter Wolff, and Leon K. Wood, as "modern commentators"
who have views on Hosea 1:4 that were different from his, and this was done
in a short paragraph of only eight lines. All of these names, however,
turned up in Turkel's endnotes as works that he had consulted. Did Turkel
actually consult all of these works, or
did he just kill six birds with one stone by consulting McComiskey's
commentary and then listing McComiskey's five secondary sources as works
that he had also consulted? He may have consulted them all, but I will be
better able to make a judgment about this after I have seen all of their
works too. For now, it seems at least possible that these six listings
represent only one source that Turkel actually consulted in the writing of
his article. At any rate, it was misleading of Turkel to claim that his
view of Hosea 1:4 represented the opinion of "commentators of all stripes,"
because of the six listed above, only McComiskey agreed with Turkel (or to
be more accurate, only Turkel agreed with McComiskey). McComiskey
specifically cited Andersen, Freedman, Mays, Wolff, and Wood as "modern
commentators" with views that disagreed with his, so that would hardly
constitute a consensus of "commentators of all stripes." In McComiskey's
article in *Journal for the Study of the Old Testament,* McComiskey even
noted that Andersen and Freedman said on page 175 of their commentary that
"(c)learly [pqd dam 'al] means to punish the house of Jehu for murder," so
certainly the "stripes" of these two commentators can't be considered in
agreement with Turkel's (McComiskey's) spin on Hosea 1:4. At this point, it
is obvious that the view of Hosea 1:4 that Turkel presented in his
article was the opinion of only one commentator of a very inerrantist
stripe, and that was Thomas Edward McComiskey. On the matter of what
"paqad" meant in Hebrew, Turkel simply parroted McComiskey's view back to
his readers, and praised himself for in-depth scholarship.
As I continue to receive the books that Turkel cited, I will post further
evaluations of his "commentators of all stripes." In doing so, I intend to
keep readers reminded of a gross inconsistency in Turkel's view on the value
of quoting commentators. In his article that I answered, he repeatedly
paraded before his readers that his view represented the thinking of
"commentators of all stripes," and so that somehow gave more credibility to
his view. On another internet list, however, Turkel completely ridiculed
the notion that quoting sources gives support to one's views. An
inerrantist member of my Errancy list founded a list of his own, which he
called CCBE (Christians Combating Biblical Errancy), for the avowed purpose
of forming a closed forum where biblical inerrantists could consider in
secrecy the arguments of Dennis McKinsey and me and then post collective
replies. The list was closed to all who did not profess to be Christians,
and the owner of the list became very upset when some of his members
forwarded to me some materials that had been posted on CCBE. It so
happened that one of the postings forwarded to me had been submitted by Turkel.
The issue concerned the claim in Exodus that after Aaron and Moses had
changed all of the water throughout all the land of Egypt into blood,
pharaoh's magicians did "so" or "in like manner" with their enchantments.
Inerrantists were asked to explain how that the magicians could have changed
all of the water in Egypt into blood after Aaron and Moses had already
changed all of the water in Egypt into blood. The collective response of
the CCBE was that "all didn't mean all" and that the magicians had dug along
the bank of the Nile, found water, filled some pots, and changed this into
blood. This quibble was based on the claim in Exodus 7:24 that the
Egyptians did dig along the river for water TO DRINK, and so the CCBE
reasoned that this was how the magicians obtained water with which to do
"likewise with their enchantments."
In responding to this "rebuttal," I noted that the text refers to digging
for water TO DRINK after it says that he magicians had done likewise with
their enchantments, and I also quoted Philo Judaeus, a first-century
contemporary of Jesus, who claimed that "every particle of water in Egypt"
had been changed into blood and that when the Egyptians tried to dig for
water, they found that it too was blood. This was where Turkel came to the
rescue of the struggling CCBE members with the following statement:
>That's nice, but Philo is simply reading into the text what is not there.
>So if I find a Jewish commentator of equal worth that says the opposite, is
>it a draw? If I find two, do I win? Remember that Philo is trying to
>promote Moses and Aaron here and would maximize their feat to the
>greatest extent possible.
Here Turkel took the position that quoting commentators proves nothing, so
if I applied his line of reasoning to his reliance on the opinion of
McComiskey concerning the meaning of "paqad" in Hosea 1:4, all I would have
to do is quote another commentator who disagreed with McComiskey, and then
we would have a draw rather than the overwhelming victory that Turkel
claimed throughout his article on the grounds that his view represented
"commentators of all stripes." To find a commentator whom I could quote
would be simple, because McComiskey did that himself in noting that Andersen
and Freedman say that Hosea 1:4 clearly meant that the house of Jehu would
be punished for murder. However, since Andersen and Freedman would be two
commentators, that means that by Turkel's own logic, I win two to one.
Furthermore, since McComiskey identified three other commentators (Mays,
Wolff, and Wood) who have different views, then it becomes five commentators
against one, so I really have won (according to Turkel's logic).
Anyway, more will follow as I find the works that Turkel cited and examine
them to determine what "stripes" they wear on the inerrancy issue. The next
one I expect to receive is Douglas Stuart's commentary on Hosea and Jonah.
I noticed in Turkel's endnotes that it was printed by "Word" publishers in
Waco, Texas, so I'm betting in advance that this will turn out to be another
fundamentalist publishing company. We'll just have to wait to see.
I will remind readers too that I have challenged Turkel to debate this issue
on an open internet forum that will allow readers to see EVERYTHING that
both of us post on the subject. This would eliminate "selective quoting" of
an opponent as Turkel has done in his articles that purported to be
"replies" to my materials. When readers see EVERYTHING that both sides have
to say, they can better evaluate the respective positions. Turkel has
declined this challenge.
Farrell Till
Skepticism, Inc.
jftill@midwest.net
Farrell Till
Skepticism, Inc.
jftill@midwest.net