See, I am Fallible!!!!!!

(and a discussion of the Radical Marriage Mandators too!!!!!!!!)

I was just reading up on Jim West's, and Lawrence Mykytiuk's comments on the Seal of Gedaliah, which I wrote about a while back. I have to admit, I think Jim brings up a good point that there is nothing on the seal to identify this with the Biblical Gedaliah. I had originally went down this road, but I thought that Finkelstein would have said something if this were possible. I must, therefore, agree with Jim West that, given that we don't know the frequency of these names in Jerusalem, we cannot identify it with the Biblical Gedaliah.

However, I must disagree with his comments that we cannot allow the Bible to interpret our Archaeology. He says, "Or, it’s equally possible, isn’t it, that the biblical account is based on historical factlets without itself being ‘historical’." For the Christian, the answer is simply "No, it is not possible." We are called to "Take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ" [2 Corinthians 10:5]. Hence, we view history as being under the sovereign direction of God. Hence, if this does refer to the man spoken of by the Book of Jeremiah, we must understand him in the light of what the scripture says. Then, I would go on to argue that any philosophy of history other than the Christian philosophy of history makes nonsense out of the study of history.

The mistake that myself and Mazor made is that there is nothing in the Bible that says that this is, indeed, the seal of the Gedaliah that tried Jeremiah. I am willing to grant, therefore, that it is indeed possible that there was another Gedaliah that lived at this time, and that he is the owner of that seal, since the scriptures do not rule out that possibility.

However, I will not allow the liberal media off that easy. To this I simply would like to comment on Lawrence Mykytiuk's comments. He noted many of the same things I did, namely, that the script is consistent with this time period, and it was found on a controlled archaeological dig by a respected archaeologist. Hence, this makes it, at very least, difficult to question whether or not it is genuine. He also says that it is, at least, a reasonable hypothesis that this is the seal of the Gedaliah son of Pishhur mentioned in the book of Jeremiah. Therefore, you need to understand that the discovery of this seal does tell us that the book of Jeremiah, at least in this respect, is consistent with the time period in which the book of Jeremiah claims to have been written. Hence, if authentic [and I have little reason to doubt that it is authentic], it would at least confirm the historical accuracy of Jeremiah, namely, that it would further show that Jeremiah's writing shows a knowledge of the time period in which the events spoken of in the book took place.

Let me ask a simple question to drive this home. Why is it that a seal bearing a Biblical name in the script from that time period, recovered by a respected archaeologist, and having a reasonable hypothesis that this is the seal of the Biblical character gets absolutely no media attention, and the Talpiot Tomb theory, which was mocked and laughed at by secular and Jewish archaeologists alike, gets an entire program on the Discovery channel? I cannot figure it out, other than to point out that Christians are not the only ones who are ideologically driven. Hence, while I must agree with Jim West about this seal, it still shows the incredible bias of the leftest media.

As a Van Tillian, am not going to rest my faith on this discovery, but I think it is telling that this seal has gotten no media attention.

Now, from the academic, to people who are simply out of control. I happened to go over to the Boundless Blog today, and, much to my shagrin, found the following comments:

A few of us because concerned about the roots of this problem coming from the proliferation of the "gift of singleness" teachings of the past few decades. This phrase was actually an embellishment of the Living Bible of the 70's (now the NLT), that caught on among singleness writers, becoming somewhat of a rogue doctrine. A few of us became fed up the fact that not only was in not in the original Greek text, but with how it caused so many people to doubt whether or not God was on their side about the goodness of pursuing marriage. So we got together and successfully campaigned to the NLT to have it removed! HALLELUJIAH, IT'S GONE!!

Now, I am assuming that this is the same Jennifer that posts under the screenname Gortexgrrl. Of course, what is maddening about this is that I already addressed this issue a long time ago. As I mentioned in that post, I know one of the translators for the NLT, and if you go to that post, you will see that everything Jennifer is saying here is wrong. She says that she "successfully campaigned to the NLT to have it removed." Of course, the NLT translators told me that they did nothing because they agreed with these women. They did, indeed, decide to reconsider their translation of the passage, but the change was made because they didn't feel translating the passage in this way, and bringing out the fact that Paul was calling singleness a gift here would show the connection between this passage and the following discussion about spiritual gifts. The only thing on which the NLT translators were willing to agree with these women was that this text should not be used to forbid those who would like to marry from marrying or pursuing marriage, which no one was teaching in the first place! In fact, even worse for these girls, is that the NLT translators say that they still believe this passage teaches that singleness is a gift! Now, how did Gortexgrrl respond to this? Did she take back what she said? Did she, at very least, nuance what she said? No, she just said:

Whatever, Adam.

We're just glad the GoS is G.O.N.E.

Notice, no nuancing of what she said. No admittance that the NLT translators do not agree with her, and no acknowledgement that they did not remove this phrase because of their campaigning. Just a response of "whatever." Keep in mind, she knew all of these things before she repeated the same thing in this post on the Boundless Blog!

Not only that, but, [and I have said this before], but I have pointed out that this girl does not know Greek. I pointed out that in her article on 1 Corinthians 7, she simply put the dictionary form down for every word, and acted as if that was the Greek of the text. Here is what she said was the Greek of 1 Corinthians 7:6-9:

De lego touto kata suggnome ou kata epitage 7) Gar thelo pas anthropos einai kai hos emautou alla hekastos echo IDIOS CHARISMA ek theos HOS MEN HOUTO DE HOS HOUTO. 8) Lego de agamos kai chera esti KALOS autos ean meno kago hos kago 9) De ei egkrateuomai ou egkrateuomai GAMEO gar esti kreitton gameo e puroo."

Those of you who know Greek know what I mean. This is incapable of translation. Again, these are all things I have pointed out before this. Now, what is interesting is that, even after pointing this stuff out, what do we have on her post on the Boundless Blog? Well, she says the following with regards to Jesus' words in Matthew 19:12:

Christ then concludes this verse by stating A SECOND TIME the conditions he set in verse 11, reiterating clearly that it is for those capable of receiving it (rather than obeying under compulsion or command from God): Dunamai choreo choreo (He that is able to receive (it), let him receive (it).

Now, is that really the Greek of Matthew 19:12? Well, you guessed it. She did the exact same thing that she did in her article on 1 Corinthians 7, that is, she posted all of the dictionary forms of the words, somehow assuming that this was the way the Greek text read! However, what is even worse this time, is that she left out the article! The Greek text actually reads "ho dunamenos chorein choreito."

Now, I am not saying this because I think that it will somehow change Jennifer's mind. She believes she is right, and, even on something as easily demonstratable as these things, she still is going ahead. However, I was concerned because of the following comment that was left in response to her:

I am glad you brought your study of the original language into your post, God's word has final authority.

The ability to "receive" a teaching may well be what Jesus was referring to in that instance, but does that negate a view of giftedness including all you have been given? What have you NOT been given, in truth?

The label "gift" applies to far more than temporary pleasure, and all things work together for ultimate good (Romans 8). It does not seem a stretch to put all our circumstances and limitations and, dare I say, even sins into His hands & trust Him to use all for His glory & our good since that is His promise.

However, changing the label of "gift" doesn't change our responsibility. I've heard various teaching on "gifts" and have come to the conclusion that it's an area that causes sidetracking because the edges are fuzzy. I should've thought of that before I used the term!

Now, I have to say I am encouraged because it is obvious that this woman is using discernment. The problem is that she has no idea about the fact that Jennifer didn't even post the Greek text, but just simply went through and posted the dictionary form of each word! She also has no idea that the NLT did not remove anything because of these girl's campaigning. You see, this is what I am afraid of with this kind of thing. Many girls who have not heard of Debbie Maken, Captain Sensible, Gortexgrrl, etc. will be sucked into this simply out of ignorance. She has no way to check on these things. For all she knows, Jennifer has studied many years of Greek, and campaigned at the Society for Biblical Literature to have these things removed.

Hence, so that this rumor does not go any further, I am inviting everyone who is interested in this topic to post my response to this stuff found here on their blog, so we can get it out to as many people as possible. I figure that, if we can get this article out, it will at least make it harder for Gortexgrrl and Captain Sensible to go around saying these things all because of the ignorance of the people to whom they are talking. I also have written a response to this stuff at the Boundless Blog, but it would be a total waste of time to go around looking for everytime this issue has come up on the internet, expecially since I am preoccupied with my classes here at Trinity. Hence, anyone who is interested in posting the relevant section of that article on their blog, you have my permission.

The Hypocracy of the Leftest Media with Regards to Archaeology

I hate to be the one to tell you this. I am not an archaeologist. My major area of study is Hebrew Bible [of which Archaeology is a related area]. I enjoy reading books on linguistics, logic, Hebrew grammar, and Hermeneutics. However, in studying Hebrew grammar, I have studied several inscriptions to understand the history of the Hebrew language. In fact, I got to take a class last semester from Dr. Lawson Younger called West Semitic Inscriptions, where we learned how to read the paleo-Hebrew script, and read the works of some of the greatest scholars in the area of the study of some major West Semitic Inscriptions.

Anyway, I went to my fiance's church last sunday, and one of the members of her congregation asked me if I had heard that Jeremiah's seal had been found. Now, you have to be skeptical about these things. There are so many sensationalists out there with no credibility whatsoever that you need to know where the story is coming from. However, I recognized the word "seal," as we had studied seals in West Semitic Inscriptions class. Hence, since it fit the time of Jeremiah, I thought I should at least do a Google search on it.

What I found was, not that archaeologists have found Jeremiah's seal, but the seal of one of Jeremiah's accusers from Jeremiah 38. And, the lady who found it, is Eliat Mazar, one of Israel's top archaeologists, to whom my professor, Dr. James Hoffmeier, even said was reliable. The letters are exactly the same as those found in the Hebrew Bible. Here is a photo of the seal. For those who cannot read the paleo-Hebrew script, I will write it in square letters beneath, and then, just to give you an idea, of how perfectly they match the Hebrew Bible, I will post the text of Jeremiah 38:1 so you can see exactly how they match up:

Seal in Square Characters: rwxXp !b whyldgl

Jeremiah 38:1: ‘lk;Wyw> rWxêv.P;-!B, ‘Why"’l.d:g>W !T'ªm;-!b, hy"åj.p;v. [m;úv.YIw:
Why"±m.r>yI rv

As you can see, the Hebrew characters used in the seal are identical with the Hebrew characters in Jeremiah 38. The seal just simply reads, "[Belonging] to Gedaliah Son of Pashhur." These seals were used to seal envolopes, and to mark ownership certain pottery. What I found interesting about this seal is not only that it bears a name straight out of the Hebrew Bible, but also that it bears a name which is Egyptian in origin, namely, the name Pashhur. It is Egyptian for, , "The son of Horus."

This is an interesting find on so many levels. Yet, it is gotten nothing as far as media attention. Go look on CNN.com or msnbc.com. However, the whole "Jesus tomb" nonsense a few years ago was repeated ad infinitum ad nauseum. Yet was a horrendus example of scholarship as even unbelieving archaeologists are willing to admit. Also, remember the "Gabrael's Revelation" tablet that got a whole lot of media attention a few months ago. It seems like if it can be interpreted in any way to be against the Christian faith, the liberal media will make mention of it. However, when it comes to finds like this one that can only be interpreted as consistent with the Christian faith, the liberal media completely ignores it. The hypocracy is too unbelievable for words.

I have a feeling that, if we complained, we would probably get a response similar to that of Israel Finkelstein. I found an interesting quotation from him on Wikipedia the other day. He was going after Mazar's methodology, and he said, "The biblical text dominates this field operation, not archaeology." In other words, by it's very nature, archaeology cannot be Biblical!!!!!! He starts with the premise that archaeology can have nothing to do with the Biblical text, and low and behold, when we go out and do the research, the archaeological find has nothing to do with the Biblical text. Note that this is a presupposition that Finkelstein brings to the discussion a priori. According to him, the Bible has nothing of historical, archaeological value to say, period. That is a presupposition that needs to be challanged right of the bat. Being a Van Tillian, I would argue that, because Finkelstein rejects the Bible as inerrant revelation from God, he cannot make sense out of the very archaeology he is doing. He assumes that he can do archaeology autonomiously from God, and yet, I would argue that he has to rely upon the truth of the scriptures to even do his archaeology.

Interestingly enough, my professor, Dr. James Hoffmeier has caught Finkelstein doing just that. In his book Israel in Egypt, the Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition [Oxford University Press. New York, NY. 1996. see pages 31-32], Dr. Hoffmeier discusses Finkelstein's attempted reconstruction of the origins of Israel in a monograph he wrote in 1988 called The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society). Hoffmeier first summarizes Finkelstein's argument. He says that Finkelstein tries to argue that the Cannanite culture declined in the sixteenth century B.C., and a significant part of the population became nomadic. Then there was a resettlement in the Late Bronze Age, and this resettlement became known as "Israel." The way he tries to argue for this is to show that there were shrines at Shiloh dating from this period that are very large relative to their population, and thus, the people must have been nomadic. However, what Hoffmeier points out about Finkelstein's methodology in arguing for the idea that these are Israelite is instructive. Hoffmeier points out that he offers no extrabiblical evidence from this, but argues from the importance of Shiloh in Joshua. Even when he tries to link these cites to ancient Israel from various aspects, Hoffmeier shows that he is, even at this point, relying upon what the book of Joshua says about them. Such is amazing hypocracy from a man who does not believe that archaeology should have anything to do with the Biblical text! The reason for this is that even Finkelstein is created in the image of God, and he knows deep down in his heart, that he cannot even do his archaeology without revelation from God.

You will find this same problem in The New York Times as well when they talked about Mazar after she found what she believed to be the palace of David. Consider this quotation from this very article:

Hani Nur el-Din, a Palestinian professor of archaeology at Al Quds University, said he and his colleagues considered biblical archaeology an effort by Israelis "to fit historical evidence into a biblical context." He added: "The link between the historical evidence and the biblical narration, written much later, is largely missing. There's a kind of fiction about the 10th century. They try to link whatever they find to the biblical narration. They have a button, and they want to make a suit out of it."

Even Israeli archaeologists are not so sure that Ms. Mazar has found the palace - the house that Hiram, king of Tyre, built for the victorious king, at least as Samuel 2:5 describes it. It may also be the Fortress of Zion that David conquered from the Jebusites, who ruled Jerusalem before him, or some other structure about which the Bible is silent.

I think we could rewrite that whole first paragraph to display the bias of "historical minimalists," as Dr. Hoffmeier calls them:

Historical minimalism is an effort to fit historical information into an exclusively extrabiblical context. The link between historical evidence and Biblical narration, [written very close to the events] is very strong. The Bible provides us the history of the tenth century. The historical minimalists will do anything they can to avoid any connection between the Biblical text and archaeology.

Notice how the shoe is on the other foot now. You see, the historical minimalists have their presuppositions as well.

Mr El-Din likewise has his presuppositions. In fact, [and the New York Times completely ignores this], Al Quds University is an Arab university! You don't think that this Arab professor has his biases? Again, totally left out, and totally ignored.

Of course, I am not accusing them for this. We all have our presuppositions. However, what I *do* criticise them for is not recognizing their presuppositions as well as holding to presuppositions that cannot provide the preconditions for the intellegability of reality. This is where I believe the discussion needs to go.

For instance, as a case in point, after dismissing the Bible as historically accurate, this article then relies upon the Bible by giving the Fortress of Zion as a possible palace for David. How can that be a possible palace of David if the Bible is unreliable to tell us that such a place existed in the first place! If archaeology cannot be formed by the Biblical text, as these people say, why is it that they rely upon the Bible so much when they get in trouble?

These prejudices keep coming up in this article. Note for instance:

Archaeologists debate "to what extent Jerusalem was an important city or even a city in the time of David and Samuel," he said. "Some believe it was tiny and the kingdom unimportant." The site of ancient Jerusalem, stuck between two valleys on a ridge south of the Temple Mount, is very small, less than 10 acres.

Israel Finkelstein, another renowned archaeologist, has suggested that without significant evidence, Jerusalem in this period was "perhaps not more than a typical hill-country village."

Notice how Finkelstein automatically assumes that, because of silence, it is "perhaps not more than a typical hill-country village." This is simply a logical fallacy. Simply because someone doesn't have evidence for something doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. For instance, up until the nineteenth century, no one could find any evidence that the Hittites existed. Now, we have not only discovered Hittite archaeological sites, but we have also discovered their language and their literature, and, in the process, discovered the earliest Indo-European language known to man.

You see, Finkelstein's argument must assume that we have adequate knowledge of the archaeology of Jerusalem. The problem is that there is so much more work yet to be done, and, in point of fact, the political instability of the area has contributed to the inability to do archaeology. Hence, Finkelstein's argument not only is an argument from silence [which is always a logical fallacy], but, in order for one to even have an inductive argument [i.e: it is not likely that any evidence will turn up], one must rely upon an adequate knowledge of the Archaeology of Jerusalem, which is something we simply do not have.

Finally, and I think most devistatingly showing Finkelstein's bias, what does the statement "without significant evidence, Jerusalem in this period was 'perhaps not more than a typical hill-country village.'" assume? That the Bible is not "significant evidence." Pure and simple. Again, Finklestein's atheistic view of archaeology is shining through plain as day. Yet, it is quoted at the end of this article, as if it were somehow significant, that one of the reasons why the dig was undertaken was to prove the accuracy of the Biblical account. So what. Everyone has their presuppositions. Reasoning is impossible without them. As we have seen, these people quoted in this article are just as biased as the people who were doing the dig, and it is sad to see this completely slip under the radar.

However, I have to say one more thing in relation to the seal I discussed at the beginning. Finklestein has, indeed, commented on it, and his comments are very telling:

Dozens of bullas from the period already have been found, some of which turned out to be fakes," he said

In other words, rather than be driven to counter-example of his view that archaeology cannot be Biblical, he is willing to make the outragious statement that this might have been a forgery. As Dr. Hoffmeier told us in class, forgeries are simply not found on controlled digs like this. It is amazing to see a brilliant man like Finklestein say some of these things all because he refuses to recognize the presuppositions he brings to the table.

I suspect this is why the liberal media has not made too much of this story. The only way that this story can be interpreted is as consistent with the Bible. Now, I am obviously not resting my Christian faith on this discovery. I am a Christian because of the fact that only Christianity can provide any way to know anything. However, I think it is amazing when this seal is not even mentioned by CNN.com, msnbc.com, and abcnews.com, and yet, they promote the whole "Lost Tomb of Jesus" nonsense. It is an abosolutely unbelievable demonstration of bias from people who are "just publishing the facts."