Response To DD’s “What Biblical Inerrancy Really Means”
Posted in Bible, Logic, Religion, Responses on | 3 minutes | 5 Comments →
So Deacon Duncan of Evangelical Realism wrote a recent post in which he attempts to justify his opinion that the Bible is not the inerrant word of God. This time, his strategy consists of objecting to Jesus' answers to the Sadducees when asked about marriage and the resurrection as recorded in Matthew 22. For those prone to reading source material, you might want to also absorb Exodus 3:6.
DD says,
Jesus, allegedly a prophet, allegedly God Incarnate, draws on his allegedly first-hand knowledge of the Law to try and find some passage which justifies belief in a future resurrection of the dead. And the best he can come up with is [Exodus 3:6]…
There’s nothing in [Exodus 3:6] that says anything about death or resurrection or the future. There’s nothing in [Exodus 3:6] that requires Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be alive in order for God to be their God. God can be Lord of the Sabbath even when it’s not the sabbath, He can be God of Creation even though Creation already happened, He can be the God of the Exodus even after the Exodus is ancient history. Jesus’ argument is simply not well-founded, even taking the Bible at face value. (DD, brackets mine)
DD's claim actually has three sub-claims:
1: There’s nothing in Exodus 3:6 that says anything about death or resurrection or the future;
2: There’s nothing in Exodus 3:6 that requires Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be alive in order for God to be their God;
3: Even if we take the story at face value, the logic is flawed.
I believe that DD's overlooked some fundamental points here. I'll grant him a technicality: Exodus 3:6 does not literally contain the word "resurrection," but then again, the fossil record doesn't literally contain the words "evolution by natural selection," either. So I opine that in both cases, we must rely on inferences from facts.
For some background context, at the time of Exodus 3:6, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had already met their physical deaths. Let's state the undeniable premises and conclusion we end up with if we take the account at face value:
P1 God is not the God of the dead, but of the living;
P2 God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob;
P3 Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are dead;
C If God is to be their God, then Abraham, Isaac and Jacob must live again.
Now, does Exodus 3:6 spell out the resurrection with the straightforwardness of a technical manual? No. However, if we apply a bit of critical thinking, isn't the unavoidable conclusion that Exodus 3:6 reasonably implies resurrection?
Back to DD's three sub-claims:
1: The clear implication is that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will live again, else how could God be their God since they were dead?
2: There is most certainly something in Exodus 3:6 that requires Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be alive in order for God to be their God — (**technically: the "something" which requires them to be alive is actually not Exodus 3:6, but Jesus' plain statement that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living)
3: Clearly, since Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were dead when Jesus spoke these words, nothing short of resurrection could enable God to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, right?
Can anybody explain to me where the flaw is?
Jayman
says...The Sadducees derived their beliefs from the Pentateuch and not from what we call the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Thus it is understandable that Jesus replies by citing the Pentateuch and not, say, Daniel 12:2 (“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt”). Since the Pentateuch does not contain an explicit reference to the resurrection of the dead we should not be surprised that Jesus’ argument consists of more than a citation from the Pentateuch.
The Sadducees denied an afterlife of any kind, and not merely the resurrection. Exodus 3:6, by itself, it does not require a belief in an afterlife. However, recall that Abraham was promised to go to his fathers in peace (Genesis 15:15), a clear reference to an afterlife. In other words, Exodus 3:6, in the context of the entire Pentateuch, does imply an afterlife.
Jesus’ argument does not rely solely on the exegesis of Exodus 3:6. He also mentions that God is the God of the living and not the dead. Since the patriarchs are presently dead, they must be resurrected at some time in the future for God to be their God.
cl
says...Welcome Jayman! I’m glad to finally have you comment here.
To begin, I’d like to grant DD the following:
Those are wise words, and I doubt he realizes their import to his own arguments. I thought it was weird that he’d make this statement, yet apparently has no qualms about coming to his own inerrant understanding of what he wants the text to say:
So DD knows Jesus’ intent? The reason I fundamentally disagree with this statement is because it’s nothing other than pure speculation about the motives of somebody who spoke over 2,000 years ago. As far as what you’ve said here,
DD did acknowledge this distinction, but I’m interested in your mention of Daniel 12:2, which is further support of the resurrection concept in the Old Testament.
I agree completely. Hence, if we grant the account at face value, its logic is intact. I note that DD’s strategy in the second half of the post shifts gears and attacks the “not the God of the dead” part of the verse, which has nothing to do with the logical integrity of Jesus’ original argument.
**************
Question: in his response to Joe’s response, DD says:
When defined as, “.. an assertion that because one personally finds a premise unlikely or unbelievable, the premise can be assumed to be false,” wouldn’t you say DD’s was an argument from personal incredulity?
cl
says...Also, Jayman:
The historian Josephus seems to agree, and that also seems to be the consensus I see elsewhere (for example here, here and here), yet without any source or justification whatsoever, DD says:
Your thoughts?
Jayman
says...cl, I didn’t take the time to read all of DD’s two posts so I was and am just commenting on what you quoted. Regarding whether the Sadducees believed in an afterlife, it seems that DD is quite simply wrong.
Josephus writes:
cl
says...Quoting DD, I left the following comment at his blog:
I stated that I disagreed, and DD replied:
If we look at the verse and only that verse, no. However, the Sadducees accepted the whole Pentateuch, not just Exodus 3:6, and as Jayman points out, when juxtaposed against Genesis 15:15, we’ve got sequence of verses that establish resurrection. DD continued,
No; Exodus 3:6 alone does not. However, Jesus’ argument does not consist of Exodus 3:6 alone, but also His emendation to it, which states that God is “not the God of the dead,” but “of the living.” That emendation establishes that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob must be living and not dead in order for God to be their God.
That’s exactly what I’m saying: Jesus sufficiently established resurrection with the citation of Exodus 3:6 and His emendation. DD attempts to refute this with,
I already answered that: Exodus 3:6 simply states that God is “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” so no: taken in a vacuum, the verse does not require that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob be non-dead. However, Jesus’ argument does not consist of Exodus 3:6 alone, but also His emendation to it: that God is “not the God of the dead,” but “of the living.”
That emendation establishes that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob must be living and not dead in order for God to be their God.