Pages 12-16: autumn

SARAH'S POWER TO CONCEIVE: A RESPONSE (II)

                          Bill Lockwood 

   Once again I thank Farrell Till for the space to rebut his arguments, and 
once more I encourage Till to open his columns to defend the only system that 
he offers once he has removed the Bible from the hands of men--agnosticism.

                          TILL'S DEFEAT

   The entire burden of proof in this exchange is upon Till's shoulders.  He 
must demonstrate  the Bible to be in  error at Hebrews 11:11.  I predicted it 
would be a load too heavy for his puny arms, and now we learn that I  was 
not only right but that he has thrown up his hands and complained that he 
WON'T DO IT.  Well, I am not the least bit surprised.  See what he gives 
us.  He says I need to learn that scholars don't take dogmatic positions-- 
which is his way of begging out.  When he sees the lexicographers against 
him, he chirps, "We must wonder about the  motives of the lexicographers." 
Yes, that's all you agnostics will ever do, run around "wondering" about 
everything and trying to induce others to start "wondering"--and then you 
leave them, without offering ONE TANGIBLE PROOF of anything.  When I 
poke at Till that he did not prove his case at Hebrews 11:11, he says that 
"dogmatic positions are only typical of fundamentalist mentalities."  When he 
spies all his arrows turned Tillward on the Egyptian hymn, he challenges: 
"Lockwood, I want you to prove the exodus even occurred."  So you see, 
readers, it is good to emphasize at the first of a debate with an agnostic the 
roles each is to play, for they always want to "switcheroo" the horses with 
you. Yes, the "negative horse" is the only one agnostics like to ride, for 
when it comes to AFFIRMING a position, they have not the wherewithal to 
stay in the saddle.  But I'm going to keep setting Till back in his OWN 
saddle, no matter how often he must dust off his "breeches."

   Notice a couple of examples.  On the Egyptian hymn, Till said in his first 
article that this "antedates" the book of Genesis and precludes "scientific 
foreknowledge" of Genesis 3:15.  I showed that this does not antedate Gene-
sis, but here friend Farrell came challenging me to PROVE that Hebrews in-
stilled monotheism into Egyptian culture and that the exodus even occurred. 
Of course, I was not trying to prove all of this but was only rebutting his 
foolish assumption that this hymn antedates Genesis and showing that I had a 
better case of vice-versa influence on this one.

   Now he flees to an Egyptologist and leaves his argument in my hand as 
far as this hymn is concerned.  Second, I told the readers how it "could 
have been" on Sarah's faith, offering that she could have changed her mind 
for all Till knows about it.  But he skedaddles back with this emphatic point: 
"The mere existence of a how-it-could-have-been is no proof that it actually 
happened that way." No, professor, I never pretended that my suggestion 
was proof of how it actually occurred.  That's your job. You are to be prov-
ing here, and I simply showed everyone that you have not the ability at this 
point if the possibility I offered actually exists.  But more.  Whether Till 
realizes it or not, he gave up his entire case right here.  Don't miss it. 
Till's task is to prove the Bible in error, so I have said from the beginning 
for all of us to remember that the mere existence of a possibility of how a 
passage could read is not proof that it actually IS the case.  But, true to 
agnostic style, this is all Till has as ammunition--possibilities. But, lo and 
behold, he now confesses that possibilities don't prove!  Well, if this doesn't 
beat all! A promise of a big debate exchange with Mr. Agnostic, and he gives 
up without a whimper.   I suppose, however, I will stay with it just for the 
fun of it.

   Third, Till characterized my piece as "primarily an ad hominem attack" 


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upon him because I used Farrell's follies as an example to answer ONE small 
item on Sarah. My guess is that since this was Till's only argument on Sa-
rah's faith, as far as I could tell, he is just upset about how easily it was 
answered.  But then he turned right around in the next paragraph and spoke 
about Lockwood's problem! If we are to learn from Till, we must suppose that 
he cannot meet the argument but wraps himself up in an "ad hominem" attack 
on me!  I declare, I enjoy debating Farrell.

   What's more, I pointed out that van der Horst did not prove his case 
either, which must be done to carry the point of this mini-debate, and then 
Till railed against "fundamentalists" by saying we just cannot comprehend that 
scholarship does not take dogmatic positions.  Well, my collegiate professor 
friend, call it anything you like, paint it any color you wish, berate some 
more on how far I am from scholarship, but the fat is in the fire: for if you 
don't have a can't-possibly-be-anything-else case, you don't have a case 
against the Bible. But, of course, he just doesn't know whether he needs a 
shut and tight case against the Bible or not, since an agnostic disclaims 
certain knowledge.  He just cannot know what is a valid argument. Poor Till, 
why doesn't he just be good and give up this foolishness of agnosticism? 
Friends, never in my wildest dreams did I ever picture Till giving up this 
way without a good semblance of a fight, but, alas, he has done so, and 
everyone can see it.

   Till tried to raise from the dead, as far as an argument is concerned, a 
statement from van der Horst that said Leviticus 12:2 cannot mean anything 
else than "to make seed"; thus charging the account with a falsehood since it 
referred to the woman, not the man. Do not miss this point, readers.  Till 
has now changed the focus of his attack.  He, for the sake of argument, will 
grant me Hebrews 11:11 but said the "embarrassing situation" for me is "to 
prove that Hebrew scholarship is in error" when they (anciently) thought this 
passage proved that women emitted semen during intercourse. Well, I am 
indeed embarrassed, to be sure, but only for a man who wrote an entire 
piece to prove Hebrews 11:11 is in error but then said on his second round, 
"If I were to grant my opponent Hebrews 11:11, he still cannot handle Leviti-
cus 12:2."  Do not forget this change of focus, TSR subscribers. But what is 
the real problem here?  You see, Till reads an article from an infidelic paper, 
not doing any of the research himself (while accusing me of not knowing any 
Hebrew, to boot!), and the authors that van der Horst quoted to favor his 
position on Leviticus 12:2 became the big chiefs and the rest of us just little 
Indians.

   First, I showed already that van der Horst has said his case is NOT 
PROVABLE, but the professor then fished out a line that said, "It cannot 
mean anything else than 'make seed.'"  Naturally, Till overlooked the sur-
rounding sentences and evidently hoped none of you would read van der 
Horst for yourself. Van der Horst concluded his analysis of Leviticus 12:2 
this way: "We cannot avoid at least the possibility that the author of Leviti-
cus 12:2 means what he seems to have written, that is, that a woman can 
produce semen" (emphasis added).  This is a tentative conclusion, and the 
professor knows it.  Even prior to the "cannot mean" statement, he said, 
"Leviticus 12:2 seems to indicate that a woman can produce semen..." 
(emphasis added).  A POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE, nothing more,  is  the
CONCLUSION.  Now, there is a good reason for this reservation, as the 
reader will discover in just a moment, but it is too late for Till.  Little did 
van der Horst know that an English professor in the north country would 
jump up and say, "HE PROVED IT! HE PROVED IT!"  But van der Horst did 
not prove it, and he tried to warn our little agnostic friend, but he will not 
listen.  Second, Holladay's Concise Lexicon of Hebrew and Aramaic gives "to 
conceive seed" at Leviticus 12:2 (p. 92).  (See also the ASV and Strong's 
Concordance.)  This is where Till comes in simply to question the motives of 
the lexicographers, because he found where some rabbis thought it meant that 
a woman "emitted semen."



                           2
   The Brown, Driver, Briggs, Gesenius Lexicon defines the word zara 
(Lev. 12:2) in its hipil form (p. 281-82) as "bear a child."  Keil and De-
litzsch: "bring forth a child."  Thus, it reads, "If a woman 'brings forth' 
and bears a man-child, then she shall be unclean seven days."  The idea 
here includes the birth, not just the conception!  This is perhaps why van 
der Horst remained more reserved than Till.  He saw the other side of the 
coin that Till refuses to see.  But, once more, we are not finished with the 
professor yet.  In The Pentateuch and Haftorahs (ed. chief rabbi Dr. Joseph 
Barry Hertz, Soncino Press, London, Heb. date 5713, 1952, p. 460), the 
rendering is, "If a woman be delivered and bear a man-child...."  BE 
DELIVERED!  Just as a plant bears seed, so does the woman.  And, inciden-
tally, this is exactly what the verse van der Horst referred to means (Gen. 
1:11-12), bearing seed for further plant life. This means that Moses at Levit-
icus 12:2 included for a female the entire process of the conception and bir-
thing, not just the initial conception.  Now, Farrell, do you know more than 
the rabbis???  Of course, readers, being an agnostic, Farrell cannot even 
know about this.  Are you not ashamed of yourself at this point, Mr. Till? 
And to think, he tried to pit me against the scholars as to who knows best. 
Can I not read the books?  Can I not comprehend the conclusions stated by 
translators?  Yes, Farrell has, at least in this debate, reduced himself to 
proving the Bible errant because some leading rabbis of the time believed 
thus-and-so about women.  "How art thou fallen from heaven, O day-star... 
how art thou cut down to the ground, that didst lay low the nations!"

                          HEBREWS 11:11

   This was to be Till's main argument, but he used only 1.5 columns out of 
more than 7 on it.  We need not wonder why.  Till tried his favorite ploy, 
reversing tables on me, by saying, "Even if you gain Hebrews 11:11, you 
cannot handle Leviticus 12:2!"  After this exchange, I gather Till will say to 
his pupils, "Even if Lockwood DOES show that Leviticus 12:2 does not neces-
sarily imply that women emit semen, he cannot handle this over here."  Yes, 
Till is hard to pin down at times, because he vacates the lines of defense 
before the enemy arrives.

   Till's first and ONLY effort to rebut my article came this way:

        Lockwood opened the door to a ton of trouble for his position. 
     He said the Greek literally meant "the laying down of seed" (p. 
     6) and then, astonishingly enough, went on in the same context 
     to say that "this is an act of a male, not a female, in the repro-
     ductive process."

Till admitted, "I could not have said it better myself," and wanted me to 
explain all of this.

   I hate to be such a party-pooper as I remove the jubilant smile from 
Farrell's lips, this being the only good point he made in the whole article, 
but I was not here conceding.  I was merely rehearsing the primaries of van 
der Horst's work before I reviewed it in the next paragraphs.  Yet this is 
Till's only defense in the entire review, what he thinks I admitted!  When I 
offered alternate translations of katabole spermatos, Till ran to this again: 
"Why would 'receive power to establish a posterity' be a more accurate trans-
lation, if Lockwood admits... 'laying down of seed' is what the Greek expres-
sion meant?" Till's illustration is also based on the same assumption--that I 
was making a concession of van der Horst's point, when, in reality, I was 
merely giving the substance of what van der Horst had said so that I might 
review it.  Try again, professor.

   By now, the readers are wondering about the several possibilities I of-
fered at Hebrews 11:11 and why Till ignored them all.  If Till is to carry his 
point, he must show (1) why these translations are not legitimate, and (2) 
that the writer indeed intended to convey the idea that Sarah emitted semen. 


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Did he do this, readers?  He has not even pretended to.  First, I showed 
that several translations make Abraham the subject of the verb.  Bruce Metz-
ger and Matthew Black do the same.  What did Farrell say about this??? 
Silent as a Texas oyster!  But I will add another one.  The Translator's NT 
reads "the verse could also be trans. w/ reference to Abraham: 'by 
faith--though Sarah herself was barren--he received power to deposit 
seed..." (Appendix, p. 528). Your case is lost, Till, if this is a possible 
translation.

   Second, "mum" was the word from Till on Moulton and Milligan's "store-
house translation."  Third, "seed" could be used here  
for "posterity" (Wigram-Green, Berry's lexicon, Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, 
Cremer's; Thayer and Vincent's Word Studies). Thus, Sarah remains the 
subject.  She had faith to "found a posterity."

   Even on a fourth possible solution, Till makes not even a peep.  I sug-
gested to him that he be more careful to learn these lessons so as to save 
himself such reproof in the future.  He actually saw the lesson, I suppose, 
for he was careful this time not to bring it up!  Will any of Tlll's agnostic 
buddies induce him to look at the argumentation here?

                           GENESIS 3:15

   Till thinks I missed the point here, but I was not making an effort on 
"scientific foreknowledge" except to expose his "Egyptian hymn to the sun-
god" theory that places the hymn prior to the writing of Genesis 3:15.  While 
Till tries to make up the ground he has lost at Hebrews 11:11 by grinding me 
with "hopelessly naive," which, if he says enough, maybe his agnostic friends 
will count as a good argument,  let's note once again the Protevangelium 
herein, which Till avoided mentioning. "The text announces a male descendant 
who will ultimately win a crushing victory over Satan himself" (Theological 
Wordbook of OT, Vol. 1, p. 253). To this, I add that there is a deeper 
meaning than just the enmity between Satan and the woman's seed (line of 
descendants).  Moses went on to prophesy that "he shall bruise thy head, 
and thou shalt bruise his heel."

        Commencing with Gen. 3:15 the word "seed" is regularly used 
     as a collective noun in the singular (never plural).  This techni-
     cal term is an important aspect of the promise doctrine, for 
     Hebrew never uses the plural of this root to refer to "posterity" 
     or "offspring...."  Thus the word designates the whole line of 
     descendants as a unit, yet it is deliberately flexible enough to 
     denote either one person who epitomizes the whole group (i.e. the 
     man of promise and ultimately Christ), or the many persons in 
     that whole line of natural and/or spiritual descendants (Ibid.).

   Adam Clarke said, "It shall bruise thy head, or rather HE, who?  The 
seed of woman, the person is to come by the woman, and by her alone, 
without the concurrence of a man" (Vol. 1, p. 53).  I also point out to Till's 
agnostic audience that the Targums of Jerusalem and of the Pseudo-Jonathan 
both say that this "victory over the serpent will be 'in the days of  the 
Messiah'"  (Cook Commentary, Vol. 1, p. 46).  But the point of emphasis is 
that SO STRONGLY does this verse point to Jesus Christ, the Messiah, that 
the Jewish Bible of today (according to the Masoretic Text, The Menorah 
Press, Chicago, p. 5) makes it say, "They shall bruise thy head..." evident-
ly referring it to the Jewish people, not Christ.  But Isaac Lesser's transla-
tion (Hebrew Publishing Co., p. 2) follows the original readings: "HE shall 
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise HIS heel."  

   I tell you, friends, so great is the case for the miraculous advent of the 
Messiah at Genesis 3:15 and of the Bible, in general, that efforts are contin-
ually made to change the wording of the Bible and criticize the content with 
numerous exegetical flip-flops.  Why does Till spend so much effort against 


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the Bible?  Because, though he claims to be agnostic about God's existence, 
he KNOWS this: the Bible testifies eloquently to the truth upon its pages. 
And, so poorly has Till done in this exchange that I kindly suggest to him 
that from now on he quit trying to piece together some patchworked anec-
dotes, sarcasms, and a few shallow exegeses while sitting at his computer late 
at night.  He has surely made a poor showing in this exchange, and every 
reader knows it.

   (Bill Lockwood's address is 211 North Fifth, Marlow, OK 73055.)                   

                            **********

EDITOR'S NOTE: We have promised not to comment at the end of rebuttal 
articles, and, as tempting as it is to point out the many absurdities in 
Lockwood's article, we will keep our promise.  A response to the major points 
in this article has been written and mailed to Mr. Lockwood. A copy will be 
sent free on request to anyone wishing to read it.  In the interest of fair-
ness, we will include also his reply to it, if he cares to write one. Please in-
clude a stamped envelope with your request.    

                       ********************

EFFORT...
whereas the references of the other writers to early dawn and the risen sun 
were alluding to the arrival time at the tomb. It's a good theory, but it 
completely ignores the fact that John said, "While it was yet dark,  Mary 
Magdalene came to the tomb" (20:1, NRSV).  "While it was yet dark" is an 
adverbial expression of time that obviously modifies the verb came; thus, 
Mary came to the tomb while it was yet dark, according to John. Likewise, 
expressions like "very early on the first day of the week," "late on the 
sabbath day," "at early dawn," "as it began to dawn toward the first day of 
the week," and "when the sun was risen" are also adverbial phrases or 
clauses that modify the verb come in the passages that they are used in. 
There is just no other verb in any of the accounts for them to modify.  For 
this reason, any effort to fuse all of the expressions into one consistent 
statement is doomed to fail.

   "When the sabbath was past" is an adverbial clause in Mark 16:1 that 
modifies the verb bought.  In other words, the women bought spices "when 
the sabbath was past," yet came to the tomb "while it was yet dark."  How 
could both statements be true?  And how could the women have bought the 
spices "when the sabbath was past" yet had obtained the spices before the 
sabbath (Luke 23:54-56)?

   With no plausible way to solve this problem, we looked ahead and saw 
another inconsistency waiting in the wings.  According to Matthew, when the 
women arrived, an "angel of the Lord" descended during an earthquake and 
rolled the stone away from the sepulcher (28:2), but the other three writers 
all said that the stone was already rolled away when the women  came to the 
tomb (Mk. 16:4; Lk. 2: Jn. 20:1).  

   At this point, we gave up and decided that Mr. Nielsen's money is safe.          


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