Pages 2-5: winter 1993

   A PERFECT WORK OF HARMONY?

                          Farrell Till 

   In the second issue of TSR (Spring 1990, p. 14), we raised the question 
of harmony in the Bible in a short article with the same title as this one. A 
frequent argument that bibliolaters use in their vain attempts to prove the in-
errancy doctrine is that the Bible is so harmonious in content that only divine 
inspiration could explain its remarkable consistency.  In his article "Why I 
Believe in the Inerrancy of the Scriptures" (Autumn 1992), fundamentalist 
minister Dave Miller said that "the Bible has been consistently... demonstrat-
ed to possess the unequaled characteristic of internal consistency" (p. 3). 
In Christian Courier, editor Wayne Jackson rhapsodized the achievement of 
"some forty different persons" who had written "in three different languages" 
over a span of "1,600 years" and yet had "produced a volume of sixty-six 
books that is characterized by such an amazing unity and beautiful continuity 
as to be inexplicable on the basis of human origin" ("The Holy Bible--In-
spired of God," May 1991, p. 1).

   If this often repeated claim were true, it would constitute formidable 
evidence for the divine inspiration of the Bible, but, as objective students of 
the Bible know, it is a claim that doesn't even come close to being true. 
Biblical apologists like Gleason Archer, John Haley, William Arndt, and George 
DeHoff have published volumes of far-fetched, how-it-could-have-been expla-
nations to what they sanctimoniously call "alleged Bible discrepancies,"  the 
implication being that the discrepancies aren't real but only "alleged."  In his 
Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, Archer listed in the index over 2,000 
"difficult" scriptures that he had addressed in the book, and there would be 
no way to estimate the number of independent periodicals and bulletins like 
Christian Courier that devote much of their publishing space to defending the 
harmony of the Bible. Inerrantists, however, apparently can't see the absurd-
ity of preaching the "amazing unity and beautiful continuity" of a book that 
has required the publication of so many volumes and periodicals to defend and 
explain its harmony.

   The truth is that the Bible, rather than being remarkably consistent and 
harmonious in its themes, is a book riddled with discrepancies and divergent 
theological views.  Although unity of theme, as I noted in my response to 
Miller's article (Autumn 1992, p. 5), was undoubtedly a criterion considered 
by the councils and conferences of rabbis and clerics who arbitrarily made 
canonical decisions, the selection processes were nevertheless imperfect in 
that they failed to produce a Bible free of discrepancies.

   An excellent example of divergent political and theological philosophies is 
the one that I presented in my original article on this subject. The writer(s) 
of 1 and 2 Kings obviously believed that  Jehu's massacre of the royal fami-
lies of Israel and Judah was sanctioned by Yahweh, the tribal god of Israel. 
As early as 1 Kings 19, Yahweh commanded the prophet Elijah to anoint Jehu 
king of Israel (v:16).  The actual anointing did not occur, however, until 
Elijah's successor Elisha sent a "son of the prophets" to Ramoth-gilead with 
instructions to anoint Jehu king of Israel. In executing the command, the 
prophet said this during the ceremony:

        Thus, saith Yahweh, the God of Israel, I have anointed thee 
     king over the people of Yahweh, even over Israel.  And thou 
     shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master, that I may avenge the 
     blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the 
     servants of Yahweh, at the hand of Jezebel (2 Kings 9:6-7).

Jehu then led an armed force against Jezreel and massacred Joram, king of 
Israel, and Ahaziah, king of Judah, who at the time was visiting his kinsman 


                           1
Joram (2 Kings 9:21-24).  After having Jezebel, Joram's mother killed, Jehu 
then ordered the decapitation of Joram's seventy sons (10:6-8) and the execu-
tion of all principals in Joram's government (10:11), as well as 42 servants 
who had attended Ahaziah on his royal visit (10:12-14).  As if this were not 
enough bloodshed, Jehu later deceived all the prophets, priests, and wor-
shipers of the god Baal into gathering for a sacrificial ceremony during which 
he sent a force of 80 armed men into the house of Baal to massacre everyone 
in attendance. 

   After all of this blood had been shed, the writer(s) of 2 Kings said this 
of Jehu's actions at Jezreel:

        And Yahweh said unto Jehu, Because thou hast done well in 
     executing that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto 
     the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart, thy 
     sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel 
     (10:30, emphasis added). 

This statement is plain enough that anyone should understand it.  Whoever 
wrote it clearly thought that Jehu had done Yahweh's will in the Jezreel 
massacres.  The writer even went on to chronicle the reigns of the four 
generations of the house of Jehu who succeeded to the throne of Israel after 
Jehu.

   All four of these were described as kings who "did that which was evil in 
the sight of Yahweh" (13:1-2; 13:10-11; 14:23-24; 15:8-9), yet the clear 
implication of the writer was that Yahweh had permitted them to reign to ful-
fill his promise to Jehu that ended the passage cited above.  So when Zecha-
riah, the fourth generation of these kings, was overthrown in a rebellion, the 
writer said, "This was the word of Yahweh which he spake unto Jehu, say-
ing, Thy sons to the fourth generation shall sit upon the throne of Israel. 
And so it came to pass" (15:12).

   There can be no doubt, then, that the author(s) of 2 Kings approved 
Jehu's actions in the massacre at Jezreel and considered him an emissary of 
Yahweh, who had been sent to execute judgment against the house of Ahab. 
A century later, however, the prophet Hosea had a different view.  He 
opened his book with a pronouncement of judgment upon the house of Jehu in 
the latter days of Jeroboam, the third-generation of Jehu's descendants 
mentioned above:

        (F)or yet a little while, and I [Yahweh] will avenge the blood 
     of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom of 
     the house of Israel to cease.  And it shall come to pass at that 
     day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel 
     (1:4-5).

Fundamentalists have made their usual how-it-could-have-been attempts to 
explain what Hosea meant, but the fact still remains that the author(s) of 2 
Kings approved the Jezreel massacre and Hosea, a century later, pronounced 
judgment on the house of Jehu for "the blood of Jezreel."  Why would a 
divinely inspired prophet pronounce judgment on Jehu's descendants for 
something that another divinely inspired person had praised in terms of 
having "execut[ed] that which is right in mine [Yahweh's] eyes" and having 
done "according to all that was in my [Yahweh's] heart" (2 Kings 10:30)? 
The only reasonable answers are that (1) neither writer was actually in-
spired, and (2) the two writers simply had divergent political and theological 
views about the Jezreel massacre. The second of these alternatives certainly 
explodes the myth of "amazing unity and beautiful continuity" in the Bible.

   Another biblical disagreement concerned the importance of sacrificial 
ceremonies.  Almost from the very beginning, the Old Testament took a very 
serious view of sacrifices.  The first murder resulted when Yahweh had 


                           2
respect for the bloody sacrifices of Abel but rejected the "fruit of the 
ground" that Cain had offered. In an ensuing argument, Cain killed his 
brother Abel (Gen. 4:2-8).  After the Ark had landed on dry ground,  at a 
time when (if the story is true) every animal on earth was an endangered 
species, Noah built an altar, took "of every clean beast and of every clean 
bird," and offered burnt-offerings to Yahweh (Gen. 8:20).  This gesture 
must have pleased Yahweh who "smelled the sweet savor" (v:21), for he 
promised "in his heart" that he would not "curse the ground anymore for 
man's sake" or "smite anymore everything living" as he had just done in 
sending the flood (v:21).  All through the rest of Genesis, we read how the 
patriarchs found favor with Yahweh through their animal sacrifices (12:7-8; 
15: 8-11; 26:25; 31:54; 33:20; 35:1-7).

   When Yahweh established his covenant with Israel (as the story goes), he 
included animal sacrifices as a part of it.  After his face-to-face meeting with 
Yahweh on Mt. Sinai, Moses gave the Israelites instructions on proper proce-
dures for the offering of sacrifices (Ex. 34:25-26).  These laws were expand-
ed later (Num. 6: 13-17; 7:84-88; 15:1-14).  The book of Leviticus contains 
little more than detailed instructions in proper ceremonial procedures, many of 
them pertaining to the offering of animal sacrifices. These instructions were 
given with the solemn assurance that they were what "Yahweh had commanded 
Moses in mount Sinai, in the day that he commanded the children of Israel to 
offer their oblations unto Yahweh in the wilderness of Sinai" (Lev. 7:38). 
That these ceremonies were considered serious business is indicated in the 
story of Nadab and Abihu, both sons of Aaron, who tried to offer sacrifices 
in a manner not specifically prescribed by Yahweh.  Their punishment was 
fire that came forth from Yahweh and devoured them (Lev. 10:1-2).

   All of this indicates that the author(s) of the Pentateuch considered 
animal sacrifices not just important but a Yahwistic command that had to be 
executed according to the letter. Why then did some of the prophets who 
lived centuries after the exodus and wilderness wanderings take a different 
view of sacrificial ceremonies?  Yahweh said through the prophet Hosea, "For 
I desire goodness, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than 
burnt offerings" (6:6).  Inerrantists, of course, will argue that Hosea was 
speaking of sacrifices offered by those who were disregarding the importance 
of inner purity in their personal lives; however, a psalm attributed to David, 
a man after God's own heart (1 Sam. 13:14), who had done that which is 
right in the eyes of Yahweh "all the days of his life" (1 Kings 15:5), said 
this of sacrifices: "For thou delightest not in sacrifice; else would I give it: 
Thou hast no pleasure in burnt-offering" (51:16).  To want goodness more 
than sacrifice from the ungodly is one thing, but why would Yahweh, who 
was so pleased with Noah's sacrifice that he promised never to destroy man 
again, not delight in sacrifices from a man after his own heart?  This is 
hardly unity so amazing and consistency so beautiful that they could be 
explained only by divine inspiration.

   The prophet Jeremiah took the matter of sacrifices even further and 
denied that Yahweh had even commanded them:

        My people, some sacrifices you burn completely on the altar, 
     and some you are permitted to eat.  But what I, the LORD 
     [Yahweh], say is that you might as well eat them all.  I gave 
     your ancestors no commands about burnt offerings or any other 
     kinds of sacrifices when I brought them out of Egypt.  But I did 
     command them to obey me, so that I would be their God and they 
     would be my people.  And I told them to live the way I had 
     commanded them, so that things would go well for them (7:21-23, 
     Good News Bible).

I have quoted this passage in a modern English version so that the meaning 
will be clearer than it is in the versions that use 17th century English. 
According to Jeremiah, Yahweh plainly said that he gave no commands con-


                           3
cerning burnt offerings and other sacrifices when he brought the Israelites 
out of Egypt, and that flatly contradicts passages already cited in this article 
and others too numerous to list.  Animal sacrifices were the very foundation 
of the religion that Yahweh allegedly revealed to the Israelites through Moses.
   In his typically far-fetched fashion, Gleason Archer explained the problem 
posed by Jeremiah's statement by claiming that the prophet meant only that 
"no sacrificial requirements were made by God to the Israelites" until after 
they were out of Egypt (Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, p. 272).  In other 
words, Archer limits Jeremiah's statement to the time that the Israelites were 
in Egypt proper and therefore contends that the prophet was not alluding to 
sacrificial commands that Yahweh later gave to the Israelites in the Sinai wil-
derness.

   If ever an inerrantist stretched credulity to the limits to explain away an 
"alleged Bible discrepancy," Archer has done so here.  For one thing, the 
territory of Egypt at that time (as it does today) stretched into the Sinai 
region, so when the Israelites were in the wilderness, where the writer of 
Exodus claimed that Yahweh gave commands concerning sacrifices (20:24-26), 
they were still in Egypt.  It is therefore more probable that Jeremiah was 
referring to an era or a period of time that involved both the exodus and the 
wilderness wanderings.

   This interpretation is more consistent with the original text.  In Hebrew, 
Jeremiah literally said, "I did not speak to your fathers nor command them in 
the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt about the matters of 
burnt offerings and sacrifices" (Hendrickson's Interlinear Bible).  The ex-
pression "in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt" is in the 
KJV, ASV, NKJV, RSV, NRSV, NAS, RBV, NAB, AB, and other  versions
including the Holy Spirit's favorite, the Septuagint. It is customary to use 
the word day in the sense of an era rather than a literal twenty-four-hour 
period.  Determining if Jeremiah meant the word in this sense should be as 
simple as examining other places where he used the expression "in the day 
that I brought them out of the land of Egypt."  

   A good place to begin would be chapter 11, where Yahweh said through 
Jeremiah, "Cursed be the man that heareth not the words of this covenant, 
which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of 
the land of Egypt" (v:3-4).  According to Archer's logic, this statement 
would have to mean that Yahweh made his covenant with the Israelites on the 
very day (twenty-four-hour period) that he brought them out of Egypt, but 
in fact the covenant was not made until the events recorded in Exodus 20, 
the very chapter that Archer referred to as the time and place in the Sinai 
wilderness when Yahweh first spoke to the Israelites concerning sacrifices.

   Later in the same chapter, Yahweh, speaking through Jeremiah again, 
said, "For I earnestly protested unto your fathers in the day that I brought 
them up out of the land of Egypt, even unto this day, rising early and 
protesting, saying, Obey my voice" (v:7). We find no such protest recorded 
in Exodus that Yahweh made on the very day or even before the Israelites 
left Egypt, but Yahweh made many such protests to the Israelites in the 
wilderness (Ex. 15:26; 19:5-6; 23:20-22; Dt. 11:27; 27:10; 30:1-2).  "In the 
day that I brought them up out of the land of Egypt," then, must have 
referred to an era associated with the journey from Egypt to Canaan rather 
than to the actual time it took the Israelites to leave Egypt proper.

   In Jeremiah 31:32, Yahweh again referred to the covenant that he made 
with the Israelites "in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them 
out of the land of Egypt," and again in 34:13, Yahweh said, "I made a 
covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the 
land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." As noted above, however, Yah-
weh's covenant with the Israelites was not made on the very day that they 
left Egypt but later when they were in the Sinai wilderness.  So twice again, 
the prophet Jeremiah obviously used the expression in question to mean the 


                           4
period of time associated with the exodus and the wilderness wanderings. Why 
then must we believe that he was referring only to the time that the Israelites 
were in Egypt proper when he said that Yahweh did not speak to the Israelite 
fathers about burnt-offerings and sacrifices in the day that he brought them 
out of the land of Egypt?

   Another flaw in Archer's theory is his claim that Yahweh made "no sacrifi-
cial requirements" of the Israelites while they were in Egypt.  Recognizing 
the flaw, Archer dismissed the passover instructions given to Moses on the 
eve of the exodus on the grounds that the passover "had nothing to do with 
offerings on an altar" (Ibid). Nevertheless, the passover was considered a 
sacrifice and was so designated in the instructions that Moses gave to the 
Israelite elders and in his renewal of the instructions in the wilderness:

        And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto 
     you, What mean ye by this service? that ye shall say, It is the 
     sacrifice of Yahweh's passover (Ex. 12:26-27, emphasis added).

        And thou shalt sacrifice the passover unto Yahweh thy God, 
     of the flock and the herd, in the place which Yahweh shall 
     choose, to cause his name to dwell there.... Neither shall any of 
     the flesh, which thou sacrificest the first day at even, remain all 
     night until morning.  Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover 
     within any of thy gates, which Yahweh thy God giveth thee; but 
     at the place which Yahweh thy God shall choose, to cause his 
     name to dwell in, there thou shalt sacrifice the passover at even, 
     at the going down of the sun... (Dt. 16:2-6, emphasis added). 

So even if Archer is right in his interpretation of what Jeremiah meant by "in 
the day that I brought them [the Israelites] out of the land of Egypt," he is 
wrong in claiming that God made "no sacrificial requirements" of the Israelites 
while they were in Egypt. To argue that Jeremiah was referring only to sacri-
fices that involved altars is a resort to arbitrariness, because he included no 
such qualification in his statement.  He said (without qualification): "I spake 
not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them 
out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices."  If he 
had intended this as a reference only to altar sacrifices, then why didn't he 
stop with burnt-offerings?  The fact that he went on to say "or sacrifices" 
must mean that he had in mind more than just altar sacrifices.  So Archer's 
resolution of this problem turns out to be just another futile attempt to 
preserve the inerrancy doctrine

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

     FREE SUBSCRIPTION: A free one-year subscription to The Skeptical 
Review can be obtained by writing to P. O. Box 617, Canton, IL 61520-0617.



















                           5
