Linda G. Hill’s One Liner Wednesday.
The Rabbinic Deflation Hypothesis
If one compares the chronologies of Genesis 5 and 11 as they appear in the Masoretic Text (MT) – which is what most of our bibles use for these dates – with those in the Septuagint (LXX), one finds roughly a 1500 year discrepancy.
The LXX (or Alexandrian) Inflation Hypothesis explains this discrepancy by saying that the Greek translators of the lost Hebrew text of Genesis of their time (called the Vorlage) inflated the dates in the 3rd century BC to better agree with Egyptian history. The Rabbinic Deflation Hypothesis explains this discrepancy by saying that the rabbis in the 2nd century AD deflated the numbers to discredit Jesus as the Messiah.
In the following interview Henry B. Smith Jr of the Associates for Biblical Research (ABR) argues for the Rabbinic Deflation Hypothesis. It is long, so I have commented on it section by section with links to each part.
The correct dates are important for both archeology and apologetics.
The Christian archeologist has to know what the original Genesis text said about the events following the flood. Apologists who accept the Bible as an historical document also need to be clear about what that history actually is. Attacks against any Christianity that has not been watered down to a new age belief system come from those who want to discredit the Bible as reliable history.
- 0:00 Michael Filipek’s introduction
- 6:20 Henry B. Smith Jr’s introduction. He notes that there are no chronological gaps in these genealogies. He also asserts that the biblical text has higher authority over external evidence.
- 16:05 There are three textual traditions with differences in the genealogies: the MT, the LXX, and the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP). The correct dates are needed for archeological research and for apologetics. Smith Jr focuses on Genesis 11 because these dates come after the flood where archeological evidence has to be located and there the internal evidence is greatest for the Rabbinic Deflation Hypothesis.
- 25:02 Smith Jr contrasts the total number of years in these chronologies. For the MT it is 2008 years. For the SP it is 2249 years. For the LXX it is 3394 years. Although creation science explores the entire chronology beginning with creation, archeologists would only have evidence for the time after the flood.
- 33:15 Smith Jr analyzes the dates for Peleg as an example.
- 35:00 Smith Jr analyzes the dates for Kainan as another example. Kainan is mentioned in Luke 3:36 and the LXX, but not in the MT nor the SP.
- 40:37 Smith Jr offers a warning about critical scholarship: although there might be treasures hidden there many of these scholars support the Documentary Hypothesis which entirely discredits the historical value of these chronologies. He also comments that preservation of Scripture does not require that it be preserved in Hebrew manuscripts. It could be preserved in other languages, such as, Greek.
- 44:51 Whoever made the deliberate changes to the text would need a high enough motivation to overcome the command in Deuteronomy 4:2 not to change the text. They would also need the means to disseminate the changes and the opportunity to do so.
- 54:30 There are external witnesses before the second century AD to the LXX reading of Genesis 5 and 11: Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (LAB), Josephus, Eupolemus, and Demetrius of Alexandria as early as 220 BC. However, there are no external witnesses before the second century AD to the MT reading.
- 1:24:00 Smith Jr returns to Peleg as an example of a methodology on how to approach these texts.
- 1:28:54 Smith Jr points out the internal evidence in the MT that there is not enough time from the flood to the Babel dispersion for the population to reach the state that Genesis 10 describes it to be in. He notes that some people may find it hard to believe that the rabbis would have deflated their own texts and some may also have a long-term commitment to Ussher’s chronology which is based on the MT.
- 1:43:45 Smith Jr introduces the Rabbinic Deflation Hypothesis. Chrono-messianism used 1000-year blocks and the Daniel 9 prophecies to predict the coming of the Messiah. The Seder ‘Olam Rabbah became a new chronology in the second century AD. The rabbis wanted to put Jesus outside of biblical prophecies.
- 1:59:21 Ancient support for the Rabbinic Deflation Hypothesis comes from Eusebius, Julian of Toledo, Jacob of Edessa and Bar Hebraeus.
The following diagram compares the ABR chronology1 which prefers the LXX dates because it accepts the Rabbinic Deflation Hypothesis with James Ussher’s chronology2 which prefers the MT because it accepts the LXX Inflation Hypothesis.
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- Henry B.. Smith Jr, The Case for the Septuagint’s Chronology in Genesis 5 and 11, International Conference on Creationism, 2018 for the Creation and Flood date and the chart at the bottom of the Genesis 5 and 11 Project page for the Call of Abraham date: Creation 5554 BC, Flood 3298 BC, Calling of Abraham 2091 BC ↩︎
- James Ussher, The Annals of the World, 1650: Creation 4004 BC, Flood 2348 BC, Calling of Abraham 1921 BC ↩︎
Six Sentence Story: The Doctors Of Nescience
Philip decided to start a company that would produce deceptively engaging nonsense for video channels. He hired his colleagues from the University of Noital each a renowned Doctor of Nescience to build the content. Being congenitally unemployable they were surprised to find themselves suddenly working.
The company was so successful that after many years of faithfully rigging the books, Philip’s CFO reported that profits exceeded expectations for the tenth quarter in a row. However, when the CFO demanded a bigger cut of the faked profits Philip, who failed himself to get a degree in nescience, took the company to the next level by firing the entire board of directors.
That was when Philip realized that he had acquired enough expertise twisting stuff to pitch it all and trash the books himself.
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Denise offers the prompt word “pitch” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Cosmic Photo Challenge: North, South, East and West
Dale offers the prompt “north, south, east, west” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
Now, I can’t keep my lefts and rights straight so I hope what I label as north, south, east and west doesn’t get confused as well.
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Philippians 4:13
Six Sentence Story: The Mousetrap of the Misguiding Muse
Bob told everyone he followed the Bible as closely as the next guy. However, when he read something he didn’t like, on those rare occasions when he read the Bible at all, the muse guiding his philosophical wanderings soothed his mind with a strand of myth, mystery and misinterpretation.
Nonetheless God enjoyed listening to Bob, because when the muse ran Bob’s mouth God couldn’t stop laughing (I mean He could stop but – you know – why would He want to). When Bob died, God looked forward to meeting him so He could ask him some trick questions just to hear how his muse might respond.
Unfortunately, right at the last moment, just outside the Pearly Gates and in spite of all the warning signs, the muse guiding Bob’s philosophical wanderings led him to that omnivorous, omni-awesome black hole, so logically logical that even Lucifer could get used to living there. Then, as Bob gazed down, deep, and ever deeper into the bottomless pit, the mousetrap snapped taking Bob with it into that dark abyss where some say not even light can escape if there were any light down there to try.
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Denise offers the prompt word “strand” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Formalizing the Transcendental Argument Against Skepticism
Arguments for the existence of God are responses to philosophical skepticism. If you have not been deceived by this skepticism to the point of refusing to see when you look, all you have to do is look around yourself for evidence that God is real.
Romans 1:19-20 KJV – 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
People who are willing to look and see – people whose minds have not been deceived – don’t need a philosophical argument for God. They already know He’s real. They might want to know more about Him, but the fact that He’s real is not a problem.
Furthermore, if they are born again Christians who follow where the Holy Spirit leads, they are sons of God. 1 The skeptic has no hope to convince such people. If you are one these people, you can skip the rest of this post. You are indeed blessed.
For those who are unsure, trust that the answers to any of your questions about God are in the Bible, but beware. Although you have passed the first level of deceivers, the skeptics, there are other wolves (or snakes) who would love to tell you what’s in the Bible like the serpent did to Eve.2
The existence of these wolves3 is as sure as the existence of God. I suspect most of them don’t even know they’re wolves. The Way is narrow4. Don’t let yourself be led astray by blind guides which would be a kind of persecution.5 Forgive them.6 Bless them.7 But move on.8
Skeptics of God’s existence
Philosophical skeptics about God are biblically referred to as fools. They love to run their mouths. If no one listened to them, they would only harm themselves.
Romans 1:21-23 KJV – 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
When skeptics talk they introduce doubt into the minds of their listeners and reinforce it in themselves. When they keep expressing this doubt it becomes a commercial selling speculative lies over and over again.
On the bright side, since skeptics are speaking falsehood, whatever they say will counterproductively spring back on them when people argue against their positions effectively. That defense is the only reason to make these philosophical arguments.
When listeners (including the skeptics themselves) realize that no one in his right mind wants what the skeptics are selling in their commercials, the defense will have succeeded.
Formalized propositional logic
There are many philosophical arguments against skeptics of God’s existence. The kind I am focusing on here is called transcendental arguments. Immanuel Kant began this type of argumentation to address the skepticism of David Hume.9
All I will be doing in this post is formalizing the logical steps that one needs to go through in propositional logic to make a transcendental argument. I will also use an online proof checker10 to validate these steps.
What that will do, hopefully, is make clear what the structure of a transcendental argument is and demonstrate that the structure is valid.
Presuppositions11
To get started I need a proposition, a statement of something obvious that no one would want to reject such as “I think”. Then I need to identify what that proposition presupposes. Following Descartes I might say that “I think” presupposes that “I am”.
Even though I might have to chain these presuppositions to get where I want to go, if I can reach a proposition that some unknown God12 exists, then it is game over for the skeptic. Because of that, I should not expect the skeptic to quietly agree with anything I have to offer. He will claim that I just asserted the presupposition without demonstrating it.13 To make sure that no one agrees with him, I need to make sure that I argue persuasively and clearly.
This is the hardest part of the argument. It is also the part that I’m skipping. All I want to show now is what is going on with such arguments by formalizing them as a propositional proof. I want to make sure that it is clear what these arguments are trying to show.
For an example of a specific transcendental argument, Parker Settecase showed how C.S. Lewis set one up.14
What is a presupposition?
A presupposition is the consequent of two implications where the antecedent of one is the negation of the antecedent of the other. If I say that A presupposes B I mean not only that A implies B but also that not A implies B. If the proposition A and its negation both imply the proposition B, then B is a presupposition of A or A presupposes B.
Although that might sound confusing, presuppositions are easy to find. Here’s an example:
Proposition: There is writing on the paper.
Presupposition: There is a piece of paper.
There is writing on the paper implies that there is a piece of paper.
There is not writing on the paper also implies that there is a piece of paper.
If you accept the proposition or its negation, it makes no sense to reject the presupposition.
Setting up the formalization
Let A stand for the proposition and let B stand for the presupposition. Next assume the two implications (which I would have to successfully argue for), namely, A implies B and not A implies B.
A → B as the first assumption
¬A → B as the second assumption
What I want to do is show that if I am skeptical and assume not B, then all I get is a contradiction. So, I will assume not B with the intent of deriving a contradiction. That is, I plan to push the skeptic into a corner.
¬B by hypothesis
Since I have assumed not B, I can use modus tollens on A implies B to derive not A. I can do the same to not A implies B to derive not not A. With that I derive the next two lines of the proof.
¬A by modus tollens from the hypothesis and first assumption
¬¬A by modus tollens from the hypothesis and second assumption
Note that those two lines together form a contradiction, not A and not not A. Since I derived a contradiction I can use reductio ad absurdum to reject the hypothesis as absurd. Given a presupposition B, if I hypothesize not B, all I can derive is B.
Proof checker validation15
Moral of the story
If you can show that a true proposition has a presupposition, that presupposition is a necessary condition not only for the proposition but also for its negation.
If the skeptic wants the proposition to be true, he has to accept the presupposition. That is the transcendental argument.
The goal of a transcendental argument for God starts with a proposition even the skeptic can’t reject. It identifies a presupposition of that proposition which leads to some unspecified, unknown God’s existence.
Having that unknown God is all I need. The philosophical step is over. The deception has been broken. The Bible and the Holy Spirit take over (although they have been guiding me all along this philosophical journey which wouldn’t have been necessary if I weren’t deceived in the first place).
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- Romans 8:14 KJV – 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. ↩︎
- Genesis 3:1-5 KJV – 1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? 2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: 3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. 4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. ↩︎
- Matthew 7:15-20 KJV – 15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. 16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. ↩︎
- Matthew 7:13-14 KJV – 13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. ↩︎
- Mark 10:29-30 KJV – 29 And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, 30 But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life. ↩︎
- Matthew 5:43-45 KJV – 43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. ↩︎
- Luke 6:27-28 KJV – 27 But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, 28 Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. ↩︎
- 1 Timothy 6:3-5 KJV – 3 If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; 4 He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, 5 Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. ↩︎
- Bardon, Adrian, “Transcendental Arguments”, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://iep.utm.edu/trans-ar/ ↩︎
- Open Logic Project: https://openlogicproject.org/ ↩︎
- Beaver, David I., Bart Geurts, and Kristie Denlinger, “Presupposition”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2024 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2024/entries/presupposition/> ↩︎
- Acts 17:22-23 KJV – 22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. 23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. ↩︎
- Sheng-Ta Tsai, Deconstructing Christianity, Transcendental Argument for God’s Existence Debunked, 9/20/2023 ↩︎
- Parker Settecase provided a detailed presentation of this proof in his blog post of 11/13/2017, C.S.Lewis’s Transcendental Argument for God. ↩︎
- https://proof-checker.org/ ↩︎
Cosmic Photo Challenge: Bridges
Dale offers the prompt “bridges” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
Below are pictures of two bridges in Prague that I took last summer.
The first two show up close views of part of two statues on the Charles Bridge. The last shows another bridge in the distance with swans.
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Thursday Doors: President James K. Polk’s Birthplace
Since the James K. Polk Site near Charlotte, North Carolina, is only four miles away and offers easy bike access to the Little Sugar Creek Greenway, I go there often.
Here are photos of the doors on the early 1800s style buildings. These aren’t the original Polk family buildings, but they are representative buildings from the area.
There are also guided tours through the buildings and a museum.
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Linked to Thursday Doors.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 