a Response to:"PROPHECIES: IMAGINARY AND UNFULFILLED"
by Farrell Till.

Till: Jesus claimed another fulfillment of nonprophecy in Luke 24:46. Speaking to his disciples on the night of his alleged resurrection, he said, "Thus it is written and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day." That the resurrection of Christ on the third day was prophesied in the scriptures was claimed also by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4: "For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures." In two different places, then, New Testament writers claimed that the resurrection of the Messiah on the third day had been predicted in the scriptures. Try as they may, however, bibliolaters cannot produce an Old Testament passage that made this alleged third-day prediction. It simply doesn't exist.

Confronted with a challenge to produce such a scripture, Bill Jackson, a Church-of-Christ preacher from Austin, Texas, said in my debate with him that "the prophecy had to do with the event... and the fleshed-out details need not have been given at the time" (Jackson-Till Debate, p. 20). He had to say something, of course, but all the talk in the world about fleshed-out details doesn't remove the fact that Jesus plainly said it had been written that he would "rise again from the dead the third day" and that the Apostle Paul agreed that such a prophecy had been written. The claim of a third-day resurrection prediction, then, was just another example of nonprophecy.

rw: What we actually have here is another example of Mr. Till's amazing assumptive powers that underly a majority of his unbiased contextual examination. The assumption being that any reference to OT text must be verbatum as though Christ and his audience weren't capable of conceptual reasoning from allegory. In order to see this clearly and genuinely unbiased one need only look back one verse to Luke 24:45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,

Clearly we have quite a different scenario here than Mr. Till's unbiased contextual criticism warrants. Christ "opening their understanding of the scriptures" better lends itself to a view of Him demonstrating the "relationship" between various OT text and His situation. There is nothing here that would lead us to a contextual expectation of finding scripture that literally says what Christ found necessary to teach them that they would understand. Else it would have been redundant to have had to open their understanding.  Mr. Till's criticism flows from a false assumption, or at least an unsupported one. He would do well to explain beforehand his dogmatic position that Christ's reference to what is written must only be valid if and or when it is presented in a verbatum format, rather than an extrapolation from various OT references. Mr Till seems to be unaware of Isaiah 53:3 or the fact that Christ referenced, (Matthew 12:40), the duration of Jonah's sabbatical in the belly of the fish to be allegorical to his own up-coming ordeal. The last time I checked, Jonah was still a book of the OT. The failure of one apologetic, during a debate, to point this out does not render Mr' Till's criticism valid.

In reference to 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 we have another assumption being proffered as an unbiased contextual examination: the assumption that Paul was referring to OT text.  Paul makes no distinction in his reference to scripture that he is referencing scripture from the Old Testament. It is quite conceivable that at least one of the gospels, the gospel of Mark, was available and being circulated when he wrote this letter to Corinth, such that he would have had just cause to mention "scriptures" in this letter. In fact he even says "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received," giving no details as to how or in what form he recieved it. Evidence that the NT writers referenced one another's work can be found in

: 2 Peter 3:15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;

16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

Till:  In another example, Matthew said that the purchase of the potter's field with the thirty pieces of silver that Judas cast back to the chief priests and elders fulfilled a prophecy made by Jeremiah: "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was priced, whom certain of the children of Israel did price; and they gave them for the potter's field as the Lord appointed me" (27:9-10). The only problem is that Jeremiah never wrote anything remotely similar to this, so how could this be a fulfillment of "that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet"? Some scholars have suggested that Matthew was quoting "loosely" a statement that was actually written by Zechariah (11:12-13) rather than Jeremiah. If this is true, then one can only wonder why a divinely inspired writer, being guided by the omniscient Holy Spirit, would have said Jeremiah instead of Zechariah.

rw: The King James has Matthew calling this prophet Jeremy. Be that as it may, he was most certainly referring to Zechariah. The discrepancy in the name could have been caused by any number of things, but it is an error nonetheless, albeit of such minor significance as to be hardly worth mentioning. Careful examination of the surrounding text will more than adequately refute Mr. Till's next criticism.

Till: To offer this as a solution to the problem posed by the passage doesn't do much to instill confidence in the inerrancy doctrine. Furthermore, if Matthew was indeed referring to Zechariah 11:12-13, then he certainly was "quoting loosely," so loosely, in fact, that any semblance of a connection between the two passages is barely recognizable: "Then I said to them, `If it is agreeable to you, give me my wages; and if not, refrain.' So they weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver. And Yahweh said to me, `Throw it to the potter'--that princely price they set on me. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of Yahweh for the potter" (J Many versions (RSV, NRSV, JB, NAB, REB, GNB, NWT, Moffatt, and Lamsa's translation from the Peshitta text) translate this passage to read treasury for potter, and the Septuagint (the Holy Spirit's favorite version) reads furnace for potter. All of these variations indicate that the meaning of the original certainly wasn't clear enough to claim this as a prophecy of the purchase of the potter's field with the money that Judas was paid to betray Jesus. If it was, then fundamentalists owe us an answer to the question posed earlier: Why did a divinely inspired writer attribute to Jeremiah a prophecy that was made by Zechariah? Of course, when bibliolaters talk about "wonderful prophecy fulfillments," they don't have much to say about this one. The reason why they don't should be obvious.

rw: Before I demonstrate just how closely this text from Zechariah fulfills the events recorded in Matthew let me digress in order to respond to Mr. Till's obsession with a mis-spelled name. As I said above, there could be any number of rational explanations for this error. A careless scribe could have made this mistake while copying from the original or the author of Matthew could have indeed made an honest mistake. That the King James uses "Jeremy" instead of Jeremiah should be  reason enough to give the author the benefit of the doubt. Certainly Mr. Till wouldn't expect the casual observer to reject these claims on the basis of such flimsey charges, as though these writers were themselves infallible. A claim that God inspired these words in no way translates into their human transcription being infallible, neither does the bible make this claim of itself...anywhere. This "infallibility test" is something Mr. Till has felt an obligation to burden us with in the absence of any substantive complaints. Now let's see how Mr. Till's remaining criticism fairs when subjected to the light of reason.

First the prophecy: Zechariah 11:12  And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.

Zechariah 11:13  And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD.

Then the fulfillment: Matthew 27:7  And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. 8  Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day. 9  Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value; 10  And gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me.

The prophecy speaks of 30 pieces of silver being given to the potter by way of the house of the Lord. In the fulfillment of this prophecy, after Judas Iscariot returned the blood money back to the preisthood (in the house of the Lord) they in turn took counsel and purchased a field from the potter to be used as a burial site for strangers. The details are all here so that should assuage the cries of ambiguity. A specific amount of money is named and traced to a specific destiny: the hands of the potter, and this coming through the "house of the Lord". Indeed there is so much fulfillment to this fulfilled prophecy that aligns with the OT text one can only wonder at Mr. Till's interpretational methods. I think it safe to conclude, at this point, that any further claims for "unbiased contextual examination" have been debunked and Mr. Till's agenda to discredit the bible, by any means,  rears its ugly little head for all to see.