Yes, I recall that. But I think that is incorrect.
At a minimum, for the reasons I gave in my first reply to that comment.

We can disagree, I’ve got no problem there. But I think your conclusions ignores several factors that a merely God-timed natural phenomenon doesn’t address.

Within my first post lies the answer to your question about God’s place in the miracle:

“…Thus, the reader should be careful to distinguish between (1) a supernatural mechanism (which requires no rational physical limitations or causes, and therefore cannot even be discussed in any detail within a rational framework), and (2) a supernatural cause for the timing of a natural mechanism. The writer of Exodus clearly chose the latter. “

Everything you just posted in that comment is very interesting, but it has nothing to do with what I said, or what you said in your earlier comment either.

I’m more interested in your reaction to my reaction to your comment.

If you really are interested in the history, I suggest reading this – and anything else from this website:

Amenhotep II and the Historicity of the Exodus Pharaoh
http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2010/02/04/amenhotep-ii-and-the-historicity-of-the-exodus-pharaoh.aspx

“…Did Amenhotep II die in the Red Sea, as the Bible allegedly indicates about the exodus-pharaoh? No, he died in typical fashion, and his mummified body is still preserved. Yet despite popular belief, this conclusion does not conflict with the Bible, since no Biblical text actually states that the exodus-pharaoh died there with his army.

“Can any of Amenhotep II’s military campaigns be related to the exodus events? Yes, his second Asiatic campaign coincides extremely well with the exodus events, and many of the details related to it and Egypt’s post-exodus future cannot be explained without these connections.”

“Can the loss of over two million Hebrew slaves, certainly Egypt’s “slave-base” at the time, be accounted for in the records of Amenhotep II’s reign? Yes, the loss of the Israelite slaves can be accounted for by Amenhotep II’s acquisition of 101,128 slaves in Canaan during his second Asiatic campaign, the only such campaign of its era that was launched in late fall and took so many captives.”

“Is there any evidence to confirm that Amenhotep II interacted with the Hebrews after they left Egypt? Yes, Amenhotep II captured 3,600 ‘Apiru’ (Hebrews) during his second campaign, which was launched just under seven months after the exodus. Despite many futile attempts to disprove the association of the Hebrews with the Apiru of the New Kingdom, far more evidence exists that favors their being one-in-the-same.”

The trouble with your “God will square the moon” argument it that it still doesn’t relate.

What if I told you that God squared the moon, as He said He would, last year.
And that eye-witnesses wrote about it.

Implausibility takes a hit in that case. Which is exactly the case with Jonah, the Flood, Crossing the Red Sea, Elisha’s floating axehead, all of it.

You seem to argue that the laws of nature, I, and no one I know of could make such and such a thing happen, therefore it’s not realistic to believe that it did.

Where is God in the equation?
Both His ability to do things and His ability to communicate that He did things don’t even enter into your reasoning.

The problem, as I see it, with your super-elevation argument is that the biblical text contradicts it.
Two main things.

If super-elevation by wind action was all that happened then how did Israel pass through on dry-land? If the bottom of a sea-bed remain soggy, as one would expect if you pumped all the water out in 1 day, there is no way people and animals and wheeled carts could cross is. Particularly numbers in the order of 2 million people.

Also, even if we grant that the ground was wet and not dry, how would the difference of a metre or 2 be enough to get all Israel (including little children and young livestock) through and yet still drown an army of grown men to the point that no one survived?

Also, I’ve heard the Yam Suph argument before, but I don’t think it holds water. I have no argument as to how it got into the text and back out, I’m not a linguist or a textual critic, but I do have this:
At the time of the Exodus, Sinai was under Egyptian control. So crossing that sea would leave them still in Egypt. If they crossed the Sea of Reeds (as most Bible maps locate it) it would be a simple matter for the Egyptian army to go around. Even if they all drowned, it would be a simple matter for Pharaoh to bring in more troops and continue the charge.

Further, Paul tells us in Galatians that Mt. Sinai (contrary to modern maps) is located in Arabia, leading to the conclusion that Israel actually did cross the Red Sea into that part of the world.

Finally, given that God sent the wind, the realities of how much wind can move how much water become completely irrelevant. Why did Israel and the rest of the world in that area become filled with awe that a wind blew a couple metres of water to the far side of a lake, if that was a common occurrence?

The point I’m interested in slightly different. Consider situations in which we are not certain that God has promised or foretold the event in question. Depending on the nature of the supposed event, we may rightly say that it is “a bit fantastic and implausible.” Such is the case with the moon turning into a square. But now notice an interesting thing: with some such supposed events, their implausibility has a way of affecting the plausibility of the claim that God has or will bring such events about. So, even if your most trustworthy Christian friend tells you that tomorrow God will square the moon, the implausibility of the event seems to infect (to decrease, that is) the plausibility of your otherwise trustworthy friend’s claim about what God will do. Compare this to the case in which the same friend tells you instead that God will make it rain this winter. If this is right, then the mere implausibility of an event (e.g., Noah capturing and accommodating two of each species of every non-aquatic animal into his boat) may affect the plausibility of the biblical record—even though we can all concede that, just like squaring the moon, God could get those animals onto that boat.

This is not, of course, to deny that there are independent reasons to grant plausibility to the biblical record. But, just as there may be independent reasons to trust your friend, severely implausible events may have a way of making even the biblical record (for which we have independent reasons for trusting) still seem, at least to many fair-minded adults, “a bit fantastic and implausible.”

Okay, sorry, I didn’t realize that was an actual question seeking an answer.

And the answer would be: it depends. If I had a solid reason to believe that *God said* that He would make the moon square-shaped tomorrow, then it would not be implausible that it could happen.

That is exactly my point about what you’re doing — you’re acting as though the premise of “God doing it” is somehow separable from what is being described. If the question was, “Do I find it plausible that some indefinite actor could have parted the Red Sea or effected all the miracles necessary to bring about the Flood and the salvation of Noah and the animals,” I’d probably say, yes, that’s implausible. But in cases where the only possibility being raised is that God acted directly and revealed His own actions, the question of plausibility is inseparable from the questions of the power of God and the reliability of scripture. Nothing that is logically possible, is implausible for God, nor is it in any sense dubious if it is infallibly revealed.

C. Ehrlich, these questions are straightforward.

If you don’t respond I don’t think it’s unreasonable for anyone to tentatively conclude that:

(A) You do not hold yourself out as an educated, thoughtful, honest, adult Christian.

and

(B) You do not believe that the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea as recounted in Scripture is historic fact-narrative.

—–

Of course, a confirmation or denial of this is welcome and preferred. Thank you.

I agree with you on two things. We should not interact, and the editor should be involved in this. I expect this will be my final word to you here until he takes a more active role, though I’m not closing the door on further response in the meantime should it become necessary.

I do want to answer your most recent before I pull back from discussion for the time being. You speak of my so-called “hair-trigger sensitivity.” I’m wondering what inappropriate response my “sensitivity” has produced on this thread, other than (possibly) my co-opting your term “dictionary trick” for a different purpose than yours. Note that there was plenty for me to be sensitive to, as you described me and my language here in terms of:

Suspiciousness “out of hand”
Obstructionism
Hindering honest conversation
Fussing
Resisting
Causing senseless delay
Suspicion assumptions
Twists
Perverts
Shameless
Habitual
And maybe a “twisted pervert,” but we’ll suspend judgment on that

Here’s how I responded to all of that: in essence it was, “if you are right, then on the basis or principle, for the good of the blog, I will withdraw.” I guess that qualifies as hair-trigger sensitivity.

Again you tell me of my inability to tolerate criticism from you. My stance here in the last 24 hours speaks otherwise, loudly; in fact on this you are just factually wrong. To disagree with criticism is not equivalent to being unable to tolerate it. Though I have so far disagreed with your criticism, I was willing to be told by others that you were correct, and to respond accordingly. I have in fact stood tons of criticism over my six years of blogging. I have accepted strong corrections and made appropriate apologies and revisions. I have recently accepted and apologized for corrections even on this blog (#37 on this thread, for one). I have not responded the same to yours, because I just don’t agree with you. I have at least answered you, unlike what you did in comments 63 to 68 on the “Serving Tea” post, where your response was to change the subject.

Your unwillingness to address the possibility that you are even partly to blame (other than “winding Tom up”) for the swampiness here is consistent with that behavior. Your “apology” on “zygote hysteria” (#33 here) is very illustrative: while ostensibly apologizing, you laid all the fault at others’ feet. Similarly in comment #70 on that post, and also just now in your “winding Tom up” comment. You made a gesture that looked like accepting responsibility, but in it you found a way again to make it really the other’s fault.

There is the smell of hypocrisy here; speaking of which, no, it is not obvious that when you first used that phrase it was only in response to what Bret had said. Your comments on that touched strongly on topics in my original post. What you consider my inability to tolerate criticism (#16 there) was in fact just a response, ending with “If it seemed dramatic to you, then so be it; you’re welcome to your opinion.” It takes a lot to find that inappropriate.

Your own response to questions I asked here on this thread about premises and assumptions could easily be interpreted as oversensitivity on your part. But see how I responded in comment #26. Rather than accusing you, I gave you your ground quite willingly on that, and then re-asked my question in a revised manner. (That, by the way, was a demonstration of my ability to respond to your criticism. Though I didn’t necessarily agree with it, I made no fuss about it, and I moved forward with a correction.) You responded by calling on me to use a dictionary. Then, when I revealed that I actually had quoted from a dictionary, that didn’t help much, did it?

Your “naive directness” was nothing of the sort. When you chided me for not using the dictionary, you were evading the argument. I had asked a question that you could have answered; instead you told me to go somewhere else and find in there the precise thought that you had in mind. That’s not being direct; it’s directing me away from you and toward some uninvolved inanimate object.

Even now you are evading acknowledging the several patently false statements I have just pointed out to you in my last comment. You’re not even contesting them; you’re just ignoring them. That’s not being very direct. (You’re not doing a great job of responding to TUAD’s questions, either.)

You try to make a great deal of ground on my reacting to “personal slights,” adding that there was a “repeated pattern” of reacting poorly. First, let me state for the record that your multiple suggestions that I follow your “dictionary trick” were poorly disguised putdowns. I called you on that the first time. The second time (#64 here), however, I responded on the basis of the argument, not on a personal level. Same with the third time. There was no repeated pattern of responding to these things as personal slights, so on this you are again factually wrong.

You are demonstrably speaking falsehoods, you are making strong personal accusations against me, and though you rightly say that it is important to respond well to criticism, you show absolutely no signs even of acknowledging any made against yourself or (in many cases) your arguments.

Your Abrahamic overture remains inadequate and misapplied, too, I might add. Abraham and Lot actually separated so as not to encounter one another at all. I continue to hold that if what you say of me is generally true, then on principle I must depart the blog. You have made repeated strong attacks upon my language and my character. I hold that you have committed multiple false statements in so doing. If I am mistaken about that, or even some significant portion thereof, then I am not qualified to be here. If on the other hand I am not mistaken, then it follows that you are guilty of multiple repeated persistent falsehoods here in the process of attacking me personally. It’s inappropriate to allow behavior of that sort to control interaction in the way you have proposed. I will not agree to it as the basis for some kind of bar that prevents me from responding to you in the future, should you post anything I am interested in responding to.

In other words, one of us is behaving very badly here. It’s me, if you are correct; otherwise it is you. The solution is not to pretend the other is not there. The ideal solution is to correct the problem between us. If that does not work, I will not tiptoe around you. I am either a full contributing member of this blog or I am not; and I do not believe in that kind of interpersonal evasiveness.

The editor will decide what to do about this, I’m quite sure.

The heart of the matter, as I see it, is to be found in the very first grievance on Mr. Gilson list, which, in its chronologically priority, is also arguably the “first blood” in this unfortunate feud. This perceived offense occurs in my comment #11 in Tom’s “Islam in America” post (Aug. 21). It begins, “I smell hypocrisy.”

What immediately follows this three-word statement is my description of what the apparent hypocrisy amounts to. From that description it is obvious that this is a follow up to Bret Lythgoe’s point (#7, #10) that “there’s no inherent contradiction between believing in the Islamic faith and accepting democracy.” When Tom then reacts theatrically (#12), I call him out on it, and the feud is fully born.

What we can see in this record is the pattern of all things to come. Though my initial comment (#11) is directed to the abstract idea of certain fundamentalists questioning another form of fundamentalism’s democratic compatibility, Mr. Gilson takes me to be accusing him of hypocrisy (#16). When he then reacts with fantastically dramatized complaints (#12), he invites the sort of correction (#14) that he simply cannot tolerate (#16). This, I would offer, is a repeated pattern. The crucial elements, I’ve now come realize, are these:

1. Hair-trigger sensitivity to whatever might be construed as a personal slight, criticism, or insult

2. Over-the-top reactions to these perceived personal grievances

3.Inability to tolerate correction from someone perceived to cause these personal grievances

The interminable feud is generated by the way in which these elements loop back into each other (over-the-top reactions prompt corrections from me, which—because they are from me—are intolerable, and–because of that hair-trigger sensitivity again–are construed as additional personal slights…). This is perhaps the main pattern you would find over and over again were you to investigate the actual context of the other personal grievances Tom has listed.

Given this pattern, I of course share some of the blame for “winding Tom up,” so to speak. I certainly would be blameworthy if I had seen this pattern from the start as clearly as I see it now. But alas I did not see this pattern so clearly, and in my interchanges with Mr. Gilson I was simply responding within the context, attempting to answer him just as I would answer any other—with naïve directness, with no effort whatsoever to coat my words with sweetness, and with no attempt to feign reverence towards someone whose behavior and arguments I really could not respect.

I still stand by the Abrahamic proposal I suggested earlier (#44, #48, and #50 in this thread). As I’ve said, I should have known that Tom would resist any recommendation coming from me, but I still believe that it is prudent. Given that most commenters tend to tread lightly (if not reverently) around Mr. Gilson, I think that there is a good chance that my proposal will address our problem. I am most certainly willing and ready to steer clear of future interaction with Mr. Gilson.

I actually had followed your advice and reviewed the Islam in America post. Your first words directed to me there were, “I smell hypocrisy.” That was argumentative. In that post you called me “defensive and hostile,” three times, the first time in response to this from me:

Some statements of opinion refute themselves and need no other response. I will say this, though. First, thank you for supporting my attempts at conversation, C. Ehrlich. If, however, you think your other questions noted here are still live for discussion, I do not share that view. You are charging me with things for which I feel no need to defend myself. You will no doubt continue to have your opinion regardless of how I answer. Other readers will have theirs. I invite them to read the thread and form their own conclusions.

That was neither hostile nor defensive; your description of me there was false.

I am of course arguing here. Is it argumentative vice I am displaying? How else am I going to show that you have been making false statements?

In the next two posts on which we interacted, those having to do with “Serving Tea” and “Strangers in a Strange Land,” I questioned you on what you meant by “sectarian” and “defensive.” Here in this post you have called those questions the first two in an

ongoing practice of twisting and perverting the statements of others. He regularly does this by attributing limited and unfair meanings to another’s terms,

It’s hard to see how asking what you meant constituted twisting and perverting your statements. Actually, your statement there was just factually false.

In the Strangers post you asked me a question in comment 14 which I answered in comment 16, and which you asked again in comment 23 as if I had not answered it. You never did answer my question as to what you meant in context by “sectarian.” Instead you condescendingly and pedantically told me to look it up in the dictionary. The dictionary, my friend, knows a lot of meanings, but it does not know, nor could it tell me, which meaning you had in mind. I was offering you the respect of letting you explain yourself rather than assuming I could read your mind via some dictionary, yet you belittled me for it (or at least tried hard to do so). You continued the same pedantry not just for one post but for the next one and this one.

In the “Serving Tea” post you again told me to use the dictionary for a word that I asked you to explain in context, and for which I had actualy offered a dictionary definition in the question. That was blindness on your part, in addition to failure to recognize the same context-dependencies I have just mentioned regarding the prior incident.

When in comment 15 of that post I offered up a summary of Christian history including “freedom of conscience, the dignity of women (a Christian innovation in world history), the rule of law, ending slavery (another distinctly Christian innovation), protecting the life of newborns and the unborn, instituting genuine care for the poor and infirm, and so on,” you responded by ridiculing “zygote hysteria.”

You accused Bret there of “childishness;” and you offered a distinctly false apology in comment 32 and again in 47. In comment 52 you twisted my prior comment out of context, stating that I had suggested that turning the other cheek may only be necessary if one is having a gospel-centered conversation, which I had distinctly not said. You went on to warn me of reacting on the basis of wounded pride or having my self-image called into question. It was not the last of the aspersions you cast on my character.

In this post you claim you have not practiced ad hominems with me, but you have used the following terms related to me and/or to what I have said:
Suspiciousness “out of hand”
Obstructionism
Hindering honest conversation
Fussing
Resisting
Causing senseless delay
Suspicion assumptions
Twists
Perverts
Shameless
Habitual
In #42 you were gracious enough to leave open the door that I might not be a twisted pervert. For that apparently I should be thankful?

In response I have returned no insults in kind. The worst you can charge me with is not consulting a dictionary, and not agreeing with you.

The argumentative vice is not mine, C. Ehrlich.

This, however, is a logical point, and I think the real issues between us are personal. I’d wager that all this conflict is rooted in some perceived personal grievance going back to that “Islam in America” thread. Hence my recommendation, along with the disheartening realization that you’ve demonstrated rather thoroughly your aversion to taking any recommendations from me. (I should have foreseen that my “follow this lead” suggestion in #44 would be inevitably opposed.)

No, the Abraham and Lot answer will not suffice. If your charges against me are generally true, and if I am guilty of an argumentative vice that has dragged this down into the muck, then I am not qualified to be a blogging member of Evangel, and on the basis of principle I must resign from the blog.

If, on the other hand, the charges you have laid against me are not generally true, and if I’m not largely guilty of all that you have charged, then the problem must be something other than that. In that case there ought to be no reason to accept from you any prior restriction on commenting where I think a comment is appropriate.

I have opened myself up to review on that question, to the extent that I am willing to walk away from here, if necessary, on the basis of that review. I think the evidence is pretty clear on the question, but I’m willing to accept that my judgment on it is not fully objective. I encourage you to be open in the same way.

There are two questions from TUAD awaiting your answer still. As for me, I’m done here until we hear from the editor of the website.