Page 5-12: summer 1990 THE FLAT EARTH: STILL AN EMBARRASSMENT TO BIBLE INERRANTISTS Adrian

Page 5-12: summer 1990


THE FLAT EARTH: STILL AN EMBARRASSMENT TO BIBLE INERRANTISTS

                         Adrian Swindler
   
   As I proved in an earlier article ("The Flat-Earth Belief of Bible Writers," 
Winter Issue, 1990, pp. 9-11), the Hebrews conceived the world as a three-
storied structure that included a flat-earth belief. That they believed in such 
an unscientific concept should not surprise us, because they were surrounded 
by pagan cultures much older than theirs whose cosmologic views were very 
similar. The Hebrews had simply borrowed this concept  from their pagan 
neighbors.   In Man and the Cosmos, Lars Thunberg described the pagan 
cosmology of two of those pagan neighbors:

     The Babylonians thought of heaven as a great vault, immobile and 
   solid, whose foundations rested on a vast ocean (apsu, meaning "the 
   deep"). Above the vault (dome, firmament)  was  the "dwelling of 
   the gods" from which the sun comes through a door  every morning 
   and returns every evening through another door.   The earth was 
   supposed to be a mountain, hollow underneath, also supported by 
   ap-su.  The abode of the dead, sheol, the land of darkness and the 
   shad- ow of death, was just above the hollow interior but inside the 
   earth' crust.  The Egyptians held similar ideas. As fanciful, and 
   even naive, as these ideas appear now, they represented the  think-
   ing of the day" (1985, pp. 26-27).

The similarity of these pagan ideas to the Hebrew conception of the cosmos 
should be apparent to everyone who is familiar with the Old Testament scrip-
tures.

     In the lead article of this issue, however, Jerry McDonald, a 
Church-of-Christ preacher in Oskaloosa, Kansas, took exception to my first 
article on this subject. In so doing, he said that no scholar who believed in 
the inerrancy of the Bible would take the position that there are mistakes in 
the original autographs of the Bible.  That was a rather simplistic observa-
tion.  It states the obvious and needs no comment. It is a lot like saying a 
theist would never say that God does not exist.  

     But what is this "original autographs" business? There are absolutely 
NONE, so how could anyone know that there were no mistakes in them?  The 
copies we do have are obviously not the same as they once were.  In 1958, 
Professor Morton Smith of Columbia University discovered in a monastery near 
Jerusalem a letter containing a missing fragment of the Gospel of Mark that 
had been deliberately suppressed by Bishop Clement of Alexandria.  It origi-
nally followed Mark 10:34 where Jesus, after predicting the approaching death 
of the "Son of man," said, "... and after three days he will rise again":

     And they came unto Bethany, and certain woman, whose brother 
   had died, was there.  And coming, she prostrated herself before 
   Jesus and says to him, "Son of David, have mercy on me." But the 
   disciples rebuked her.  And Jesus, being angered, went off with 
   her into the garden where  the tomb was, and straightway a great 
   cry was heard from the tomb.  And going in where the youth was, 
   he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand.  But 
   the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him 
   that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb they
    came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six  
   days, Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth comes 
   to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained 
   with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the king-
   dom of God. And thence arising, he returned to the other side of 
   Jordan," (Secret Gospel, p. 14ff).

In present versions, this same young man is apparently  mentioned  in  Mark 
14:51: "And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about 
his body; and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away 
naked."

   This secret gospel was suppressed by Clement because the Carpocratians 
were using it to prove that Jesus approved of homosexual activity.  This 
fragment was about the raising of Lazarus, and, like most accounts of the 
gospels, it varies from John's version. Professor Smith thinks that homosex-
uality was probably not involved here but rather the description of a typical 
mystery school initiation--a ritualized and symbolic death and rebirth of the 
sort so prevalent in the Middle East at that time.  The point is clear, howev-
er, that we don't have all of the old copies now, so how much more has been 
excised, added, and altered?  No one can tell.

   A similar case concerns what the voice in Luke 3:22 said after the baptism 
of Jesus. Justin Martyr quoted it as, "Thou art my Son, today have I begot-
ten thee."  He said that this was in the "Memoirs of the Apostles," (Dialogue 
with Trypho, p. 190 & ciii 6). The Codex Bezae, the Old Latin, Clement of 
Alexandria, Augustine, and other western authorities quoted it the same. 
But is it that way in your copy?  No!  So is the Bible complete? Infallible? 
Inspired of God? The fact is that we can determine very little about who 
wrote and when they wrote most of the Bible.

   In Harmony of  the Gospels, A. T. Robertson, M. A., LL. D., Litt. D., 
one  of Jerry's old fundamentalist scholars whom the Church of Christ has 
used for years, said this about the Bible writer Luke: 

     Luke is the first critic of the life of Christ whose criticism has 
   been preserved to us. Others had drawn up narratives of certain 
   portions of Christ's work. Others still had been eyewitnesses of the 
   ministry of Jesus and gave Luke their oral testimony. Luke sifted it 
   all with care and produced an orderly and reasonably full narrative 
   of the earthly ministry of Jesus. We cannot reproduce all the 
   sources Luke had at his command, but it is clear that he followed in 
   the main our gospel of Mark, as anyone can see for himself by 
   comparing the two Gospels in this Harmony. Both Matthew and Luke 
   made use of Mark. But they had other sources too.

So here is your scholar, Jerry!  He admits that Luke and the writer of 
Matthew were about as inspired as you are.  The very fact that Luke wrote 
his gospel shows that he considered all others questionable and that he was 
going to give the straight dope to Theophilus.  If Luke had thought the 
other gospels were correct and complete, all he would have had to do was 
point to them as faithful accounts of the story.

   So with the theory of "inerrant original autographs" put to rest, we can 
now turn to Jerry's views on scholarship.  He didn't care too much for my 
scholars.  Ian Wilson and Richard Friedman are indeed two of them, but 
others would include the 100+ translators of the New American Bible and The 
Good News Bible.  To these can also be added the ones who gave us The 
Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible and the 74 who compiled the New Jerome 
Bible Commentary.  

   And that is only a start.  My scholars are the professors of philosophy 
and religion at the major universities in this country and Western Europe. 
These are honest people in their fields, who will not sell out to ignorant and 
prejudiced fundamentalists.  On the other hand, Jerry's "scholars" are the 
old manipulators who are adept at using possibility answers to "explain" the 
insurmountable inconsistencies, contradictions and absurdities in the Bible. 
Possibly this, maybe that, it could be, it might be--this is their strength. 
My! My!  It's so easy to pull the wool over the sheep's eyes.

   Jerry's 19th century scholars have presided over nearly 300 fighting 
fragments of Christianity that cannot agree on much of anything.  Of course, 
even the scholars disagree on a multitude of interpretations.  The Church of 
Christ has been relying on characters like these for almost two hundred years 
and has at least 10 divisions, all of which claim to be the "one true church." 
The "doctors" of this church are constantly at one another's throats, with J. 
D. Bales (Harding College) and Thomas B.  Warren (Freed-Hardeman College) 
disgreeing  vehemently over marriage issues and other interpretative matters. 
As editor of The Spiritual Sword, Warren tried with pontifical pronouncements 
and "definitive" treatment of all subjects to write the creed for the church. 
It didn't work!

   Jerry even quoted three 19th century scholars whom, if they were still 
alive, he would not even allow in his pulpit on Sunday morning, men who 
believed that baptism is not essential, that babies should be baptized, that 
pouring and sprinkling in baptism is acceptable and that a 1000-year literal 
reign of Jesus is coming. Jerry loves them when he can use their deceptions, 
possibilities, and perversions, but he would never give them the right hand 
of fellowship.

   As for the opinion of scholars, I think even Jerry has heard of Bultmann. 
He, knowing of the three-tiered structure of the world taught by the Bible, 
made this cogent observation:

     The whole conception of the world which is presupposed in the 
   teaching of Jesus in the New Testament generally is mythological, 
   i.e., the conception of the world as structured in three stories, 
   heaven, earth, and hell; the conception of the intervention of 
   supernatural powers in the course of events; and the conception of 
   miracles, especially the conception of the intervention of supernatu-
   ral powers in the inner life of  the soul, the conception that men 
   can be tempted and corrupted by  the devil and possessed by evil 
   spirits. This conception of the world we call mythological because it 
   is different from the conception of the world which has been formed 
   and developed by science since its inception in ancient Greece and 
   which has been accepted by all modern men,  (Jesus Christ and 
   Mythology, 1958, p. 15).

The pre-scientific character of the Bible is obvious to all who will read it 
objectively.

   Jerry spoke of "faulty translations," yet he uses the KJV.  "Moreover, 
brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God...."  What?  "Wot ye 
not...." This is the nearly 400-year-old language of the KJV.   There are 
thousands of  words that are either mistranslated or obscurely rendered and 
several others that are now obsolete. Besides this, the KJV was too highly 
colored in many places with the party opinions and ideas of those who trans-
lated it to be considered a faithful record. In the words of Dr. Macknight, 
"It was made a little too complaisant to the king in favoring his notions of 
predestination, election, witchcraft, familiar spirits, and kingly rights, and 
these, it is probable, were also the translators' opinions.  Their translation is 
partial, speaking the language of and giving authority to one sect."  And he 
imparted this not to the translators alone but to those who employed them, 
for even some of the translators complained that they could not follow their 
judgment in the matter but were restrained by "reasons of state."  So the 
KJV is not a translation from the oldest MSS--there are no originals--but 
merely a revision of the versions then in use. Those versions had only eight 
MSS available, whereas there are about 700 Greek MSS now available.  What 
do these facts say about the reliability of the KJV?

   With Jerry's complaints and quibbles about inerrant original autographs, 
liberal scholars, and faulty translations out of the way, I can now address 
the "rebuttal" arguments in his article.  Space will allow us to reprint only 
one of the graphics from my first article, so if you have saved the first issue 
of TSR, you might want to keep it close at hand for reference purposes as I 
analyze Jerry's "counterarguments."

   PSALM 24:1-2. Jerry didn't seem to understand why I  cited this passage. 
My point here and throughout was to show that the graphic illustrations of 
the NAB and The Interpreter's Bible were accurate in depicting the Bible 
writers' conception of a three-tiered universe, with heaven, hell, and a flat 
earth. A verse that touches on any one of those three tiers, as these do, 
confirms the graphics that contain all three.  Jerry said nothing about this.

   But one of his scholars has tried to circumvent the obvious  embarrass-
ment of this passage. Scholar Barnes said, "As the earth appeared to be 
surrounded by water, it was natural to speak of it as founded also upon the 
waters...."  Natural indeed to the pre-scientific, ignorant primitive mind but 
absolutely false nevertheless!  In fact, Barnes' statement is an admission that 
the  writer was  wrong and was basing his statements on appearance rather 
than fact.  Furthermore, Barnes himself is in error in this statement: "The 
earth has been elevated above them (the seas)...."  That is absolutely incor-
rect.  The earth is not built upon the seas; it contains the seas. The vast 
majority of the land is under the water with some rising above it. The Bible 
is wrong; the earth (Barnes' and Strong's "globe") is NOT founded upon the 
seas!  Anyone should easily recognize that Jerry's scholars lived recently 
enough to know from science that the earth is round, and that they simply 
inserted scientific knowledge into their definition of tebel as meaning "the 
earth" and by extension "the globe."  By their extension, the earth is a 
globe, but their extending the meaning of the word results in a vicious lie! 
There is absolutely NO Hebrew word for globe in the sense of Earth, because 
those ancients thought the earth was flat. By their extensions, Barnes
and Strong simply lied. They extended the truth, and that constitutes lying. 
Young's Analytical Concordance has every instance where the words translat-
ed earth are used, and NOT ONCE does the root mean globe. Jerry's funda-
mentalist scholars have been clearly discredited.

   DANIEL 4:10. The dream and interpretation of it in this passage were, 
according to the story, inspired by God.  This was not like one of  Jerry's 
dreams, which is caused by something he eats, but was a sensible dream 
with a sensible interpretation. That dream clearly presented a flat earth with 
a tree at the center that could be seen from the ends of the earth.  This 
expression was used over and over in the Bible, as it was here and in Job 
38:13-14, and Bible writers used it because they thought the earth was flat 
and had ends, just as most people did at the time of Columbus and before. 
Jerry said, "We still use that language, even though we know the earth has 
no ends."  That's true, but the expression originated  in a time when people 
did think the earth had ends.  Our language is filled with unscientific ex-
pressions, such as sunrise and sunset, that originated when people thought 
they conveyed scientific fact.  They are in our language, because we have a 
tendency to retain such idioms long after we know them to be erroneous.

   MATTHEW 4:8. The only reason for taking Jesus to an "exceedingly high 
mountain" was for a visibility factor that would show him ALL the kingdoms of 
the world, just as taking him to the highest point of the  temple was  to give 
falling  distance.  Jerry appealed to Dungan and the hermeneutic principle of 
word substitution.  I agree wholeheartedly with this principle and will, to 
Jerry's embarrassment, shortly use it myself.  However, Jerry wants to 
substitute Palestine for the world in this passage, so let's look at the conse-
quences of this substitution. The same word kosmoswas used in Mark 16:15: 
"Go into all Palestine and preach the gospel...."  Well, well, well!

   On this verse, Jerry had his scholars contradicting each other and him-
self.  Barnes said, "... we need not suppose that there was any miracle 
when they (the kingdoms) were shown to the savior." But Boles said, "The 
devil may have had supernatural power and presented Jesus with a mental 
vision of 'all the kingdoms of the world....'"  So Jerry goes along with 
Barnes who claimed only a tiny world was involved and therefore no miracle 
happened, but then he  quoted Boles who gave the devil credit for a miracu-
lous showing of all kingdoms of the earth in a vision!  This is a  fundamen-
talist nightmare. Their own scholars disagree with each other, and all they 
can propose is maybe, possibly, could be, perhaps,  it is possible, ad infini-
tum and ad nauseam.  So please explain something, Mr. Boles et al.  Why 
take Jesus to an "exceedingly high mountain" only to show him a MENTAL 
VISION? Hogwash and balderdash!  Barnes, Jerry, et al, how much could you 
tempt a person by showing him the glory of Palestine? Glory? What glory?  A 
depressed, primitive, third-worldlike area!  You and your pitiful scholars are 
batting exactly zero, and you don't get any better.

   GENESIS 11:4.  The language and context here clearly shows an anthro-
pomorphic god was afraid that, if he left the people to their own devices, 
they would reach heaven where his throne was.  Yes, Jerry, those writers 
were just like you were in your childhood, but they had no one to teach them 
science as you had. The only  reason you  don't feel  the same way about 
the distance to the stars now is because you have been taught scientific 
facts. It isn't because you're an adult but because you have been taught that 
the earth is not flat and that the stars are billions of miles away.  Science is 
your teacher and not the Bible.  Hold to the Bible and you, like the Amish 
and the people of Zion City, Illinois, will believe the earth is flat.  We can at 
least credit them with honesty. They believe this because they believe the 
Bible, but you are trying to explain these things away.

   Jerry's scholar Leupold carried no weight at all with his foolish comment: 
"It cannot but work harm to let this situation continue." How ridiculous! 
Those people couldn't have hurt a thing with their ziggurat.  Many of them 
were built in that area at this time.  Language didn't come from a god con-
founding their speech; it developed from grunts and growls and has been 
changing ever since.  The English of 500 years ago was so different from 
ours that, if we were taken back in time, we wouldn't be able to understand 
it.


   JOB 38:22. This Bible writer had no idea how snow and ice are formed, 
so he had his god pose this as a problem for Job. Jerry's Barnes gives us 
another idiotic and unsupported statement, but the scholars who translated 
the NAB,  The Interpreter's Bible, and MATC understood clearly that god 
was  telling Job that he stores up the snow and hail. But we know very well 
how hail and snow are formed; it is no mystery at all.  Job's god lied to him 
and told him he kept the snow and hail "ready for times of trouble, for days 
of battle and war."  We know, of course, that there was no god involved, 
merely an uneducated, pre-scientific writer.

   Let's look, for example, at the questions this god allegedly asked Job. 
They are either questions  that little children in school could easily answer or 
those that are based on erroneous conceptions.  "What holds up the pillars 
that support the earth? Who laid the cornerstone of the world?"  (v:6). 
ANSWER: There ain't any, and nobody! "Who closed the gates to hold back 
the sea?" (v:8).  ANSWER: Nobody, because there are no gates. "Have you 
walked on the floor of the ocean?" (v:16). ANSWER: People have, so what? 
"Do you know where light comes from or what the source of darkness is?" 
(v:19). ANSWER: What a question!  It reminds me of an old "little moron" 
joke.  In a class discussing the relative importance of the sun and the moon, 
the teacher asked,  "Which is  more  important, the sun or the moon?" The 
little moron answered, "Why, the moon is more important! It gives us light at 
night when we need it; the sun is there in the daytime when it's already 
light."  This entire chapter in Job is laughable to anyone educated in 
science.

    GENESIS 1:6-7. Jerry quibbled over the meaning of dome, expansion, 
firmament, and vault and then quoted Leupold again, who said that the 
firmament surrounding the earth is simply an air space.  Now where did 
Leupold get that?  Ipsi dixit will not do.  What scripture did he rely on?  It 
is simply an explanation without evidence.  As fundamentalists are so prone 
to do, Jerry accepted it and then said that this air keeps the mist, fog, and 
rain apart from the earth.  So Jerry is still a child.  I've seen all of those 
elements in very close connection with the earth but never at all separated.

   To test the  soundness of his theory, let's use Jerry's hermeneutic trick 
and substitute air  for firmament: 

     And God said let there be lights in the air of the heavens to 
   separate the day from the night...  and let there be lights in the 
   air of the heavens to give light upon the earth....  And God made 
   the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the 
   lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also.  And God set 
   them in the air of the heavens to give light upon the earth, (Gen. 
   1:14-17).

Now isn't that something? All of those heavenly bodies up there in the air! 
That means they are all  within 200 miles of the earth.  Does this mean the 
moon is not 238,000  miles  away?  The  sun  is not 93 million miles out in 
space? How do our space vehicles get past that vast array of bodies that are 
all up there in the air? 

     Let there be air in the midst of the waters, and let it separate 
   the waters from the waters.  And God made the air and separated 
   the waters which were  under the air from the waters which were 
   above the air.  And it was so.  And God called the air heaven, 
   (vv:6-8). 


Now isn't that a shocker? Is there actually water above the AIR? Mind you, 
that is not in the air but above the AIR!  Not water in the firmament but 
water above the firmament! Are the sun and moon and all the stars up there 
in the AIR? Jerry's Dungan (a real scholar) and hermeneutics are very use-
ful, eh?

   My use of Psalm 104:3, 13 was misunderstood by Jerry (so what else is 
new?). Check the NAB graphic illustration again, and you will see that the 
throne of god is above the dome and the floodgates (sluices) need merely be 
opened from god's palace.  Also, the expression "who lays the beams of his 
chambers in the waters" has reference to his throne established on the waters 
above the dome. Since this language supports the graphic illustrations I re-
ferred to, it teaches the three-tiered structure, including the flat earth.

   Job 38:12-14. Jerry tried to justify the Bible writers for saying "the ends 
of the earth" on the grounds that  people still say this. Just a tiny bit of 
thought should have suggested to him that the expression originated in a time 
when people did believe the earth was flat.  In my  comments on Daniel 4:10, 
I addressed the issue of unscientific idioms. The same principle applies here, 
so nothing more needs to be said about it.

   Job 26:7. Apparently, Jerry didn't realize I was answering an argument 
that claims this verse teaches a global earth.  It teaches no such thing, and 
my statement on this should be read again with that context in mind.

   Job 26:11. The fact that the writer speaks of the "pillars of the earth" 
proves again that my graphic illustrations are correct. Jerry hangs in there 
with his discredited Barnes who speaks of "mountains which seem to support 
the earth," (emphasis, AS). Can you believe an adult of even average intelli-
gence would make a statement like that? Job 38:6 asks, "What holds up the 
pillars that support the earth?" I suppose Barnes would have said the pillars 
"seem" to support the earth.  Barnes adds to what is written and deserves 
the condemnation of Revelation 22:18.

   Isaiah 14:13. Jerry misunderstood my use of this passage, even though 
my argument was clearly directed against those who use it to prove the writer 
thought the earth was round.  My original statement should be reread with 
that context in mind.

   Isaiah 40:22 was used for the same purpose as above. I showed that this 
verse does NOT teach a round earth.  Poor Jerry thinks the old King James 
per-Version is the correct one, even with its 20,000 errors.  I wonder if 
those translators were right when they substituted easter for passover in 
Acts 12:4? The NAB and GNB translators made Isaiah 40:22 quite clear: "He 
sits enthroned above the vault of the earth, and its inhabitants are like 
grasshoppers; he stretches out the heavens like a veil, and spreads them out 
like a tent to dwell in." Isn't that exactly what the graphic illustrations 
showed? Of course it is! Isn't it nice to know that the heavens are spread 
out like a tent?  All the tents I have seen were domed over a flat surface. 
My, my, what you can learn from the Bible!  This is the very verse medieval 
churchmen quoted to prove the earth was flat!  Now comes Jerry McDonald to 
tell us it  teaches the earth is round.  

   Those old churchmen understood the Bible much better than Jerry and his 
deceptive, shifty, sly, and crooked commentators. Consider, for example, this 
quotation from Man and the Cosmos:



     We now come to the "dark ages" in the development of cosmology. 
   From Aristotle and Ptolemy until Copernicus thirteen centuries later, 
   no apparent advance had been made. It even took until A.D. 1000 
   for the West to accept a round earth and Ptolemy's system. Howev-
   er, to understand the background of the Copernican  revolution 
   that was to follow, we should know the important factors of those 
   intervening, nonproductive years, which included political and reli-
   gious considerations affecting the study of cosmology....  In its 
   desire to stamp out any pagan influence, the church soon adopted a 
   rigid interpretation of Scriptures and rejected anything that might 
   even remotely challenge her influence. Lacantius (A.D. 240 ca.-
   320), writing on the false wisdom of the philosopher, ridiculed the 
   belief in a round earth.   His arguments were the ancient ones 
   about the impossibility of walking upside down and places where the 
   rain and snow fall upward. He quoted Isaiah 40:22, "It is He that 
   sits upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as 
   grasshoppers; he stretches out the heavens as a curtain, and 
   spreads them out as a tent to dwell in," (pp. 64-65).

Strange, isn't it, that Jerry and Lacantius quoted the same verse, one to 
prove the earth is flat and the other to prove it is a globe?  Lacantius had a 
better understanding than Jerry, because the idea in this verse was the 
ancient one in which God sat enthroned above a dome (vault, firmament, 
expanse) that he had stretched out as a tent to dwell in.

   Jerry alleged that  Farrell Till is not sure of his position and assumes 
that I take the same position.  Well, he assumes far too much.  I know Far-
rell quite well, and both he and I are very sure of our position.  Also, I am 
very sure the Bible is inspired but not by a god.  No god would make those 
horrendous mistakes.

   Jerry bragged that he has shown my position to be false, but in fact he 
has failed most miserably in this regard.  That kind of attitude reminds me of 
the little boy whistling to cover his fear as he goes by the graveyard.

   I have clearly established the correctness of the graphic illustrations of 
NAB, The Interpreter's Bible, and Man and the Cosmos.  A dome over a flat 
earth, which was built on the seas, with pillars reaching into the seas to 
support the earth and sheol deep in that flat earth--this was the three-tiered 
world of the Hebrews, the world their writers described in the Bible.  

   (Adrian Swindler's address is P. O. Box 695, Elmwood, IL 61529.)

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

NO TAKERS (continued from page 1)...
evidence that disputes the Bible inerrancy claim.  In so doing, we try to give 
the opposition a fair hearing.  In this issue, for example, we are publishing 
in its entirety an article that Jerry McDonald, a fundamentalist minister, 
wrote in response to Adrian Swindler's flat-earth article in our first issue. Do 
you know of any fundamentalist publications that would give us the same 
consideration?  

   Although we have received compliments and expressions of gratitude for 
it, there is nothing particularly noble about our policy of publishing opposi-
tion materials.  Our motives are entirely self-serving. We believe our position 
on the inerrancy issue is a sound one and that its soundness can best be 

demonstrated by giving the opposition the uncensored opportunity to respond 
to our arguments.  Each time we identify a contradiction or discrepancy in 
the Bible text and a competent inerrancy spokesman fails to satisfactorily 
"explain" it, the truth of our position should become more obvious to our 
readers.  In other words, we think that if we give the inerrantists enough 
rope, they will eventually hang themselves.
   From our vantage point, they appear to be proving us right.

            ------------------------------------------

                  MOFFITT-TILL DEBATE POSTPONED

   At Jerry Moffitt's request, he and Farrell Till have mutually agreed to 
postpone until next summer their debate originally scheduled for August 13, 
14, 16, and 17 of this year. The location will remain the same (Independence, 
Missouri), but the exact date will be announced later.

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

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