In the KJV
of 2 Sam 12:13, Nathan tells David the following:
. . .
Now the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die.
The JST
reads differently:
. . .The Lord also hath not put away thy sin
that thou shalt not die. (1867 Inspired Version)
Why the
difference? Perhaps Joseph was confused by the KJV, in v. 14, promises
then-future punishment for David’s sins (i.e., adultery with Bathsheba; murder
of Uriah, sins that lead to the loss of his justification, resulting in him
having to be justified--we will return to this later in this article):
Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given
great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is
born unto thee shall surely die
In an attempt to refute Latter-day Saint soteriology, one author quoted a pro-LDS tract and then posed a question against LDS theology:
Those who had sinned were “ready to comply with any requirement no matter how hard . . . [and were] willing to pay penalties, to suffer even to excommunication if necessary.” (Repentance Beings Forgiveness,” pp. 6-7)
Question #601: Before God forgives your sins, must you “pay penalties” and “suffer”? (Sharon I. Banister, For Any Latter-day Saint: One Investigator’s Unanswered Questions [Fort Worth, Texas: Bible Publications, Inc., 1988], 366)
As Aaron “the yellow” Shafovaloff, his recent debate with Kwaku El, made a big deal about this issue and the JST of 2 Sam 12:13, so it is apropos to discuss this issue in some detail.
Even when God forgives grievous sins, there may be "temporal punishments" (to borrow a term our Catholic friends use) that must be endured by the person. A classic example is that of King David. Even after repenting of the grievous sins of adultery and murder, he had to endure severe punishments give to him for such heinous crimes. The first was to witness God taking the life of the child that was the result of his adulterous affair with Bathsheba:
Nathan went home, and the Lord afflicted the child that Uriah's wife had borne to David, and it became critically ill. David entreated God for the boy; David fasted, and he went in and spent the night lying on the ground. The senior servants of his household tried to induce him to get up from the ground; but he refused, nor would he partake of food with them. On the seventh day the child died. David's servants were afraid to tell David that the child was dead; for they said, "We spoke to him when the child was alive and he wouldn't listen to us; how can we tell him that the child is dead? He might do something terrible." When David saw his servants talking in whispers, David understood that the child was dead; David asked his servants, "Is the child dead?" "Yes," they replied. Thereupon David rose from the ground; he bathed and anointed himself, and he changed his clothes. He went into the House of the Lord and prostrated himself. Then he went home and asked for food, which they set before him, and he ate. His courtiers asked him, "Why have you acted in this manner? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept; but now that the child is dead, you rise and take food!" He replied, "While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept because I thought: 'Who knows? The Lord may have pity on me, and the child may live.' But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will never come back to me." (2 Sam 12:15-23| 1985 JPS Tanakh)
The second was to witness the rape and pillage of his other wives:
Thus said the Lord: 'I will make a calamity rise against you from within your own house; I will take your wives and give them to another man before your very eyes and he shall sleep with your wives under this very sun. You acted in secret, but I will make this happen in the sight of all Israel and in broad daylight.'" (2 Sam 12:11-12 |1985 JPS Tanakh)
If Banister, Shafovaloff, and many other Protestant critics of “Mormonism” are correct, the author of 2 Samuel is wrong vis-à-vis repentance and suffering either to bring about “full” repentance or the temporal punishments one suffers after the reception of forgiveness. Indeed, there will be some individuals who will suffer posthumously to receive a full forgiveness of sins, as seen in 1 Cor 3:11-15. For an exegesis of this text, see:
Another important text is that of 1 Cor 5:5, where Paul writes that:
I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. (NASB)
Notwithstanding the various interpretations, most commentators agree that, regardless of that Paul means by "the destruction of the flesh," this person Paul is commenting on has to suffer (whether extreme physical suffering or illness) with the goal (the Greek is a purpose [ινα-] clause) that they will receive eschatological salvation.
Interestingly, David, according to the apostle Paul, teaches David lost his justification due to such sins and had to be re-justified (I am sure Aaron, if he were consistent, will "kick Paul under the bus").
Further, the typical Protestant critic, it should be noted, has a warped understanding of true repentance due, in part, to holding to imputed righteousness, something the Bible does not support. For a full discussion, see:
Interestingly, David, according to the apostle Paul, teaches David lost his justification due to such sins and had to be re-justified (I am sure Aaron, if he were consistent, will "kick Paul under the bus").
In Rom 4:5-8, we read the following:
But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. So also David speaks of the blessedness of those to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works: "Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin." (NRSV)
In the above pericope, Paul quotes from Psa 32:1 (cf. Psa 52:1); the entire psalm reads as follows:
Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah. Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord," and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah. Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them. You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Selah. I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Do not be like a horse or mule without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you. Many are the torments of the wicked but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart. (NRSV)
In this psalm, David is proclaiming God's forgiveness of his sins of adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband, Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam 11-12). God sent Nathan the prophet to convict David of his heinous sins, with Nathan's parable of the little ewe lamb resulting in David being brought to his knees in repentance.
Paul in Rom 4, alongside the example of Abraham, uses this as an example of an individual who was justified by God, linking the justification of Abraham previously discussed with that of David's through the use of the conjunction καθάπερ ("even/just as") in v. 6.
The crucial question is "Was Psa 32 the first time David was forgiven of his sins and justified?" The biblical answer, which refutes Reformed soteriology, is "no."
The Bible clearly shows us that David, prior to committing those heinous sins, was a justified person. In his youth, David called on the Lord to defeat Goliath (1 Sam 17). David was so close to God that in 1 Sam 13:14 (cf. Acts 13:22) is described as a man after God's own heart, hardly something said of an unsaved person! Indeed, David was truly a justified child of God many years prior to the Bathsheba incident. If David was not justified, he was not a man of God, but a pagan idolater feigning belief in God in how he had lived his life prior to Psa 32 and had written earlier psalms before his encounter with Bathsheba in such a spiritually dead state with no true relationship with God.
As one writer put it:
We cannot escape the fact that Paul, in using the example of David in the context of justification, is saying not merely that David's sins were forgiven, but also that David was actually justified at this point. Paul, in Rm 4:5, underscores this fact both by speaking of "crediting righteousness" to David when he confessed his sin in Psalm 32, and by calling him a "wicked" person whom God must justify in order to return him to righteousness. We must understand, then, that a "crediting of righteousness" occurs at each point that one confesses his sins. Since this was not the first time David confessed sin before the Lord (which other Psalms verify, cf. Ps 25:7, 18; 51:5), he must have been "credited with righteousness" on each occasion of repentance. Since he was credited with righteousness upon repentance in Psalm 32, and since it is an established fact that he was not a man of God prior to his sin with Bathsheba, we must therefore consider all previous acts of repentance a "crediting of righteousness." (Robert A. Sungenis, Not by Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification [2d ed.; Catholic Apologetics International, 2009], 253)
Unless one wishes to accuse the apostle Paul of the grossest form of eisegesis (wrenching select passages of the psalter out of context), it is hard to escape that, based on sound exegesis, David lost his justification due to murder and adultery, and Psa 32 represents another justification (“re-justification” if you will) of David, per Paul’s soteriology. This disproves the Reformed view that justification is once-for-all, and can never be lost.
Interestingly enough, Aaron Shafovaloff would have to accuse Jesus of teaching "an impossible gospel" in his Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, spoken by Christ in the context of how often we should forgive others:
For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he had begun to settle them, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made. So the slave fell to the ground and prostrated himself before him, saying, "Have patience with me and I will repay you everything." And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt. But the slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and began to choke him, saying, "Pay back what you owe." So his fellow slave fell to the ground and began to plead with him, saying, "Have patience with me and I will repay you." But he was unwilling and went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed. So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. Then summoning him, his lord said to him, "You wicked slave, I forgave you all the debt because you pleased with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you? And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until (εως ου) he should repay all that was owed him. My heavenly Father will also do the same (ουτως [alt, per BDAG: in this manner, thus, so]) if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart. (Matt 18:23-35, NASB)
In this parable, one of the servants (representative of a grievous sinner as his debt was great [one talent was worth 6,000 denarii, with one denarius being the usual day's wage for a worker; in other words, this servant owed 60,000,000 days’ worth of wages, an astronomical figure! No doubt, hyperbole to stress the multitude of sins forgiven by the master]) had their “debt” (i.e., sins [cf. Matt 6:12 where “debt” is used for “sin” by Jesus]) forgiven. Notwithstanding this mercy, when he encountered a fellow sinner/servant who owed him a comparatively minuscule amount (1/600,000 of the debt he owed the master) and then threw him into prison. Enraged by such, the master (God the Father) was moved with anger and “handed him over to the torturers (alt. jailers), and this was to last “until” (the Greek εως ου is the same phrase used in Matt 1:25, speaking of Joseph not “knowing” Mary “until” the birth of Jesus) he should repay “all that was owed to him,” that is, the original debt—in other words, according to the Lord Jesus, the former sins of the servant returned to him! If our Protestant critics were to be consistent, they would have to argue that Jesus, or at least Matthew in his gospel, were preaching a blasphemous false gospel that cannot offer any true hope of forgiveness and salvation! Also, do note that this refutes Reformed theology that a truly justified believer is eternally secure.
Many Protestant commentaries agree that the unforgiving servant will be the recipient of some form of eschatological punishment as a result of his sins that “returned” to him. For instance, John Calvin in his Harmony of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke wrote:
34. Delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that he owed. The Papists are very ridiculous in endeavoring to light the fire of purgatory by the word till; for it is certain that Christ here points out not temporal death, by which the judgment of God may be satisfied, but eternal death.
For Calvin, contrary to Catholic apologists who cite this as evidence for Purgatory, he believes the punishment of the servant to be eternal hell.
John Peter Lange, in his A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical (trans. Philip Schaff) wrote the following:
Mat 18:34. And delivered him to the tormentors.—The imprisonment refers in both cases to temporary confinement, until payment should be made, But, besides this, the servant whom his master now sent to prison was also delivered τοῖς βασανισταῖς, “to the tormentors,” to be tormented by them. The punishment of being sold into slavery, with which he had formerly been threatened, was much lighter than that which he had now to endure. However, the king was generous, and the wife and children of the offender were not molested. In its first form, they shared the guilt of that wicked servant; but the sin which he bad now committed rested upon himself alone. Still, except in reference to the manner in which payment is now enforced, the language of the parable continues the same as before. The imprisonment and the torments are intended to enforce payment; but as, in the present instance, this is manifestly impossible, they serve in reality as a punishment. Fritzsche renders the term βασανισταί by “body-guard of the king” (!); Grotius, by “gaolers” [δεσμοφν́λακες]; Meyer, correctly, by “tormentors.” According to the sentence pronounced, the imprisonment would necessarily be both never-ending and hopeless (Chrysostom: τοντέστι διηνεκῶς, ον͂τε γάρ ἀποδώτει ποτε). Still, we are scarcely warranted in referring these torments to the sufferings of Gehenna.
The following comes from a modern Protestant commentator, John Nolland, in his commentary on Matthew, part of the scholarly New International Greek Testament Commentary:
18:34 In v. 27 the master was moved by compassion; now he is moved by anger. Whatever we might be inclined to think about the reversibility of the release granted in v. 27, the master no longer feels bound by his earlier decision. The situation has changed, and that deal is off. But the master does not revert to his first plan, which in retrospect will look positively generous. The master’s strategy is to go one better than what this slave has inflicted on his fellow slave: he has been imprisoned until his debt is paid; this slave is now to be similarly imprisoned with the added note that his gaolers will make use of torture (ostensibly to motivate him and any who care for him to raise the money, but here the goal is primarily punitive).138 Is there an echo of the tormenting (same Greek root) anticipated in 8:29? The thinking of 7:1–2 comes to mind, where we noted that ‘the very act of judgment establishes a set of criteria to which the one judging must expect to answer’. The indebted slave has now found it to be so.
Matthew will make his application to the present context in v. 35. But what can we make of the parable as a free-standing story? At some level this is clearly a morality tale: a certain kind of behaviour is to be avoided; to fail to do so is to court disaster. But that does not take us far enough. The behaviour of the wicked slave is not so much identified as wicked in itself but as wicked in the wake of the incredible gift of mercy that has just been bestowed on him. And though the slave’s situation as creditor is a miniature of the master’s, the difference of level is a fundamental feature of the story (master versus slave; large debt versus small debt). We have noted at several points the likelihood that pointers to application have been built into the telling of the story. Matthew may have added to these, but some are intrinsic to the story . . . The compassion that, in connection with the coming of the kingdom, flows from God through the ministry of Jesus is the foundation on which this parable builds. It addresses itself to those who know that they have been released from a huge debt. It is concerned to illuminate for them a necessary consequence for community behaviour and even to suggest that under certain circumstances the release may be revocable. The parable comes from the opposite end to the Lord’s Prayer (6:12 and cf. vv. 14–15) at the intersection between the forgiveness of God and forgiving one another, but it interlinks the two just as firmly. Inasmuch as the parable treats the forgiveness of God as creating a new situation that entails fresh responsibilities, a more fundamental level of insight is involved. To make a series of direct identifications (the master = God; the slaves = Christians; the debt = sin; etc.) is too simple, but to do so does correctly identify the major contours of the parable.
18:35 The application of a parable will also be introduced with οὕτως καί (‘so also’) in 24:33. ‘My Father in heaven’ from vv. 10, 14, 19 is resumed here as ‘my heavenly Father’. The verb ‘forgive’ is repeated from v. 21, and ‘my brother or sister’ from the same verse (and behind that v. 15) is resumed as ‘his brother or sister’. Though the language is quite different, ‘from your heart’ harks back to the extravagant language of ‘seventy times seven times’ in v. 22. V. 35 is both the other half of the frame around the parable and a fitting climax to the whole section. The main thrust of the section has been the challenge in the ‘royal family’ to embrace the vision of caring for the ‘little ones’. But divine sanctions represent a thread throughout the section (see vv. 3, 7, 8–9, 34) and fit the needs of a concluding statement. Second person plural forms are used, but Matthew makes use of ἕκαστος (‘each’) to emphasise the need for each individual to forgive. Matthew does not elsewhere use ἀπό (‘from’) with καρδία (‘heart’), but he does use ἐκ (‘out of’) in 12:34; 15:18, 19 with a quite similar meaning. As discussed at 5:8, the ‘heart’ locates the core identity of a person; so this is where forgiveness that runs deep must come from. (John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text [New International Greek Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005], 760, 761–762.
With respect to the meaning of εως ου in this text, Eric Svendsen, a Reformed Protestant has argued that this refers to a temporary, not eternal, eschatological punishment. Commenting on the topic of εως ου in the New Testament, Svendsen wrote:
It occurs only seventeen times in the NT and all are temporal. Two of these have the meaning “while” (Matt 14:22; 26:36), whereas the other fifteen occurrences are instances in which the action of the main clause is limited by the action of the subordinate clause and require the meaning “until a specified time (but not after).”Hence, the disciples were not to tell anyone what they had seen “until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead” (Matt 17:9), but they surely were not to keep silent afterwards. The wicked servant was to be tortured “until he should pay back all he owed” (Matt 18:34), but the torture (it is implied) would case after payment had been rendered. The women who loses the coin sweeps the house and searches carefully until she finds it (Luke 15:8), but ceases the search once it is found. Similarly, Jesus’ promise to abstain from eating and drinking at table will be kept only “until the kingdom of God comes” (Luke 22:18), after which he will inaugurate the Messianic Banquet. (Eric D. Svendsen, Who is My Mother? The Role and Status of the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament and Roman Catholicism [Amityville, N.Y.: Calvary Press, 2001], 52, italics in original, emphasis in bold added)
One critic of the Protestant doctrine of justification wrote the following about the relationship between God forgiving us and our obligation to forgive others, as well as how Protestant theologies are at odds with the Bible itself, wrote:
Protestants also distort the requirements for forgiveness of sins when they impose the theory of imputation onto the Sermon on the Mount. While in the parable of the tax collector the penitent simply goes to the temple admitting that he is a sinner and is subsequently justified, in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus makes quite an issue about the contingencies surrounding God’s forgiveness. Jesus begins by specifying one of the petitions of the Lord’s prayer as “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Mt 6:12). The comparative word “as” shows that God’s forgiveness of our sins depends on our forgiveness of other’s sins. Jesus immediately clarifies that this is indeed his meaning in Mt 6:14-15, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
Jesus also teaches this principle in the parable of the Unmerciful Servant, Mt 18:21-35, where the master forgives his servant, but the servant does not forgive his subordinate. Jesus concludes in vrs. 34-35, “In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
The message is clear. We obtain forgiveness of our sins not through accepting an alien righteousness of Christ but by the works of forgiving our neighbors who sin against us. By forgiving them, God forgives us and views us as righteous in his sight. The mere fact that Jesus includes the stipulation that God must forgive our sins shows that Jesus is not speaking of an absolutely perfect righteousness that God expects from us. He knows we will sin, perhaps in some cases by not forgiving our brother as we should. But as long as we humbly recognize and confess of our sins from our heart, and as long as we follow through with the works of repentance, we are working in the realm of grace and God is pleased with us and will grant us the kingdom of heaven. This is not a teaching reserved for some “millennial kingdom,” nor is it a mere hypothetical means to show us the purpose of the law to reveal sin. Jesus makes his intention clear in Mt 5:18-19:
I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Not only is Jesus upholding the precepts of the Law, he is reinforcing them by saying that God will notice our breaking the least commandment. The principle of Law will last until “everything is accomplished,” or, as Jesus earlier taught, when “heaven and earth disappear.” We have already seen this principle in Jesus’ use of the word dikaioo (“justified”) in Mt 12:36-37 to teach that God will judge “every idle word.” Although Jesus’ death partially fulfills the Law (Jn 19:30), it did not completely fulfill it. Jesus teaches in Mt 5:18 that the progressive fulfillment of the Law does not abolish the Law. Those who do not place themselves in God’s grace will be subject to the requirements of the Law till the end of time. In addition, those who are in God’s grace must obey the Law from their heart to please God as a child seeks to please his father. (Robert A. Sungenis, Not by Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification [2d ed.; Catholic Apologetics International Publishing Inc., 2009], 187-88)
Such goes hand-in-glove with Latter-day Saint scripture, such as the following text in the Doctrine and Covenants:
. . . I, the Lord, forgive sins unto those who confess their sins before me and ask forgiveness, who have not sinned unto death. My disciples, in days of old, sought occasion against one another and forgave not one another in their hearts; and for this evil they were afflicted and sorely chastened. Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin. I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men. And ye ought to say in your hearts-- let God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds. And him that repenteth not of his sins, and confesseth them not, ye shall bring before the church, and do with him as the scripture saith unto you, either by commandment or by revelation. And this ye shall do that God may be glorified-- not because ye forgive not, having not compassion, but that ye may be justified in the eyes of the law, that ye may not offend him who is your lawgiver--Verily I say, for this cause ye shall do these things. (D&C 64:7-14)
Regardless of whether this speaks of temporal or eternal eschatological punishment, it does show that (1) one’s former sins can return to them if they do not repent and/or forgive one’s brother and (2) a person can be truly justified and have their sins remitted thereby and yet, through commissioning certain sins, can lose their salvation.
Joseph Smith, in
contradistinction to both Peter and Paul, argued that it was David—not Christ—who
received the promise that his soul would not be left in hell. “David sought repentance
at the hand of God carefully with tears, for the murder of Uriah,” said the
Prophet, “but he could only get it through hell: he got a promise that his soul
should not be left in hell” (Ehat and Cook, The
Words of Joseph Smith, 331). The Prophet further understood Peter to be
saying that, because David was a murderer, he missed having part in the
resurrection at the time of Christ, and would have to wait until Christ comes
again to be redeemed (Ibid., 73).
The act that Joseph
Smith misconstrued Peter’s exposition of Psalms doesn’t make him any less of a
prophet than Peter or Paul. In fact, his
interpretation of Psalms is probably more accurate than theirs as it at least
recognizes that the subject was the psalmist himself and not Christ. According
to Philip Johnston, professor of Old Testament at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford, “Modern
scholarship emphatically rejects this exegesis [given by Peter and Paul] . . .
For a start, the psalmist was hardly David. Secondly, he was referring to
himself, and not some unknown future figure. And thirdly, he was asserting
deliverance from imminent mortal danger, not proclaiming belief in life beyond
death” (Philip P. Johnston, “Left in Hell”? Psalm 16, Sheol and the Holy One,”
214). Part of Peter’s misunderstanding
of Psalms 16 is his dependency on the Septuagint version, which is different
from the Hebrew. Paul Achtemeier explains: “Whereas the Hebrew speak of God
keeping the faithful servant from the ‘pit’ [i.e., the grave itself], the
Septuagint translation speaks of keeping the ‘Holy One’ from ‘corruption’
[i.e., decaying in the grave], a change that lies at the heart of the point
Peter is making in this sermon” (Paul Achtemeier, The Inspiration of Scripture, 64). The general scholarly
interpretation can be summarized as follows: the psalmist is confident that
Yahweh will preserve him and deliver him from
(not out of) death, because he is
Yahweh’s loyal one who has chosen Yahweh as his portion. If this interpretation
is correct, it essentially means that the
interpretation of Peter, Paul, and Joseph are all flawed, though for different
reasons. (Charles R. Harrell, “This
is My Doctrine”: The Development of Mormon Theology [Salt Lake City: Greg
Kofford Books, 2011], 494-95, emphasis in bold added)
As Aaron uncritically accepts Harrell (at least when it suits him), will
he admit that Harrell is correct that (1) Joseph Smith’s interpretation of Psa
16 is, exegetically, on better footing than Peter’s in Acts 2 and (2) agree
with Harrell (and Achtemeier) that Peter’s interpretation is “flawed," which would lead to a rejection of the inerrancy of the autographs of the NT? (as
Aaron is an intellectually disingenuous individual, my bet is that he will
reject, uncritically and/or by double standards the above from Harrell but
continue to uncritically accept portions of Harrell’s book he likes).
