Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 26:1 (Mar 1983)
Article: A Surrejoinder To Norman L. Geisler
Author: Robert H. Gundry

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JETS 26:1 (March 1983) p. 109

A Surrejoinder To Norman L. Geisler

Robert H. Gundry

In view of Geisler’s charge that in my “Response” I avoided many of his previous points, I will put references to section and paragraph numbers in his “Rejoinder” before my counterarguments.

(I,1) There is no irony in my having used some three thousand words to refute no real argument, because I did not design my “Response” to refute Geisler’s arguments but to expose the fact that they need no refutation since they miss the point. (I,2) To say that they miss the point is not to deny that they are real arguments; it is to deny their relevance to the issue at hand. (II,1–2) I shall be happy if “the serious reader will cut through the literary verbiage to discover what argument may be embedded therein,” so long as Geisler’s dictum applies to both parties in the debate and so long as readers keep open the possibility that my “literary verbiage” describing his and my views is accurate. (III, 1) He writes, “Gundry… even admits it [Geisler’s central argument] is valid.” Why the phrase “even admits” when my point was that syllogistic validity does not guarantee even a particle of truth? How else can Geisler prove the truth of his statement, “Gundry denies part of the Bible [de facto],” if he does not by exegetical arguments show that at certain points the Bible means what I do not think it means at those same points?

(III,3, pt. 1) To the extent I have come up with new understandings of Matthew’s text and new considerations supporting them, the opinions of past critical commentators are polemically out of date. Those opinions may or may not be better than mine. But that issue is for current and future scholars to decide, since past ones did not have my new understandings and new considerations at their disposal. My coming up with some new understandings and new considerations, however, does not negate the fact that a number of my redaction-critical interpretations objectionable to Geisler are older than my Commentary, some of them having now achieved nearly universal acceptance among specialists in Matthew.

(HI,3, pt. 2) Concerning the Magi, readers may consult my “Response” to Douglas Moo and my “Surrejoinder” to him. Geisler may be correct in saying that “Gundry is one of very few evangelical Bible scholars who cannot see history here,” but he seems not to know, or at least not to feel, the problems of those who do see history here in their struggle to fit Matthew and Luke together when taken as equally and straightforwardly historical. Nor does Geisler take note that I do not regard the Magi as created out of thin air, but as Matthew’s midrashic adaptation of the shepherds, truly historical figures.

(I...

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