The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:9

UPDATES:

There is nothing like a good solid argument by a virulent opponent to illustrate the invincibility of the Bible Wheel. Unfortunately, the article posted by "J. P. Holding" is no more a real argument than "J. P. Holding" was the real name of Robert Turkel  at the time he wrote his article. But despite its shortcomings, or rather because of them, Turkel's attempt to discredit the Bible Wheel actually serves as a powerful witness to its validity. It also gives me an opportunity to dismiss a few similar fallacious arguments I frequently encounter from atheists, skeptics, and others who reject the Bible as the Word of God. Turkel's article wonderfully confirms Ecclesiastes 1:9 - there is nothing new under the sun. Though somewhat tedious, a proper refutation requires a line-by-line review of his article  which had the grim misfortune of being born bereft of all beauty and grace, as evidenced by its title and tone:

Passing over his repulsive tone, we come to the first point of serious concern: Turkel explicitly distinguishes between "the Protestant canon of 66 books" and "the Bible per se." He denies that "there's a wall around the canon." We are left hanging. Does he, or does he not, believe that there is a well-defined object called the Holy Bible that is rightly regarded as the "Word of God?" If so, why does he write as if he does not? His opening paragraph seems to suggest that his problem with the Bible Wheel originates in a prior problem with the idea of a closed canon. Unfortunately, such ambiguity is characteristic of his writings. For example, it is anyone's guess what he meant by his cryptic allusion to the "US Constitution" being "incomplete without the ACLU." Thankfully, it is something we can ignore since he does not mention it again.

Moving on from his less-than-lucid introduction, we come to the heart of Turkel's criticism of the Bible Wheel:

I will address his argument with bulleted points:

• Hebrew Alphabet: There is no excuse for Turkel's error on this point. It is common knowledge amongst biblical scholars that early Church fathers such as Origen and Jerome explicitly taught that there was "some great significance" in the Hebrew alphabet. Here is how Origin stated it:

  Nor must we fail to observe that not without reason the canonical books are twenty-two, according to the Hebrew tradition, the same in number as the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. For as the twenty-two letters may be regarded as an introduction to the wisdom and the Divine doctrines given to men in those Characters, so the twenty-two inspired books are an alphabet of the wisdom of God and an introduction to the knowledge of realities.

  A similar example of Jerome's regard for the "great significance" of the Hebrew alphabet is quoted in my discussion of the ancient Hebrew tradition that their canon contained exactly 22 books. Turkel can not claim ignorance on this point since he cites this tradition in one of his own articles  on his site. Many Jews hold a very high opinion of their alphabet to this day. For example, here is how Rabbi Munk explained the ancient rabbinic tradition on page 33 of his book Wisdom of the Hebrew Alphabet :

  In Jewish thought, the Aleph-Beis is unlike any other alphabet; it is not merely a haphazard collection of consonants whose order was determined by convention, but that could have been -- or still could be -- changed without loss of content. The individual letters, their names, graphic forms, gematriaos [numerical equivalents], and respective positions in the Aleph-Beis are Divinely ordained.

  Indeed, anyone who holds a high view of Scripture and receives the Old Testament as the very Word of God has a very good reason to believe there is "some great significance" in the Hebrew alphabet because God Himself used it as a template in the design of the great alphabetic Psalm of the Word, Psalm 119. To then find that He used the same pattern as the template for the large-scale structure of His Word suggests multiple levels of meaning that are amplified by God's self-identification as the Alpha and Omega, in which He used the first and last Greek letters corresponding to the first and last Hebrew letters that combine to form the literal divine sign and seal of Holy Scripture. Again, Turkel is without excuse for his error on this point, especially since he cites intertestamental Jewish theology concerning Wisdom and the Word in a long article defending the Trinity  (which he links at the end to an article he wrote on the meaning of Alpha and Omega, no less).

• American Colonies: Turkel's comparison is absurd. It has nothing to do with "what the BW project amounts to." It is the basis of his straw man argument exposed below.

• Book Divisions: Turkel says that the Bible Wheel "ignores that some books (like 1 and 2 Samuel) were originally one book." This is true in a sense, but irrelevant. The Bible Wheel is a representation of the Protestant Bible. It would not be a faithful representation if it united books that were not united in the object it is based upon. Furthermore, history has given us no Christian Bible in which 1 and 2 Samuel were not divided into two books. Even Jewish Bibles have been dividing 1 and 2 Samuel for at least a millennium. The fact that they originated as a "single book" says nothing about the patterns that are or are not found on the Bible Wheel. And it is the evidence of design displayed in these patterns, or lack thereof, that proves or disproves the Bible Wheel. Turkel's point fails.

• Mighty Straining: This brings us to the one and only point in Turkel's argument that could have had a real impact on the Bible Wheel if it were valid. To repeat his assertion:

  The creator next strains (often mightily) to find some connections between the books aligned on each "spoke" of the wheel by his arrangement. For example, he ends up with Ecclesiastes, John and Jude on the same spoke of the BW. An example of such a strain in this case is that he notes how often "sun" appears in Ecclesiastes and then connects it to the use of "light" in John.
  
  ... Connections like the one above are meaningless statistical nonsense because the BW has no controls in terms of how associations are made. "Sun" can be connected to innumerable concepts like round, light, heat, fire, burning, stars, etc. and so there is no problem of being able to find one in any other work one wishes to make a connection to -- especially with works as long as John and Ecclesiastes.

  When I first read this part of Turkel's attack, I was freshly amazed at the effortless invincibility of the Bible Wheel. It is just too easy! Its power rests in beauty, truth, simplicity, and grace. The Bible Wheel requires no defense other than the mere proclamation of what it is! Any credible challenge inevitably validates it because credible challenges must be based on evidence and evidence always validates truth. But though I have been experiencing the power and light of this revelation for over a decade, I am still amazed every time I sit and watch God's Wheel roll back each attack upon the head of the attacker (Psalm 7:15). Case in point: It just so happens that Turkel chose one of the clearest "connections between the books aligned on each spoke" as his example of the "mighty strain" required to validate the Bible Wheel! How anyone who has written over a thousand articles on Christian apologetics could miss the plain meanings and primary themes of Ecclesiastes (which Turkel claims  to be his "personal OT fave") and John's Gospel is impossible to explain. Here is a brief review of the evidence which Turkel should have considered before publishing his article. Note the thematic symmetry between Ecclesiastes and John:

  What is a primary theme of Ecclesiastes? One is the "meaninglessness" or "vanity" of everything "under the sun." Every child schooled in the elementary things of God's Word knows that "under the sun" is a key phrase that encapsulates the central meaning of the whole book, and that it refers generally to the life in this world, and more specifically to the meaninglessness of life under the natural light of this world as opposed to the true spiritual light of the world found only in Jesus Christ which is presented with incomparable clarity in the Gospel of John. I have no idea how much Turkel had to "strain" to understand these basic Bible facts, but it is clear that he stumbled over my explanation that the Hebrew word for "sun" (shemesh) is a Shin KeyWord and that its frequency is greatly maximized in Ecclesiastes which corresponds to Shin on Spoke 21. But I do know it should have been effortless for anybody with basic Bible knowledge and no axe to grind, since I spelt it out in plain prose, linked to many supporting articles, and even included a graph of the distribution!

  What is a primary theme of John's Gospel? One is the meaningfulness of life under the true Light of the World, Jesus Christ, as it is written in its glorious opening prologue, In the beginning was the Word ... and [the Word] was the light of men! God designed Ecclesiastes as a kind of "photographic negative" of John's Gospel. Thus the Greek word helios (sun), which corresponds to the Shin KeyWord "shemesh" that dominates Ecclesiastes, is entirely missing in John though it appears in the each of the other Gospels. This is an example of designed emphasis through absence (see Where is the Sun?). Turkel has no excuse for failing to understand these elementary facts about the Bible, especially since he obviously read at least two of the articles I wrote explaining them!

  Is it possible that Turkel is truly ignorant of the meaning of "under the sun" in Ecclesiastes? It seems unlikely given that:

  1. The meaning of "under the sun" in Ecclesiastes is common knowledge amongst all competent biblical scholars.
  2. All of my writings concerning Spoke 21 were freely available to Turkel on my website at the time he wrote his article.
  3. Turkel himself claims  Ecclesiastes to be his "personal OT fave."

  Now compare what I actually wrote concerning Spoke 21 with Turkel's caricature of it:

  An example of such a strain in this case is that he notes how often "sun" appears in Ecclesiastes and then connects it to the use of "light" in John.

  Turkel's error is now evident. He wrote as if I had merely connected the frequency of "sun" in Ecclesiastes with the use of "light" in John, whereas my actual argument connects the meaning of "under the sun" in Ecclesiastes with the meaning of "light of the world" in John. I discussed the frequency of "sun" in Ecclesiastes as just one part of a broad demonstration of its integration with John and the symbolic meaning of the 21^st letter via the Shin KeyWord shemesh (sun). Turkel has no excuse for such an absurd misrepresentation of the fundamental point of my argument. The sad fact is that this "Christian apologist" did not engage the actual meaning of either my writings nor the Biblical text upon which they are based. This is characteristic of Turkelian Hermeneutics, as we shall presently see.

• The Twilight Zone of Turkelian Hermeneutics

  Connections like the one above are meaningless statistical nonsense because the BW has no controls in terms of how associations are made. "Sun" can be connected to innumerable concepts like round, light, heat, fire, burning, stars, etc. and so there is no problem of being able to find one in any other work one wishes to make a connection to -- especially with works as long as John and Ecclesiastes.

  In the twilight zone of Turkelian Hermeneutics, there is no real meaning in the Biblical text. We are free to "connect" the use of "sun" in Ecclesiastes to "innumerable concepts like round, light, heat, fire, burning, stars" with no regard for the actual meaning intended by the Author of Scripture. Thankfully, there are innumerable scholars with a somewhat firmer grip on reality, and statistics. For example, here is the introduction to Ecclesiastes from A. M. Hodgkin's humble little survey of every book of the Bible, Christ in all the Scriptures :

  The expression "under the sun" occurs no less than twenty-eight times, and nowhere else in the Bible. It may be taken as the Key-note of the book. "Under the heaven" is thrice mentioned, and "upon the earth" seven times. The word "vanity" occurs thirty-seven times. Nearly forty times in this book does the Spirit of God name the earth and the things belonging to the earth. ... If life be viewed apart from God it becomes an insoluble problem; all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Exclude God from the world, and skepticism and materialism must be the inevitable result.

  Oh my! Just look at all that "meaningless statistical nonsense!" And Hodgkin is not alone in his violation of the rules of Turkelian Hermeneutics. His introduction actually represents the common approach found in most outlines of Ecclesiastes. Another typical example is found on gotquestions.org  which currently claims to have posted 106,621 answers to biblical questions (italics added for the semantically impaired):

  Two phrases are repeated often in Ecclesiastes. The word translated as "vanity" in the KJV, and "meaningless" in the NIV appears often, and is used to emphasize the temporary nature of worldly things. In the end, even the most impressive human achievements will be left behind. The phrase "under the sun" occurs 28 times, and refers to the mortal world. When the Preacher refers to "all things under the sun", he is talking about earthly, temporary, human things. The first seven chapters of the book of Ecclesiastes describe all of the worldly things "under the sun" that the Preacher tries to find fulfillment in. He tries scientific discovery (1:10-11), wisdom and philosophy (1:13-18), mirth (2:1), alcohol (2:3), architecture (2:4); property (2:7-8), and luxury (2:8). The Preacher turned his mind towards different philosophies to find meaning, such as materialism (2:19-20), and even moral codes (including chapters 8-9). Everything was meaningless, a temporary diversion that, without God, had no purpose or longevity.

  Obviously, it is not necessary to press this point. Every competent biblical scholar understands the meaning of "under the sun" in Ecclesiastes. Turkel does not. On the upside, he has contributed to the proclamation of the glory of God's Word by setting the stage for this extensive review of the overwhelming body of evidence that demonstrates the divine design of Spoke 21.

Turkel's article now takes a nose dive from the depths of ignorance into an abyss of anti-intellectual absurdity as he contrives a mock "demonstration," aimed to deceive:

Sigh - yes indeed, it is "pretty clear what the problem is here." Robert Turkel invented a moronic sequence of mindless non-sequiturs and then tried to pawn it off on his readers as an accurate "demonstration" of "what the BW project amounts to." This is a textbook example of the logical fallacy known as the Straw Man Argument. Here is a lucid definition from Wikipedia :

A straw man argument is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact misleading, because the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted.

It is a pathetic fact that such nefarious tactics are typical of Turkel, as all who have challenged him know. Just google Turkel childish insults  if you have the stomach for such a study. It is not for no reason he owns the dubious honour of being the focus of a webpage containing links to dozen's of articles bearing the title A Collection of Essays and Debates Highlighting the Depraved Apologetics of "J.P. Holding," aka Robert Turkel . Depraved apologetics, indeed. It's little wonder he is loathe to use his real name.

Turkel's tactics can be crafty - like those of the serpent in Genesis 3. For example, he never once addressed me by name. Rather, he referred to me periphrastically as the "creator" seven times. Four instances are modified by phrases like "of the Bible Wheel" while three instances are not modified at all:

This twisted technique accomplishes a host of evil ends. First, it is a straightforward insult from Turkel to me. Second, its repetition inculcates a sense of disrespect for me and my work in his readers so they will be predisposed to reject my position, thereby relieving Turkel of some of the "strain" required to produce real arguments. Third, it's just plain creepy to have any human being repeatedly referred to as the "creator," especially in a religious context (we are talking about Scripture you know). It inevitably evokes a subtle sense of Satan in any Christian soul (Gen 3:5, Isa 14:14, Ezek 28:2, etc.). Fourth, and most significantly, Turkel's refrain is designed to subliminally implant the idea that the Bible Wheel is nothing but mere human invention. It is an attempt to program his readers to prejudicially reject the possibility that the Bible Wheel could be a genuine discovery or a revelation from God. It is a classic, if perverse, polemic technique that has been honed to perfection by his spiritual forefathers (John 8:44). I have little doubt this was his primary purpose, whether he knew it or not (I do not know how much, if any, self-awareness he has). He did the same thing in his subtitle when he called the Bible Wheel a "gimmick" which likewise carries the connotation of something "invented," with one of its definitions  being "a trick or device used to attract business or attention," and another  being "A device employed to cheat, deceive, or trick, especially a mechanism for the secret and dishonest control of gambling apparatus." This is vintage Turkel - argument by insidious insinuation. It is serpentine apologetics all the way down the line. It also should be noted here in the context of his sevenfold reference to me as the "creator" that he referred to "God" exactly twice in his article - and both instances were in mockery ("Isn't it amazing how God has worked things out in our Presidency?" and "It's God's way of showing that anyone who tries to destroy our nation's leaders can't do it.") Fine work for a "Christian" apologist (Matthew 10:26).

If anything has been proven to be "completely without discipline" it is Turkel's attempt to discredit the Bible Wheel. It seems he writes whatever random thoughts enter his head with no concern for any facts whatsoever. His assertion that the connections on Spoke 21 are "based on tenuous threads" that "revolve on frequent themes of the sort that we would always find in an ancient collectivist society" only confirms his complete ignorance of basic Bible knowledge as demonstrated (in spades) above. Again, he didn't even try to support his assertion with facts. He just made another empty assertion. If he wants to discredit the Bible Wheel, he will have to interact with the evidence I have presented, not a straw man "demonstration." He would do well to start with the 412 pages of documentation in the Bible Wheel book. It contains solid and incontrovertible proof that his article did not touch. Indeed, it appears that he never took the requisite time to understand the basics of what he was opposing, which is very sad since it makes him look the fool and is contrary to the plain message of Scripture (Proverbs 15:28): "The heart of the righteous studieth to answer: but the mouth of the wicked poureth out evil things."

Turkel now drives the final nail into the coffin of his credibility. He finally identified the "critical flaw in the system" as "the way the BW creator assigns MEANING to the data." Quite a statement coming from a man who does not even know how to "assign meaning" to the use of "under the sun" in Ecclesiastes. His writings are more fit for a cemetery than a seminary. The startling fact is that he never once directly challenged any statement that I actual have written! Look over his whole article. Does he once quote me? No. Not once. I have well over a million words published on this site and in the Bible Wheel book supporting all my assertions in extreme detail. I have citations from hundreds of well-known Bible scholars because everything I write about the Bible Wheel is based on elementary aspects of the Word which are common knowledge amongst all competent biblical scholars. Turkel failed to refute a single statement I have ever written. His article is a farce on a dozen counts.

Conclusion: Despite its abject absurdity, Turkel's article was useful in the greater scheme of things by setting the stage for a fresh review of the content of Spoke 21 and another effortless demonstration of the invincibility of the Bible Wheel. See The Bible Wheel Challenge for a general proof its invincibility. Any attack inevitably proves its validity. Praise God Almighty for His perfect Word!

Questions? Comments? Join the discussion on the Bible Wheel Forum!