Here are the problems I have with his update:
First, he admits, without giving any sign in the video that he is being sarcastic, that one of the tests he uses to decide whether an atheist's writings are worthy to read, is how they deal with the Tacitus passage.
His exact words are:
"One of my chief gauges for whether an atheist is worth any attention,
is their treatment of the reference to Jesus in Tacitus' Annals"(video at 0:19 ff)
Published on Jul 7, 2017
A suggestion for dispensing with fundy atheist books
Holding's criterion here is absurd: a) scholars sometimes have much good to say even if they fumble on what you think is a basic truth. You don't ask whether they deserve attention, you ask what their specific argument is and how they backed it up; b) under Holding's logic, an atheist would be justified to say Holding is not worth attention, because Holding so egregiously defies ALL biblical scholars who agree with the plain NT prohibitions against filthy communication, jesting and slander:
3 But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints;I document Holding's guilt in disobeying these things elsewhere on this blog.
4 and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. (Eph. 5:3-4 NAU)
21 "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries,
22 deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness.
23 "All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man." (Mk. 7:21-23 NAU)
31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. (Eph. 4:31 NAU)
8 But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. (Col. 3:8 NAU)
I also explain there that since Holding talks filthy even to other Christians, he cannot escape this criticism by saying those bible verses are limited to in-house Christian discussions.
The point is that if Holding is going to assert that an atheist's failure to get basic shit like Tacitus right, rationally justifies the Christian to give the atheist no "attention", then he has to agree that atheists are justified under the same logic to be equally dismissive toward professing bible-believing Christians who get basic Christian morality wrong...which would mean his logic justifies atheists in refusing to consider anything Holding has to say.
Holding may quibble that the two situations are not the same, but if so, there's more: Under Holding's logic, the atheist would be justified to give no attention to Christians who do worse than get basic Christian morality wrong, but who are intentionally deceptive and obstinately refuse correction for years after it has become obvious that they were in the wrong.
Has Holding ever been intentionally deceptive and obstinately refused to correct himself after it became obvious that he was in the wrong?
Yes. Ever since 1998, Holding has insisted in numerous discussions and articles that the bible scholarship of the Context Group is accurate and cutting-edge, and supports his belief that modern-day Christians have biblical justification to talk in mean nasty insulting shaming demeanor toward anybody who publicly attacks Christianity. So far, I am the only person on the internet to have exposed the fact that the Context Group has totally disowned Holding, more than once, in no uncertain terms, and they have declared his most comprehensive effort to justify insulting demeanor, to be an "obvious perversion" of Context Group work in general, founder Richard Rohrbaugh's work in particular, and that it perverts the New Testament as well, to such an extreme degree that Rohrbaugh doesn't even find Holding's magnum opus so much as worthy of a response. Holding was made aware since 2008 of the Context Group's low view of him personally and professionally, yet for whatever reason, he has refused to modify his God-wants-you-to-talk-shit magnum opus or delete its references to Context Group scholarship
Is Holding just extremely forgetful of the obvious, despite multiply repeated notices/warnings these last few years? Or does Holding have a serious sin of pride that prevents him from having common decency and basic honesty?
What is worse?
The atheist who gets Tacitus wrong, or the Christian apologist who refuses to acknowledge the truth that he has 'obviously perverted' the work of the very scholars he uses to support his most cherished belief?
If Holding is going to dismiss an atheist because of a single blunder in a basic area, wouldn't an atheist have even more rational warrant to dismiss Holding where it is proved Holding has dishonestly continued using scholars that he already knows have asserted accused him of making 'obvious perversion' of their work?
Getting Tacitus wrong is far more likely due to accident or simple ignorance, since his infamous reference to Jesus has produced an avalanche of scholarship advocating both Christian and skeptical views.
Getting basic honesty and common decency wrong for more than 20 years, is far less likely to be a case of innocent mistake/oversight.
So...does Holding agree that, if one can show that he really is the dishonest scumbag most atheists think he is, one will have sufficient rational warrant to dismiss everything else he has to say?
Holding in the video says when he peruses an atheist book, he immediately looks for their treatment of the reference by Tacitus. Again, Holding appears to be losing his mind...there is no logical or rational connection between getting Tacitus wrong, and being so stupid that one is unworthy of any further attention.
Worse, Holding encourages the Christian watching the video to do likewise:
"I'd like to recommend the Tacitus test to you as a way to figure out whether a book is worthy taking seriously or not. If a fundy atheist does botched job like this one, then you can pretty much ignore anything else he has to say, and save yourself the time and the pain of reading his work." (video at 2:20 ff)I guess there's a new low in the new era of Christian scholarship. Thanks but no thanks. I won't ask whether a blunder in a basic area justifies me to give no attention to somebody, I'll instead simply ask what their specific argument against my belief is, and how well they supported it.
Holding, true to form, just cannot provide reasons why atheists are wrong, in this video he has to flash a picture of a roll of toilet paper and characterize the atheist work as not even worthy for wiping one's ass (video at 0:45 ff)
Holding then criticizes a 30-year-minister-turned atheist for invoking R.T. France and other authorities for the proposition that Tacitus scholars largely believe Tacitus' source was mere "popular understanding". Holding then says this is not how most Tacitean scholars view the matter. What he doesn't tell the viewer is that R.T. France is a Christian, and professor of NT, whose commentary to this effect is hosted at leaderu web site that also hosts Bill Craig's stuff.
There, France says:
(a) The brief notice in Tacitus Annals xv.44 mentions only his title, Christus, and his execution in Judea by order of Pontius Pilatus. Nor is there any reason to believe that Tacitus bases this on independent information-it is what Christians would be saying in Rome in the early second century. Suetonius and Pliny, together with Tacitus, testify to the significant presence of Christians in Rome and other parts of the empire from the mid-sixties onwards, but add nothing to our knowledge of their founder. No other clear pagan references to Jesus can be dated before AD 150/1/, by which time the source of any information is more likely to be Christian propaganda than an independent record.
Gee, will Mr. Holding assert that because Christian R.T. France got Tacitus wrong, the Christians he instructed before his death would have been wise to drop his classes? Why should an atheist's mistake on Tacitus justify thinking they have nothing worthy of note, but Christian scholars who make the same mistake, might still have something worthy of note? Nah, Mr. Holding just has a very stupid inconsistent criterion for truth, which he employs or doesn't employ as expediency dictates.
The fact that France was a Christian scholar means he was predisposed to accept the Tacitus-reference as gospel. When a Christian doesn't agree that some Christian argument is forceful, its probably because they found evidence sufficient to overcome their pro-Christian predisposition, especially when the Christian is a scholar who puts he reasons in the arena, and not just an average liberal Christian with private views.
Holding will have an extremely difficult time locating properly qualified Christian scholars who agree with him that it is a sign of good scholarship to toss another scholar's book out the window, because she fumbled a point that you think is basic. Then again, having absolutely zero bible scholarship to back his views, has never bothered a man laden with the sin of pride like Holding. The fact that no scholars support many of his points just assures him that God has chosen him to be the first to see these deep theological mysteries.
By the way, as an atheist bible critic, I overcome the alleged secular references to Jesus, with Paul's infamously unexpected and near total lack of interest in the historical Jesus. Paul's silence on the historical Jesus is far more grave than the weakenesses of the secular references to Jesus. It doesn't matter what conclusion is warranted from Paul's near total silence; whether Jesus didn't exist, or existed as a far less dramatic person than the gospels depict, either theory does fatal violence to fundy Christianity.
I also defeat the implications of the secular Jesus references with arguments that there are hopeless contradictions between Acts and the gospels. It doesn't matter which source contained the fiction, either theory fatally injures the inerrancy doctrine. Check back to see my updates to that effect.
Holding next says Tacitean scholars do not share France's view, but let's clarify: France didn't say this reference is a forgery...he said Tacitus wrote it and was likely relying on second-hand or "popular understanding". With that clarification on record, then either Holding is a liar, or unacceptably ignorant.
17 years ago, Jeffery Jay Lowder documented that while the scholars mostly think the passage authentic, some of them harbor France's view that Tacitus' source was something other than independent fact-checking or the imperial archives:
Scholarly debate surrounding this passage has been mainly concerned with Tacitus' sources and not with the authorship of the passage (e.g., whether it is an interpolation) or its reliability.[83] Various scenarios have been proposed to explain how Tacitus got his information. One possibility is that Tacitus learned the information from another historian he trusted (e.g., Josephus). Another possibility (suggested by Harris) is that he obtained the information from Pliny the Younger. According to Harris, "Tacitus was an intimate friend and correspondent of the younger Pliny and was therefore probably acquainted with the problems Pliny encountered with the Christians during his governorship in Bithynia - Pontus (c. A.D. 110-112)."[84] (Defenders of this position may note that Tacitus was also governing in Asia in the very same years as Pliny's encounters with Christians [112-113], making communication between them on the event very likely.)[85] Norman Perrin and Dennis C. Duling mention a related possibility; they state that Tacitus' information "is probably based on the police interrogation of Christians."[86] Yet another possibility (suggested by Habermas and defended by McDowell and Wilson) is that Tacitus obtained the information from official documents.[87] (I shall say more about this possibility below.) It is also possible that the information was common knowledge. Finally, there is the view (defended by Wells, France, and Sanders) that Tacitus simply repeated what Christians at the time were saying.[88] The bottom line is this: given that Tacitus did not identify his source(s), we simply don't know how Tacitus obtained his information. Holding himself admits, "Truthfully, there is no way to tell" where Tacitus obtained his information about Jesus.[89] Therefore, we can't use Annals XV.47 as independent confirmation of the historicity of Jesus.There's impressive support for saying the majority scholarly view generally agrees with France's view that something other than objective fact checking the historical existence of Christ in the Roman archives, was the reason Tacitus asserted the existence of Christ, even if the other scholars don't argue the exact same way France did.
Notice: France's view is also held by Wells and Sanders. So when Holding says in his video that France's assessment is not shared by anyone with any level of expertise in Tacitus, what he means is that if a scholar agrees with France's assessment of Tactius, Holding thus thinks said scholar doesn't have any level of expertise in Tacitus.
Holding says Tacitean scholars do not characterize Tacitus as somebody who would be sufficiently blasé in his sourcework so as to assert somebody's existence solely because of popular understanding, but why does Holding think an ancient historian basing his view on popular understanding is blasé? Does he think all 1st century historians didn't represent something as fact unless they exhausted their own first-hand investigation of the official sources?
How did Matthew know about the allegedly false story spread by the Jews recorded in Matthew 28:15? Did he conduct interviews with the original Christ-hating Jews who started the rumor, and thus subject himself to certain death for being a follower of the executed insurrectionist? Or is Matthew, like so many other places in his gospel, depending on popular tradition (Christian or otherwise) as his source?
According to Metzger, some of the early copyists inserted material that could only have been sourced in popular understanding. See John 5:4. Other Christian scholars, who espouse inerrancy agree:
All scholars agree Luke was not with the original apostles before Jesus died, yet Luke reports the temptations of Jesus which happened before his ministry began. Luke 4. The bible never expresses or implies that any disciple was with Jesus, or was even a disciple, at the time of these temptations, so Luke can only have known about these stories, at best, by original disciples telling him what Christ told them. That's called 3rd-hand hearsay.
The reader should recognize that vv. 3b–4 (present in the KJV) are a later scribal addition to the story, probably inserted into the text by an early copyist who believed in such mythical manifestations and who sought to support the man’s belief pattern by such a statement. In terms of an explanation it is possible that the man’s theory here may have been based on the occurrence of an interesting natural phenomenon in which at high water times the pool apparently was infused by a periodic influx of spring water that stirred the pool with excess water.
Borchert, G. L. (2001, c1996). Vol. 25A: John 1-11 (electronic ed.).
Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 232).Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
Does Holding still think 3rd-hand hearsay is blasé? Of course not. If the bible said 2+2=5, the problem will be with the ungodly world for being spiritually dead, since for Holding, the bible having errors is like God being an atheist...there's a fixed natural law logically preventing any errors in the bible. As as well there should be, because fighting critics of inerrancy does what preaching the prosperity gospel does, it causes idiots to donate their cash, and as we all know, the cash is what its all about. Holding could very easily pay for his ministry by himself and his own work, but perhaps he thinks the "you should tithe" parts of the bible (1st Tim. 5:18) are more important than the "I didn't accept charity from you" parts. 2nd Thess. 3:8
One thing we can be sure of, Holding will not be quoting any properly credentialed Christian scholars who agree with him that noting one error in a basic area justifies tossing the entire work in the garbage. Common sense dictate what proper objective peer-review would be, and Holding has done nothing here but hit an all-time low.
Holding is apparently fearful that if his followers read a bible-critic's book all the way through, they will encounter significantly weighty justification to abandon the faith (i.e., stop tithing to him), and having discovered that he fails to defend the faith convincingly, has resorted to the new low of trying to give his followers reasons to turn away from good critical arguments before testing them on the merits.
Once again, how much is implied when an atheist gets Tacitus wrong one time in a single book, and how much is implied when a Christian apologist gets his own favorite Context Group scholars wrong for 20 years running, and continues thereafter despite knowing they have disowned him for more than 5 years?
Only a deluded follower of Holding would trifle that the atheist mistake has greater potential to mislead.
Somebody pointed out the obvious and Holding tried to parry:
DecKrash1 day agoMaybe I'm just playing devil's avocate here, Mr. Holding, but why would an atheist treating Tacitus with flippant derision be proof that the rest of what he/she has to say isn't worth reading? That's not to say that what you said isn't true; it's just that maybe they might have done a passable job on scholarship, but dropped the ball on things like their research into Tacitus. Not judging; I'm just curious.
Then by Holding's logic, dismissing everything else he has to say without testing it on the merits, is justified because he violates even more basic notions like honesty, integrity and consistency, and he violates them specifically in the area of his use of scholarship. So to be consistent, Holding will have to agree that if one finds him making errors in such basic things, dismissing all else he has to say "can serve as a convenience for a typical reader that has other things to do."
Holding doesn't let on that he does more fact-checking than his video suggests, until he is called on the carpet for how silly it would be to employ his recommendation as prescribed.
I also note that because Holding seems to think he is above the typical reader who has other things to do, he must think that the average person is not intellectually obligated to check out a criticism as thoroughly as he does. Does he extend that logic to atheists? If an atheist is not a scholar but a typical reader that has other things to do, can he do what Holding's followers all do, sneer his criticisms at his enemies, than walk away and justifiably avoid discussion?
