Demolishing Triablogue: how to get nowhere fast, a reply to "annoyed pinoy"

"Annoyed Pinoy" who frequents Triablogue responded to my criticism of his views.

I reply by new blog post instead of "reply" because the word count is greater than the 4, 096 allowed for "replies".

Pinoy and others raise the issue of whether Ezekiel 16:7-8 constitutes criteria for sexual readiness, and the issue of my prior lawsuits against James Patrick Holding.

Thanks AP for the reply. 

“Because of a comment HERE, I did a very quick search of your blog for my nick and I noticed you made the following response to me.”
No, your God only identifies two criteria, boobs and pubic hair. Ezekiel 16. “
That's an example of poor reasoning and poor reading skills. Different types of literature should be read according to their genre and intent/purpose. Just because two criteria are given doesn't mean there are only two criteria.

 That’s technically true, but there are several problems your response creates:

1. The burden of proof is on the claimant.  You apparently claim Ezekiel and or God think more criteria than the “boobs and pubic hair” need to be fulfilled before the girl can be considered legitimately ready for marriage (since apparently you don’t like the idea that they believed only two criteria needed to be met).  I don’t know why you claim this, you have absolutely nothing in the bible to indicate God felt more criteria needed be fulfilled, than these two.  Indeed where does the bible indicate girls need to have more qualifications than signs of puberty, to be deemed legitimately ready for martial relations? 

2. If God believes just as strongly as you that more criteria than these two must be fulfilled for a girl to be deemed legitimately ready for marital relations, don’t you think he would specified what those minimum criteria are?  If he was willing to specify prohibitions against conduct that is “obviously” sinful (like homosexuality, bestiality), you cannot argue that pedophilia is so obviously immoral that he didn’t think we needed a prohibition against it.  We also didn’t need to be told bestiality is wrong, but God specified a prohibition against that act anyway.  So it is reasonable, whether detrimental to you or not, to assume that your God will not shy away from specifying a prohibition against certain acts even if he trusts us to intuitively “know” they are immoral. 

3. Your implication that more criteria than those two were needed, fails on historical grounds anyway, as most ANE scholars agree that the age of 12, or menses or when signs of puberty showed, was when ANE peoples generally deemed a girl ready for marriage.  For example, Life in the Ancient Near East, 3100-332 B.C.E., Daniel C. Snell, Yale University Press, 1997. p. 90 

“You're reading that INTO the passage. The point of the passage is that YHVH waited till the girl was mature.”

And the criteria for maturity are given by the author.  If you wish to argue ancient Jews believed more criteria for marriage-readiness were required to be fulfilled than the two Ezekiel mentions, that is your claim, for which you incur the burden of proof.  Good luck.  Evangelical scholar L. C. Allen sees no problem with the boobs and public hair being set forth as sufficient signs of sexual maturity:

“The creative command turned into fact, and the baby grew into adolescence and sexual maturity, marked by breasts and pubic hair…” Allen, L. C. (2002). Vol. 28: Word Biblical Commentary : Ezekiel 1-19. Word Biblical Commentary (Page 237). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.

 Pinoy continues:

NOT your claim that, "...your God only identifies two criteria, boobs and pubic hair."

What I said was true.  Your God does not identify any other criteria in that passage for sex-readiness for the girl, except boobs and pubic hair.   So why you insist there was more to the criteria-story than that, remains a mystery.  Perhaps your bible says things my bible doesn't?

“Moreover, you press the allegory beyond it's intended purpose.”

No, I’m only responding to other apologists who, in sheer desperation, resorted to Ezekiel 16 to refute my argument that the god of the bible approves of sex within adult-child marriages.  I actually agree with you that the passage was not intended to instruct the reader on what the ancient Jews believed to be the minimum signs of marriage-readiness for girls.

“Since the passage is NOT about the criteria of when it's permissible for a female to get married and become sexually active. It's about the spiritual infidelity of God's people.”

Correct.  And when you find biblical criteria telling what signs or age indicate a girl first becomes ready in her life for martial relations, let me know.  But for now, that's a change in your interpretation, as earlier this year you DID argue that what Ezekiel 16:7-8 can tell us what ancient Jews thought about the minimum age of marriage for girls:

   ANNOYED PINOY7/08/2017 3:00 PM  
    I think there's a place for natural law considerations in Christian ethics. We don't require biblical warrant for all our ethical determinations.
    That's a powerful statement by Steve. Christian ethics based on the Bible takes into consideration natural law. Even if Islam could theoretically do the same thing, Islam nevertheless teaches that it's okay for men to have sex with prepubescent girls. As I said in the comments of another blog:
    To add to what Steve said, if one reads Ezek. 16:1-8 (and following) God likens his relationship with His people as Him having found her like a newly born abandoned child. He waited until she was sexually mature to "marry" her in covenant. I think that suggests the same thing Steve is saying. I think we can inductively infer from this what the Jews believed during that time and what God Himself approves of regarding when it's appropriate for a female to get married.

Pinoy continues:

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?- Micah 6:8”29 Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'31 The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."- Mark 12:29-31 The former passage is a summation of Jewish theology and ethics in the OT, the latter a Christian summation in the NT. But it would be eisegetical (not exegetical) to assume that those passages are all there is to Jewish and/or Christian theology. You make a similar mistake about Ezekiel 16.”

See above.  I don’t think Ezekiel 16 is giving criteria for marriage.  I’m simply responding to Christian apologists who appeal to it as such in their desperate effort to refute my theory that the god of the ancient Jews approved of sex within adult-child marriages.  Apparently you and I agree that such apologists are using the passage in a way Ezekiel did not intend.

As for quoting the NT, perhaps you didn’t know, but I am an atheist.  I do not believe in biblical inerrancy, biblical inspiration, or harmony of morals or theology between the testaments.  

“You're completely ignoring cultural context of the passage. As far as I know, there are no records that describe ante-Christian Jewish communities that regularly had problems of mothers dying or suffering from having infants at too early an age.”

We have literally zero “records” produced by the Jews in the days of Moses, with the exception of course of the Pentateuch itself and a few fragments whose date is hotly contested, neither of which resolve the issue of to what extent early pregnancies were fatal in ancient Israel.  Not all arguments from silence are fallacious, but the one you now advance surely is. 

You are also assuming that sex within adult-child marriages necessarily involved attempts to make the girl pregnant, when in fact Hebrews 13:4 and the Song of Songs counsel that cunnilingus was considered acceptable sexual practice, and if so, then the problem of physically traumatizing the underage girl in an adult-child marriage among the ancient Jews, disappears:

 4 Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge. (Heb. 13:4 NAU) 

 16 "Awake, O north wind, And come, wind of the south; Make my garden breathe out fragrance, Let its spices be wafted abroad. May my beloved come into his garden And eat its choice fruits!" (Cant. 4:16 NAU)

Pinoy continues: 

“Unlike what regularly happens among Muslims communities. Yet writings like the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmud have many discussions about the finer aspects of the law as it relates to human living. Including addressing some medical issues.”

The Talmud also says girls at least three years and one day old are “suitable for sexual relations”, and more words to that effect.  I’ll be more than happy to discuss the context these verses sit in, to disabuse you of any possible “they-were-just-talking-technicalities-about-the-extreme-fringes-of-the-law-not-intended-to-apply-to-real-world-situations” foolishness you might share with most of the unfortunate Christian souls who attempted this fallacious trick to get rid of this rather embarrassing historical evidence.

These particular rabbis and sages are quoted in the older more authoritative Babylonian Talmud, and are they are the earlier human teachers, it is only the later teachers in the B.Talmud who voice concerns against adult-child marriage:

Abodah Zarah 36B-37A:

Said Rabina, “Therefore a gentile girl who is three years and one day old, since she is then suitable to have sexual relations, (!?) also imparts uncleanness of the flux variety.”  

Niddah 44 b

Misnah: a girl of the age of three years and one day may be betrothed  by intercourse;

Gemara: Our Rabbis taught: A girl of the age of three years may be betrothed by intercourse; so R. Meir. But the Sages say: Only one who is three years and one day old.

...An objection was raised: A girl of the age of three years and even one of the age of two years and one day may be betrothed by intercourse; so R. Meir. But the Sages say: Only one who is three years and one day old.

Sanhedrin 55b  

R. Joseph said: Come and hear! A maiden aged three years and a day may be acquired in marriage by coition, and if her deceased husband's brother cohabits with her, she becomes his. The penalty of adultery may be incurred through her;

Tractate Sanhedrin Folio 69a

R. Jeremiah of Difti said: We also learnt the following: A maiden aged three years and a day may be acquired in marriage by coition, and if her deceased husband's brother cohabited with her, she becomes his. The penalty of adultery may be incurred through her...

Kethuboth 39

"|Three [categories of] women may use an absorbent4  in their marital intercourse:   a minor, and an expectant and nursing mother. The minor,  because otherwise she might become pregnant and die. An expectant mother,  because otherwise she might cause her foetus to degenerate into a sandal.   A nursing mother,  because otherwise she might have to wean her child [prematurely]  and this would result in his death.  And what is [the age of such] a minor?  From the age of eleven years and one day to the age of twelve years and one day. One who is under,  or over this age  must carry on her marital intercourse in a normal manner; so R. Meir. But the Sages said: The one as well as the other carries on her marital intercourse in a normal manner, and mercy  will be vouchsafed from Heaven, for it is said in the Scriptures, The Lord preserveth the simple.”

One who is under the age of 11 must carry on her marital intercourse in the normal manner (i.e., without an absorbent [contraceptive]).(!?)

They would hardly have a rule like this, if in their law or view of the law there was some absolute prohibition against vaginal intercourse with girls under the age of 11.  Having Rabbis regulate the sex life of prepubescent girls while absolutely forbidding girls of that age from sexual activity, would be about as stupid as California telling 9 year old girls how and when they can have sex within marriage, despite California law absolutely prohibiting any and all sexual contact with a 9 year old girl.  The more reasonable interpretation of the Talmud is that the Rabbis issue such regulations because prepubescent girls having sex within marriage was not absolutely forbidden.

Gleason Archer and others have accepted that some kings in the Monarchy were fathering kids at 11 years old.“But the males didn't physically suffer from such a situation.”

But ancient Jewish boys having sex at 11 years old still bounces the vast majority of Christian apologists out of their theological comfort zones.  Years ago when I started this craze on the internet, the apologists were saying pedophilia likely wouldn’t even enter the mind of the ancient Jew.  NOW they are softening their position, and admitting that happened but was considered a crime.  Maybe in the next 10 years they’ll figure out there’s no biblical anything to substantiate their view that Moses or the bible god views sex within adult-child marriages as “sin”.  I am not an extreme skeptic, I don’t say Moses used prepubescent girls like disposable love dolls, I simply say there is no plausible biblical argument to justify the proposition that God has always thought sex within adult-child marriages was “sin”.

“Also, not everything the monarchs did were morally licit.”

I’m only using the monarchs to refute the apologists who desperately deny that the ancient Jews would ever have done any such thing.  Child sex wasn’t quite as unheard of in ancient Judaism as most of today’s apologists insist it was.

“Even assuming some pregnancies were licit, they probably impregnated women who were older than them and were mature enough to bear children without destroying their bodies.”

Sure is funny that the God who hates the idea of 11 year old boys having sex as much as you hate it, never bothers to specifically condemn it, despite his ability to specify which exact sexual relations are indeed prohibited (homosexuality, adultery, bestiality, degrees of incest, etc).  Some would argue that the reason an infinitely holy God doesn’t condemn something is because he doesn’t regard it as sin.

“You're so gung-ho to refute and defame Judaism and Christianity that you fail to make a good faith argument on a topic so simple.”

You’ve got a lot to learn if you think the topic of God’s beliefs about the minimum proper age of sexual consent/marriage is “simple”.

 If I were an honest atheist I wouldn't use such a bad argument. The fact that you do use such bad argumentation gives me some reason to dismiss your other comments.”

Well now you’ve been disabused of your faulty presuppositions.  Whenever you wish to discuss your reasons for saying your bible god has always believed sex within adult-child marriages to be “sin”, let me know.  I’ll be ready and waiting to discuss your best evidence and arguments to that effect.

(What follows are what other Triablogue posters gabbed about concerning my blog, and my replies to each): 

JBsptfn12/27/2017 11:58 PM☍

I have read that book, and I don't really think that Colton spun this all by himself. Also, his parents do seem pretty honest, although I don't know them. If it is a hoax, though, I just pray that Colton comes clean someday like Alex did.

Have you seen this, though? Apparently, a guy named Barry is attacking this blog:

Turch is Rong: Triablogue

steve12/28/2017 12:07 AM☍

Thanks for the tip. Looks like Barry has anger-management issues.

A true scholar would not indicate that the irrelevant personal gossipy issues were his first priority.  My alleged anger-management issues have nothing to do with the question of whether my arguments are correct.  But then again, spiritually dead atheists like me are prone to forget that Calvinists were infallibly predestined by God to manifest whatever degree of spiritual immaturity God wants them to manifest.

Epistle of Dude12/28/2017 1:02 AM☍

Barry Jones is just his alias (among many others). His real name is Christian Behrend Doscher. He's a militant atheist.

Correct.  But again, my real identity has nothing to do with whether my arguments are correct, raising the question as to what relevance you think my real name has to the biblical issues I raise. 

JBsptfn12/28/2017 2:21 PM☍

I think that is the guy that tried to sue J.P. Holding.

Incorrect.  I didn’t “try”, I did sue him.  And that he was sinful and immoral in his attempts to avoid the merits of my accusations, may be seen from the fact that he (at least to my knowledge) took down those internet posts that I said were defamatory.

Now the trouble is that despite his actions indicating he thinks those posts were genuinely libelous, he refuses to apologize to me, and refuses to forthrightly acknowledge the libelous character of those posts, the way you might expect a genuinely repentant born-again Christian to do when their sins have been exposed.  Actions speak louder than words, and you will know a tree by its fruit.   

An asshole like James Patrick Holding, with his sordid 20-year fruit of taking gleeful pleasure in defaming anybody who dares disagree with him, would never have folded up shop like that had he sincerely believed at the end of the litigation that the internet posts in question were legitimate non-libelous exercises of his free speech.  So they were indeed genuinely libelous, and my claims were meritorious.  I was correct when I concluded months ago that somebody with far more knowledge of the law than he, must have slapped him in the head with a legal 2x4.  

You’ll have to now decide whether Jesus would want his follows to prioritize legal tricks invented by non-Christian lawyers for helping genuinely guilty persons to avoid having to answer charges on the merits, or whether Jesus would want his followers to engage in honest acknowledgement of the truth and make a reasonable attempt to settle.  

 25 "Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.
 26 "Truly I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent. (Matt. 5:25-26 NAU)
 40 "If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. (Matt. 5:40 NAU)

Holding was forced to come up with a way to get around the obvious in Matthew 5:25, 40, since I continued throwing these in his face the whole time.  His absurd interpretation of those passages is contradicted by all conservative Christian scholarship, one example being Craig Blomberg’s.

Holding spent more than $21,000 on a lawyer in his effort to avoid having to litigate my accusations on their merits.    He shows no intent to repent, there is no sign that any Christian brother confronted Holding in the spirit of Matthew 18, and to top it all off, I forced Holding to disclose numerous private emails during litigation showing how Gary Habermas and Craig Blomberg evinced a shocking apathy toward Holding’s immoral conduct.  See my blog, my “Open Letter” to Blomberg.

After I sent Blomberg several emails providing a very detailed documentation of evidence against Holding's fitness for the office of Christian teacher, Blomberg simply replied in private to Holding that he avoided answering me on the matter because he didn't know what was going on.

So apparently we are supposed to believe that if Craig Blomberg reads a summation of charges and evidence, he will not know what is going on.  The reaction that would have been more biblical would be to ask me for clarification of whatever he thought was ambiguous, and then inquire with Holding whether the charges were true.  If they were true, Craig as Holding's spiritual mentor was required to employ the Matthew 18 process.  To my knowledge, he not only never did, he never intended to "get involved" in the first place.  The more spiritually mature person would view the accusations as potential evidence of a fracture in the body of Christ, not merely as a scuffle between two other people.

Habermas did little better, remarking that he was glad to see Holding admitting to not caring to engage in the "strong comeback" that he used to (a conveniently timed admission of Holding, since he never indicated any such thing until after my litigation against him ended).  But in both cases, these spiritual mentors of Holding fell far short of the requirement in the Matthew 18 requirement to confront a sinful brother and eventually regard him as a non-Christian if he doesn't repent.  Holding has not repented of his having libeled me (a sin under Romans 13 because America's libel laws are substantially similar to NT prohibitions on slander).

Apparently, you can be a real smarty pants in the area of gospel reliability and the resurrection of Jesus while being severely underdeveloped in the area of basic NT ethics.  

And Christian Research Institute is equally deserving of condemnation, since regardless of all the proof on my blog that Holding is unfit to hold any office of “teacher”, CRI continues to allow Holding to exercise the office of "teacher" by asking him to write articles for their Journal, despite my having supplied them, numerous times since 2015, with fully documented proof of Holding’s homosexuality, unrepentant attitude, and shocking spiritual immaturity (most signs of which on his website he conveniently took down after I exposed all such).

Between 1992 and 1998, I listened to the many recorded lectures of CRI founder Walter Martin over and over, never dreaming that Martin was dishonest.  But I had to eventually admit it.  The same is true of Hank Hanegraaff.  So I guess proving that CRI is more interested in promoting apologetics than in making sure their writers pass NT criteria for office of teacher, isn't any shocking thing.  So I guess my new attitude toward it all is to just consign CRI a place near Benny Hinn and TBN.