Open Letter to Lydia McGrew: your online yammering is so extensive, it constitutes the word-wrangling the bible prohibits

Dr. McGrew,

You seem to specialize in ceaseless "he-said-she-said".  This is clear to anybody who reads your blogs, especially your arguments concerning Mike Licona.

The bible prohibits Christians from wrangling words:

 12 If we endure, we will also reign with Him; If we deny Him, He also will deny us;
 13 If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.
 14 Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers.
 15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.   (2 Tim. 2:12-15 NAU)

Taken in their own context, we do not smoosh these verses together with other bible statements about the need to defend the faith or what Jesus and Paul did during debates.   Otherwise, that's like a parent telling a child "stop arguing witih your sister", and the child responding 

"I need to interpret this in light of your other commands that I stick up for myself and not back down from a challenge, and you usually argue with dad yourself, an example I wish to follow, so I'll take your current command as a general prohibition that leaves it up to me to ultimately decide whether the way I communicate with my sister constitutes the type of "arguing" that you are prohibiting me from engaging in."

Furthermore, if Paul wrote the pastorals, he likely did so in old age, and since you are not an inerrantist, nothing prevents you from entertaining the possibility that when Paul told his followers not to wrangle words, this was an elderly man looking back on those times when he went around wrangling words with others (Acts 19:8-10) and, now in old age, has arrived at the conclusion that this was not godly behavior.

If you are not an inerrantist, then you cannot really say for sure that the prohibition against word-wrangling needs to be interpreted in the light of other bible verses like 2nd Cor. 10:5 or Jude 3...just like you also cannot say for sure whether those bible passages must be interpreted in the light of Paul's prohibition on word-wrangling.

If you insist on using other bible verses, there's another pastoral epistle in which Paul instructs the leaders how to deal with those who persist in the wrong.  He does not say to "argue" with them but to "warn" them, and then avoid them thereafter if they fail to heed the correction upon the second admonition:

 8 This is a trustworthy statement; and concerning these things I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds. These things are good and profitable for men.
 9 But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the Law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.
 10 Reject a factious man after a first and second warning,
 11 knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned.
 (Tit. 3:8-11 NAU)

I'm sure you will reply with:

 23 But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels.
 24 The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged,
 25 with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth,
 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.   (2 Tim. 2:23-26 NAU)

But notice the immediate context:  while you are required to correct those in opposition, you are also to
be "kind" and "gentle" when correcting, and as we'll see below, one of Licona's reasons for refusing to debate you directly is your unkind tone, which he takes as signifying a desire to ceaselessly trifle in an unproductive way.

Notice also, you are to "refuse" foolish and ignorant speculations.  No, "refuse" doesn't mean "refute", as most popular English bibles render this as "have nothing to do with", and the odds are not good that they got the Greek wrong:

KJV  2 Timothy 2:23 But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes.

NAS  2 Timothy 2:23 But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels.

NAU  2 Timothy 2:23 But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels.

NIV  2 Timothy 2:23 Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels.

NKJ  2 Timothy 2:23 But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife.

NRS  2 Timothy 2:23 Have nothing to do with stupid and senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels.

RSV  2 Timothy 2:23 Have nothing to do with stupid, senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels.

Do you have nothing to do with foolish and ignorant questions?  As we'll see below, the colorful epithets you use to characterize Licona's arguments, require the conclusion that you think Licona's reasoning constitutes ignorant and foolish speculation...which then commits you to staying away from them...which means your eager desire to dive deep into that pool of Liconaian controversy constitutes your sin.

For example, notice how your criticism of Licona makes it appear that you think the way he gets things done is foolish and ignorant:

This is a disastrous methodology. In this methodological approach, Licona takes such an incredibly rigid notion of unreliable (I unapologetically use the term "unreliable") genre that he is making it a virtue to jump to the conclusion that the evangelists were fictionalizing, without first attempting to harmonize the passages. This is a recipe for getting it wrong over and over again and engaging in blatant confirmation bias. Having assumed at the outset that the evangelists are frequent fictionalizers, one then "confirms" this pre-existing assumption by "finding" more and more instances of their fictionalizing even when harmonization would be quite possible.This methodology completely ignores the fact that variation and even apparent, but ultimately resolvable, discrepancies are normal in truthful testimony.

Elsewhere, you assert: 

… As I have shown, Licona jumps to conclusions, overreads, interprets rigidly, and ignores plausible harmonizations in Plutarch himself.

…Neither Licona nor anyone else has ever given good reason to believe that the Gospels belong to a "genre" such that their variations should be expected to be frequently (or ever, for that matter) the result of deliberate changes of fact.

…For we have seen that, when it comes to something like the difference between two blind men and one blind men or two demoniacs and one demoniac, Licona apparently places extremely far-fetched theories about Matthew's "doubling up" on blind men and demoniacs on a par with a harmonizing theory that Mark mentioned only one of the individuals who was actually healed.

This interview certainly helps to explain why, again and again, we have found Licona jumping to conclusions and even making utterly unforced errors about differences in the Gospels. I'm sorry to have to say it, but apparently he considers those to be features, not bugs, in his preferred approach.

…I have argued in this series that Licona's argument fails at every point. He does not justify his claims concerning Plutarch in the first place, and he does not justify his claims concerning the Gospels, either. He gives us no good reason to accept the conclusion that the Gospel authors ever changed the facts deliberately, either for theological or for literary reasons.

Elsewhere, you claim Licona has taken all of the high Christological "I Am" statements of Jesus in the gospel of John, and thrown them under the bus:

In the ensuing thread, Mike Licona, still regarded by many as in some measure a conservative biblical scholar, came in and apparently defended Evans's comments throwing all of the "I am" statements under the bus. He is, to my mind, fairly explicit, though not quite as explicit as Evans.

Lydia, as a Christian, do you believe it is either "foolish" or "ignorant" to take all of the high Christological "I Am" statements of Jesus in the gospel of John, and throw them under the bus?  If so, then doesn't your opinion at that point require that Licona has implicated the "foolish" or "ignorant" speculations that Paul explicitly forbade you from involving yourself in?  Yet your article there is several pages long.

Lydia, you also say of Licona:

To try to get away with brushing off the importance of the question, as Licona does, is just breathtaking. I have no doubt that Dr. Licona has convinced himself of what he says about the "irrelevance" of the historicity of these statements in John, but it is certainly untrue, and Christians need to reject it decisively

If you characterizes Licona's alleged errors as "breathtaking" and things Christians must "decisively" reject, I don't see how you can escape the conclusion that you personally believe the Liconian errors you seek to correct constitute the exact "foolish and ignorant speculations" that Paul so clearly prohibited Christians from arguing about.

 In that same post, you conclude by implicitly sourcing Licona's conclusions in the devil, the same place you think Ehrman's conclusions come from:

Making false epistemic claims merely gives us false comfort. Let us, as knowledgeable and informed Christians, instead admit the importance of John's Gospel and then defend it vigorously, with reasons and evidence. But it appears that we will have to do so without the help of Dr. Evans and Dr. Licona and perhaps others. If so, be it so. Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world, Bart Ehrman included. (I John 4:4)

 Lydia, now that you've pretty much declared that Licona's reasoning about the high Christology in John's gospel comes from the pit of hell, must you not admit you are forced to conclude that Licona's reasoning is foolish and ignorant?

Lydia, you also use "silliness" at the same link to characterize the way Licona goes about explaining why Luke appearar discrepant on his account of the resurrection events:

The problem with the Jerusalem vs. Galilee thing is just the silliness of saying that such fictionalizations are consistent with Luke's being *accurate*. That's not sensible. But it is *part and parcel* of Mike's "intact" (if you like that word) argument to the effect that it's just no problem if the gospel authors changed facts repeatedly. This is an example of that supposedly in Luke. That's what he's saying to Bart. He's being quite consistent with his own theories about "compositional devices." Those *are* his theories. It's just applying the word "accurate" to it that looks ridiculous, and Bart skewered that, as of course he would do. 3/11/2018 12:36 PM

 Now that you are calling Licona's position "silliness", do you now agree that it qualilfies as the thing Paul in 2nd Timothy 2:23 told you to avoid?

Or will your obesession with professional hair-splitting require that you trifle that there's a signinficant  difference between "silliness" and "foolish and ignorant speculations"?

 Here's more of your language about Licona:

…Licona is expressly arguing that Jesus would not and hence did not publicly, clearly, and overtly claim to be God in the real world.

…Needless to say, Licona's arguments here are extremely weak.

…Every time I think that some new shift from Dr. Licona can't surprise me, he surprises me.

…Saddened as I am by what Dr. Licona is apparently endorsing, I'm afraid that I think this is a crucial enough matter that it needs to be known.

…Jesus' claims to deity are, to put it mildly, important, and so people should know when scholars think he didn't make them. I pray that the Lord will use any such publicizing and/or criticisms that come as a result to motivate Dr. Licona to reconsider.

Update: Dr. Licona has responded in "grieved" fashion to my critique in this post, adding an entirely ex post facto caveat to his original comment, a change which in any event does not render his comments unobjectionable or unimportant. And certainly does not make me a misrepresenter of what he said. I will quote his response, leaving out only an unnecessary name of a participant on Facebook and, at the end, some irrelevant ad hominem patronization directed towards me.

…This is, pace Licona, still a very low view of John's accuracy, even after the backtrack. And if John made up the "I am" statements, the doubts of his accuracy are cast far wider than even those statements. As far as what we have to "be comfortable with," foot-stomping and saying, "We have to be comfortable with that" is pointless. It does not take the place of a good argument for what God, and John, actually did. What it comes to is, "If God gave us factually crappy gospels, we have to live with that, and I'm going to deem anybody impious who is bothered by the possibility." This is faux piety. God didn't have to send Jesus to die at all. He didn't have to give us such good records of Jesus' life. But he seems to have done so. Let's not pretend that it's no big deal if we are left with only a poor and unreliable record in John of what Jesus taught about one of the most important truths in the world--that Jesus is God. It is a big deal. Merely saying that if these records are poor, we have to "be comfortable with that," is ridiculous. Actually, we don't have to be comfortable. We should mourn if that's the situation, not "be comfortable." Fortunately, there are not good arguments for Licona's agnosticism about Jesus' explicit claims to deity. So please, stop patronizingly telling us what we need to be comfortable about.

When you responded to a Dale Tuggy, you made clear that you were pouring forth a lot of effort to criticize Licona because you thought he was paving the way for people to justify denial of doctrines you'd be willing to die for:

Lydia McGrew said...

"spanking Licona for being too close to the boundaries of evangelicalism"
To me, this is not about some kind of arbitrary social boundaries but about issues that are a great deal more important than that. Indeed, issues (such as the deity of Jesus and his resurrection, and the strength of the evidence for it) for which I would be willing to die.
I really don't particularly care about your snark on that, but I'm not at all ashamed to say that I am spending an enormous amount of energy right now trying to convince other people that what Licona is doing *matters* to important issues and that they should take it seriously and give it the careful examination it deserves (by which it will be found wanting) rather than just accepting whatever he says and defending him to the death. Or saying that it's unimportant.....3/10/2018 12:12 PM

Licona certainly feels that your “tone” indicates an uncharitable attitude on your part unbecoming a person interested in productive dialogue:

Engaging with Lydia would require a significant amount of time. Since her blogs on my book are very long, I would begin by reading them, which would take a few hours. Replying to them cannot be completed in a mere 45 minutes but would require much more time. I’d probably be looking at a solid week of work. Then, if Lydia’s past actions are indicative of what would happen next, she would write very long replies to my responses. And those now desiring me to reply would also want for me to reply to her reply. To do that would require another week’s work. So far, I would be looking at a solid two weeks that could be spent otherwise in research or writing.
I’m virtually certain things would not end there, since Lydia would feel compelled to reply to my second reply. And the process goes on, requiring even more hours. (Even a back and forth for Philosophia Christi would require a chunk of time.) Seven years ago when another person was writing a dozen or so open letters to me on the Internet that criticized my book on Jesus’s resurrection, several highly respected evangelical scholars counseled me to ignore him, since engaging would end up sucking up an inordinate amount of my time and would not result in good fruit for the kingdom. I’m very glad I followed their advice, since my refusing to be sidetracked has allowed my ministry to expand nationally and internationally.
Understandably, Tom and some others may answer that, while a significant amount of time would be required of me, I should spend the required time considering Lydia’s criticisms carefully and either revising my position or clarifying and defending it. I do not share their sense of necessity. When I observe several theologians and New Testament scholars, such as J. I. Packer, Robert Stein, Darrell Bock, Mark Strauss, Craig Evans, Craig Keener, Craig Blomberg, and Scot McKnight (all of whom are evangelical and have expertise in the Gospels, having spent decades studying them with passion and reverence) and Christopher Pelling, the foremost scholar on Plutarch, all having read my book and expressed varying degrees of approval while none have expressed anywhere close to the degree of alarm we are seeing from Lydia, I do not feel a necessity to spend the sort of time and emotional capital required to engage Lydia, especially when her critiques are seasoned with a tone that I consider less than charitable, to put it mildly. Therefore, I will leave to others the task of engaging with her.

 Licona feels "grieved" that you have misrepresented him about John's I AM sayings:

So, I’m grieved to see Lydia once again stretching my words to say more than I did. I try to nuance my words carefully, especially in view of some like Lydia who wish things were stated with a precision that leaves no questions unanswered. But that’s an unreasonable expectation for online discussions. Sometimes I am not as careful as I should be and assume (wrongly) that others will grant some leeway in communications and be charitable.

Apparently, having a Ph.d doesn't make you infallible.  Lydia's penchant for hair-splitting can be graphically seen here:

The next point I want to note is the abuse of the term "paraphrase." If, as discussed by Licona elsewhere, all that Jesus said and did concerning his deity is the kind of implication that we find in the synoptic Gospels, if the scenes surrounding John 8:58 and John 10:31 and the shocking statements by Jesus in those verses never took place in any recognizable form, and if John wrote the scenes as they occur in his Gospel anyway, knowing that they never took place historically in a recognizable fashion, this is not paraphrase. It is not remotely like paraphrase. It is fiction, pure and simple. It might or might not be fiction based on theological truth as taught by Jesus in some other fashion. But that does not make it a paraphrase. To use "paraphrase" in this way is the sheerest word kidnapping, and it needs to be called out sharply and unequivocally.

 And more graphic word-wrangling here:

Lydia McGrew said...
Well, probably, to be as charitable as possible, in that *particular* sentence the phrase "would have said" is ill-chosen and is a result of Licona's haste and (okay, maybe this part isn't quite so charitable) the fact that he's trying not to commit himself too far to the theory he's outlining.

I think since the word "implicitly" follows "would have said and done," he actually means that this is what Jesus *actually did say and do but only implicitly* via the incidents he has just before this been detailing from Mark. "Would have said" is *in this instance* probably just poor wording, since he's just been arguing that Jesus really did *imply* that he was God in Mark.

However, this doesn't really get away from your larger point, which is to wonder (rightly) what possible right John would have had to make up whole scenes in which Jesus made things more explicit, if the real Jesus himself chose not to do so!

This is particularly true for "Before Abraham was, I am," since it uses the formula that Yahweh used in the OT for his own name, sacred to the Jews. John was a Jew. Jesus was a Jew. His alleged audience were Jews. The idea that it would be a *small matter* for John to write such a scene fictionally when no such scene occurred recognizably is just jaw-dropping. And to say that such a statement by Jesus to a Jewish audience, written as fiction, "came to the same thing" as *any series of implications that do not include that scene* is frankly outrageous.
3/27/2018 8:11 PM

What could be more "word wrangling" than disagreeing with Licona about whether something John said constituted a paraphrase or fiction?

Gee, Lydia, you've now characterized Licona's views and reasoning as

• disastrous methodology
• incredibly rigid notion of unreliable (I unapologetically use the term "unreliable") genre recipe for getting it wrong over and over again and engaging in blatant confirmation bias.
• jumps to conclusions, overreads, interprets rigidly, and ignores plausible harmonizations  
• hasn’t ever given good reason to believe that the gospel authors deliberately change the facts  
• extremely far-fetched theories about Matthew...
• jumping to conclusions and even making utterly unforced errors    
• Licona's argument fails at every point.
• Licona throws John’s “I Am” statements under the bus.
• his attempts to avoid the problems his own reasoning creates is “just breathtaking”
• Christians should reject “decisively” Licona’s position.
• Makes false epistemic claims,
• If you wish to defend John’s high Christology, Licona won’t help
• Greater is he that is in you than he that is in Ehrman and Licona.
• Licona’s explanations for Luke’s resurrection narrative “silliness” and “not sensible”
• “looks ridiculous”
• Licona is expressly arguing that Jesus would not and hence did not publicly, clearly, and overtly claim to be God in the real world.  
• Licona's arguments here are extremely weak.
• You are “saddened” by what Licona endorses
• Licona engaged in  irrelevant ad hominem patronization directed towards you
• This is, pace Licona, still a very low view of John's accuracy, even after the backtrack
• faux piety
• Licona has messed up on doctrinal issues you’d be willing to die for (like deity of Jesus and his resurrection)
• You are spending an enormous amount of energy criticizing Licona
• He uses “paraphrase” in a way constituting the sheerest word kidnapping, and it needs to be called out sharply and unequivocally.
• He’s trying to avoid committing himself too much to the theory he’s outling.
• Jaw-dropping error and frankly outrageous

Lydia, if you don't think your ceaseless trifling with Licona and other Christian scholars constitute the type of word-wrangling which Paul prohibited, then could you please provide an example of hypothetical dialogue in which the Christian participants would be "wrangling words" ?

Here's the problem you face:

If you answer the challenge with example-dialogue that is rather stupid and childish, the readers will be suspicious that you think Paul was prohibiting only the most unbelievably immature instances of "yes it is, no it isn't, yes it is, not it isn't", when you cannot find any NT scholar who thinks the "world-wrangles" Paul was talking about were this shockingly babyish.

If your example dialogue shows two scholars who refuse to give up the fight, and just ceaselessly go back and forth about their disagreement over the meaning of a word, or how somebody intended a phrase, etc., you run the risk of admitting that what Paul was prohibiting was the kind of crap you engage in.

Will you take the test?  If you take it, you run the risk of getting an "F".  If you don't take it, lesser educated Christians who read this will wonder whether your brand of he-said-she-said really does constitute the very "word wrangling" Paul forbade.

My personal opinion is that you are a typical woman, you obviously love gossip, and because the bible forbids you from gossiping, you've found you can get the same "he-said-she-said" sinful chattering thrill if you choose to make biblical issues the subject of your ceaseless yammering.

I'll have you know that when the apostle Paul gave the reason that a women should not be a teacher, he did not cite to anything cultural, he cited to a biblical statement about women being inferior to man because Eve was created after Adam, and because Eve was "deceived" by the serpent in the garden of Eden:

 8 Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension.
 9 Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments,
 10 but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness.
 11 A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness.
 12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.
 13 For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.
 14 And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.
 15 But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint. (1 Tim. 2:8-15 NAU)

Apparently, Paul thought that a woman's unfitness to teach correctly arises from her being created after Adam, and had to do with her having been "decieved".  You certainly don't agree that the order in which men and women were created has anything to do with why a woman should be prohibited from teaching men.  But Paul sure did.

In context, Paul also said he wanted men to pray and for women to avoid wearing much makeup.  Do you think that was limited to just the culture Paul was writing in?  Or do you believe all Christian men should pray and that it is always improper in any culture for a Christian woman to be decked out in makeup, expensive jewelry and costly array?  Sort of looks like Paul is talking about biblical and moral truths in the immediate context, which of course implies that his reasons for prohibiting women from teaching, also in that context, cannot be circumnavigated around by appeal to "culture".

Lydia, do you agree with apostle Paul that because Eve wasn't created first, and because Eve was deceived by the serpent, a woman shouldn't be allowed to teach or exercise authority over a man, yes or no?

Or do you hold that the bible is only "sufficient" for faith and morals when supplemented by commentaries written by modern day sinners who lack the level of divine inspiration the bible authors had?

For all these reasons, I find all Christian scholarly peer-review, and especially Lydia McGrew's ceaseless trifles, guilty of violating apostle Paul's prohibition on word-wrangling.  And worse, this is not an isolated instance.  Lydia takes to the blogosphere with her ceaseless back and forth "he-said-she-said" bullshit as if there could be no question that this is a legitimate way to carry out one's Christian duty to correct those who are in error, whereas I've shown that a weighty case can be made that in his older years, the apostle Paul did not allow his followers to engage in such word-disputes, certainly not to the extreme length & degree that Lydia does with the internet facilitating and encouraging that sin more than any ancient Christian could ever imagine.

So the problem also implicates the question of whether Lydia has been mistaking sinful actions with godly conduct for the number of years she's been shouting down her critics. Can Christians seriously say that some Christian 'scholar' was guided by God while never noticing that her conduct was prohibited by basic NT ethics?

If Lydia's numerous gossipy acerbic trifling online screeds about the million different ways that a word or phrase can be understood, don't qualify as "word wrangling", nothing would. 

And the ever-mouthy geeks at Triablogue, equally as condescending as her, share in her sin by further advertising it.

 ---------------------------------
 I've just provided the link to this page at about a dozen different YouTube videos involving Licona and McGrew, for example: Six Bad Habits of New Testament Scholars (and how to avoid them): Dr. Lydia McGrew