John Tors is a bible-believing Christian who has pastored churches and taught apologetics for more than 30 years. See here. His ministry includes many other good Christian people. See here.
James Patrick Holding criticized a few things Tor believes in, and Tors' reply documents and condemns Holding's....(you guessed it)...unnecessary resort to insult.
The point of the below is not merely to show that other Christian apologists find Holding equally as insulting and foul as I do (as if that needed any more documentation than I've already provided here).
The point is that Holding has a pathological inability to detach from the emotional issues and simply deal with the scholarly issues. Once again, he lives solely for a few anonymous nobodies who praise his every move and jump high with excitement at his cartoon videos wherein he only shows that he constantly fantazies about how much smarter and more significant he is than any of his critics.
Holding rteally fucked himself up by insulting Tors like this. Tors is a Christian believer.
I remember Holding in the past trying to duck his biblical obligations in Eph. 5:4 and Col. 3:8 to refrain from abusive filthy jesting and insult, by pretending that this was only talking about his duties toward other Christians.
Well gee, we find from his interaction with Tors that Holding's "interpretation" of those passages is nothing but dishonest subterfuge. The truth is clearly manifested by Holding's long ceaseless trail of besmirching even Christains who don't see things his way; Holding simply does not give a fuck about anything in the bible that might require him to tame his tongue. the solitary reason he bothers to "explain" anti-insult passages is because this is logically requires by his belief in bible inerrancy.
Sort of like the court judge who is sworn to uphold the law...but who in countless instances shows that despite his lofty claim, he shows by his works that he cares about only certain portions of the law.
See Tors' entire article here, highlights of which are as follows:
MARK 1:2 REVISITED:
A Response to James Patrick Holding
By John Tors | March 18, 2017 |
© 2017, by John Tors. All Rights Reserved.
INTRODUCTION I have elsewhere described the story of a certain contestant on the television game show “Jeopardy.”[1] He was doing very well, answering questions correctly one after the other, but then he missed an easy one about famous comedy teams. The correct answer was, “Who is Laurel and Hardy,” but he mistakenly said, “Who is Oliver and Hardy.” When the host, perhaps taken aback that a good contestant had missed such an easy question and did not immediately say it was wrong, the contestant glared at the host and repeated, more loudly and stridently this time, “Who is Oliver and Hardy?” The host then told him that answer was wrong. The lesson from this story ought to be clear: A wrong answer does not become right simply by being reasserted more loudly and more stridently. And it certainly does not become right simply by reasserting it is more loudly and stridently, while adding bald appeals to authority and levying puerile insults against those who give the right answer. It is a lesson that James Patrick Holding, the librarian who maintains his own apologetics website, Tektonics.org, has obviously not learned.[2] Claims are settled by actual facts, not by bald assertions, nor by insults.
...It is quite clear that Holding has offered nothing new here. Like the hapless Jeopardy contestant, he has simply repeated his discredited argument again, more stridently and more rudely, but it was vacuous before and it remains vacuous now.
...It is impossible, therefore, not to conclude that Holding is simply making stuff up out of whole cloth to maintain his view, and an apologist who does that has forfeited any right to be taken seriously. By anyone. Ever.
Holding should probably leave badly enough alone now, but he seems determined to bury himself, and proceeds to do so.
...But our librarian is not finished demonstrating his complete incompetence to deal with such issues. He says,
...It really isn’t necessary at this point for Holding to put another nail into his coffin, but he does so,
...APPENDIX: HOLDING’S INSULTS
The fact that Holding liberally sprinkled his response to our article with insults comes as no surprise. We have elsewhere commented on his vicious verbal attacks on Dr. Norman Geisler and Dr. Paige Patterson for rightly objecting to the idea of non-historical additions in the historical narratives of the Gospel books (and Dr. Patterson for having the temerity to agree with the Bible on the proper role for women in the church).[29] The sight of this academically underqualified apologist rudely attacking his betters is quite repugnant, but it certainly makes it inevitable that he would insult me. We may as well look at his insults and see if there is any substance to them.
“I was recently alerted to a rather pathetic attempt to respond to the above by a wannabe fundamentalist apologist named John Tors.”[30]
I will leave it to fair-minded readers of my original article, Holding’s response, and the current article to decide whose attempt is pathetic. I do not think they will agree with Holding about this. (And I certainly am an apologist, whether the librarian likes it or not.)
“After an insulting and rather bigoted description of the Jewish practice above as ‘bizarre’”[31]
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “bizarre” means “very strange or unusual.”[32] Now, Holding is free to consider a practice in which, for example, “the Rabbis state that Hirah and Hiram are one man, and that he lived almost 1,200 years”[33] to be quotidian if he wishes, but I think most people would agree that it is bizarre, and that this is a fair description, and not “insulting.”
The librarian’s claim that it is “rather bigoted” is reprehensible, however. If a practice is bizarre, then it is bizarre regardless of who does it, whether Jew or Gentile. Describing it as such is therefore not “bigoted,” and to hint that I did so because it was a Jewish practice is shameful. On the other hand, to suggest that nothing done by any minority group should ever be described as “bizarre” no matter how bizarre it may be is sheer lunacy.
“Tors — who has no discernible credentials — arrogantly declares that myself and Sarna are wrong … a bare denial from a relative nobody like Tors, against a seasoned scholar like Sarna”[34]
I do not think academic training in Biblical studies is necessary to be an apologist (though I think knowledge of Koine Greek and Hebrew is extremely important) so I do not usually bring up such matters. However, since Holding has brought it up, I will point out that my academic qualifications for apologetics are rather better than his own. I hold a M.Div. (in addition to a B.A.Sc. in chemical engineering) and learned both Koine Greek and Hebrew at seminary.
Holding, on the other hand, has no relevant training; he describes his own qualifications thus: “I have a Masters’ Degree in Library Science. What the [sic] runs down to is, I’m trained in looking things up and answering questions.”[35] Alas, “looking things up” is not nearly enough; critical thinking about what one looks up, based on the proper view of the inerrant Bible, is what is needed from a serious apologist. (And, again, knowledge of the languages is certainly important.[36])
It is also passing strange that Holding should fault a “relative nobody” [sic] for challenging a “seasoned scholar” such as Sarna when our master of library science who can look up things himself not only challenges but foully insults Dr. Norman Geisler, B.A., M.A. (in theology), Th.B, Ph.D, author or editor of ninety-one books on Biblical topics, and accords the same treatment to Dr. Paige Patterson, B.A., Th.M, Ph.D. The hypocrisy of this librarian is truly breathtaking.
“Frankly, Tors should leave apologetics and scholarship to the professionals and cease embarrassing Christians with his poor answers.”[37]
I am not sure what Holding means by a “professional” apologist, but I do not see why a librarian with a website should be considered one. And inasmuch as his apologetic attempts have been shown to be risible, it seems clear that he is the one with the poor answers. But we will let the readers decide.
For more information about the nature and quality of Holding’s apologetics, please see our article “The Three-Headed Monster and the Evangelical Betrayal of the Bible: Exposing the Major Weapons Levied Against the Trustworthiness of the Bible (Part 2).”[38]
...As to your comments and those of JPH that have not been posted, as I said previously, “I generally do not post comments that have nothing of substance to say, as there is no point in doing so.” This ministry is for the edification of people serious about the Bible, and substance-free comments do not edify. I have posted those comments of yours that made a point. JPH’s comments, on the other hand, simply consist of bluster and insults, such as “What a fraud you are, Tors”; “You’re so easy to manipulate. That’s why you’re such a budding cult leader”; “Mouth-foaming assertion, claiming to have used ‘facts and logic’when all you did was make cr*p up”; “better reserve your seat on the apostasy train now”; “typical fundy shimmying”; “What shall we call you? The Cornball of Canada?” Do you really think I SHOULD post such material? The irony is that JPH does not realize how bad it makes him look, so I did him a favour by not posting them.
PETERS: “But of course, it’s more about your looking holy and taking the Bible seriously as the inerrant Word of God. As Francis Beckwith says, if they can’t win with logic, they’ll try to trump with spirituality.”Here Peters goes into a Holding pattern, resorting to impugning my motives, and asserting that I hold to the Bible as the inerrant word of God in order to look holy. Actually, I hold to the Bible as the inerrant word of God because that is what it is.
J. P. Holding says:
April 4, 2017 at 9:39 AM
No, Tors, you miss the point, which is that your bare denials of facts and claims made by reputable scholars isn’t an argument. It’s an admission that you don’t have an argument. There were examples given, and your “responses” did nothing but further expose your serious lack of education. That’s the way it is: You’ll twirl up some excuse no matter how cockamamie. Read Nichols’ The Death of Expertise. Your biography is in it. I bet this comment never sees light of day. You’re too scared to allow it.
John Tors says:
April 4, 2017 at 11:35 AM
I am not “scared” to allow your comment, JPH; I generally do not post comments that have nothing of substance to say, as there is no point in doing so. However, since you really seem to want yours posted, here it is. It should be noted that what your comment reveals is that the only response you can make to the case I put forth consists of nothing more than bald assertions, ad hominem attacks, and an appeal to accept uncritically the claims of “reputable scholars,” though it seems that only applies to those with whom you agree; as we saw in our article, all you have for scholars who dare to disagree with you is vituperative invective. And a word of advice; it is not a good idea to assert that “you don’t have an argument” when it is evident to any reader of my article that every point I made I argued, and that I did so by means of facts and logic. Accordingly, this assertion you made simply hurts your own credibility. If in the future you are able to offer substantive responses to my arguments, I would be happy to interact with them. But if all you have are more bald assertions, ad hominem attacks, and the appeal to follow uncritically JPH-approved scholars, there will be no point in expending effort on them.
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